Starting

For me, starting has been the hardest part so far. For years I told myself that I needed to start taking care of myself but I didn't take that initial step. I told myself that I would start walking, but never did.

When I finally did make that commitment to myself to start, I began by taking a look at what I was eating. I tried every day to eat better than the day before. Instead of eating chips and drinking pop 5 days a week, I cut back to just on weekends. Then I cut back to one day a week. I made changes to my diet slowly. I knew that if I restricted myself in a "cold turkey" kind of way, that it would not work for me.

I bought the Eat Clean Diet Recharged book by Tosca Rena and I learned many tips. Eating clean is basically eating food that is not processed...who needs all the extra stuff they put in foods during processing. I began looking at labels. The sodium, fat, calories, and sugar in the foods that I was eating before began to shock me. No wonder my ankles were always swollen. I was eating WAY too much sodium! I began to watch what I was eating and within a few weeks I had 13 lbs off without even exercising!

But then I hit a plateau. I knew I had room to improve my diet but I knew that it was time to add in exercise. I wanted to start walking before I joined the gym so I would not feel so out of place. I told myself that I would start walking tomorrow. Tomorrow came and I would tell myself that I would begin tomorrow. Tomorrow never came. I then "bit the bullet" and said "I just have to start at the gym" and I did.

I thought that weighing 333.4 lbs, I would feel so out of place at Goodlife Fitness, but I didn't. It was hard walking in there the first time, but everyone is there for themselves with their own goals and the staff make you feel like you belong there. I tell you, I know how hard it was to walk in the first time, so I admire anyone that has taken that step to improve their fitness level by going to the gym.

I have been reading alot about eating healthy and exercising. I faithfully read Oxygen. It's a women's fitness magazine and in my opinion it is the best one out there. One thing that I read caught my eye. It said that letting go of weight is 10% genetics, 10% exercise, and 80% is what you eat! So a great place to start is by looking at what you are eating. But you can't do it with eating alone, you still need to exercise.

So a great thing to do is to take a look at what you are eating for a week and then see what changes you can make to improve what you are putting into your body. Then, get your body moving. You will feel so good about yourself and your energy levels will improve when you do both.

What is holding you back from starting?