First Post

Well...it's time for the first post on this new blog I'm starting.  Wow, no pressure at all to make this an awesome post that I will look back on and be proud to say that I wrote.  I'm pretty sure that this post will never be as good as I want it to be so I'm just going to get on with it and not worry about it.

So...with horrible grammer and an even more horrible sense of humor I'll get started.  I wanted to start this blog to capture my thoughts on my journey to better health.  I figured this would be a good way to get out what I'm feeling and a way to look back and see how where I've been.  I've lost 100's of pounds over the last 30 years and sometimes I've been wildly successful.  I'd love to be able to go back and see how I did it which is the main impetus of this blog.

Quick history:  I reached my heaviest weight in 2009 while my first husband was undergoing a battle with Leukemia.  It was a very stressful time and add on top of that the fact that folks who are undergoing chemo lose a lot of their sense of taste.  The one part they do keep is the sense of sweet tastes.  This resulted in making him lots of desserts and I dove headfirst into that sweet world as well.  Before I knew it I was heavier than I was when I gave birth to my son 18 years before.  After his bone marrow transplant I decided I really need to do something about this and I started on the South Beach Diet.  I decided to use this diet because of the way it works with the glycemic index.  I have PCOS (google it if you don't know what it is) and blood sugar control is a big part of weight control to someone with this condition.  The diet was great and I did extremely well!  However, within a few months my first husband passed away and I was now a widow in an empty nest.  It's really easy to revert to old bad habits and eat the things that are bad for you when that happens!!  Some of the weight (although thankfully not all of it) started to come back on.

Luckily, I had some awesome friends who came alongside me and supported me during that time.  One in particular was very special and became even more special as the years went along and then in June of 2012 he asked me to marry him!  We set our wedding date for June of 2013 and I got back into South Beach really strong.  I succeeded in losing a total of 56 pounds just before our wedding!  I was still a good 45 pounds from my ultimate goal but I was so much closer than I had been in many, many years!  The day was beautiful, the pictures were beautiful, and the honeymoon was heavenly!

However, (you saw that coming, didn't you?) I've turned a bit lazy since that wonderful day in 2013 and have gained 37 of those 56 pounds back.  Ugh!  When will I learn?!?  So...that brings us to January 1, 2015.  On that day I entered back into the South Beach world and the seed of this blog began in the back of my mind.

And so begins a new journey...I can't promise I will be the picture of the perfect Beacher all the time but I will certainly be much more cognizant of what I am doing and endeavor to make better choices. I refuse to enter my 50's with my health compromised.  As I said in my Details page I want to retire and live a very active life for decades to come!