the Journey

I know I know, I have been slacking on my writing but I have been on a mission....

A little over a month ago my husband began working out and seeing a personal trainer. About 2 weeks after he started doing that, I noticed some changes in his body. His face started getting smaller and his clothes looked bigger. At first it did not motivate me. I felt good that he felt good and I kept doing what I was doing.

About a week later, we went to breakfast together. I ordered french toast, eggs, bacon and toast. The plate looked like double servings. On the other side of the table he had grilled fish and egg whites. I felt like I was eating for two lol. I think that is the day when I realized that it was time for me to make some changes.
The day after that I started changing my diet and I began to exercise. Not for one second did I say I can't do this. I just did it.

Was it hard? Absolutely! I love food, I love to eat. I love going out to eat. I love to eat a huge dinner every night and then plop down on the couch. It was time out for all that. And at 33 years old, I should not be struggling to get up the stairs everyday. My knees should not hurt just to sit down on the couch. I felt my confidence and self esteem slowly diminish after I went shopping. Do I care that I have to shop in the plus section? No but why should I have to?


At first I will admit that I think I kind of only started this to compete with my husband but after about a week I realized that this isn't a competition with him. This is a competition with myself and my inner struggles. Food  and work were controlling my life. I go to work to look forward to lunch to look forward to getting off of work to figure out what I am going to eat for dinner. And I work so much that I just come home, eat and go to bed. I don't have an excuse for eating everything, I just enjoy food and I still do. But when you get to a point when you look in the mirror and say "well I'm just going to be heavy, I'll just live with it" there's an issue. I knew I could lose the weight because I have done it before. I actually lost just under 10 pounds back about 7 months ago. I hurt my knee and never recovered from it. It was oh well I hurt my knee, I guess I can't work out any more. I reverted to my old ways.

After eating that wonderful  breakfast at Bob Evans, I made the decision to stop the BS. I started doing the routines that I did to lose the weight the first time and then I changed my eating pattern. Again, I LOVE FOOD lol. To give up a lot of things cold turkey was difficult. I never ate breakfast. My mind told me that eating too early in the morning made me sick. I had to get over that. Now I can't start my day without it. Snacking in between meals, couldn't do it. I forced myself to do it now my body MUST have energy every few hours. And now forget a big dinner. I'm eating off of smaller plates and am satisfied with just the serving size. I can eat candy like nobody's business but I have cut a lot of that back as well.

There are so many people out there that are just like me but can't seem to get the ball rolling. Haven't we all said "Imma start exercising tomorrow"? And then tomorrow comes and you say "well i wanna eat this pizza then Imma start tomorrow" lol. It was hard for me too. I said tomorrow plenty of times. But I am the kind of person that starts something and when I start seeing results I want to see more results. Results don't come overnight. You must have patience for this process and you have to stick with it. I have slipped up a few times but the next day I'm right back at it.

I see this and I'm about to get real. Black folks have the tendency to procrastinate and come up with excuses. My excuse? I hurt my knee. Why did my knee hurt? Because I was fat and my body was confused about this new activity that was going on. Black people like to eat bad food. Why? because there are no healthy options in the hood. There's a chinese restaurant, a liquor store, a church and a steak hoagie place on just about every other corner. Yeah you can get a chicken hoagie but how is it prepared? Fried up with grease and that orange sauce that we love that every steak place makes lol. I have only seen one Subway in the hood and where is it? Next to a church! But not having healthy options is also not an excuse. Make your own healthy options. A bag a salad at Aldi's is 99 cents. Eat the serving size of cereal, not the whole box. Eat five chicken wings with a side salad instead of 20 wings and a boatload of fries. It's ok to enjoy food without indulging.

And there's not much access to a gym in the hood. But that's no excuse either. Go to the park and walk around it a few times. Everyone has a DVD player. Buy a workout DVD. I don't go anywhere near a gym, I work at home and outside at the park. We all have cell phones and they do all types of things. I use mine as a pedometer, a heart rate monitor (doesn't work that great), calorie counter etc...You can You Tube any workout and Google any diet you want. There's so many tools at hand that there's no excuse not to do something.

It's a known fact that black people are at a higher risk for hypertension and diabetes. And if you are black and a woman you need to worry about breast cancer and heart disease.Making just small changes like eating breakfast in the morning, taking a multi vitamin or even just walking for 30 mins can help. By no means am I preaching or trying to be a know-it-all but why not feel better? When I exercise and that sweat is pouring off of me, not only do i feel the fat melting away but I feel the old me leaving my body and a new me being born. Yes...a re-birth. Giving myself a second chance. I see all of the health problems in my family from all types of addictions to diabetes. I see what it can do to a person's spirit and physical. I will not spend the rest of my life wondering when my "inherited" disease will come.


I look at myself everyday and feel my confidence building back up. My clothes are looser and my soul feels as though it is healing. Three and a half weeks and 7 pounds later (maybe more I won't weigh in until next week), I thank God for giving me the strength to take this journey and my husband for leading me down this path.