Down and Counting

Well, the winds must be blowing the right way, as I have managed to get on the web at our home computer! It has taken me 17 minutes to get to this page alone loaded, but oh well I am here!

Rebecca said, everyone should write our goals and achievements on this our final stretch of the Hall family challenge. So here goes.

Our last week has finally come and I am feeling very good about my challenge and my achievements. My original goal was two fold. #1 was to loose 2# a week which, I was told later, was WAY too unrealistic, and that 1# was more reasonable. So, I quickly re-adapted my goal to that. Staring this challenge out at 138# and finishing at 133#, I guess I did exactly what was reasonable and expected. 5# in 5 weeks! And my goal #2 was to get ready to walk the 3K, by exercising 3 or 4 times a week.

The whole weigh losing part actually started out, for me, in January, when I joined Jennifer on her Skinny Hippos blog. I did it to "keep her company", but it soon became much more than that. I became obsessed and painfully aware of the multitude of overweight people! Everywhere I went I saw fat people, fat children, fat dogs, and even fat birds! It was like I was looking at the same people and the same animals but seeing them through different eyes. I would get so upset and even mad when I saw a "fat" person using a wheel chair to shop! I mean they weren't able to walk through Wal-mart anymore??? The biggest "clincher" for me was when I was at Rebecca's Rolla Wal-Mart. It seemed to me that they had an immense amount of wheel chairs at the front of their store. Not just a couple like most Wal-Marts have, but 2 or 3 long long rows of wheel chairs! So many that I was compulsed to count them, and imagine my further shock when I counted over 20 chairs in the "wheel chair corral"! Not to mention how many were out there rolling around "in the bush"! Imagine 20 some wheel chairs for 1 Wal-Mart! I thought maybe the Rolla Wal-Mart was where all the chairs came to be repaired or to die when they were at their life's end, or something like that, so I asked someone in charge, why so many wheel chairs? The "associate" (over weigh herself) said, with a smile, oh we just like to be ready to serve our customers. I mean they could have served the whole Shriner's battalion if they walked in the store!!!!

I don't know how or why that one incident clicked with me, but it did. Maybe I envisioned myself in one of those chairs in a few short years. Maybe I was angry that I had to "pay" for the cost of those wheel-chairs-for-F-A-T-people with every Wal-Mart purchase I made! And maybe I was mad at myself for letting myself go. I don't know, but it changed my mind, hopefully permanently.

Anyway, at that point I weighed 155# and from then to now (6 months)I have dropped down to 133# making it a total of 22# off by body and gone forever. I went from a clothes size 10 or 12 to a 6 or 8. The exercise helps me feel better, sleep better and loose more weigh, but it does not get done as often as it probably should. I do try to make my work more aerobic, as when I am weeding the garden or hoeing, or shoveling, I try to work stronger, faster, longer, and harder.

I want to thank all my children for this challenge and I feel we should have another one come fall when we'll all be settling in to school and doing more indoor-sedate activities. My ultimate goal is to get back down to my "honeymoon" weigh of 123# by Christmas. Care to join me? Love you all and see you this afternoon. mom