I stopped making excuses and started pushing myself.  Starting the Challenge in Sept was the beginning of a forever change.  I started to see myself as strong.  STRONG….. that was never a word I would ever use to describe myself until now.

 

I have spent the last 8 years being told you CAN’T…… can’t lose weight, can’t exercise, can’t be healthy and most importantly can’t survive.   I finally decide that I can and I would.  Against must skeptics (including my Dr. and family that said I would never be able to do it), I joined FitMania “hoping” to start exercising one to two times a week.  I set a goal for myself to just get there and just do what I could.  I made sure everyone knew that I would be very limited in what I could do and was only there to “keep moving”.  A few weeks in, everything changed.  I was no longer satisfied with one or two times a week and only doing what I thought I could.  I wanted and needed to do better.  I stopped making excuses and started pushing myself.  Pushing myself to do more and believe that I was strong enough to do it.

Starting the Challenge in Sept was the beginning of a forever change.  Change in attitude, change in lifestyle and change in what I was going to allow someone else to control.  No longer would I allow a Dr. or medical professional to set a time frame on my life.  I am in control and will be the one to control my health.  I focused on showing up five times a week, eating better and giving it my all every workout.  I stopped beating myself up over the little things and took each small accomplishment as a step towards a better me.  Small victory’s started adding up.  I began looking forward to working out and even felt frustrated when I had to miss a workout.  I began to look for ways to get in more exercise, especially times that I could get the whole family to join in.  I started to see myself as strong.  STRONG….. that was never a word I would ever use to describe myself until now.  As we end the challenge my focus is this.  The challenge is ending but I am not.  I will continue to show up, continue to work hard, continue to fight for me and remove the word CANT from my vocabulary.

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After: