Guest Post– Amy’s Inspiration

Thanks to Leslie for allowing me to ‘guest blog’ as she escapes for a pre-holiday vacation! I must say I’m a tad jealous that she’s headed for weather that demands shorts, tanks, and flip flops while I wake up a few minutes early each day just so I have enough time to get my extra layers on!

I am a 35-year old mom of 2 awesome boys and a wife to my awesome husband, Jeremy. I teach at a small university in west/central PA. For most of my 35 years of life, I’ve been….well…fat. I can say it because I’m not anymore. 2010 has been a monumental year for me. I finally got my rear in gear and accomplished several personal goals including a 35 pound weight loss and officially becoming a RUNNER! This second goal is how I came across Leslie’s blog. Her blog has been so inspirational to me and I visit it daily.

Inspiration – it’s a good time of year to think about it because we’re all coming to that point where we’re looking back and planning ahead. What do I want 2011 to bring me? What do I want to accomplish? At this time last year I just wanted to make sure I could squeeze into something for my Christmas party. This year, I can’t wait to slide on my LBD (little black dress) and have some fun.

So my journey began on January 1, 2010. Like most people, I made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. But I knew that I needed a plan, some inspiration, and accountability.

Plan: simple math –  input had to be less than output OR output had to be more than input. I actually decided to follow the Weight Watchers Points plan on my own (I had some of the information from past attempts @ weight loss).

Inspiration: my 2 boys and my husband (I’ll call him J) – they are so worth me being my best!

Accountability: I weighed myself daily and jotted it down on a calendar that J could see (he never comments if my weight goes up or stays the same, but always compliments loss:) J also helped me with bodily measurements on the 2^nd of each month (using a tape measure we measured arm circumference, bust, waist, hips, thighs). One last technique I used was my chain links – I made a strand of 30 chain links -1 for each pound I wanted to lose. I only took them off on the 2^nd of the month when I did my official weigh-ins and measurements. My boys were always so excited to see how many links I could take off (now if that’s not inspiring, I don’t know what is).

So this is my January 2010 photo.

Dragging myself to the gym those first couple of weeks was really tough. I mean really tough. But the mantra that kept running through my mind as, “This is where you need to be and this is what you need to be doing.”

January came and went –  7 pounds and 5 inches lost

February came and went –  another 4.4 pounds and 5.5 inches lost

March came and took with it another 6 pounds and a few more inches

April came and a few days into the month, I signed up for my 1^st 5k. Now understand that although I was hooked on exercise, I had no idea how far 3.1 miles really was, nor how hard it would be to RUN it! 5k was scheduled for May 15, so I had 6 weeks to train for it. The first time I tried to run, I thought I was going to DIE! But I didn’t, so I went back for more. And more. And more. And more!

     May 2010 – My first 5K &  July – My second 5K

I ran 3 more 5Ks from July – September all with improving times. It was time to ramp things up, so on October 2^nd I completed my first 10K in 54:25 (first in my age category)!

October – coaching my son’s soccer team

November in NYC

I feel so amazing. I remember thinking, way back in January, “If I lose this weight, I’m going to do something big or buy myself something I really want.” Now that I’m at my goal, the prize is arriving here and realizing that my healthy attitude and outlook is better than anything I could buy or get. You can’t put a price on quality of life, but you can enjoy it every day and realize that when you look inward for inspiration, it’ll take you exactly where you want to go!

Thanks for reading. If you want to read more my family blog is www.hudkinsgang.blogspot.com and my health/running blog is www.yayformom.blogspot.com