In the beginning....

Hi!  My name is Jen and I'm a 40 year old married mother of two.  About 18 months ago, I embarked on a journey to lose weight and get healthy.  Initially  I lost 75lbs.  Yay!  And then I gained 15.  Boo! And then I lost 5.  Ok.  You get the picture.  It's been a rocky journey with a lot of starts and stops. 

I've tasted the thrill of victory! - I've become a runner, and completed two half-marathons! Me?  A runner.  I still can't believe that I have logged close to 600 running miles in the last 18 months. 

I've known the agony of defeat :-( - I am currently up 10lbs from my lowest weight during this process. 

One thing is certain - I'm never giving up this fight, and am committed to living a life where my healthy habits far outweigh my unhealthy ones.

Everything in my life has been better since I've been focused on a healthy lifestyle.  I have so much energy, and my kids are proud of me.  I run with them, play football, go hiking, swim.  Well, I always did those things - but  half-assed it, and even then was sucking wind after five minutes.   My marriage is even better in some important ways but I won't go into too much detail about that.  Ok, I won't go into ANY detail about that ;-)

Every once in awhile to recapture the mojo and attempt to move forward, I get these crazy ideas and give myself a food challenge.  

Just last month, I had a month of no sweets (candy, cake, ice cream, brownies,cookies), no soda, and no wine.   It was tough!   The first ten days were awful, but it was progressively better after that.     At the end of the challenge, I found that I lost only 4lbs.  I expected to do better and really wished I had blogged that experience.     I definitely replaced some of the eliminated food with too many chips!, crackers, cheese and far too many almonds, nut butters, and hummus.

One great holdover from that challenge is that I feel I am truly DONE with diet soda.  That stuff is pure poison and completely jacks your taste buds.   I've been soda free for 5 weeks, and don't plan to ever go back to it.

I also plan to never, ever, ever say goodbye to my wine again.  What the hell was I thinking with that? 

So tomorrow (November 19, 2012), I start my most ambitious food challenge to date!  I am going to attempt to follow the real food challenge as outlined on the "100 days of real food" website.  LOVE THAT SITE!

Here's a link to the rules.

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/real-food-defined-a-k-a-the-rules/

Tough huh?   A pretty big lifestyle change for me.

On this blog I will chronicle the journey to get healthy, and probably a lot of other things too - I like to talk, and I feel like I'm talking here.  This is probably a blog that won't stay entirely on topic.  I hope that doesn't get too annoying!