A New Plan

I have not written a blog here in about two years. I have been writing, just not here on my personal page. My business has been growing and I have had a lot of things to contribute to the blog on my website www.cibnconnect.com as well as on my LinkedIn profile.

I am going to start writing here again to talk more about personal matters as well as to track my ongoing weight-loss program and then weight-maintenance. I have discovered that weight-maintenance is actually even more important than weight-loss. I am making a new plan to take me forward to May 2019 one year from now.

Did you know that television programs like The Biggest Loser have a hard time planning reunion shows because the people gain the weight back? In fact, many weight-loss programs and dieting centers have the same problem. People do lose weight. Then they gain it back.

I too, have had some of these challenges, so I have been on the hunt to find out why and make some positive changes. I think I have learned a few things. I want to share them with you and maybe you can join me on this journey for a healthier life-style.

A pretty accurate picture of what I look like

Let's start with a recap. I gained weight for the first time as a newly wed. I was 25. I put on 30 pounds trying to impress my new husband with Ukrainian food and fresh baked bread. My aunt gave me a book that was popular at the time called Fit For Life. I applied the principles increasing fresh fruit and fresh vegetables and I lost the weight. Irritable Bowel Syndrome also vanished. I was back on track for several years. I also got rid of the husband. He was bad for my figure, my financial figures, and for me in general.

I was slender until my third child came into my life in my early thirties. That was my first real challenge. I think many women experience weight gain with having more children. After a few years of unhappy struggle I had a couple of girlfriends help me out by encouraging me to go back on the dietary plan I followed before and they got me out walking. I lost the weight and kept if off for about 10 years.

Many people talk about yo-yoing. I never really seen it as yo-yoing. I knew when I worked at it, I lost weight. When I stayed focused I kept it off. When I stopped eating healthy and stopped exercising, bad things happened. There was no real mystery about it. I knew what I was doing. I was making choices.

Lately I have realized most people are not thinking about it like that. They are not seeing daily small choices as being the leading cause of where they are at now. They seem to not see the correlation. Whenever I gained weight, I knew exactly what I was doing. Every time I put food in my mouth I knew if it was a good idea or a bad idea. Every day I opted for no exercise I understood I was adopting a Body By Pizza Hut attitude. Maybe that was even worse than not knowing.

When I hit 40 I suddenly found it harder to take weight off and keep it off. The metabolism was changing. It was even easier to gain weight. To make matters even more challenging I started a new business that was very demanding. It was hard to think about meal planning and even harder to plan exercise as part of a daily or even weekly routine. That was enough to start packing on the pounds but I had an even bigger problem. My business took place every day in restaurants. Suddenly I was eating in a way that was very different to my regiment. There was lots of salt, lots of sugar, and some places didn't even serve a proper salad. So I gave in to eating what my tongue desired, when it desired it. To top it off, I also began to enjoy more beer and wine. Yum. My taste buds were ecstatic. The rest of my body was screaming.

Fast forward to 6 years later. I have gained about 70 lbs. No joke.

My knees hurt. It is hard to exercise. My grandson who is 2 is outrunning me. I think it is time to make a change.

My business is no longer in a learning curve. We've got this. I don't have to be in a restaurant 5 days a week anymore, nor am I too weak-minded to create new strategies. So I have run out of excuses. I am making a change.

Over the next days and weeks and months and years I am going to be blogging here, because this is a life-long project. If you want to join me in the journey make a comment below. I will be sharing what is working and what is helpful. You can share your tips too. Let's do this together!

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