Jumping Into the Fray

Hi, I'm Victoria, mother of Samantha and Melissa, mother-in-law to the amazing Audrey and Mindy, sister-in-law to Julie, pseudo-mom to Sue and friend to all. I've been lurking, commenting, reading and actually doing a lot of the challenges for the past 3 months so I guess it's time to actually jump into the fray and join the challenge for real. My life is amazing, crazy, chaotic and dramatic and for the past 12 years it's been filled with some pretty stressful events.

I have to confess that for most of my life weight has never been a problem. I've been blessed with a lot of energy and a fairly high metabolism. I grew up eating healthy food and tried to feed my own family healthy food, pretty much I could eat whatever I wanted to without worrying about gaining weight.

Exercise was something that other people did, but for myself it was a dreaded thing, easy to ignore.
Back in the 80's, I joined a women's gym for two years and actually did a bit of jogging but klutz would best describe my efforts and mediocre would describe my commitment.

Ten years ago, things started to change a bit as my body started to prepare for the big M....yep, MENOPAUSE. Six years ago, I was well into it with hot flashes, night sweats, loss of muscle and muscle tone, dry skin and hair, change in metabolism, the start of many age spots and some weight gain. By the beginning of this year that weight gain had turned into 24 pounds.

Three years ago, I joined a gym and actually lost 18 pounds through exercise and calorie counting but then some huge challenges came into my life, and the gym and calorie counting went out the window. Quintuplets, two cancers, deaths of father and brother, five new grand kiddos, and the rebirth of a daughter were my excuses for not going to the gym for two years. Now I say, "No more excuses", it's so easy to let real life keep you from having a healthy life.

For the past 3 months I've gone back to counting calories, hired a personal trainer, (I'm not sure he's worth it), gone to the gym almost daily and have been giving away all my size 10 clothes. I've lost almost 14 pounds and hope to lose another 10 by the end of August. If you look at the picture, you can see that I still have a flabby fat stomach— that's where the menopause weight goes and it is very hard at my age to lose it or firm it.

I'm at a different place in my life than most of you, but someday you will be where I am. If you develop healthy lifestyles now, it will make for a healthy lifestyle and easier transition as you too go through the life changes ahead....

Me with daughter Melissa on Mother's Day after losing 10 1/2 pounds