A Blessed Life

Weight 170. No gain, no loss this week. Good 'nuff.

I actually weighed myself on Sunday morning instead of my usual Monday morning weigh-in. I'm babysitting my two nieces Madeline and Abby and am away from my scale today. I wasn't surprised that I didn't lose anything this past week. Tuesday evening I hosted a small get together for some friends from church and didn't exactly keep to the eating plan. It could have been worse, but I definitely let loose. The good, no great, thing about it is that I didn't beat myself up about it and went back to watching the calories and exercising the next day.

Yesterday my nephew threw a surprise 30th birthday party for his wife, Jennifer. It was a good time for all. Jennifer is a former student of mine. She was in my first grade and second grade classes when I was teaching at Farmington School. A few years back when they started dating I was thrilled to hear Christopher found a great girl. Now, they have three beautiful children. Ryan, their oldest, will be starting kindergarten at Van Allen this year and, even if he isn't in my class, I will get to see him every day. A little constant reminder of how old I'm getting!

Another sign of age creeping up on me is actually working alongside students I had in class years ago. A young woman I had as a first grader years ago at Farmington has worked as a substitute teacher at Van Allen. I found out Saturday that she will be teaching kindergarten in Stanislaus County this coming fall. She's going to make a wonderful teacher. Her students are very lucky. And I feel lucky and blessed that I'm surrounded by such wonderful people, both family and friends.

Every Small Step

Didn't do so well at the gym this morning. After about 20 minutes at 4.5 mph my body just pooped out and had to slow down to 4.3. It was all downhill after that. By the last ten minjutes I was walking at a slow 3.6 mph. But I was determined to stay on the blasted thing for an hour and am glad I did. Every small step is a victory.

Speaking of victory, one of the reasons it hasn't been too difficult to get to the gym very early in the morning is that one of the nine televisions is tuned to the Fox News Channel which carries the morning show Fox and Friends. I love this show and look forward to watching it every weekday morning. This morning they had a short segment on a bike ride taking place in New York tomorrow. The riders are members of the Wounded Warrior Project. These are men and women who have returned from war with wounds. Some of the wounds are obvious and visible and some aren't. It is inspiring to me to see these people who have sacrificed so much work and learn to overcome their challenges. If you're interested, check out the Wounded Warrior Project website, www.woundedwarriorproject.org. It will give you reason to be thankful that there are men and women willing to put their lives on the line so we can live in peace and freedom here.

How Fast the Time Flies!

Post #42 Current weight: 170 pounds. Total pounds lost 89.

Today is the one year anniversary of my first blog entry. I guess it's kind of pathetic that it's only post #42. My last entry was on January 31st. After that, I just gave up on trying to come up with stuff to write about and quit. However, luckily, I did not quit losing weight. Since last July when I weighed 259 pounds, 89 pounds have been shed. My total weight loss is actually 100 pounds. My heaviest weight was 270 pounds. That was a few years ago. It scared me to be so close to 300 pounds and I lost about fifty pounds. Some of that weight had been put back on when I began this latest attempt. It hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be, but it hasn't been a picnic either.

Counting calories is still a major part of my life and I keep them between 1200 and 1300 a day. Hitting the gym five mornings a week is the norm. At this time I spend an hour on the treadmill at speeds between 4.3 and 4.5 mph. I've worked with weight machines off and on (mostly off) also. This is an area where my discipline needs to develop. I still hate those things.

Thankfully, good health is a blessing I continue to enjoy. My health is so much better than I deserve. God must surely like me, to keep me this healthy when I've spent most of my life trying to ruin it in one way or another. Thank you for your patience, Lord.

So, I'm going to take another stab at this blogging thing. I want to learn a little bit more about how to "fancy" it up a bit. There must be a "Blogging for Dummies" book out there with my name on it.