400 Pounds Later . . .

Happy Monday! I'm spending today in Park City, Utah with my husband and some friends of ours. Following our weekend conference, it's going to be great to relax today.

Since all of us have lost weight (my girlfriend lost 135 pounds, her husband lost 90, my husband lost 50 and I lost 126), relaxing looks a bit different for us than it used to :-). Instead of sitting around in the hot tub all day (not that this doesn't sound tempting!), we're going to do a ton of walking as we explore the town and then visit the Olympic village. I've been told that there is a zipline we can ride, and I'm thinking about it! Whether I do or don't do the zipline, the important thing is that if I want to do it, I CAN. That's not a choice I would have had prior to losing my weight, so I'm going to keep all of my options open :-).

It's amazing to realize that between the four of us, we've lost 400 pounds and our lives have totally changed. The fact that we will spend the day together, walking and being active, is something we couldn't have imagined doing 2-1/2 year ago. We've reached our goals and are maintaining our weight loss, but our journey towards optimal health continues. We each define optimal health in a different way, as it means something slightly different to each of us, but for the four of us today, it means being able to do the things we want to do with the energy we need to do them.

The ability to spend today doing the things we want to do is because each of the four of us made a choice to get to a healthy weight. We all had a lot of weight to lose, but we reached a point where we were ready to change our lives. Once we made that choice, Take Shape for Life/Medifast provided the tools we needed and, to our amazement, the program worked! The little choices we made every day, one meal at a time, really added up.

Today you have the opportunity to choose whether or not you'll be on plan today. Don't focus on what you're moving away from (being overweight or your desire to get off of medications), focus on where you want to go. Dream big, then make the choices you need today to make those dreams come true.