“That takes great discipline and will power to lose that much weight.”  We hear that a lot when people find out how much weight we have lost.  The discipline and will power comments never seem to settle well with me.  It’ not that they are wrong in saying it, but sometimes I feel that the message being sent is that you have to have Great Discipline and Will Power to lose weight.  Those words are meant to be encouraging, I get that,  but what about the person who feels that they don’t have any will power or discipline?  Will that encourage them to try or just confirm that what they think is true and thus not even try to lose weight?

I would not put Andrew and me in the category of being disciplined and having this great will power when it came to our health, food or exercise!  If we did, then we would have started this health journey many many years ago, or even better, we would have NEVER even started down this unhealthy lifestyle that was robbing us of living a full life.

So how did we get to where we are now?  Did it start with Discipline and Will Power?

NO

NO

and

NOOOOOO!!!!

It all started when we finally decided that our HEALTH was IMPORTANT.  That was the first step we had to take.

IT WAS OUR MINDSET THAT CHANGED FIRST!!!!

For too long, we didn’t value our lives.  That is the hard honest truth.  We didn’t care what we fed our bodies and we often told our self that we weren’t THAT bad off!  But after years of neglect, our bad choices were starting to affect our daily living.  We had to be brutally honest and tell ourselves if we continue down this path, we might not get to enjoy our family as long as we would like to. That’s when we started to visualize what our life would be like if we lost some weight.  So we started looking back at past events and imagine what would have been different had we been at a healthy weight.

For example, in 2017 we took the family to Europe and visited several countries.  We all had a great time, but there were times Andrew and I would just sit on a bench while the kids were enjoying the ruins or the city we were in.  We choose to sit and not push ourselves.  We would listen to the kids tell their stories and what they liked about each stop when they came back to where we were.  It would have great if we were with them as they witness some of these amazing sites for the first time! I mean, this was a once in a lifetime type of trip with our family and what did we do, we sat on the sidelines!!!’

Halfway up the Delphi Ruins. The kids went all the way up to the top.

As you can see in the pictures, we are happy.  We are so glad that we had the opportunity to go on this trip with our family!  But we were starting to fall in the trap of just excepting that this was how life was going to be!  We’re getting older and this is how older people act, etc.  But WHY?  Why do we have to fall into that trap?

Andrew and I sitting at a cafe in Paris while the kids explore the city. 

So, let the dreaming process begin!   Our dreams first seemed like a far fetch idea so we had to ignore all our doubtful thoughts and just write them down anyway.  One of our goals for losing weight is that we want to enjoy life with our family.  We want to be able to do everything (ok, within reason – I’m not about to go bungee jumping 😉 ) and experience all that life has to offer with them while on this adventure!  We didn’t know how all this would look like, but writing it down was the first step in reaching our goals.   You can check out our first list of goals here – A New Beginning

What would your life look like if you lost some weight?

Maybe you are like Andrew

He was on so many medications to help keep his Blood Pressure and Diabetes under control.  One medication wouldn’t work, so they kept adding medications to keep the lab levels where they needed to be.  The major downside to taking all these drugs was that they were starting to affect other organs and putting him at high risk for organ failure!  THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE!!

So fast forward to now and we are starting to check things off our list!!!

After losing 100 lbs, Andrew is off ALL medications!!!

Or maybe you are like me

I was not on any medications.  My lab reports all come back fine.  I would often tell myself, “I’m OK, I”m not on any medications.” The only thing that I had was some mobility issues with my left hip.  I will be sharing my story soon about that in the next few weeks.   Back to my mobility issue!  Due to my hip, I have a lot of arthritis, more than your average 80-year-old person.  Sitting down and getting up were getting tougher each year and to walk long distances I would need some assistance of some sort.

I didn’t write this down as a goal, but I am blown away at the results I’m starting to see in my hip and mobility!   After losing 60 pounds, I can now walk around without needing any assistance.  I didn’t think that losing weight would have made such a difference in my life!  I still have physical limitations that I will have to deal with, but it’s not going to slow me down anymore!

Find Your WHY

Finding our WHY is the KEY STEP in helping us stay on track!  At the beginning of our health journey, some days were tough. We wanted to fall back into our old habits but we had to remind ourselves WHY we are doing this regularly!  Instead of thinking of ourselves, we started thinking of our family, our future grandkids, and the work that God wants to do through us.  We wanted to be the BEST we could be for God and our family!!

So, where does Discipline and Will Power come in?  

For us, this is something that is growing daily in our lives.  We are taking SMALL steps to create healthy habits.  It’s one step at a time.  We celebrate all victories and use each one to motivate us forward.  When we mess up, we don’t beat our self up!  We just get up and start over!

Through taking small steps each day and not being hard on our self, we are starting to create a lifestyle of discipline.  Our will power to say NO is getting easier!  I still love sweets but I’m noticing that my desire to have them all the time is dying.  We have lived unhealthy our entire marriage so this process of change will take time.  What helps us move forward is our WHY’s!!!  Oh, our list of WHY’s is growing every day!  We are seeing life differently now and we don’t want anything to stop us!!

So What About YOU?

I want to leave you with this word!!  Don’t compare yourself to us!  Find your own WHY’s!!!  Put your health as the #1 Priority in your life!!! You are IMPORTANT and WORTH IT!

Let your WHY’s

DRIVE YOU

MOTIVATE YOU

HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO START!!!

I do hope that this encourages you all!  Andrew and I did a Facebook Live on our Health Journey!  We share a little bit more in the video, so please feel free to share!

Thanks for following our journey. Sharing our story to the world is not easy and posting our pictures is WAY out of our comfort zone.   We realize the struggle is real for many and we wanted to document what we are doing for two reasons.

One, to help hold us accountable!   We are at the beginning of our journey and we know that we have a long road ahead of us.

Two, we want to encourage others to help take their health back!  It’s never too late! The hardest part about starting this journey is just saying YES to a healthier YOU!!