Nothing in life comes easy and what amazes me is how many people are out there that want a quick fix to losing weight. There is no magic pill and personally from my own experience I am losing more weight with what I am doing than if I were to use one of these products on the market.

After Years of trying to lose the weight and alot of research I have decided that the greatest
rules is what I call "Going Back To Basics".

I won't lie. At one time I was looking for a quick fix too! It never came and personally I did
not want to spend a fortune on weightloss products. I did however want something that would give me the energy to get up off that couch and move. I must tell you though it did not come in the form of a pill or patch or anything like that. It came in the form of warnings & memories.

Warning #1: I was pre diabetic (that didn't wake me up)
Warning #2: I had no energy (so I slept alot, who cares)
Warning #3: I thought I had IBS (I hated it but I was living with it)
Warning #4: My upper arm started hurting. (Light bulb went off in my head)

Oh my gosh these are all warnings that I am hurting myself. My brother was a rather large person and had horrible eating habits. He was type two diabetic and at the age of 39 he woke up in the middle of the night and woke my sister in law up to take him to the hospital. He was having a heart attack. This apparently was not the first time he had one. In fact, the dr said he had had numerous heart attacks but never knew it. His heart was very damaged. He needed open heart surgery. They did not wait. Well my brother went into surgery, flatlined 3 times on the table and never regained conciousness after surgery. He was in a coma. On May 2nd 1998 my brother was removed from life support. He left behind 2 small sons.

Even though we did not always get along that had a profound impact on my life. Oh sure I knew heart problems ran in my family but did I want to have the same thing happen to me? no! I have a husband I want to grow old with. I have 4 children I want to see grow and venture out into life. I have 2 grandbabies that I want to be able to get down on the ground and play with.

So on May 4th of 2012 I started this journey again. I got rid of the soda totally after being
a 2 liter a day drinker. I got back on sparkpeople and made a vow that I would get on sparkpeople everyday and I bought myself a fitbit. It is something not everyone can afford however that little pink and black device keeps me moving because I want to make it to the next level.

My Exercise was nil before this. So In order to not get discouraged as I had so many times before I started with putting one foot in front of the other and it is funny everytime I think of how I started the exercising I think of the song from "Santa Claus is Coming To Town". You know the one where it says "You put one foot in front of the other and soon you will be walking across the floor, put one foot in front of the other and soon you will be walking out the door"...LOL. Yeah I know funny. I started by standing up and walking in place. than I decided that walking in place just wasn't enough for me anymore and I walked out the door and walked to my mother in law's house a quarter of a mile away. Mind you when I would do that before I was so exhausted by the time I did that that I would want to take a nap so I would always have someone pick me up. Today walking to her house is nothing to me. I also started going to the gym on a regular basis. I started out slowly, I only went there for the strength exercises. Don't get me wrong, you do not need a gym membership anywhere to succeed but living in Florida the humidity can get quite bad so I go so that it is air conditioned and I do not get tired as easily.

Regardless of how you start, do it at your own pace and do not try to do too much otherwise you will get discouraged. There is no magic pill or plan that will work except good old fashioned education. Eat proper foods, get rid of the foods that are bad for you and exercise.

Watch for Part 2 tomorrow. Subscribe to this blog so you do not miss anything! If you have
questions for me you can email me. I would be happy to help you out with your plan. Remember, Sparkpeople gives you not just the way to do it but they also give you the education and support you need.

Annette