Getting Back On Track

Anyone who has worked out to lose weight will tell you, that once losing the weight, the next important thing is to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  You cannot go back to what you used to do before the weight loss, and expect to maintain the new weight.  The things you used to do, eat, and enjoy, no longer serve you well (and technically they never did serve you well, but that is another story).  

I remember about a year ago, I set out on a health journey.  I already had a gym membership, but I was not utilizing it to its fullest. So, I figured, let me add a personal trainer.  Perhaps this will help me jump start my journey, have someone work directly with me, to not only learn the proper things to do, but unlearn and break years of bad habits.  I worked with my trainer faithfully, 3 days a week.  As I worked with him, I also began changing my eating habits.  Salmon and broccoli seemed to be my choice of food, at least 2x a day (yes day, not week).  I had cut back (not out…cause I still enjoyed them) my sodas and chips.  And what do you know, not only did I begin to lose inches and pounds, but I was also gaining healthy muscle.  Now, at the same time, I was on medication, which had decreased appetite as a side effect.  For someone who enjoys good food, but needed to lose weight, this was not really a bad thing. I just knew that the food I chose needed to be purposeful. If I was only going to eat 1 or 2 meals, I needed to make sure it was worth it.  I could not waste the little food I was eating on empty calories; my food choices had to be purposeful.  

So, as I continued to work with the trainer, and my eating habits changed, the weight was dropping off.  While I may not have noticed the weight, I did notice the inner changes that were happening. I was able to do more in my workout. I could do a flight of stairs and not feel as if I just ran a marathon. My cravings changed. I no longer wanted the food I used to eat. Instead, I wanted more healthy food.  Others, also, saw the outside change that was happening. They saw the clothes were bigger, my face was slimmer, etc.  They noticed the outward appearance, I noticed the inner change.
So fast-forward about 6 months later, there was a shift that took place in my life.  The Lord moved me from Virginia to Texas.  Now this was an interesting journey, and one I talk about in Just A Closer Walk.  I arrived, and began to settle, but I was no longer maintaining what I had been doing before with my health choices. I was reverting back to default. I no longer had the intense workout I was doing. I was eating fast-food, and more processed food.  I began to move away from what worked to get me to the healthy place I was in.  I had made a wrong turn, and did not even know it…

To be continued…