Fitness Regime: It's Time

I originally titled this post "Weight Loss Regime."  I changed it to "Fitness Regime."  Don't get me wrong - I need to lose weight, and it is 60% of the force driving me.  But the other 40% is a genuine desire to be fit.  I don't know if I've ever been fit.  Not having been an athlete in school (or really any point in my life - even when I was playing sports as a kid, it was obvious I wasn't an "athlete") and having genetics against me, I have always been a pretty thick girl.  When I got married, I was 156 lbs.  As I'm 5'8" it was relatively respectable.

Please note that the bee-hive hair-do, while not my favorite now, did serve a purpose beyond a mere hairdo.  My husband is 6'6" - nearly a foot taller than me - and between the hair and the heels, the height difference was effectively de-emphasized.  And oh how I love that dress.

But at the time I remember thinking, "I need to lose ten pounds!"  But I didn't.  Instead I gained 10 pounds.  And then put on another five.  Near the end of college I got it into my head to do a vegan diet along with a friend and try to lose some weight that way.  It worked!  I went down to 147 and fit into a size 8 (I have always been a double-digits person).  Then we went to Africa - an AMAZING trip - but I went in a group and couldn't control what we were eating.  When I came back, I was 149.  Not too shabby for eating all sorts of dairy, meat, BREADS, and sweet stuff.  I fell off the wagon and when I came back up, I was back to where I started.  But my life was so busy - by then I had my first job, we had moved to Lawrence - I didn't have the time or drive to make anything happen.

And then I got pregnant.  While I was pregnant, I approached, hit, and exceeded a VERY scary number.  After I was un-pregnant, I knew I needed to lose weight, but to be honest, I knew I was going to get pregnant again relatively soon, and the idea of working my butt off for results and then putting everything right back on sounded terrible.  So I decided to wait until we were done having kids.

Welp, we're done having kids.  The time is now.