Good afternoon all. Here are my before and after pics as promised. The first pic was taken in 2009. The second pic was taken in November 2011 and the third pic is my current June 2012. My weight would tend to fluctuate through out the years. I would get serious about trying a new diet or exercise program, throw myself into it, lose some weight then get tired of it and gain all over again. It was a never ending cycle until I decided to change my mindset and develop a healthier lifestyle. I have no doubt in mind that I will be able to maintain these changes now that I have a different mindset about fitness and eating healthy.

Here's some of what I did to lose the weight and change my mindset. I started losing some weight at the end of 2011. Maybe a couple of pounds. I lost this weight by counting calories and keeping track of what I ate which was very helpful in the beginning. I used the calorie counter on www.livestrong.com The website has some great tools to help you track your daily food intake, calorie intake, nutritional values and exercise regimen.  I was able to clearly see how many calories I was taking in and how many I was burning through exercising.  Having visual tools in front of you always helps. I would read the labels for everything I purchased and wrote down my calorie intake for anything I ate. This can be a great way to get started because it makes you have to stop and really pay attention to what you eating and how much of it your eating. Programs like weight watchers kind of work like that. You tend to eat smaller portions because you are trying not to go over a certain amount of calories for the day. It works well but it wasn't something I wanted to do on a long term basis. I didn't just want to eat less I wanted to eat healthier!

I think one of the biggest things that encouraged me to start eating healthier was watching the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead! You can watch it here http://www.hulu.com/watch/289122 or on Netflix if you have it. If the video on the hulu website starts buffering you can pause it for a few minutes and then click play again it should play for longer without getting stuck.  This video encouraged me to start a seven day juice fast. In those seven days I lost seven pounds. Juicing entails juicing fresh fruits and veggies in a juice extractor. For those seven days I drank live healthy fruits and veggies and nothing else.  It wasn't easy but it definitely helped me start eating a lot more fruits and veggies on a daily basis when I was finished with the fast. I also started exercising more consistently. After a few weeks of adjusting to that I decided to try a 30 day juice fast. I will share more details about that in my my next post. Be sure to check back in next week and let me know if you have any questions. I would happy to help you with your weight loss/health journey in anyway that I can. :)