Today will be a little different around here. Why? Because yesterday I woke up with a tingle in my throat. And despite my over dramatic attempt to get enough vitamin C yesterday, I woke up today feeling even worse.
Good news? I got an amazing person to fill in and share their story! So excuse my lack of words for an introduction…I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into a complete sentence today.
Oh, one more thing – if you haven’t already, make sure you enter the Exercise TV Giveaway by tonight! Winners will be announced tomorrow.
Please join me in giving a huge atta girl to our special guest, Marlena!
Hello, hello!!! This is soooo exciting! I’m really honored to be a guest blogger on Jen’s blog today. So let’s begin, shall we?
My name is Marlena. I’m 31 years old & live in the Sunshine State. All my life I’ve been battling my weight. Literally. I was a chunky kid, chunky pre-teen, overweight teen, & eventually an obese adult. I tried all sorts of diets: pills, shakes, meal-replacement supplements, eating only once a day….whatever. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn’t. The ones that worked, well, they didn’t last for very long. Nothing I tried lasted. I either gave up because I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted or because I couldn’t maintain that lifestyle forever.
So, let’s fast forward to 2007. April 11, 2007 to be exact. That was the day I joined weight Watchers for the 3rd time. Why did I join again? Mainly because my friends Jack & Susan joined, so I thought, “Eh, why not?” Did I really wanna lose weight? Sure. Like always. So why not give it another shot for the ump-teenth time? I figured I’d have more support having my friends doing this with me.
Have any of you been there? Done that? Joined a program “just because”? My mindset wasn’t about succeeding this time around. It was more like, “well, it can’t hurt.” You have NO idea how that mentality was soon gonna change!
Can anyone guess what happened 5 days later? Yup, 5 days later was April 16. It was a day that changed the rest of my life.
My husband, then 43, had a heart attack. Yes, that’s right. A heart attack. He was working in our yard & felt some discomfort in his chest & neck. Fortunately, he stopped working & came inside. He cooled down & looked up heart attack symptoms on the internet. What he felt was a heart attack. Heart disease is in his father’s family, and his father died of a massive heart attack in 2003. My husband went to work the next day & felt the same discomfort. When I got home from work, he told me what happened & told me that I needed to take him to the ER. WHAT??? After a few tests & blood work, the ER doc said that he had a minor heart attack. Those were the last words either one of us wanted to hear. Because he has a family history of heart disease, the cardiologist ordered that he spend the night & have a heart catheterization the next morning. What did they find? Two arteries were 100% blocked, two other arteries were 70-85% blocked. Results: open-heart surgery. Quintuple (5) bypass.
So, why did I tell you this? It was the biggest eye-opener of our lives. For me, losing weight was no longer about being skinny. It wasn’t about shopping at the “regular” stores. It wasn’t about wearing tank tops & looking good in a swimsuit. It was about being HEALTHY! Not once during my numerous attempts at weight loss did the H-word ever cross my mind. NEVER! Why would it? As a teenager, it’s about fitting in. It’s about wearing the cute clothes everyone else is wearing. Not once did I think that the food I was shoving in my mouth was clogging my arteries, raising my cholesterol, or increasing my blood pressure.
But that’s all changed now. I want to be healthy. I want to be healthy! I want my insides to function properly, my blood to flow normally, to live the way I am supposed to live.
So…that’s why I’m here. I’m a PFG & proud of it!! I’ve come a loooonngg way. Topping the scale at 245 when I was 18 years old, I can honestly say that I never, EVER, wanna go there again. 85 pounds are gone. I lost 65 with WW this time around but I was already down 20 when I started in ‘07. So can you see why I titled this post, “One-Way Ticket”?
Regardless of where you are in your journey, can you honestly tell me that you wanna go back to the beginning? This isn’t a round-trip journey. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought it was. Yet, somehow that seems to be the flight we always take, right?
Not this time. I refuse to go through this again!! Is it hard? Uh…YEAH!! But is it worth it?? You better believe it!!!
For before & after pics, check out my website: www.freewebs.com/marlena78
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