My Healthy Journey: 70lbs Lighter!

 

This is not me, but its a cool picture!

My name is Chelsea Robinson, and I am 35 years old. My sister is Mary Baird, one of the coaches and co-founders of Little Healthy Competition.

My journey to healthy living began almost 7 years ago, when my toddler made a most shocking statement. I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she replied “No cereal, I just have cake.” Now, this may not seem like a profound statement, but it would soon become the catalyst for a profound change.

I first began to notice my weight at 15 years old, when I stepped on the scale and it read 150lbs. From then on, my weight continued to climb and fluctuated between 195-220lbs. my whole adult life, mainly because of an uncontrolled ‘sweet tooth.’ It was not a rare occasion to have dessert for breakfast. I would simply ‘skip’ breakfast and eat leftover dessert from the night before. On this particular morning, my world came to a screeching halt when I realized that I was passing my poor eating habits on to my daughter and this is the legacy I was leaving her.

Yes, that's me. (Circa 1998)

As a result of my weight struggle, I ‘hoped and prayed’ that my daughter would never have that same struggle. Maybe she would be more like my sisters who always maintained a healthy weight. When I heard my daughter that morning, I knew that I could not stay the same. I could not ask her to eat a healthy breakfast and then hold myself to a different standard. So, the fight to recover my health began.

My first step, ironically, came through following up on a “Free Week at **** Gym” mailer. I didn’t go out right away and sign up for a gym membership; I didn’t make huge commitments that I may or may not be able to fulfill. I committed to one week, seven days. During those seven days, I would go to the gym three times on my way to class, as I was in school at the time. I asked my childcare provider if they could keep my daughter for an extra hour on those three mornings and I went to the gym and did cardio. My journey started small, with one baby step. Then, I added other small things: climbing on the playground equipment with my daughter, swinging beside my daughter, crossing the monkey bars (or trying to) with her….instead of sitting on the bench watching her. I began walking with my daughter. I would get audio books from the library, put her in the stroller around naptime and off we would go. I walked while she slept.

At first, I did little to change my eating, because I knew that once being active became part of my life, I would be able to tackle the eating portion of my journey toward health. My first small step had been to simply commit to eating appropriate meals: breakfast food at breakfast, lunch at lunch and supper at supper. I didn’t limit the particular foods I ate (per se) I simply tried to eat meals rather than snacks or sweets in place of meal. As a result, the weight came off very slowly. At 6 months, I had probably lost about 10-15lbs. I was getting really discouraged and so I knew I had to begin to make more dramatic changes in my eating.

So, my next baby step was to make my home a healthy food zone. If I wanted to eat something sweet or unhealthy, I had to go out and get it at that moment. When I went to the grocery store, I didn’t buy junk food so it wasn’t in my home. It seems small, but it helped because I was particularly vulnerable in the evenings…when my daughter was asleep and I was alone. Well, any mama will tell you “Don’t wake a sleeping baby!!!” So, that put a definitely halt to a lot of my ‘junk-food-trying-to-fill-a-hole-I-am-bored, angry, tired, lonely’ eating. I lost eleven pounds in one month. As the first year finished out, I continued to make small changes: fast food allowed twice a week, bake brownies allowed once a week, stay away from Oreos and Doritos (my two ‘eat them all in one sitting’ foods), etc. One by one, I began setting boundaries that encouraged healthy living and resisted uncontrolled eating.

And no, I really didn't want to show you this picture. (Circa 1996)

The next year, I upped my commitment again and added running to my routine. Although I cannot say that I made the decision to start running; I basically got dragged, dared and otherwise coerced by MY sister and one of YOUR team leaders into running. She was losing baby weight after her son was born and I was on a plateau with my weight. We began running in Feb. without much thought to where exactly it would take us. We both just wanted to increase our activity and become healthy overall. One way to keep motivated was to set a goal—our first step was to enter a race. So, we decided to do a 5K that was scheduled in April. One race and we were hooked! The excitement, camaraderie and sense of accomplishment were incredible. So, with my sister by my side, we ran the Race for the Cure in June and the Turnip Patch Park 5K in Nov. With each race, we added a new goal—run the whole distance without stopping, run a faster time, get under a 9:45 mile average race pace, etc. By fall, we had increased our distances also and in Dec. we ran our first 10K. We never thought of ourselves as “real” runners; we just realized very quickly the importance of short term goals and kept that in our sights at all times.

(to be continued....you won't want to miss the AFTER pictures!!!)