It’s funny what we remember from our childhood and how they manifest years later. Seemingly innocuous conversations and comments at the time, that grab hold and take root to find a place in your life as an adult that you never even realized were growing into something larger and having influence on your life. I remember very clearly something said to me by a girl in grade 8. “You are never going to get a boyfriend. Boys don’t like it when girls are taller and bigger than them and you are taller than everyone.” Couple this with the fact that in gym class there were more girls than boys so when it came time to learn how to two step I was assigned to take the role of the man, simply because I was taller. To this day, it takes a very skilled dance partner to out lead me on the dance floor as I wasn’t given the opportunity to learn the female role on the dance floor.

I remember my Grandmother saying to me around about the same time, “Annie, you need to watch what you eat, or you are going to grow up to be fat too.” I wasn’t ever fat as a child, or even into my teen years. Not even into my 20s. I would say not until my early 30s do I remember having a problem. Somewhere in there though, the seeds had germinated and not only was I single (Divorced by a man shorter than me) and starting to put on weight. I could never understand how someone could get to be 50, 75 or even 100lbs overweight. Why didn’t that person notice it?? One day I woke up and realized I was the victim of a sneak attack and all of a sudden I was packing around an extra 100lbs. I had all sorts of excuses and justifications. Maybe some were legit, most were not, but those ones weren’t acknowledged. I hung on to the ones that were socially acceptable, and I was miserable inside.

I had some serious health scares in my late thirties with my heart that were a bit of a wake up call, and I lost 70lbs. Then something deep in the recesses of my mind took over again and I gave up on me. I gained ALL my weight back over one year and there I stayed for the next 5.

Every year at work my uniform order at work went up a size, and my closet was shuffled around to make room for the new clothes I needed to buy as I was unable to do up the pants I had from the season before. I wasn’t happy, but I also wasn’t doing anything about it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. With that analogy I must have been insane.

Fast forward to last fall when I met up with a friend and colleague who absolutely had me speechless and gob smacked when I saw her. It was seriously like a golden light from heaven shone down, the angels played harps and the rain stopped where she walked when I saw her. I grilled her for nearly 2 hours on a drive we took for a seminar, and again on the way back. My world had been rocked. I had known her for a few years, and she had been significantly overweight then. I saw her exercising, eating what I thought was reasonable when I did she her eating, and I felt terrible for her because there was no payoff, ever. I watched her try multiple approaches, with fasts, cleanses, shake this, stretch that with no success. Then I saw her Nov 22, 2018 and I was blown away. I don’t think I would have recognized her in a crowd had I not been planning on meeting her that morning.

As the clichés go, my life changed that day, and again a month later when I saw her even smaller than she had been that morning. Enter cliché number two. New Years Eve. Resolutions. I decided to jump in. I took my measurements, I took the photos and I started my Keto! journey. It is now 5 months and 20 days later, and I have lost 45 of my 100llb goal for the year. I might even make these next 5lbs to be exactly on track with what I wanted to achieve.

Lots of people are asking me now how I did it. I am going to document and dialogue here with all that want to follow along. Ask away. Join in. Watch from the sides. Whatever floats your boat. 🙂

It’s funny what we remember from our childhood and how they manifest years later. Seemingly innocuous conversations and comments at the time, that grab hold and take root to find a place in your life as an adult that you never even realized were growing into something larger and having influence on your life. I remember very clearly something said to me by a girl in grade 8. “You are never going to get a boyfriend. Boys don’t like it when girls are taller and bigger than them and you are taller than everyone.” Couple this with the fact that in gym class there were more girls than boys so when it came time to learn how to two step I was assigned to take the role of the man, simply because I was taller. To this day, it takes a very skilled dance partner to out lead me on the dance floor as I wasn’t given the opportunity to learn the female role on the dance floor.

I remember my Grandmother saying to me around about the same time, “Annie, you need to watch what you eat, or you are going to grow up to be fat too.” I wasn’t ever fat as a child, or even into my teen years. Not even into my 20s. I would say not until my early 30s do I remember having a problem. Somewhere in there though, the seeds had germinated and not only was I single (Divorced by a man shorter than me) and starting to put on weight. I could never understand how someone could get to be 50, 75 or even 100lbs overweight. Why didn’t that person notice it?? One day I woke up and realized I was the victim of a sneak attack and all of a sudden I was packing around an extra 100lbs. I had all sorts of excuses and justifications. Maybe some were legit, most were not, but those ones weren’t acknowledged. I hung on to the ones that were socially acceptable, and I was miserable inside.

I had some serious health scares in my late thirties with my heart that were a bit of a wake up call, and I lost 70lbs. Then something deep in the recesses of my mind took over again and I gave up on me. I gained ALL my weight back over one year and there I stayed for the next 5.

Every year at work my uniform order at work went up a size, and my closet was shuffled around to make room for the new clothes I needed to buy as I was unable to do up the pants I had from the season before. I wasn’t happy, but I also wasn’t doing anything about it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. With that analogy I must have been insane.

Fast forward to last fall when I met up with a friend and colleague who absolutely had me speechless and gob smacked when I saw her. It was seriously like a golden light from heaven shone down, the angels played harps and the rain stopped where she walked when I saw her. I grilled her for nearly 2 hours on a drive we took for a seminar, and again on the way back. My world had been rocked. I had known her for a few years, and she had been significantly overweight then. I saw her exercising, eating what I thought was reasonable when I did she her eating, and I felt terrible for her because there was no payoff, ever. I watched her try multiple approaches, with fasts, cleanses, shake this, stretch that with no success. Then I saw her Nov 22, 2018 and I was blown away. I don’t think I would have recognized her in a crowd had I not been planning on meeting her that morning.

As the clichés go, my life changed that day, and again a month later when I saw her even smaller than she had been that morning. Enter cliché number two. New Years Eve. Resolutions. I decided to jump in. I took my measurements, I took the photos and I started my Keto! journey. It is now 5 months and 20 days later, and I have lost 45 of my 100llb goal for the year. I might even make these next 5lbs to be exactly on track with what I wanted to achieve.

Lots of people are asking me now how I did it. I am going to document and dialogue here with all that want to follow along. Ask away. Join in. Watch from the sides. Whatever floats your boat. 🙂

So apparently there is a GDPR that gummed up the works for auto notifications of new posts.  I confess I don’t know what it is all about… But as you can see, there is a new section to my blog all about my Keto! journey.  Follow along for updates!

I am often making small goals along the way to keep me on track, and this time I have hit a big one!!

When ziplining came out I was super excited to add it to my adventure resume. Skydiving and bungee jumping needed another friend besides just white water rafting to hang out with. Small glitch… I was too heavy to do it.

I remained too heavy all these years until this weekend! Working hard on my keto choices faithfully paid off in spades. Not only am I now only a few pounds from my halfway mark… I checked off another bucket list item when I stepped on the scale and was given the green light to advance to the harnessing area to go ziplining.

Years I have waited. Years!! It was everything I had hoped it would be us I felt proud of my work to get there.

Manu small goals make a big goal achievable. Isn’t that the big question..? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Keto on!