I was walking around my kitchen today getting lunch ready for my boys and guess what? My pants are falling down. Just slightly, but I keep having to hitch them back up. 75 days ago, this seemed impossible.

I am on day 75 of my 100 day challenge of fitness. Why did I do this? Because, I need to lose weight, a lot of it. How did I get to this point? Lots of reasons, but what I want to focus on now is what I’m doing about it. On January 6^th, I woke up and decided it was time to do something about changing my life.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I knew I needed to get moving. Exercising is hard. It’s so hard. That’s what I used to tell myself. I hated exercise. I kept saying to myself, “I have so much weight to lose it’s overwhelming to even think about it. It’s going to take a year before I probably even notice any change in myself.”  Then, fortunately, I thought, yes, that sounds  like a long time and it does seem overwhelming, but, do I really want to be standing here a year from now in the same shape I am, wondering why I hadn’t started?  Wouldn’t I rather be able to look back and see what a change I’ve made? So, I started moving. And, instead of thinking about the big number, I decided to focus on what I could do in just one week.

I started slow. I had jumped onto the weight loss train too many times before, going overboard and doing too much in the beginning and either hurting myself or just wearing myself out enough to make it too difficult to continue. So, I just walked. After just one week I had more energy, so I started doing 30 minute circuit workouts. I created a little workout routine for myself with very low weights but a lot of repetitions. Between each rep, I would set the microwave timer for one minute and do some kind of aerobic activity. After just one week of this, I could feel my energy level increasing. Then the circuit training didn’t feel like enough. So I moved onto aerobics.

I found this old, cheesy video from the 1990’s; they are wearing leg warmers and tights… yes, very cheesy. But, it got me really moving. By week three I was able to do 45 minutes of aerobics.  Three weeks. That’s it. After just three short weeks, I was able to keep up with 45 minutes of heavy duty moving. Me, who hates to exercise. I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But here I am, on day 75. Not only do I not mind moving now, I enjoy it. I can’t get over how much energy I have these days.

I just want to say to anyone that might read this that is convinced that they can’t do it, I’m doing it.  And believe me, if I can do it, anyone can do it.  All you have to do is start. Just make one small change. You don’t have to jump head first into some insane program, or go spend a ton of money joining a gym. Just move.

I still have a lot to go but I’m on my way. I am already considering myself a success story.  For now, I need to go find a belt to hold up my pants… that I’ll be replacing soon.