Starting Out

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. How many times have we heard that? I know I've heard it plenty. Well, today is truly that day for me. I'm at a crossroads in my health and the decisions that I make today and from this day forward will affect a laundry list of things in my future.

Who am I? I am like a lot of people today. A busy parent, a soon to be grandparent, business owner who works a lot of hours, eats on the run, doesn't eat the way she should, etc. You know the drill. No time to do what you should be doing to get and keep yourself healthy.

My husband and I own a tanning salon/spa. We've had it for about 13 years now and it's doing well. I typically work 45 - 50 hours per week. I also am an independent consultant, regional vice president for Arbonne International and work about 15 hours per week with that. We have six children, ages 26 - 7, four of whom are now on their own with two of them at home.

I will be 51 years in January and at this point I'm about 50 pounds overweight. I actually am appalled at what's happened to me in the past 10 years. At 40 I was healthy, weighing about 135 and wearing a size 5 jean. Now I'm squeezing into a 14 and carrying around way to much extra weight. I feel just awful. No energy, tired all of the time and not sleeping well at night are just a few of my complaints.

Yes I had two more children during this past 10 years. That was the beginning of letting myself go. I just never got back on the health wagon after the birth of my daughter in late 2000. So for the past 8 years I've just put it on, one pound at a time.

So I had to make a decision. I can either continue on the path that I'm on, eating the wrong foods and too much of them, not getting enough exercise and just plain not taking care of myself OR I can make some changes. It's my choice, no one else can make this choice for me. My dear and loving husband cannot. My children cannot. No one but me.

Our first grandbaby is on the way. This was a big wake up call to me. I want to be around to watch that baby grow and I want to be a part of his or her life. I want to be a fun grandma with lots of energy to play. That wake up call caused me to make a decision; the decision to change the course of my life and get back my health.

The first thing I did was make a list. The list included every thing I could think of that was wrong with me. Not sleeping well at night, no energy, etc. The list included everything from migraine headaches to not fitting into my clothes. Then I made an appointment with an alternative medicine doctor. He is an MD that practices more natural medicine. He was referred quite highly and has many years of experience working with natural medicine.

At the appointment I made it clear that I was done living my current lifestyle. I wanted to change and be more healthy. I went through the list I had made with the things I wanted to change. He told me that the first thing we were going to do was to find out what was going on in my body, both nutritionally (vitamins and minerals) and with my hormones. He said that starting at age 30 hormones start changing and that can cause a lot of problems.

So I took a battery of both blood and other lab tests. Because he is an alternative doctor these tests and doctor visits are not covered by insurance. (This is a whole different subject - how messed up our health system is - they pay to get you well but they don't pay to keep you that way).

Now I am in a waiting mode. My next appointment is on November 6th. That is where the doctor will sit down with me and go through what is actually going on inside of me and then we will make a plan to get healthy. In the meantime, today I am starting to exercise again. I'm off to the gym and my goal is to do some weight bearing and some cardio work.

I know this isn't going to be an easy journey. I have no other choice if I want an energetic life fill with fun with my family.