FIVE YEARS!!

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Taken about two weeks after joining Weight Watchers
July 2010

When I started Weight Watchers over FIVE years ago I didn't actually think I'd stick with it.  It wasn't that I didn't believe in the program; it had much more to do with not believing in myself.  Having the encouragement of friends (Sheri & Bri) who started with me and then making friends with the members at my meeting kept me wanting to come back, week after week, even when I knew the scale wouldn't be my friend.

Taken last week
July 2015

Then two years ago when I started working for Weight Watchers I used the picture above as my "THEN" photo.  When I hit my goal weight I wanted a "REDO" at that photo but that required a trip back to Oregon and the Oregon Brewers Festival.  Last week we spent the week in Bend/Portland, Oregon and I got my chance!

I told my husband early on in the week that I didn't really have any expectations for our trip but that I wanted this photo.  We arrived at OBF (Oregon Brewers Festival) a little early and after we got our wrist bands and got onto the grounds the first thing he said was let's find the barrel and get your photo.  I was a little surprised by how important this became to him.  I asked a few volunteers if they knew where this barrel was and some shook their head and said they remembered it from past years but they didn't know if it was there this year.  Finally, we were pointed in the right direction and Dan took the photo.

Now I have a new "NOW" photo to compare to my "THEN" photo and while I knew that I was unhealthy then but to compare the two photos was shocking to me.  I know that my journey to stay healthy doesn't end.  It'll never end but a few thoughts kept popping into my mind last week while we were on vacation.  The first was that we chose to be active -- hiking, biking, walking when we could.   It was hot the day we spent in the city of Bend so we decided to rent bikes and biked all over sampling some of Bend's restaurants and breweries.  When we got to Portland we returned our rental car in favor of renting bikes and we biked or walked everywhere we went, with the exception of the airport on the day we flew out.  

My second thought was that even though I figured I would gain weight on vacation (probably more than I'm happy with but won't know until after weigh-in tomorrow) I realized that I wasn't worried because we were being active and I knew that when we got home I'd get back to my healthy habits of regular workouts/training, healthy choices and drinking more water than beer.  

How do you stay on track while on vacation or do you just pledge to get back to healthy habits when you return home?

What do you surround yourself with?

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This photo showed up in my Facebook feed yesterday.  I think it is absolutely perfect.  I think we can all agree that it's easy to fall into the trappings of negativity.  What happens if we reverse that?  If we get rid of the naysayers and negativity in our lives?  My husband did something crazy (at least to me) and got rid of Facebook because some people were making him crazy.  Yet, I continue to read the page and get angered by the comments.

I know that in some areas of my life I have made changes to do this - to surround myself with the dreamers and the doers and the believers and it has made a world of difference.
Instead of thinking I couldn't be a runner I found myself making friends with runners.  Some of them are my best friends who encourage, inspire and push me in ways that I don't think I can do things.  But they have faith in me until I can start to believe in myself.

I think this is true no only in activity but weight loss as well.  From time to time I feel the need to, at least temporarily, get rid of certain foods because they either don't fill me up or I just continue eating them.  It doesn't mean I'll never eat them again but I have to surround myself with the things that will help me reach my goals.

What are you going to surround yourself with to make your journey easier this week?