My Girls

I started this blog for many reasons but the most important reason is my girls.  I want them to have a happy, healthy mommy who is an inspiration to them.  I thought having this for them to look back on will help them to see that anyone can do anything.  They just have to try.  I don't want them to have to worry down the road that Mommy isn't going to be able to do things with them because she's not healthy.  I am trying to break a cycle of obesity in our family.  I hope that keeping this blog will help me to keep working toward that goal.

My oldest daughter, Adryanna, is 4 years old and is already such a creature of habit.  She loves to play, run and is always on the go.  At the age of 2 she was diagnosed with a heart defect.  It's a very small defect and they have changed the diagnosis as she grows but now they have determined that it is a tunnel going from her aorta to her left ventricle.  While blood should be pumping out of the ventricle there is a little trickle that runs back through this tunnel into the ventricle.  For the moment it's not causing a problem but it will need to be repaired in the next couple of years.  She needs to stay healthy so that she can have the procedure or surgery done and recover quickly.
This summer we have signed her up for soccer for the first time.  She loves it!  She is smaller than everyone else on her team and shorter but I feel like she ended up on the right team because her teammates and coaches are so super supportive of her and congratulate her for even the smallest improvement.  She often talks about Mommy's running and says she is going to be a runner when she gets older. She loves to come to races and is so confident in everyone she knows that she thinks all the people she knows will be the winner.  I would love to have her as a running partner!

My younger daughter, Christina, is almost 2 and what a  handful!!  She is wild, strong willed and most importantly happy.  She had RSV this past winter and is now at higher risk for asthma.  Yet another reason to break this cycle of obesity.  She definitely has an appetite so I try as hard as possible to keep the junk food out of the house and give her healthy choices.  I figure the earlier she learns to make healthy food choices the better.  Next year she will start soccer too.  She loves to kick balls around the backyard now and fights to get out of her stroller when we are at Adryanna's games so hopefully she will like the game too.

I also have three stepkids, Meaghan is 18 and is a great support in my journey, Andrew is 14 and recently has developed a great sense of self, Ashlee is 12 and joined a running group at school this past year (I like to think I had a hand in that).  They are all amazing kids and I feel so lucky to have them in my life.

Today I am taking two steps in my journey:

1. As I said yesterday I will have my first official "weigh in"  I give a lot of power to the scale which I know is a bad thing but I also know that it helps mark progress.  So when I stepped on and saw the number I gasped a bit but here it is: 241.2lbs.  Now let's watch that number drop together!
2. I am going to investigate Clean Eating.  I'm not saying I won't eat processed foods but I will make a good effort to avoid them.