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I've been a pretty consistent excerciser for many years.  My sister got me started many years ago and I stuck with it.  More about my wonderful sister later on.  I even trained for a marathon but got hurt and couldn't do the run.  Maybe a marathon isn't best for someone who weighed over 200 pounds.

Here's the news, weight is a calories in, calories out game.  Unless you have a procedure such as gastric bypass (DON'T DO IT!) or a duondenal switch (VERY WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION!) which rearranges your insides so you malabsorb some of your calories, it's just plain old calories in, calories out.  I had an enourmous capacity for food.  I could finish my plate and eat some of yours too.  And still have room for dessert.  So no matter how much I worked out, it could never be enough to burn all the food I ate.

Once I had my VG surgery, my capacity for food intake was dramatically reduced and I finally stood a chance to control my portion size.  Now the excercise could really have an effect.  I actually like to excercise.  It helps me control stress and anxiety and I feel strong and healthy when I'm done.  I am motivated by my work's incentive program too.  If we work out 12 times a month, work pays for our gym memebership.  So I go to the gym and do cardio at least 3 times a week.  My rule of thumb is do at least 30 minutes of something different each time (bike, stair stepper, elyptical etc).  I'm told that 40 minutes is exponentially better than 30, so I'm trying to get in those extra 10.  It's harder than you think.  I am a moring person.  Always have been.   I get up between 4 and 4:30, drink my coffee and leave for the gym by 5:30.  Usually home by 6:30 and on my way to work by 7:10.  At my desk by 7:30. 

I also try to take a walk during the day.  I work with two other wonderful women.  We circle our building at least 5 times (which is two miles).  Sometimes we talk about work and use our walk as a meeting time, sometimes we talk about home etc.  But we always have a good and productive time. 

Finally I weight train.  I really hate it.  I hate it so much that I have to hire a trainer twice a week to do it with me.  Otherwise it just doesn't happen.  I work out w/ two different trainers at Sweat Equity in Homewood, IL.  They train with kettle bells which has truly changed my body and my attitude toward weights.  Don't get me wrong, I still hate it, but I love Jeff and Carey and I love how my body has toned.

It's still a calories in, calories out equation.  In the past few months I have invited candy back into my life.  Candy, lots of it.  So I've seen my weight creep back up.  Today we took the left over Halloween Candy out of our office and put in the break room.  Nothing good is coming from a basket full of candy for 3 women who are watching their weight.