Fitness Friday: Week 12 & Finding Fitness Balance

Every week, along with my progress update, I’m sharing guest posts from friends who are making changes in their lives to live more healthily. This week’s guest poster is my friend, Sadie D. Wilks. Sadie and I have known each other for a shockingly long time. Really, it’s about 14 years, but since it seem like we met just yesterday, it’s shocking. Sadie is one of the smartest public relations people I know, she cracks me up, she has a great accent, and she doesn’t think I’m crazy. She’ll totally be my PR rep if I ever get famous…or am arrested. Sadie shares her thoughts on struggling to maintain a healthy weight while living a very busy life.

Sadie’s words…

As I get older and my life busier, I have struggled to maintain a healthy weight. Sound familiar?

Food makes me happy. Chocolate calms me. Macaroni and cheese satisfies more than just my hunger. Gumbo reminds me of my grandmother. Beignets and coffee bring me a joy that no other food and beverage can fulfill. Many people love food – but really, loving food is in my genes. I’m Cajun after all.

Born and bred in South Louisiana , where we have festivals devoted to food and food products – shrimp festival, crawfish festival, strawberry festival, frog festival (yes, they are food here in Acadiana). Entire weekends planned around one particular delicacy. It’s a thing of beauty really. Eating is part of the culture. Consequently, managing your weight in Louisiana can be more than a challenge.

Before I had my son, I was a runner. 5Ks, 10Ks, adventure races, half marathons, you name it. And I loved it. To this day, running gives me an inner peace I cannot achieve in any other way. But, if you asked me why I ran, I would say, “So I can eat whatever I like and not feel guilty about it.”

Post pregnancy, I still loved to eat and run. But as I got busier, at work and at home, I seemed to find more time to eat and less time to run. When I hit 35 last fall, I decided that the “baby weight” had to go. My son is now five so “baby weight” was becoming laughable. I wanted to get healthier, mainly because I was tired all the time and was struggling to catch my breath just getting in and out of the car.

Not that I haven’t tried before. I would begin eating right, exercising, renewing my focus on being a good wife and mother, while keeping up with my duties at work. All at the same time. Ultimately, I spent too much time comparing myself to my pre-pregnancy self and setting my expectations very high.

High expectations are not all bad, but for me, it was detrimental. I was trying to accomplish too many things at once. This time, I decided to tackle one thing at a time. I chose to focus on healthier eating first, with the hope that once I lost 20 lbs, I would feel more energetic and thus, regular exercising would be the next step.

Since my own efforts had not produced the desired results, I decided to seek help. After weighing several options, I settled on the Ideal Protein diet, working through a local hospital’s wellness program. I have lost the weight over that last four months. It was tough but I was financially invested and thus determined to get my money’s worth. Having to weigh in each week kept me motivated and on target as well.

Now I am focused on maintaining a nice, healthy balance between eating foods I love and eating what my body needs to survive. And exercising regularly. Truthfully, I am struggling with step two. I was hoping that losing the weight would provide instant motivation to get back out there, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

 

 

Wife. Mother. Communicator.
Sadie was married in January 2000 to her husband, Scott, who is an associate professor in the LSU School of Social Work. Together, they are raising their son, Noah. More or less. Her professional life includes extensive work in communications and public relations specifically for non-profits and associations. She is an alumna of Louisiana State University (LSU) and a native of south Louisiana. You can read some of Sadie’s writing on Detaild and follower her on Twitter as @sadiepr

 

Sherry’s update…

I’m struggling, y’all. I want this getting healthy and losing weight thing to be easy, but it’s not. And that is frustrating. I didn’t have a horrible week, but it wasn’t stellar. Honestly, keeping myself accountable here (and to all three of you who read these posts :)) is probably one of the things that motivated *anything* healthy this week. Also? I’m still hating the steroids!

Successes…

• I didn’t eat an entire peach cobbler. This is mostly because I burned it, but the old me would have pushed past that detail to devour it anyway.
• Weight…I lost 3 pounds from last week’s crazy! So, I’m down 12.4 pounds from 12 weeks ago and 23 pounds since my highest of 301.
• Inches…I got rid of 4.5 inches from last week. So, I’m down 25 inches total from 12 weeks ago.

Challenges…

• Not getting discouraged about this weight/inches/swelling situation. I know it’s not all just my behavior, but it’s hard not to get frustrated.

So, how did you all do this week?

Past Posts on my fitness Journey…

• Week 11 & Getting Fit In Your 40s
• Week 10 & Tips for Staying on The Wagon
• Week Nine & Living With Extreme Food Allergies
• Week Eight & Run Over By The Wagon
• Week Seven & Greta Goes Gluten Free
• Week Six & Kim Borchert Inspires
• Week Five
• Week Four
• Week Three
• Week Two
• Week One
• I’m Fat, But That’s Changing