Happy 6 month Bandiversary to me!

What'd you get me?

I got myself a half birthday cake:

JUST KIDDING!

I got myself a 105 lb weight loss instead!

What a difference six months makes. I feel like a different person. I am a different person. Well, I'm still me, just better and healthier. I've upgraded.

As I noted on Kitty's blog recently, before I started healthy living, I had my priorities confused. I was very focused on becoming a CEO as soon as possible, which meant working unhealthy hours (oven 70-80/week), while attending school, and just vegging out in the rare free time I had because I was so exhausted, and carrying around all that extra weight wasn't helping!

I ate poorly because I was always so busy, and I would constantly eat at McDonald's because I was on the go, and it was easy to eat that food while driving. On an especially bad day (and there were many of those) when I had to eat McDonald's for breakfast and lunch and had, say, Pizza Hut for dinner, I would consume nearly 4200 calories and 214 grams of fat. I'm sure I averaged in the mid 3000's each day.

You don't get as big as I was by eating salads every day! :0)

The track I was on may have lead me into a CEO position sooner rather than later, but I also probably would have been dead at 40. That's not the right way to do things. Life is not a race, and if you run it, you'll miss all the good parts. I was so concerned with achieving specific goals by specific ages that I missed out on parts of my youth/young adulthood. Thankfully, I made these changes at 30, and hopefully I still have many years ahead of me to live.

I am still very much focused on my work, but I try to work more of a normal work week. I've had to scale back on my hours in order to fit the gym in, as well as eating dinner at a normal hour. I'm also now more focused on interest in a possible COO role, because I love operations, and I feel like I can be accomplished but still have a life if I'm not in the #1 hot seat. I know these goals may seem lofty, but if you shoot for nothing, that's exactly what you'll hit.

As I continue to make healthy changes in my life, I may decide I want a different career totally, and that's okay too. Health and happiness are my goals now. Last year, they were money and success. I'm not sure when I changed from wanting to save the world to wanting to make lots of money and have lots of things, but I'm morphing into a healthy combination of both of those people.

I can't live on dreams and hopes, but I can't live for the things either.

I have read that weight loss surgery is considered successful if you lose 50% of the extra weight you have to lose. I have already done that, but I'm not stopping here! I was thinking about that, however, earlier this week, and if I had been told I would only lose 50% of the weight I had to lose, I still would have had the lap band in a heart beat.

I know as I lose more weight, my life is going to change in more and more positive ways, but I have already experienced SO many positives, it's hard to believe that it's going to be even better! I can't believe how many things I held back from doing because of my size. I just got used to it, but now that I don't feel held back, I want to do everything!

...talk about a new lease on life...

Thank you for joining me on this journey!!

KC