My Turning Point

Hey gang! How’s your week going? Have you been eating your Fruits and Veggies? Yanno, there are still 3 weeks left in the Healthy Challenge. Each week runs from Monday to Sunday night. Here’s how it works:

1. Sign up using the form at the bottom of the Healthy Challenge post.
2. Everyday eat fruits and veggies, and keep track of how many servings you’ve eaten. Your goal is to reach 7-8 servings.
3. On Sunday I’ll send you an email asking you how many days you were able to eat your 7-8 servings of fruits n veggies.
4. A winner will be drawn from those that met the 7-8 servings the most days (theoretically that’s the people who were able to meet it seven times). But don’t give up if you miss a day – maybe all the other participants did too?

The prize is a Fitness Cheerleader Healthy Challenge SIGG Water Bottle (sorry folks – I couldn’t get a sponsor this time around).

Now that I’ve gotten that house keeping out of the way I want to share with you my healthy living turning point. As you may have well geussed, I’ve been active most of my life, I play softball (I’m a catcher) and I adore running. But simply beng active didn’t make me healthy and fit. You see, I ate junk – ALL THE TIME! The worst is that I knew better! I ran sporadically and occasionally I would register to run races, then train for the race. The side effect of the running is that I would lose a few pounds even though I was continuing to eat junk. My sporadic training, coupled with having two babies has caused my weight to fluctuate. Over the past 5 yrs I have gained and lost at least 80lbs. I say at least because I know that I gained 40lbs with each pregnancy, and since baby #2 weaned I’ve gained and lost 10lbs a few times too. I probably would have continued like this my whole life if it weren’t for my turning point.

So what was my turning point?
At work, we play a co-ed charity softball game against the local police force at the end of October. (Did I mention I love my job?). Anyways, while playing softball this year there was a photographer snapping our pictures. The pictures were then displayed on our company’s internal website. We have several thousand employees who access this site. My picture was published. I was absolutely mortified when all of my co-workers got to see a picture of me playing softball – actually, it wasn’t really a picture of ME playing softball – it’s a picture of my large BUTT playing softball:

A week after the picture was published I tripped over a toy at home and broke a few ribs. As soon the ribs healed and I could be active again I made a promise to myself… My BUTT was never going to be the focal point of a picture of me again. I promised myself that I would eat healthier (more fruits and veggies) and be active on a regular basis again.

That’s my story – and I’m eager to hear yours! What was your “TSN Turning Point”? When did you decide to make a change? Send me your stories and I’ll share them with the rest of the Fitness Cheerleader community.

“Avoid eating food products a third grader cannot pronounce” – Michael Pollan