{"id":433,"date":"2010-11-02T12:15:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T14:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/?p=433"},"modified":"2010-11-02T10:29:36","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T12:59:36","slug":"one-year-and-then-some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/2010\/11\/02\/one-year-and-then-some\/","title":{"rendered":"One year and then some"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"It’s been a few weeks since my last update. My only excuse is that life got in the way and I found myself too busy to blog; my bad. I even have a few posts in draft mode and a few more jotted down in my little black Moleskine<\/a>… they’ll become a virtual reality eventually. ;)<\/p>\n

At first, this update\u00a0was going to start with details on the many things that have been happening over the past few weeks. Soon enough I realized that there was plenty of\u00a0details to make it a separate blog update. I’ve since created another\u00a0draft and will post again later this week.<\/p>\n

The main purpose of today’s update is that I missed noting an important anniversary. On October 20th,\u00a0I celebrated my one year anniversary of being a Weight Watchers<\/a> Lifetime Member! It was back on April 21st, 2009 that I attended my first Weight Watchers meeting<\/a>\u00a0in Toronto. The meeting Leader, Lindsay<\/a>, was a perfect leader for me – she was positive, full of energy, and wanted everyone at the meeting to feel good about themselves. One of her main focuses each weeks ensuring we knew it was important to her that\u00a0we all reach our personal goals (no matter how big or small they were).\u00a0If that\u00a0meant talking about breakfast alternatives, or discussing what alcoholic drinks to avoid (not stop drinking all together, but helping us avoid the high calorie stuff).\u00a0\u00a0She struggled for a number of\u00a0years with\u00a0weight loss and was so happy being at goal and living a healthier life.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t easy, but by tracking what I was eating (and staying on top of my points count), becoming more active (and discovering\u00a0I love to run), and attending the meetings are the main reasons I was\u00a0able to reach my goal. Of course having a supportive husband<\/a>\u00a0was also handy since it meant we had to change a lot of our eating habits, but it was a win-win for us both in the end. Weight Watchers also help me to understand my body’s food preferences. It also allowed me realize that some foods are just going to “stick” with me longer than others, so it’s better to make a healthy choice and not feel like I’m starving later than to always go for the greasy short-term food. I’ve also discovered that there are so many great recipes out there that are pretty healthy, but you’d never know it by how tasty the end result is on your plate (and in your stomach).<\/p>\n

Over the past year, I’ve remained at goal and only have a few extra pounds creep up when I wasn’t paying attention. There were some stressful months this past\u00a0spring, but\u00a0as my weight\u00a0went up a little, it was an\u00a0internal alarm bell that I wasn’t properly taking care of myself. I had to refocus my priorities and start putting myself first (because if you don’t do that for yourself, who will?)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The holidays aren’t an easy time of year and I’m preparing for that now. Matt<\/a> and I start beginner yoga classes on Saturday and I’m hoping to join a 5k clinic at the Running Room<\/a>\u00a0soon. I’ve dusted off our Wii Fit<\/a>\u00a0and will be using it more regularly as it’s an easy way to get some exercise in without having to go far (literally walking across the upstairs hall). And it’s about time I cleared some space around the treadmill so that it gets some love as well…<\/p>\n

So before the New Year is upon us, is there anything you’re doing to feel healthier? Have you taken up a new exercise program? Even simple things like walking more or taking the stairs instead of the elevator can make such a difference. And don’t tell yourself that you have to suffer and can’t eat your special treats ever again. You can still have that KitKat<\/a> or your medium fries… just don’t have them everyday. ;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a few weeks since my last update. My only excuse is that life got in the way and I found myself too busy to blog; my bad. I even have a few posts in draft mode and a few more jotted down in my little black Moleskine… they’ll become a virtual reality eventually. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[48,27,45],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3zorl-6Z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/virginiamiddleton.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}