Starting Over: Pursuing Renewed Health in My Mid-40's

Hi, mamas!

I've probably mentioned elsewhere that I've been thinking about starting a "mom blog" for almost a decade now, and I'm SO excited to finally actually be doing it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't ever tell you the whole story about that.

Almost 9 years ago, I lost over 60 lbs in 6 months on the Trim Healthy Mama Plan, and I came up with SO many great tips and tricks and recipes and thoughts about my amazing journey that my original intent was to create a THM blog (and other stuff, but mostly that in those days).

I have struggled with my weight for almost my whole life, and while I wasn't quite at my ideal goal at that point, it was the closest I'd been in decades--I weighed what I did in high school, and I was 37!

At a distance, friends and family members would mistake me for my oldest daughter, who was about 16 at the time. 🤯

Well, a lot of life has happened since then, and one small "exception" or "blurring the lines" at a time--along with the natural and challenging changes that happen to our female bodies as our hormones begin to shift in mid-life--I've very sadly gained back all that weight and then some. I make a little progress for a while, and then I lose motivation again and just do what's easy. Usually healthy, but not friendly for MY metabolism, and I'll admit, I've also dabbled in some "extreme-ish" approaches here and there hoping that SOMETHING would finally get that stubborn scale to actually move in the RIGHT direction and stay there. These have almost certainly done me more harm than good in the long run.

Can anyone relate?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the THM plan, both because it seems to be the most nutritionally-sound and logical program of everything I've EVER done (which is just about every "plan" or "diet" out there by this point), but also because it's the ONLY plan I've ever known about that comes from a solidly Christian worldview and is 100% designed for moms of large families: celebrating and supporting pregnancy, nursing, and every stage of our families' diverse nutritional needs as our children grow and we age as parents.

This was already heavy on my mind for the past several months, but when I was at the Mastermind event in Kansas for the digital marketing program I'm in back in April, I "accidentally" was blessed with the best-ever "before" picture, and I have once again restarted my journey in earnest. I plan to eventually have my "after" picture at some other future event in Kansas, in front of the same beautiful "map wall" with my business mentor, Michele. ☺️

So, I realized at that point that what I need to do next is to document my new journey here on my blog, as well as in our growing community--that should give me plenty of support and accountability! (eek)

A totally unexpected side benefit of this decision (to make my weight-loss journey public), is that I instantly gained WAY more "camera confidence" for my digital marketing videos. If my transformation is going to be public, then it MAY AS WELL be on camera, and I immediately felt less embarrassed about showing the reality of where I'm starting. I still don't like it, of course, but this helps give it all a framework and purpose, and if my journey helps inspire someone else to take their own next steps in improving their health, that would bring me so much joy!