Tiny Toes in SoCal Sand: Overcoming Obstacles with LifeFit. Post 10.

This morning as I looked at Denise Austin's Lifefitbydenise Facebook page, I saw a post she had made that truly spoke to my heart. She wanted the community to share how they have overcome an obstacle recently.

I personally believe that life is a set of obstacles. Over the last seven years, since the birth of my one pound daughter, I have waited for things to get "easier." And it surely has! As of last year we chucked the feeding tube and that perhaps has been the biggest change for me. We don't go to three doctor appointments a week anymore and I'm not spending my day praying that she will somehow walk. (She accomplished this at two and a half years-old).

Although things have gotten much easier on that front (I truly can't even begin to describe the toll that the last seven years have taken on me), there is always something.

There is always something.

It's either a big life event that is stressful or awful or even wonderful (even the wonderful can cause obstacles!) or small everyday life events that cause us to fall off course.

My most recent obstacle has been my health. Nothing terrible has happened but these small health challenges have thrown me off my course. I started Denise Austin's program in September and fell in love. I did two rounds of her 360 program and lost twenty pounds to make for a grand total of sixty-five pounds lost. In December I started passing a kidney stone (I do this about twice a year) and needless to say, I had to stop working out for a while. The holidays came and went and I started passing another stone for about four weeks. At this point the thought of starting to work out again was scary as it felt like the muscles that I had so proudly worked on had almost completely gone away! I put my plan in place to start another round of the program and then I got the cold that had put everybody out of commission. I haven't been sick in five years--all of those years of teaching germy kids has built up a super immunity, but my time had come. So for two and a half weeks I struggled to even continue to do my mom duties.

This stuff is just normal life stuff, but nevertheless, was an obstacle.

On Sunday I told myself that enough was enough and I was going to start another ten-week round of LifeFit even if I was still hanging on to my cold. So I remembered what a life coach had told me several times, which was to actually schedule my workouts in my planner. So that's what I did. (I'm starting with the workouts in Week 2). And I placed a "Never Quit" sticker right next to it because I knew I needed that visual reminder. Stickers make everything better.

I started my third round of the program and I am praying that by the end of this round, I will finally reach my goal weight. I've been trying to reach this elusive goal weight and lose my last seven pounds for a few years now. Obstacles are the reason it has not happened. I'm trying to change my viewpoint and rather than looking at pounds lost, I'm trying to look at health and fitness attained. My body is a far cry from what it was eight years ago at thirty-two. I can run and jump comfortably and buy clothing at regular stores. And I've reached this weight while spending years in and out of hospitals and appointments with my daughter. Surely I can do combat with my last seven pounds and if my body just doesn't want to go there, surely I can just love my body as it is and continue to love being fit and healthy?

Yesterday I did "Shape Up With Me" which was on my Level 1 program schedule. I've decided to do Level 1 again because I've lost a lot of strength in the last few months. This is a small obstacle, and in a few months I'll be back to where I was. I love that I can tailor the program to my fitness level.

The video was purely toning and I was a bowl full of jelly in all of these areas that the workout hit.

I took my kids to the duck pond because that is my son's preschool theme for the month, but also because I knew that I needed to remain active that day in order to feel myself coming back health. Our whole family went and breathed in the crisp air while we raised our heart rates briskly walking the pond.