Hi there! My name is Shelley and I am 56 years old, woohoo! I'm the mom of two grown ups - how is that possible?! We have two college graduates, a son and a daughter, who are both employed, so I guess we've done our job as parents, right? My husband, Jeff, and I have been married for 35 years, which is odd considering I still feel like I'm a teenager...don't ask me how that happened, but I guess it's better than feeling like an 80-year-old! We've gone from the "this is weird" feeling of not having our kids around, to getting active with running and bicycling, which came after I lost over 100 pounds. We've run a few half marathons together and exercise has become a normal part of our lives - we're becoming those "active adults" that are portrayed in fancy car commercials, haha! Originally from California, I've lived in Texas for over 25 years now.
I started this blog on the same day that I started what I believe will be my final diet - May 14, 2008. That day, I weighed 256 pounds, which isn't a good look on most women, much less someone who is only 5' 1 1/2" tall! The reason I decided to blog about my weight-loss journey was so I could look back and see how hard I'd worked to get the weight off. I have a terrible memory, and my C.R.S.* moments are getting closer and closer together, so I figured that by blogging I would have concrete evidence of my successes, failures, plateaus and everything else in between. What I didn't realize at the time was how much support I would receive from the weight-loss blogging community. These people have been there for me when I've lost weight, when I haven't lost weight, when I should have lost weight but the dastardly scale didn't show it; they've given me ideas, tips and advice on everything from eating clean and exercising to why that stomach pain probably needs a visit to the doctor (can you say gallbladder surgery?) - they've commiserated with me when it was tough and celebrated my victories - scale, non-scale, running my first mile and jumping a scary box - with me. I couldn't have done this without my blogger friends - and yes, that is a statement I truly believe.
In the summer of 2010 I was at my lowest weight in over 20 years - 146 pounds. It was amazing and I felt great! At the end of the summer I began training for a half marathon and while I stayed the same size, I did put on about 5 pounds, which is pretty normal, apparently (hello, carbs!). I ran my race in November of 2010, and continued training for the Austin half marathon, which was in February 2011. Unfortunately, I injured my ankle in January of 2011 and had to stop running. A couple of weeks later my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and between stopping running and stress eating, I managed to gain some weight back. My mother had successful surgery for the cancer and is now doing great; I started swimming for exercise while I couldn't run, and ended up having surgery on my ankle in late 2011. After recovering from the surgery, I have gleefully returned to running! My weight is no longer a big concern to me and I don't diet; rather, I try to live a healthy lifestyle with reasonable indulgences, stay active, and work at keeping myself happy in both mind and body.
Update May 2020: Last year was one of the worst, health-wise, in my life. I had an L3/L4 herniated disc that grounded me for six months before I finally had back surgery in September, and just when I was starting to get back to normal, I had a grand mal seizure in November. The concussion I had from the seizure took months to recover from. Normal life started to resume once again when Covid-19 changed everything. Since I had to learn how to roll with the punches a decade ago, I'm trying my best to remain positive while both exercising and trying not to stress/anxiety eat corona candy every day. If you take anything from reading this blog, it's that while life isn't easy at times, you can get through just about anything.
*Can't Remember Sh*t
CONTACT ME
Got a question? Want me to review a product? Send me an email: 40somethingsjourney@gmail.com - but
don't bother if you're offering anything to do with diet pills,
programs or schemes...I don't endorse that type of thing. Nor do I
allow guest or sponsored posts on my blog, so again, don't bother
asking.