Look a first post…;-P
Step one….set a goal. *SIGH* So here I am….again. But, I have the tools this time to not only achieve my goals, but to keep them…for life!
A little background:
I’ve always been a healthy kid. Not fat, but not thin. My mother made sure I ate 3 square meals a day. Soda did not exsist in our house, and snacks were usually fruit. I spent a lot of time out doors, playing, biking, skating and swimming (I grew up in Hawaii, sue me. 
) Later as a teenager and a young 20-something, I modeled and also competed in preliminaries for the Miss America program. Yep, a former Miss North Shore, right here. I joined the military shortly after, and wittled down to a lean, mean and green (I was Army) fighting machine. The diet wasn’t all that great (d-fac food isn’t exactly healthy) but I had PT on a daily basis, and spent a lot of my free time galavanting around the area and dancing/clubbing.
Then, I became a dirty civilian. As a nurse in the military I still had time set aside to go and workout for an hour a day. As a civilian no such luck. I work 3-4 days a week, 12 hour shifts, with 30 mins to consume lunch. That’s it. So gradually I stopped going to the gym or working out after leaving the hospital. I was mentally exhausted, physically tired, and since I had to be up at 4am the next morning, hitting the gym from 8-10pm became difficult. Then on days off I’d sit in front of the TV watching garbadge. The thought of working out or even going outside sounded like…well work! And I just had 3-4 days of that, the last thing I wanted to do on my days off was more work, even though deep down I knew I needed it.
And diet? Let’s not even go there. At work I’d eat whatever was appealing in the morning (usually pankcakes.) Lunch, whatever crap the d-fac would serve. No healthy snacks, little water and usually a soda or some sugar filled energy drinks since I usually felt sleepy all day. As a nurse we’d always have some patient or family member dropping off "gift baskets" translation: cake, cookies and candy. Some days I was good, other days I’d gourge. And to top it all off, I’d come home after a 12 hour shift ravenous for food. I’d gulp down a soda, maybe even a glass or 3 of wine, and a large plate of pasta. This would occur around 9pm. Then I’d eventually head to sleep between 10-11 at night. No work out, unless changing the channels on the remote counted. And then my day would start all over again the next morning.
I stopped heading out to the club since I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t thin anymore. I didn’t like that my clothes were too tight, or that some of my corsets no longer fit. I was getting older (and fatter) by the week, and things I loved to do no longer seemed fun because I didn’t like what my body was morphing into. So, I started to dance less and less. Comfort was staying at home, watching TV and eatting icecream.
Late last year I transfered from being a GS worker into a contract nurse. I still worked 12 hour shifts, but was able to pick and choose what days I worked and what wards I worked on. I started to schedule a lot more time on med/surg floors. Instead of the neuro patients I was used to, I started to take care of patients that had horrible diagnosis, most of them preventable and almost all of them stemming from poor nutrition, obesity and sedintary lifestyles. Then I began to look around at my fellow nurses. Most of the women I work with have never seen the inside of a gym, yet we work in the "health care" industry. Most are overweight if not obese. The eat terrible foods, and are lucky if they eat twice a day. And truth be told, many nurses suffer from the same damn afflictionsjust like their patients!
It hit me! I don’t want this to be my fate. I don’t want to end up in a hospital with a disease caused by not taking care of my body. I want to go back out and have fun, dress in amazing clothes, and not feel winded when I’m dancing after only one song.
I’m currently a tribal belly dancer. Although being thin is not something touted, being fit definitely is. And, I’m not anymore. I want to look and feel healthy like my fellow sisters in dance, which will translate into being a better dancer as well.
So here I am. I’m determined this time to loose the weight and keep it off. I’m focused on working out, eatting healthy and sculpting my body. I’m aware that I spend too much time in front of the TV and that I need to get outside and do more. I know that the stress level and work is crazy, and the only way to releave that stress is to do something physical as well as mental to heal my body and prepare it for the next day.
So here I go! I can’t wait to see my progress! 
