Mar 12, 2009 update by Rebecca-169
<- Photo taken on	Aug 11, 2008
Journey start date	Mar 1, 2006	Currently at 11.88% of goal
Total loss since start	24.6 lbs	Now has 182.4 lbs left to goal
Since last update	Lost 10.2 lbs
Weight at this update	362.4 lbs
20 of 20
Moving Forward...		My Picture Progress

12/15/08 370.2 Loss: 1.2
12/22/08 370.2 Stayed the Same
12/29/08 365.8 Loss: 4.4
1/5/09 366.4 Gain: .6
1/12/09 367.6 Gain: 1.2
1/19/09 364.0 Loss: 3.6
1/26/09 362.4 Loss: 1.6
2/2/06 362.6 Gain: .2
2/09/09 364.8 Gain: 2.2
2/16/09 364.6 Loss: .2
2/23/09 Meeting canceled due to weather
3/2/09 Meeting canceled due to weather
3/9/09 262.4 Loss: 2.2

Food for Thought:
Each day is a new day. It doesn’t matter how hard you worked yesterday or how hard you didn’t work yesterday, you have to pick back up and keep going! – Matt Hoover “The Biggest Loser – Transform Your Body, Health and Life, Mind-Set & Motivation”

I have lost count how many time I have written and rewritten my progress page over the past few months. I am going to try and recap sections from pages that never made it to the site. Well, ready or not, here it goes.

TOPS - October, November and December (1st time ever I might add) I didn’t have a single gain recorded, besides staying the same twice, the rest were all losses! The torch has recently been past on. I am not yet a regular member again at my chapter. I won’t go into detail, but it nice not having to feel and deal with all the stresses of being leader.
As many of you are already aware I am a bus driver by occupation. In January and February, I will be having several charter trips to a local ski resort. Bolton Valley has a no idling policy and since it is too cold to just sit in the bus, they are allowing us to have use of their fitness center while we are here. Yes, hot tub here I come. ;) However I am also looking forward to utilizing the faculties over the next several weeks instead of just sitting down on a bus reading.

Let’s see what else is there to catch up on... The Biggest Loser competition at the YMCA ended the first past of December. I lost 20.2 pounds. I do not know where I stood in the standings, as no announcement was made. Only participation certificates were given out. I did win community weight challenge losing 32.2 pounds (8.22%) and 29 inches (8.57%) over a 19 week time frame. Normally it is a 14 week course, but had to go longer do to weather and sickness.

Health wise that is more of a slippery slope altogether. Over the past several months I had been going to a lot of doctor’s appointments having this and that checked out. I have severe arthritis in both knees. Having very little cartilage left in my knee joints, the doctor said that I am inevitably facing double knee replacements, but does want to have to do them as of yet because I am so young. For the first time in my life a doctor told me not to do a particular exercise. His words to me were and I quote, “When at all possible avoid stairs at all cost.” My stress test results come back normal no problems there. The test it’s self was interesting though. However my sleep test was a different story. I am now on a CPAP machine at night. With taking the weight out, the hope is that I would also be able to come off the CPAP as well. Early December, I went in for allergy testing. It seems that I am only allergic to dust mites. Surprisingly, but thankfully as I thought I would be at least allergic to dust and pets. Unfortunately, on the other hand I was also tested for asthma. All this time what I thought was just because of being over weight shortness of breath was in actuality mild to moderate asthma, so now I am on two different inhalers. Hopefully as the weight continues to be shed off, I will be cut back or even better yet take completely off the inhalers too.

For Christmas I was in the right place at the right time. To make a lengthy story shorter, I was blessed with a brand new set of poles for Nordic walking (technically trekking, but they still can serve the same purpose.) I am excited to be about to get started soon. I have to order the rubber tip boots, so that I can use them out on the sidewalk and road.

A local support group that I am a part of went moonlight snowshoeing. I enjoyed going as that was my first time ever and has been on my list of things I wanted to do for quite some time. We have been spinning together, as well as planning other activities such as Zumba, Pilates, hiking, Geo Cashing, etc. I am looking forward to getting out and doing more activities, as my knees and thighs are getting, at least feeling better with each passing of each shed pound.

I have really gotten into the Biggest Loser reality show, season six and seven, I kind of wish that I had gotten into to it much sooner. I guess I wasn’t ready for it back than. Any, along with several of the books, I have purchased the sister upgrade to the Bodybugg that the contestant use on the show. The GoWear Fit it a nest little gadget. It tracks your calories burned, step taken, measures your sleep, tracks your moderate and vigorous exercise. Your upload it to the site and can even enter in your food dairy and it will give you a four page report of different graphs. Check it out at www.gowearfit.com. I really think that it is well worth it is you can swing it.

I am working on upload a much more recent picture. But didn’t want to wait any longer on getting update posted.

Remember, “The more you share, the less you wear!” Try it out and see for yourself how it works.

Have a Great week everyone!
~Becca~

	Posted by fellow HealthSteward Tim-215 from Ohio on Mar 12, 2009 Good!  Body Media is a good company, and the BodyBugg device, the Go Wear Fit, and the model used in hospital-based programs are actually the same piece of hardware. I have one on right which I was evaluating for a group and eventually decided I wanted one myself.  The key is to LOG YOUR INTAKE, and then compare that to what the device knows you actually must have been eating to get the weight change results you have.  I found I underestimate my intake by 15%, which is average for non-heavy people .. obese people's food logs are 40% less than we actually eat.  Knowing that helps to explain why we have what I like to call "mystery pounds", where we feel like our efforts are not having the results we calculate we should be having.
	Posted by fellow HealthSteward Dave-40 from ON, Canada on Mar 13, 2009 HI Rebecca! Going in the right direction!  Hope you have another good. steady week - Dave
	Posted by fellow HealthSteward Kathy-227 from Arkansas on Mar 13, 2009 That was so interesting! Your activity sounds great!
	Posted by fellow HealthSteward Carrie-259 from Florida on Mar 15, 2009 Great T-shirt slogan:-)  Keep up the great work!