Third Blue Card
02-20-2003, 8:33 p.m.

At my gym, they have these blue cards that keep track of your progress. Well, everytime you workout, you take your card to the front, and they date and sign it. It's fun to watch the cards fill up, and I will never forget how excited I was the first time I filled out a card. When one is full, they staple a new one on the front, and so your cards just grow. There are 55 spots for signatures on each card, so it takes a while to fill one up. To get that first one filled up was a real accomplishment, but today I got to start on my third card, woo hoo. I was so excited yesterday when I took my card up for a signature, and got to get a new one filled out. It is funny, because they make a big deal about it too. They were all telling me how proud they were of me, and so on, and it just felt good. It felt good today too, to get the first signature on my third card... I know that I will make it to a fourth card, and a fifth, and before I am finished I know that I will be one of those women who walk around with a stack of cards so think you cringe thinking of how many days they have worked out just to get there. It's amazing the little things that come to mean so much.

I was thinking tonight about the past year, and how much my life has changed. A year ago, I was almost a month into my workouts, and I was enjoying them, but I am not sure that I realized that this was going to be a life-style change that was going to last. I don't think I really pictured myself a year later, weighing 40 pounds less, and still enjoying working out. Now I can almost picture myself a year from now, still working out several times a week, and enjoying it. Because it really has become a way of life now, and somehow when I go too long without working out, I just don't feel complete..it's like something important is missing from my life. Now, I don't plan my workouts around the rest of my life, but rather, I schedule them into my day as the important thing that they are. I know that I am doing something that is very good for myself, and I am very proud that I've stuck with this as long as I have.

The other thing I realized today, is that while not every day is perfect, I really have made some very good changes in my life. Sometimes I still over eat, and I make bad choices, but compared to how I ate before I started this, wow, what a difference. I also think that it's amazing the difference in the way you look at food. When you are not eating whatever you want, whenever you want it, food becomes something that you appreciate and enjoy more. You don't take it for granted as much. We had sandwiches from subway for dinner tonight, and we picked them up on our way home from work... and a year ago, I would hvae scarfed that down as soon as I got home, unable to walk away from it, but tonight I left it on the table and went to do my workout. I didn't think about that sandwich the whole time, but on my way home from the gym, I did look forward to it, and when I sat down to eat, I enjoyed it very much, and it was enough. I don't eat until I am so full that I feel like I am going to bust open anymore, and I haven't felt that awful full feeling where you feel like your stomach is expanding in over a year now. I love the changes I have made, and I look forward to making many more in the years to come. I hate that this is something that I will struggle with for the rest of my life, but I am coming to believe that it's a struggle worth making.