Okay, I’m going to take a deep breath and carry on. For those of you who already know all about the diabetes and stuff, you can skip some of this, but since this is my first fitness post, I need to give some background.

I’ve always struggled with my weight and even got fired after 15 years with Weight Watchers because my weight was creeping up. There is a lot of obesity in my family, and I’m just glad I didn’t end up as overweight as a lot of my relatives. At one time, I got down to a size 6 in jeans. I don’t expect to ever be THERE again, but I would be happy with a 10. Oh, who am I kidding, I REALLY want to be an 8. 🙂

On December 14, I was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes. This is type 2, the kind that, although it’s hereditary, it can be prevented with proper diet and exercise. However, my diet and exercise was NOT proper. LOL. I had suspected for a couple of weeks that I was diabetic because of some symptoms, the most suspicious one being horrible thirst. My blood sugar was in the high 300’s, and according to my A1C test, it had been for some time. My doctor said my red blood cells looked like sugar frosted flakes. Ick. Anyway, I decided I would be the one in my family who took control of my diabetes. I saw my grandmother get sicker and sicker because she ate what she wanted and did no exercise. She lived to be 70. I see my mom following the same pattern, although she’s 78 now. But her kidneys are shot, and she doesn’t see as well as she should. And she’s had a couple of heart attacks. I want to break this pattern. And I also want to warn people of what can happen if they ignore their health. See, my doctor also put me on blood pressure and cholesterol medicine. Guys, you DON’T want to go there.

So today is the first post for Fitness Friday, which will be linked on A Heart More Focused blog (when she gets the post up today), which I learned about through my friend, Amber West. My future posts shouldn’t be this long, but I thought I needed to do a background for all this.

Anyway, with the deep breath….before I learned I was diabetic, my weight had climbed to 193. It’s now at 182, so I’ve lost 11 lbs. My goal is to get to 140. Anything less than that, especially since I’ll have extra muscle weight, I think would be too small. But we shall see. I may adjust that if it looks like I’m carrying extra weight at that number. But if I’m in my size 8’s? Well, that’s my REAL goal. 🙂

Who wants to join me? I’m so thankful that Amber made me aware of this. Is anyone brave enough to jump in? Amber and Erika are posting measurements along with their weights. I’m not THAT brave. LOL

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