With each new year comes change. For me 2012 has been full of change I started a new job, became an Aunt and lost my best friend. I’ve had moments of sadness following by un-containable joy. In January I decided to follow the words I’ve been preaching and to truly embrace a heart healthy life style. My pants were to tight, my stomach was not awesome, and mostly I didn’t feel like me. I needed to feel good in my own skin and to like the girl standing in the mirror. Fuck, I needed to love the woman I saw in the mirror.

I haven’t been a twig since the fifth grade. In truth I it was never in my genes for me to be a twig. My sister she is slender and I am not. I got the Ojibway genes. Ojibway women have baby making hips and small waists. Over the years I have had to come to terms with my body type and embraced my curves. After all slender girls have tiny boobs and I like the rack I am carrying around. Thou they do get in the way when I am playing golf and doing other things. Mostly I came to terms with the fact that I cannot change the genes I was born with. However I can choose to live a healthy life. Because when you are healthy you are happy.

For me I wanted to get back to my pre-stroke self (I still hold out hope for my old life). In reality I will never be the way I was before my stroke. I have to move forward and do the best I can with my broken body. Running, aerobics, and lifting heavy weights are things I will never be able to do again, my poor lungs can’t take it. On the bright side I have two feet and God made those feet for walking. Lucky me I live near Calhoun and have a little dog that loves to explore the path around the lake. Each morning we suit up, put our shoes on (well my shoes), and head on down to the lake. I take him for an extra long walk at dusk too.

Walking was my exercise so I checked that item of my list and set out to tackle my food. I am not going to lie, I love cookies, chips, cheese, bacon, and everything else they say is bad for us. I am normal, normal just like you. However I knew something had to give because my kidneys were not liking the salt and I felt yucky. Lunch was an easy thing to change. One of the benefits of working in downtown Minneapolis is the skyway. The skyway has so many lunch options and the food trucks are like heaven on the street. I didn’t bring a lunch to work, instead I ate out every single day. My wallet and my waist line protested. One of the disadvantages of working in the burbs is that you are not close to anything and have to drive somewhere to get lunch. Truth: I am lazy, once I am at work I do not want to drive somewhere for lunch and come back to the office. Laziness worked in my favour and I pack a lunch each day. Packing a lunch totally controlled my calorie intake and my waist line finally stopped protesting.

Before I knew it my pants became to big and I was pulling them up as I walked around the office. I did this discretely of course, Girls you know the shuffle, yea I perfected that. By June I was down two pant sizes. I repeat TWO pant sizes and thank God my boobs didn’t shrink! Bras are expensive and well for the price of one bra I could buy two pairs of pants. I am a frugal girl at heart. My coworkers started taking notice and I finally liked the girl I saw looking back at me in the mirror. I am not a stick, my pants size is till in the double digits. Pant size doesn’t matter to me. What matters is how I feel in my own skin.

Each of us should feel incredible in our own skin and love the person in the mirror. Take it from me, it takes work to stay fit and to eat healthy. There is no such thing as a magic pill or an instant fix. So ignore the infomercials and the ads in the magazines. Put your heart into it and soon you will see results. I look at it this way, I only have one body. My body thanks to the birth control I used is fucked up. I have to live with my broken body for the rest of my life, I don’t have a choice. However I can choose to treat it well and then maybe one day it will only be a little fucked up. Regardless of whether or not you are living in a fucked up or healthy body, you need to take care of yourself.

Remember that Ninjas are shrinkable when wet and an after brisk walk glow looks good on every body!