As I am heading into the new year..one thing I am not too worried about… my health.  Well at least for now.  I just got some really good news this past week and thought I would share.

Back in September, Dave and I both went to our general Dr for a Physical.  Mainly we went to get our annual blood work done to check cholesterol etc.  Dave has a history of high cholesterol in his family.  He has always been borderline.  Still is! 🙂 so I try and help him out by encouraging us both to go.  I figure if I go it’s the best way to get him to go.  Well when we got our results back I was the one that needed to show concern.  I had relatively high cholesterol.  I was shocked and dumbfounded.  I don’t have any history of it in my family and I was not overweight.  So talk about getting a little wake up call.  Here I am at 31 and having these elevated levels.  Certainly not something you want to hear.  It boiled down to what I was eating and my lack of physical activity. The physical activity is a kicker for me.  Raising 2 young children and working part time sort of lines up your priorities in a different way.  Finding 30 minutes to myself a day let alone 30 minutes to engage in any physical activity has been hard to do if at all.

So it took me about a month of knowing I needed to start eating better and exercising.  Then my mother in law came to town and she had just started weight watchers to loose a few pounds. ((she’s lost 19 so far!)) I’ve heard about weight watchers and points but that was as far as it went.  But seeing her eat pretty normal and anything she wanted I figured maybe it would help me with lowering my levels.  Well I started the on line version back in November (not telling anyone in case I failed miserably) and I am happy to say that I lost 7 lbs … well gained a few back over the past few weeks! 🙂 but the biggest thing is that I lowered my cholesterol by 67 points and more importantly I lowered my LDL the bad cholesterol by 53 points.  And now I’m in the low range of normal.  A BIG sigh of relief.  I’m not one to diet.  Actually I’ve only ever tried 2.  I did body for life a year ago.  It went well for like 7 weeks but to be honest… for me it was a little extreme as far as the eating went.  It’s not something that for me was very realistic as a long term way of life.  We have some friends who love it and it works great for them but for me, you get one cheat day a week and I would get so tired of all the peanut butter etc.   And when I came off of it, everything came right back on.  WW really seemed to work for me.  Obviously.. the proof is in the numbers.  I think it’s an amazing program that not only helps people loose weight if you need to but if you are a task oriented person like myself then knowing how many points each food has really helps you make wise decisions and better decisions on what you actually consume.. even if you main is not to loose weight.  No wonder I had high cholesterol.  The point values on some of my food I used to eat on a daily basis… Anyway all that to say that I am very pleased that my levels are lower and I can rest better at night.  I was shocked at how much they dropped in just 8 weeks time. 

So that is the news here.  I needed to share that before we head to Charleston tomorrow and we eat at this amazing restaurant and spend Tuesday eating every chip, dip, and sweet thing you can imagine while watching the bowl games. 

So happy New Year to you… Mine will be a little more happy with more peace of mind!  I’m really proud of myself.  And I don’t tell myself that often enough!