Reaching for inspiration (pic in profile)

I've been doing fitness pal off and on for awhile but never realized there were such great message boards. The other day I began looking at the success stories here and it has totally re-motivated me. You all are inspirining! I'm to my first goal weight of 125 but I'm 5'1".

I get asked all the time how I lost my weight so here is what I say...lengthy I suppose but it's so hard to sum it up by saying..."I watch what I eat and I exercise"...that never cut it for me to be inspired so why would it cut it for others to be inspired so here goes my story:

The scale was forever telling me that my efforts of working out and eating right were not paying off so instead of measuring my outcome by the scale; When I decided to get real about my weight loss...I just set a big goal for myself instead (something I could reach within 90 days And the other thing I did was decide that I would not make any changes I couldn't see myself doing in the next 10 years.) So, I did not make any changes to my diet at that time...however, when i worked out for some reason my body didn't want all the junk anyway...perhaps it was a mental thing that I didnt' want all my hard work to go to waste.

In April 2010 I set my big goal to climb this particular mountain in Colorado that I had seen on TV. It sits at the base of Pikes Peak and it's called Manitou Springs Incline. It's literally a mile of stairs made of railroad ties. The elevation starts at 6500 feet above sea level and when you finish the hike you're at 8500 feet. The incline is 46-68% the entire way. (Most treadmills only go to 15%)

In order to reach my big goal I needed to "train" so to speak. so I started doing stairs at work, walking and taking hikes along the Missouri river where there were hills.

I also decided to set "mini" goals for myself to keep myself motivated for that ultimate goal and when I saw that a friend of mine had signed up for her first 5K race...I signed up with her then another friend of mine who had never run a 5K got on board as well and we took our first trip to South Dakota to run our very first 5K race.

I was never really a runner before because I had allowed fear of my asthma stop me. Anytime I got short of breath I used to stop but I've since learned how to manage and contol my asthma so that it's not controlling me.

I also started taking country dance lessons...which was something I absolutely loved doing when I was much younger and brought so much joy to me but I thought my life was over after having kids...so having any kind of fun like that was put it on the back burner. I've since learned it's not healthy to make your kids your whole world...let them be a part of your life that makes your world whole instead...because your kids are only a part of your life for so long when they're little and when they are grown up and their own then you're on your own too.

I climbed the mountain in July last year.

When I started this craziness back in April 2010 I weighed 147...had a 35" waist. I was losing an inch a week off my waist for the first 5 weeks but only losing just over a pound a week...which seemed so minimal compared to the work I was doing (working out 8-12 hours a week) to get it off but I learned that muscle does indeed weigh more than fat.

If you think about the amount of space a pound of hamburger takes up as opposed to the amount of say cotton balls takes up it kind of puts things in perspective.

In August, when my kids and I began harvesting our vegetables from the garden I really got into them. I liked them so much I was filling up on those and craving less of the processed food like fried food, sweets and junk food. And so began my diet changes. I learned how to cook healthy dishes that I liked.

I've learned to listen to my body and if I eat something that hurts my belly or causes me to feel sluggish then I just don't eat it or I just eat very little of it the next time.

What I've learned is that you can't measure your success by the scale. Use it as a tool to trend but don't measure your success by it.