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Introduction Text I was always the fat kid -- or at least that's what I was told. I look back at pictures of myself all the way through my freshman year of college, and I wonder why people harped so much on my weight. No, I wasn't stick thin, but I wasn't fat. I was told I was fat, though, and I believed it, and I lived to it. Now, at 41, I'm way past fat. I'm roughly 125 pounds overweight. Just standing up or rolling over in bed or walking to the bathroom leaves me out of breath. I have trouble reaching my feet to put my shoes on. I never exercise, live on crap food, and look for the easy way to do everything. Time to change! I'm really tired of this. I want to be in shape -- I want to do activities like skiing and horseback riding that I really love. So here I am on SparkPeople. Update 10/27/09: Yesterday I met with a friend who is a personal trainer, and she asked what had changed that made me want to do this. I had a couple of random reasons, but nothing specific. Turns out it was God putting me in the right midset to face the biggest challenge of my life: Today I found out I'm borderline diabetic. My blood glucose was 121 and my A1C was 7.1%. Because I was in this mindset, I took the diagnosis in stride, because I *know* I can make the lifestyle changes to beat it. Had I not been in this mindset, though, the diagnosis would have been devastating to me. Although she wasn't ready to put me on drugs, the doctor was going to refer me to a specialist and have me check my blood sugar throughout the day. I asked her for three months to do this on my own, telling her that if I couldn't do it myself, I would, at the end of that time, go into her program willingly. She agreed. So here I go! Baseline measurements: * Glucose 121 (high) * A1C 7.1%(high) * Calcium 8.2 (low) * Vitamin D 14 (low) * Cholesterol 183 (good) * Triglycerides 122 (good) * HDL 53 (good) * LDL 106 (good)

I want to be more active! I'm an athlete trapped in a fat body, and I want to be able to do all the things I enjoy -- ski, ride horses, whatever! My ultimate goal is a body fat percentage between 20 and 22 percent.

* 4-5 small "clean" meals per day as outlined in "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" by Tom Venuto * 30 minutes cardio workout 5 days per week * 30 minute "other" workout (weights, yoga, Crossfit) 5-6 days per week * Walk on treadmill while watching TV

I'm from beautiful western Washington. I live on a small farm in the Cascade foothills with my dear husband, three dogs, and three horses. I'm an instructional designer, a writer, and, on occasion, a clicker trainer of dogs and horses.

My personal Web site: http://www.reinventing-melissa.com

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