Kim: My Life Is So Much Better Now

I’m like a lot of other women. It seems like I’ve been on a diet almost my whole life. Or else I felt guilty because I wasn’t.

I had just about given up. It seemed like what I was supposed to do changed every year.

Plus, I always felt like the food I was supposed to be eating was never really what I liked.

I knew I should exercise more but I don’t have a lot of time and health clubs are too expensive and anyway, I didn’t really feel like I fit in there.

What’s working for me now is what I call “doing it my way.”  I wish this program had existed years ago, to be honest.

I love having a coach. I never feel like she’s judging me, she’s just trying to help me find what works for me.

For example, she and one of the nutritionists helped me come up with a way of eating that has the foods I like and that my family likes. There’s not really anything I can’t eat. Mostly, I just work on being more aware of how much I eat, and how often.

She’s also given me a whole new way to think about being active. She says it’s really just about staying on the move, not sitting all the time.

I told her she would never turn me into a jogger and she just laughed and said “You don’t have to.”

Then we came up with a lot of ways that I can be more active that I actually enjoy doing.

Like, I used to have my kids walk the dog but now I do it. They always complained about doing it anyway, plus now I feel like it’s OK to take that time for myself because it’s actually good for me.

Lately I’m doing what I call “color walks” in my neighborhood. The trees are all changing colors now, so I try to get to a new street every day so I don’t miss out!

I just love feeling good about myself again. I always felt like somehow I was letting myself down. Now, I feel like I’m taking good care of myself and I see that it’s more about the pattern of the choices I make, not about whether any one thing I do is “right” or not.

It’s lightened my spirit, really.

(Stories represent typical situations based on the aggregated experiences of our providers and clients.)