Time to start all over but this time I MEAN it! We bought a YMCA membership and I started last week. Worked out 5 days last week and so far this week 1 (but it's only Monday). I am feeling very positive about this. I am not sure I am ready to calorie count yet but making healthy choices and trying a lot of new things. One of my goals is less meat and more veggies. I have all kinds of recipes for new things and I am working on my menu planning and grocery list making skills. Food always has been and always will be hard for me. The exercise on the other hand, now that I am actually loving! Loving getting that time to myself. The girls love the Y kidzone and that makes it easier on me too. I love sweating off the calories and most of all, I love how I feel all day after a good work out. I have very noticeably had more energy on the days I have gone to work out instead of being tired all day long. My favorite thing is the stationary bike. It burns calories really fast and it is kind of a goal of mine to be able to go on the Bike Across Kansas with my dad so I feel like this is good early practice. Usually I do 30 minutes on the bike and go about 5-6 miles. Right in the middle my legs start killing me and then I push through and get it done. Today I decided to do 40 minutes instead. I made it 8 miles and burnt 278 calories and I must be getting conditioned because I didn't start hurting half way through like I usually do. After that I went up and briskly walked the track 5 times. I confess I picked out the slower people on there and made it my goal to pass them and lap them as much as possible. Not that that was anything to be very proud of since the ones who were slower than me were senior citizens and people more out of shape than I was. Still, it made me feel good to not be the slowest person on the track. It is amazing to me how much I am enjoying this! I look forward to going every single day! So far a 3 lb weight loss after a week. My goal is 2 lbs a week for the next 6 months. That would be 8 lbs a month and a total of 48 lbs. I can stand to lose a lot more than that but that is my first huge goal. I can do it!