Today is the day! Are you ready for the big news? We have an official winner of the Second "How Do you Celebrate Success" Contest. Before I tell you who she is, let me share her story with you... I found out I was different in kindergarten when a boy asked if I was pregnant. That was the first time I was made aware of my weight at school, but not the last. In 7th [...]
So let’s define running. I am a runner. For me that means when I am running, I am moving far faster than I normally do when I am walking. On average I walk a 15 minute mile. When I “run” I can usually get somewhere between a 12-13 minute mile. I run slow, I won’t ever qualify for the Boston Half Marathon and I will probably never try, because running to me isn't about being [...]
Guest BlogBy Dawn Brell As I am recovering from my big weekend I wanted to write this blog now so that I can put down all of the things I am thinking before I forget anything. First I want to say a million big thanks you to all of our wonderful, amazing and generous sponsors. The fine folks at Pace Setter Athletic, Celebrate Vitamins, Kay's Naturals, and Ameriwell Bariatrics did one of the most amazing and [...]
Junk Food Junkies. It sounds comical but I am not kidding, and I am a recovering Junk Food Junkie myself. First let’s start with the obvious. If something was labeled Deadly Doughnuts, Poisonous Potato Chips, or Toxic Taquitos would you eat it? If I was taking the label seriously I wouldn't. And while these labels are fictitious, what we don’t recognize is that if it starts with something bad like “Junk” the truth is we [...]
Running a half marathon wasn't something I ever thought I would do. If you had told me five years ago that someday I would be running my fifth half marathon while studying to become a personal trainer and working at a lady only fitness establishment, I would have asked you what you were smoking. But just three short weeks ago I was crossing the finish line at the Tinker Bell Half Marathon. The entire experience [...]
It’s been a while since you have heard from this WLS fitness enthusiast, I know. Let’s talk a little bit about what has been on my agenda and what I’ve put my body through in the last 4 weeks. As you may recall, I left Portland OR on January 12th with three main goals ahead of me. Get to Anaheim, CA and run a half marathon. Get to Dallas to have some touch up work [...]
It’s 5am on Saturday and I wish I could say that I had a relaxing day ahead of me or that I wasn't the type of person that gets stressed out about packing. Both would be falsities. I'm the type of person that normally stresses out packing for a week-long or two-week vacation, let alone a convention, and this time, I am packing for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon Weekend and my move to North [...]
About two years ago around this time, I had decided that I wanted to become a personal trainer. I knew I wasn't anywhere near ready yet, I had a lot to do in my own journey still, but my goal was to get my ISSA Certification and be ready as soon as my body was. As I started 2012 I had a goal of having several bouts of reconstructive plastic surgery after having lost 260 [...]
Alright my weight loss oriented friends. New Year’s Eve is upon us and everyone is getting ready to start making those New Year’s resolutions right? It occurred to me after reading an article I shared on Facebook yesterday entitled “Make a new kind of New Year’s Resolution,” that when we make these resolutions what we are really doing is trying to resolve problems in our life. A man named Eldrdige Cleaver once said “You are [...]
It’s was the Sunday before Christmas and I was on my first cup of coffee. I’d taken 1265 steps walking the dog, or so said the health tracker on the Samsung Galaxy S4 that I upgraded to as an early Christmas present this year. For Dawn and I Sunday marked the day that we were exactly 4 weeks away from the Tinker Bell Half Marathon. Saturday was supposed to be a 12 mile training run [...]
