Six months!

Lots to catch up on!  I’ve been holding out on you all tho, because I wanted to wait for today as a special surprise!  As of today, I am six months without alcohol.  Let me tell you something. I don’t miss it at all. I don’t miss being tired. I don’t miss feeling dehydrated.  And even tho I had mostly stopped hard liquor, and stuck to red wine once or twice a week….it still drained me.  Quitting completely was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

I replaced it with weight lifting and running to relieve my stress. My thought patterns at the end of a work day shifted from “I could use a martini” to “I can’t wait to run!”. Six months ago today, that switch flipped for me, and I couldn’t be happier.  I’ve never felt better.

Physical therapy has been a challenge after hand surgery, but today I finally got my hand to sit flat on a table.  That’s big progress! The skin and scar tissue is getting less sensitive, finally.  I’ve been weight training with gloves on, so that’s helped protect it, and given me some extra grip.

My weight training is going well, too.  I’m consistently lifting heavier, to the point where I am changing the weights on what my personal trainer expects me to lift.  He’s impressed and proud of me. 🙂  That’s always nice to hear.

Things are coming together well!  I want to accentuate the point that you can make positive life changes no matter how long you’ve incubated a bad habit.  In my case, it took finding a new love and replacing the bad things with that.  Even tho I was going to the gym “occasionally”, I found that running was “my thing”.  In turn, as I started feeling better – physically AND mentally – I got more into the gym as well.  Now I’m lifting and/or running a minimum of 5 days a week.  It really is a great stress reliever, especially when you can have tiered goals to keep reaching for.

So let me show you something.  I found this picture of me from Chicago a few years ago.  At the time, I had thought nothing about my weight really…..til I saw it again the other day.  Holy crap, have I made changes!   This is what hard work and determination can do for you!