Healthy Living 55 Plus

Healthy Living comes naturally now. Eating the right food and exercising daily are what makes me happy! I have recently lost 40 plus pounds over 2 years and continue to maintain that weight loss each day. My big moment came when there was a blood drive at work, and before you are able to give blood you need to go through a few stations where they ask you the usual questions: when was the last time you gave blood, do you take any regular medications, etc... Then the next station was where they take your blood pressure and that was my moment. I was very stressed at work and actually decided to donate blood so that I had an hour out of my work day to relax. The nurse took my blood pressure and then walked away and talked to another nurse and at that point I knew either I broke the blood pressure machine or my blood pressure was out of the limits to give blood. Both nurses came back to me and asked me if I was feeling okay, if I was stressed, and I asked why. They said that my blood pressure was very high and that it was not a good idea to give blood that day. At that time I was a little overweight and even to this day after losing 40 plus pounds my BMI (Body Mass Index) indicates that I am just under the obese category. The way I took off the weight was to stop eating bread, high-sugar products, peanut M&M's, and my favorite pretzels. Then I increased my exercising from 2-3 days a week to 5-6 days a week. My exercise routine was at first to walk / run on the treadmill for 20 mins and after awhile build up to running 40 mins and sometimes for one hour. Running and eating healthy has improved my health.

In my next post I will discuss motivation to continue my weight loss journey.