I am absolutely ashamed to admit this… You all know that in the last few years I have been trying new workouts and doing what I can to attempt at getting healthy and to actually have a healthy lifestyle, but I haven’t been doing a good job at it. I haven’t done a good job at all actually.

In March I turned 28 years old. I also got married. And I also realized that my weight was at an all time high. It may not seem like much to some of you, but I topped out at 165 pounds and my size 8 pants were getting too tight. Something had to change. To top it all off, I started having chest pains… I wasn’t sure if it was from lack of exercise and just being completely unhealthy, or if it was from stress, but I had finally had enough, and on April 1st I took my first step on my journey to being healthy… I bought a FitBit.

Some of you may be able to get healthy without the assistance of a device, and I probably could too, but I realized what was missing on my journey was a community that was also determined and that had the same goal of getting healthy that I did, so with a little research, I quickly decided that a FitBit Charge HR was right for me. It could help me track the amount of steps I was taking in a day, see what was going on with my heartrate, and even track my sleep patterns, as well as help me get that sense of community that I so desired.

I won’t lie and pretend that my healthy lifestyle began overnight. As a matter of fact, I didn’t meet my healthy goal of 10,000 steps in a day even after a week of having my FitBit. I quickly realized that I was lazy. I didn’t have any friends that actually had a FitBit (rather, the ones that did were not active) so I finally logged on to their website and started becoming members of groups. I obviously needed someone to compete with and to hold me accountable, because I was going to keep allowing myself excuses. The best thing happened… I finally found a group that was on Facebook called the FitBit Challenge Group. There are roughly 11,000 members of that group now, and many of us work hard to keep each other challenged. I am thankful to them, and I really owe my biggest steps in getting healthy to them.

I’ve added a lot of friends on FitBit through my Facebook group that are from all over the world, and we keep each other motivated, and hold each other accountable with FitBit challenges like the Daily Showdown, WorkWeek Hustle, and Weekend Warrior. Thanks to them, my resting heart rate has gone down from the 90s to 77 bpm as of today, and I’ve lost approximately 16 pounds! I’m still well on my way to getting healthy, and I’ve hit a few obstacles along the way (sinus infection AND an upper respiratory infection) but I am excited, and my new friends are cheering me on each step of the way!

My favorite announcement today is that I have signed up for my first ever 5k since starting this journey towards getting healthy! I am so excited for that day to come, and I’ll even be running with some of my new friends!

Oh, and if you have a FitBit, please click this link and add me as a friend, I promise to help keep you motivated on your journey towards getting healthy too!

Until next time, I’ll be over here making fat cry… Talk to you soon!