Grateful

A post that Sarah made last week really got me thinking. I find myself at different times -- and on a pretty regular basis -- being struck by how grateful I feel to have gotten my weight under control. It kind of blows me away.

I ran the Susan G. Komen Race for The Cure yesterday, here in Central Park. This is my third time to participate, and my second time to actually RUN the race. I posted about this last year, but when I was at my highest weight, I actually physically was unable to run for more than about 15 minutes because I had something called "compartmental syndrome" (click on the link to last year's post if you're curious).

This year, I'm nearly 80 pounds down, and am about 20 pounds lighter than I was when I ran last year. I've been working out consistently through the whole year, and running 5K was a breeze. After I hit mile 3, I upped my speed for a strong finish and was thinking about how far I've come during the past two years, how much improved my health and appearance are, and how just plain good I feel all of the time. It was all I could do to stop myself from crying tears of joy.

Me, just after I crossed the finish line!

This was my FB Profile Pic yesterday. If you told me three years ago that this would be me, I doubt I would have believed you!

Different things happen all of the time to bring that feeling of gratefulness to the forefront of my mind. Before the race, I had that feeling in my spin class during that same week. The instructor yelled out some move for "advanced cyclists," and I was like "Wow. That means me." I've gone from being someone who probably would have been too embarrassed to go to that super cool spin studio all by myself, and now I'm one of the fit girls in there in my obnoxiously cute Lululemon outfit! If I wasn't actually living this, it would be so hard for me to believe that this kind of transformation would have been possible. So, I'm grateful. Seriously, seriously overwhelmingly grateful.