Well, life has moved along since my last post. We've reached another financial milestone and have paid off our car. Yay!!! We are now credit card and car loan free. There's still quite a bit of journey left for us on the road to becoming debt-free, but we're making progress and that's what is most important. Freeing ourselves of the car payment has provided some much appreciated breathing room in our budget. Extra debt payments have been placed on the back burner as we take a little time to work on our overall family health. I admit, I'm more than a little soft around the middle, and over the past few years, the time I've spent hiking has been replaced with cuddling on the couch, video games and Netflix. So having made some significant progress in our financial lives, I've decided that we need to start making some improvements in our physical lives as well. Shortly after paying off our car, I signed our family up at one of our local gyms. The cost wasn't terrible, and the facilities do offer a little something fun for each of us (my daughter LOVES the pool, and our son is excited to try the climbing wall soon). Despite it taking away from our debt repayment, I'm hoping that this will provide us with some much needed exercise and entertainment of the non-couch variety.
Step two on my recent healthy living goals, was to enroll myself in a weight management program through my insurance company. PEIA has a great program that encourages weight loss by providing a discount on your gym membership, a personal trainer who meets with you about twice a month to teach you the best workouts and keep you on track, a dietician to discuss healthier food choices and accountability. It also gives you ONE chance at the program. One chance to motivate yourself and get moving toward a healthier you. You skip appointments or slack on your goals, then you're out. No more discounted gym, no more trainer covered by your insurance, and no more chances to try again. Needless to say, it gives you something to think about before signing up since you risk losing some mighty big perks by not sticking with the program. The program lasts for two years. So I've made a huge commitment, but that being said, I have a lot I want to lose (150 lbs) and some really important people in my life that I want to be healthier for (my daughter especially). I've had my first training session already, made the commitment to go to the gym on my own at least twice a week (and I've done it, even though I've really not felt like it some days). I know I've not really lost anything yet, but I'm already feeling better (less winded when taking the stairs, a little more energy)... and I'm actually enjoying the exercise too. I wish I had done this before my daughter came along, since she's been a little bit of an obstacle to my getting to the gym... mostly, she just wants to spend a LOT of time with mommy and gym time isn't time she gets to share with me as much... but I'm doing this for her too. A healthier me is a healthier example for her in her own life... and a more active mommy is much better equipped to chase a toddler through the park without collapsing.
So here's to paying off the car, getting motivated to get into better shape and to getting my family moving more. Pool time, here we come.
