Aged Heifer Cleans Up At the Fair

The Corporate Fitness Challenge ended in the middle of Dec, 2014 with a bang, some delicious bean dip and a to die for chocolate beet cake (don't scoff... it was yum!).  That was the day that all our hard work was measured and weighed.  As you may recall from the Pointenstein post in November my driving force for working out and clean eating was to not to finish first, it was not to finish last.... did I meet my goal?

In grand total I lost 10 inches and 12 pounds within the 6 weeks.  I am sure the weight loss was from all that mental math I was doing-  crunching numbers while others worked their abs.  All that clean eating, drinking water and increasing my physical activity also resulted in my receiving the highest points ribbon.

Oops.... Overshot that one a little bit!

When I saw the rosette, I had mental flash to the award shelf in my parents home.  A shelf brimming with similar styled rosettes, trophies  and the pictures of my parents with their prize winning 4-H/FFA steers, heifers and cows.  As the rosette was pinned on, I could not help but think-  I need a halter to really show this thing off.  One rosette would have sufficed, but my team won the challenge, so add other rosette and a tiara and I went from feeling like a winner to feeling like the Grand Champion at the fair.

So much for aiming for the middle of the pack.  I obviously need a remedial class in mental math!  Either that or I can just beat it out of my head.

The Corporate Challenge went from being something that I wanted to avoid like plague to being one of the best decisions that I have made in the recent past.  Not only did it re-kick my dedication to improving my health, it showed me that putting in the effort yields results.  The other benefit, that far out-weighs the obvious health improvements, is it has created this great support network at work.  We all made gains, we all survived the Challenge and we continue to motivate each other to be the best version of ourselves.  It has also resulted in the very cheap woman buying a gym membership.

Insert trumpet fan-fare here!  Seriously this is epic- kinda like the parting of the Red Sea. If it was a Jeopardy clue the answer would be "What is a thing you thought would never happen?"

The last time I sprang for gym membership was in university and it was never used.  I refuse to repeat that pattern!  I have already been twice this week.  Bonus- I actually know some of the members and was able to reconnect with colleague from my past.... shout out to Darla!  Looking forward to building more muscles, stamina and stretching my mental perseverance.  

Cheers to an active year and Congratulations Ladies of the Challenge.... We Are Superstars!