This first week was tough!  I decided to kick-up my fitness challenge by going to see a personal trainer.  I guess I hadn't been working out hard enough at Curves because after only an hour of using some free weights, work on the mat, and taking on the Versa Climber, my legs were trembling all the way to the car!  It was only two hours later when I felt my body stiffen with pain in all the muscle groups that were worked. 

Today is the fifth day since that work-out and I am still leaning on the bathroom counter and the adjacent wall to use the facilities, ha ha!  While the pain could scare me away, it really hasn't!  It's just that I am not sure that we can afford to have a personal trainer at this time, but I did learn so many new moves that I can integrate at home and also share with John. 

John also took initiative with planning a fun fitness date on Saturday.  He took me dancing at a local establishment with cowgirl motif.  We had a blast and came home so hungry!  I've subsequently been drinking so much more water. 

I also spent my Friday night hitting the grocery store so that I could replenish the healthful food we had already eaten.  I found some new South Beach products for John to make his lunches easier to plan.

Well, I think it is time for some early morning push-ups.  Hey, a girl loves her collar bones!

John and I were married four months ago and reside in Seattle, Washington.  We have entered MSN's Million Pound Match-up as part of "The Biggest Loser:  Couples" season.  This contest became a great vehicle for making both individual and mutual commitment to living healthier so that we can enjoy many more years of marriage. 

It is important that we become healthier role models for each other because neither of us wants to face obesity like I did.  Three years ago I weighed 315 pounds until I had gastric bypass surgery. 

It became challenging to support the post-surgery regimen of diet and exercise as I formed a relationship with John, a normal male who could eat or drink anything put in front of him.

Soon after meeting John, I faced extreme discomfort as an incisional hernia formed.  On the eve of John asking me to marry, we decided to move forward with the hernia repair and resolve the hanging skin issue by adding a full tummy tuck.  This procedure proved difficult to heal from, but John stood by me day and night to coach me through the pain.

Now that I am healed, it is time to finish what I started and to provide support to John to resolve his weight.  He took such great care of me that his own attention to weight, nutrition, and exercise took a nose dive.  We've combined our plans to succeed at weight loss by creative motivation, exercise regimen (individual and cooperatively), and supporting two separate nutritional needs.  We will succeed and win this challenge because we have the heart, determination, and love that can endure.  We are in it to not only win it, but also to win back extra years of life to spend with each other.

My first adult decision at age 14 was to surround myself with a circle of support.  I was motivated by personal stories that I read in a well-known weight loss magazine. 

I remember making a plea to my parents to finance my membership to weekly meetings of a group by the same name.  I won them over by bravely revealing self-awareness of my overeating and emotional eating behaviors. 

Both parents remained skeptical of my ability to stick to the program and attend each week's meeting.  I turned their skepticism into fuel for my motivation to succeed.  Tuesday after Tuesday I waited in line, weighed myself on a scale in front of hopeful housewives, and donned colorful ribbons or stickers to show my weight loss success. 

Faces in the group changed from week to week as new members fell off the diet wagon and old members retired to maintain their weight without the group's help.  This ever-changing circle of support began to feel more like an orientation for newcomers than it did a progressive, supportive network.  I had expectations that this circle of support was should be showing me how to move from "start" to "finish" with weight loss success.  Contrary to my expectations, I did not find the results I was seeking. 

Instead, I found I was constantly starting over by being asked to buy the latest version of the diet manual, menus, calculators, and more.  Just when I became comfortable with one process I had to learn a new way to measure, count, and journal.  My parents and I continued to buy-in to the program as it became "new and improved."  I, on the other hand, was not becoming any more new or improved.

I found a plateau in my weight and could not make it budge.  I walked more, drank water more, and ate less.  I became discouraged, frustrated, and self-defeating.  I approached the so-called circle of support with simple questions related to my newfound dilemma.  The group was both not able to offer advice since they had not made the weight loss journey as far as I had.  My circle of support was now a box that trapped me.

More than 14 years later I sometimes grow nostalgic for that weekly meeting where we sat in metal folding chairs that screeched with every move.  I have to remind myself, though, that if my weight loss success could be attributed to attending weekly meetings for support, then I would still be in one now. 

Today's circle of support is not a weekly meeting, but a balance of  nutrition, exercise, and emotional support from my best buddy:  my husband. I can tell him my innermost fears and ask for counsel when I feel I may err in judgement.  I can count on him to encourage me to move as far from "start" and as close to "finish" as possible. 

Sometimes a circle of support isn't a circle at all.  Sometimes it is that one best friend you can count on to cheer you when you've lost direction and forget to celebrate what you've accomplished.