About 6 weeks ago my friend and I had a moment of pure insanity.....we signed up for 12 weeks of personal training, twice a week....worse yet, in our enthusiasm, we pre-paid for the full 12 weeks. After the first session, I needed my boyfriend help to drive home (I'm not kidding....I could't raise my arms all the way to turn the steering wheel). While we soaked in the hot tub for an hour, he listened to me whine about how sore I was, and how they knew what they were doing collecting payment for the full 12 weeks up front, because no one in their right mind would ever go back for round 2 of this torture !!!

It's been 6 weeks now, and my friend and I simply adore our personal trainer, Bob. He is a young guy who I honestly think enjoys the twice a week sessions as much as we do. He is amused by our half-hearted attempts to try and talk our way out of things.....of course he never gives into us, he just pushes us harder, and we love him for it.

The scale wasn't moving as quickly as I expected, and I was beginning to doubt the value of my efforts until my friend and I went shopping one day. I had always sighed as I walked by the Michael Kors shops, but too embarassed to walk into a designer store and bear the embarassement....knowing that nothing in that store would come close to fitting, so why torture myself, and why waste the sales girls time. For some reason, this time we had the guts to walk in, but was still very hesitant to try anything on. A sales girl saw that I was staring at this jacket for quite a while so she walked up and said the cut of the jacket was really flattering and I should try it on, then she then walked away. Still not convinced, I thought for another minute or two, but realized that she didn't seem to think I was too heavy to try the jacket on, soooooo......Stunned, shocked and thrilled beyond imagination the jacket fit perfectly....and I whipped out my credit card before I woke up from the dream. I can't remember the last time I bought clothes in a "normal sized person's" clothes store.....PRICELESS.

Even though the scale may not have reflected all my hard work during the personal training sessions, my body was still undergoing changes !!!

I wore the jacket to 3 different events that weekend, and if I could have slept in it I would have :-) I also fit into a pair of my "skinny jeans" I had pushed to the rear of my closet several years ago.

Anyway, they say a picture is worth a thousand words....so here are a few pics of me and my new jacket before the "Yanni Voices" concert...check it out against my "before" pic:

Current - 4/2009 - 3 months Post-op

Before - 1/2009

We had a "meet & greet" with the young performers before the concert as part of our pledge package to the local PBS station. If you get a chance to get tickets to this concert, you should, it was an absolutely amazing evening.

Here are 2 of the incredible performers, Chole & Ender.

You look great...and NICE jacket! Congratulations on all the hard work! -BG

Thanks so much for the encouragement ! What a wild ride we are on.....good luck to you !

Wow! That is just awesome! You are an inspiration!

Wow! That is just awesome! You are an inspiration!

babertm, Thanks so much ! Hope you are doing well ! Karen