More from the Biggest Losers

This past weekend was filled with a lot of fun, family and motivation. We had lots of family come into town for a couple different professional events. We had the Shell Houston Open and the Ironman 70.3 in Galveston. The "Men" (Coby, Clint, Cyle and Dad) went to Redstone golf course and took in our first official PGA Tour event. The last big tournament before the Masters in two weeks. We saw a lot of good golf and followed a pairing of Ricky Fowler, Steve Stricker and Lee Westwood. Fowler hit a drive on hole 5 that landed within 10 feet of us and Clint and I stayed to watch him hit it while Dad and Cyle went up a little further. We were right behind him and the cameraman had to squeeze in and accidentally hit Clint in the forehead with his boom mic...too funny. As one of the joys of being a Shell employee we got discounted tickets, parking pass and access to the Shell Employee Skybox on the 18th fairway...great experience to continue for many years to come.

Sunday we went down to Galveston to cheer on our Sister-in-law Audra and her friend/coach Sonja while they competed in the Ironman 70.3 competition. 70.3 = 1.2mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run all in the same day and all one right after the other with little time in between events to catch your breath or much else. Audra got 3rd place in her age group and Sonja got 3rd in hers. Audra beat Sonja's time by a 58 seconds.

It was definitely a motivating event with so many people competing of all shapes and sizes. There were the professionals who ran and the ametuers who were out there do their absolute best. We got to see Lance Armstrong which was kind of cool, but not as impressive as some of the other competitors. We went into the event thinking that there would be all the atheletically built and almost genetically freakish atheletes competing, but when we saw "normal" people coming out of the water after their swim it motivated Codi and I. We thought man if these guys can do it we do it...maybe not the 70.3 but a scaled down version to start.

I think this really was a great motivator...we have been going for almost eight weeks strong at the Biggest Loser Challenge and I was feeling like I was hitting a wall/plateau and starting to get a little discouraged. But very proud of the progress we have made. So far to date Codi and I have lost a total of 33 pounds and are still going strong. We did get hit with a bout of bronchitis so this has slowed our running but we still keep up the walking. We aren't going to let a little breathing problem slow us down.

One of the other great things about having a family member and friend participate in the Ironman 70.3 was coming back and stay with us and talking to us about what we need to do to improve on our progress and give us further encouragement. Audra has given me some new exercises to do and changed up my running routine to help me. She wants me to lose another 20 pounds before we get into a bit more serious run training...which means 5Ks and beyond. Codi is going to compete in her first 5K in a couple weeks in Brenham and Aedan is going to go with her and do a 1 mile run.

I have to say I am very proud of the progress we have made and continue to make in order to live a better and healthier lifestyle. You can do it, you just have to change your mindset from "I'll do it tomorrow" to "I'm going to kick this thing in the teeth and get off the couch and make a difference in my life so I can enjoy living."

Tomorrow is always so far away when all you need to do is put one foot in front of the other today.