Health Scares Lead to a New SCARY Adventure!!

Happy Sunday loves! Well I have been sitting here stewing over this decision and I'm finally just going to take the chance and make the jump! So here's my story. Obviously I have been having some health crap going on now for the last couple months and it just reaffirmed for me how REALLY short this life is. About a month or so ago I woke up and had lost vision in my right eye! Um, SCARY, really scary! Hellllllooooo I'm a photographer, I kind of need my eyes! Long story short my blood pressure had gotten sooo high it caused a retinal hemorrhage and swelling of my arteries. The back end to this is that around the end of November my PCP thought it was time to see if I could go off the bp meds and honestly I was ALL for it. Not taking meds was like a DREAM for me and I was totally game. Well, the blood pressure is OBVIOUSLY genetic, so that is here to stay no matter how much I LOVE hate it! This all led to a bunch more testing in which I had the Carotid Artery Ultrasound that I mentioned in a previous post, yeah well those who have known me my whole life would drop over to find out that pesky little test showed tortuous arteries with PLAQUE build up in them!!!!!??? Are you freaking kidding me!?

To say I was EXTREMELY frustrated and upset was an understatement. I have always thrived to be a healthier person and make good decisions etc and to hear this was so upsetting. Then my doctor put it into perspective and said 'If you weren't doing what you are doing, we would have a VERY different situation to talk about'. This past Friday I had a follow up with her on my latest round of blood work and she was BLOWN away by my cholesterol! She said she can't get over how my numbers are even better than the recommended!!! I seriously could have CRIED because I was waiting for her to tell me that I needed meds for that too and I was going to LOSE it!  My cholesterol has always been teetering on not good, being saved by the skin of my teeth by the good portion. So this time to hear it was FABULOUS made me want to jump up and kiss hug her!!!

Where am I going with all this?....well as you all know I have been doing Fitness Challenge Groups with my sister for the last few months and have been LOVING the workouts!!! Then this health crap just CONFIRMED for me that my healthier lifestyle is working and keeping me around! She has mentioned to me before about becoming a Beach Body Coach and I just didn't know/think I could do it, but if I can help ONE person understand that working out and making healthier choices isn't JUST about being tiny, or looking great it's about being a HEALTHIER you!! I want to be around for my family and basically if I wasn't working out or eating "healthier" I would be a stroke waiting to happen! People need to see that it's not just about the scale or that they have never been "small", it's about keeping your heart healthy and being the BEST version of YOU and for me this was an eye opener! I've always been the one that people look at and say 'she doesn't need to work out', 'she's never had to worry about anything'....etc., WRONGO....No, I'm the one with high blood pressure and arteries filled with PLAQUE, if that isn't a wake up call then I don't know what is. 

So, after going back and forth about this and deciding if I'm afraid of failing at it or if I just want to put myself out there, yep, I'm going to do it! What do I have to lose? Everything is always scary at first....photography was scary but I did it and I feel grateful and lucky EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. because of it! Stay tuned because I will be starting my own Fitness Challenge Group here soon and I would love to have you along, so message me if you think you may be interested. XO