Announcing July's Health Challenge Winner: Angie B.

 July's Health Challenge Winner is Angie B.! 

July's Health Challenge was to dream for at least 10 minutes every day.  (Click here to read the full post.)

Angie and I have been best friends for 17 years. She has been there for me during all my various attempts to find a healthier me, and has joined me in some of them.  A few months ago, I told her about my health program and she honored me by allowing me to be her health coach.  Since then, she lost 30 pounds and reached her healthy BMI!

Angie is July's Health Challenge winner because she had the courage to dream big, chased those dreams, and today, she accomplished a big dream of hers: she finished her first 5k run!

Angie wanted to get healthy because she was tired of feeling like she couldn't accomplish the things she had always dreamed of doing.  She was tired of only wishing she could run a marathon or hike up Machu Pichu.  Instead, she decided to change her life because this life wasn't going to last forever and if she want those dreams to happen, she was going to have to make them happen!

To her, "healthy" means feeling good inside and out, being able to set athletic goals and achieve them and finding a healthy balance in her food choices with her chaotic schedule.

Watching everyone else around her be so unhealthy was probably the hardest part for her about creating health herself.   She says she just wants to grab their arms and pull them in and say "Come on, let's do this together!"  As hard as that is, she understands that sometimes people aren't ready and she needs to learn how to encourage them without nagging, and be an example without bragging.

Some people think that people who are/were successful at getting healthy, were successful because it was so easy for them.  However, Angie says that there was nothing easy in the beginning.  The food and the water were a struggle. It does get easier though, and now everything is easy.  It's natural to her to drink water all day, plan a lean and healthy meal for my family for dinner and exercise in the morning. She says "I could do this forever!"

Angie admits that she has had her fair share of slip-ups on her journey.  When she has those tough days, she tries to focus on her end goals, not the instant gratification of an ice cream cone or a salty margarita... And she says if (when) she slips-up, she doesn't beat herself up too much. She knows she has come really far and she knows she can do it.

Since getting healthy, Angie says EVERYTHING has changed.  Of course, what she eats is different and she drinks a lot more water, but through her journey, she also took steps to address her mental health, which she avoided for years.  She was very depressed, "lost" even.  She worked with a counseler and overcame a lot of obstacles.  She also started exercising more. Not just your typical elliptical at the gym, but took on things she's always wanted to do like rock climbing, yoga, mountain biking and hiking. She also has committed to setting goals for herself and surrounding herself with encouraging friends and family that can help see her through, which has helped a lot too.

Angie has noticed a lot of changes in her life since choosing health.  She is happy, confident and she believes in herself.  She doesn't know if she could have said that a few years ago. Of course, there are all the other benefits of getting compliments from everyone she knows about how great she looks, buying clothes in sizes she haven't seen since high school and making her family proud.

Here is Angie's progress photo:
 

{CLICK HERE TO VIEW OTHER INSPIRING STORIES FROM HEALTH CHALLENGE WINNERS!}

If you want to create health in your life like Angie has, please email me at HealthyandFitLife@gmail.com.