Welcome to the Zumba Fitness with Renee Holiday Challenge!

Welcome everyone! 


I can't even begin to tell you just how excited I am that SO many of you were interested in this type of a program!  I will do my best to update this blog daily over the next several weeks until we all reach our goal of staying healthy this holiday season!!!  So please check back often and there just might be some sort of a prize based on your input!  The more we support each other, the more we will succeed!!!  


Let me start my giving you a little background on me and my weight gain/loss in the past.  Honestly, at this point, I have ceased to care about telling people what I weigh.  After having a child, that just doesn't seem so sensitive (to me, at least) anymore.  I hope that by using numbers, people will get a better grasp of where I am and where I've been.  Just using words like, weight loss and weight gain, are not as efficient to me.


Ok, in high school, I was a skinny mini.  5'8 and in the 120/130's.  No boobs either!  Lol, I asked my mom all the time, when can I have boobs like yours!  Now I'm wishing they'd take a hike!!! =)  Then college struck and that freshman fifteen piled right on.  Maybe it was a freshman thirty would be more like it.  I think I topped out at about 160 and I swore I'd never let myself see that number again.  My second year of college I decided to lose a bunch of weight and try out for the Buffalo Bombshells, which was a professional dance team for the AFL.  I dropped all the way down to 130 and made the team.  Don't ask me how I lost the weight either because at age 22, I think I just wiggled my nose or clicked my heels and it magically fell off.  For three years, I danced professionally and slowly I gained ten pounds, putting me at 140.   Oh, I forgot to mention that somewhere along the road, I got boobs!  =)  Also in the meantime, I started dating Erik (my wonderful husband).  Quick side note on Erik...he can eat a whole pizza and lose a pound.  I'm sure many of you can relate to that kind of a hubby! Grrrrr...  Ok, back to me! =)  I ended up gaining weight, just being comfortable in my relationship and ended up at 155.  Well the next thing I know, I ordered my wedding dress online after being fitted in a local shop and it ended up not fitting!!!  I desperately hit the gym daily until I knocked off ten pounds, getting married in 2004 and 145lbs.  Oh, this is where the struggle really began.  We moved away from Buffalo (everything I've ever known) one month after getting married, I think I was up to 165 in no time.  Then I got sick of feeling yucky about myself and bounced back down to about 155, then we moved here!  Well, when Honeywell pays for your meals as part of your relocation package for 30 days, let me tell you...you eat only the BEST!!!  I, within a month mind you, was over 170, 172 to be exact.  Then I got pregnant.  You all know where this is going!!!   Honestly, thanks to my gyn, I only gained 35lbs.  Either way, that put me at a blistering 207.  Pregnant or not, I never thought I'd see 200 or above on the scale.  Once Owen (my darling two year old...lol), I literally lost 7lbs...I mean, he was 6lb 14oz.  Was that a joke?  Wasn't there like an extra 25lbs of other stuff that was suppose to disappear immediately after he was born?  So I tried the nursing technique that so many others rave about.  I struggled through nursing for three months and didn't lose but ten pounds.  


My breaking point was a picture...which I will have to find and post for you all...and I just looked at that picture and couldn't believe that that was me.  I was stuck at 187.  So I decided to join a gym...a little side note on gyms...I have NEVER stuck with a gym EVER.  I usually sign the year + contract, go for like two months, lose three pounds, get all excited and then stop.  Can anyone relate to that?  Or is it just me?  I started going to the gym religiously...first three, then four, then five days a week.  I slowly got down into the 170's then I found Zumba!!!!!  I started taking Zumba in May of 2009.  Long story short, haha, too late...I managed to get all the way down to 160...that sneaky little number from college that I never wanted to see again...remember???  =)  This time I couldn't have been happier to see that number.  These days I fluctuate between 157 and 164...I'm being honest in saying I'm not 100% ok with those numbers.  In my dream world, I'd be 150 and never fluctuate.  =)


Well, I'm hoping my first blog didn't bore you to death and I do hope that using all those numbers helped you see what I've been through and please tell me that you all can relate somehow to this!  


Thank you to all of YOU for making this happen and for sharing my goal of getting healthy and doing something good for OURSELVES!!!!  


~Renee...the master of exercise in disguise =)