One day after hauling myself off the couch and plodding upstairs to the bathroom, I took a hard look at my physical condition. I was puffing after one flight of stairs. My energy level for doing anything physical was plummeting. I felt depressed most of the time. I didn't like to look in the mirror or at my reflection in a plate glass store window. Photos from a writers' conference were posted on FaceBook and I felt disgusted at my appearance.

I am 52 years old and a mother to three daughters, one in her teens and the other two young adults. Here are some ugly statistics for you: my weight at its highest (on February 16, 2011) was 288 pounds and my height is 5 feet 7 inches. At one time, after the birth of our oldest daughter, I was 125 pounds lighter.

Thank God for my twenty year old daughter Paulina. She wanted to join a fitness center and nagged my husband and me until we agreed to sign up as a family. Thus began my journey back to a more fit me, one I have not seen for several years. I hope by being brutally honest in these postings I may encourage other women in their 40s and 50s to take steps away from being couch potatoes and toward a healthier lifestyle.

You can find my non-fitness related writing at:
http://www.faithwriters.com/member-profile.php?id=1893  (my Christian fiction and poetry)

http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/7454/sandra_petersen.html (a variety of non-fiction articles and slideshows)

http://www.triond.com/users/Sandra+L.+Petersen (many photos, also some non-fiction)

http://www.helium.com/users/8302 (non-fiction articles)

This was me Easter 2010. Not quite at my all-time high weight of 288, but very close. Since then I have thinned down in the face and haven't been wearing the glasses. I haven't worn the dress in about a year. (Then again, I haven't been able to fit into it for a while either.)

Honored to have received the Powerful Woman Writing Award from Deirdra at A Storybook World.