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Growing up in Switzerland it was very easy for me to stay in shape. Instead of driving everywhere in a car, people there use public transportation regularely to get around. For me this meant: Walking 7 minutes from my house to the trainstation every morning Monday-Friday. Walking 10 minutes from the other trainstation to my workplace. Walking 5-10 minutes from my work place to have lunch and 5-10 minutes after lunch to get back to work. Walking 10 minutes from work to the trainstation and then again 7 minutes from the trainstation in my hometown back to my house. That meant that on any week day I would automatically walk at least 44 minutes. And most of the time more than that since I liked to go out again at night to meet up with friends and such, which usually required walking to get around.

However, in the fall of 2005 I moved to Utah to be with my husband whom I had met several years earlier while going to High School here as an exchange student.

If you've ever been to Utah (or probably any other state close by) you know that in most situations the only way to get to places in a timely manner is by driving a car.

About 6 months after moving here I noticed that I had gained some weight. I didn't understand why as I hadn't exercised any less than before (I went jogging once or twice a week). After thinking about it long and hard, I came to realise that I don't walk the 45 minutes per day anymore that I used to walk automatically when living in Switzerland. I'm sure that has something to do with it. And of course I no longer eat my moms well balanced home cooked food either. I cook dinner almost every night, but since I am often very tired and want to speed up the cooking process,I skip the vegetable/salad portion of the meal quite frequently. Just because I'm too lazy to prepare it.

So that's that. I am not in as great a shape anymore than I used to be, because my lifestyle changed and it now requires extra time and work for me to get in shape.

I always find an excuse not to exercise/work out: I'm too tired. It's too cold outside. It's already dark outside. Can't afford a gym mempership. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But that's all over with. I have noticed that my real problem is motivation. Watching other people succeed in school or at their jobs has always motivated me to do the same. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that this shouldn't be true for working out/exercising as well.

In June of 2007 I started counting calories.

After doing some research on the internet I found out approximately how many calories I burn on an average day and approximately how many extra calories I burn when doing different types of exercises/work outs.

Since then I've actually been calculating and writing down all the calories I eat, always trying to eat less calories, or at least not more calories than I burn that day. This has most definitely resulted in some weight loss. When visiting my friends and family in September who I had not seen in several months, I received numerous compliments on how great I looked and that I was in a lot better shape than I was the last time they saw me. Up until that point I hadn't realised that changing my eating habits and exercising/working out more regularely made such a big difference.

When Thanksgiving and Christmas came around, I gave in to all the delicious foods and used the cold weather for an excuse not to go outdoors.

I was a lot happier in general last summer when I was living a healthier life and I most definitely want to get back to feeling good about myself all the time.

Million Dollar Body is helping me get the motivation I need to stay on track to reach my my exercise / work-out goals.

Here's to being healthy!