Health and Image: the California Girl

The image above is the picture that most people would look at and say, "Now, THAT looks like a California girl to me."

Most of us ladies would love to look remotely as beautiful as the girl in the pic. Young, blond, tan, shapely, lovely. Yep! The California girl alright.




Here's another pic of California girls in action. Athletic,young, tan, healthy, spirited, sport-minded. That's another ideal California girl image.








The pic above is NOT the typical California girl image. Obviously taken many years ago, yet these are California girls from Alhambra in Southern California.





And these girls above are definitely not what you would consider the California image, even several years ago, yet they are also California girls too. These girls aren't blond, but they ARE tan, healthy...maybe just a tad bit plump for our modern day standards; nevertheless, shapely.





This picture above is probably the more common California girl, whether you want to believe it or not. Overweight, out of shape, not tanned, and probably not blond either.






Here's a California girl who used to look a lot like the girls you see in the picture below...(go ahead, take a look now). The pic above is ME, by the way.





I used to be tan, blond, athletic, healthy, shapely, a killer beach bod and you would see me at beach constantly body surfing. So, what happened? Well, I moved from California, got married, had kids, worked and life got "busy". Before I knew it, I was a plump, middle-aged, out of shape person, very un-California looking...at least if you are to believe the TV image of all the beautiful people in California.

So, NOW what?

My only choice is to get into shape, get healthy, lose weight and quit living like a heart attack in progress.

Plan? Stop eating so much darned bread and eat healthy, don't starve myself, but eat small meals, drink lots of water, and exercise at least 3 times a week.

I started only 1 1/2 weeks ago and already I've lost 5 pounds, but still feel miserable every time I exercise. Took up swimming again...YIKES! Could only swim 8 laps of the 25 meter pool the first time. I'm now up to 28 laps. SLOWWWWW laps, but they are 28 laps all the same.

No, I won't ever look like this:

But, I will feel better, look better and maybe, just maybe I might get close to looking like this:



And not like THIS!