Makeover Diary - How it all began

January 2002
My life was extremely hectic. Besides being busy with my children (Haley was seven and Tate and Spencer were five), I was teaching four mornings a week as an ESL (English as second language); I was the provincial director for KidSport Alberta, responsible for the overall operations of a children's charity that services 27 volunteer committees in the province and helps provide sport funding for more than 3,000 disadvantage children; I had a consulting contract with the Canadian Sport Centre YES Program -- the athlete speakers' bureau -- providing program development and athlete public speaking training, and I had a fourth contract coordinating the Olympic and Paralympic Salute 2002, Alberta's recognition event for the athletes and coaches who competed in the Salt Lake Olympics and Paralympics.

I loved all of the jobs and thrived on the responsibility and the creativity. Each job represented a different opportunity for me and I just couldn't give any of them up. Beside the jobs, I was one of 30 participants in Leadership Calgary -- a yearlong leadership program. I was also taking one university Masters' course and was volunteering as a Sparks' leader once a week.

What's more, my husband, Tim, was going to the Salt Lake Olympics for the month of February as the Team Leader for the Olympic Luge Team, so I was going to be a single parent for a month. Usually we co-parent equally and "shift-parentf" so that one of us is always home for the kids.

Despite moving along at high speed, I had gained weight to the tune of three to five pounds a month since September 2001. I have a distinct lack of ability to control myself when it comes to limits with food. Because I eat when stressed, I was constantly bingeing and snacking due in part to the pressures and time restraints I felt as I ran from contract to contract. For example a road trip would see me scarf back a bag of chips, a chocolate bar and an ice cream -- each way. The only things I managed to drink were diet colas, coffee or water!

On Saturday, January 26 Tim and I went out on a rare date to have a little "alone time" before his trip. On the way home from the restaurant we were sideswiped by a 4 wheel drive that couldn't make the stop at an intersection. I was briefly knocked unconscious and had a welt on the right side of my head. At the accident scene I was walking and talking but after a quick examination from the ambulance staff, they decided to send me to the hospital. At the time I didn't know what I had done that day, where we'd had dinner, what had just happened etc. After a few hours of delirium I came to. I was sent home with a "concussion". I had some amnesia and to this day I still can't remember anything after leaving the restaurant and arriving at home five hours later.

February 2002
Following the accident, I missed a week of work due to splitting headaches, and my normally quick mind was now in a stupor. Near the end of the week I started thinking about my life and what I was doing and I came to the conclusion that my life was out of control. I looked down at my flabby, chubby body and thought about how I'd let myself go. The haggard looking face that looked back at me in the mirror surely wasn't mine -- where did all the wrinkles come from? And my hair hadn't been cut for a year.

The great thing was I had this month that I had already de-scheduled for myself so that I would be home every night and on weekends. Unfortunately I didn't have my fantastic husband to depend on but I quickly got into a routine…teaching in the morning and consulting from my home office in the afternoon. Then Haley would get off the bus and I'd go pick up the boys at their afternoon sitter (they went to Kindergarten in the morning). We'd go home and the kids would at the table while I cooked supper. Then we would usually do some family activity; games, dancing, whatever they wanted. I even managed some one-on-one time with each of the kids in the evening. It was fantastic. Once the kids were in bed, I spent a half hour tidying the house, then would start to exercise using a video tape program or simple body exercises. Unfortunately I would then go to my home office and work for two hours until midnight.

I really started to love the routine and felt in control of my life again. At the end of the month I started to look for some articles and books so that I could continue to have balance once my life wound up again. All I could find were before-and-after type articles; I wanted to see some "during" articles, like the real-life TV shows. Since there wasn't much out there, I wrote to Canadian Living and suggested an article about getting life in balance, and I volunteered to be the guinea pig.