{Me, Body Gospel Producer & Donna Richardson-Joyner}

Mission Accomplished! I made it through Week 1 of the Body Gospel fitness program without dying or passing out. :-) Actually, I'm really enjoying myself. Being the dancer that I am (or rather, used to be) I really like the cardio sets we do and the music is awesome- they play everyone from Israel to Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Martha Minuzzi, Kirk Franklin and more.

I'm not a big fan of the leg work (have you seen these hamhocks I call thighs?) but since that's my target area I just have to tell myself to push through the pain. I also enjoy our reps with the weights- mind you, I only use the 2.5 lbers or the 5 lbers if I'm feeling really adventurous but still, it makes me hopeful that my arms will be nice & cut when this is all over in January.

I especially enjoy the ab work as that is target area #1- wanna be able to wear a bikini again by next summer. And having the camraderie of a group who's coming in everyday with similar challenges & goals makes it that much easier to stick it out when we wanna give up.

Now to the hard part...the food. We're blessed to have them provide us with all of our meals & snacks so that we don't have to worry about counting calories, figuring out portion size or anything else like that but still, it's difficult to completely change your eating habits all of a sudden. They've not only cut out sweets (my major weakness) but they've also severly limited the starches that I love, i.e. breads, pastas, etc.  So I'm still adjusting to that. In addition to eating two well-balanced meals per day, we also eat 2 snacks and substitute one meal for a highly nutritious & pretty tasty protein shake. They've even given us 2 daily supplements: a multivitamin & omega-3 fish oil capsules so they've completely armed us for success and now we have to have the drive & committment to see it through. I know, I know- easier said than done but I'm determined as are the rest of the guys & gals in my group.

On the plus side, the food they provide tastes great (with a little added pepper) and has seemed to give me  more energy already. I've never eaten this much salad before in my life- chicken salad, tuna salad, salmon salad, etc. (starting to feel like a bit of a rabbit here) and to be honest I've never enjoyed it this much either but my mind is slowly starting to shift and little by little bad habits are beginning to break.

And guess what? I've lost 3 lbs, 2 inches off my waist, 2 inches off my hips and 1 inch off each thigh already- WOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Doing the happy dance* Gotta celebrate the victories, no matter how small. So I'm gonna keep at it, even if it does mean waking up at 6am during the week- and I'll keep ya'll posted along the way.