My Story

Hi, my name is Debra and I am a fitness enthusiast as well as the creator of seejanesweat. I am not a certified personal trainer or a registered dietitian, or an expert in health and fitness. What I am is a busy working mother of three with a new husband, two step children and rambunctious dog.

I can eat anything I want and not gain weight. OK, that was true ten plus years ago when my metabolism was soaring through the roof. From childhood to the age of thirty-two, I never had to monitor anything I put I my mouth. I was naturally thin with a metabolism that most people would kill for. From the age of twenty-two to thirty, I had given birth to three wonderful children and after each of their birth, the weight just fell off. For over a decade, I worked a sedentary job and never had to worry about gaining weight.

I was surrounded by co-workers who seemed obsessed with weight loss, always coming into the office with some newfangled diet that promised to help them shed unwanted pounds and get them in shape. And when they’d show up with these fad diets, the “Boiled Egg diet”, “Cottage Cheese Diet”, “Cabbage Diet”, and the like, my response was always “I don’t believe in dieting”. I mean, why should I?  I was naturally thin. Why concern myself with counting calories or going to the gym and breaking a sweat? I was blessed with the metabolism of a hyperactive ten-year-old.

Then one day, without preamble, the unspeakable happened. My soaring metabolism just got up and walked the heck right out of my life. Suddenly fried chicken and biscuits, hamburgers and hot dogs, ice cream, cakes and cookies, and soda pop seem to turn on me. Instead of bringing me the same pleasure they’d supplied me with for many years, they brought me pain. My clothes seem to have shrunk a couple of sizes. My once flat belly was no longer flat. My derriere began to grow and expand, taking on a life of its own. And then there were my thighs. Suddenly they were attacked by a cruel and merciless monster well known to most women as CELLULITE. Arrgghh!!!

Initially, I felt defeated. I mean, for years, I’ve been surrounded by women going from one extreme diet to the next with little or no results. And if there were any results, they were short lived, leaving the women even more frustrated than they were before they started. And if these women, who I’ll call “Professional Dieters” hadn’t figured out the magic formula to get back themselves back in shape and stay that way, then how was I, a person who knew absolutely nothing about dieting and weight loss expect to conquer my circumstances.

Part of me said I should just accept the fact that I was getting older, that my metabolism had deserted me for a much younger woman and I should just learn to live with the protruding gut, unshapely arms, and my jiggling, cellulite-covered lower half. However, the other part me, the rebel who refuses to go with the flow, said heck no. There was no way I was going to sit back let my body just up and run out on me without putting up one heck of a fight.

Who Is Jane?

Jane is every woman who is trying to get and stay in shape. She’s the 20 year old student. The 42 year old busy mother. The 65 year old grandmother. She’s the busy executive, business owner, stay at home mom, who realizes that fitness is not just about a great pair of legs. It’s also about being healthy. There is so much talk about Healthcare Reform, well lets talk about Self-care Reform. We need to take ownership of taking care of ourselves. Sure we want to know that we can afford to pay our medical bills and insurance if we have to go to the doctor but she we also work on ourselves in trying to reduce our need to go to the hospital. Shouldn’t we work on lowering our blood pressure, bad cholesterol, risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer. Well that’s who Jane is.

Jane is the woman who is concern with reforming her self-care. And to do that, sometimes you have to be a little selfish. Putting your health and well-being before your friends’ desires to go out have a good time, before your husband’s desire to lay around in bed all day and be lazy, and before your mother’s desire to go out to dinner. Sure you can do those things, but first you have to make sure you are taking care of your needs, exercise, planning healthy meals, getting the proper rest.

If you are overweight, unhealthy, and feeling drained and overtaxed all the time, how can you be a good mother to your children, a good partner to your husband, support system to your family. In essence, taking care of Jane —that’s you–enables to take care of those you love.