Thanking people who helped you can be really important. I don’t think we do enough of that in our daily lives. I want to take a moment to thank a few people who have helped me over the last 15 months.

I started Retrofit on Christmas Eve in 2012 (no reason to wait, really) and I’ve been doing the program for a little over a year. I’ve lost 27 pounds and have a few more to go until I reach the goal weight I set. When I started the program, we set a goal of losing 10% of my body weight and I exceeded that goal. In the past, I have tried many things to drop the weight I gained from years of sitting at a desk and having three children along the way. At the heart of my up and down effort are bad habits. This mostly involves not being able to make and keep sustainable good habits.

For me, when I tried a diet that didn’t allow something, I obsessed about whatever it was that wasn’t allowed. With the Retrofit Behavior Coach (Jennifer) and Nutritionist (Elizabeth), I had two people who could talk through specific strategies and ways to make changes that worked for me, not some mythical person. I made a concerted effort to cut out processed foods throughout 2013 – do I do this perfectly? No, but it is 90% better than I was doing in 2012. I also signed up for a farm share so now healthy food is what comes into my house on a regular basis. That’s just one example of a good habit change I made.

I find that the personal coaching is what helps (and continues to help) me the most. It keeps me accountable and the coaching is done with a team that is in my corner and is encouraging, all the time, no matter what I have done that week. Work travel wreaks havoc with my diet and exercise routine and is very detrimental (as it involves working with a sales team that entertains). I also worked on making changes that fit with my work travel schedule.

The point I’m trying to make is that the Retrofit program is specific to the person in it, not some mythical man or generic person. I think this difference from Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins, South Beach, or other diets or systems, is that Retrofit focuses specifically on my own habits, not someone else’s bad/good habits. That is the difference Retrofit made for me.

I want to thank the team that helped me change my habits into better habits and more sustainable habits. So here is a huge thank you to my Retrofit team that helped over the last 15 months – thank you Jennifer, Elizabeth, and Scott! And thank you to Jeff Hyman for starting the company! Thank you.