25 For 25 - Join Me And Make A Goal For A Healthier Lifestyle!

I am pretty sure you can see my profile picture there in the corner. That was a few years ago. I am heavier than that now. I am a little short of a month out from turning 25. To me this is a big deal.

When I was born I was blessed (yes...I consider it a blessing) with many birth defects. Most prevalent is my visual impairment, however I was born with many others. I do not have all the joints in my fingers. I was born with a bilateral cleft palate, no actual nose on my face (just holes where one should be...a nose has since been built on my face through plastic surgery during my childhood), a pituitary dysfunction, among other things. The doctors told my parents, after testing me for every disease and disorder under the sun, that I would not live past six months. They said that even if I did I would be a "vegetable". Facing all of this. pneumonia set in at 2 months and I was rushed in to ICU as my heart began to fail.. With God's blessing emergency surgery on Thanksgiving, 1982 was successful and here I am!

Every day is a blessing to me and hitting a Quarter Century next month (on September 19th) is a huge deal to someone who was not supposed to live past six months. The Big 25 is a much more important number to me than 16, 18, or 21. I see it as my coming of age. Although I will always feel young at heart, I will no longer be a child. I will be a man. Even though I am quite content with the life I have lived thus far I'd love to live as long as I can and I need to take proactive steps to achieve this. My candidate for President, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, is definitely an inspiration in this endeavor. He has recently taken proactive steps to become more active and has lost several pounds.

Anyway, Saturday, August 25th marks 25 days until I turn 25. I am setting a goal for myself. Each day, starting Saturday, until I turn 25 I am going to ride on my exercise bike for 25 minutes. I want to issue a challenge to anyone reading this blog. You don't have to do the same thing for 25 consecutive days. However I want each of you to make a health-related goal for yourself. It could be something that make you more active, or adding something healthy to your diet (or taking something unhealthy out of your diet).

C'mon folks. Join me and together we can make a difference for a more healthy you!