Spark Spotlight: Marcie (MARCIE18)

By , SparkPeople Blogger
At SparkPeople, we love helping people accomplish big goals—but we believe it's equally important to celebrate the small successes along the way. Each week in the Spark Spotlight, we'll check in with a featured member about his or her proudest moments, biggest challenges and advice for others on living, thinking and feeling healthier. We hope these quick snapshots will help motivate you to keep moving steadily toward your own goals, week by week.
 
This Week's Spotlight: Marcie (MARCIE18)
Age: 66
Location: Fredericksburg, Virginia
 
Small Success of the Week
 
Marcie recently shared in the Community Goal Feed that she created a new habit of drinking her coffee black, rather than using coffee creamer, which often has lots of added sugar.
 
What's your overall goal? 
 
My overall goal is to improve my health and well-being. I am prediabetic and do not want this diagnosis to develop further. I am also retired and want to improve my fitness level so I can have a good quality of life in my later years. Finally, I just want to look and feel better when I look in the mirror. 

How is SparkPeople helping you get there? 
 
SparkPeople has been an enormous help in so many ways. The most important is the ability to track food, water, and exercise. I love that SparkPeople helps keep my daily calories in check, along with calculating calories burned in exercise. Having that information logged also gives me something to look back on to see where I succeeded and where I need to improve.

What's your biggest challenge right now? 
 
My biggest challenge right now is consistently consuming all eight cups of water a day. I have never been a big fan of drinking that much water because I hate having to run to the bathroom all day long. However, because of some great feedback from other SparkPeople members, I am going to try to implement some new ideas of how to accomplish this goal.

What advice do you have for someone who just joined SparkPeople today?
 
I have learned that slow is the best way to go and to be patient with yourself. In other words, don't be in a huge hurry to get to your goals and change bad habits. It takes time to learn new habits and make them a permanent change. Also, realize that this is a journey and nobody is perfect 100 percent of the time. Take each day as a new day and don't give up. 

Want to be the next small success we spotlight? Share your successes on the goal feed or in the comments below, and you might be the next person we contact!