Offline

I'm going offline for about 3 weeks. I'm losing internet here in a few hours and I've also got a million and one things to do before I go on vacation to see my family. I'll be gone two weeks so I'm just going to say see ya later now and see you guys when I get back!

Play nice!

Independence Day

Today was very fitting that it was Independence Day. Our first official weigh-in landed on today and I'm free from 2 more pounds off my body. Independence from weight! I'm really proud of how I am doing. I'm a bit scared to go on vacation for two weeks right as I'm gaining momentum but I know that it will be okay. I also know that no matter what happens in New Mexico, Carebear is not going to let me get away with not getting back on plan when I return.

And lucky me, I'm going to have text messaging while I'm gone so I'll be able to keep up with her the entire two weeks! You better not fall off the wagon missy! I will totally get Carson on you. And you know I can.

Also speaking of the 4th, my family and Carebear's all went to the local fireworks area here. There had to have been maybe almost 10k people there total. I couldn't get over how many people there were. We had such great seats to the fireworks show that my neck even got tired from looking up. They had patriotic music going through big speakers and it was so cool to watch the show while listening to a compilation of country songs and american-centric music. There was one part that had all these great men in our country's history saying their famous lines from their famous speeches. Kennedy, King, Jr., Roosevelt... I got goosebumps everywhere. So many great leaders have had such beautiful visions for the future of our country. I really felt proud to live in America at that moment. I usually do but it just was such a beautiful feeling to be there with all these people.

Well I'm exhausted, I've done too much walking today! Probably a little more than 2 miles for the round trip. 20 minutes there, 30 minutes back. That's a good 50 minute walking workout!

Four days and counting

So I have four days of exercise and counting. I'm pretty proud of myself! I've been doing Biggest Loser BootCamp when Carebear comes over about once or twice a week and the other days I have done Denise Austin's Sizzler. I'm not exactly loving Sizzler, but it's something that makes me sweaty, heart racing, and where I get to use light weights (as of today I added them). It's also my old 'stand by'. Something I know works. I have other biggest loser videos that I can do but they are harder and without someone here pushing me to get through the workout I tend to shy away from them. Denise Austin is about what I can handle for most of the week. While working on the abs segment today, I got a charlie horse in my abs. It was horrible, horrible! When you get a cramp you can walk it off because most likely it's in your leg or foot. Feeling it in my upper abs was weird and ugly feeling and it hurt. I had to rub it and ended up not really able to finish the rest of the ab segment. Every crunch I did it'd tighten back up on me.

Tomorrow is weigh-in. I'm proud of myself for staying away from the scale. I truly am clueless as to what it might show. I can hope for certain numbers all I want but as I was talking with Carebear, she said it best. "I just want to see progress." and honestly, that's all I want to see too. I just want to see progress. I won't depend on the scale to make me feel all this hard work was worth it because honestly even without the scale, the hard work was worth it. It's about taking charge of my health and not just fitting into the 'perfect' size. Sure, I want to fit into that size but when it really comes down to it, I know that I'm doing all the things I need to be doing. I'm working out, I'm eating better and I'm keeping up my water intake. I've even started taking a multi-vitamin!

I'm going to workout sometime tomorrow and probably before I weigh. As much as I know that I've done a good job, psychologically I think I still want to work out before I weigh. That's how I've always done it, even the other times I tried to lose weight. I would work out and then go to Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers. I just like that 'worked out' feeling. The blood rushing through you body giving it that zing! It makes me feel thinner.

I need to go start the laundry. I swear it is a mountain but I guess the only way to move a mountain is one rock at a time. In my case, one load at a time.

Later, Cookies!

Realizations

You know, I feel good right now. Not just because I worked out today but because I made the choice to do something good for my body. This morning while I was washing dishes I realized, honestly, in full color that getting thin just isn't going to "happen". I'm not going to grow older and thinner simultaneously. It just doesn't happen that way. In the dark recesses of my mind and heart I honestly thought I would. I never thought that I would be having to "get back to" a weight that I was the year previous, or two years previous. I never thought I would have to mark occasions in my life like my wedding day and try and get back to that weight or under that weight. Sure, I always needed to loose weight, but I mean I thought you just grew out of being fat, eventually. It sounds stupid huh? To think that way? But I think that there are people that do. I know I was one of them. I kind of wanted to cry for that girl, who thought that way, because she was so disillusioned. I had wasted so much time...

You just can't get around being overweight except to work at not being that way anymore. Simply put. There just is no other way in the world to get thinner than what you are now than to make it happen for yourself and by finding out how to go about it.

Life is a buffet right? And we can wait and wait and wait to even get in line and by the time we do all the good stuff is gone and we are standing there looking at everyone else, longing to have what they all seem to have on their plates. In the end we just wish that we would of done something to get in there and get what we had wanted. Well we have to! We have to be selfish for ourselves because no one else will be. If we want something in life we have to take it because there is no fairy standing by the food picking out all the best stuff to bring us on a silver platter, it just isn't going to happen people.

Get in there and make your life meaningful. Be who you want to be, regardless of weight. If you can't do that being the size that you are, take steps to change that. Get in there, get the best parts of life!! Who are you not to deserve it? You breathe, eat, sleep, fart, feel, cry, laugh, think, love, and hate like ever other human being. You are good enough to exist in this universe, you are good enough to have what the universe/God/Spirit (or whatever you call your higher being) has to give. We deserve happiness and we have the right to choose to be happy.

So, when you're up at that big buffet called life, picking out all the good stuff for yourself, if you happen to see that fairy with her silver platter and goodies...do me a favor and slap her for me.

Changing The Little Things

Today I got up early and I went to pick up Carebear and her daughter. We went to JoAnn's so that we could see if they had any kind of charms so that I can make earrings for her daughter's slumber party. She's getting all sorts of goodies together to make up goodie baskets for the little girls that are coming over. It's going to be a lot of fun (11 tweens in one house with oodles of sugar, pizza and popcorn provided) and I get to help!

After we went to JoAnn's we went to Ross next door and I got to see a lot of great dresses that they have there. They are really really affordable! Of course, I didn' t have any money but they were still affordable. I know where I'm going to be shopping when I want to get something nice and summery. They had cute shoes and lots of things for the house. I might have found a new favorite store.

After shopping we came back to my house and all of us worked out to Biggest Loser BootCamp and then did a 30 minute stretch video. It was fun to have all of us there and I'm proud to say that no one got hit, kicked or slapped in the process considering my living room is small and at a weird angle to the teevee. Carebear's daughter couldn't do all the flexability stretches and that somehow made us women feel better because she's young and so flexible that it just validated in our minds that we aren't old, it actually IS hard.

I tried taking a nap this afternoon but I'm still achey enough that I couldn't find a comfortable position. I've been watching the show "I Lost It" on Discovery Health that I have DVR'd. I don't think they are making any new episodes because I haven't come across any that I haven't seen but it is still nice to get inspiration of people that have lost the weight. Most stories do involve gastric bypass, but seeing how people got to where they did with their weight and how their lives have changed once it came off is what I like to see.

I remember the very first time I undertook the daunting task of trying to lose weight. I got on the internet and I searched for every possible weight loss success story that I could find. I wanted to know that it was real and achievable. I saw so many people that had lost weight and they didn't have anything that I didn't have. There wasn't a magic wand in their story, nor were there magic pills or a weight loss fairy that came to their house instead. No fairy godmothers, no wishing wells... just simple hard work and motivation. It helped me so much to see that I had all the tools they had within reach. I wanted to surround myself with success and in turn, I was successful at losing weight.

I'm going to go shower, and maybe put some make-up on. It's something that I want to incorporate into my life again. So often I get in a rut of not making myself pretty because honestly, who's going to see me? I am a stay at home mom and like a lot of Mom's it's just so much easier to throw your hair up in a pony tail and not worry about make-up. But I see myself so I want to take better care for my appearance. I want to actually get dressed everyday and in clothes that I'm not going to worry about people seeing me in. I want to start taking better care of my skin. I've already been polishing my nails and even that little thing has made me feel prettier. It's all apart of telling yourself through actions that you are worthy of looking nice, of feeling like you look good. I think I fell so far into frumpy that you don't realize your outsides match your insides of just feeling 'blah'. Mom's especially tend to ignore themselves because they put everyone else's needs. Soo, in this whole attempt to change the momentum of my life, I'm going to try changing the small things too.

Sizzle!

Today I decided that I would workout to Denise Austin's Sizzler from her "Hit The Spot" series.

When I bought this VHS tape (was it really that long ago? VHS seems prehistoric now!) I was 284 lbs. It nearly killed me to workout to it. I even remember crying during workouts, imagining I was killing Denise Austin, hating myself for allowing my body to go so horribly out of shape (not that I was ever in any kind of shape but you know..). I remember all the parts I couldn't do and just had to march in place to keep from passing out. Eventually, as the year wore on and the more I used the tape as well as her former Lifetime Network exercise shows, it got easier. It was never by any stretch of the imagination "easy" but it got easier.

I wondered if I would have that same experience this time. I may be 50 lbs. lighter than I was when I very first started using the tape, but I'm by no means in shape. I haven't exercised with any regularity since 2005. I live a sedentary life to the fullest. I lay down and I read a lot, or I watch teevee a lot. I had no clue how this workout was going to affect me. I just knew that it gave me results. I remember (because I read it on my old journal, lol) the day I realized I actually had shoulders. That may seem like a weird thing, of course you know yo have shoulders, but... that day I realized that they were more sculpted and that it wasn't just a shelf that my head was on. My purse strap slipped off my shoulder a lot less and my bra strap left a much lighter indention. Little things began to become apparent that I was reshaping my body. Even the fact that I had more lace to tie my shoes because my feet were less fat and swollen.

I put on the tape today and I remembered all the exercises (and how much I don't like them) but I kept going. I had to march in place a few times but overall it didn't seem like the device of torture it used to be. It was still rough, and I sweated a bucket, but that's how exercise should be. My heart was beating out of my chest but the video didn't seem to last as long as I thought it did. It's 45 minutes which is a good long time but it seemed shorter to me. I did the workout without weights as I didn't think the first time it would be good to add more onto what I was already starting out with but I might add 1 lb. weights the next time I do it. That is, if I can find the other 1 lb. weight I have.

I am really proud of myself that I didn't allow the day I took off yesterday to turn into 2 days, 2 weeks, months, years ect. like I have been for the longest time. I was proud that Carebear got her workout in too when I know that she's had an exhaustive week physically and emotionally. I feel so supported this time around by someone who *knows* exactly what I'm going through. My husband can love me unconditionally and can be there to encourage me but he is not the type of guy to workout with me. He doesn't want to go for walks because he's on his feet all day with work constantly. He's more of the "I'll be happy for you and tell you what a great job your doing" kind of supporter. Carebear gets me. She gets how hard it is to lose weight and she gets all the feelings of unworthiness, ugliness and loneliness that goes along with it. She understands wanting to look beautiful for her man and how it's not about being a skinny minny but a desirable woman who feels on the inside the way she looks on the outside but only in a positive way. All of our plans and talks that we have been making and having have really left me with a feeling of hope for really the first time in 4 years. I am just... so excited.

I hope my first official 'weigh-in' goes well because if I gain... I don't know how I could handle that kind of disappointment after all these great feelings! I just keep telling myself that the number, whatever it is, can change for the better. I know that I will be able to handle whatever the number is because I know that I'm doing all the right things, so after I get over the initial sadness I'll pick myself back up. I just want it to be a good number. Who doesn't? LOL.

Ok I really must take a shower. I'm funkay! And not in that good kind of way.

Later, Cookies!

Beautiful Life

Sometimes it takes reading an entry that someone writes to show you something in your own life. I really do have a beautiful life. I think I forget that so often in the anxiety of bills and finances, in the worries of children and with the struggles to make a marriage work when it was put on such rocky ground.

My husband is amazing. I love this man, completely and utterly and I get choked up even just saying that because there was a time when I didn’t know if I would ever be able to say that again. I was so angry for the pain that he caused our family, not only in the present but everything that I thought would be my future. I felt robbed. Robbed of the love I had for a man who I thought he was but really didn’t exist anymore and robbed of the ideal image I had of my marriage and future.

Well he’s worked so hard to become more than his mistake. He is more than that mistake. Are things perfect? No but they weren’t ever intended to be perfect because we are both human and we’re flawed. But it’s good. It’s really, really good. I feel so proud of my marriage because I have fought damn near tooth and nail for it. It means so much more knowing that we hung in there together even when ‘together’ was so painful and bitter. It wasn’t just all his mistake either. I know I played my own part, not necessarily in his addiction but in letting myself get so dependant on another human being for everything. Mentally, emotionally, physically… he was my entire universe and I could not function without him. I’m not in that place anymore. I can drive anywhere I need to, I can get a job, I can take care of my kids if I had to. I’ve worked very hard to make sure that I’m not as dependant on him and only with him because there are no other options. I’m with him because I want to be with him. We’ve both done a great amount of growing in the last year and a half.

My boys. I really can’t say enough about them. They drive me so nuts and I never ever thought that I could get so angry at people so small, but I love them. The thought that anything could happen to them, that they could be taken from me… it gives me anxiety thinking about it. I see their personalities and how they have grown and the funny things they do and say and I can’t even imagine my life without them. For the longest time through my teens and into my early 20’s I didn’t want children. I didn’t want the responsibility, I didn’t want the pain of labor, and I didn’t want to be tied down. I just wanted to have a life of my own and not be responsible for anyone else. Sometimes I do daydream about what it would be like to have that kind of life but I know that I would not be fullfilled. I know that I was ment to be their Mom. I don’t always feel like a good Mom but somehow they were ment for me.

I have wonderful friends, in the physical and on the internet who support me and love me. Carebear and I worked out today to a ‘boot camp’ style exercise and it was so hard! We were huffing and puffing and I let out a few curse words a time or two and I normally don’t swear, especially in front of my kids and there I was. We kept egging each other on to keep going even when I think we were near dying and falling flat on our faces. It felt amazing to have accomplished it though. Afterward we did a 30 minute stretch tape and couldn’t stop laughing at our own inflexibility and how easy the instructor made it look. I was really proud of the both of us for doing it. More proud of Carebear because she was so tired and just wanted to go home and relax but she pushed herself to do what was best for her body and I think she was really proud that she did as well.

So I was looking through my Weight Watchers organizer and I found some old pictures of me. Some are when JT was about a year old and I was at one of my highest non-pregnancy weights. A few others were from my bridal shower which didn’t have me at an all time high weight but bigger than what I am now. I showed them to Carebear and she said she really saw a difference. I also looked at my weight tracker from January when I thought I was going to be joining again and realized that I’ve lost 18 lbs. since then. I’m so stoked! As a congrats on my near first 20 lbs. Carebear bought me a dress I was drooling over in Walmart.

You’re going to just have to forgive the hair. It’s bloody hot and equally humid. Never a good combination for fabulous hair. I do look rather fabulous in my new dress though.





It makes me look like I actually have boobs! It’s made from a very stretchy soft fabric and I love it. Thank you Carebear!

I have more to talk about involving the kids, particularly Hunter and the woes that I’m facing with his picky eating but I’m dead tired. I’m already sore and that usually isn’t supposed to settle in until the day after working out, or more in my case the second day!