Hey, folks!
It’s Sunday, stats day, and I’m behind on the blog. Before I begin, I just want to say thank you to each and every person reading this blog! I know we’re all busy, and I appreciate the time you take to read, comment, Tweet, post, and otherwise engage with me online.
That being said, I could use a little encouragement! Some of you may recall my post in November where I talked about the measuring tape being the most effective way of demonstrating my progress.
Well, today, I barely squeezed my tush into a size 12 bathing suit and went off to a birthday party. Later in the evening, I tried on some size 14 “designer” pants, and was mortified. My hips don’t lie. I’ve fallen of the wagon.
A while back, I was talking to a personal trainer who had lost a huge amount of weight. He mentioned sometimes still feeling and acting like that person carrying all those extra pounds.
It’s hard to imagine myself looking like this:
When right now, I feel that I look like this:
I don’t want to give you the impression that I think there’s anything bad about being my size, and ladies, if you got it, work it!
I’m just struggling with consistency, and that’s likely fueled by my inability to imagine myself anything but where I’m at right now.
To help me visualize a new me, I took a minute to reflect on the old me! In 2003, I left a well-paying job and began a venture in independent sales. Concurrently, I changed my eating habits and made the decision to never again work in a career where I had to sacrifice my personal health and well-being. In 3 months, I lost 30 pounds.
Although the business didn’t work out, I did stay on the renegade track for 2 years. I quit drinking alcohol, and for a while, even stopped drinking coffee! I switched to soy instead of cow’s milk, and began a vegetarian lifestyle.
At the time, I infrequently would take hikes, long walks and the occasional aerobics class. When my car finally gave out, I started walking everywhere, and taking the bus.
The picture on the right is of me, three years into this change (Spring 2006). A little while after this photo was taken, I became pregnant!
As a single working mom of a child with a major developmental delay, my lifestyle since then has completely changed. And I know I’ve resorted to the older habits that got me into trouble in the first place.
I started eating meat again when I was in my 1st term of pregnancy. I started drinking alcohol again when I moved to Honolulu. I’ve been using sugar and caffeine as “uppers” ever since I had a newborn!
But the bigger threat to my health and well-being is comfort food. My vices can be salty or sweet, creamy or crunchy, dark chocolate or milk chocolate. It’s just too easy to ignore the consequences and choose something that feels good in the short term.
I’m filling the void with food!
I suppose I’m jumping on the blog today to reach out, and ask for some encouragement. I didn’t even want to weigh in or take my measurements today. I know I’m back in the 190′s, and I know that my measurements last week were 39, 39, 43. And I’ve had only one workout with kettlebells in the last 9 days.
The first practice that I believe will make a difference is starting my day with an attitude of gratitude. One of my friends exchanges e-mails with me every day. We share one or two sentences answering the question: “What are you grateful for?” This helps me frame my day with positive expectation.
I asked another friend to do the water challenge with me. We’re going to shoot for 64 ounces of water a day (although another friend of mine suggests 1/2 my weight in water, which would be a whopping 95 ounces!)
As for accountability, I may need to ask Dwayne Perkins to do another blog-a-thon with me. I found that when I had to check in here daily, I wanted to report progress!!!
Maintaining a positive attitude is where you come in. Sometimes I’ll just spend a minute looking at Facebook or reading other people’s tweets to see what good news they might bring.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you, and I promise, there will be blogs with more “action” to come! Please take a moment and give me a shout out! I appreciate it in advance!
Yup, that’s right, people, your girl is back at Square One.
Okay, on to the happy news. During this brief hiatus, I met an amazing person, fell in love with him, and we are currently living happily together.
