Needing to talk...

I don't really know where this post is heading, but I just feel like I need to write.

The past 2 days have been rough. I spent the weekend binging, feeling like crap and having major cramps, and allowing myself to have a bad attitude. I started my period last week and Saturday the binging began. I ALWAYS feel horrible when I binge and I don't understand why I let it happen in the first place. Lately I've been finding myself doing negative self talk. I find myself thinking "Yeah... I'm way too lazy to lose any more weight." "Yeah, I ate something bad for breakfast so there is no turning this day around now and I may as well not even exercise." THESE STATEMENTS ARE WRONG. It's like a form of self abuse and when I look at it that way, I can't believe that I just sit here and allow myself to be abused (by myself...). I guess I have just lost my momentum and am allowing that to make me feel like a failure?? I really don't know. Then I find myself on certain days feeling really great and motivated and have a really awesome and healthy day, and then the next day I feel careless again.

There is a person in my life who is overweight and she is CONSTANTLY telling me "I HAVE GOT to lose this weight. I'm so miserable and fat and I hate it. I'm changing this right now. I AM GOING TO LOSE THIS WEIGHT..." Then she will diet and exercise for one day, and then go right back to her same bad habits, and then the next week she is back telling me how miserable she is and how she HAS GOT to lose this weight... It is a vicious cycle that she lets herself be stuck in and I really really fear becoming exactly like that person.

Now writing all this down and reading it I feel like I'm being way hard on myself and I'm thinking perhaps my hormones (yes, it's that lovely time again!) are to blame? Because I'm normally a very positive person. I think (know) that not being able to run is really affecting my outlook on things as well as the way I feel about myself. I will be able to start jogging again next week and OMG I can't wait. I know it's going to be hard starting over, but I really can't wait. After every jog, no matter if I only ran .25 miles at a time or 2 miles at a time, I always feel a huge sense of accomplishment and like I am truly making progress in my overall fitness, as well as my goal of losing weight. So I am really looking forward to jogging again and getting back into that routine of progression.

Anyway, today my thoughts good. I at a Zone perfect bar for breakfast, I brought some DELICIOUS homemade ham and chicken pot pie for lunch (hubby made it and it's a relatively healthy recipe and oh-so yummy!) and am having homemade minestrone soup and roasted veggies for supper. I feel so good about things when my day is planned out like that. I am also taking my lunch time walk today, and John and I are walking to the little vegetable stand after work today to buy some veggies for roasting, and I will do my 45 minutes on the elliptical tonight.

I want to say that I am so thankful for having Stephanie as a partner in this journey. Reading her blogs ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS encourages me and gives me the little bits of inspiration that I need, and I want SO BADLY to be that person for her again. She has made her long term goal 140 lbs, and I've never told her or anybody else this but my *dream* goal has always been 150 lbs. I have just never put it on paper or told a single soul because I thought it would be too hard for me and unrealistic so I settled for 160 as my long term goal. Well guess what Stef? I'm changing my goal to 150 because you gave me the courage to be true to myself. Thank you!!

So: how have I been doing on my January goals?
#1- Get back to the track in 2 weeks because that's when the Dr. said I will be good to go with running. Still waiting for this one, but it's gonna happen!
#2- Cook at least 3 dinners at home per week and eat the leftovers! Doing really well here. John has been cooking some too, but we are both very much more aware about eating at home AND eating the leftovers rather than letting things go to waste
#3- Exercise at least 45 minutes, 4 times a week. Didn't completely accomplish this one last week, as I only did 3 days. But this week is a new week and I plan to make it to 4 days.
#4- Read the daily sparkblog EVERY DAY. I've done just great here too. Even days when I wasn't exactly feeling motivated, I would read the blog because I knew it was part of my goals and that I needed to do it.
#5- BRING LUNCH TO WORK. Doing great here as well. Bringing lunch to work is SUCH AN IMPORTANT THING for me or else I find myself getting into trouble in the middle of the day and heading to the cafe. Having a lunch AND snacks at work helps me in achieving my goals.

I have these goals posted on my wall in my office, and in the kitchen at home right next to my calender. I have also told John about these goals and of course he can see them hanging on the wall in the kitchen. I know having them in sight as well as having John know about them helps me keep them in my mind.

So there we are. Overall not too bad with my January goals, I just needed a serious attitude adjustment and I think blogging gave me just that. Proof that I need to blog more often...

I have also been researching 5ks in my area for this spring and summer, and there is one on April 10 that John and I are going to sign up for! I am so excited and I know that signing up and paying for it will help in my motivation. We can't officially sign up until February 1st, but I am definitely going to do it that day.

John has started working out again and wants to try P90X (his bro said he would burn the discs for him) and I'm really proud of him for wanting that. He hasn't worked out much since winter hit but things work out so much better when we are both trying to achieve healthy goals and being a support for one another. I'm so thankful for him!

Anyway, there it all is. What a blog! I'm looking forward to making this week a success in my path of enjoying a healthy lifestyle

The Battle Rages On

I wish that dieting was as easy as I wanted it to be. I feel like it should be easier because I want it so much. It is naive to think that i could posssibly want it more than anyone else, we all want it. That it that we are talking about it is the part that is different for each of us....I want to feel good about myself, I want to wear small clothes, I want to be healthy, I want to be an amazing mom that has the house where all the kids on the block want to hang out. However; I have a laundry list of vain reasons as well...I want to walk into family Christmas and watch the jaws drop of all my family members, I want to run through my neighborhood in my cute muscle shirts and know that I looks good, I want people to look at my husband and think he's the luckiest guy around to have the love of a woman like me, and when we start our family I want to be cute pregnant not sumo pregnant.

All these things that I want aren't unachievable, I think that they are so close to my grasp that I don't know how to picture them as mine. I have viewed people in my life as road blocks to my success but there is no bigger road block than me. There I said it, I don't know how to taste this success because I don't remember seeing myself as skinny...so I don't know what the goal that I am reaching for feels like....and I sure don't know what it looks like.

Mal and I talked yesterday about how disappointed we get sometimes, but that is because we know how to do everything right. We know how to cook, what to eat, how to cut cals, how to exercise, how much we need to have a loss, and the dedication. The thing that I am not doing is envisioning the new me when I get down, I am beating up the old me. This is a constant battle for me and one that I will keep fighting one pound at a time.

Getting Stephanie's Skinny On

Weightloss has always been a struggle for me as long as I can remember. I have an overweight family that emotionally eats. Even at the thinnest I have ever been, I never realized how skinny I was.

In the last couple years I have met the man of my dreams, we got married this summer and everything in my life has been absolutely amazing. I left my first teaching job and moved to our new home expecting to get a job right away, but I didn't. The reason that I am at this moment is because I gained weight after our wedding and am ready to change my life forever. This is a small bit about where my journey began and how I got to where I am today with my weight loss.

In September Mallory, the now cofounder of our blog, and I found each other on Sparkpeople.com, which is a great website to help you get started. I had decided that I needed to make a change, but it came very slowly for me. I was very skeptical of this "Sparkbuddy" idea, but she seemed way nice and we had so much in common it was ridiculous. Eventually we decided to take our emailing friendship to the next level and started texting.

I was having a real problem with motivation and she just was kicking my butt, but it just didn't click for me completely until around November that I was really serious about weight loss. Then we started moving into the Jillian Michaels direction and starting to strength training along with our elliptical machines. We struggled through the holidays but once Christmas and New Years were over we have been on fire ever since. I began this journey at 230.2 and am currently at 218 lbs. Our goals are to take pictures monthly, keep track of daily calorie intake, drink water, eat more fruits and veggies.

The purpose of our blog is to be a tool for us to see our progress, look back in order to make good decisions ahead, and share recipes.