Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The first day of the rest of my diet

Today I am proud to announce I did not put a single thing in my mouth that didn't belong in there (for any men that might be reading this, get your minds out of the gutter!).  The worst thing I did was forget to eat my breakfast.  Oh, I put it in the microwave, I heated it up....then promptly forgot to eat it in my mad rush out the door.

Am I still disappointed in myself?  Well, yeah, of course I am.  My stunning almost seven pound weight loss has now dwindled to 2.8 pounds.  I may have stuck to working out every day, but yesterday I only did half the work I was supposed to.  The best thing you can say about me is that I've stayed away from soda!

But the best part of making a lifestyle change, or really doing anything at all for yourself, is that you always have the option of a do over.  If you are truly doing it for yourself, then there's nobody to be disappointed in you but you. 

Today is the first day of the rest of my diet.  Whatever I did since Friday to sabotage myself is done, and there's no going back and changing it now.  All I can do is move forward.  And move forward I will.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Epic Fail!!!

So, I finally braved the scales today.  While I didn't manage to put back on all the weight I've lost, I did manage to gain back over half of it.  To top it off, my most awesome boss took all of us to Ryan's Steakhouse for lunch today.

How could I possibly tell him that pretty much the only thing I'd be able to eat and stay within the confines of my diet would be salad?  And it was iceberg lettuce to boot!  No nutritional value whatsoever.  And I would appear to be a total ingrate if that's all I ate when there was a veritable smorgasbord of culinary delights like fried chicken, Mac and cheese and chocolate cake available.

So I ate.  Small portions of everything, and I stuck to water, but I did eat stuff that was in no way, shape or form good for me.

Look, it is what it is.  The Mexican food I had for lunch yesterday wasn't on my diet either.  Neither were the subs I had over the weekend, the pancakes I ate at Dennys or the six or so beers I drank Saturday night.  But I did it, all of it, and there's no taking it back now.  All I can do is move forward.

I only did half my prescribed workout today.  My only excuses are that the wind and the cold took a lot out of me today And when I got home my pooch Gillie was under the weather (hopefully nothing serious) and I felt more like cooking a decent dinner and doing the dishes than I did working out.  And yes, I was feeling a little sorry for myself, which makes no sense at all, since this is all of my own making.

Still, thirty minutes of exercise is better than none.  And water still trumps soda, which I have managed to resist for over three weeks now.  And being down 3.6 pounds since I started this a little over three weeks ago is better than no weight loss at all.

So, tonight I will be a little lazy.  I will snuggle Gillie and love her up and hope she feels better tomorrow.  I will pack my lunch and snacks for tomorrow, because tomorrow is a new day.  Bikini season is still a ways off, and I have no reason to believe I can't do this, because I've been doing it, and seeing results.

Epic Fail?  Nah, not really.  Just a rough couple of days and a few bad choices.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Beer is the devil

So, last night I decided to go up to the local watering hole with some friends and hear another friends band play.  I had just finished my workout and my blog and was feeling pretty good (maybe that endorphin rush I've been hearing so much about is finally starting to happen).  I showered, did my hair and make up, and out the door I went.

My oldest friends will tell you that I used to drink.  Not excessively or anything, but on the weekends I was known to hit the Moose lodge and throw back some drinks.  Sadly, after the unfortunate incident where I was roofied at the gay bar on my 39th birthday (I soooo wish I was kidding about that) I pretty much lost my taste for alcohol.  The occasions where I actually get drunk or even a buzz have been few and far between ever since.  In fact, I could probably count them on one hand.

But last night, I was feeling good.  And because I was responsible for just myself for a change, I decided to have a beer or two.  Which quickly turned into five or six.  And given the fact that I rarely ever drink anymore and that the size of my stomach has shrunk somewhat, that was all it took.

Let me tell you what beer can do for you.  It can make you think you're a regular dancing queen, which, in retrospect, isn't such a bad thing.  I was sweating like a mofo and busting out moves I didn't even know I had.

Let me tell you a few other things beer will do for you.  It will cause you to stay out way past your bedtime.  It will also cause you to eat things you shouldn't in the wee hours of the morning.  And, it will cause you to drink more beer.

Beer will cause you to be a complete slug the day after you drink it.  It will cause your feet and ankles to swell.  And once you finally do drag your lazy ass off the couch to do your workout, you will not feel as good about it as you might have had you not overindulged in beer to start with (not to mention banana pecan pancakes complete with butter and syrup at 2:30 a.m.).  Did I neglect to mention how much worse you stink as you're sweating the beer out as you're working out?

Even though I did not have the traditional hangover that I usually associate with a night of tying one on, I do not, in any way, shape or form, consider myself lucky.  Still, maybe I'm paying closer attention to what my body is telling me these days.  Either way, I've had my couple of days of fun and now it's time to get back on the diet and exercise wagon I've so gracelessly taken a tumble off of.  Tomorrow is a new day.

I can tell you, though, it'll be a few days before I get on those scales again!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

It's been a minute

Okay, it's been a few days since I've blogged so today I'll be covering several topics at once.  The first will be "No more booty pants."  I'm going to share something with you today that is a little known fact.  I have a flat ass.  Okay, that wasn't the little known fact.  I mean, it's fairly obvious if you know me that my ass is roughly the same size and shape as an office chair.  I credit a series of jobs where I have been chained to my desk over the last fifteen or sixteen years as the reason for this.  See, I used to have a booty.  And not just any old booty either.  I had a great booty.  From the time I was in junior high, I got rave reviews on the size and shape of my ass.

Sadly, what the good Lord giveth, time and gravity will taketh away if you don't treat it right.  Clearly, I did my ass a grave injustice by sitting on it all the time because it has up and left me.  Now I have to coax and cajole it into coming back.

My skinny bitch co- worker asked me the other day if I had set any goals regarding my weight loss.  I told her I was just kind of taking it one day at a time and seeing where it leads me, but it got me to thinking that maybe I should be thinking about where I want all of this to take me.  I have decided that I want my first goal to be....wait for it....no more booty pants.

Remember when I told you I was going to reveal a little known fact?  Well, my dirty secret is that sometimes I have been known to wear booty pants.  For those of you that don't know what those are, they are padded underwear, sort of like a push up bra for your butt.  And yes, if it's a special occasion, I've been known to bust them out.

Given the fact that I just finished 26 minutes of cardio and 48 minutes of low impact and my gluts are screaming, I have decided that no matter how much weight I ultimately end up losing and no matter what size jeans I eventually end up wearing, I want my first goal to be to get my great ass back.  And mark my words, I Will get it back.

Second topic?  I may just have found a cure for headaches.  I woke up with a monster one this morning.  Since it was six a.m. and I didn't have anywhere I needed to be, I popped two Excedrin Migraines and downed a bottle of water and went back to sleep. Until 12:30 p.m.  So now I'm feeling sluggish and still have the headache.  So, off I go to Speedway where I pick up a yummy chicken salad sandwich and a large coffee and head back home.  Where I pop three more pills, down another bottle of water along with about a quarter of the sandwich (it's all my shrinking stomach would hold) and my coffee.  And I wait.

By 4:30, I still have the headache and now I feel even more sluggish because I haven't eaten right all day.  I figure working out is either going to make me feel better or put me out of commission for the rest of the night.  But either way, I won't be any worse off than I will be if I stay on the couch.

And guess what?  About fifteen minutes into my cardio, I no longer have the headache.  And by the time I had completely finished, I no longer felt sluggish.  Like jello?  Well, yes, but not sluggish.

I may just be on to something here...The outer fatty' s voice is getting fainter and fainter.....

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Frustration and Anger

Today was a trying day for me.  Nothing seemed to go right at work, someone let me down that I totally shouldn't have been surprised at, and the day ended on a bit of a sour (and also unsurprising) note.  All in all, it was a very disappointing day, and it shouldn't have been.  Basically I set my expectations of others too high and, as usual, it bit me in my ass.

All I really wanted to do was come home, flop on my couch and veg out with some mindless television.  But instead I put on my big girl panties (along with my sweats) and pushed play on the DVD remote.  And started sweating.

I was about ten minutes into my combined sixty minutes of cardio when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started to get mad.  I was mad at the person who bailed on me today, but mostly I was mad at myself for being even a little bit surprised.  And I was really mad that I was letting how I felt about the situation color my time outside of work.  "Hells bells," I thought, "there isn't enough money in the world to let my job affect my lifestyle changes I'm trying to make!"

Funny thing about anger and frustration.  Sometimes they can work to your advantage.  I began to realize that the madder and more frustrated I got, the harder my body pushed itself.  I became more focused, more driven and probably sweated more than I ever have in my life.  And I finished strong, something I would have thought was unattainable a couple of weeks ago.

My husband says sixty solid minutes of cardio is a lot for anybody and wondered if I should really be doing that much.  I told him that I was just following the plan and since I wasn't dead, it must be okay.  Am I uncomfortable?  Well, hell yes, I am!  My clothes are damp as is my hair and I'm sore as hell.  And although it's not even 8:00 at night, I feel like if my eyes close long enough to blink they'll remain that way for the rest of the night.

Here's the thing; nobody really cares if I succeed at this.  And that's okay, since they're not the ones who let themselves go and have to listen to an inner skinny bitch and an outer fatty battle it out in their heads.  I did that.  And it doesn't matter that I'm not receiving praise and accolades from people whose opinion really doesn't matter to me anyway.  The ones who do are matter are supportive enough, and the person whose opinion matters the most would completely give herself a pat on the back if her arms weren't too sore to lift.

Monday, January 14, 2013

The Guilt Complex

So, my co- worker and I were talking this morning about how her husband and I seem to have the same problem.  We find something we like and gorge ourselves on it until we're either in a food coma and can't move or we are sick to our stomachs from the overindulgence.  Another similarity we share is that we can't seem to stand watching food go uneaten on a plate, so we end up not only cleaning our own plates but everybody else's too.

Of course, the psychology student in me can't help but analyze this.  Given the fact that her husband is quite a few years younger than me, I don't think it's a generational thing.  So I asked a few probing questions about what his home life was like at meal time when he was growing up.  See, I'm a firm believer that a good ninety percent, if not more, of our behavioral characteristics that we carry into adulthood stem from behaviors we learned as children.  As a result, we carry these behaviors into adulthood, and even when we know they're wrong or undesirable, we continue to do them.  They become habits, and sometimes, they're not good.

As it turns out, I was right.  The similarities in her husband's and my eating habits stem from two entirely different scenarios.  In her husband's case, if you didn't hurry up and get some food, you didn't eat.  If you didn't like what was for dinner that night, too bad.  Eat it, or starve.

My house was a bit different.  Sure, the "eat it or starve" mentality was the same.  However, I think sometimes my brother and I would rather have went without rather than eat what my mom cooked (especially the time she cooked an entire rainbow trout, head and all, and served it up like a gourmet dish).  But we didn't leave the table until our plates were clean.  As in, everything gone.  Whether we liked it or not.  I can still remember my brother sitting for what seemed like hours in front of a plate of cooked broccoli.  I can't be sure but I'm relatively certain it was the only time he outlasted my parents.

See, I grew up in the "there are children starving in Africa" generation.  Which means, I don't have a deep seated fear of running out of food.  On the contrary, I feel guilty as hell watching it go to waste.  I feel as if the least I can do for those poor starving kids in Africa is to not willingly waste what they have so little of, especially since, according to Mom, I can't box up my leftovers and send them over there (yes, I asked).

Do I know this is wrong?  Sure, on some level, I guess I do.  And while this knowledge did stop me from passing along food guilt to my son, it did not stop me from cleaning his plate for him.

I have Angel food cake in my kitchen as we speak.  They were on sale, so I bought two (another compulsion of mine is to stock up on "two- fers", whether it's something I need or not).  Right now it is killing me to think that one of those cakes is probably going to mold and go to waste if I don't get it eaten before that happens.  I'm feeling the pressure to scarf the cake even though I don't particularly want it or need it.

But maybe, just maybe, my compulsion for two- fers can work in my favor this time.  Maybe if I let the cake go to waste, I'll see that the world won't come to an end if the cake spoils.  The little African kids will not be crying out in effigy, nor will they be forming a posse to come and string me up by my thumbs for wasting a perfectly good cake.

Of course, outer fatty is chanting "EAT THE CAKE!  EAT THE CAKE!" as she pounds her fists on her flabby thighs in anger.  And one again, the inner skinny bitch is flipping her the bird And sticking her tongue out.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Could be my imagination....

My skin is looking hideous.  This could be for a couple of reasons.  It could be the skin care stuff I've been using, since its different than the stuff I normally use.  But it's supposed to brighten and even my skin tone, not give me acne, for crying out loud.  Or it could be the stuff I've been eating and all the water I've been drinking are pushing all the bad crap out through my pores.  I prefer to think it's the latter than the former.  Either way, it's my firm belief that any woman, no matter what her age, should not have to battle acne and wrinkles at the same time.

I remember when I went on a big green tea drinking kick.  For about two weeks,my face resembled a mine field.  Then it miraculously cleared up.  I was told that all the anti- oxidants in the tea pushed all the toxins out through my pores.  Why I ever gave up green tea, I'll never know.

At any rate, it could be my imagination, but I think my size medium yoga pants (bought entirely by accident, the hanger said extra large) fit a little more loosely than they did a few weeks ago.  And my thighs seem a little firmer than they did a few weeks ago.  Sadly, my belly is still here and probably the same size and shape as its been.  But that's the last place I always lose it and the first place I gain it.  And I still have my furniture problem (my chest hangs into my drawers).  That may never correct itself, unless I manage to save enough for a boob lift.

And do you know what I did tonight?  This is too exciting.  I did push ups.  Yeah, you heard me right.  I said push ups.  Sixty of them, in fact.  Okay, so they were girl push ups, and so I didn't go all the way to the floor, but the fact remains that they were push ups, And I did them.  Even when my arms were screaming in protest and all I wanted to do was crumple to the floor in a sweaty, miserable heap, I kept going.

I'm still waiting on the big endorphin rush that I've heard comes when you're all sweaty and done with your workout.  A co- worker tells me she feels it immediately after she starts working out again, even if it's been a while since her last workout.  Of course, she's a skinny bitch.  And to be honest, the last time I had an endorphin rush so big I couldn't stop shaking was....when I got my last tattoo (thought I was going to say something else, didn't you?).

Yeah, it could all be my imagination, but I think I'm seeing results.  Outer fatty?  well, she's in a bit of a snit and sulking this evening.  But my inner skinny bitch?  She.Is.  CROWING!!!

Small Victories

Okay, okay, I haven't been as good as I should have.  I ate an entire filet mignon Friday night (as well as a deep fried chicken wing I swiped off the old man's plate).  And yesterday at work I indulged (slightly) in a few bites of some yummy desserts from a plate celebrating the festival of Guadalupe, but hey, there are worse things than beef and it was only one chicken wing and only a few bites of sweets.

Since then, I've worked on figuring out ways to curb my sweet tooth without overindulging.  I took a page from Shaun T' s cookbook that was sent with my workout videos and had a small piece of Angel food cake lightly (veerryy lightly) drizzled in chocolate syrup.  Angel food cake is low in calories and fat.  I've always loved Angel food cake, and I plan to use it only as a last resort.

But rather than focus on the not- so- good things I've done, I prefer to focus on the small victories I've had.  I have Not skipped a single workout, no matter how sore and tired I've been.  I have Not had a single soda since, well, I can't remember exactly, but it's been more than a week ago.  Given the fact that this is one of my major addictions, this is huge.  I have not gone out to lunch a single time since I started this diet and exercise program, and not one morsel of fast food has crossed my lips.  I have been drinking water like there's no tomorrow.

The fact of the matter is, this can't just be about losing weight.  It has to be about more than that.  It's about taking control of my life back.  It's mental as well as physical.

Once again, my outer fatty is chuckling over my indulgences.  But they are small victories.  My inner skinny bitch, however, is smiling serenely and giving her the one- fingered salute.  Her victories are the larger ones.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Not as bad as I thought

Okay, so I was up .2 pounds this morning.  But it's okay, because I was expecting at least a pound, so it's not as bad as I thought.  And I've been exceptionally good today. I ate right, I did my workout and sweated up a storm, but my heart wasn't entirely in it.  I think it's because I'm a little burned out and I know my "day of rest" is coming tomorrow.  I didn't feel the same sense of accomplishment as I have the rest of this week.

Maybe it's because I actually gained weight yesterday instead of losing it.  Or maybe, like so many other things in my life, I'm growing bored with it.  I hope this isn't the case, because if it is, this journey into skinny- dom may as well be over.

I'm not as sore as I was.  And I'm actually starting to enjoy the foods that are good for me, like organic spring mix salad and light balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  I'm also enjoying experimenting with different spices added to rice to make it less bland.  And I'm finding that the more I sweat, the easier it is to drink water.

Ideally, I'd like to lose about  65 to 70 pounds.  This would put me in the 130's.  Too skinny?  Maybe just a little.  But then maybe I'll concentrate on quitting smoking.  It would be nice nor to have to worry about packing on a few extra pounds when I do!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

I've been baaaaaad.....

The title says it all.  Tonight I ate.....wait for it....a chocolate chip cookie.  Okay, granted, it was just one and it wasn't very big, but still.  It was a chocolate chip cookie.  Then I followed it up with....a piece of deer meat, breaded and fried.  Yeah, it was just a small piece, but still.  It was breaded and fried.  Obviously, neither of these things is particularly conducive to losing weight.

Nobody forced me to eat these things.  And my only defense is that I have been suffering from mad cravings all day today.  As I sat in the break room at work watching the AVI worker fill the vending machines all I could think about was knocking the poor girl down and ravaging the machine.  Because everything in there, right down to the stuff I don't even really like, looked delicious.

I'm debating whether to even get on the scales tomorrow morning.  If I actually weigh the same as I did this morning, I'll consider myself lucky.  If I weigh more, I'll feel like a failure.  I know, it was just one cookie and just one small piece of fried yumminess (and actually deer meat is pretty healthy), but fried food and chocolate chips are not in my new repertoire.

On a positive, I did work out today.  I was sore as hell, so sore, in fact, that I survived today at work only by the grace of the almighty and ibuprofen.  But once I started to get warmed up and sweaty, it all went away.  And it could be my imagination, but it seems like the moves are coming easier to me.

I'm mad at myself, but I'm not discouraged.  I am going to do this.  The outer fatty may have won this battle, but the inner skinny bitch ain't down and out just yet.  She's still very much alive and kicking.  And spoiling for a fight.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Feeding my addiction

As I was driving to the gas station on my lunch break today, I got to thinking about why dieting never worked for me in the past.  Several reasons came to mind, like that the food was tasteless and boring (after all, a girl can only live on chicken and rice for so long before she goes ape- shit and binges on McDonald's chicken nuggets, right?), but at the end of the day, the only thing I could truly lie the blame on was me.  It's always been me sabotaging myself.

Sure, the food may have been bland, and the results may have not happened on my timetable, but no one held a gun to my head and forced me to make the trip to Mickie D' s.  I did that.  Sure, the old man may have been slightly less than supportive (okay, more than slightly unsupportive) but it's not like he forbid me to eat right and exercise.  

Nope, I gave up all on my own.  And the best reason I can come up with as to why I didn't follow through is because I'm an addict.

An addict, you say?  What could she possibly be addicted to?  Drugs?  Alcohol?  Food, even?

Food, yes.  Drugs and alcohol?  Not even.  But it's more than just a food addiction. I'm addicted to taking the easy way out.  Like so many others, I'm addicted to instant gratification. I want what I want when I want it, which is yesterday.  When I don't see immediate results, I get discouraged.  And what do I turn to in my time of imagined abandonment?  You guessed it.  Food.  The more, the better.  The greasier,the better.  The worse for me, the better.

The bottom line is this: no one can do this for me.  And whether I get laughed at or ridiculed or discouraged shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not I succeed.  And success, no matter how great or small, shouldn't result in me "rewarding" myself with a binge- fest of fried chicken, chocolate and soda.  It's the equivalent of an alcoholic rewarding themselves with a drinking binge to celebrate a year of sobriety or a drug addict shooting up to celebrate being clean for six months. It doesn't make sense.

Since I started my diet four days ago and my workouts three days ago, I have gone from 198.6 pounds to 194.8 pounds.  Sure, it's water weight (in the form of sweat, most likely) but it's progress, just the same.  It's probably the biggest amount of weight I've lost in the shortest amount of time since I was a teenager.  And I gotta say,it feels empowering.

I watched my co- worker suck down a Pepsi with her lunch today.  Did I drool?  Sure, a little bit.  But that was my outer fatty doing the drooling.  My inner skinny bitch was whispering words of praise and encouragement.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Sweatin' Like An Oldie

I. Am. Soaked.  Day three of this workout program had me muttering things under my breath like "F$&@ you, Shawn T," and wondering what I was thinking.  I had to keep reminding myself that the only thing I've ever attempted to master and failed miserably at in my life was algebra, and since I've somehow managed to survive for 40+ years without ever having used it, I'm not too broken up about that!

So, while Shawn T and the merry makers were skipping, hopping, cha- cha- cha' ing, and grapevining their way across the stage, I was stumbling, fumbling and bumbling my way through the workout here in the privacy of my own living room, scratching my head and wondering how long it was going to take me to master the moves.  As it stands right now, I can't even combine the footwork and the arms without tripping over my own feet, or forgetting to do one or the other as I try desperately to keep up.

What I need to remind myself is that with every major change in my life has come the certainty that I will never master whatever it is I'm attempting to do.  Sure, typically these are pursuits that challenge my mind instead of my body and require sitting on my ass as opposed to physical movement, but the feelings of impending doom and certain failure are always the same.

Then one day it clicks.  Things magically make sense in my head.  The pieces come together in a dizzying rush of understanding.  So, I've decided to tackle this problem with the same positivity and certainty that it will all come together as I do anything else that challenges me.  Instead of adopting my "what was I thinking" and my "this is all way beyond my capabilities and not meant for people like me" attitude that I tend to get regarding all things physical, I am going to attack these workouts with single- minded intensity and focus on the small victories (like the fact that I didn't keel over dead from lack of oxygen and that I actually finished both of the scheduled workouts instead of just one, or half of one).

Yes, it will probably be hours before my face loses its purplish hue and goes back to its normal color.  But that's the advantage of being an empty nester whose old man is out of town on a hunting trip.  No witnesses.

I can do this.  I Will do this.  Not only will I do this, I will do it well.  I can hear my inner skinny bitch crowing and telling my outer fatty to suck a big one and have another carrot stick.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Rockin' Body??

And so, it begins.  Today was day two of my workout and I have to say that it is kicking my ass already!  But I did feel a major sense of accomplishment when I finished all of it with only a couple of microsecond long breaks to get a drink of water.  To spare the public, I only work out in the privacy of my own living room.  This way, no one has to watch my clumsy attempts at duplicating the rhythmic movements of Shawn T and his merry little band of followers.  Skinny bitches with 12- pack abs, right down to the last one (let me be clear, I only mean "skinny bitches" in the nicest possible sense, since I hope to join their ranks someday).

Which brings me to my topic...exactly how "rockin'" of a body should I expect out of this?  After all, I Will be forty- two in a couple of months.  And while there are supermodels like Rachel Hunter and Cindy Crawford who are older than me and look fabulous, I can't help but think my days of fabulosity are behind me.  And at the risk of sounding full of myself, I was freakin' fabulous back in my day. In fact, a much younger co-worker of mine told me after seeing pictures of me in my senior year of high school that he would have "totally been hittin' that" if he were around back then.  Of course I had to completely burst his bubble by telling him that it never would have happened since he didn't strike me as the type to ever sport a mullet.

As I recently told another co-worker, even if I were to magically acquire this rockin' Body of which Shawn T speaks, there would still be the stretch marks.  I mean, seriously, my butt looks like a road map, I totally forgot to lotion up the lower part of my belly when I was pregnant, so focused was I on the part I could actually see, and somehow I also managed to perform the previously unheard of feat of getting them on the backs of my knees.  I'm not kidding, the backs of my knees!  I know of absolutely no one else who has ever managed that.  One of a kind, yep, that's me!

Don't get me wrong, the thought that my hard work and dedication to the program may possibly result in my resembling "Tiger- Striped Barbie" when I finally hit the beach with my rockin' new body is not going to deter me from doing my level best to reach my goal.  I am not going to let a few (okay, okay, more than a few) silvery- pink striped bits of flesh stop me from becoming the best my 42- year- old self can be.  For far too long instead of trying to effect change in myself, I've told my inner skinny girl whose been buried under a layer of subcutaneous blubber to shut the hell up and have another slice of cake.  Instead of doing something about my circumstances, I've been trying to force myself to accept them, even though they weren't conducive to how I want to live my life.

Those days are gone. I'm not getting any younger, and I've wasted far too much time already.  So, no matter how klutzy I look while working out and no matter how many more tiger stripes I incur on my journey towards my best self, I won't stop.  And from now on I'll think of my stretch marks as battle scars from which I have always gleaned something wonderful.

The old ones belong to my son.  The new ones will belong to the new and improved me.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

It's all on me

It finally occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that I've been living my life for others.  Make no mistake, it's not that I didn't, and still don't see a certain nobility in being in a helping profession or going above and beyond to help others.  I do, or I wouldn't be wrestling with decisions like whether or not to continue my education or how long to stay in my current position at the prison when chances for advancement look to be slim.

I became a wife at twenty- one and a mother at twenty- two.  Many will disagree with me in my belief that women should hold themselves to a higher standard than men when it comes to parenting.  But carrying a baby under your heart for nine long months is something that a man will never have the opportunity to experience, and if you ask me, God sure knew what he was doing when he designed it that way!  Contrary to the popular belief that women are the weaker sex, it's my belief that we are the opposite.  The fact that my own husband almost passed out while watching the doctor perform an episiotomy on me when I was giving birth to our son reiterates this point, especially since I didn't feel a thing.

But I digress, as I often do when random thoughts skitter through my brain and come spewing out my mouth (or fingers, in this case).  I believe it's referred to as having no filter, something I've long been accused of, and I confess, has only gotten worse in my current line of work.  This blog will be filled with those, so if you have a strong stomach and a sense of humor, keep reading.  If you don't, this may not be up your alley.

I became an empty nester a few months ago.  This was harder on me than I realized it would be.  My husband said "come on now, you're the one who raised him to be self- sufficient."  And he's right, I did.  That doesn't mean, however, that I wouldn't be content for him to live at home with me for the rest of his natural life.  My son leaving home and getting his own place coincided with me finishing my online schooling and finally, after four long years of continuous study, receiving my bachelor of science degree in psychology.  I had already decided to take a break before going back to school and getting a master's.  However, now that it's just me and my husband, I find myself at loose ends.

After having my big epiphany a few weeks ago (must've been huge if I can't even remember the exact day I had it, right?) I decided that I'm not getting any younger.  The longer I wait to begin my journey toward self- improvement, the harder it's going to be to accomplish it.  So, in the wee hours of the morning and still under the influence of sleep, I ordered a workout program I saw on an infomercial that looked like fun.  Of course, it helped that the guy facilitating the workout was Shawn T, who is amazingly hot (now you know what my motivation will be to pop in those DVD' s and start sweating!).  I also made a trip to the store and bought all kinds of healthy food (note to self: look for blogs dedicated to eating healthy on the cheap!).

We interrupt this blog to bring you a knock at the door....yay!  It's the mailman bringing me my beach body workout videos!  Normally I would wait until Monday to start anything new, but since I started my diet yesterday, I think today or tomorrow will be the day I bust open that box and see what torturous treasures wait for me inside.  I know this is not going to be easy, especially since I have crossed over the threshold into middle age.  But I figure if I apply the same single minded dedication to self- improvement as I have obtaining my degree or saving people that, in most cases prove to be unsaveable, I can make it happen
 . Here we gooooo......