I'm back! Everyone who has read my blog before deserves a bit of an explanation. As can be seen, I have left the first two posts from when I began my "weight loss blog" and then deleted the measly two that I wrote after that. I haven't "blogged" since April 20th!! I can give MANY excuses, I have a LONG list, but recently I discovered that all of my reasons for taking a break from my blog are the same reasons I have been avoiding making the effort to lose weight and change my whole life! To put the long story short I will say that I had some stresses in my life that I felt warranted a break from the blog scene until I was 100% dedicated to writing when I was "supposed to" and 100% dedicated to putting in the effort to have things to write about. What did I get as a result of waiting until I was "less stressed"? I GAINED WEIGHT!
As I sat the other day unpacking in our new apartment I realized that I am always going to have an excuse to do the easy thing, which, in this case, is not doing anything to lose weight or like myself. I then read another wonderful entry from Kady's blog and saw that she too had some undue stresses in her life, and was losing weight and still blogging. I had that ever wonderful AHA! moment and decided that I would start putting the effort in again, for my life would ALWAYS be stressful. (Please forgive the ALL CAPS excited words of emphasis, I'm not yelling, just making my point. ;x) Since my marriage has been so awesome and Kris has gotten me through so much, I decided to talk to my wonderful husband about my revelation.
May I remind the world that Kris is a runner. He, at the time, was participating in a run streak from memorial day to independence day (which he Totally completed because he is amazing!). He told me that he would like to start eating healthier too and had been using the MyFitnessPal website and app on his phone. We had an extensive discussion on what foods we both deem are healthy and how we should go about making sure that we can both be happy with our food choices. In the end, my partner in crime has really helped me get back on track, just by being there as someone whom I can subconsciously (and sometimes openly) compete against in beating our calorie goals. As a result, I have been keeping up with my calorie intake again on MyFitnessPal.com since July 10th and have lost 6.1 lbs!!! Since I had gained weight, that's still not any official loss from my original weight at the beginning of my journey, but I've only got 1.3lbs. until I'm going into an actual weight loss from 260.3!
I feel like I'm in a much better place in my life as well. I know that it will still take a lot of time for me to look in the mirror and actually appreciate what I see again, but I know that I will. I have been trying to find small things about myself to love everyday, whether they be about my physical self, my personality, or my life in general. I am in a good place with school, I love our new apartment, and while I still miss my family and friends all the time, I actually am learning to love living in what seems like our own little private part of Texas, which is a big deal for me. I think I'm moving away from being someone who was clearly depressed and saw sadness in almost every part of her life into a more peaceful state of mind. Yes, I have SO much stress and so many things I still have to fix that if I named it all it would make my (and your) head spin, but I am learning to handle it and still see the good side.
So here's to beginning again. I know that I can see the stresses in my life piling up on a list that seems etched into the back of my eyelids, but I know that ignoring the fact that stress will always be there, just like needing to eat better and be more active and love myself more will always be there, will get me no where. I guess that's all part of growing up. Which is maybe the scariest part of all!
P.S.- My bud Kady always reveals her jogging song for the week, and as I have not officially begun running again (due to a goofy river tubing knee injury) I can't participate in this idea, but a song accompanies this entry none the less, so give Animals by Neon Trees a listen, here, because it totally fits my mood right now.
