mockingjayj The Hunger Games
Criminal Minds
Adele
The Office

I honestly don’t know if I even like who I am on the inside. I think a lot of things that I never say and they eat me alive. I let people take advantage of me and my generosity and call it “friendship”. I remember my husband yelling at me before we were married telling me that I had to stand up for myself and tell people what I think. I guess this is my way of trying that out. I don’t ever say mean things straight to a person unless provoked or deeply concerned. I recently was called two-faced by a “friend” in my own home and just sat there. SERIOUSLY!!!!! Why would I just sit there! This kills me everyday. Yes her kids were there and I didn’t want to upset them, but she was a guest in my own house! Oh and let me just tell you that she was entirely wrong about the whole situation. It was about mending ties between a mutual friend that I had disagreements with. (we had different views and stopped talking, now we are talking again and I decided to try the friendship out again. If that is two-faced please by all means tell me I am wrong). What can possibly make me so uncomfortable in my own body to not care what is said to me? I am baffled by this realization and have been trying to figure it out. I stay “friends” with people to avoid conflicts and arguments. I have been doing it for years. Acting like everything is forgiven or just letting rude comments fall off my shoulders, while secretly I am hurting inside and just won’t say anything that could create an argument! I let people walk all over me instead of standing up for myself because I don’t respect myself. If I don’t, then why would others, right? The crazy part is that I didn’t acknowledge any of this for the longest time.

Okay, so by now I’ve gained 50 pounds, had a baby, and stopped working. I thought that by the time Alyson was one year old I would have lost the baby weight, but I haven’t. I do not feel beautiful anymore. I hate the way I look and it’s time to change that. So, that being said, here are my new goals (some of which I have already started):

1. EAT HEALTHIER!
2. INSANITY
3. WALK EVERY DAY
4. COUNT CALORIES
5. LOSE 50 POUNDS
6. FIT INTO MY SKINNY JEANS (size 7s in the closet)
7. FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF AGAIN

Okay, so now I know roughly what I WANT. Now, I need to figure out how to keep myself on track. I’ve started Insanity before (with 2 friends), but some of us just stopped coming or we made excuses not to do it. So basically I just need to force myself to do it every day for the 60 days. I want to be skinny, but I always give up on myself. I tried bribing myself with things, like nice clothes or expensive stretch mark cream (yes seriously). And yet, I still give up. 

There should be a drill sergeant app on my phone that goes off at certain times of the day telling me to do various exercises. I might use that, for like a day. I think that would be awesome, but I sort of tried doing that myself with an armed TO-DO list app… haha. I set my TO-DO list to go off at a specific time of the day to tell me to exercise and remind me to eat right at my usual low point of the day. However, this only worked for the first day (if that!). After that, I just started to ignore the little beep and just went on with my day like I wasn’t supposed to do anything. I have some things that are listed as a week ago now that haven’t been done yet! So we’ll just call that attempt a failure. 

I have had some luck using an app (MyFitnessPal) on my phone to count calories. At first I was a little unsure of cooking homemade meals because of all the calculating involved, but now that I’ve been using it for almost 2 weeks I’ve got the hang of it. I began using this app on Saturday, May 12. I was 205 pounds and it asked what my goal weight was and then there were options like; lose 1 pound a week, lose 2 pounds a week or gain. I chose to lose 2 pounds a week and then it told me that I should eat about 1300 calories a day. I really aim to lose more than that so I try to stay at about 1200 calories a day (anything below that puts your body into starvation mode and it not very healthy to do). I have been doing this for 2 1/2 weeks now and I have lost   8 pounds so far. Yay one thing is finally working! I did myself a favor and took a picture tonight so that I can have something to compare my progress to. You can also put in your measurements so you can track the progress there as well, but  , sad to say, I do not own a measuring tape. I love this app and would recommend to anyone to give it a shot, (it can’t hurt right?). Everyone does things their own way but this was super easy for me to keep up with and get used to doing. You can search for foods that are in their database (like Starbucks drinks) and you can even scan the barcodes on items to input them (I LOVE that feature). It makes adding in an afternoon snack super simple and quick! 

Alright, so now I still I have to lose 42 pounds, so I have to figure out new exercises to do. Like I mentioned previously, I have a one year old daughter. She is walking and always into everything and lately will not take naps. My working out has suffered severely from her intrusions. I have tried putting her in her highchair with breakfast while I workout and she always gets mad that I am not eating with her (so there goes that idea). I tried to leave her on the floor to play while doing Insanity, but she would get under my feet or come up to try to play with me while doing push-ups. She loves to be involved in everything I do. She is very attached, as my husband has been deployed most of her first year (coming back soon <3). I have heard of “mommy-and-me” exercises, and I was thinking about giving them a whirl, but I don’t know if they are going to give me what I am looking for. I was in the military myself before getting out to raise my daughter. I used to be forced to work out 5 days and week and now I barely workout 3 days a week. I have started to take my daughter and my 2 dogs on walks everyday, but some days I don’t get to it. I was doing really well, walking at least 3 miles a day. The one day we walked almost 6 miles! I felt amazing doing it too, but then a wave of demotivation struck and here I am on and off again. I do plan to keep up with my walks as much as I can (especially since my dogs now expect it!) 

I truly believe that the hardest goal to complete will be feeling good about myself again. As I said I do not feel pretty anymore and I hate how I look. This all comes down to accepting myself for who I am. Fat or thin. My husband (who didn’t even know I was trying to lose weight) looked at a picture of me (after I lost the 8 pounds) and said, “wow babe you look great”. And I was like “really?” WTF! My own husband compliments me and I question it. He tells me that he loves me and in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder why he would like me. I am beyond insecure about how I look and I know that it is ridiculous, but I really just need to get over it and feel good. I think by eating healthier and maintaining a healthier weight my confidence will get a boost and hopefully I will feel good about myself, maybe even feel pretty again.

Right now I am in a size 14. So I will need to drop 3 pants sizes to fit into my skinny jeans! Which honestly, for my body, is definitely do-able. When I was about 150 before I got pregnant I was wearing those jeans. I hope that it will be that same way again, otherwise I’ll need to change my goal weight to fit into them.

I chose to write/begin this blog just to get some of my frustration out and really truly try to figure out things that will work for me. I am on the right path, for now at least, but I feel like unless I do something like blog everyday or something I will fall off track. I want to stay this course, granted I understand that a few pit-stops along the way isn’t going to kill me. I have been eating out less since I started counting calories and that is wonderful, but I realize that it doesn’t mean that I can’t eat out at a restaurant, as long as it’s in moderation. Moderation, portion control and regular exercise are going to be my best friends in this journey to self-acceptance. I hope that anyone reading this got something out of it, or maybe has something to share. I am always up for trying something new especially if it may help me get to where I want to be. Thanks <3