I am still here. I have been absent as of late getting ready for our big family vacation to Yellowstone! I am still struggling with the everydayness of my body, still trying to figure out a workout routine/schedule, coming up with what seems like any and every excuse to eat poorly (VACATION!), and ready to get back at it.
My sweet neighbor gave me hope today. She hasn't seen me in a while and apparently I look like I have lost weight. I don't know where... cause all my lbs. are present and accounted for. If anything, we have some new recruits after 7 days of non-stop parenting in foreign forests. (Remember, I am stress-eater!) I peeked back through our camping excursion and am seriously disgusted with what I see. I don't know any other word to describe it - disgusted. I have never, NEVER looked like this before and I am really finding difficulty in accepting myself.
I think its because I am not supposed to. I don't want to. This is not me. I am not this shell I see in front of me. Not that it is that completely horrible, but because I know myself to be better than this. Some of you might read this a judge - how superficial of me! YES. I am being a little superficial with the exterior. But I say this with the underlying truth that how my body is now is not how it was designed to be. It was designed to be strong, healthy, fit - the sleekness of my muscle definition is just a beautiful side-effect. I deserve to be better, my children deserve a better mom, and my husband deserves a better wife.
Now let me get the the source of this - internal fitness. I am not simply talking about smaller pants sizes, flatter stomachs, less flabby arms. This is NOT what this is about, what ANY of this is about. It is ultimately about become my best self (thank you, Oprah, for driving this concept into my brain so kindly and subtly every afternoon at 4pm for the last ten years). Something happened this year when I turned 30 - something terribly beautiful and tragic. I realized A: I am NOT indestructible as I previously thought in my youth. B: I need to take care of myself better for my family and those I love. and C: My metabolism sucks. (this is the tragic part). I am thirty. Not nineteen or twenty-one as I sometimes still envision myself to be. I can still feel that young, but I must understand the ramifications for my choices now have a much greater effect on me now than they did then.
Example: I LOVE junk food - specifically the salty, crispy, potato chip variety that comes delectably prepacked with all sorts of interesting vocabulary words that would give the World Spelling Bee champ a run for their $$ - none of which can be grown at your local farm - except for maybe the third to the last of the 27 items listed. Previously, this was no issue for me. I would down an entire can or bag or pre-sealed plastic container and just think "I better run tomorrow." Tomorrow would come, I would feel fine and forget to run, and never miss a beat... until the next craving ensued approx. 1.3 weeks from previous indulgence. Today, (warning, this may contain information not suitable for younger audiences) I get bloated, have gas that could be mistaken for a byproduct of Hitler's Chemical Warfare, get constipated and frustrated as I sit on the toilet for what feels like an hour utilizing all previous skills from childbirth to try and get something anything to move, irritable because I am bloated and constipated and look as good as I feel, lethargic from the simple carbs that caused my blood sugar to spike and then crash a mere 7.32 minutes after I ate and surprisingly! I lose my libido.
The previous example is exactly what happened to me over our vacation. You should have seen the sh*t that came home in grocery bags from my pre-camping shopping excursion. My kids went BANANAS! I never buy chips or cookies or all the junk that Winco so conveniently displays in their bulk food section. For some reason, I couldn't resist this time. I thought I was somehow treating everyone to a great time if I bought their enthusiasm and cooperation with highly-processed chemistry experiments. Bad call Mom, bad call. You see, my body, my husband's body, my 7 year old's body and my 2 year old's body are not equipped to deal with the massive overload of said byproducts and chemicals that were so eagerly consumed on our trip. We had issues... lots of stinkin' issues... in a small, 25 ft. camper-trailer... while driving around Yellowstone... for six days... My oldest went to the bathroom one time in three days - ONE TIME! Yes, we still ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks in between and she still only went once. I wasn't much better... my only saving grace was the mass water consumption from being hot due to the over-preparedness of my packing (I thought it would be colder than it was so we wore jeans in 80+ degree weather) and the delicious coffee that Phil and I prepared in our french press every morning (a must for a trip that consisted of waking each day before 7 am, traveling 1400 miles in a truck with three wee ones and NEVER a moment without someone needing something!). The stress of said "vacation" (yes, I use this word in quotes intentionally because whoever came up with that damn word never took a trip like this) only added to our issues and when the urge finally came, in was a MAD dash to the nearest outdoor bathroom facility filled with flies, puddles and Asian tourists.
All of sh*t-talking has got me thinking though. In this short amount of time I noticed a remarkable change in all of us. Not externally, but we were all cranky, constipated, stinky, etc. (You are probably grossed out by my open-bowel talk - holy cow is that a visual - anyway, please don't stop reading, it will get better. I promise.) A-D-D moment there... If food can have that great of an impact in just six short days and require us another week of recovery after, what happens in a lifetime of poor consumption?!? What things go unnoticed and just chalked up to "I've always had a problem with..." Have you really or is it somehow related to what you put in your body and what you do with your body. I have to say that my sweat is even stinkier this week as I work out because of the left-overs still in my cells. How strange is that!! I find myself having ridiculously strong cravings for just at 11:31 pm because of my indulgence. My body became addicted to it like heroin and wants, NEEDS more. I periodically can't resist and end up with a handful of leftover Cool Ranch Doritos and a guilty conscience. I HATE IT!
The whole point of this is just to blog about my updates with fitness and what-have-yous and this is my current struggle. I am in detox. And because I haven't been providing quality fuel for my body, I haven't been feeling so good about the external of my body. So to help with my "down and out" feelings, I made some goals for today:
1. Go to the bathroom.
2. Drink enough water.
3. Workout.
4. Update blog.
5. Participate in some endorphin-stimulating nookie.
6. Finish "chores" around the house.
7. Wash & dry another load of laundry left from trip.
8. Make a healthy, dinner free of chemistry experiments.
9. Go to bed before 11pm to resist my 11:31 craving.
If I am able to accomplish this list, it will begin the healing process of getting back on track with the incredibly s-l-o-w moving wagon of weight loss and body transformation. Wish me luck. On the flip side, I am down to 149 lbs (5lb. weight loss). Here are my latest pictures:
BEFORE --------- 6 WEEKS
I see some progress!! Not anything to make me the poster child for 6 week transformations, but still, its better than nothing!
