February Goals 2012 - Review

- lose 5 pounds.  Just a little over a pound a week.
WIN! I thought this one was going to be a bust, but stepping on the scale this afternoon, I am 5.6 pounds less than I was at the 1st of this month :)

- go to the gym 15 times.
made it 13 times.  I was sick the majority of last week, and even though I wasn't at the gym, I ran at least one day every weekend this month.

- finish the book I'm reading, start and finish another book.
FAIL!  I finished the book I was reading, and started two others, which I am only 1/4 through both. 

- finish ONE of the many unfinished art pieces I have laying around the apartment.
FAIL!  In looking through what I have started but never finished, I realized that I'm a nearly different person than the one who started those.  I would eventually like to finish them, but I have bigger and better ideas to spend my time on.

- finish couch to 5k.  continue running.
I repeated week 5 and week 6.  It's been too cold/windy to run outside, and I hate running for extended periods on the treadmill, so I've been slacking.  I can, however, run at 6 mph for 10 minutes straight without dying.

- continue lifting weights.  goal, 10 times this month.
I lifted 8 times.  This would have been 10 had I lifted at all last week, which I didn't.  I did do a week of 30 situps/pushups every day, though.

- finish reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with Aiden.
FAIL!  He's been reading to me :)

- start looking for (and hopefully FIND) a new car.
Started looking.  Have a good idea of what I want, now I just have to find something in my budget that is close by.

- dream big.  act on it.
:)  I attended a quarterly Nebraska Breastfeeding Coalition meeting via teleconference a few weeks ago.  I felt my dreams sliding into place.  I have registered for a course study, so fingers crossed that I'm accepted.

- get a pedicure.
WIN!  Aiden and I went together, the day of the first huge blizzard of the season.

- declutter the bathroom.
WIN!  I also did a thorough scrubbing.

- one day at a time, one hour at a time, continue to remind myself how much I am loved.
I will admit that there are still days that I struggle with this, but they are fewer than the days where I am in love with life, and myself.  I pat myself on the back, I dance in the bathroom, I sing in the shower, and I am genuinely proud of myself.  Is it conceited to admit that? 

Merging the Fat Girl

Since June of 2009, when I saw photos of myself from my mother's 50th birthday party that made me stop and say, "wait a minute, that CANNOT be me."  I have been on a journey. A weight loss journey.  It hasn't been easy and there have been so many bumps along the way that I have lost count. 

I have injured my knees twice, not to the extent that I had to seek any sort of medical attention, but enough that I couldn't do much physical activity for a few weeks afterward.  I fell in love and we all know that love equals weight gain.  I battled with myself over my motivations.  I ate too much, I ate too little, I lost countless nights of sleep due to stress beyond my own control. 

In nearly three years I have lost 71 pounds.  That is more than my 8 year old son weighs now.  I have FOUR pounds to go until I weigh what I did when I got pregnant with him.  It has only taken me nine years to get back to this place.  I still have 25 pounds after that to hit my goal.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.

I don't want to be "skinny".  I never have.  I want to merge everything that is feminine about me, with health.  When I began all of this, I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and not absolutely hate what was staring back at me.  I don't know that I actually believed that any of this was even possible.  I think I started this, in an attempt to prove myself wrong.

My body has changed.  Muscles in my arms and legs have definition.  I am strong, and for the first time ever, actually look the part.  I look in the mirror every morning, and there are days when I have to stop and take a double look at myself, because I simply cannot believe it.  I am not the fat girl anymore, at least not physically.  Mentally, I'm still working on that one.

We see it on The Biggest Loser.  One of the biggest struggles with weight loss comes not from the outside, but from the inside.  We know in our hearts that this is going to take time, but when we're not seeing results that we want on the scale, or in our clothes, this poses the biggest threat to our success.  We become DE-motivated.

My biggest issue right now, is that I am not the fat girl in body, but my mind is trying desperately to catch up.  Shopping for clothes is my first example.  I automatically go for shirts two or three sizes too big for me, in order to hide something, when there is less and less of me to hide.  I wonder what the waiter taking my order is thinking when I order a salad, "is he/she applauding the fat girl's choice in trying to be healthy?" or even worse, when I decide to order something NOT healthy, "are they judging the fat girl who ordered the everything platter, thinking of course, this is why she's fat?"  People are going to judge me, regardless of what I'm choosing to eat, and I'm learning to realize that these voices, they are my own.

The gym used to be a huge obstacle for me.  I felt like the fat girl ALL THE TIME.  This lead me to stick to a routine, one machine, in and out, don't make eye contact with anyone.  This has waned, more to do with the fact that I see the same people over and over again every day, and in our own silent, non-verbal conversations, I know in some way they're rooting for me.  They've seen the changes in me.  Many of them have been in my shoes at one point or another in their lives. 

So how do you stop the "fat girl" thinking?  How do I rationalize with myself that even though my mind thinks of me, still, as "the fat girl" that this is not who I am?  I am proud of me, and all that I have accomplished and all that I am still aiming to accomplish, but how do I look in the mirror and see all of the changes, but not allow myself to believe them?

It is quite the liberating feeling when you realize that you are not allowed to actively think of yourself as "the fat girl" any longer.  When I'm putting on clothes that are mediums.  When I put my old underwear on and it literally FALLS OFF.  When I step on the scale and it reads a number that I haven't seen since I was 19.  It all feels like a dream. 

One, great big, gigantic, I don't want to wake up from this-ever, dream.  I am not "the fat girl" anymore.  So when do I start believing it?

I missed (poetry)

I missed this
and that
of you.

I missed the obvious
like your eyes and your
smell.

Your smile.

I missed your breathing.
The ways you inhaled
and exhaled
when you were excited.

Or falling asleep with your arms around me.

Or turned on. 

All of them different
only slightly
but all of them yours
and wonderful.

It was music to my ears
the in and out
of you.

I missed the stubble on your
face after a day of no shaving.

I missed
you pulling away my hair
to kiss the nape of my neck
with the scratch and the
soft
of lips. 

I missed you smelling my hair.

I missed your hands
so much bigger than mine
the comfort of your
arms.

The definition of muscle
under skin
in you.

I missed your early
morning sleepy eyes.

The sound of you in the shower
lulling me back into dreams.

It wasn't until
I was able to let you go,
that you
came back.

February Goals 2012

- lose 5 pounds.  Just a little over a pound a week.

- go to the gym 15 times.

- finish the book I'm reading, start and finish another book.

- finish ONE of the many unfinished art pieces I have laying around the apartment.

- finish couch to 5k.  continue running.

- continue lifting weights.  goal, 10 times this month.

- finish reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with Aiden.

- start looking for (and hopefully FIND) a new car.

- dream big.  act on it.

- get a pedicure.

- declutter the bathroom.

- one day at a time, one hour at a time, continue to remind myself how much I am loved.