March Goals 2012 : Review

- lose 5 pounds. 
FAIL.  I lost three.  As I get lower, the lbs seem to be coming off slower, but I am noticing a change in inches.  Which is good.

- go to the gym 15 times.
WIN!  Went 15 times!  Would have been a couple more, but I was sick the beginning of this week, and pretty much slept the entire time I wasn't at work.

- lift weights. twice a week- minimum.
WIN!  Also except for this week, I only lifted once.

- go through clothes, again. give away, donate, or sell.
FAIL!  Didn't even attempt this.

- BUY A CAR.
Total and complete WIN!  Bought a 2003 Mazda Protege 5.  I am IN LOVE with it.  It suits me.

- finish one of the books I've started.
WIN!  I finished  Skylight Confessions, and I'm nearly done with The Tenth Circle.

- one night a week, no television.
WIN!  This was something we didn't even consciously do, but Aiden had diving lessons twice a week, and that helped.

- take myself to a movie, eat a big bowl of buttery popcorn.
FAIL!  I was going to go to The Hunger Games, but haven't gotten around to it, yet.  Tancy and I are going on Monday.

- START a new art project.
I'm not going to give this a win or fail.  I didn't do anything on canvas, or paper, but I did a LOT of cooking. 

- sing. loudly. unabashedly. proudly.
WIN!  New car and sterio system that bumps, not to mention the boyfriend's late V-day present was a Griffin iPod adapter for the radio.  I sang a lot of chick music.

- call my sister more often.
FAIL!  I'm a terrible big sister.

- cook at least one new meal a week.
WIN!  I made pizza puffs, drunken noodles, overnight blueberry french toast, sticky buns, pepperoni rollups, and a reese's peanut butter cup pie.

- write. about anything. about everything.
I wrote a lot of things in my head, though didn't get a chance to get them down on the computer, or paper.  I may post something else tonight, though.

- FINISH couch to 5k. continue running.
Week 6 and 7 proved more difficult than I had anticipated, so I did them both twice, have one more week to go.

- buy a full length mirror.
FAIL!  Gah!  I sucked this month.  Next trip to Wal-mart (and I went probably twice a week all month long...) and I WILL buy one!

- keep calm, love myself and others unconditionally. smile more. question motives less. LIVE.
Week by week, day by day, situation by situation.  I have my good days, and I have my bad.  I have managed to remain calm and not act like a 14 year old girl in most situations, I have loved more than I have not, I have smiled more than I have frowned, and I have accepted things as they have come, good and bad. 

Hi, my name is Sadie, and I'm GROWING ;)

Illuminate the "NO" on the vacancy sign.

I feel as though I have been running for the last few weeks.  I feel like I haven't really had the chance to stop and breathe.  Don't get me wrong, I love being busy.  I love having something to do, somewhere to go, someone to see.  It's jut hard to do some of the writing I've wanted to do.  Especially when I have so much to say.

So I'm going to do a condensed "this is where I have been since my last post" entry.  Try to keep up.

The 3rd of March marked the one year anniversary since Aiden has seen his father.  I have written letters and emails and text messages to him that I have never sent, that I will never send.  I am not a violent person, but that man makes me want to break his face.

D and I took a weekend trip to Ft. Collins, Colorado the first of the month.  We went with no plans other than the hotel we were staying at, and the thought of sleeping in.  We bar hopped, partook in the local beer, ate at some wonderfully unique restaurants, and spent Saturday afternoon driving up into the mountains.  It was beautiful, and Ft. Collins is definitely a wonderful place. I would love to go back, do some outdoorsy stuff, climb and look at the stars.  We managed to sleep in until 8:30 our second day there.

I bought a car.  After getting back from our little trip I had taken a day off work, and finally made myself go out and look.  I found this wonderful little Mazda Protege 5.  It's cherry red, and totally me.  It's a 5 speed, and so much fun to drive.  I have already promised Aiden that it will be his in 8 years if it's still running.

Aiden took two weeks of diving (yes, like swimming) lessons.  He worked more on his approach and form than anything, but I have decided that this summer we are going to spend less time on the outdoor sports, and we're going to concentrate on his swimming.  He's not the most graceful thing outside of the water, but he is a fish when he's in it.  There is so much potential there, not to mention he loves it.

My sister came into town with her fiance J.  We all went out for St. Patrick's Day.  Tancy, Mike and I made T-shirts that said "Happy St. Patrick Swayze Day"  with a picture of Patrick Swayze on the front. Hilarity.  We all drank too much, but had so much fun.  The day after is always a rough one, but after a big breakfast with my family and some water, I was all good.

Things are good.  Things are REALLY good.  Other than the pimple on my chin, and the fact that the weight loss has been slower this month than I'd like, I am really enjoying my life.  If I can manage to lose two more pounds before the end of the month, expect some before and after photos of yours truly. :)

March Goals 2012

- lose 5 pounds.  This will put me under my pre-pregnancy weight and I will then post before and after photos.

- go to the gym 15 times.

- lift weights.  twice a week- minimum.

- go through clothes, again.  give away, donate, or sell.

- BUY A CAR.

- finish one of the books I've started.

- one night a week, no television.

- take myself to a movie, eat a big bowl of buttery popcorn.

- START a new art project.

- sing.  loudly.  unabashedly.  proudly.

- call my sister more often.

- cook one new meal a week.  (I need to start cooking again.  I've been living on salads, sandwiches, and soups for weeks.)

- write.  about anything.  about everything.

- FINISH couch to 5k.  continue running.

- buy a full length mirror.

- keep calm, love myself and others unconditionally.  smile more.  question motives less.  LIVE.

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.