missey

I am sure everyone here has had moments in their lives where they needed a reality check.  It is always good to be confident and be happy with yourself at any weight or place in your life.  But sometimes we get a bit full of ourselves until we catch a glimpse in a 3 way mirror.  So, I have been happily able to wear 10’s comfortably, I have felt on top of the world.  Needless to say I have 3 sizes to go to actually get to a 7, but even at a ten it is better than my 14 I wore before. 

I am walking in the store feeling like I am a size 7 and only 127lbs. when I caught a glimpse of myself in a 3 way mirror.  I was shocked.  I realized, yes, I had lost a lot of weight and that I have firmed up from working out in my arms, stomach, and legs.  But I was not a size 7 by any means.  I think I started slacking off with food, and soda since I got to a size 10.  I felt so good I didn’t realize I had lost my motivation.  As I glear at all three of my reflections I realize I have more than enough work ahead of myself. 

It was not disheartening since I am much smaller today than last month.  But seeing myself as others do certainly re-motivated me to do more.  No more pop, again, no more pizza, again, and more gym.  Sometimes being honest with ourselves is the best medicine.

I have a relative who for some reason thinks we are competing in life.  If I knew exactly what the competition was I would throw it so she could win and the competition would be over.  It is to the point that I don’t even like talking to her any more.  No matter what I do she either tries to debate it or tries to make light of it and then up-plays her successes.   Truely I don’t care.  I tend to do things as I go, I don’t put thought into what others are doing or how to one-up them. 

 So my cousin came to my house the other day without notice.  I was expecting company and quickly rushed to the door to find it was her.  She came in and sat on the coffee table in front of where I am setting.  Irritating, to say the least.  She questioned about what I had been up, searching, prying for anything she could pounce on with a debate.  I told her I test drove a Blazer and really liked it but wasn’t sure just yet cause I was weighing the pros and cons of my three favorite vehicles I had test driven at that point, and I openly expressed I was in no big hurry to jump into any one of them without doing further research.  Immediately she jumped on it and told me all the reasons all my favorites were gas guzzlers, auto mechanics dreams cause they break down so much, and so on.  Typically I get irritated with her and let her give her speal and then pretend to be busy so she eventually leaves.  This day in particular I started my monthly girly thing and was feisty. 

I responded telling her what I know about the vehicles and what local mechanic friends of mine said about the vehicles being sound and good options and etc.  I asked her who her sources were.  She shut up really fast.  Almost immediately I could see her searching for another hot topic.  I stood up and walked into the kitchen and grabbed a banana.  I started peeling it when she noticed how much weight I had lost.  She said she had to do something cause there was no way I was going to weigh less than her.  She went on to talking about liposuction and other alternative weightloss procedures.  I listened for a minute and said why don’t  you start watching what your eating, be more active or workout, and live a more healthy lifestyle.  Her jaw dropped.  She said she tried Hydroxycut pills and they barely worked, and she worked out but it just doesn’t fit into her schedule.  I responded almost cuttin her off.  I told her she may just not be ready to lose the weight.  She was tiffed and went into how she spent thousands on workout equipment and gym memberships and how dare I imply she isn’t really interested in losing weight.  I quickly responded telling her that it takes work to lose weight and until she decides to put the effort forth, weight would always be a problem regardless of all the shortcuts she is considering with surgery.  I told her it was harder being over weight than it is finding time to workout and live healthier. The trade is more than fair.  She was so upset at me she left without saying good bye.

This is a person who does not have a job, she has an income from Casino Revenue from her Tribe of over 150K per year.  She does nothing but hang out all day, and yet she is seeking surgery procedures oppose to good old fashioned hard work. Me losing weight is my own goal for myself, not a competition with anyone else.  I am not doing this for a man, not for the business community in which I work, but for my own self-confidence.  For my own health and the betterment of my daughters health.

So either this is a lesson for those always trying to compete with others in life; which there is no need to do.  Or it is a lesson not to push your agenda’s on others during their time of the month.  lol

Get it together I burst out at the girls as they are scrambling around getting their stuff together for school.  Right then my youngest, 13 year old, simply implies they would be better prepared if I was better prepared.  Learning by example, I am pretty sure that is the message she was trying to get across. Right then, besides wanting to put her in the corner as I use to do when she was half my height, I realized she was right.  Little did she know how that was going to change everything for the week.  Before they had gotten home I had the kitchen reorganized, tossed out any food or drinks that didn’t fit into our healthy life style, locked all non disney based channels on the tv, put parental controls on the computers, and tacked up our new schedule.

As they rummaged through the cabinets looking for any kind of junk food from cookies to crackers they found nothing but healthy food.  They noticed the schedule on the board and read the nights menu, not so appetising.  They then flopped on the couch looking forward to catching up on reality tv.  After fidgeting with the remote for about ten minutes back and forth they approached me with serious looks on their faces and questioned.  “What’s going on here?” 

 I smiled and told them they were right.  I need to practice what I preach and even moreso make them practice what I preach.  I heard one of them whisper to the other, “don’t worry about it, she’ll give in or get bored with it.”  That was more than enough to motivate me to carry it on for a long time.

At 6pm I threw my tennis shoes on and handed them both jackets.  They asked where we were going and I simply gestured towards the door.  We get outside in the rain and I start to jog up the street.  They refused to go at first.  I stopped and in a serious tone told them to hurry up before I consider packing their lunches.  They started moving towards me and eventually we were all keeping pace towards the Highschool.  We got to the track and I told them we would only run two laps today but we would work up to four by the end of the week.

They sighed and started walking it while I jogged.  I finished my laps and sat back and watched them.  Eventually they realized they could have been done so they picked up their pace. 

We got home and again the TV came right on.  They turned it to the discovery channel and began to watch the life of elk or something to that nature.  within fifteen minutes the TV shut itself off.  They fidgeted with the remote again for a few minutes before approaching me.  They questioned if I knew what was wrong with the TV.  I explained there would be no TV after 7:30pm.  They proceeded to their lap tops which were already off.  They could not turn them on.  I explained my IT person at work showed me how to make them sleep and lock until a certain time.  They too were off limits after 7:30pm. 

They went into their rooms agrily and worked on their homework.  When they returned they sat on the couch next to me while I was reading my newest book.  They asked what they were suppose to do now.  I looked at the time and said we are eating a salad for dinner.  You can fix that if you want.  They did hoping it would give them something to do.  On the table soon sat a large bowl of salad tossed with unique cut carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more….  Wow, it was the prettiest salad the house has seen.  We ate in silence and then each girl rinsed her plate and shuffled off into the shower.  By 8:30pm one of them came in and announced she was going to bed since there was nothing more for her to do.   Soon after her sister also went to bed.  Me, I pulled out a cookie from the local bakery that I had hidden, flicked on the TV and bipassed the settings and watched my favorite program.  A while later I turned on the computer bypassing the settings again and IM’d some friends and did some research. 

The next day the girls woke up and we did it all over again.  lol  This was the week I started my monthly girl cycle so the cookie was a must.

Waking up with arms stretched towards the ceiling, a large yawn excapes my lips as I glance at the clock resenting the time. This lovely winter’s day is sure to produce cool currents of air that will try to pierce my warm winter wear. I quickly rush to get ready for what is suppose to be a very difficult winter day. I slip on my shoes as I reach for the door knob and hesitate. I prepare myself for a gust of cold air as I turn the knob and open the door. To my suprise I find myself in a beam of light and heat. The sun, blue skies, and birds churping? What is this? What happened to winter, I wondered as I returned inside and peeled off the extra layers intended to protect me from the cold. Now down to a simply blouse I leave the pile of sweaters, jackets, and scarves behind on the sofa.

This morning I forced myself to get up at 4:45am, yep a.m. and got to the gym by 5am.  I ran through the cardio, stretches, and sets.  It felt so good.  I got a little over an hour in.  The only frustrating thing about it is that it caused my hunger to sky rocket.  I had to talk myself away from greasy breakfast burrito and then later a taco.  I did eat balanced, but boy was my body yelling for some grease.  This is the first time since I started that I started craving.  I hope this doesn’t become routine.

Someone asked me the other day what motivated me to be serious about losing weight.  In the past I have tried with some good results that lasted only as long as my motivation.  This is what happened.

 I met this man 10  years older than I at a local eating spot.  I was hurrying to get my lunch and run off to a meeting as was he.  He lives three hours away and was in town for this meeting.  We literally bumped into one another and started up a conversation.  Before we knew it we were talking for twenty minutes.  We exchanged phone numbers and hurried off to our seperate meetings. 

For the next three months we spoke on the phone about 10 hours a day and texted, IM’d, and emailed through the other 14 hours.  He came and visited a few times but only for lunch or dinner.  I visited his family and kids once during these months.  We had not spent the night with eachother due to time restraints.

Early on I felt it was moving too fast but it seemed right.  Within two weeks he begged me to relocated and move in with him.  I considered it, he had a stable job as did I and there were more opportunities job wise in his area.  But I resisted for the first couple months.  Eventually I decided to throw caution to the wind and agreed to move.  We planned the move, which to him could not come fast enough.  I was unsure because I was going to be leaving what I worked very hard for and had an enormouse support group and resources here. 

I put in my letter of resignation, gave my landlord notice, and started selling some of my furniture since we didn’t need two of everything.  A week and a half before we were to move he took my daughters and I out to dinner and he spent the night.  Everything was wonderful and going as planned.  He left early in the morning and made the long drive home to work a 12 hour day. 

That night my daughter became very ill and I spent the night in the hospital with her.  During this I called him and he seemed distant but seemed fine, I just assumed he was tired.  But he seemed disinterested in my daughters well being, which was not typical.  We agreed to talk in the morning as we had for months. 

The next morning around 6:30am I received a text saying that he was sorry to end things this way.  Shocked I called him with no response, I texted him back and he did not respond.  Finally at the end of day one I texted that I was still going to plan to see him Friday in his City as we had planned unless he made direct contact because we obviously had something to discuss.  That is when he responded.  He said I was chasing empty dreams and that I would not be welcome.  I asked what happened, to give me the opportunity to discuss whatever it was with him.  He refused to share. 

I was confused and greatly saddened.  I really felt this man was my soulmate and I thought he felt the same.  I had to go into my office the following day and luckily my boss was relieved that I wasn’t leaving.  I had to approach my landlord and she too was pleased that I was not leaving.  Not once did he consider the situation he put my and my daughters in. 

So another week past and he emailed me hinting that he had a short time to live and that he had to deal with his problem alone.  I felt bad, like I should do something, but I was still unsure.  I didn’t know what to believe.  Something just didn’t add up.

So, one day a friend of mine showed me a dating site she used to meet people.  She said she uses it more to pass time and chat but that you can find people from all over.  So just on a whim I asked her to check my guy’s city.  Guess who popped up.  Yep, it seems he signed up a day after he sent me that initial good bye text. 

So my friend who was already angry at him for his method of breaking my heart sent him and interest.  Almost immediately he responded with one back.  A few days later she entertained herself by chatting with him using information about him that I shared with her at one time or another to gain his interest.  Eventually he was sharing information about past experiences.  He mentioned me briefly saying he dated me for no more than a week and that my weight got to him so he texted me “goodbye”. 

First off this guy lied so much about his kids and many other important things about his life and continued to insist on complete honesty.  He told my friend that she was so easy to talk to that he thinks she could be the one.  He seemed almost desperate to have her buy his speal. 

So my friend replied telling him that true love is patient, understanding, it is considerate, and it is not judging.  She told him that her intuition said that he is not only not her match but he wasn’t going to be anyone’s match and she wished him well on his search to find one-sided honesty. 

My friend saved their interactions and asked me to read them.  She said she felt bad but didn’t want to say his reason for leaving me, but that she felt I needed to know how lucky I was not to have moved and been stuck with that kind of man.

It hurt so bad to hear after all of our promises, the connection we had, and the way we felt could have been put to a halt and superceeded by the fact that I was overweight. 

So,  I became so motivated to lose my weight that it has become almost easy to do so.  I am not doing it for him, but for me.  I just hope that I can still find someone who will love me for my intellect not my appearance.  And I also hope I do not buy into that same mentality and am able to seek what is inside a person not what is outside.

That is how weight outweighed love…

So normally I lose weight in my waist first allowing me to quickly fit into smaller pants.  Not this time.  I am losing the weight in my legs and arms first.  Granted my pants feel looser but I hate not being able to say I fit in a size smaller.  I lost 18 pounds now in about 21 days.  Perhaps the problem is that I haven’t been working out, which I normally would.  My gym membership expired and I won’t be able to pay for another year til next week.  My waist has firmed up a bit but just isn’t shrinking like I wish it would.    I don’t mean to complain, I am estatic about 18 less pounds to carry around.  I will have reached my short term goal in 11 more pounds.  And then I will only have 25 more pounds to lose to get to my ideal weight.  I can hardly wait.