Here's to fresh starts, re-commitments, and vowing to live with intention!

It has been almost six years since I have written for my blog. I am a writer, so I have been writing these past six years, but mostly keeping it to myself in my own personal electronic diary. After losing almost 70 pounds at the time of starting this blog back in 2011 (Well, I took two years to lose 70 pounds after starting this blog) I had changed my entire mindset and my entire way of thinking, eating and living. I had begun to really embrace the idea of mirror work, which is basically positive affirmations done standing in front of a mirror directly addressing yourself and looking yourself right in the eye. I can't explain why, but there is something so powerful and life changing about standing in the mirror, oh, and naked I might add, and meeting yourself right there where you can't hide, deny anything or lie to yourself. You are standing there so open and vulnerable. You are forced to meet yourself right where you are and come to this poetic truth of exactly who you are and what you are. You can't run from that. Out of that experience came this amazing and exquisite form of self-love and acceptance that I have never experienced in all my life or even imagined was possible. Out of that self-love came a deep seated desire to treat myself with love and kindness, but most of all respect.

Respecting myself and my body with so much tremendous force lead me to live a whole new life or wanting to treat this body, the temple to my beautiful soul, in a way I have never done before. I treated myself like a queen. I got myself moving. I just simply started to walk. It began as about 10-15 minutes a day. Being up at 350 pounds is enough to convince yourself that you are good for nothing and you can never again walk for pleasure, but there I was, walking.....Every single morning. I use to take my dog Annie on the walks with me and found that it was also a great time to create a much stronger bond with her and enjoy our time together. In about 3 months, I had lost 30 pounds and I was walking 2.5 miles every morning before work. In addition, I was feeding my body whole, nutritious foods and I was LOVING every minute of it. I felt so good, with a level of confidence I had not really ever felt in my whole life, even back in the day when I weighed 145 and was a top, notch athlete.

Of course I experienced set back, but between positive affirmations (mirror work), daily mindful meditation, daily motivational reading and constantly reading self-help books, I was on my way to drastically changing my life. Those setback happened, but they were short lived and I always get back on the wagon, and it didn't take me months like it use to in the past. In the meantime, the most important thing that I remember about that time was I never felt deprived. I love food. I can't help it, I just do! And when I set out to do this, I knew that I had to create a realistic plan that was 100% sustainable or else I would fail. I had tried so many fad diets and although I might have initially lost weight, the weight never stayed off and I usually ended up gaining more. So this time around, I vowed that I would always enjoy what I was eating and 85-90% of the time I was going to eat healthy. I discovered that you can eat healthy and still be eating yummy delicious food. And the other 10-15% of the time, I was enjoying foods that maybe were a little less than healthy, but they were foods that I really, really loved, be it a carb attack comfort food or some decadent desert, I found a way to eat all those things, but the difference was, I was doing it in moderation. And I never had the a or nothing attitude. You know the one, it goes like this, "Oh, well, I ate that huge piece of cake. I totally blew it. I might as well eat what I want and as much as I want to rest of the day (or weekend....Don't deny it, you know it's happened). I greatly changed my attitude. I PLANNED for those foods as part of my day and there was never any guilt associated with eating them. Yes, it did take me 2 years to lose 70 pounds, but I did it slow and healthy and I CHANGED.....I really changed my habits with the intention of making a life long change instead of just doing something for a limited period of time (like a diet) to obtain a goal and then return to my previous way of eating. This never works.

But then something happened. I turned 40......I wish I were kidding with what I am about to say. I don't know if it was real or mental, but at that time, I think I started to have a mid-life crisis or meltdown. My weight plateaued. And for almost 2 years I maintained (Well, I fluxed up and down the same 10 pounds). I just couldn't get the weight off. This sometimes happens. But I wasn't equip to handle this crisis...Or maybe it was just a small set back that I panicked as a result of and made it into a crisis. After finally getting frustrated over not being able to continue to lose the remaining 100 pounds I desired, instead of just continuing to do what I knew worked, I decided to experiment with extreme measures. My Chiropractor told me about something called Isogenix and sold me on it's amazing benefits. At this point, I had not maintained, but was now about 10-15 pounds back up from my lowest and I was in a complete state of panic! That 10-15 pound gain had put me just over the 300 mark again and mentally, that just destroyed me! When I got out of the 300's, I vowed to myself that I would NEVER in a million years EVER allow myself to get to such a disgraceful place ever again. I made the number 300 into such a terrible, horrible, negative place, that being there again made me feel hopeless. Speaking from experience, hopeless is not where you want to be when you have over 100 pounds to lose. Positive, hopeful, excited,  motivated, that is where you want to be.

So against my better judgement, I agreed to try to Isogenix. You start off with a 30 day cleanse. And it worked. After the 30 days, I lost 40 pounds and I was feeling good again. But the moment I stopped doing Isogenix and resumed my normal, healthy way of eating and exercising, the weight began to come back, and quickly. It was like holding back the flood gates. So I would go back on Isogenix to get the weight off, and it would come off, but as soon as I stopped it would come back on. I began so many unhealthy habits at that time, the weight was just piling on at a rate faster than I could control it. I was in a complete panicked state. My friend at work who was a retired Veteran, and was totally buff, told me that he would get me to lose 70 pounds in 4 months if I agreed to exercise with him 3 morning a week (at 5am ugh!) and follow his food plan. At the time I didn't know what a horrible idea this was as he was someone who never had a weight problem and was of the mindset that every person should be eating the exact same thing and the same calorie and protein intake. Not to mention he is a man and I am a woman....Totally different eating habits, metabolism, etc. Oh, and not to mention that I was 310 pounds at the time and he was like 190 and almost all muscle. Our food plan wouldn't not and should not look the same. So, we started to work out and every morning he gave me a military style boot camp work out. So, the next lesson I learned was, when someone who is 190 pounds, all muscle and completely in shape and they want you, a 310 pound woman who is no longer athletic, to follow the same intensity boot camp style workout that they follow, just say no! I only lasted about a month with him, I didn't lose a single pound, but I did end up in physical therapy for my "good" Achilles Tendon (And when I say "good", I mean the healthy one that I didn't have reconstructive surgery on just a few years before). When I was done with my Achilles, I then went through PT for my shoulder and then was back for my knee. I screwed up my body majorly trying to prove something to either him or myself, I am not sure which. He didn't know better, but I should have.

Anyway,  over the next 2 years I struggled physically and eventually that led to me struggling mentally and emotionally, leading me into one of the deepest and darkest depressions that I have ever been in ever in my whole life. I would be lying if I said that there wasn't a portion of that time that I woke up every single day and wanted to just be dead. And suicide....Yes, I thought about suicide almost every single day. And every night, I would lay in bed and pray to God, sometimes through silent tears, for him to not let me wake up the next day. I guess he didn't agree because I am still here. He never took my life away and I never did either. The only thing that kept me from killing myself was the fact that I had a new born baby and a wife who was staying home to care for her. I was their only means of support. In addition to not wanting Jordan to grow up with the stigma associated with having a parent that committed suicide, I also didn't want Maggie to have to struggle to support Jordan and herself for the rest of her life, and I knew if I killed myself, they would struggle. I just couldn't do that to them. As much as I wanted to die, I wanted Maggie and Jordan, especially Jordan, to both have a good and happy life. So, I fought to get out of that depression. The worst of it hit me over this winter. My Dad died on September 1st after a 10 year struggle with Dementia. We didn't have a great relationship even though he tried so hard. I just wouldn't get close to him. So, of course when he died, I struggled with a tremendous amount of gilt and regrets. I still struggle with it today, although it's getting better. There were some other things that were going on during that time that I'd rather not discuss publicly, but those events also kept me in this deep dark place.

By March of this year, I began to emerge and find some closure and resolve around some of the issues I was feeling so bad about. But one of those issues, my weight was still there, staring me in the face and I could no longer ignore it. I had to do something. But going through that depression left with with my 70 pounds back on and me facing the scale, having to come to terms with the fact that I was back up there at my heaviest weight of 350 pounds. Actually, the number was 356. That is a very humbling moment. This was after having gone through a tremendous amount of stress trying to buy and sell a house at the same time. When I am stressed I eat. Well from the beginning of April to May 22nd when we finally moved into our new house and then closed our old house on the 26th, I was under probably the most stress I have ever felt in my whole life. Even after we moved in, I continued to eat.

Now, here we are, July 17th, 2017 and I am back at 350 pounds. I actually haven't gotten on the scale in a few weeks, and although I have been trying to eat better, I have not been perfect.But I know what I have to do.

The first step is to ramp up my motivation and I have to find a new level of love and acceptance for myself and for the current state of my body. Even though I am back at the same weight as I was back in 2011, it doesn't feel the same. Because I was an athlete, I always maintained a certain level of activity. Even in the 300's, I could still easily hike 9 or 10 miles and thoroughly enjoy it. But I am not there. At 43 (And a half..LOL), my fitness level has sharply plummeted. So much so that it scares me like you can't even imagine. I feel old, feeble and weak and that is not something I ever have felt. We moved into a new house with a second story and my office and my daughters room are up on the 2nd floor. I have to do the stairs multiple times a day. And although I am grateful for them, they have shown me how out of shape I am. My knees are in horrible condition and if I keep going the way I am, I am going to be in a wheel chair by the time I have 50. And leg strength? I have none. I can feel how week my legs are when I climb the steps, but also I can feel how weak my legs are just in walking. When I mow the grass, it takes me forever because my legs are so weak and after just 10 minutes of mowing, I start to feel like they are spaghetti, like they are going to collapse. They feel like rubber. I had to get a riding lawn mower for the back because it's a huge yard and it would take me forever to move. I have a self-propelled push mower for my front yard which is on a slope, but just the front was taking me 2 hours. So, I am now using the riding mower on most of the front yard too. But I want to get into good enough shape to use the push mower for the whole front.

My wife and I also have a new baby on the way in addition to our 2 year old daughter. For that reason alone I need to lose weight and get healthy again. I have a very hard time getting down on the floor to play with her and I hate that. I want my body back, I want my youth back, I want my life back! I have allowed food to take all that away from me and I can tell you for 100% certain that there is nothing that I put in my mouth that is anywhere near worth trading the quality of my life for. NOTHING!

So, I need to find my way back, and quick! I want to live a long, healthy life, not just for my kids sake, but for the sake of my own life too. There are so many things i want to do and want to see. I really want to ride my motorcycle cross country one day and I can't do that at my current weight. That takes strength and stamina and I have neither right now.

So, i have decided to resurrect this blog and I vow to blog at least weekly at a minimum. I have a plan that works and I have to put it back into action. I had gotten away from positive affirmations (definitely no naked mirror work, as I haven't been able to stand the sight of my own body) but now I am going to put that back into action. Meditation!!! That has kept me sane and balanced and so many other things. I have started back to meditating every day. Food planning and prep, vowing to live and eat with intention every single day. And not getting caught up in focusing on how much weight I have to lose, but focusing on feeling better and getting healthy, knowing the weight will take care of itself. And not getting caught up in the "how long" because it doesn't matter. All that matters is I am working towards something better and everyday that I work hard is another day closer to feeling better and being my best self! I am going to take one day at a time and if it takes me 4 years to get this weight off, well, 4 years is going to come anyway. Why not be thinner when it finally does? The focusing on "how long" is one of the things that has put me in a state of panic and then I end up failing and gaining back or not losing. And now look, 6 years have come and gone and I am right where I have started. The time doesn't matter. What matters is that you are doing it! That is what I am going to focus on. And if focusing on one day at a time is too much to handle, I am going to focus on one meal at a time.

This makes me think back on a book I read called The Slight Edge. The basic gist of the book was to help you look at achievement in a different way. It was geared towards business goals, but could certainly be applied to almost anything. One of the main themes was, "Numerous small, seaming-less insignificant steps, repeated regularly (daily) adds up to one great big accomplishment." So, one day doesn't really affect anything. But when you have many good days in a row, this adds up to one great accomplishment. The same needs to be remembered for a bad day. One bad day isn't enough to effect the entire outcome, unless you continue to repeat it. So, don't give so much power to one slip. On it's own, it has no lasting affect or outcome. It's when we give too much attention that one slip, that is when we face trouble.

Although I have been feeling less unhappy and less depressed, the current state of my body as had me still feeling slightly down. But today I awoke with a renewed sense of hope. I have done this before and I know I can do it again! I just haven't had the mental strength to commit to this, but somehow today, I do! I can do this and I AM going to do this and when I do WORLD.... WATCH OUT!!

Here is to living a life full of intentional Design!