Inspiration...

I get a lot of inspirational emails at work. I'm sure you know the type, they border on spammy material. Today I received one that actually spoke to me. It was a long list of things you should implicate in your life to live it to the fullest. That is my goal this year. Should everything goes as planned I'm here for the long haul and I think it is time to start preparing for that. I mean I have in some ways figured this out because the retirement fund is out there. But, this was more than that. It was preparing and living your life that is centered around peace, family and happiness. I don't plan on sharing the whole list but I'd like to point out the ones that mean the most to me.

Get rid of anything that isn't useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.

This is one of my biggest goals this year. I struggle with being a borderline hoarder. Haha. Not the type on TV but I have a hard time getting rid of anything nostalgic and that can add up to a lot of stuff. I want to pare down to the basic and keep the truly memorable things and get rid of the rest. In the whole house I want everything to have a place and not just pile. I will freely admit to being one of the worst housekeepers!

Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

I wish I could let the past go. There are things in my life that the memory makes me cringe even though I'm 100% positive I'm the only one to remember it. I have been out of high school five years but I have held on to past grudges. I have the tendency to let the little things get to me. I need to let it all go because it takes to much energy to worry about my past, present, and future. The past is that, in the past.

No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

This is true. You should not depend on anyone for your happiness. I love my husband and I want him to be happy which I thought would make me happy. Haha. There are plenty of times that he is happy and I am not. Be happy for you, not anyone else.

When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

If it's to be, it's up to me. If it is what you truly want then commit until you get it.

When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

True.

The best is yet to come...

I have many times believed that I could never be as happy as I was in that moment. My Wedding but then I found out I was pregnant and then I gave birth and now every little thing she does makes me happier than I could ever imagine. Always choose life because it IS worth living.

These words of wisdom were written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

How SAD

Does anyone else find it humorous that the diet most Americans follow, aka Standard American Diet, is SAD?

I find it funny. BTW, I'm a vegetarian and have been eating that way for over 1 1/2 years. I feel as though it was the right choice for me but I still eat lacto-ovo and I think that is one of the main reasons I'm still not feeling as good as I wished I did.

Fitness

I'm not going to lie, I was horrible at it this weekend. I just let too many things take priority of my health. I tried to redeem myself with 30 jumping jacks, 10 crunches, 25 high knees, and 5 push ups(the girly ones) before I hopped in the shower to get ready for work. I started with the 5 push ups because I have no muscle tone in my arms and I want to change that first.

1st fitness goal!

On April 22, 2013 and exactly 4 weeks from now I would like to be able to do at least 5 real push ups. We shall see how this goes.

How was your weekend? Did you manage to fit in any fitness goals this weekend?

First Official Weigh In

I just wanted to get it out there.  I weighed myself this morning so I could know where I started this journey to a better self.  Here it goes....

241.8 lbs

I was able to fit in a short workout last night. I know I don't usually have a lot of time at night to workout so I have tried to maximize the time as best as I can. So far I have been using the interval training approach on my elliptical machine. (I use that loosely!). The thought process I use is 1 minute going hard and 30 seconds of a slow down/rest. Now, I don't stop moving during those 30 seconds because my legs are normally burning after hitting it hard for one minute going forward I will switch to 30 seconds of a slow pace of back pedaling so I can catch my breath and it rests some of the muscles in my legs. It's not a perfect program but at this point moving and sweating are my goals and this helps me get to that.

Me being Me

It is funny how our hopes and dreams get pushed to the wayside as life gets in the way. Sometimes we just have to make lemonade out of the lemons we have been given. I'm not so sure that is true. I believe life is controlled by us and the decision we make. It make take more than a few years but in the end all of our action come back to us. Karma. I believe in it.

I have let my life get in the way of my dreams because I have been lazy. It's true and I will admit it to you freely. I let myself gain weight even though it made me unhappy. I choose to seat on the couch as my ass grew. I could have been at the gym (when I started gaining weight I had a free membership to the gym maybe 700 ft from my front door.) I tried to blame the weight gain on being a fry cook at a restaurant when I jumped to 185 lbs. Still, who forced me to eat the food? What about my excuse for the weight gain being culinary school when I jumped to 195. See, that doesn't work either because I was learning to cook better, more nutritious food than I ever had before. Then my excuse was my desk job. I didn't have time to get up and walk around, so I jumped again to 210. No, I had time after work and on my breaks but I decided to do something else. But the end all be all was pregnancy. I weighed 265 lbs when I gave birth to my 7 lb 6 oz daughter. Hmm... To me that math isn't quite right. But quite a bit of the weight fell off shortly after I got out of the hospital and now 4 months later I sitting around 240. Sigh...

I'm not going to lie pregnancy is hard and hard on your body when it is in good shape and I wasn't. I suffered from the moment I got pregnant. Morning sickness and dehydration at first. Then it grew to gestational hypertension and then bedrest for 5 weeks before I could give birth. Let me tell you, after my nine months of pregnancy, birth was a breeze and heavenly relief...

Please, don't get me wrong. I love my daughter more than life itself and I would do it all again in a heart beat for her. What I don't like it looking in the mirror and hating the reflection staring back at me.  I hate that I don't like going anywhere with my husband because I think people look at him and them look at me and wonder why he would consider looking twice at me. Or when he looks at me and all I can think is I must be hideous in his eyes because I hate how I look. Truthfully, It is wrecking my marriage and I hate that.

Today I start. I start to reclaim my life. I want more pictures with my family. I want to run my first 5k. I want to lose the weight and be healthy once more. I made my own lemons and now I'm going to add the stevia(hehe) to make it sweet lemonade.