Monday, December 12, 2011

New Year's Resolution...blah,blah,blah...

It's that time of year again...time to make my New Year's Resolution.  This year I'm not going to vow to lose weight or get healthy.  Those are too cliche for me.  As a matter of fact, the regulars at the gym hate this time of year.  It's the time of year that OUR gym is taken over by the "new year's resolutionists"!  Our parking lots are always full, our treadmills are all taken and our classes are crowded.  This usually lasts from January until March then the crowd starts clearing.  Very few newbies last much longer than that. LOL!  Four years ago on New Year's Day I joined the gym.  Yes, it was open!  I had my orientation and evaluation that day.  I remember stepping on the scale and seeing that number for the first time...225!  I knew it was bad but didn't know it was THAT bad.  I had gained 40 lbs in 9 months which is almost what I gained when I was pregnant with Bryson but this time there was no baby...just a lot of chocolate chip cookie dough to blame.  How does someone gain 40 lbs and not realize it?  Stretchy pants and a lot of denial!  I look at pictures from back then and I want to cry.  I don't even look like myself.  I looked like "fat Monica" from Friends.


The Jennifer I see in those pictures was very sad even though she had an incredible smile on her face.  She had a great job, a beautiful child, a wonderful husband...the perfect life but was miserable.  I was most definitely an Eeyore back then always focusing on what everyone else had instead of appreciating what I had.  I was a people pleaser trying to make everyone happy but myself.  The sad thing is it took my mother dying at age 50 for me to realize that life is too short to be unhappy.

The Christmas before my mom died, before we even knew she was sick, I remember her telling me about her New Year's Resolution.  She said, "This year I'm going to start doing things for myself.  I have spent my entire life doing things for my husband, children and my entire family but I never do anything for myself.  That is getting ready to change."  I will always remember those words.  Unfortunately, my mom died in March that year so she never got a chance to do anything for herself.

My New Year's Resolution this year is not to lose weight or get healthy...blah,blah,blah...it's to do things that make ME happy.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

I want to be SUPERMAN!

I just finished reading one of my favorite books of all time "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch.  If you haven't read it, you should.  The author wrote this book of "life lessons" for his three very young children after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given less than a year to live.

One chapter asks "Are you a fun-loving Tigger or a down in the dumps Eeyore?"  This reminded me of when my brother was about eight years old.  He had a dirt bike that he loved to ride on a track that he and my mom cleared across the street from their house.  He decided one day that he wanted to add a jump to the track.  He and my mom worked for a week digging and piling up dirt to build a huge jump.  When they were finished Logan was too scared to try it.  My mother got on Logan's dirt bike, drove it around  the track and gave it gas just as she approached the jump.  She and the dirt bike flew through the air.  She jumped so high her legs flew out to either side and her body lifted completely off of the seat.  Logan was amazed.  He screamed, "Mom, you looked like SUPERMAN!"

When my mother died several years later my grandmother, brother and I were at the hospital with her.  My grandmother asked Logan what his best memory of mom was and he said the time when mom made that jump on my dirt bike and looked like SUPERMAN!

I often wonder what Bryson will remember most about me.  I hope he will remember me as a mom that took him on a helium balloon ride at Disney or a mom that hiked waterfalls with him in the mountains or jumped waves with him at the beach, or paddled with him while white water rafting or showed him how to go crabbing with chicken necks or a mom that rode the biggest, scariest roller coaster sitting right next to him in the seat.  I want him to remember me as SUPERMAN!

Thursday, December 01, 2011

1 month down, the rest of my life to go!

My first month is over.  I have lost 15 pounds and have already worn my goal jeans twice this week!  I've dropped two sizes and I actually had a temper tantrum earlier this week because every article of clothing I put on was too big.  Usually I have the opposite problem.

I'm still following phase 1, the most restrictive phase but sometimes I do add an apple as my afternoon snack.  I've decided to stick to it as long as it's working and I don't feel deprived.  Maybe eventually I will start adding more foods back but right now it's been really easy to stay with it.

I am within 1 pound of my goal weight and have already reached my goal size but I have to remind myself that I am not finished.  I will NEVER be finished.  I will always have to be aware of what I eat and how hard I workout.  I am not "being hard on myself" or "not recognizing my accomplishments" as many friends have said.  I have recognized my accomplishments and I am VERY proud of myself.  I have worked really hard to get here.  I am smaller now than I was in middle school and it feels amazing!  But the moment I feel like I am done is the moment that I will quit and I don't want that for myself.  I've done that too many times before and I deserve better this time.  This is not a 50 yard dash, this is an ULTRA marathon that will last the rest of my life.