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.

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!

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.

I am NORMAL!

I have set and accomplished many goals in my life.
   Graduate from high school with honors. ✔
   Graduate from college in 4 years.  ✔
   Be able to support myself financially after graduation.  ✔
   Be married by age 25.  ✔
   Have all of my children by age 30. ✔
   Live in a 2 story house with rocking chairs on the front porch, a white picket fence out front and a white SUV in the driveway.  (almost...we have a white privacy fence in the back.) :)

I know these sound silly but what do you expect, I was a teenager when I came up with most of them.

The only goal I have never, ever been able to accomplish is my weight.  I've been within 10 lbs of my goal several times but something has always held me back.  I am still 4 lbs away from my goal now but it doesn't matter because I today I hit an even better goal...my body fat %!  Today at my monthly weigh in my body fat % was 24.5 = NORMAL!  I am no longer "overweight"!  I've never been able to say that in my entire life because I've always been overweight or obese since I was a child.  I will eventually hit my goal weight this time.  It might take a week, it might take a month but I will do it just to have the satisfaction of accomplishment but it's nice to know that I am already normal. :)

Meanest Mommy Ever!

Can someone please tell me how to stop a 6 year old from constantly whining and pouting?  I can't take it anymore!  Bryson whines and pouts over everything.  Even when he gets his way he pouts.  Friday he was off from school and had a friend over to play that morning.  He was great but that afternoon and night all he did was whine and pout.  Finally I had enough!  After days of threatening I packed up ALL (yes I said ALL) of his toys and put them in garage.  For everyday that he is good meaning no whining or pouting he gets to pick one toy to bring back in the playroom.  Looking at that empty playroom upset me.  Had I gone too far?  Was this a little too drastic for a 6 year old?  Am I the meanest mommy ever?  Too late now, I have to stick to my guns!  So I did.  This weekend Bryson was an angel.  Actually he has been an angel ever since.  The first toys that he asked for was his big toy story dolls (Buzz, Woody and Jessie) and the second was his cars. He has 3 big baskets of cars so we made a deal that he could pick the cars that he wanted to keep but they had to fit in 1 basket.  I think the kid kept 15 cars total out of 150.  That's all he has asked for even though he has been good and could have earned more stuff back.  I have to admit it has been nice cleaning out all of those toys before Christmas but the empty shelves look so sad. :(

Why am I doing this?

Today at the gym I was stopped by a complete stranger.  She said "I am sorry but I have been watching you for the past few months and you look amazing!"  What a nice thing for her to do because after that I felt amazing!  (Much better than the last time a stranger stopped me at the gym.  An old lady stopped to tell me that I need to stop running so much and start doing water aerobics because she lost over 50 lbs doing it.  Really?!  Basically what I took from that was she thought I needed to lose 50 lbs and running obviously wasn't doing it!  So annoying!)

Why is it that a complete stranger would take time out of her day to compliment me and encourage me but the people that I thought would be my biggest cheerleaders and supporters haven't said a word?  Haven't acknowledged my accomplishments?  I have to admit that the past few days I have been hurt and down right mad.  Why am I doing this if no one else cares or even notices?  Maybe I should go back to eating pizza and cheeseburgers and weighing 250 lbs!  But then last night I asked myself "Why are you doing this?  Because if you are doing this for other people you are going to fail - AGAIN!"

So my answer is I am doing this for me and me alone because this is the first time I have ever put me first.  I don't know why the people that I thought would be there for me aren't.  Maybe they don't agree with what I am doing so they can't support me, maybe they are jealous because they feel like they can't do it for themselves or maybe they just don't care. LOL!  and that's okay because the only cheerleader and supporter that matters is ME!

Give me an APPLE!

It's finally here!  I made it!  And guess what?  I didn't die or kill anyone in the process!  I made it 14 days without bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, fruit or any sugar!  Honestly, I can't believe that I did it.  Never, ever, in a million years did I think I would be able to do it, but I did!  When I looked at the foods to avoid for phase 1 I thought "I'm going to starve to death because all of those things are staples in EVERY meal that I cook."  But I decided to give it 1 week.  I can give up anything for 1 week and if I lose weight (and it's not too hard) I will do it again for a second week.  Well, after 14 days I've made it to phase 2.  Now I can add back in bread, pasta, starchy veggies, etc.  So what am I going to eat first?  A big old bun with my cheeseburger? No!  A tortilla with my tacos? No!  Spaghetti noodles with my spaghetti sauce?  NOPE!  A plain old apple!  That's it! 

In just two weeks I have gone from a complete carb and sugar addict to not even wanting to add that stuff back to my diet.  I really think I have turned into one of those crazy people that orders a salad at a burger joint.  I've always envied those people for their extreme willpower to resist the delicious burgers and fries but now I've realized that they weren't using extreme willpower to resist temptation.  They weren't even tempted by that stuff because they weren't craving it.  Wow!  After another two weeks of this I might even start to like vegetables. LOL!