How in the Hell did I get back here

I find myself back in a place I never wanted to be back at. I am feeling out of control, lazy and not really good about myself. All these feelings make me start thinking about what others think of me and worse than that actually caring. When I am exercising, running and eating right I worry more about what I think about me than others. 

When my girls were young I would era them the book ' You are special' by Max Luccado to help them learn that what God thinks of you is more important than what others think. In this book the little wooden people wemmicks go around giving each other grey dots and gold stars. If you are a pretty wemmicks or can do things you get stars. If you are plain or clumsy you get grey dots. These grey dots and gold stars represent people and their comments and thoughts about others. These have been weighing in me lately.

In the book there is a wemmick called Punchenello we only gets grey dots. Lately I have felt like I have only been getting grey dots. I feel like I have been giving myself some grey dots. These grey dots or comments and thoughts are really weighing me down and I let them they will drag me back to a place I never want to be again.

so what do I do about the dots. In the book Punchenello meets a sticker less Wemmick. He goes to see Eli his maker as the sticker less Wemmick tells him. Eli tells him he is special and he needs to worry more about what  he thinks then the Wemmicks who are just like him. He tells him to visit often until he is stronger. For me it is much the same. I got rid of my stickers for a while but then I let them come back stickers being insecurity and self doubt.

I am the one who can change the way I feel and look. Even though I didn't want to revisit these feelings and attitude I know I can pull out of it I have done it before. I only fail if I give up. Time for me to get rid of my stickers. 

Th 4Cs Challenge

A kid at work was telling me that he was going to do this 4C challenge. This would be 30 days with no chocolate, cake, cookies or candy. I knew there would be no way I could do this on  Valentines and Super Bowl so I took these days as out days. I also started a week earlier.

My assessment is that I did ok but there is room for improvement. I started out really strong. I thought it  would be cake work so to speak. Then came valentines day. I love to make valentines cookies and made a batch. This makes tons and so I took some to work. Then I took them around to neighbors and friends. The only problem was there was still many more. I ended up giving my sister and her cute kids two plates and I dumped a couple.

The easiest thing for me to resist was Candy. The worst is Chocolate. I am a chocoholic and I have known it for years. I usually have a bag of Dove chocolates in my desk. I think they subliminally called my name so that part was kind of a fail. 

The days I had fail, I tried to make my fail not so bad and then I went right back to it. I have a Facebook group I belong to called " leap into fitness" and I told them about it and my challenges. One lady told me something that made complete sense. She said basically that just because my challenge last a certain amount of time that doesn't mean I have to end it. This is so true, and I do need the work in some areas.

As I continue to challenge myself I will also add another C. Coffee, but not what you think. I will continue to drink coffee but I want to cut down the amount of blended coffees I have. I also want to cut down the amount of sugar in my coffee. I enjoy them and go to coffee with my girlfriends on Friday. I love more than the coffee, the friendship. I will work on making these types of coffees not a daily occurrence. This will save me lots of calories.

New year new goals- one bite at a time

 
I am a little late in posting a new years post but I was trying to decide what I wanted to say. Last year was a big year for me and my family. I graduated from college finally. My youngest daughter graduated from high school. My oldest daughter got engaged. My husband also reached a milestone with his company.

With all this I still had some goals that I was not able to reach. I wanted to run a half marathon and ended up being unable to complete this goal. I am not very happy with this. Also because of an injury and other issues I did not run any races this last year. I am not really happy with this either.

When I thought about what I wanted to accomplish, I needed to look back on what I did and didn't do last year. I also needed to look at the goals I didn't reach and see if they still make sense for me.

This year I want to concentrait on my health with my running and weight being front and center. This means that running a half marathon still makes sense. With my daughter getting married I would like to get off between 30 or 40 pounds before her wedding.

I think sometimes I let the enormity of my goals get to me. I need to make sure I don't get freaked out. To do this I will take on the big goal in little pieces. One of my friends Debra Higginbothom reminded new that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

So how do I best do little pieces. First with my running. Becoming more consistent, set a schedule in ink, sweat and blood. My long runs of the week need to stretch each time, even if it is just a half a mile. I need to comitt the time for the long run. Celebrate each race, each new longer run. My first race is in February and it would be nice to PR it. It is a blessing to run and I need to celebrate that fact.

With the weight I need to do the same. I recently went to my endocrinologist Donna. My blood work was great. My A1C was great down from 7.2 to 7.1. My weight was unchanged for the last 6 months. This is both good and bad. Good because I am not up and went through the holidays without weight gain. Bad because in six months no loss. 

To turn that around I will need to committ. This means something different to each person but to me accountability. I started using a food / exercise tracker but I need to be more consistent. I have a week ness when it comes to sweets and know I will never be able to cut them completely. So for me cutting portions of this and saying no a lot less then yes will be big. I am going to try to cut some carbs where I can, this may be having more salads, using pita or lower carb options and skipping the potatoes or rice. I will weigh each week and celebrate every 5 miles with something like a massage or peticure or new clothes just something non food. 

Like my friend Debra said, I am going to eat my elephant (tackle my goals) one bite at a time.