I FOUND IT!!!

Guys I'm still here and still going and guess what?  I found the fucking belly button ring and it saw sunshine!!!

I almost didn't post this picture.  My hubby took it a few weeks ago at the beach.  I am 70% of the way there.... I am a work in progress.... I am happy... and you can see that on my face now.

I struggled for several months over the winter.  My original coach left Beachbody and I kind of floundered.  I took it very personally and should not have.  I back slid and gained 10 of the 17 pounds I had lost back.  I was back on low dose antidepressants and stomach meds for a possible ulcer.  I was having horrendous stomach pains and it was making me incredibly nauseous... like almost make me go to the ER kind of stomach pains.  So I did the meds and wallowed in my oh poor me phase for about 2 months...ish... then I finally accepted the invite from a new coach.  She had been reaching out to me for about 3 months or so letting me know very nicely that she had my spot saved when I was ready.  Well when I realized that I weighed 196 lbs again and I felt like hell again I knew I had nothing to lose so I did it.  BEST DECISION EVER!!!

By early May I was feeling a lot better and working out consistently but had only lost 8 pounds when Beachbody came out with their first nutrition only program.  I totally jumped on it because nutrition is my biggest issue... it's everyone's biggest issue... it's 80% of the fucking game!  I once had a personal trainer tell me that "you can't out exercise a bad diet" (Thank you Jeff Hauswirth!)... truest words ever! and trust me, I've tried every fucking way under the sun and nothing worked.  I've done low carb, no carb, high fat, low fat, no sugar... and guess what?  I started eating like a real person again or felt so damn deprived that I binge ate all the stuff I "shouldn't have" and all the weight came back, every single time.  Not this time though.  I'm learning to change my relationship with food.  It's fuel, not comfort.  Your body needs carbs but there's a difference between good and bad carbs...I could go on and on and on about that but I'm not going to .... yet.

In one of my other posts I talked about my love/hate relationship with the scale and this program has taught me how to use it as a tool.  It doesn't dictate my mood anymore, it doesn't dictate how I feel about myself.  It simply tells me a number and that number tells me if the things I have been eating work for me or if they don't.  This program also taught me that I'm 99% positive that I did not have an ulcer this past winter like the doctor thought.  It was the massive bowl of buttered popcorn I was eating 4 or 5 nights a week that my stomach didn't like.  I loved it... it was my go to... my comfort... my "always there for me with zero judgement"... I LOVED IT... turns out my stomach doesn't and I'm perfectly fine living without it.  No tears, no whining, just a cold, harsh, I'm done with you as I threw that last of the jug of kernels in the trash.  I ditched the antidepressants as soon as I started working out again and the stomach meds when I ditched the popcorn.  I've also lost another 20 lbs. I broke my plateau I've been struggling with for weeks today and saw the 160's for the first time in 5 years!  I'm down 36 lbs.... fuck those doctors who said it would be impossible for me to lose it!

I can wear the jeans and the shirt that hung on my closet door for 15 months motivating me and I've bypassed my first goal and am on to another now.  I don't want to be skinny.. I want to be healthy, strong and happy and changing my relationship with food was the biggest factor.  

I publicly share my journey because it motivates me... it keeps me accountable.  I also hope that if it makes one struggling person feel not so alone than I am successful. I always joke that I don't know what I want to be when I grow up but I think I finally figured it out.  My coach told me months ago that I should coach and I was like "oh hell no! I'm not doing that!"  hahahahaha....  I guess I figured at that point what if I changed my mind?  I don't want to be that coach that leaves... I don't want someone else to feel like I did (I should clarify that my feelings were totally self-inflicted. My first coach needed to do what was best for her and I support that 100%.  I was just being a little self-absorbed for a while) and then I realized about a month ago... I'm not going to leave, I'm living this.  The changes I am making are life style changes not quick fixes.  It's my life now so guess what?  Now I'm a coach!! I want to give others all of those things I so desperately needed/need.  I want to be your cheerleader while totally being held accountable.  I can't even begin to explain how different my life is now.  I'm not tired from eating mass volumes of shit food... I'm not deprived (I just ate a donut before coming hide upstairs to blog).  I belong to a tribe of women and men that are all on the same journey and it's fucking amazing!!  

So here's the thing.. I want to take everything I've learned from my tribe and build my own village... my coach will help me and we will help you.  It'll be small to start with obviously but we will grow... (and shrink!) together.

The before pictures are from February 3, 2017... the others are July 16, 2018.  I'm 70% there but my journey will never end.... it's my life.  I'm going to be sharing a lot more and maybe some people won't like it but that's okay... as long as I inspire at least one person so they don't feel so alone.. I'm perfectly fine with that.  And maybe next time I'll have a pic of me in those fucking jeans to share!

Let's be real....

So I'm going to play a little fess up game... I believe that once you put something out there it loses it's power over you so I'm going to test myself and share some true confessions..
If I let it the scale controls everything I do... let's be real, this is not the first time in my life I've been fat (shocker...haha).. I went to weight watchers when my son was 6 months old and dropped 50 pounds to become a life time member in about 8 months, accountability and going through a divorce helped that weight loss and plus being in my 20's didn't hurt a thing..it literally just fell off with a few very simple changes.
Next was in my mid-thirties.. my hubby (then boyfriend) moved in and brought some very unhealthy eating/cooking habits with him and I gained 20 pounds overnight it felt like... add living on steroids and pain meds due to degenerative disc disease and excessive amounts of crazy in our life with 6 kids and exes to deal with and before I knew it there was 35 pounds to lose... I discovered acupuncture for the disc disease and haven't taken steroids or a single pain pill since, gave up the desk job and went back to waiting tables and it fell off again.. took a little longer but you get the idea...
At 42 I was still wearing a bikini and was pretty proud of it.... then I quit my job to take care of Madilyn's needs and the movement stopped, eating to stuff my depression became the norm... coupled with a doctor telling me that I lived with so much stress that my metabolism was non-existent and I took it as a license to be fat forever.  I was back up into the high 180's that seemed to be my breaking point every other time.... too bad Madilyn got super sick last fall and I quit taking my anti-depressants and weight loss meds... BOOM... 20 more pounds..
Last February I stood on the scale and sat on the floor and cried when I saw 204.2 lbs... That's what I weighed when my son way born... the heaviest I had ever been... no pregnancy to blame this time and that's when I started this journey for real.  I felt like every odd was stacked totally against me and I stood on that damn scale 6 times a day hoping it was wrong... maybe if I changed the batteries it would read something different?  It's kind of fucked up the head games you can play with yourself sometimes to justify somethings in life.
I hit my treadmill like a crazy lady, cut out white flour and pasta and stopped standing on the damn scale.... I felt great and dropped a bunch of belly bloat quickly... then I got the scale back out and it hadn't moved more than a pound... talk about depressing... next was fitbody bootcamp... LOVED IT!  The workouts got me going but over time I lost the motivation to go... I was really struggling with the eating portion of it... the two things I did take away from it were my love of working out and the knowledge of NSV's (non-scale victories)... I told B the story of my favorite jeans when I had my first sit down session with him and how those jeans were in a basket in my closet and "the shirt"... the one my sister-in-law bought me 2 years prior and all I could do was get it over my head.(The shirt is on by the way, a little too fitted for comfort but it's on!) . He told me to put them out in plain view where I get to look at them every single day... and to take pictures of me trying them on..... OH BOY!  Talk about a reality check!  They hang on my closet door so they are the first thing I see every single morning.... and I'm going to share this...

These jeans are a size 10... I couldn't even button a size 16 much less breath in it when I took these pictures.  These were taken in April and I was super depressed after I took them but kept going.  I lost 12 pounds while going to bootcamp and managed to keep 9 of it off even over the summer but I felt myself slipping.

I do my workouts at home now with BOD (Beachbody on Demand)... I follow containers for eating 4-5 out of 7 days of the week to help control my portions and make healthier choices but that damn scale still haunts me.... I swear I've lost every 2-3 pounds twice because I have to play this stupid little head game with myself and see what I can "get away with" before I gain it back... that damn scale that has no personality at all could dictate my mood and my choices for the day... so I had my husband hide it!  

Last time I stood on it was just over a week ago and it said 186.1..... I'm back where I was when I thought I was fat the previous 2 times in my life... hahahahaha... how ironic is that?  I'm focusing more on my meal planning and the way I feel instead of giving the control to the damn scale.  I will have him take it out once or twice a month so I can check in but otherwise it's staying in hiding...

Instead I will try on the dang jeans....

Because regardless of what a scale says the proof is in the picture...(disclosure:  that is the teenage girls room... hahaha... only one with a full length mirror... Sorry Shyanne).... I have a ways to go but my ass is in them instead of hanging over!  

I could probably plow through the weight loss because now I know what I am doing but it's about making life changes for me not just losing the weight... I want to lose it and leave it there, not regain it because what I did wasn't sustainable for me.  I want to enjoy the dinner dates and drinks with my husband because we finally get to do that again. I don't want to spend my life saying "I can't eat that"... because I can... I'm learning, I'm finding myself, I'm making time for myself and I'm happy... super happy actually that the damn belly button ring may reveal it's next summer when I'm rockin a bikini just shy of 47 years old... 😊

I'm still going....

If anyone was wondering I am still here and I am still going.... I have seriously been questioning myself as to why I start stuff like this and don't share when I'm struggling.  It's the whole point really... to have a place to get it out.  So I'm going to get very real for a minute...

August and September are the absolute hardest months of the year for me.. it's when everything happened 5 years ago and we made Madilyn ours.  It's the time of year that the social worker and the probate court reviews come due, it's when the school wants to evaluate and it's depressing as fuck and stresses me right out.  I had a leg injury in July that affected my workouts and the Monday night food trucks at the park were enjoyed a little too much...and I fell off the non-smoking wagon after almost two years...  In mid August I admitted that the bootcamp thing wasn't working for me as I cannot and will not drag my fat ass out of bed at 5:00 am to make it work.. but I love the workouts...I don't miss counting macros though, I don't even understand them really, the only thing I can tell you about counting macros is they suck and I suck at it.

I was truly stuck at that point and ready to pull out my 21 day fix videos from 2 or 3 years ago but a friends post caught my attention on Facebook and I jumped before I gave myself a chance to think about it.  One year access to Beachbody On Demand.... I'm in love... had someone told me even 6 months ago that I'd be 46 and doing Shaun T Insanity Max 30 workouts I would've pissed myself laughing!  I have to modify about half of it but it's okay...I'M DOING IT!!  It helps with the emotional stress I struggle with and I feel better.  It's definitely an out for me and I have no excuses about not doing it because I'm home with the Peanugga anyway and she thinks it's hilarious... if I ever develop self-esteem issues I'm blaming her hanging on the gate giggling uncontrollably while I work out.  The more I huff and puff and make noises the more she laughs... little shit...

It must be doing something because I wore jeans on Monday that I haven't worn in 2 years... the scale says I'm down 17 pounds.. I have a long way to go but 17 pounds is a lot!  I can see my toes when I look down now and my belly doesn't get in the way when I'm getting off the couch... my back doesn't hurt.......and most importantly... I CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE FUCKING BELLY BUTTON RING!!!  I'm not ready to show it off yet but I can see it.....and that makes my day!

Letting Go...

They say sometimes you just need to let go in order to grow.... well, we made a trip back to where we moved from this past weekend and let me tell you.... I've definitely let go...  I always see people I grew up with posting on FB or wherever that they are all excited to be going "home" and when we moved we had people tell us 1million and 1 reasons why they thought we would/should come running right back... I'm the polar opposite of all of those people.  I wanted to leave and never look back, years before we actually left I felt like that and this trip really solidified that feeling.

It will always be the place I grew up, the place I had my children but it will never be my "home" and hasn't been for a very long time.  Sometimes life throws curve balls at you and in such a small area they are not just your personal curse but a public one too....  with our life with Madilyn the Yoop is the life that went on without us while we were stuck inside because of shit weather or we were traveling for medical appointments.  It's the place where at one point I thought I had all the friends in the world but when you live a life like ours the invites eventually just stop coming.  People get tired of always being turned down because of Madilyn's needs, or they truly don't understand the stuff that we deal with.  For that matter, they probably just get plain sick of hearing about it.... the novelty has worn off but for us it's life.  I don't blame them, I still love them and miss them, well, most of them..hahaha!

I realized the closer we got to Houghton on Friday afternoon the more nauseous I actually felt.  I've never really had that feeling other than the last 2 years we lived there when I would come home from medical trips and I didn't want to be there.  I truly did not expect to feel that way.  As the weekend went on I really just wanted to leave.  We got to see some family and friends and even some of Madilyn's therapists came to visit and that was wonderful and at the same time incredibly sad.

Sadness for all the friends we've lost and the people we thought we'd get to see.  It's not possible for us to come up there and go running all over to visit everyone or to see the people we wanted to see so it's a case of let them know where we are and hope they show up.  I realize full well that everyone has a life and it doesn't cater to us and our needs and I'm not posting this to point fingers or to make others feel bad.  I'm posting this because on this journey to find me and where I belong in life this has been a painful step.  Letting go is not easy but it is necessary.  I was so engulfed in depression that last several years in the Yoop that I wasn't sure I'd be able to crawl out of it but I have here and the second we got there it was back.  We weren't even there yet and it was cold, raining and the trees are just beginning to bud and then we pull into town and the very first person we see that we know is the child molester... in hindsight we should've turned around and left then.

Sometimes it's easier to start fresh... in a place where Madilyn is already our life as people meet us.  Friends don't have any other expectations because it's the way we've always been to them... I've had this post in my head for days and I only blog when "it comes to me" but I hesitated.... weighed pros and cons of even sharing my feelings because someone will take it personally... blah, blah, blah...it's not personal, it's simply my feelings and I'm allowed to have my feelings.

This journey isn't always a fun one... I haven't always been a nice person and I have made some bad decisions in life and because of that I had some demons to deal with but I acknowledge them, I accept them and I am moving on.

Part of my journey to find health and peace is letting go of the emotional baggage from there.  It just weighs on my soul and doesn't do anyone any good so I'm choosing to let go...

I just keep thinking of the saying :  "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"

It is what it is and I have to let go of the things I cannot change.....

Did you ever?

Did you ever really get into something and think I've totally got this? and then for some reason you suddenly fall off of whatever wagon you were on for a day or two and just never got back on?  Hahaha... that's me, especially if I'm the only one holding myself accountable for something.. something like exercise and diet...and especially if it involves a treadmill.

So this time I did something that someone else will hold me accountable for.. I joined Fit Body Boot Camp and if I don't show up it will not go unnoticed..and I need that.  I also apparently really really really need the exercise because my everything hurts and I have muscles where I didn't know I had muscles... haha... my biggest wish in the world right now is for a cold toilet seat that I can live on because my ass hurts so much from stupid donkey kicks.. I just keep telling myself it's worth it...it's worth it...it's worth it... hahaha!  Summer is fast approaching and I have 40 lbs to lose instead of the 30 I had at the beginning of last summer... go figure.. getting older really sucks sometimes!

I joined a gym last fall right after Madilyn was going to miraculously be hugely successful in school and I was going to have free time (note that is totally and completely dripping with sarcasm..:) but I didn't meet anyone because nobody was friendly, the trainer acted like I was simply annoying her when I asked her to actually show me how to do the exercises she chose for me (I haven't been to a gym in 15 or 20 years... seriously, if I had to ask for workout guidance I obviously don't know what I'm doing..) and absolutely nobody cared if I was there or not... not quite the encouragement I was looking for.

On a different note WE HAVE RESPITE CARE NOW!!  I am a little excited about that.. can you tell??  I'm actually going out this weekend with my hubby and his mom and sister while they are in town visiting.  We're actually going out ... without any children... totally foreign concept for me and I'm over the moon excited!  Hopefully my ass won't hurt quite this much... hahaha

We also have a new puppy, Goose.  Goose is Madilyn's dog, once all of his training is done he'll be a certified service dog for her.  So far it's been an absolute blessing having him here, he's so calming for her, it's amazing to watch.  It will also get me up and moving more because he needs to be walked and has to go outside pretty much hourly during the day for potty training... at times it's very painful getting up and moving but Goose doesn't seem to care....  I just keep telling myself one step at a time... I didn't get this way overnight and I'm not going to fix it overnight... one step at a time..

the struggle is real.....

She's currently in the living room having a holy hell fit and throwing stuff.... all because I turned the TV off in the living room and turned the radio on.  She doesn't care that Mickey Mouse is on the TV in her playroom...she wants both, all the time.  This is typically when she'd be scratching, pinching and throwing stuff at me because it would get her her way so she would stop.  Instead that baby gates have been dusted off and installed and I'm sitting at my dining room table watching, video recording the fit on my phone, drinking coffee and eating sugar free cherry jello.. haha... mom for the win!!

With Madilyn feeling so much better now (most of the time) we have fully acknowledged and realized that we have created an absolute beast (that's being polite).  We have spent so much time giving her whatever she wanted because either she was never supposed to be able to do it to start with or it was the only way to get her to stop some other behavior......  well, now we have the long journey of fixing it.  I tend to post the funny stuff on Facebook or the progress but not the tantrums.  Her tantrums (the full blown ones are relatively new) are of epic proportion.  Add to it the fact that she's like me and loves to throw stuff when she's really mad and it's not pretty.  Hence, I am hiding in the dining room.

Last night when it got to be too much I gated myself in her playroom, put my headphones on and turned them up all the way and did week 2 day 2 of my running app.  Nothing like watching books fly into the room because she can't get in, it was hubby's turn to hide in the dining room.  Thankfully her tantrums don't last overly long (she's currently playing with stacking cups in the playroom) once she realizes she's not getting her way.

Week 2 day 2 was horrible...hahaha... I thought my lungs may explode because I had to run 2 minutes at a time plus the damned 15 second sprints... I keep waiting for my legs to give out or my lungs to burst.. in the end, I will confess, I felt a million times better... totally worth it.  I also do 3 30 second planks after running and when the hubby is home I get him to do it with me.  Let me tell you the change in running kinda made me want to puke while planking.  I'll take that as a sign that I worked as hard as it felt like I did.

I was super nervous giving up sugar since I LOVE LOVE LOVE goodies... cookies, cheesecake and diet coke..yum! Night before last I discovered a treat that I am newly obsessed with though.. sugar free cherry jello... I was actually scared to try sugar free anything.  I simply assumed that it would taste like garbage.. boy was I wrong.  Before you try it you should know that if you don't like luden's cough drops, don't waste your time... I could eat luden's cherry cough drops like candy and the sugar free cherry jello tastes just like them! I'm obsessed!

And on a side note I've discovered it's kiwi water for the win!

oh my fruit water

Let's talk cucumber...I love cucumber...cucumber water...not so much.  Kudos to the person that likes it cause that shit is nasty!  I drank it though, all 96 ounces on day 1 (Feb 2nd) because it's supposed to be a good detox drink.  I did pee a bunch but was it really because of the cucs or just the water?  Hahaha... I'm feeling the same way about the orange water right now that is being stared at and not consumed.  The kiwi strawberry in between was good.  I switched to fruit infused water because I gave up sugar and plain water is boring.  Now as I'm reading labels I seriously question how far do you really need to take it?  My favorite crystal light says it contains zero sugar but ingredient #3 is corn syrup solids.... hmmm... wtf is corn syrup solids?  I'm not really sure I want to know the answer to that and hence I'm still staring at the orange water trying to figure out if I can make it taste any better quickly...without adding sugar or stevia...

I should just do what I did yesterday and hop my very tired ass onto the treadmill. I completed week 2 day 1 of a running to lose (couch to 5k) app yesterday.  Let me tell you, I have an extreme, immense borderline love/hate relationship with the trainer who came up with that shit.  Running for 90 seconds doesn't sound like much but when you're 200 lbs and semi-old it's hell....I have to have my music going just to keep me moving and right around the time I think my legs are going to give out uptown funk or bad romance comes on and I think I can do this....and I can sing and dance while doing it....hahahahaha!  If you ever see me out and about with broken glasses, a broken nose, teeth missing and a fat lip we'll all know how that turned out.  I seriously believe I could make one of those "how you think you look....how you actually look" memes when I'm in that moment.  I've also had some serious visions when I'm goofing off while attempting to run of things going bad and me totally eating shit.  It's not pretty in my head and I don't even want to really imagine the pain that would come along with it.

The no white flour is actually going fine even though I am so used to eating pasta by the bucket.  Lots of protein and lots of veggies.  I've been eating fruit also.  I also had baked sweet potatoes one night.  They are yummy and I kick myself for snubbing Tina's mashed sweet potatoes for the last 10 years or so...sorry Tina next time I'll try something before being snobby about it.  Just think... if sweet potatoes were never turned into deep fried french fries I never would've tried them...and I seriously wonder sometimes how I got this fat??