Good News & Bad News

Where oh where do I begin...?

I guess I'll start with the good news first.  Who doesn't like good news, right?

Something exciting should be happening between now and the end of July barring no unexpected events that would change that.  What you ask?  Well, I'm going to keep that a secret.  Partly because I think it will be fun to keep you all in suspense until the official announcement can be made.  And partly because I'm concerned what y'all will think of me.

Gosh, that makes it sound bad doesn't it?

Oh well, it is what it is and it's staying a secret!

Now to the bad news :(

These past two weeks have been crazy to say the least but that's no excuse for letting myself do what I normally do.  What I'm saying is just because there was a bunch of stuff going on in my life doesn't mean I should have let myself revert back to having Mountain Dew on a daily basis.  I shouldn't have let myself forget about my goal to get back on track with exercise and eating better.

Life happens, on a daily basis, so I need to learn to deal with what life throws at me in a way that doesn't result in feeling badly about myself.  I need to learn to deal with what life throws at me in a way that I don't use it as an excuse to do what I normally do.  I need to learn to live my life the way I want, and need, to live it.

There!  I've said it...again.  I'm starting over, or however you want to say it, again.

Blogging consistently is something I need to do.  Even during the tough, crappy, blah times that I go through in life.  Why?  Because I'm not accountable to myself.  I feel more guilt and want to change my ways for the next day more when I put it out in the blogging world for all to read than I do when only I know what I've done.

Is that weird?  Is that bad?

Shouldn't being accountable to myself be enough?  Or is that something that comes with time?

Maybe some day being accountable to myself will be enough...

How I Got Where I Am Today & Facing the Music

I have a horrible habit that needs to be changed.  Every night I set my alarm for a decent time to wake up that will give me plenty of time to get ready for school or work and have time to eat breakfast along with anything else I might want to do before heading out the door.  And every morning I hit the snooze button repeatedly.  This morning for instance, my cell phone alarm was set for 6:50a and my iHome alarm was set for 7a so my intention was to get up at 7.  I woke up for the first alarm, and snoozed it 3 times which I had planned for.  Now between the 2nd and 3rd snooze of the cell phone alarm my iHome alarm went off meaning I should get out of bed but if not my last cell phone alarm will be my final call.  That didn't happen.  I ended up snoozing my iHome alarm until it was 7:30!!  Now by no means was I late for anything as I don't have class until 11a today but I had wanted to get up at 7 to work on reading for the class I have later in the day or preparing the speech I need to record and submit.  I've done neither :-/ From 7:30-8 I laid in bed reading blogs (they're addicting!!) and then finally at 8 I figured I needed to get out of bed.  I didn't use my morning as I had planned to but I did weigh in, something I needed to do, and write this entry, which I definitely didn't need to do this morning.

It's been 53 days since the last time I weighed myself...probably because I know I haven't been putting in the effort to lose weight and I didn't want to face the music.  I put my big girl panties on and dealt with it though.  I needed to see the damage that my lack of effort and dedication did.

A gain of only 2.2lbs in the big picture isn't THAT bad.  But to me it's bad.  When I initially made the decision to lose weight it was June of 2009 and I was at my highest weight of 179.5lbs.  I lost weight that summer, my lowest being 172lbs.  Not a huge loss but it was progress in the right direction and I was happy with it.

And then it was all downhill (or back up the hill) from there.  Another semester of college started, I gave in to the temptation of having Mountain Dew at school just because it was available to me, I was eating unhealthy food for lunch due to a large break between classes, and I wasn't exercising as much if at all.  By the end of October I was back up to 179lbs but quickly moved back in the right direction, by 11/13/09 I was back down to 175.3lbs.  But then I "fell off the wagon"...I stopped weighing in once a week so I wasn't able to see what my actions were doing to my body.  It wasn't until 1/2/10 that I stepped on the Wii Fit again and what it told me wasn't good.  I weighed 182.5lbs, a gain of 7.2lbs since 11/13/09!  A new highest weight, not something I had ever wanted to say.

My weight has been like a yo-yo since then going up and down, up and down.  Not a lot just a pound or two here and there but eventually the weight started going up more than it was going down.  I wasn't staying around the same weight any more.  First it was 184, then I found myself at 185, then 186, 187, and finally at 188 which is where I am at now.

In 2009 when I had lost some weight I didn't notice a difference in my body.  Now as I've put on some weight I've noticed a huge difference in my body.  I used to only have stretch marks on my hips, the love handles.  Now I have stretch marks there as well as my stomach on the left and right sides of my belly button just below it.  When I lay on my back my hip bones no longer stick out, there's too much fat in the way for that to happen.  I can no longer "suck it in" and make my stomach appear flat.  If I knew what would happen to my body in 2009 I would like to think I would have worked harder to keep the progress going, or at the very least not let my weight become worse than it was but of course hindsight is 20/20.

So now what??  As much as I dislike what my body has become you would think I would be out there hitting the gym or working out at home all the time, eating healthier foods, cutting out Mountain Dew but is that what I'm doing?  Honestly, no.  I try to cut Mountain Dew out and I do well during the week when I'm at work all day but with school I again am tempted to buy a bottle from the vending machine to enjoy during my 2.5 hour long class twice a week and on the weekends when I am lounging around with nothing to do but homework I think about how good one would taste so I cave and have one, or two, or three (yes I seriously did that Sunday).  I've hit the gym once in three months and haven't been back since.  Should I go today after class?  Definitely!  But I have a 3-4 minute speech I have to write and record by the end of the day so am I tempted to not work out?  For sure!  Excuses is what it is.  Do I want to lose the weight or not??  By my actions you would think no but by my feelings towards my body you would definitely think so.

So how do I get myself moving in the right direction again?  How do I get myself to commit and keep that commitment?  Tough questions...ones that I haven't found the answers to yet :(