Friday, March 16, 2012

Today is a day to be celebrated

In my own little world I would declare today a holiday and the name of this holiday would be "The Day I Could Fit Into My Old Jeans Day" I am so happy I could scream...which I actually did...and then I did a dance...and made up a song which went "I can fit into my old jeans! I can fit into my old jeans!" My kids even joined in, clapping and dancing, it was quite an ordeal. Now when I say fit into I don't mean squeeze into where all my fat it just pushed up and over the top, I mean actually fit into where you don't have to suck in to button your pants fit. I still wrestle with working out every day but today I will not because today I know that it's working, that all the pain and the constant state of being sore is paying off.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Why am I doing this?

I have just started my 8th week of the Insanity workouts, I only have 11 more workouts until I have completed the 60 day challenge. This is the first time I have committed to doing something to better by body and have actually followed through, that in itself makes me happy. When I talk about it most people ask how much weight I have lost or want to lose. This question made me start thinking about why i was doing this which again made me think about my constant internal struggle with my body image for the past 5 years.

So I would like to share why I am doing this as honest and as crazy as the reasons might be this is why I am working out.

Well before I started this I would spend most of my days with an internal struggle, I hated the way I looked but was not doing much to change it which in turn made me even more upset with myself. Now that I have started and even more importantly following through I do not have that constant self loathing and that is a great feeling.

We live in Wisconsin so luckily for a good portion of the year we can cover a lot of our body up but there are some nice months here where you do need to wear warmer weather clothes and the thought of that used to make me want to lock myself in my bedroom and cry. Ever since my first baby I have become best friends with spanx and spanx and warm weather do not go well together. I will admit that I have worn spanx in the middle of summer just to try and feel a little better about the way I look. I DO NOT want to do that anymore! Its super hot and really uncomfortable! I know it will take quite awhile to get my stomach to wear I am even remotely happy BUT I hope that by this summer I will not have to wear spanx and look ok and I think I am getting there.

My parents also have a pool and for the past 2 years I have only invited very few people to come over and go swimming because I am so self conscious about how I look in a swimsuit. I want to be able to invite people over and not feel like throwing up. I want to swim with my kids around other adults besides those in my "inner circle."

About 8 weeks ago it clicked that I could do something about these things, that there was a very simple answer. I have just started this journey and I am expecting it to take a long time and a lot of work but I will get there one day.