Quick little eye-opening experience...

OLA and Happy "almost" Friday

I wanted to take a quick minute to share something I found very eye-opening and inspiring today.

I am part of a group on Facebook in which people post different inspirational quotes. It is also a safe place to share fears, concerns, and desires. I was only invited over the weekend, and even in the last five days I have seen some wonderful and motivational comments by others to support the person who is struggling. I truly hope that in some way, I am able to provide that to the people in my life too :)

The Question posted today was "share one thing that is frustrating you, or you feel you are struggling with in regards to your health, self-worth, and food habits."

Here is what I shared......
1. Health- my cycles are very irregular and extreme pain each month that it is on the right side. No diagnosis and no cysts found. Nothing pinpointed and nothing showing in blood-work. 
2. SELF WORTH- i often feel that I am never going to be good enough to achieve all the things I want to accomplish in my life
3. FOOD HABITS- i struggle to stay on track on the weekends when we are out and about. I get really uncomfortable if I make a choice of something healthier and People say "oh are you on a diet" like Its abnormal to have a healthy tasty choice. frown emoticon

I find I feel self conscious when making choices. ... i don't know if that makes sense

It was so neat to see the positive way that people offered suggestions for getting past feelings of self-doubt and healthy eating.

I would encourage everyone to really take a moment to think about these three things, and see what your own answers are to the things you're struggling with.

There are so many fears that we as individuals have, and I think over time we manifest them until they become second nature to us. After writing the answers out to the original posters question I realized that I have come so far in my self-development journey but I still have so far to go

The important part is that what I wrote above is nowhere near as negative and self-loathing as it would have been a year or two ago. 

Back then I would have written about how I cant make healthy choices (vs realizing the WHY behind the struggle I have when out with people), and I know I would have answered about my self-worth struggles in a far more dismissive way (ex. I feel awful all the time, I am not good enough for anyone, I hate my life vs saying I often fear not being good enough to accomplish the things I want)

I KNOW what I want and sometimes the fear creeps in, but its a good reminder still of how far I have traveled, and it allows me to focus on where I am going to....

Until next time...

Care

Apologies, Embarrassment, and Moving past it all

Hello All,

I will keep it focused and "try" for short and sweet for today as I think this approach might work better

Firstly... I AM SO SORRY... I promised that I would be more consistent in my posts, and instead have been even less so than before. That WILL change starting today.

Secondly.... Remember that wedding I talked about the middle of January, well it just happened this past weekend. I wore the dress I had talked about, and even though I was not where I wanted to be goal-wise, I had a LOT of fun.

So there is the apology, but where does the embarrassment come in you ask? Well its more on a personal level than something overtly noticeable to others.

My beautiful friend Tina who was the bride on Saturday, got each of the bridesmaids a beautiful kimono to wear while we were being beautified before the wedding. All the girls wore them, but sadly the size that she had gotten me was too small. I never thought I'd be so sad on such a happy day.I laughed it off,  and told Tina that it was not her fault that my "boobs were too big" but in my mind, I was devastated. I never imagined I would be at a point where a simple Large sized Kimono would not close over me.

What does this mean... well it means that I am tired of being hungry all the time, feeling deprived, craving all the "bad foods", talking myself into feeling awful or guilty when I slip up or make a mistake with my eating.

When out with my friend Shannon two weeks ago, we ran into someone she had previously worked with. Her name was Tracy and she introduced both of us to IIFYM (go look it up  http://www.iifym.com/) with a slight twist on body type. What it essentially means is you're allowed each of the three mains (proteins, carbs, and fats) but the focus is on getting in all your fats and proteins and the carbs make up approximately 25% of your daily intake.

I have been loosely following it over the last couple weeks leading up to the wedding, and am heading into it more hardcore this week. I am actually feeling excited again about it. The low carb I had committed to was moderately successful but as soon as I went "off plan" and had some carbs, I gained back all the weight I had lost

So what does that mean for my personal goals....

Current weight- 255lbs (probably a couple lbs of water retention from all the yummy food and drinks over the last few days)
Food goals:
Calories - 2300 (loosely based)
Fat- 102 grams
Protein- 201 grams
Carbohydrate- 144 grams

I recently completed the #100HappyDays challenge on my instagram feed, and it really motivated me to focus on being present and enjoying life. I feel that I am going to take this attitude with the blog moving forward.

I am going to commit to really focusing on healthy food and logging the daily food intake for 100 days to see the overall result. That way, even when I know I am going to be away or focused on things other than "healthy choices" it will bring me back to what is important.... I'll keep you posted.