Laying it All Out There

Well, if you thought I overshared on the last post, get ready because there's more!

I admit, I broke out into a cold sweat after hitting "post" on the last entry. I have never put myself and my struggles out there for the world to see. Those who truly know me know that at my core, I am a very shy, introverted person. I really have to work to make friends, be confident, and reveal my true self. I've always been taught to put on the happy face and make everyone think that everything is great and that I have it all under control.

The truth is, I'm mortified that I've "let myself go" and that this struggle with emotional eating has such a hold on me. I have finally found my "want to" (referencing Lysa TerKeurst in her must read book "Made to Crave") when it comes to finally deciding to get a firm hold on this problem with God's guidance, and making it disappear forever. I am so highly motivated right now, that I want to share that motivation with others that are on a weight loss journey.

I have found inspiration in an unexpected place. I started watching "The Biggest Loser" reruns on Netflix a few weeks ago. I had never really been an avid watcher of the show, but now I am addicted to watching these people transform their bodies, minds, and hearts as they lose the weight and the emotional baggage that they brought to the show. For the first time, I really felt like I could do this. That I could lose this weight and get my life back.

During the weigh in portion of the show, the contestants wear exercise gear that basically forces them to put all their flaws on display. When I first saw that, I thought, "there is no way I would go on tv in my sports bra with my gut hanging out! What's wrong with these people?" But then it hit me. Achieving anything in life that's worth anything requires you to get out of your comfort zone, to lay it all on the line, and to open yourself to criticism. You have to make yourself vulnerable and take chances to reap those blessings. You have to examine yourself and really identify what needs to change before you can make any concrete changes.

Again, this truth is illustrated in my life by my son. Haden came into our lives thru the miracle of adoption. And you better believe that was the most vulnerable time of my life. We had to examine our lives and be picked apart, so to speak, by the agency when they did our homestudy. We had to open ourselves up and accept that even if we bonded with birth parents and their unborn baby, that it could all be taken away from us if they had a change of heart. We had to trust that Haden's birth mother was taking care of her body and doing what was best for him while he was in the womb. During his entire first day of life, we had to trust that the staff at the hospital was loving on him and taking as good of care of him as we would have, and that someone was helping Haden's birth parents thru the emotional hell that they were going thru. Then, we had to put ourselves out there again, and take Haden home knowing that for an entire week until the court hearing that terminated his birth parents' parental rights, they could ask for him back at anytime and we could do nothing about it. Not to mention the 8 months of waiting to finalize, and the two post placement visits to our home where now our novice parenting skills were on the table for judgement. I can honestly say that I do not regret a single part of our journey to Haden, and it helped me see that being vulnerable was ok.

So I think it's fair to say that I know what it is to lay it all out there. I have always said that I am an open book and that I have nothing to hide. And my weight loss journey should be no different. That is why I'm going to try to document, the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of the next few months. I think for people to truly be inspired and to understand the sacrifice and the transformation that one makes, you have to see it from start to finish. So as much as it mortifies me to do it, I'm going to post my "before" pics. Because I am 100% confident that I will never see that person again.  I will try to post once a month pictures, so hopefully I will see a positive change. My next post will probably be about my weight loss goals. I completed the first week of the Couch to 5k program and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I would highly recommend it for people who are just beginning to run. I will also do Zumba once a week, and maybe throw in some 30 Day Shred or a Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout video in there for good measure, since c25k is only 3 times per week. Since the end of November, I have lost 6.5 lbs, which I am ok with. I was not serious about weight watchers and the exercise portion of my weight loss until this past week. So, I expect that number to be much larger over the next few weeks. (Never hurts to think positively!) Without further adieu, here are the before pics. You've been warned :)

How Did I Get Here?

I admit, as I was typing the title for this post, I couldn't help but start singing the creepy Talking Heads song. :)

If you know me at all, you know that I always have a song in my head, and I can relate anything that happens in my life to a song. But right now, the only song that comes to mind when I think of myself is "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen.

 I guess that's why I am here, because I don't ever want to see my name and fat in the same sentence ever again. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I am overweight,and unhealthy and that I need to stop making excuses, stop procrastinating, stop complaining and whining and do something about it. But my physical self is not the only thing that needs a little tweaking. I have some work to do emotionally and spiritually as well. So I guess you could say I have my work cut out for me. However, I know that nothing is too big to conquer when I am trusting in the Lord to get me thru. I have fully given this journey over to Him first and foremost. This is not a "New Years Resolution" blog. This is a journey to the ultimate life makeover. I owe it to Him to take care of the earthly body that He has given me, and be the woman that He has created me to be. I owe it to myself because I am worth it. I owe it to my husband because he deserves to have his wife back, an even better version of the woman that he married 5 1/2 yrs. ago. And I owe it to my sweet baby boy, to give him a Mama that can keep up with his amazing energy, and one who will be healthy enough to hopefully see him grow into a wonderful man of God.

So, back to my original thought. How did I get here, to the point of being overweight, depressed, and unhealthy? When I look back on it, it was a series of events and bad choices, and the way that I handled those things. Or rather, the fact that I didn't handle them. (More on what events got me here will come in a later post) I ate to cover them up, to comfort myself, to make people think that everything was alright. I am definitely what you call an "emotional eater." I don't eat massive amounts of food, and I don't sit around in front of the tv all day with a pint of ice cream. But you better believe that McDonald's french fries have been there for me after a bad day at work, and sweet tea was by my side when I endured month after month of negative pregnancy tests on our journey to start our family. I have a list of food that at this point in my life, I truly can't get thru a day without eating. How sad is that? I am not relying on God to be my everything, instead I look to food every time.

 I think that everyone reflects on how they got to the point that they are at when they begin any kind of weight loss journey. Most of us are in denial that it is as bad as it is, and then that moment of clarity hits us like a bolt of lightening. For me, it was when I stepped on the scale for the first time in several months, after signing up for Weight Watchers and realizing that I needed to have a scale to track my weight loss progress. I knew I had been gaining weight because I was having to buy larger clothes and suddenly not even fitting in my "fat clothes". I had even estimated, or as I thought, OVERestimated, what I thought I weighed before I got on the scale. Nothing could prepare me for the fact that I was 14 lbs over what I thought I overestimated myself to be! And as if that wasn't enough of a punch to the gut, my dear sweet (skinny) husband hopped on the scale "for fun". It was mortifying for me because his number was 30 lbs less than mine. Yes, folks, I weigh 30 pounds more than my husband. I know that is every woman's worst nightmare, and it completely crushed my spirit. I don't consider myself a person that cries a lot, but as soon as my husband left for work, I went to the bathroom to have a big ugly, woe is me, cry.

But today is a new day, and I am ready to get off this rollercoaster and start surrendering control of my life over to my Lord and Savior who wants me to rely on Him instead of food and self pity. I am ready to stop believing the lies that satan puts in my head everyday about how I am not good enough in any area of my life, and how if I just go thru the drive thru or eat that bag of chips, everything will be fine. I know it won't be easy, but as I have found in the last few years, God has a way of turning horrible situations into tools that are molding me into the person He wants me to be. And he has a plan and a purpose for each one of those things that have happened. The greatest testimony to that truth, in my life, is Haden. Jason and I endured many highs and lows in our quest to bring a child into our home, but we will both say with confidence that we would go thru them a million times over now that we know the result is having him in our lives.

 I know it's one of the most commonly referenced verses in the Bible, but Jeremiah 29:11 has always resonated with me in the good and bad seasons of my life. It is a simple, but also profound reminder of how even in His enormity and righteousness, God still desires to know our hearts, and has developed an intricate plan for each one of us. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future." This is what I will choose to believe and listen to from now on.  I hope that thru this journey I can find other people who have the same goals in mind and we can encourage and build each other up. I hope that I can look back on this post in a year and be able to see how far I have come in all areas of my life. And as an added bonus, maybe I'll be able to live up to the title of my blog, to lose 30 lbs by my 30th birthday on 10/10/12. But even more than that, with God's grace, I hope to learn and accept the promises that He has already laid out for me.