You Are Sexy, Healthy & Thin!

This was the top motivational picture for me. This is what I want to look like and how I want to be, so here I share it with you.

I feel awesome about myself today for the first time in a long time. I've been listening to my body about food, eating what I want and stopping when I'm full. Looking for that feeling of "nothingness" that Marna talks about. I've also been sticking with my workout better, and starting to feel results!

I found this book at the library that really hit home for me called " The Show it Love Workout" by Kacy Duke. She is awesome. It is so strange that I came upon this book just after reading the book "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne which basically says that the laws of attraction in the universe are such that you attract what you want to you by your thoughts about them. I have been looking for a positive, motivating way to love myself and come into my true, thin body, and Kacy's book is definately it! It was such an exciting realization when I started to read it, thinking it would be like all the other diet/fitness books out there. But she really reaches inside to find the things that bother you and make you the way you are and then help you reach down and find the person within who has been hiding.

Kind of like "Thin Within You", by Marna Goldstein. I ran across her website a month or so ago, and it has really helped me in my quest. I believe the Secret is right, that we draw the things we focus on and think about, because just the fact of my finding the websites and books I have in the last month has proven that.

So I am no longer going to focus on the fat. It's gone. I am focusing on the thin me, locked inside, and letting her out. Focusing on letting her control my eating and thinking. And focusing on pictures, like the one above of Drew Barrymore, of thin people who are happy with themselves and in thier bodies, because that is what I intend to be. That is what I am!

Love the One your In

It's so easy to think about what body you'd like to have when really what we should be doing is love the body we have now. If you love the body you're in, then you'll take care of her, just as she's taken care of you all this time. Think about it for a minute. When you want to go somewhere, who takes you there? Your legs. When you want to do something who does it? Your hands. When you want to hold your child, who lifts her up? Your arms. When you want to kiss your husband who does it? Your lips. I could go on like this all day, but you get the point. Your body is worthy of your love because if helps you do all the things you do on a daily basis, asking nothing more in return then a little fuel to keep it going.

Celebrate the body you have. This stomach that gave birth to your child. These legs that take you where you want to go. These arms that hug and hold your family close to you. Now what do you intend to do to show this body how much you love her? By strengthening it! Become a stronger woman. Don't hate any part of your body, because that will just draw more negative energy to you. For me this has been difficult, I can't lie. My trouble spot that I have the most difficulty loving is my stomach. But this part of my body carried my baby for 91/2 months, nurtured and birthed her. I celebrate my stomach for her creative ability and intend to nurture and make her stronger and in turn make me a stronger woman.

Since I've been working on loving myself the way I am right now, I've noticed a change in my attitude toward everything. I feel much more upbeat and positive about life and about my ability to change into the person I am. Instead of focusing on the things I'm not, I focus on the things I am, showing myself that I am worthy of being celebrated and my body worthy of love right now. This makes it easier for me to accept love from my husband because now I feel worthy of it. I am a positive person; I can let go of guilt. I will enjoy what I have and not dwell on what I should be. This is my promise to myself.

Isn't that part of the golden rule? "Love thy neighbor as thyself". How many times do we love our neighbor more then we love ourself? We say things to ourselves that we'd never dream of saying to someone else, sometimes awful, hateful things. If you said those things to someone else, they wouldn't be friends with you very long, in fact would probably dislike you and avoid you. Why would you tell yourself something you wouldn't say to a stranger or your best friend. Things like: "You're such a fat pig" "You're don't deserve to treat yourself to a massage, you're too fat" "You so huge you can't sit in that chair" "Don't even think you can eat that, you're already too fat" and so on and so forth. These negative thoughts build up over time so that all you can focus on is how awful you are and how fat. This must stop and turn to love for yourself so you know you deserve to be different. So change that golden rule to "Love thyself as you love your nieghbor". If you wouldn't say it to someone else, don't say it to yourself! Instead, find positive things to say and ignore the negative voices and drown them out with positive affirmations. I AM BEAUTIFUL. I AM STRONG. I AM POSITIVE. I AM SMART. I AM PATIENT. I AM CARING. I AM LOVING. I AM ATTRACTIVE. I AM SEXY. I AM GENEROUS. I AM HAPPY.

So celebrate the body you have and as that old classic song goes; "love the one your with" or in the case of your body, Love the one you're In!

Taking Care of Me!

Yesterday was long day. I could feel myself starting to get sick for a couple of days, and yesterday I guess I felt the worst I've felt in a long time. I was able to nap when the girl went down for a couple of hours, but it really wasn't enough. I decided I really needed to take care of me, so I called out from work so I could go to bed early. I also took the time to make myself feel better about myself and bring lots of postive energy and good feelings to myself by taking a nice hot bubble bath. I surrounded the bath with candles and put lots of bubbles, and put some relaxing music on the cd player.

Then I sank back into the tub and just covered my body with the bubbles and ran the wash cloth over my body. I touched every part of my body and told it that I loved it. I love you shoulders, I love you elbows, you bend just right for my arms, I love you hands, you are beautiful and practical and can do so many things. I just did that for every part of my body, and then relaxed back when I was done and just thought good thoughts about how beautiful, sexy and wonderful my body was. I did not allow negative thoughts about myself or my body to enter my mind. I pictured my body at 140lbs and kept saying it over in my head until I could feel that body and see it in my mind. Then I let the water out of the tub, moved the candles around so they were higher and finished with a cleansing shower with cooler water and imagined all the negative energy and thoughts and feelings about myself washing away down the drain with the shampoo and soap.

When I stepped out of that shower I felt more refreshed and happy and healthy then I'd felt in a long time. Then I dried my hair and instead of putting on my ratty old nightshirt, I put on a sexy silk one that I never wore because I didnt' think I deserved to try to be sexy, and felt so good about myself wearing it. My husband wanted to know if I expected anything more, and I told him I didn't. I went to bed with a smile, imagining my body at 140lbs and wearing a sexy nightie just to sleep because I deserve it. This morning I woke up feeling much better! If you've never done something like this for yourself I highly encourage you to try it. It makes you feel so good and brings lots of positive energy your way.

I have never before done something like this for myself, and I haven't taken a bath in years, thinking myself too big, but it's always been something I enjoyed doing. I plan to do this for myself at least once a month. It will be my date night with myself! Next on my list? Massage!

Rainy Wednesday

What do you do when you feel like it's just not working after all? Like no matter what you do, it's not going to matter. It's such a negative attitude, and sadly the way I feel today. I'm not even sure why exactly. I think it comes down to patience, or lack thereof, to be exact. When it comes to other things in my life I know they take time and I'm willing to be patient and wait until the time is right, but with my weight loss I just want it over with and to post that "after" picture up. It's going to take a lot of work to get there, and I'm wondering if I'm going about it in the wrong way. The Bible says that "by beholding we become changed" which simply means that by focusing on something we change ourselves. So maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing here. I shouldn't be focusing on losing the weight because then I'm focusing on the weight. I should focus on my goal and where I plan to be instead of the journey of how I'm going to get there.

Monday, Monday, Can't Trust That Day!

So the past couple of days have been a little off for me. Sunday I worked all day, which is pretty much the way it goes, so I dont' get anything else done, including any exercise. But I did pay for the exercise I did on Saturday! I'm still paying for it as a matter of fact! Not fun.

With fuel prices the way they've been lately, my husband and I invested in a wood/coal burning stove, and completely redid our heating system. We disconnected the oil furnace and oil based hot water heater, and replaced them with an electric hot water heater and the wood/coal burning stove. We have yet to buy the coal, but we have had wood stacked up beside our driveway for a couple of months now. Saturday we decided it was time to get it into the basement, since the weather is definately taking a turn for the COLD! So while my husband threw the wood into the basement through the little window (my idea, can you imagine lugging it all down there? Ugh!) I stacked it. I must admit this is something I'm quite good at, having been raised in a wood burning household and this was a yearly ritual with my parents and still is. Well stacking wood at 120lbs overweight is much different then doing it when you're a realitively fit teenager! My body is still recovering from that! When I swept and mopped the kitchen floor this morning I thought I was going to die!

So I guess that means I cant' skip my walk tonight, or tomorrow!! Luckily I found a buddy to walk with, so that ought to keep me honest! I'm very excited to start that particular ritual. It's always easier to stick to something when you know someone else is counting on you to be there for them too.

I've decided that my eating I need to watch calories more then anything else. So my caloric intake should be about 2000 calories to lose weight. I've found that to maintain my plumpish figure I'm consuming about 3100 calories per day. That's crazy! Once I start losing, I can decrease my caloric intake to about 1800 per day, but to do that now would put my body in starvation mode, which I don't want! Obviously I need to condition my body to expect less and use up the reserves on hand! I've taken to chewing gum when I'm bored so I won't eat. I think that probably saves about 500 calories a day if not more. So there's my tip for ya! If it works on the Biggest Loser, then it'll work for you too!

Shall we go for a walk today? Happy Losing!

Patience is a Virtue, so they say.....

It's a lot of work to lose over 100 pounds. It's not going to be easy, and it's going to involve a lot of sacrifice and changing my eating and exercise habits, and that's not easy either. The results will be worth it! Being able to see real difference in my size would be nice. But I don't' see any. I don't' have a scale right now, so I'm not able to weigh myself, so I don't know that I've made any progress. That's a bit discouraging to say the least.

Part of it is my fault for not being more vigilant in my exercising. It's the one thing that I hate more then anything else. I know I'm doing a great job not over eating and listening to my body when it says it's full and stuff, but while I don't mind exercising, the payout isn't there yet. I guess those endorphins they talk about coming after a lot of exercise don't come right away. I just feel very sore and tired after a workout. It doesn't make me want to do it again anytime soon. I keep pushing on because I want to see some results, but when you don't feel any different in your clothes, and you know that you're eating right and doing something active for at least 1/2 hour every day it's starts to get discouraging and you start to wonder if you'll ever get there at all. The doubts have starting coming! Like: maybe I really was meant to be fat and nothing I do will ever change that. It's not worth even trying to improve since it's obviously not working.

This is when it's even more important to keep my eyes on the prize, the reason why I'm doing this! I want to live life as a thin person and know what it's like to look great in clothes, love having my picture taken, be able to sit on my husbands lap, and feel better physically. I didn't gain all this weight overnight, I'm not going to lose it overnight either. I'm just so ready for it to be gone!

Dealing With Stressful Situations

When you're trying to lose weight, stress can be a real deterrant that you can't let get the best of you. If you do, then pretty soon everything will end up being an excuse as to why you can have that cookie or ice cream or potato chips or whatever else you crave when you're stressed. You're trying to cover up how you're feeling with food instead of dealing with the feelings and although they can seem overwhelming, it's better to deal with them then to let food become your therapist. Food only masks the feelings you have every right to feel. Don't let it have that kind of control over you. For too long I have. I would never deal with my emotions, I would just eat and suppress them.

This has been such a stressful day for me! I dont' even know where to start, and since this like most stressful issues, revolves around money I'm really in a pinch. So normally when I get as stressed as I am I eat. A lot. But today I didn't. In fact I cried and let it all out. I'm still upset about things, but I feel like I handled it more like a normal person would instead of trying to shove my feelings aside with something chocolate or just mountains of food in general.

I am also upset that I had to miss my massage today. I had been looking forward to it all week as a reward for doing so well with my eating and exercising. I plan to reschedule it for next week, but it still doesn't change the fact that I won't be getting one today when I've been looking forward to it so much.

I thought about posting a picture of a woman stressed, but I think Fridays will be my dishy man day, and so every Friday I'm going to find a picture of a man I think is hot and post it. Kinda makes me feel better! Besides, what better to look at when you're upset then a fine looking man? So here's another picture - looks a little stressed there doesn't he? but oh so good!