It is crazy the tricks that our minds play on us. When I look in the mirror I still tend to see a fat girl looking back at me. I believe what the mirror is showing me. I then feel down and frustrated that my work is for nothing. Which makes me sneak junk food and not work out as often as I should. I believe the lies the mirror is telling me.
The other day I went to my brother's house. His teenage daughter gave me a hug and she said something like, "woah, that is so weird. You are so skinny!" I was caught off guard! It made me feel good and also made me wonder if that was true. Was I really thin now? But the girl I see in the mirror isn't thin...
Today was a really rough day with the kids. They were fighting with each other, treating me poorly, etc. I was in a horrible mood and wanted to run away. By the time I got the two youngest to bed I had already planned I was just going to leave and walk for a couple hours by myself (tempted to not go back home for a long long long LONG time...). I had my shoes on and I was ready to leave after I tucked in my 4 year old. My husband peaked his head into the room when I was reading her a book and asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him when I was done. I decided it would be less lonely to run away if he were with me =)
We normally only walk about a mile, but with how I was feeling tonight we just kept walking. We ended up walking 3.8 miles (speed walking a lot of the time).
Ok, so how does this have anything at all to do with the first part of my blog??? I'll tell you...
When I was feeling so down and angry, I was feeling crummy about myself. I saw the fat ugly girl in the mirror. At first on our walk I still felt that way, but by mile 1 I was starting to feel a little better. I had emotionally cooled down. I was enjoying my husband's company. The endorphins were flowing. I went to look at the ground and saw this small body. My first thought was of confusion. Whose body was that??? Because it couldn't possibly be mine! I realized that the mirror had been lying and that because I have been stressed and not exercising as much as I should, my depression started kicking in. And when depressed I tend to believe the negative over the positive.
I may not be at my goal for how I want my body to look. I still have toning to do, I still have strength to gain, but I need to quit believing the lies that I am still the 210 lb fat girl I was just a few years ago. I have lost 64 lbs!!! I just walked 3.8 miles without getting out of breath and could've easily walked further. I am healthier than I have ever been and will continue to get better. And for now on, I will call the mirror out on it's lies and let myself see my progress and be proud of how far I have come.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Alone With My Thoughts
I have mentioned before that getting healthy isn't just physical health. Mental, emotional, and spiritual health are just as important. This post is focusing on those aspects of health.
Today my friend was in need. She needed me to deliver something important 2 hours away. I gladly helped her out, but honestly was a little afraid to be alone with my thoughts. I was happy to get to have a 4 hour break from everything and not have kids fighting or demanding things from me, but I'm not used to being left alone to think. So that made me feel a little anxiety.
I turned up the music so I wouldn't think much, but some music brought back memories and so did some places I drove by. Those memories were hard to have resurface. I tried quickly to push them back to the far back of my mind to keep them hidden like I've done for years. Because that is safer...
Then a scene from a show that I watched earlier today popped into my head. The girl had been sexually assaulted. She was embarrassed and felt ashamed. She felt if anyone knew they would see her as unfit for her job (she was a police officer) and see her as a victim. She was told that by not speaking out about it, that she was a victim. But that if she pressed charges, spoke out about it then she wouldn't be a victim any more. She would be taking back the power.
This made me think a lot. All these years of being ashamed, feeling guilt, and embarrassment. All these years of hiding what I went through. I didn't allow myself to heal. It is all still buried deep inside me. It tears me apart daily. It has made me feel powerless. I'm tired of feeling powerless.
As long as I keep everything buried instead of actually healing from it, my mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, AND my physical health WILL be affected. Now it is figuring out how to heal.
I think that often times when someone is struggling with weight issues and some health issues, that they have things buried that they need to figure out how to dig back up, deal with it, heal from it, and never let it weigh them down again. It is a hard thing to do and I'm not sure yet HOW to do it.. but I think it is important enough to figure out so that I can be a healthier person on all levels.
What things do you need to work through in order to allow yourself to get healthy? I encourage you to ponder that question.
Today my friend was in need. She needed me to deliver something important 2 hours away. I gladly helped her out, but honestly was a little afraid to be alone with my thoughts. I was happy to get to have a 4 hour break from everything and not have kids fighting or demanding things from me, but I'm not used to being left alone to think. So that made me feel a little anxiety.
I turned up the music so I wouldn't think much, but some music brought back memories and so did some places I drove by. Those memories were hard to have resurface. I tried quickly to push them back to the far back of my mind to keep them hidden like I've done for years. Because that is safer...
Then a scene from a show that I watched earlier today popped into my head. The girl had been sexually assaulted. She was embarrassed and felt ashamed. She felt if anyone knew they would see her as unfit for her job (she was a police officer) and see her as a victim. She was told that by not speaking out about it, that she was a victim. But that if she pressed charges, spoke out about it then she wouldn't be a victim any more. She would be taking back the power.
This made me think a lot. All these years of being ashamed, feeling guilt, and embarrassment. All these years of hiding what I went through. I didn't allow myself to heal. It is all still buried deep inside me. It tears me apart daily. It has made me feel powerless. I'm tired of feeling powerless.
As long as I keep everything buried instead of actually healing from it, my mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, AND my physical health WILL be affected. Now it is figuring out how to heal.
I think that often times when someone is struggling with weight issues and some health issues, that they have things buried that they need to figure out how to dig back up, deal with it, heal from it, and never let it weigh them down again. It is a hard thing to do and I'm not sure yet HOW to do it.. but I think it is important enough to figure out so that I can be a healthier person on all levels.
What things do you need to work through in order to allow yourself to get healthy? I encourage you to ponder that question.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
My First Obstacle Race
I have been meaning to write about this for a month, but time slipped away from me. In the end of May, I flew out to Indiana to spend time with family. My parents (who actually live just a couple miles from me), my 4 brothers, my 2 sisters, and I got to spend several days together (also several nieces and nephews). One of the things we did together was participate in a race called the Mud Stash (click HERE to see the website about it). It was so much fun. As an adult, I had only done one race, which was a 5k blacklight run. Never have I done anything with mud and obstacles!
I had completed the BeachBody 21 Day Fix a few days before the race. Thank goodness I did that because it prepared me much better than I would have been. We had a group of 14 doing the race together (my dad, 3 of my brothers, my sisters, and nieces and nephews) which made it seem to go by real fast. Some of the obstacles were very difficult, but I tried almost every single one. I learned that my upper body strength isn't where I need it to be. The monkey bar style ones were too hard for me to get very far on, but at least I did try!
Toward the end, with the finish line in sight (but about 4 obstacles left) I slipped off one in the water and slammed my knees into gravel. They were bleeding and swelling up fast. The old me I think would've just stopped then, but my first thought was, "I HAVE to finish this!" So after I took a moment to compose myself and the rest of our group was ready, we went on to the next obstacle. Dragging my knees as I army crawled in mud under ropes... I just kept going. (below: my brother, Josh, and I)
I made it to the finish line and got my first medal!
I can't put into words how great it felt to accomplish something like this. Other than childbirth, this was the most physically wearing thing I have ever done.
I have spent the past month having to do physical therapy for my knee. I hurt one of them much worse than the other (the doctor thought for sure I had fractured my knee cap and was surprised to see on the xray that I hadn't. Just hurt the pattelar ligament and deeply bruised my knee) so I wasn't able to do much for a while. I was on crutches and wearing a leg brace, plus doing physical therapy twice a week. I am not 100% yet, but almost there. Tomorrow is my last physical therapy appointment and I just got the go ahead to do my intense leg workouts to test out my knee.
I have 32 days left before my brother and I will be doing the Spartan, so I have to get back to my training!
I have never been one who has much physical strength, but I have always been one who is quite determined to finish what I start. I am working hard to gain the physical strength to go along with my determination so I will be unstoppable! :)
What do you do for YOU? I have found that I absolutely love the feeling of finishing a race. I want to do as many as my finances will allow. It makes me feel good about myself, it gives me a goal to work toward... it is important to have something that is just for you. Especially as a mom. This is something I do for me, for my health, for my emotional well being. What will you do for you?
I had completed the BeachBody 21 Day Fix a few days before the race. Thank goodness I did that because it prepared me much better than I would have been. We had a group of 14 doing the race together (my dad, 3 of my brothers, my sisters, and nieces and nephews) which made it seem to go by real fast. Some of the obstacles were very difficult, but I tried almost every single one. I learned that my upper body strength isn't where I need it to be. The monkey bar style ones were too hard for me to get very far on, but at least I did try!
Toward the end, with the finish line in sight (but about 4 obstacles left) I slipped off one in the water and slammed my knees into gravel. They were bleeding and swelling up fast. The old me I think would've just stopped then, but my first thought was, "I HAVE to finish this!" So after I took a moment to compose myself and the rest of our group was ready, we went on to the next obstacle. Dragging my knees as I army crawled in mud under ropes... I just kept going. (below: my brother, Josh, and I)
I made it to the finish line and got my first medal!
I can't put into words how great it felt to accomplish something like this. Other than childbirth, this was the most physically wearing thing I have ever done.
I have spent the past month having to do physical therapy for my knee. I hurt one of them much worse than the other (the doctor thought for sure I had fractured my knee cap and was surprised to see on the xray that I hadn't. Just hurt the pattelar ligament and deeply bruised my knee) so I wasn't able to do much for a while. I was on crutches and wearing a leg brace, plus doing physical therapy twice a week. I am not 100% yet, but almost there. Tomorrow is my last physical therapy appointment and I just got the go ahead to do my intense leg workouts to test out my knee.
I have 32 days left before my brother and I will be doing the Spartan, so I have to get back to my training!
I have never been one who has much physical strength, but I have always been one who is quite determined to finish what I start. I am working hard to gain the physical strength to go along with my determination so I will be unstoppable! :)
What do you do for YOU? I have found that I absolutely love the feeling of finishing a race. I want to do as many as my finances will allow. It makes me feel good about myself, it gives me a goal to work toward... it is important to have something that is just for you. Especially as a mom. This is something I do for me, for my health, for my emotional well being. What will you do for you?
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