Growing up, I was pretty small. I'm 5'3" which isn't necessarily short, but it's on the lower side of average. I was fairly athletic, if you count marching band and dance team as athletic, which I do because I sweat a LOT and had aching muscles, so yea. On average, my weight was somewhere in the 106-110 range. I wasn't a skinny stick, but I was a healthy thin, and loved my food then as much as I do now, so I wasn't starving myself or anything. Ah, to be young again!
I have since gotten married, had 3 children, and become a stay at home mom. I'm not at all expecting to be anywhere in that weight range again, but I'd sure as heck like to be lower than I am. Weight calculators online tell me that my idea weight is somewhere ranging from 104 (seriously?) to 141. Personally, I think weight calculators are just an awesome way to make you feel even more confused. I mean come on; that's a HUGE range there. So, I say screw the calculators and BMI and all that crap. I'm going for 'clothing size'. I have 2-3 totes of clothing I bought a few years back when I had lost weight. I loved those clothing and I still do. They are still fashionable too, which is even more awesome.
THOSE are my ideal weight. Tote clothing size.
Now, that's the main goal there, and I know it's going to take me a bit to get there. Thus, my current goal is 'back of the closet' size. I have about 2-3 shirts that I really love that used to fit about a year ago. Now there just a hair enough over ideal size to not be comfortable. That's my current goal then; 'back of the closet' size.
After that will be 'that one dress'.
And then, I should maybe aim for 'Tote clothing' size.
So to recap...
"Back of the Closet" size
"That One Dress" size
"Tote Clothing" size.
I may very well fill in a bit more as I lose and I see what fits and how, so don't quote me on this one, but at least it's all better than "Drop 50 lbs". I don't know what 50lbs. looks like off of me, so I'll go with what I CAN see, and that's my clothing.
Here's the deal. I don't want to be 170 lbs. (167.5 to be exact). I can feel it everywhere, esp. in my brain. Lets face it, we woment are generally pretty critical of our bodies, and while I would love to say the media doesn't effect me, the media totally does and I hate it.
But it's not just that.
It's that I don't feel comfortable or confident in who I am. The clothing I wear are jeans and long t-shirts because anything else just looks weird on me because of how my weight is distrubuted. All the clothing I find that I'm utterly in love with, don't come in 14 or XXL, and if it does, it doesn't look at all like I want it to look. And lastly, yea, I want my hubby to find me attractive too. Now, God bless him, he's a sweet man who says he loves me the way I am, but he's honest also in saying that loosing weight would be good for me. I know, that sounds bad because "a man said it" but I know him and I know he wouldn't love me more if I lost weight, but it would make me happier and healthier and more confident.
I'm both equally excited and stressed/worried about this upcoming challenge. I love starting new things; new challenges. I love having goals. I love CHANGE...sometimes. Usually. What I don't like, is worrying about what I have to eat. I plan meals for my family in 2 week intervals because it's just chaos and insanity if I don't. I chose this particual challenge because it falls on the first day of one of those 2 week planning times, so it's ideal. The trick is that whatever I eat, my kids will be eating too, so I have to find meals that are both kid friendly, uber low in processed foods, and healthy. Additionally, I want to stay away from low-fat and fat-free because in my past experience, I've found that so many of those are just disgusting in flavor and use fake sugar which I can ALWAYS taste. (Trust me, I've tried them all, and I can TASTE THEM ALL). Also, I live in a very small town. VERY small. The grocery store is sufficient, but lacks the variety I'm used to. (We just moved from Ohio to South Dakota last July) which means I'm limited on what's available to that doesn't require I drive an hour to get to the next biggest store.
This is stressing me far more than I want to admit. When I add some other current stressors (of which I have little to no control over) in my life, it turns into an almost overwhelming heaviness, for lack of a better term. I've gone back and forth a lot lately, emotionally. I'm feeling fine for a few hours, and then I'm suddenly just depressed and want to go to bed. Then I can shake that off and I'm ok, but then an hour later I want to just shove my face in a tub of ice cream.
It's maddening and infuriating.
What I know, though, is that when life gets stupid insane:
1) Pray. Yes, I believe in God and I pray. Not as much as I should, but I try. It's kind of surprising how 10 minutes can make me feel more at ease. It's not perminent, but nothing in life is, and it just means I have to pray again later.
2) Deal with the situations I CAN control, such as myself. How I feel about myself can change, and I know how to make it change, and that's by getting healthier. THEREFORE it makes sense that I should get healthy, right? It's haaaaard. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna downright suck sometimes; and when I wake up in the morning and my whole body aches because of my previous day exercises, I'm not going to WANT to do more exercises, but I will. I will because something needs to change in my life, and if the only thing that I can control is my health, the that's what I'm going to focus on.
Everything else will just have to be dealt with one day at a time.
At least exercise has been proven to help with stress. Right?