Forgiveness

     I have been doing this for almost four months now. I am proud. This past few days, however, have not made me so proud. Yesterday I binged, and today I bounced back...but I didn't feel good about it. I feel like I'm letting the temptations get the best of me lately. WHY?! I have been around the pastries, cookies, and scones for over 100 days now and I was able to resist. Those stupid, calorie laden, stomach ache waiting to happen, binge inducing nightmares were not an issue and now I can't keep my hands off of them! I was really getting down on myself and was planning on writing an angry blog about how weak I am and how I haven't gone to the gym in forever and how I'm backsliding and losing all the motivation and how bad I suck. And then I read my first post again.

    I read the words of hopeful me, positive me, excited me from four months ago. I read about practicing forgiveness and how this was a journey and I was going to stumble but that I knew I could get back up again. I think I lost track of how far I have come since then. How can I be forty one pounds lighter and so much more cynical! I have had a great start to this journey, and I'm having a little hiccup, but it's okay. In four months, I lost forty stinking pounds! Hell ya! Go me! Eat a freaking cupcake and then remember what you're doing and why you're doing it! I am healthier and am taking big steps for the future me. I am still the happy, positive girl that I was a few short months ago, I just forgot.

    I still have mountains to climb in this journey of mine. I will have roadblocks and hiccups, I will eat crappy food that I will later regret. It's okay. I'm okay with that. Do you hear me future self? It's okay. Forgive and forget! Move on! How much farther have you come? I have made some amazing choices that have brought me to this place, if this was easy, everyone would be doing it. It's not easy and it's okay to mess up every now and then! Learn from your mistakes. Don't be starving when the fresh chocolate chips cookies (with a 420 calorie tag) come out of the oven, eat before then. Don't eat "just a bite" thinking that you will be able to stop there, you won't. You'll eat it all and then more. You know you will. Remember why you're doing this. It's going to be okay, and someday you will look back on this blog and think how silly you were being and how far you have come since then.

Slow and Steady

   I have always been all or nothing. Either I am strict as can be, or I am stuffing my face full. I am proud that, even though I am not being strict and continuing to lose my 2lbs a week, I am still losing and I am also maintaining. I am learning to find that middle ground. If I feel like I'm going to break and binge, I indulge a little and then keep rolling. I have been doing this for a while now. Three and a half months actually...I am still learning and growing and making mistakes with my lifestyle, but I'm sticking too it! It is amazing to be that in the past month I've had cake, pudding, fries, steak, AND I still consider myself to be sticking to it!

   I feel better about myself, I feel stronger, happier, healthier...I proved that I know how to do this and I am capable of doing it. I am down 41 pounds at this moment! I started at 210 and am now at 169...This is the lowest I have been in sosososo long. I am only 9 pounds away from losing all the weight I have put on in the last year. Go me, I think I deserve some new clothes. My work clothes are beyond baggy...I really with i had taken some better "before" pictures to compare to where I am now. I really want to work on my fitness level next. I always say that it seems pointless to work on the fit part when it's covered by all the fat. Well, the fat is going away and I'm losing my excuse to not work hard on getting my butt in shape, I'm going to look into a personal trainer to kick me off!

BLEW IT!

I suck, I suck, I suck, I suck!
I haven't been to the gym in weeks, I managed to drink all juice for five days and yet I can't even stick to a healthy solid diet. I'm stressed, I'm angry, I'm sad. I'm hurt, I feel betrayed, and I want to drive to Michigan and rip my brother's face off.
Tonight I ate my weight in Panera sweets. One of those crappy things can blow my daily calories, and I think I had four...or five. UGH! What is wrong with me. Why am I punishing myself for something that my brother did? It doesn't make any sense at all. I am so angry with him, and each day that goes by with no contact just makes me more and more angry. I can see that it's effecting my diet. I have to be able to stop this bullshit. I cannot let my stupid, selfish, asshole brother ruin everything I have worked so hard for!! I WON"T!

Done and done! And not interested in any juice any time soon...

   I'm sitting here at the end of day five, using all my willpower not to devour this entire salad in one gulp, instead, chewing well and taking it bite by bite. I decided to end the fifth day of my cleanse with a big salad that is essentially everything that I've been drinking...with the fiber. I did a lot of research on how to ease back into eating after the cleanse (I mean, my intestines haven't had to do much work all week!), and a lot of people were saying to keep it raw the first day, stay away from meats and starches for a few days, and DO NOT BINGE!

    It feels amazing to chew. How weird does that sound? Crushing the crispy greens and releasing the flavors of cucumber, avocado, greens, YUM! I don't feel bad about ending the cleanse a little early, until this first bite of salad, I did not cheat at all. I did really good this whole time, and am wanting to ease my tum tum back into actually handling whole foods. I feel good. Healthy, light, thin, I got it all. I did feel like shit all day today. I had a headache, kept dropping stuff, really dizzy at one point, and was super moody. I think if I do this again, I will be keeping it to a three day cleanse instead of five.

Overcoming.

      Yesterday was rough...No, let me rephrase that. Yesterday DAY was awesome. My skin is glowing, I had tons of energy, and I'm really seeing a decrease in my bulgy belly. I felt so good that I was even considering extending my cleanse Skip to that evening, I was not happy, I wanted food and I wanted it right then. Oddly, I'm not craving sweets and fats and crap, but I really want a big salad with grilled salmon, or some killer spaghetti squash with mushrooms and feta, oh! or maybe baked chicken marinated in pineapple juice with a side of califlower rice with coconut!

   What the what!? I guess I'm glad that these are my cravings instead of the cheeseburger, fries, ice cream, omelet cravings I was having a few days ago. It does seem silly to be withholding healthy, nutritious food that my body needs, but I am dedicated to this, and only have a day and a half left :) I can do it! Some of the research I did said that if you have to chew something, have some celery or some avocado and salt. Others said that you should have a little lean protein in the evenings. When I started, I decided that I would not be eating anything but the fresh fruit and veggie juice that I was making myself. I've stuck to that for 3.5 days now and I'm finally in the home stretch!

  I'm planning on having a really awesome meal when I'm all done with this. Nothing too crazy, I'm sure my stomach is shrunken. I weighed myself on Saturday morning at 177.8. A lot of that was water weight from my vacation drinking and my 36 hour binge, but I weighed in this morning at 172 :) I'm sure that once I eat, some of that will come right back, but it's still a nice number to see.

Day two of juicccccce!

   Okay, so I did a lot of research before starting my five day cleanse. I read about if I should work out, if I needed to add protein, if I should do five or three or seven days....blah blah blah. I read about people who claimed that they felt amazing, and people who gave up on the first or second day. I don't really know how I was expecting my experience to go, but so far, I am pleasantly surprised.

   Yesterday was weird because with all of my calorie counting, my days tend to revolve around food. I don't think I'm obsessive or anything, but in order to have a healthy day, I have to think about what I'm going to eat, and when. These past two days, I have had everything all ready to go and, even though I'm not hungry, I think about what I'm going to eat. I was pouring soup on the line and I thought "Black bean soup with avocado for lunch!" Then I remembered that not only was I not going to have that for lunch, I was not going to have that for quite a few days...that was odd.

    I think I tried to add too much into my drinks yesterday, I wasn't too happy with the super kale/spinach taste of 4/6 of my juices and by my fourth drink, I was wondering how the hell I was going to make it through four and a half more days of it! This morning, I made the juices more simple and balanced, and thoroughly enjoyed the finished project. I used a lot of lemon which freshened things up, and I was busy at work, which REALLY helped keep my mind off it.

  I feel very light, happy, and full. Today I had a TON of energy...which was odd because I haven't had any coffee either. This also the first time that I have gone gold turkey on caffeine and not suffered the nasty headaches that usually accompany it. I was not sure when I started if I would be able to finish this all the way through, now I am very confident and proud of what I'm doing. I can do this!