The First Step Is Always The Hardest

I've been wanting to write a new post for awhile now but just never could get my facts straight about what I wanted to say or what point I wanted to come across. I've also just been trying to get to that point when enough is enough, when I'll start doing things to get somewhere in life. Or at least further, since I can't say I like the place I'm at very much right now. It has its perks yes, but its nothing but limbo in this life, its neither here nor there and in the end its not going anywhere.

I think part of me is reaching for that direction and part of me is even just too scared to start to create a path afraid it will be wrong, afraid it wont work out. Afraid that I really dont know what I want, and I never really have. I've never really truly thought about it like fully, I've done so in par with what everyone else was doing at the time. Or in a hypothetical way that was more for fun than any real meaning behind it.

I was the kid who our senior year of high school was applying to colleges because it was the thing to do. I've always felt unless you know what your going to do, or going after than there really is no point in going because its not only a waste to your pocket in money its also a waste of time to go around in circles doing this class or that with no direction. And while yes not all those who wonder are lost, I think I am.

Part of me thinks I need to disconnect to let go of everything and see what needs to come back see what urge I have to keep doing or not doing. Let go of this set up I've come to know and start a new some how, in some way I'm not entirely sure of.

I want to say at age 25 I'll be doing this or that or going for that. I dont want to be doing the same old thing looking for something more or something to get me started in this life that is passing me by. I've always been afraid of missing out on life and I'm letting myself live in my fear every day it seems lately.

I'm proud of all the things I've done in the past, I'm glad that everything stands in the way it does because without I wouldnt be where I'm at and I dont know where else I could be and while it could be a lot worse, it could also be a lot better. I'm playing it safe, and in neutral. I'm not hiding anymore I'm not depressed in my own shit storm that I use to cause myself to exist in, but I'm not in the driver seat to my life. I'm riding passenger sometimes I make my way over slightly but never get more than half way there before I some how slide back into the comfort zone of just existing in this life.

I'm not sure what I want from this life of mine, but I'm pretty sure I can figure out quick what I dont want and hey that's something and one step makes a path as long as its followed by another no matter which way I go.


So to start this off here is something that I should have posted Sunday but didnt.

From august 21,2008 till august 21,2011 (and present, still going) I have been losing weight as past blog posts have shown in my talk about my past/issues/progress of it all.  This is a progress picture of year to year status to show how I've changed wearing the same outfit. I started at 312.4 and now (in this picture) at 256. Its about 56lbs and I still have a good 81lbs to go but I will get there.

This blog is gonna change slightly. I'll still write pieces of how I feel and cope and everything else I question daily but I want to make some happy posts, some like I figured out some stuff I wanna tell you and its exciting or I want a post where I just post pictures of things I want in life from a cozy reading chair I can sit indian style in. (see picture below)

Time to start living, and the only place I got is now.

This Little Life of Mine... I'm gonna make it shine.



I don’t really recall being fit or skinny past the age of maybe 6 or 7 years old. Though not to say that is a bad thing we all go through our baby fat as we call it, growing up. Though for me I think it just became extra weight as I kept getting older. I remember even going on a diet more than once in fifth grade but never really being that serious about it.  I ate my feelings: bad, good, or bored any of them and still do. I’ve in turn always had issues with my weight. I was teased and picked on for it, clothes didn’t fit the way I wanted to or sizes just didn’t come big enough.  

I use to have ideas of working out all summer and coming back to school with an amazing kick ass body and being all “Puffed chest” and proud and “Look at me now!” Though I might have only done one or two work outs and continued to live in the dream rather than create it.

I’ve heard from people you’ll have fabulous legs once you lose the extra weight. I’ve also tricked myself in to believing half the time if not just for a long time that I wasn’t getting bigger, the washer and dryer were shrinking my clothes. Never mind if once I went to get new ones I’d blame the store for changing designers or making them differently. While in some cases partly true but I could have also kept an eye on my body more than I did. Measurements and scales help when it comes to denial, and well so do photographs or video tapes.

Also in my life as I denied what I saw things like getting winded walking up and down a set or two of stairs to a morning math class my second semester of college. Or the factor that the auditorium chairs/desk didn’t work properly with me either, I took it to the fact that hey this place just wasn’t meant for bigger girls and that’s rude.  But there was no denying what had been happening to my waist line and size when I took a trip back home to see family and I had to suck in my stomach with all my might and pull that seat belt on the plane all the way out and pull and hope it clicked because “hell no!” was I going to ask for a seat belt extender. It hit me than as it did on my way home and when I noticed how my brother ate constantly while visiting those two weeks I was there. How I noticed the tread mill in the corner and thought about using it just to do something, but I hadn’t brought any sneakers.

I’ve always been the person who is in the constant need to being doing something. Since I can remember not even a month into summer vacation as a child I would start to get antsy and want to go back to school or just to “something”. Though I was also the kid who on her first day too sick to go to school cried because I couldn’t go to school, and another time when the snowy roads where just too bad to make it from my dad’s house.  My mom even told me recently that she got frustrated when I was an infant because I’d only be happy doing something for two hours at a time and then wanted something more or something new.

When I started to lose this extra weight almost three years ago (come next Friday) I was in it for all the possibilities of how I saw myself and never was. How I would get complements from others and also in how doing this with my friend we’d be there for each other and would rock it out and be bonded for life in that token as well.

The first year started of good for a month or so but losing a job and having a hard time finding one as the economy started to tank I also felt my own will to do this fade because it wasn’t what I thought it would be.  I tried my hardest and didn’t do as well as I thought I was able to do because I wasn’t as strong as I use to be. I only lasted till just before New Year’s that first part of it all, I only got back into it really again in May or June a couple months later and was neither here or there. I was still on the healing path from some injuries and learned first-hand that while you can take pills for pulled muscles you only use what they say is recommended because they cause other issues.

Slow results from those issues got me dissuaded as my friend was soaring high and reaching her fifty lb. weight lost point while I was still going back and forth on my first 20-35 lbs. Though I didn’t give up as the months went buy I hit our year point of losing weight at only 28.4 lbs. down. But I was also no longer dealing with muscle issues and started taking a hip hop hustle class at my local gym on Friday nights that soon turned into a Zumba class the following year.

I love that class so much and as I got closer to the teacher she kepts me inspired but also kepts me feeling guilty when I had my slip ups. Like trying to fess up to Jillian Michael's that hey I decided to eat all this junk after you worked me out the other night. Or something like that, any event by the second year mark of all this I was down another 24 lbs. and while I knew it was amazing that I had not only kept that other 28 or so lbs. off my body I had lost more I just couldn’t get over that I was nowhere near where I wanted myself to be.  By then my friend had somewhat disappeared with posting in our journals we talked to each other in and I felt semi alone in all this even though my mom had started to work and eat better with me as well (Even if she continues to smoke to this day!).

When I finally hit my own fifty pound marker I pinged my friend to celebrate and she responded with, "Please don’t talk to me about that stuff anymore I feel so bad for letting myself go and gaining it all back and I just don’t want to deal with it right now." I felt deflated, I felt like the one person I wanted to celebrate with said they didn’t give a fuck and that their issue was more than me that I didn’t matter.

I think part of me used the fire I felt from seeing her reach her fifty pound mark to reach my own. But also a little fear inside of me say if she can reach it and fail and gain it all back so can I. I didn’t want that to happen so I powered through, but I’m still stuck within the same twelve pounds or so range since then a little over a year later.  I’ve never gone and been stuck back up above that marker because I won’t let myself but I think part me thinks it’s hard enough to lose that much and gain it all back, how much of a blow will it be if I get even further and gain it all back.

I’m not even sure that’s what scares me,  I believe what scares me most is that once I get to where I think my goal weight is that it won’t be enough. That this whole thing I’m thinking will benefit me mentally and physically (and of course health wise) won’t match up with the standards I’ve set up or even semi have built around me.

I use to think I’d write a book about it and try to get it published. I use to think nah there are too many books out there too much control and issues with trying to be the next big thing in this world about weight loss and blah, blah, blah. Plus also where do get off saying I get to raise my hand to say hey I have a something worth wild to say in this conversation just because I lost weight too.

Also, lately it seems like somehow I’ve been sucked into this whole weight loss and fitness circle of becoming a trainer or class teacher one day and joining the pack of people who teach Zumba and what have you. While that would be awesome to help people in the way my teacher and such of help me, I also don’t know if I want that to be my life. I wouldn’t mind helping and answering questions when asked but this was never really about being some big weight loss/ fitness or life coach.

I got sucked into the big thing and forgot the little thing, or well the little person. Me; I got over whelmed and in turn took to my last known comfort and semi lost control but only stayed OK in it all because I didn’t give up on my workouts and in the back of my mind I know that’s something that will never go away.

My workouts have become the best stress and antsy/ anxiety buster than I can ever think of. Plus I don’t seem to be able to get as frustrated or down about life once I’ve worked out.

I guess it’s true what they say in Legally Blonde. “Work out gives you endorphins and endorphins make you happy, and happy people don’t kill their husbands.”

I don’t know how my life will shape up and I don’t know who or what I will be in the future but I know that to make the most of it I got to be in the best health and well that’s why I’m doing this weight loss thing for, nothing more and nothing less.

What If I Had Done Things Differently?

Life in general has many different forks in the road, each day we make a decision on the the so called "prong" we choose to go out on that leads us along in life. The good, the bad, the even ugly parts of life come along through all this. In this though, in moment you see yourself and your still you, no matter what happens. Perhaps a little altered or jaded by the situation or experience, but still you in a nut shell that never changes.

So maybe in that we are meant to be where were at in life, even if its not all rainbows and butterflies. Most times in life the only way to get what you want is to go after it like a bull going after that red cape in the ring. Yes we will fall, and yes we will have set backs but the only way failure becomes the answer is when you stop trying or stop looking for answers to help when the ones you've tired don't work.

                            

In reference to last post, my letting myself indulge to kill the want didn't work out so well. As I imagined the wants for other things came and so did my lack of portion control. I've made myself in the process sick over the stuff I've eaten. In that same instance though I learnt, my tolerance for these things no longer is the same. I taste things different I feel the reaction to their makeup (chemicals) in my body differently. So, I did learn something and it did help and it did set me back, but I have not fail because of it.  I've learnt soda isn't all its cracked up to be, and neither or my urges or taste for rockstars energy drinks anymore.

Cake is too sweet, and milk chocolate is almost off putting in taste compared to dark chocolate anymore. I start to crave vegetables and fruits when I eat too much junk, I really feel and realize its not my mood that I'm miserable after I eat that junk/crap its my body saying: "WHAT THE CRAP DID YOU GIVE ME!" 

I'm also in the process of probably giving up coffee for tea (expect for those Holiday drinks at Starbucks, can you say: pumpkin spice, gingerbread and peppermint mocha latte HELLO!) and I don't know how this will go, but I've always loved coffee with a cookie(or two) after dinner than in the morning, because I've never felt any real effect of it. Though maybe like soda once its out of my system for awhile with all the other sugary stuff I'll feel the difference upon drinking it again one day. But for now I'll probably have it once or twice more till my current creamer is gone, but than off to tea land it is. With our new bought kettle that whistles and everything.

I'm learning a lot of stuff through my weight loss and in my life and stuff in general lately. I feel like I'm on the edge of something amazing, but I don't want to push it out there too fast or even try to guess at what is. I want to work at what I know needs to be done to help me along in life and just go from there right now. I'm not sure at all how it will all turn out or where I'll be in a month or so from now, but hey life is full of surprises. And man do I want a good one.

Gotta Be More to Life...



Looking in the cabinets for something’s that’s not really there? That seems to be my thing lately, and not just in the shelves at home. But also in grocery store as well. It seems more than not lately I have it in mind that I want something and I go searching for it food wise but lately can’t seem to find anything that fits the bill. That craving that I think is food turns out to be something that can’t be filled with, because I can’t seem to find an answer to name the craving. Even when I do eat something that sounds good, the craving doesn’t go away.

Also, in that event my issues with food don’t go away when I indulge in something that in the end result I didn’t even need. Through this I’m starting realize that not only do I need to learn better eating but also how to differentiate between my true want/need for  food and my want for something in my life.

The food part can be the easiest of that problem because it’s real easy not to get into it, or buy it. Though the hard part is knowing what I truly want instead of it, or what it is that is picking at me with this need to be answer that I have no clue how to even address let alone try to figure out what to do about it.

Plus letting go and over indulging is real easy and most times for the moment or so can take your mind off the issue. Not that it won’t come back, and not that you won’t see issues or consequences I guess for the indulge you let yourself have depending on what it is, and how much. I’m looking for meaning in something, maybe in life to fill a hole, that well I have no clue what to call it let alone what to fill it with, and now I’m talking in circles.

Also when it comes down this, old things I use to eat and drink all the time which I know aren’t good for me start to sound good, and in my head I rationalize that hey if I go have it the need will be met. Though I’m seeing lately that once that need is met my mind finds something else to name for it, and I guess maybe I should let myself follow that path in some small way to get somewhere maybe even find something within it all. Though part of me thinks that’s stupid and it would be a waste and also that it would somehow back fire on all my progress.

Though I also realize that if I keep that thought in mind when I let myself have these said things, that maybe I’ll reach a point when I run out of things and somehow dive into deeper issues and finally figure out what I need to do or want to do to fill this ache inside myself lately.  Good thing is with this in mind I know I can decide on set things and how much of each to determine it all, and how and when. Not quite so set on the idea of it all just yet though.

I’m scared I admit to do the one thing that seems to be a big part of why I gained all the weigh in the first place. Using  food in replace of finding  or even facing, the deeper issue at hand, but I guess if I used in a controlled way and not no holds bar way that I did in the past maybe it would be helpful?

I just don’t know if I’m at that point to justify that even if maybe it would help. Part of me is antsy, and wants more out of life than I get day to day.  This isn’t one of those hiding moments of the past, it’s the need/ urge for more in my life that I’m not sure I understand quite yet how to go about.

Weight loss Progress

I posted a similar set back in January and I decided to post the ones I took on sunday for the six month progress, though from January till now I've only lost about a pound since my calories havent been the best.

The top is from june 2009 when I was at 296 and the bottom is this pass sunday june 2011 when I was at 255.2.  At my heaviest I was 312.4 but have lost those pictures from when I started taking progress pictures and have a before to compare it to.

Hope you all have a great day... and a happy fourth of july on monday. Gotta love me those fireworks!!

thanks for reading.

Habits and Voids

Lately I’m beginning to see I have this void this urge/need to have or do something always. Though the more I think the more I realize it has always been there and it never left. Be it this need to be somewhere else, do something else or in my case eat something else, I’ve never truly found something in my life that satisfies this feeling in the pit of my being. 

It seems when I’m doing well in my weight loss, going to the gym three times a week and watching my calories and foods I eat, after about three days usually I get this nagging urge to over eat to I guess “binge” on anything or well if we have something good in the house that more than others, but I get this need to go back to an old habit and I ask myself why? It can’t come up with a reason, usually I can bid it at bay for a few hours or days but somehow along the line I cave. Maybe because like they saying; old habits are hard to break (old habits die hard), or I just haven’t found a new one (habit) to replace it with.  But something in me is now really telling me, it’s not the food I’m truly wanting. In fact it’s the urge I use to quiet with food, since long ago when maybe I could name it or put an object‘s face to it upon recognition.

Since, I have turned away from it and in turn pushed it down with food or ran away from it with other problems I had to focus on, or maybe, made my life seem harder so it wasn’t an issue I needed to face since it wasn’t something that held greatest authority or problem for me at the moment. I have since lost the words to describe it let alone the face it can hold to help me recognize it. Like I can, upon seeing the letters I write here and the words they create and mean.

One thing I’ve learnt in the past few years is a lot of life’s issues and struggles are how we (people) in fact deal with or react to, issues at hand when they arise over what  things (events) occur. The whole “let the chips fall where they may,” and act accordingly. We usually act in reaction to seeing the change before it habits or even stress upon something instead of solving the issue at hand; we cry over spilled milk.

I talk from experience, especially in the past when things weren’t going right instead of sitting down and working them out (cleaning up the milk) I thought my life was shit and I was just dealt with a bad hand. Things would get better eventually, but for now life sucked. I stressed upon everything and everything pissed me off. It’s easier to do it that way, because trying to solve an issue or make things better takes effort. But like I said I was taking the easy route and wallowing in my misery, and while I knew I didn’t have it that tough I still played it out that way. I actually had it a lot better than, with all the things I was doing than I do now, but regardless I’ve learnt life is what you make it. Not in that everything will be picture perfect happy. But your reaction to things that happen are 99.9% your own and mostly how you see life and how you deal with it.

So as I have said this void in my life has decided to come up and show it’s self again, and why wouldn’t now that I’m not suppressing it with anger or stress or over eating (most of the time). The only issue I deal with is how to figure out where this void is and how to help fill or know what in fact it represents in my life right now. Plus, not be scared to try things that I think might fix it, just for the shear factor that what happens if that’s now what it is.  I’m beginning to see that my life as much as I tried not to make it so, has become this all or nothing approach.  If I don’t feel great issues with it or it doesn’t do make me feel for or against it I tend to sweep it under the rug. But if something does and I can’t solve it I panic and do the same thing.  I guess it’s my want to not seem like a perfectionist when I truly am and a lot of the time I’d rather it get it totally right, than not at all.  The whole why try it all if I feel like I’m gonna fail motto a lot of us have. Stop ourselves before disappointment, but hey isn’t that how we live and learn? Our world our universe was built on that, our disappointments and missteps are how we grow and live and change: which in fact is the only constant thing in our life.

I just have to think and act in a different way and always ask myself if my want for those tasty snacks we have are from hunger and if they aren’t than what do I need/want to do and can it be done?  It may not be so simple and it may be, but I know old habits aren’t the way to go and making new ones to replace them is the only way to break an old one really.

Shine Your Light, And Let the Whole World See.

Cheesy But True, I'm Putting My heart out on the line here.....

What I know for sure are some things simple and some things hard, more harder to admit out loud for all to read than think about them stuck inside my head. I have realized that I'm scared of not just putting myself out there but also saying a bunch of stuff about how I feel and how I want life to be, and what does it make of me if those things don't happen. Or shocker, if I change my mind when they aren't what I thought they'd be. 

Though without these things, I am nothing but a wanderer with out a sail on my boat, with out a kite on my string. A complete puzzle with no picture to show its done.  Life gets meaning from how you live it, and how you talk about it, and how you embrace it. Without any of those your just existing, and hey if this is my only shot at life, at least this life. Why waste such a glorious gift.  What benefit do I or anyone one else gain from not just being myself. Doesn't all that stuff I'm afraid of come true if I act a part? Or don't act at all.

Things I know for sure are simple this: Part of my life written in pencil, not in stone. Perhaps some ink a long the way that gets smudge/crossed or scribbled out when plans and experiences change my life.

I want to reach my goal weight to protect myself from my genes, I want to feel awesome in my body and that comes from whole foods / healthy foods and strength from work outs. I want to see myself as I've always felt myself to be.  I want to become comfortable enough to try on a bikini and like what it looks like and buy it. Maybe not wear it, but still all the same I want that level of confidence in myself to know its there, but its up to me to show it off. (When and how)

Within the next 10-12 years I wish I could meet a great guy to marry and have children with. Sadly I more so want the children now than the man, but I want a family too. =)

I want to learn more about cultures, languages, writing, animals, art and design, and people.

When I get my own place I want a Zoo, not just of people but of animals especially.

Travel to as many places as I can. My top ten places first of course. (Ask me if you want to know those places)

I never care or want to stop learning new things.

In life we have many things we wish we can do and see and I want them all, but mostly I want to find a true peace within myself because without that I know my world doesn't work right.

A few last things...

Life is never easy, but anything worth living shouldn't be.

Some times to find the things you love, you have to stop searching and let them find you.

...and finally (this quote has had a lot of different ways written and said but all the same it holds the same truth)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

....Thank you for reading.