The carrot list

Before I got pregnant with my first, I was overweight, but in good shape and eating healthily. I then gained 85 lbs. throughout my pregnancy. After having baby #1, I only lost about 40 of those 85 lbs. I didn't want pictures taken of me and I hid behind the camera, which was easy to do because I am a photographer by hobby. When I got pregnant with baby #2 (three years after the first), I vowed not to gain much weight. This ended up being easy to do because I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I gained 20 lbs. and quickly took it off the month following my little guy's arrival into the world.

Since then, I've lost another 20-30 lbs. I say, 20-30 because I keep losing 10 and gaining it back. While I feel a little better about myself than I did the three years after my first, I am ready to get the rest of this weight off of me. I don't even know where my final goal lies, but have some small goals that I've set for myself. I'm not ready to talk actual numbers (read: how fat I actually am), but hopefully I will get the nerve to talk about that in the future. I don't even know who will read this, but we'll just pretend it's the whole world and sharing your weight with the whole world is scary.

I will, however, share my carrot list. I've wanted to do this for a while now, but you know how things go. (As a busy mom, I get shoved down to the bottom of my own to do list.) My carrot list is a list of reasons for wanting to get healthy (and lose weight). I have BIG reasons and little reasons, but I wanted to keep track of all of them. I thought if I wrote them all down in one place and really took the time to think about them ("meditate" on them might be a better word) then I might have the strength to really change a deeper part of myself and get through the tough parts of this journey. So here are some of the carrots on my carrot list:

1) Wear my wedding rings again
2) Shop in any store that I want to
3) Do another triathlon
4) Be a strong mama
5) Have the desire to be in pictures with my family and friends
6) Look in the mirror and be proud
7) Be up for most physical challenges that might come up (hiking, biking, etc.)
8) Show my kids what a strong and healthy mom looks like
9) Be a hot wife
10) Have some serious muscles
11) Avoid diabetes for as long as possible (if not, always)
12) Keep my "bad knees" as healthy as possible
13) Make cheap clothes look good

I'm sure there are more and I will discover them as I continue on this journey. Wish me luck!

New use for an old blog...

I feel really sad that this blog has been so neglected. I intended to use this to document the difficulty of being a mom, counselor, and wife. Since I am all those things, it's easy to understand how this blog became so neglected. Balancing it all is not easy and now I have two kids! I often feel a pull to this blog when I'm feeling reflective. I will think, 'I really should write down my thoughts on mothering/working/working out.' The thought, however, never turns to action because it's not a priority.

With that said, I am hoping to use this space again. For the moment, I'd like to document my journey of health at the very least. I did about 9 weeks of a 12 week Body for Life challenge in the last couple of months. I lost about 10 lbs. in those 9 weeks. Adding that to the 10 lbs. that I had lost previously, I'm officially 20 lbs. lighter than I have been for the last 4 years. That's not bad! I no longer dread getting my picture taken.

I am moving on to lose more weight. Tomorrow I am starting the challenge again. Matt is starting with me and it is great to have his support. I have several goals for the next 12 weeks, which include:

1) Lose 30 lbs. of fat
2) Gain a ton of more energy
3) Lose 12 inches from different parts of my body
4) Not be pre-diabetic when I get my labs done in a month
5) Go down 2 pants sizes

These are lofty goals, I know. I HAVE to dream big though! Here we go...