134 Pound Burger and The Fear of Success

I have alot to say today..big surprise right? I have alot of blog followers and get emails from all over the world.The supports is amazing and the questions always stir something inside of me, they tend to make me dig a little deeper. Just today an old high school friend asked if I had a "fear of success". At first I laughed that off..heck no, we all want to succeed. But did I really? I knew the fat me wasn't the real me but I had built a life around that girl. The dribble and compliance that came out of my mouth wasn't me but it was better than being judged for being fat. I was and still am scared of who I would become once the fat was gone and I was free to be me. Would my husband still love me? Would my Friends still be there? Would I finally be happy? These are all questions that weigh on my mind all of the time. I think in some ways my husband loves me more. Recently he left me this message "You have my full support, my oh-so beautiful lady. I have been with you through the past 8 years of life and am just amazed at how far you have come to make the ultimate change in your life as well as mine and our princesses'. I will never let you fall. I LOVE YOU!!!"
Some of my friends have stuck by me, some have drifted away and I have made some new ones. I have admittedly burnt some bridges while trying to find myself. I needed to work on myself and not deal with anyones's bullshit so in turn I lost some family as well as friends. I saddens me that this had to happen and even though I bitch endlessly on this blog about my sister in law the relationship with her is one that I wish was different. It probably won't ever be and that is something I have learned to accept. I stopped wanting her stamp of approval since discovering she never liked me to begin with. It is was it is and so I go on.
Head up I push through the pain, sweat, temptations and many tears to continue my journey. Today I stepped on the scale and am down 134 pounds. I am officially the lightest I have been in 10 years. 10 years wasted on self pity, self doubt and hiding my true self from the world. I am definitely making up for lost time. My ticker says I have 30 more pounds to lose, I can already tell that will not be enough for me to be at the athletic level I would like but there isn't a finish line anyway.
Googling my pounds lost I found a world record hamburger they make in Detroit. It costs $350.00 and weighs in at 134 pounds. I think this may be the funniest one so far.

Half -Century

This weekend we are going on a ride, it is consider a half-century because it is 50 miles. It was important to me to pick a distance that meant something and to push myself. My dad died 15 years ago of heart failure at the age of 49 so I decided to ride at least 49 miles to remember him and to remember why I have made the changes in my life that I have. We welcome company on our ride, we are going to be a Musketawa trail head in Marne at 11am Saturday, email for more info if you want to go.

Walk To Mackinac Challenge

I guess I am walking to Mackinac from Greenville, well that's what my gym tells me anyway. The challenge is actually a cute idea, motivating. We get a t-shirt. The premise is that for every mile we run we log it, for every 20 minutes on the elliptical or in aerobics class we log 1 mile, for every 30 minutes of weight training we log a mile and for every 4 miles we ride our bikes..well, you got it, we log a mile. We have to log at least 2.4 miles a day to get to our goal within the 90 days. This should keep me truckin'. I logged 2.1 miles today.

I can't help but say that as I am typing this I am watching an ABC News Special on "gifted" children and I can relate. My little middle daughter has been labeled as such. She is the tiniest girl in the class, one of the youngest and the school has asked to accelerate her into 1st grade for Math and Reading. She is 5 and reads at a last semester 1st grade level, same with math...pretty much same with everything. We are struggling with the idea of skipping her a grade. She is tiny and thinks her friends are just being silly when they say they can't read and write or speak spanish. She doesn't relate intellectually but socially I don't want her to be awkward either. We agreed to let them move her up for reading and math and to hold off until next year to see if she needs to skip completely. She is so tiny, polite and caring and her intelligence comes so naturally she doesn't understand when other kids don't get it but instead of judging she teaches them. She amazes me every day. All 3 of my girls are special in their own way, the oldest athletic and quite the social butterfly and the youngest, at 3, has the best sense of humor in a spitfire way even though she now spends 2 hours a day playing NickJr.com games.

Some days, when I just want to throw in the towel I realize that I want to be there when these 3 little girls become amazing women. I want to be there when they graduate, get married and have babies. I will not be a victim of myself.

Happy Anniversary to Me!!

On April 7th 2008 I rededicated myself to getting healthy and I have come a long way. I have lost 129 pounds in that year and gained so much life. Honestly it has been the best experience and I am so proud of myself. I set my first "goal" 35 pound from now. I will probably lose 15-20 more than that to make me satisfied but my new lifestyle will never change, this is the new me, this is the way I have to live my life and I love it. There are times I still want to eat crap but I have found alternatives. Just a year ago someone posted a very nasty comic of a heavy woman and a thin man in the "bedroom"...this was a hateful comic referring to me. Now this person pretended to be my friend so it hurt even more when I saw it smeared on the internet for everyone to see. Sadly just weeks before I had received emails from this friends "friend" warning me about all of the hurtful, mean things she was saying. I am an adult but when people knock you down without knowing why you are the way you are or assuming you are just fat and lazy it really hurts. Why would I rehash this a year later? Something that seems so petty and worthless. Well, because I can now enjoy the fact that it didn't break me. Living well is the best revenge. I was struggling with my emotions and letting childish behavior reek havoc on my life but along with gaining control I found myself again.

For my 1 year anniversary I tried a new workout at the gym, a hanging reverse crunch. I have been wanting to do this since I started there. I would always see these fit people hanging from this tower and working their abs, I never thought I could do it and yesterday I did a full set. My stomach hurt like hell this morning but I did it and I will do it again. These are all things I can do now that I couldn't a year ago:

• Run
• Cycle over 25 miles
• Play with my children
• Shop and not get tired
• Buy clothes from the "normal" size rack
• Paint my toenails without taking a break
• Keep up with my husband
• Feel bones in my ankles and collar
• Spend 45 minutes on the elliptical
• Walk 5 miles without taking a break
• No longer fear group exercise
• Wear my grandmother's jewelry
• Do crunches with 120 pounds
• Pull down 90 pounds on the lat machine
• Hold yoga poses without shaking
• Go to my children's school without embarrassment
• Dance and not feel winded
• Fit in any seat and not have to scan the room for one that will fit my ass
• Speak my mind without the fear of being judged by my weight
• Feel satisfied with a serving of dessert instead of the whole thing
• Cross my legs
• Get on my husbands motorcycle without feeling self conscious
• Love myself

Big Fat Lies..

That's what I told myself as I was gaining all of the weight. I think all of us do it to some point but I feel I was extreme. Yet, still I NEVER lied about my weight. I would just never tell it to anyone. You see every time I had to go buy the next size up I always made an excuse of some sort..the holidays, poorly cut patterns, cheap jeans, different brands...I just never wanted to accept that is was my ass getting bigger and not the clothes getting smaller. I think I told myself these lies to keep from having a break down. The truth is I got heavier because I ate too much and moved too little, I wasn't paying attention to my emotions I was eating them and I thought I would wake up one day and it would all be a bad dream. I find that now I am body dismorphic, sometimes I don't even recognize myself in the reflections I see. I would say I have fat amnesia but I don't. First of all because technically I am still fat, I still have a lot to lose but most of all because I remember. I remember being tired and out of breath, I remember my knees hurting all the time and I remember being terrified of going to my daughters school because I would be stared at...I will never forget. Just like I have a drawer of size 10's I plan on getting into I also have a drawer full of my largest clothes. I still look at them and wonder how I could justify my size but I can't come up with another lie. It was me I was morbidly obese. I am still "overweight" and work towards a healthy body image every day. All this being said I watched Oprah today and Star Jones was on. I can't help but want to slap her. First she lied about surgery and then she lied about her weight and then again she lies and say she has maintained....does she think we are blind? Surgery is a big step and she could of been an intelligent, helpful spokesperson for it but instead she wallowed in shame and hid it away. She also could of told the truth about her weight..C'mon..300lbs. YEAH RIGHT! That's like believing Kristie Alley was 220 at her highest and then she says she is proud to have maintained..no she has gained back a little. I wish these people could just be honest and say it's hard no matter what you do or how you do it, it's damn hard. Women that lie about there weight are only making it worse. A size 10 is not a size 2 so please don't try to tell me you are one when I clearly can see you. I am not blind. People that do this are only hurting themselves. I am proud to say for the first time in a long time I am honest with myself about my weight..I know where I have been and I know where I am going and I am OK with that.