Just as I am

If you haven't had a chance to check out yesterday's post check it out.   The long on short of it?



I don't think you're an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother's pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um, you tend to let whatever's in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences... But the thing is, um, what I'm trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um, in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you, very much. Just as you are.

Gotta love Mark Darcy!

I'm trying to convince myself I'm quite nice, just as I am.  Work in progress, but I do like the progress I've made in the past few days.

Now time for my check in stuffs.

1. Tracking my exercises in an excel spreadsheet. Marking the completed workouts in purple, the incomplete workouts in tan, abandoned workouts in red. The goal is to complete 85% of all scheduled workouts. That sounds really low, but its only getting to fudge on 5 workouts. I'm going to count incomplete workouts as half a workout.
   
   I completed 7.5 out of 9 workouts.  (Confused as to the 0.5?  Catch up here.)  My calculator says that's 83% which is close to my goal.  Since the other was missed while in Ohio visiting my MIL for Mother's day, I'm going to round this one up to 8/9 for 88%.
   
   This goal marked - achieved!
2. Tracking my food in an excel spreadsheet as well as a printed publisher file. I'm going to plan out my menu for the week, then track how often I follow through. This means no guilt for the Friday fast food with mom. No guilt for going out for BBQ with my love. Shooting for 85% on this one too.
   
   I ended up following through with 2/3 of my planned meals at 67% completion rate.  Not exactly goal, but over half is a decent start.  This goal marked - meh.
3. A new 5K PR. In 10 days I'll run in a race that bills its self as "flat." That rarely happens around here. I'm shooting for another PR. Maybe not sub 30, I don't think I've put in the work for that. But definitely below my current PR of 31:35.
   
   This goal marked - not yet.
4. Being successful on my 5 weekly goals (which may or may not stay the same through this) 6/7 days of the week. As badly as I hate to admit it, I'm not perfect and expecting 7/7 on all 5 goals just isn't reasonable.
   
   Since this is "my way" I decided to throw out the tracking daily goals out the window. It started this weekend when I decided not to take my notebook to Ohio, but I still found myself looking out for the things on my list.
   
   I can't really put into words why this feels right, it just does. So this goal gets marked - achieved!
5. To sit down at a meal and say "what can I do to make this more healthy?" Maybe its adding strawberries to my cereal. Or opting out of the coke. Or on a bad day saying "no thanks" to the coke refill. Little things. But little things matter.
   
   This isn't one of those trackable goals I can geek out on and spout percentages on.  Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don't.  The ultimate goal is to make this a way of life.

I'm feeling pretty good about this past week - despite the Pizza Hut buffet, Pepsi, and Ramen that made up my Monday (thanks for outing me to the Sisterhood yesterday April).

Hey - it happens.  But it doesn't define me.


 

Own It!

I've had a post floating in my head for several weeks, but just when I think I've got that final piece life blows up in my face.  Maybe this time, even if I don't get to hit "publish" I'll get enough of it down that I'll be that much closer next time.  And almost there the next time.

I don't like bloggers who seem to have it all together. 

Its not real. 

You may be a better couponer than me.

You may be a faster runner than me.

You may be a better cook than me.

In fact, you probably are.  But that doesn't make you better than me.  We all have our struggles.  Some of us are just too more open about our problems in life.  All of that to say, sometimes I figure things out and want to share them with you.  Only I'm afraid of how it would be received.

If you know me, know my heart, then you know I'm not the girl in love with myself.  I'm not the Barbie who poses that same perfect pose for every picture ever taken.  I'm the girl who wears sweats and flip flops when traveling or shopping because I like to be comfortable.

At the last Repeat Boutique sale, I noticed that some women were in full make up, wearing nice tops, jeans, and heeled boots. 

I didn't have a drop of makeup on, and was rocking a fleece and my sketcher mule sneakers.
(This is a very well thought out look.  Wearing makeup increases the chances of staining clothing as I try on the millions dozens of different items that will be pulled over my head that morning.  The mule sneakers are for comfort as well as dressing room convenience.)

While standing in line behind these ladies, I felt a twinge of insecurity.  Why couldn't I put together outfits like that?  Why couldn't I be that confident?

The obvious answer is I could be.  I'm lazy.  Quite possibly the laziest marathon runner in the world.  Grabbing a fleece out of the Tupperware bin doesn't take as much time as putting together a cute outfit. 

Now I will say that I stand by my Repeat outfits.  I've thought through them logically, but what about the every day.  Why do I wear the outfits I choose to wear?

I use to have a standard "fat day" outfit - a pair of so-soft-and-comfy-they-felt-like-PJs dress pants paired with a one-size-too-big polo with the company logo. 

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.  I was having a fat day (as has been happening all too often these days), but due to laundry and weight gain issues my pants selection isn't what it use to be.  That morning I opted for a skirt.  Not exactly fat clothes, but A-line skirts fit me great no matter what my size. 

On my way over to the bowling center to pick up my lunch, I caught a dude checking me out.

I'm at my heaviest weight ever.  My burger and fries weight.  And some random guy was starring at me.

Am I the hottest woman on the planet?  Nope.  Skinniest?  Not even close.

That day I was just a woman who (quickly) put together an outfit that worked well with her body.  I've got runner's calves.  The look great in heels. 

"Own it." A friend said.

Know what you've got going for you and work it.

For me that's A-line skirts and dresses to highlight my XS small top and draw attention away from my trouble spot (thigh area.)

Also?  I can rock a pair of yoga pants like no body's business.  My legs aren't incredibly huge, just not as firm as I'd like.  Yoga pants do great things for my booty and flatter my legs.

This post started out of anger at the women who say that men lose interest/stray/cheat because their wives "let themselves go."  Being slow to speak blog is a good thing.  Anger isn't productive.  I just hurt for women who think so little of themselves they think they can't keep their man's attention.

I'm here to tell you that men find the female body attractive.  Period.  You have something going for you.  Right now I don't have the flat abs I did 15 pounds ago, but now I have a pretty smokin rack. 

(Did I just blog that?)

Treat yourself well.  Dress yourself well.  (You don't have to spend a ton of money to do it.)  Find those couple of great things about you and highlight them.

And OWN IT!

I'm a Quitter...

...and sometimes that's okay.

I don't mean in a clever "I quit soda" kinda way.  (Cause I didn't.)

I tried a new class at the gym last week called "Sculptonic".  It was a weights class/dance routine/boot campesque class.

And I sucked out loud.  5 minutes into the class I was miserable.  Watching the clock every few minutes counting down how much longer I had to endure the torture.  About 20 minutes into the 45 minute class we did mountain climbers as our "power" move.

As my leg fat was pulled down by gravity, pulling my legs inward became too much for me to mentally take.  Watching your own fat jiggle while feeling like a huge idiot/failure isn't a good combo.

So I left.  With another 20 minutes left in the class I just walked out.

At first I considered how it would make the instructor feel, but she's one of the more popular teachers so I convinced myself she'd not be offended.

I'm here to tell you that walking out was the nicest thing I've done for myself in a really long time. 

I probably abuse this song.  Its just a fun song about a good excuse for a bar fight, but it really does mean so much more to me.

You see, last Wednesday I ran out of Aces.  I could have stayed, and drained myself of every self esteem chip I had piled up on the table.  But folding was the right choice.

Sometimes tracking food, trying to stay "on the wagon", trying to earn a chip - whatever you're putting your effort into - can be too heavy a burden to carry. 

Folding is okay. 

Walking away is sometimes necessary.

Running away is sometimes prudent.

Take care of yourself above all, and that sometimes means going away from what is best physically and heading to a place that's more healthy mentally.

Thank you my beautiful readers for putting up with me through thick and thin, and the size 6 in between the two.  I hope to have more glimpses from the road to health and sanity along the way.  Love yall!

Financial Friday - May kick off!

Jay and I have gotten May off to a wendy-spend start.  He just bought a Droid (working out cheaper for us than for him to keep his air card and carry his computer around), we went on an impromptu mid-week date, and I got my one big grocery trip out of the way.

One thing we've decide with our spending money is that if we go over one month, its taken off the top of next month's.  We're already off to a rough start.

Jay's spending money:  $85 budgeted - $50.75 actuals

We participated in a gas promotion that BP was running a few months ago and received $40 in gift cards from them this past month.  Jay agreed to take those cards for his spending money and reduce his budget line by as much.  He typically spends most of his money on tobacco, purchased at his favorite BP station (because he buys it there almost daily its perpetually fresh), so its not like he's getting shorted.

Stopping in a book store with my mom, he found a book that he wanted badly enough to pay full price for, which put a big hit in his personal spending.  No wonder he stole a couple of my beers last night! 

Brooke's spending money: $125 budgeted - $43.30 actuals

This includes a race registration, so I haven't eaten that much of my spending money yet!  Although I have purchased drive thru food twice already this month.  In my defense I desperately needed that Dunkin coffee for my sore throat on the way to church Sunday morning.  (No comment on the egg & cheese English Muffin that accompanied it.)

Jay and I each have accounts that earn 3.75% interest if we have 12 debits a month.  I'm hoping to restart my CVS/Walgreens bargain shopping.  If I can do that, then I will be able to accomplish most of my debits with those purchases and switch to cash only on my personal spending.

Eating out money: $100? budgeted - $65.45 actuals

We're running a little behind on getting this month's budget done (and last month's reviewed) that we have set a specific amount on this one.  We did, however, spend all $65.45 in one place.  Jay's been promising me for probably 2 years now that he would take me to the Murder Mystery Dinner Theater here in town, but its just never worked out.

At the beginning of the week Jay received an email that a local restaurant was giving away free dinner to celebrate their 20% anniversary.  Jay and I planned to go right after work, but by the time we arrived, there was a 2 hour wait to be seated.  We decided that instead of going home and eating sandwiches, we'd finally go see the dinner theater.  The food wasn't all that great but the show was a lot of fun. 

We normally shoot for a $75 budget.  Since we're only $10 away from that with 3 weeks to go, I suspect we'll have to budget a little more this month.

Grocery money: $200 budgeted - $131.34 actuals

Jay wants to replenish our stockpile, so we upped the budget this month.  As with last month, the plan is to only do 1 big trip, followed by smaller weekly trips.  I've already done the big trip (obviously) and around $25 weekly should be enough to grab fresh fruit, veggies, or milk as needed. 

Also?  I love that my hubby thinks $200 is enough to stockpile groceries.  I also love that in most cases he's right (cause I'm that good at grocery shopping/cooking).

I want to try and clean the freezer out in the coming few months.  I'd really like to buy a whole cow from a local farmer, and we'd have no where to store it with a freezer full of Lean Cuisine entrees and frozen stir fry veggie blends.  Rather than split the cow with someone, I think we'd be better off selling off parts of it to friends and family a few chunks each. 


What are your financial goals for the month?  Working on paying down a debt?  Saving up for a new gadget?

Wednesday Check-in ~ Freestyle version

Thank you for everyone who gave me helpful feed back on my challenge kickoff post.  If anything that should prove that this isn't your conventional challenge, at least not for me.

I weighed in on that post and don't plan on getting back on the scale until Tuesday the 31st.  Weighing constantly just doesn't work for me. 

What does work for me?  Having a friend like Ashley.  She doesn't just let me wallow, but gets straight to the point.  What's the problem and how can we fix it?  Our brains work in similar ways (which should probably scare her), so I'm taking a page out of her book in lining up my goals for the challenge.

1. Tracking my exercises in an excel spreadsheet.  Marking the completed workouts in purple, the incomplete workouts in tan, abandoned workouts in red.  The goal is to complete 85% of all scheduled workouts.  That sounds really low, but its only getting to fudge on 5 workouts.  I'm going to count incomplete workouts as half a workout. 
2. Tracking my food in an excel spreadsheet as well as a printed publisher file.  I'm going to plan out my menu for the week, then track how often I follow through.   This means no guilt for the Friday fast food with mom.  No guilt for going out for BBQ with my love.  Shooting for 85% on this one too.
   Since I'm doing this my way - I get to insert a floating lunch with my girlfriends at work.  I never know when we're going to get to, but I'm allowing myself one a week.  (I'm loving this my way stuff already!)
   Also?  I'm making a point to be more purposeful with my personal spending money in an effort to combat the random fast food drive thrus.  More to come on that idea on my Friday financial check in.
3. A new 5K PR.  I'm missing my 5K this weekend because I'm the best daughter-in-law wife in the world.  So I'm pushing my 5K back for another 2 weeks.  This one looks nice.  See where it says "flat"?  That rarely happens around here.  I'm shooting for another PR.  Maybe not sub 30, I don't think I've put in the work for that.  But definitely below my current PR of 31:35.
4. Being successful on my 5 weekly goals (which may or may not stay the same through this) 6/7 days of the week.  As badly as I hate to admit it, I'm not perfect and expecting 7/7 on all 5 goals just isn't reasonable.
5. To sit down at a meal and say "what can I do to make this more healthy?"  Maybe its adding strawberries to my cereal.  Or opting out of the coke.  Or on a bad day saying "no thanks" to the coke refill.  Little things.  But little things matter.

As for my weekly goals - how'd I do?  You ask.  Let's see:

Read Bible daily
7/7!  I God Rocks!

Read for fun daily
6/7 - Monday was a crazy busy day, so I'm definitely good with this result.

Water
7/7 - This is the easiest of all the goals for me.

Exercise
6/7 - Lunch with friends and dinner out with the hub-sand kept me from working out yesterday.  I'm cool with that.

3 servings of Veggies & Fruits
5/7 - Without a doubt my weakest area.  My two days falling short were the weekend and I was on the run (literally and figuratively) all weekend.  So yes, after a day of moving a friend, helping Jay clear out the crawl space and cleaning my entire house I was too exhausted to cook dinner.  Lunch was taco bell and dinner was a can of Chef-Boyardi Sketti & meatballs.  Beans & tomatoes right?  Shoulda had a piece of fruit for breakfast and I would have counted this one.  Even I won't count my grape jelly as a fruit! :P

Sunday I ran through the Dunkin drive-thru on the way to church (don't worry I got an English muffin - I was really just after the coffee), ate an apple for lunch (heading straight for my long run so I didn't want a heavy stomach) then met my parents for dinner at Fuddruckers.  Sure I could have gotten a salad.  But why?  Their burgers are to die for.  Too bad the cheese dip doesn't count...well for much of anything but calories because I think I ate my weight in that stuff!!

Depending on how I do on all the areas this week, I'll probably move one or two off and move something else on.  Any suggestions on what could take their place?

Finding Prince Charming

With all the talk of the Royal Wedding last week, I was reminded of my own wedding.  Like Wills & Kate - my husband and I were photographed by strangers upon leaving the church.

Unlike Wills & Kate - the people taking our picture had no clue who we were.  They were just driving around the Cades Cove Loop and caught a glimpse of a gorgeous couple leaving the old timey church.

We didn't have millions of dollars at our disposal for decorations, but my Father (the King of Kings) made sure the leaves surrounding the church were at their peak - despite it being a couple weeks past their typical prime.

There was much drama and anticipation leading up to the wedding as well.  Blinding flash bulbs created a traffic jam making me late to the church.  Of course they weren't taking pictures of me at that point, but rather the bear and cubs along the side of the road.

Causing my father (the earthly one this time) to scream out the window "If you wanna see a bear go to the damn zoo!"  Shortly before my mother made him slow down so that we, too, could get a picture of the bears.

My dress wasn't anything special.  No figurines (that I know of at least) have been made of me in the dress.  It was even on sale - an old sample altered to fit my body.  The fact that it cost less than a lot of prom dresses, looked great on my figure, and fit the look of the church made it perfectly special to me.

I had no official ladies in waiting to attend to me and carry my train (after all it wasn't all that long), but some incredible women step up when we realized we'd forgotten the pesky little "who's gonna cut the cake" detail. 

I also had 3 incredible women by my side through it all.  Heck I even had a Princess in my bridal party!

Sometimes life is hard. The real world reaches up and smacks us in the face.  Or throws us a curve ball.

Its nice knowing that at the end of the day, I get to go home to a great guy.  He may not always understand my quirks, but he loves me.  His quirks may frustrate the dickens out of me, but I can gaze into his eyes and see his love for me.

Also?  Its nice knowing that we've got a great support system standing behind us.  With divorce so common these days, we found ourselves being the only couple we knew who had both sets of parents still happily married.

One day soon - I have to tell yall the story of the father/daughter dance.  Along with the one about the grass from the grassy knoll.  Let's just say I'm not winning any "daughter of the century" awards. 

What was the most memorable (and fun) part of your wedding??

I have all these thoughts in my head.  I hope to get them out there in a somewhat coherent way. 

Yesterday I had a kick ass run on the treadmill.

I learned all kinds of goodies about myself that made me feel incredible.  I made good choices, I proved I could do it...yada yada and all that inspiring stuff.  I had a wonderful idea for a post.  Only...

Yesterday evening I saw a picture that sent me into a tailspin. 

It was a model in a bikini.

My first thought?  Man that's disgusting.  She looks ill.

My second thought?  I'm a cow.  (April has seriously restricted the words I can use to personally insult myself.  Basically as I come up with one, she bans it from my vocabulary.)

All of a sudden whatever victory I'd acheived on the treadmill vanished.  Then again only in my world is running a 10:30 m/m pace a victory.  Thus the downward spiral began.

While sleep always helps these things, today I'm still left processing it all.  When I first logged onto twitter this morning I noticed that Ryan on his "No More Bacon" blog posted this.  

But then of course, I can't help but hear the voice of my friend in the back of my head who, upon hearing about Operation Beautiful, proclaimed that the project must have been started by some fat chick who was just trying to make herself feel better.  (I post this knowing full well this not to be the case, but the idea sticks with me.)

Also in my head?  Trying to come up with my starting post for the new Sisterhood challenge. 



I've decided to do a weigh in to start and one to finish - with none in between.  The result of getting on the scale today?  I'm at 138.8 - the highest number I've ever seen on the scale.  I'm supposed to come up with some challenges for myself and goals I want to reach through the challenge and I'm struggling.

What I want? 

To weigh 115 pounds
To like the way I look in the mirror
To easily run a sub 10 m/m
To believe my husband when he says he likes my body
(he's a salesman - his job is to tell people what they wanna here - I can promise I'm not his "type")

None of those are realistic. 

How do I begin to build goals that motivate me.  Sure I could say "to lose 3 pounds for the challenge".  But honestly 135 doesn't look all that much different, so what's the point?

These feelings are getting jumbled with thoughts for a post I had about loving yourself as you are (ha!) and dressing your body so you feel and look great. 

I don't know how to end this post.  I quite obviously don't have the answers.  So I'll end with a prayer. 

I was chatting with a friend several days ago and she was telling me that while she's been recovered from an ED for several years, she still battles some worries regarding her disorder.  I promised to pray for her.  In my regular prayer time, but also when I struggle with body image issues of my own.  I figured that way she'd really get bathed in prayer! 

Dear Lord,

Please be with her right now.  You know her thoughts better than even she does.  You know where she needs to be for optimal health.  Take her hand and guide her there. 

Be with everyone reading this prayer, that they might use their bodies in a way that spreads your love to others and brings You glory.

In Christ's name ~ Amen