Silence was NOT golden

Gone for almost 2 months. I suppose you can figure out why. I chose eating out over weight loss. Laziness over exercise. And copious amounts of beer.

I'm 158.

Let that just sink in for a minute.

It's been a little less than three months since I set out to lose the last bit of weight I've been holding on to, and what do I do? I GAIN 8 POUNDS. Needless to say, I'm frustrated.

I've had a few eye-opening moments over the last week or so though, and that's what brings me back to this dear old blog. I need to list them out for myself & try to figure out what they mean to me...

Eye-opener #1) Losing weight won't make me happy. WOAH, what? Of course it will. I will be prettier. Men will lust after me. Girls will want to be me. My stomach won't spill over my jeans. My self-confidence will shoot up. I will love myself.

You know how all the fitness blogs tend to have this reoccurring theme of, "once I learned to love myself, I could begin my weight loss"? I need to learn how to love myself for me. I need to look in the mirror and see ALL of me and love the whole package. This is the body that God has given me. I haven't taken the best care of it. It is not my body's fault that my stomach is flabby or my thighs are wide or my back has pockets of fat on it. I have made bad choices, and those are the consequences. But my actual body, the tissue, the skin, the muscles, the love handles, all of it, is perfect. I am incredibly blessed to be in my body, and to be able to move and stretch and jump and smile. My body has served me so well over all these years. If I can lose some weight, I could repay it in a small way, but it's not the end-all/be-all of me loving my body.

The second part of the being happy bit has to do with my mental state. I can't remember what blog I was reading, but there was a post about being in the moment. My addiction to food, to alcohol, to cigarettes, they're all ways I use to escape from the moment. Why am I escaping? I don't know. I really, truly wish I did, but the answer is elusive. There are times in my life when I think about how amazing my husband is, how in love I am with him, or how my job is the best job ever, or how blessed I am to have the best friend I do. And then there are those evenings where I feel more alone than anyone in the universe & just want to eat/drink myself into oblivion. I'm going to keep working on that.

Eye-Opener #2) I can do anything I want. I'm an adult. I have responsibilities. I have future goals, and I'm rearranged my life in order to meet those goals. But lately I've been questioning those future goals in a big way. Do I really want kids? Do I really want a big house? Do I really want to live in WI? Do I really want to be an accountant? What's going to make me happy? Again, I have no answer. But those questions only came up, because I realized that I CAN do anything I want. I want to live my life with my husband, but our entire lives don't have to be set out in concrete for us to just follow.

Lots of heavy stuff today. I'll be back, but right now I need to get some tax returns done.