If you don't take care of yourself...

...no one else will.

I have a lot to share with you tonight so hopefully you're up for a long read.

Over the past two years I have been all over the place with my weight loss. I have tried many different things only to get discouraged over and over again. I would eat really well and write everything down for a few days and then fall off the wagon and binge. My blogging has been all over the place too - making it hard to follow me and know when I have posted new posts, and for that I am sorry.

So here goes, I will try to get out what I have been thinking in my head.

Weight loss is a journey, and I get so frustrated at myself for putting back on weight after I worked so hard to lose it. I want to try to lose it overnight and get back to the closet full of great clothes that I have, but that is not going to happen. I am not going to wake up tomorrow and be the size 8 that I was two years ago this very day. And you know what? That is okay.

Weight loss is a journey, a life long battle that I am going to fight. The past few weeks I have been having a lot of joint pain and feel like I am 70 years old. I'm actually very thankful that I have the pain because it has taught me a VERY important lesson. This is NOT what I want to feel like at 70 years old. I want to be one of those seniors that you see out riding bikes and speed walking to keep healthy and keep their joints from stiffening up. 

Again, I am not going to achieve this over night. I am going to have to work hard to break down the real reasons behind my weight problem. It is not going to be easy, in fact it will be the hardest thing I have ever done - but I know at the end of it, it will be worth it. I hope you will join me on my journey and I hope that I will inspire you to find your own health. Leave all excuses at the door because there is no habit that you can not break, nothing you can't accomplish if you are willing to put in the time.

I have been doing my HBL challenge for the month of May and I will give you a bit of an update. My body still really hurts, but I have been taking small steps to feeling better (stretching more, walking, hot baths ect.) I am still not noticing a huge different though with one exception. My knees are not hurting any more because I am not crossing my legs at all or pulling my legs up under me - which is VERY hard on your knees. My back is still bad but I did go to my doctors this week and I am going to do physio to strengthen the muscles. He also gave me a prescription for a med that helps with inflammation. This should also help my joints too.

This weekend I decided was the best weekend to do the La Bamba diet. It's a 3 day cleanse that helps to kick start your weight loss. A lot of people get great results by doing this but I am going to give you my honest feedback about it.

The first day you are to drink two 1 gallon jugs of the mixture of protein juice, tea, and herbal aloe powder. I had one jug of peach juice and one jug of wild berry. You have to consume 1 16oz glass every 30 minutes for 8 hours.

The mixture was not TERRIBLE - however it wasn't exactly "good". It tasted like very watered down camp juice. I drank every half hour and I was told to and was quite satisfied. I did not feel hungry once while I was drinking the juice mixture. Near the end I did start to feel like I was going to float away. I felt like my stomach was a balloon of liquid and I did not feel good - but I was still not hungry. I finished my last glass around 5:45pm. On the first day you are allowed NO food - just liquid.

I went to bed around 9:30 and was VERY hungry. I thought maybe if I go to bed I won't think about it and then tomorrow will be good because I can have a shake. Well a few things happen when I am hungry. First of all I get MISERABLE. I whine and cry and pout - I pretty much act like a child. Second I start to get really bad headaches that often end in vomiting. So I tried everything I could think of to get to sleep but I was just SO hungry. I tried drinking a few glasses of water, but since I already felt really sick that didn't do much of anything. I was laying in bed dreaming of salad so at 11:30 I finally got up and went to the kitchen to have some salad. That worked well until about 12:15 am. As I was still laying in bed miserable - my headache was getting much worse to the point where my whole head was just throbbing. I said enough already and went and had a peanut butter sandwich.

So I did not even last one day of the La Bamba diet, which is only a 3 day weight loss jump start and I will never do one again. However, it did make me realize a few things. That is not the way that I want to live - doing fad diets. I want to eat right, exercise and just be healthy - and still have treats sometimes. I want to be able to have a treat and be in control and not have that lead to a binge, which is what happens when you deprive yourself. I also go myself a nice new hair cut to be a symbol of my starting fresh. It's not too short, but to my shoulders. I can still get it up in a pony tail but it gives me lots of new things I can do with it!

Today I woke up and still did not feel good, my back was sore and I still had a bad headache. I had a good breakfast and took today one step at a time. Sean and I wrote a list of things we wanted to get done and tackled it one thing at a time. We ended up going on a hike today which was more than my back could handle so now I am paying the price for that. However, I was happy to get the exercise in and time with my hubby and my pup pup.

Sean and I rented a movie tonight and I plan on snuggling up with him on the couch and just relaxing. The weather today was so beautiful and I feel so blessed to have been able to live this day.

I will be posting my Elton John blog soon - I was just waiting to get all of the pictures. I can't believe that happened two weeks ago. I wish it had lasted forever :)