Accountability

Good morning!

I try to be open on this blog and share all of my struggles with my weight loss. I don't have it all figured out and coming across like I do is fake and phony. I do have a much better understanding about my body and how it works, and about the way I am losing weight this time. I have come A LONG way from before but still have struggles sometimes.

The past two weeks I have relaxed slightly with my eating plan. I have been doing awesome and killing it, so it was easy to slip into the mentality of "I'm doing SO well having this _____ won't hurt that". Well technically that is right but the problem is when you have too many of those ______ is a row/week. I have not gone crazy and completely blown it but just more had some extra treats that were not planned. For example I had TWO extra treats yesterday that were not planned at all. I still wrote them down and accounted for them, but that is not the point. I did not say no when I really didn't need those treats. I like having treats when they are planned for and then I can enjoy them fully.

This morning when I woke up and was lingering in bed (love weekends!) I was doing some mental visualization and positive self talk. I was reminding myself how good it feels to be completely in control and making healthy, wise food choices.

The day is going to be good today as most of what we are eating is at home. Tonight, however, we have a pot luck that we are going to that could pose as being difficult since I don't know what foods will be there to plan ahead. Here is my pot luck strategies:

- don't go hungry. Eat a piece of fruit or starter salad before you go.
- survey all of the food before you pick what you want. Go through the whole table to get a good idea then pick your top choices and take small portions of them.
- drink lots of water before and during your meal to avoid going back up for seconds.
- get some activity before hand so you will feel empowered to make better choices and have burned some extra calories.
- give your self some positive reinforcement before you go. Yes I mean talk out loud to yourself. Are you going to have one piece of dessert? If so, talk yourself through how it will feel when you stick to that! How will it feel if you don't stick to that and eat more than you planned. Ect. 

It also doesn't help that this is a stressful situation to make sure Rylee has food as well. We have to cut up her food ect. My plan of attack for that will be to go through the line once and get Rylee's food (also allowing me to survey the full table) then get her food ready and have my husband watch her while she eats and I will then go get my food. 
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Today the weather is really nice out. It is supposed to be a high of 6 or 7 degrees and looks really sunny. You can bet I will be getting out for a long walk once Rylee get's up from her nap. After church I plan on making a new muffin recipe, doing some cleaning, and meal prep for the week ahead. I got all of my groceries yesterday so my fridge and cupboard is full of healthy food choices. The best place to start is in your own kitchen!

Yesterday evening I spent some time writing out my workout plan for the week. Pair that with a good solid meal plan, I see an awesome week ahead.

On a side note -- I have bought a few new items for summer, all in smaller sizes. My pants are all officially a size 12 now (won't be long until I fit into my size 8 wardrobe!!!)

Talk to you all soon!

Mental visualization

What a whirlwind few weeks it has been with some highs and some lows. I got home on Sunday night and have been dragging myself around since then barely able to function. My nerves were still shot and I was having a hard time bouncing back.

Since yesterday I have been trying to figure out how to snap out of this short lived funk and get back into my momentum that I had going so well. This morning as I was snuggled up with Rylee going over some things I had learned over the weekend in Chicago, I remembered something that Kim Lyons said. She talked to us about mental visualization. Taking a step back and sitting there with your eyes closed visualizing your goals. How do you feel at your goal weight, was does that look like, what do you need to do to get there ect. Look at a picture of either yourself at that weight, or if you don't have one a picture similar to what you would like to be (not an unrealistic one).

So this morning I laid there and remembered how I felt when I was at my goal weight, how my clothes fit, what they felt like touching my skin, putting on make up because I cared more about my appearance, being able to shop in regular size clothing, what my workouts felt like. Then I looked at my picture of me at goal and visualized how it would feel to be back there again and what I would have to do to get there. 

The past few days I have been pretty negative because it seemed like one thing after another was going wrong and it was wearing me down and burning me out. For the past few months I have had very good, positive, headspace and I have been wanting to do a gratitude post. I have been feeling extremely blessed and grateful lately so I am going to start putting that together for you in the next few days.

I was going to do a post about Chicago since I learned SO much there, but I think I will integrate it into posts like I have today instead of doing one big post about it. That way I can leave the negatives out of it and behind me and move forward with the awesomeness that I got from the training.

I'll leave you with the picture of myself that I used for my visualization this morning: