Under Construction

I mentioned a few changes were coming to the blog and work is under way. Over the past six months I have gone through many different things in an attempt to pursue my goals. I was beginning to feel very frustrated with my progress and decided to take some time to really enjoy life and reflect on what I truly wanted to accomplish. I was not being completely honest with myself and it showed in the number of changes to my eating plan and the large number of workouts missed.

In the last few months I have had time to think about what brings joy to my day and what types of things keep my feet firmly planted on the road to success. Part of that involved taking the time to close myself in a room with a mirror and honestly assess where I am, how I got there and then really thinking about why I wanted a change. To be perfectly honest, I don't dance well. I'm not a very coordinated person. Right now my goal is to prepare for the Fitness Atlantic Ms. Bikini competition next spring. When I have the info on the 2011 competition, I will be sure to update you.

I came away from this exercise with a fresh perspective and hopefully a much more honest view of what I actually want to accomplish. The most valuable lesson I learned in the six months since I started this journey is that this requires absolute commitment. Eating the right foods or working out on a casual basis is not what you need to effect major change. If I had done the reverse, ie ocasionally skipped a workout, occasionally vegged out on the couch or occasionally ate crap - well I wouldn't be here. It required years of abusing myself to get to this state of ill health and thinking that doing well one or two days or even weeks at a time is just not enough.

I have some fresh ideas about how I intend to accomplish the monumental task of retraining my brain to stop the abuse and self sabotage and instead promote health and happiness for myself. I also have a few new tools at my disposal that I will be sharing the info on over the next few days. Please be patient during these transition time. I hope you continue to enjoy following me on this journey.

So Happy to be Back on the Wagon!

I am super excited to write today. I am presently preparing to embark on the next step of my journey. I've tried tweaking my diet over and over . . .and over again and finally feel confident that I know what works for me. I have taken quite a bit of time off from this venture to get some things in place for my sanity. I know I will have major time commitments beginning in the next few weeks and wanted to make the transition as stress free as possible. Tons of changes have been taking place around here. Just to mention a few, we have almost finished renovating the bedroom and our den. I am speaking it into the universe that both those spaces AND my office will be completed before school begins!

It's time to get focused on regimen building for my health. Right now I am fooling around with foods and supplements until I iron out something that requires little thought on my part so that I can put it on autopilot. Recent discoveries include the fact that wheat and sugar are no nos for me. I know, I know. You are thinking of course you shouldn't eat cookies, cake and candy if you are shooting for weight loss. Um I knew that. What I didn't know is that my body seems to be exceptionally sensitive to these ingredients even in the healthiest of foods. I am currently in love with Pamela's Wheat Free Baking Mix and agave. There are tons of health articles out there vilifying agave but right now I still believe it is better for my body than sugar. If I come up with a better alternative I will certainly post about it but there is no way I am interested in Splenda, xylitol or any of the other "alternative" sweeteners out there.

I've got to run off and get some things done around the house but I do want to let you know where I am currently. My current weight is 191.4 down from my high of 205 a few months ago. Pictures are coming this week. I am getting ready to begin a round of ChaLean Extreme and I will post my starting stats at the end of the week. I have been doing Slim in 6 most recently and since my last update I've lost:
Chest -1in
Waist -0.5in
Gut -1in
Hips -0.5 in