Keep on, keepin on.

Mmmmmm, just finished my delicious and totally fulfilling lunch: a Slim-Fast bar washed down with a nice cool glass of ice water.  Man, I am just livin' the life.

So, since reconvening the diet and dropping soda on Wednesday, I've dropped back down from 152 to about 147.  That may seem super fast, 5 pounds in 4 days, but really, it's not.  147 to 151 is my normal range, so losing and gaining within those numbers happens pretty stinkin fast.  Getting below 146 will be the true mark of dieting success, I cannot WAIT to see that happen. I cannot wait to see that happen so much I'm almost willing to chop off 2 pounds worth of chub myself if it refuses to come off on its own.  THAT, my friend, is motivation.

The best part about getting serious again has been the fact that, honestly, it's not been nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.  No soda-withdrawal symptoms, no headaches, no shakes, I don't feel like I'm starving to death, and I haven't cried once!  Well, at least, not about the food.  And crying about other things doesn't count.  I haven't been working out as much as I should, strictly speaking, but it's overcast and magnificent today, so maybe I'll go for a run again today.  Seriously.  It's that magnificent.

I have a milestone coming up soon.  On August 6th, it will have officially been 1 year since I began this weight loss journey.  I'd sort of been hoping to hit 50 pounds lost by then, but let's be honest, that's 6 more pounds in 6 days and that's pretty doubtful, unless I just decided to officially stop eating completely, and I like eating waaaay too much for that.  Hence the reason I had more than 50 pounds to lose.  BIG big shock there.

Anyway, be prepared for some reflections on the year and a few new before/currently pictures.  A full year of transformation... that's kind of intense.

Happy Sunday y'all!  Hope you're counting your own blessings today!

I'm back in the Saddle Again!

Well, sort of.  My first day back on the diet was a pretty intense fail, which was at least 75% NOTMYFAULT.  I'm choosing to blame a nice elderly Filipino lady who bought me a cheeseburger (which she later forced into my hands) even though I had insisted that I'd already eaten lunch.  No, she didn't force it into my mouth, I did that part willingly.  But only to be nice.   I didn't enjoy it at all.  I promise.

Just the same, I've had that ol' Gene Autry song stuck in my head for a couple of days.  If you'd like to picture it, know that my inner monologue wears chaps and smokes a really nasty cigarette.  And even though yesterday didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, the game is friggin on.  I'm working out (twice already this week, but a third "very active with the child" day, which I think counts for at least 3/4 point) and I'm going hardcore on the Slim Fast plan again that worked so well for me... when I did it.... throughout this past year.

Oh, and I'm off soda completely.  It's about 38 hours since that last Diet Dr. Shasta, and so far, I'm okay. I'm not sure when the shakes are supposed to start, but I'm ready for it.  I just hope my husband's ready for all the whining and crying.

I'd like to say that it feels great to be back on track, but the best I can say is that it feels a little bit good.  It also feels like deprivation, and like every muscle in my body hurts.  It feels like getting restless leg syndrome at night, because for some odd reason, that gets worse when I exercise.

Apparently I'm seriously out of shape again.  My muscles feel atrophied, I get winded more easily, and my stomach is decidedly poochier. In the last week or so, my weight ballooned up from 147 to 152.  155 is my "healthy weight" limit, and I think I'd like to be farther away from overweight.  I'm back "down" to 150 as of today, so that gives me 15 more pounds, MINIMUM, to lose in the next 70 days.  Totally doable. Right?  Right.

So there we are.  This blog is going to be filled with weight loss updates again the next couple of months, because if I don't tell you, I might just stop doing it.  And stop doing it is not an option.

Hope you have a grab-the-reigns sort of day!

An Ode to One Lonely Soda

There is one more soda in the fridge.

One lonely soda, and, when I drink it, there will be no sodas.  And it will be all my fault.

Not because I drank the soda.  No.  That is what soda is for: to be enjoyed by happy addicts like myself.  But after sometime tomorrow, when I inevitably decide to drink that one last Diet Dr. Shasta, I've decided to something stupid and impulsive and life changing.

I've decided to go off soda.  Yeah, I know.  Probably for a month or something, at least that's the goal for now.

I'm not sure why I've decided this.  No wait, that's not true.  I decided it because I was watching Extreme Makeover: Chubby Bunny Edition, and I felt super inspired to take one giant leap in my effort to be "Lookin' Great by Twenty Eight".... or another slogan for my weight loss goal that doesn't sound like someone should slap my mother for having given birth to me.  Right.

What I DON'T know is why I feel the need to take each stupid impulse I have so friggin seriously.  Remind me this later:  Just because I have a thought, doesn't mean I need to act on it.  In fact, thoughts are real easy to move past!  Look: boop.  Just had one.  Then I moved on.  Wow!  Please remind me of this moment if I ever decide to say, shave off all my hair,  go on any singular-food-item diet or try any program that includes the words "colon cleanse". Nnnno. If God had intended for us to clean out our colons.... nnnnno.

I'll give you another update when that last soda is gone and this thing actually starts.  I'm pretty excited about the fact that I've found a way to make my summer a little bit worse, so I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot about it.

Hope you are.... not so flippant with your life choices!

Giddy-Up

The scale just told me I'm fat.  The scale better watch its mouth, or it's going to get a punch in the face.

Coming down from nearly 200 pounds, the 140's have felt pretty stinkin comfortable this summer.  I feel like me.  I feel younger.  I feel healthier and, in general, happier, and less encumbered by my own body.  I haven't hit the goals I wanted to, exactly, but I felt pretty comfortable, and it's hard to keep going when you don't have the motivation to.  Because here's my dirty little secret:  I totally know how to maintain 147 with basically no work.  I don't exercise.  I allow myself to eat veritable crap when I want to eat veritable crap.  I just make sure that once I get closer to 150, I cut back.  I eat 1200 calories for a day or two, I make sure I'm a little more active, and blam-o.  I stay at 147.  Weight maintenance is awesome.  Of course, technically speaking, I'm still about 20lbs over my goal weight, so I really should be so focused on weight maintenance.  Seems I may have skipped a step or 20.  Wups!

Well, it seems something in me has finally snapped.  I'm not feeling so comfortable with myself anymore.  My perspective has changed, I'm not a person coming down from nearly 200 pounds anymore, who may look "pretty good, considering".  I'm a person who has maintained the 140's for months, and only temporarily saw the underbelly of 145 after spending a week being violently ill.  I'm a person with a sad belly button who would like to stop having to adjust her pants in hope of avoiding that inevitable and deplorable muffin top.

I'm not saying I hate my body.  My body ran a friggin 1/2 marathon, and I'm still proud of it.  But just the same, I still want to achieve the best me.

So here's a goal that I'm deciding on as I write it.  I will be 28 years way too old (oooh my, what happened to my youth!!) on October 6th, and I want to, nay, WILL hit 135 by then.  2 1/2 months, about 12 pounds.  If I get my tush in gear, it's totally attainable.

So friends, family, blog friends, keep me accountable.  Ask me if I'm running some more.  Make me feel really bad about that.  Oh, and ask if my belly button is in a better mood, because I think that may be my new personal barometer.

Hope you all have a goal-meeting Sunday!

Me 'n my sad little friend :-(

Fun news flash!  This weekend, I found something new about my body that makes me feel completely and utterly depressed.  Not just because I don't like it, and not because it reminds me how infrequently I'm working out.  No.  It's because well, it's my belly button.  And it's sad.

I've only recently discovered my belly button, which is why this is a sudden news flash, and I haven't had to deal with it for years now.  A significant portion of Friday afternoon was spent with my family on a backyard Slip 'n Slide.  Yes, side note, we own a Slip 'n Slide, even though our daughter isn't even 2 yet.  But for your information, we owned it long before she was ever born.  Oh, and this is the SECOND one we bought since we've been married.  So what.  We like to Slide.

So somewhere between chucking my daughter and myself down that slippery wet awesomeness, it seems I lost my belly button ring.  Don't cringe, it didn't hurt.  Everyone always cringes, but truly I didn't even notice till I found a portion of the ring lying at my feet.

Here I probably need to stop.  Yes, I have a pierced navel.  I did that with my roommates about 9 1/2 years ago.  No, I didn't have a sexy stomach then.  No, I don't have a sexy stomach now, and no where in the middle did I ever have a sexy stomach.  In the beginning we did it because it felt crazy and fun, like getting a tattoo that you could just pop out when you were done with it.  Later it became a thing where, well to be frank, my stomach looks better pierced than not-pierced.  Especially now, because due to fatness and post-pregnancy sagginess, my belly button is sad.

I think a really good belly button would always look somewhat surprised.

See how it stands there, gaping, open-mouthed at the sun?  It's beautiful.  It's filled with wonder and enjoyment.  Now that is a nice, surprised belly button.

This, on the other hand, is a sad belly button.  Notice how it is pucker faced and droopy.  It is not happy.  It is not going to gaze into the sunlight with awe-struck wonder.  It is going to hide beneath as many clothes as it could find, and it is going to pout.  Because that is what sad belly buttons do.

No, before you ask, this is not my belly button.  My belly button is less puckered and less droopy, but larger than this one.  Like a deep, gaping maw in the middle of my body.  I think it might possibly reach my spine.

Point being, I don't like my belly button.  I look at its sad little droopy face and I feel depressed.  Cheer up, ol' friend!  All is not lost!  Maybe I'll lose some weight and you'll be a little flatter, maybe even less droopy!  Or shoot, maybe I'll save up some money and have someone cut off you and the rest of my lower abdomen and have someone make me a new belly button.  A better belly button.  One that looks like the center of a sunshine, like it might just start singing cheery songs to me when I'm feeling blue.  Yes, I think this might be the plan.

But for now, I'm stuck with my old depressing belly button.  I'm tempted to get a new ring and hide him, but I know now that this is just a bandaid, a sad little mask hiding me from the truth.  For now, though, here's something to look at while I make the final decision: a belly button with a Harrison Ford smirk.

Hope you have a cheery-belly day!!

OooOOooooh Love Hurts

Shane and I got married a little over 5 years ago.  Just like most people on their wedding days, I felt very much caught up in the wonder and blessing of that moment.  FINALLY.  Finally, we get to stand before our friends, before God, and commit every one of our tomorrows to each other.  Finally we get to be together, be each other's family, to start our own life.  Finally, we get to be together, in love, forever.

Forever.  Now that's a crock.

Amidst the beauty and wonder of that amazing day, amidst the promises of love and commitment to each other and to God, I distinctly remember staring into the eyes of the man I loved and thinking one very clear thought:  This is NOT going to end well.

Now, I should probably say here, that when Shane and I said till death do us part, we meant it.  For better or worse, for happy about it or kicking and screaming, till DEATH do us part.  And that, my friends, is the real problem here.  We're not going to get a divorce.  Ever.  It's simply not an option, I-absolutely-do-not-care-what-happens-along-the-way-you-are-stuck-with-me-so-suck-it-Shane.  (You know, we didn't come out and say it, but I think the "Suck it" was really implied in our vows.)  But that fact, unfortunately, does not exactly guarantee you a happily ever after.  Death still happens.  As a woman, I've got a greater than 50% chance of outliving my spouse.  I do not like those odds.

Oh, and having kids, that's even worse.  I have a daughter.  She's almost two, and she's absolutely adorable.  She spends most of her day playing and giggling and making statements like, "Oh, you funny", "I loooooove Mommy" and "I looooooove Daddy".  She is rock freakin awesome and she makes my life like, 1000 times better.  But I will lose her.  WILL.  Even if she survives to a ripe old age, long past the day when I pass on, I will lose her.  She'll move away.  She'll get married.  She's certain to stop talking to me entirely by the time she turns 14. She'll grow up, and find her own life and own way and own family.  One way or another, I have a 100% chance of losing my sparkly eyed baby girl.

So why?  Why do we care about others?  Why do we get married?  Why do we have kids?  Why do we rip our own hearts out, hand them to others and simply say "There ya go, now be careful with that!"

I guess the answer must be that it's somehow worth it.  God gives us love to give, and we only really get to experience it when we take that risk, when we give it away.  Someday, whether days or decades from now, life is going to hurt like freakin crazy.  And I know that, because I have chosen to love.  And when it does, I hope I can remember that every moment, up to and including that one was an undeserved blessing.  In fact, maybe it's time to start remembering that now.

Hope you all can count your own undeserved blessings today!

Parenting Fail: How, it seems, I've given my daughter a weight complex

Despite my strong resolve to NOT pass my own body image issues to my pure, innocent child, it seems I have failed.  And she's only 21 months old.

A few weeks ago, when my daughter was going through a "hold me all the time I think the ground might be lava" phase, I may have, MAAAAY have told her that she was getting heavy.  I didn't call her fat (though she's heard me call myself fat, and repeated it, and there's a fat fish in a Dr. Seuss book that she likes to point out), I didn't call her chubby, or big, or anything I thought sounded offensive.  But now, every time I pick her up (only me, mind you, she doesn't say it with anyone else) she says in her most exaggerated tone: "Woooooaaaaaah Heeeaaaavy!" Come on Madelyn.  I wasn't THAT dramatic about it.  Cut me some slack!

When I was a child, my mom worked out some.  She had (like all women who have ever existed ever) put on some weight having my brother and I, and worked hard to try and get back in pre-parenting shape.

Now it's important that I say here, that I don't remember any of the following:
1) My mom complaining about her own weight
2) My mom seeming depressed about her weight
3) My mom calling herself fat
4) Anyone else calling my mom fat
5) And DEFINITELY, my mom calling me fat

What I do remember is a slightly shorter list:
1) That my mom occasionally exercised, mostly to videos on TV.
2) That she did some of this with me.
3) Sitting with her and doing stretches, when I had to have been no older than 4.
4) I remember that it hurt, and that I thus deduced that anything that caused me pain must be "healthy" for me.

Here's the point, though:  Somewhere in there, I became crazy.  I have memories of my 5, 6, 7 year old self, who was a little tall and knobby-kneed, thinking I was fat.  I was certainly a little taller and broader than a lot of my classmates, but that was my bones.  Not my fat.

I have no idea why I felt so insecure as a child, but I vowed to myself that I would do everything in my power to avoid that same fate for my child.  And what did I do? I went and called her heavy.  And she reminds me of that fact every freakin day.

Of course, as I am regularly reminded by friends and family, Madelyn is skinny.  Despite her sizeable cranium (that one's from me, thankyouverymuch) it seems quite obvious she has "her father's physique".  Seriously guys?  It's that obvious?  I'M A FRIGGIN SIZE 6, EVEN SIZE 4 ON A GOOD DAY!!!  I'm not a dang elephant or anything here, she... well, she could have my physique... Oh never mind.

Point being, she'll find plenty to complain about.  Every woman does.  I just really hope I didn't give her something to complain about before she hit the ripe old age of 2.

Even this crappy week has a bright side

Happy Belated Independence day everyone!

Sorry no posting lately, it's been an intense week in the Miller household.  To begin with, I haven't been able to go to bed and stay in bed through the night once since Saturday night.  UTI, baby with a stomach flu, and myself with a stomach flu have made this weeks worth of sleep practically non-existent.

Anyway, now that the throwing up and massive shakiness and pain are over, I'm able to see the brighter side to stomach-exploding flu symptoms:  Weight loss.

After this past weekend, which was filled with junk food and 4th parties, my weight had ballooned back up to around 150.  I wasn't too worried about it, my weight has been in the 146-151 range for a while now.  However today I weighed in at 144.5.

BOOM baby!  It's been a great number of years (about 6, I suppose) since I've seen the underside of 145, and as bad as this past day has been for me, I was really excited about that weigh in.  Here's hoping I can keep it off, only 4.5 pounds till Shane needs to start working on his six pack!

Hope your crappy day has its own wicked-awesome bright side, and hope no one thinks I've got an eating disorder for saying all of this. :-)