I feel fat!

Yes, I said it. I feel fat! Well I know, I know...I'm not fat, I'm pregnant....but that still doesn't stop myself from feeling like I'm just getting bigger and bigger. And today's doctor's appointment didn't help any. Well, I guess it kind of did help in a way...but....well you be the judge.

So, I get in the examination room and in comes the doctor (a cute 15minutes later....I hate waiting). He asks me the usual round of embarassing questions: "Any nipple discoloration?" "What color is your pee?" "Are you having regular bowel movements?" ya know....the usual...then he says, "Okay, lay back, its time to give the belly a feel, see how things are going."
Now, this part normally doesn't bother me too much because its not as invasive as the pelvic exam. All this part entails is you laying back on the table, unbuttoning your pants or pulling them down just a bit and the doctor just pushes lightly on your stomach to see how it is developing and to determine the placement of the baby.

Well, I lay back and I forgot to unbutton my pants. The doc says, "Whoops. You have to unbotton those for me first." So I do and of course the first thing he notices is the line imprinted on my stomach from the slight tightness of the jeans (skinny jeans) I was wearing. So he says, "Yep. Its now time for you to go get yourself some maternity pants." He pushed on my stomach a bit and then I could feel that the baby has now moved up a bit higher than my pelvis and the band of my pants was tight and digging in a bit to right where the belly is now forming. I immediately thought (and said out loud) "Oh no! Am I getting that fat already?" But this is why I say, maybe the appointment helped a bit, because the good ole doc said,

" You're not getting fat, you're getting more pregnant. Its perfectly natural. Most women will start to show a bit by the 3rd month and you're only 2 weeks away. You are just showing a bit early, and thats also normal for different women. I know you women get all bent out of shape when you have to relent and buy the pregnant pants, but the thing is, they are necessary. Its not good to have that pressure on the stomach from pants that are too tight."

I sat there and thought....okay...he's right. He also went on to say that I could buy the "Belly Band" which is a piece of cloth that goes over your unbuttoned pants so that the zipper can't be seen and that will allow you to wear your regular pants longer, he also said I could just use the old fashion trick of using a rubber band on the button of my jeans or a hair band.

After hearing all of this, I realized the man was right. I need to suck it up and start wearing the proper pregnancy clothes. Sometimes its difficult for me to come to this understanding because its a hard thing to swallow that I'm not like the "tiny girls" .....as much as I would like to be. For better or worse, I am my mother's daughter. I'm pretty tall, wider built with broad shoulders, and wide set hips, and a "bubble butt" (or ghetto booty as I like to call it haha). I am a woman who gains weight easily, and I'm a woman who shows her pregnant belly very early on. I'm not the tiny girl who can wear her regular jeans throughout her entire pregnancy. Nope, thats not me. I am me, and I need to learn to just accept that.

What goes along with this "I feel fat" feeling is this unshakeable feeling that I'm going to find myself back in the same weight gain situation I was in when I was pregnant with my first child. I don't know why, but there's this voice in the back of my head kind of saying that I'm going to get huge again no matter what I do. Now, I know that I'm doing everything I can in order to NOT let that happen: I'm working out, drinking my water, eating healthy foods, etc; but this voice is unrelenting and its just constantly causing this nagging feeling that again, I will fail and I'll have another 2 years of hard weight loss work ahead of me just to get back to pre-pregnancy weight.

This voice? I believe its the voice of self doubt and negativity. Its the voice that I've tried so hard to overcome for a while now. Its a voice that I thought I had stifled when I was getting down to my lower weight, but now that I see the scale creep up and up at each doctor's visit, that voice has come back with a vengance.

I'm guessing that the only thing I can do is more of the same. Keep working out as much as I'm comfortable with, keep eating healthier foods and cut out fast foods (which I have had a bit of lately....thats not good), and keep drinking my water. With all three of those things, I should be able to keep my weight gain to a minimum. My goal for my next doctor's appointment (which is set for May 4th, about a month away) is to be either the same weight, or slightly less. Maybe 5lbs less if I can swing it? We'll see. Lucky for me, the doctor said again today that losing weight (5-10lbs) is perfectly fine for me to do at this stage of the pregnancy. So, thats where my new goals are.

Been a long time, eh?

Yes, yet again, I'm coming back to this blog having had a rather lengthy gap in time since my last entry. But a lot has happened as many of you may know (some of you may not). As you might notice by the change in title, I'M PREGNANT!!! Yep. Thats for sure. Baby #2 is on the way and I couldn't be happier. Some of you that follow my YT videos may know that conceiving my second child has been a goal of mine for a while now, so I'm more than happy to have acheived that and I am now actively switching gears and looking forward to a healthy and happy pregnancy.

First of all, I have to be very honest here and admit that I am not starting this pregnancy at the weight I had originally hoped to. Initially, I had hoped to get down to a weight around 150 or lower before getting pregnant, however I've found myself at about 180 in the beginning stages of my pregnancy. Before getting "knocked up" (haha) the lowest recorded weight I hit was 167. The holidays were a definite killer on my health. I happened to gain about 10 pounds and even after the holidays when I started back at my healthy eating and working out routines, something just wasn't "there" anymore and the weight refused to budge. In fact, I began to gain a bit here and there. Thus, I am now at about 180.

I'm a little annoyed because my first OB GYN visit has be weighed in at 185, which is totally inaccurate because it was taken right after I had eaten a HUGE lunch of a sub sandwich, potato salad and lots of water. Plus, they don't allow you to take off extra clothing at the doctor's office (for obvious reasons) so some of that weight was from my jeans, sweater, and so on. I'm not trying to make any excuses, I'm just trying to be as accurate as possible. So the very next day after my first appoinment, I got up in the morning and weighed myself with no clothes on to get a true weight. It was 180. Thats what I'm going with.

After talking with my doctor, we have both agreed that I should stick with a 25-30lb weight gain for this pregnancy but no more than that. In fact, my doctor has actually encouraged me to keep exercising as much as I currently am and he even said that its okay for me to LOSE weight in the first and second trimesters! (That really shocked me!) But for now, I'm being realistic and saying that my goal is not to lose, but more so to just maintain the 180-190 weight range for as long as possible. I have given myself a weight limit of 215lbs for the entire pregnancy. Many of you might be thinking "WHOA! THATS A LOT!" But what you may not know is that I got all the way up to almost 270lbs before I gave birth to my first son, so a mere 215lbs is a whole lot better than that!

Anyway, the purpose of this initial blog is to kind of intro the new concept that I am now pregnant and instead of focusing on "weight loss" as I've been doing with this blog since the beginning of its creation, I will now be focusing on my pregnancy and being healthy. I may at times babble on about the woes and wonders of pregnancy, so if this is not what you care to read, then you may want to ignore my blog postings from here on out. But if you're interested, I hope you'll follow along.

I intend on making making periodic comparisons, by way of pictures, of this pregnancy as compared to my previous (very unhealthy) pregnancy 2.5 years ago.

Well, thanks for reading this far, and I hope you'll keep reading on in the future! Thanks to everyone who follows this blog for your continued support and interest.

Saturday Morning Thoughts...

I just finished one of the yummiest breakfasts I've had in a while [enter picture here]


That is a 3 egg omelet (yes, I'll admit, it should have been a 2 egg but I figured, eh, what the heck?) with sauteed onions and bell peppers on the inside. And yes, that is ketchup on top...don't judge me....I like ketchup on my eggs. lol But, this breakfast is not the topic of this blog entry.

Yesterday I watched a video someone posted on FB. I can't remember who posted it and I don't have the link to it but I'll try and describe the video to you the best I can. In the video it showed a series of clips of a large woman who was talking about being Fat. She made some very good points-like the fact that many 'trendy' clothing stores don't carry sizes big enough to fit the average American woman (which if you didn't know, the national average size of an American woman is 12-14)- and its facts like that which I completely agreed with. But then there was a portion of this video that I couldn't help but completely disagree with. The woman went on to say that the only way to be thin and STAY thin was essentially to have good genes (she made reference to having thin parents and ideally 4 thin grandparents). To me, this is a cop-out. My family history has "large" women up and down the family line. Just because my family history is of large women, doesn't mean that I have to simply "accept" the fact that I'm fat and that I most likely won't be able to change that. To me, thats not a "truth" at all.

The woman in the video goes on to state a very true statistic that 95-98% of people that lose 75lbs or more, eventually go on to gain every single pound back within 3 years, most of them gain it back within one year. As I said, this statistic is absolutely true and I don't refute it one bit. But here's the thing, those people? The ones that gain the weight back so quickly? The reason why they gain the weight back - in my humble opinion - is because they didn't go about losing the weight in the right way in the first place. I've pretty much preached this since I can remember, but losing weight FOR GOOD is not just about diet and exercise, its about changing the way yo think, react and regard food in general. Its about transforming yourself into a completely different person. Its more about the MENTAL PROCESS of losing weight than it is about the physical one.

Think about it. The mental battle of weight loss is MUCH more difficult than the physical one. I mean, is it hard to run 3 miles? Yes, and thats certainly a struggle for many people. But is it harder to resist certain bad habits, like over-eating, or sweet cravings, etc etc etc? Yes. The answer is Yes. It is tremendously more difficult to transform our brains and the way we think about things, than it is to physically do certain things. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you go about losing weight the wrong way- i.e. rapid weight loss fads, diet pills, starving yourself, dieting fads, etc - you will eventually get to your goal, sure! But once you get there, you will have taught yourself nothing. You will have learned no new skills with which to help you MAINTAIN the weight loss you have accomplished. And if anybody reading this disagrees with that, then you better not read any more of my blog, because we will likely not see eye-to-eye on many things.

Back to the video, it was really odd for me. I mean, the woman's message in the video was to stop making excuses. In her opinion many "Fat" people use their fat as an excuse. Like, "Oh I'll go on that vacation when I look good in a bikini" or "I'll go on that trip when I lose 30lbs" etc. And the woman in this video was saying that those were excuses to stop living. Well, I agree. But rather than "owning your fat-ness" as the woman in the video was encouraging, I say, why not CHANGE YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES????? I'm not someone sitting here on a high horse and preaching that we should all be size 2's or else we're not beautiful, or worthy of living life. I'm NOT saying that AT ALL. I'm simply making a point that if you feel your weight is holding you back from doing the things that you really want to do, THEN MAKE THE DECISION TO FIX IT ONCE AND FOR ALL!

I'm all for people being happy and confident in the skin they're in. I'm a happy and healthy size 10 at the moment and I couldn't be happier about that. I'm what most people would categorize as "curvy", or in my husband's own words, "thick". And guess what? I like that! Now, am I still interested in losing weight? Yes.

'Well why would you want to lose weight, Julie, if you claim to be happy?"

Why? Well, there are quite a few reasons. #1 - I'm pretty much addicted to fitness and exercise. It has become more than a hobby, it has become my life. So being as active as I am, I can logically assume that losing more weight will happen almost automatically. Healthy weight loss is almost synonymous with an active lifestyle. #2 - I've also created a love for running within myself. And I know that losing a little bit more weight will make running longer distances easier on my body (specifically my knees and other joints that take a beating with running in general). Its a goal of mine to someday run a full marathon, I'm running a half marathon (13.1 miles) this April, so training for that and hopefully shedding a few pounds beforehand will likely make it much easier for me! #3- Although I'm happy with the way I look and how I feel at this weight, according to my doctors, I'm still not at a "healthy/normal" weight for my height. I'm still a good 15-20lbs overweight. Its my goal to be in a healthy or normal weight category according to my doctor's charts. And I think thats okay. I'm not interested in losing my curves or becoming as skinny as one of those anorexic-looking runway models, mostly because I think they are not beautiful at all. I'm just interested in being healthy. And no matter what ANYONE says, being obese or simply overweight as I am now, is not healthy for your body in the long run.

So there you have it. Thats what I've been thinking about this morning. I know there are going to be some people out there that disagree with me, or have seen this video and think this woman was completely right, and hey! Thats fine! To each his own. However, this is my take on things.

And the Vlogging starts.....again.

Hello everyone. LOOK! I'm updating the blog and it hasn't been like a month! haha This is called improvement. I might try to just update weekly, and maybe a few entries here or there if I have something terribly intelligent and insightful to talk about. (Which barely ever happens as I'm not very insightful or intelligent! hahaha I crack myself up!)

So, here we are in the first full week of the New Year, and I couldn't be happier. I've already began my Half Marathon training schedule, I'm successfully tracking my foods and counting my calories in and out, I'm drinking more water than I have been for the past month or so....in general, I'm back to my old self! YAY! I've decided that I will continue to be "on track" for this entire week before stepping on that damn scale. So come Monday morning, we'll have an accurate idea of my "beginning" weight for this year. My theory is that I've likely gained a bit from the holiday celebrations and inactivity, so why not give my body some time to naturally shed a bit of that weight before I step on the scale and watch the world fall to pieces around me.

Also, THE VLOGS ARE BACK! I am filming today and will have it posted either late tonight or early tomorrow morning. I'm ready to get back to making regular videos. Not only to help myself but also to help others. And as I mentioned in my previous entry, my school schedule for this Spring semester is much less demanding which allows me more time to dedicate to filming, editing, and uploading a video each day. My goal is to do daily vlogs for the next 3 or 4 months. By the end of those 3 or 4 months, we'll see where I am. Hell, I might even be at my goal weight! Crazy huh?

For those of you reading this, you're getting a bit of a "sneak peak" on what I'm going to be talking about in today's vlog. I'm going to attempt to explain what MY New Years Resolutions really are and what I'm doing to acheive them. Thats all I'm going to tell you about that. Tune in to the channel later tonight to watch the rambling.

Thats all I really have for today. As I said, I may be updating the blog here and there so keep your eyes peeled for an update on my facebook page. I hope all of you are having a wonderful first week of the New Year. I can tell already that 2012 is going to be a GREAT year for many of us. If we really stick with it, make NO EXCUSES, and put in some hard work, we will ALL reach our goals. It all boils down to one question: How bad do you want it?

New Beginnings...

WHAT?!?!?! Its been over a month since my last entry? What is this nonsense? I certainly need to correct this sporadic blogging behavior of mine, and I DO intend to do so. This coming New Year is going to bring some much needed change to my life and my goals in the near future. I was going to wait until January 1st to make this entry, but then I thought, there's no time like the present. So, here it goes:

Let me start by explaining something I realized rather recently. I've come to the realization that I'm being a coward. I'm using the excuse of 'trying to conceive' as a way to not put in as much work as I used to. This is not okay. Yes, it is no secret that my husband and I are working on Baby#2, but that is no excuse for me to stop tracking my food and caloric intake and its certainly no reason for me to stop going to the gym for days at a time. This is me being very honest with anyone and everyone who is reading this: I have been on a Food-Free-For-All for the past month or so, and as a result I stepped on the scale to find myself at about 179.8........so lets face it, I'm back to 180. NO!!!!!! THIS I do NOT want. I do not want to go backwards with my weight loss.

I do understand that whenever I do become pregnant, weight gain is pretty much inevitable (however it is possible to keep it to a minimum), but as of right now, why not continue to lose? I sat back yesterday and I thought about the things my doctor told me I should do while trying to conceive. No where in his instructions did he say that I should not exercise and eat whatever I want. I've been blaming my junk food intake and lack of activity on school and its intense nature the last month (which is totally true! School was BRUTAL this last semester), but there it is again, another excuse. When I started this journey to health and fitness in October 2009, I vowed to STOP making excuses. Here, I have reverted to my old ways of excuse making. THAT needs to stop.

So, whats my plan? Well, its back to the basics. Its back to tracking my foods and calories. Its back to a regular, planned, workout routine. Now, I am going to lower my activity to only one workout session per day (this is because of my goal of conception) but I will be more strict and focused on my foods and their health value. I'm also coming back to making WL Vlogs. I know I have been pretty absent from the world of Youtube, and that really IS because of school. I simply didn't have the time to shoot, edit, and upload videos every day or as often as I wanted to. But this New Year is coming at a great time. This New Year and new goals coincides with a much less demanding school schedule, which will enable me to make more regular videos, as an added bonus I'm (hoping) to receive a boost in support, which I have been missing for some time now.

Secondly, I have a new fitness goal! I have decided to run The Atlantic City April Fools Half Marathon. It is scheduled for Sunday, April 1st, 2012! 13.1 miles. Yep. I'm gonna do it! I've already printed out my training schedule for the Half and I'm planning on using that schedule as my new workout routine. If anyone is interested in seeing my training schedule, here's the link:

http://www.halhigdon.com/halfmarathon/novice.htm

I cannot tell you how good it feels to have a fitness goal like this to work towards. Now, of course, I know there are going to be those who read this and say something like, 'How in the hell can she train like that and run a half marathon if she's also trying to get pregnant? Thats not good for the baby!' blah blah blah. To that argument (or criticism) I say this: Everyone is different. I may be able to run a half marathon and still get pregnant, others may not. Trust me, I will be as careful as is possible. And in my defense, does anyone remember the lady who recently ran the Chicago Marathon while 9months pregnant? She crossed the finish line and went into labor, and had a PERFECTLY HEALTHY baby. See? It IS possible to still do these kinds of physical things AND be pregnant. Now, am I intending on running a marathon while I'm 9 months pregnant? No. Not at all. BUT, I DO intend on running this Half Marathon whether trying to conceive or in the early stages of my next pregnancy, and that's that!

So there you have it. There's my New Year plan in a nutshell. I'm not going to sit here and make some grandiose statement of a Goal weight and a date to reach it by during this year. I'm not even going to refer to the scale at this moment. I'm just going to get back in the routine of doing things the way I know I should be doing them if I want to lose weight and/or be healthy. The scale will come in to play later.....MUCH later. (haha) So, if anyone wants to follow along, I encourage you to keep an eye out for new videos from me on Youtube, as I will be coming back shortly after the New Year. I will also be using MyFitnessPal to track my meals and calories, so you can find me on there as well.

I want to wish EVERYONE a wonderful, happy and HEALTHY New Year. May you work hard and reach all the goals (or resolutions) you set out for this year. Work hard, and you will.

Being "sick" confuses me....

I know, the title may seem a little odd, but its really the truth. Sometimes I get confused when I'm "sick". I put the word sick in quotations because for me, being TRULY sick and just being "sick" are two very different things. What I mean is, when I'm TRULY sick, I characterize that as throwing up, fever, aches all over, I mean, being in bed. To me, THAT is being sick. But when I say that right now I'm "sick" I simply mean that I've got an annoying headcold that just won't quit. I've been batteling it since Sunday and its still going strong. I'm taking medicine and I've scaled down my workouts accordingly (so I don't over work my body and get even more sick). This headcold, and ones I've had in the past, are really hard to read. When I wake up in the morning, its the worst. I'm coughing and hacking, my nose is completely clogged, and my head feels like a brick. But I take some medicine, I drink something hot, and my nose starts to loosen up a bit, my throat starts to feel better and my head clears up. Then I go to the gym. Since I've been dealing with this cold, I've scaled down to just an hour or less of light exercise in the morning, usually either cardio or strength training. I'm not kidding you, THE SECOND that I start working out, everything feels 100% better. And I come home feeling like I'm not sick at all! Then, inevitably, at about 7pm it hits me again. I start to feel groggy, stuffy, and clogged up again. WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!?!

ITS ANNOYING, THATS WHAT IT IS!!!!!

You wanna know what else annoys me? I mentioned to the girl at the front desk of gym (whom I'm sort of friendly with) that I was starting to feel a bit of a cold coming on. The next day she was working in the daycare area. As soon as I walked in the door she said, "YOU SHOULD NOT BE PUSHING YOURSELF!" Okay, I appreciate the concern, however, how do you know if I'm truly pushing myself or not? I politely went on to explain to her that I actually have been feeling BETTER after I work out, to which she replied, "Yeah, you feel better but you're wearing yourself out when you need to rest." Okay, this is where I became a bit annoyed. Obviously, I'm not going to be going to the gym if I'm showing a fever or feeling weak and light headed or whatever. THAT would be completely stupid to continue working out when you're feeling that way. But this? This is just a head cold! Its about the same as allergies! You can still function when it hits. I can still walk, run, lift weights, etc. And whats more, I WANT TO! I'll be the first to tell you that when I feel weak or tired and I'm also showing signs of an illness, I DO NOT go to the gym or go workout outside. Because I KNOW thats not what your body needs. However, if I'm just feeling a bit sniffly, with a bit of an itchy throat, I find thats no reason to stop working out altogether.

So, I know this is going on a bit of rant here. All I'm trying to say is, shit like that annoys me. I'm not an idiot. And I know what I can and cannot do. Its my body! I know what its capable of. A mere bystander does not. Its kind of the same way I feel when someone says, "Oh, you're going to get to skinny! You're crazy! You need to stop with the weight loss!" That annoys me as well for the same reasons. I'm super healthy and I'm very active. I eat, and I eat well. Short of me starving myself or puking up my food, I feel that no one has the right to tell me when 'enough is enough' in terms of my personal health and fitness goals. Same goes for the afforementioned scenario. If you see me about to pass out and still going for a run, THEN you can tell me I need to cool it and maybe go home and rest. Short of that? Keep your opinions to yourself.

And yes, I do recognize that when you have even just a headcold, you need to allow your body to rest. So thats why I've planned 2 days of complete rest instead of my usual 1 day a week. This is also why I've scaled back my workouts considerably. But, I still like to get that workout once a day, at least for 30 minutes. I see nothing wrong with that.

So there you have it. I had some free time today and this was just something that was bugging me a bit. Figured I would share and see if anyone agrees or has any thoughts regarding this. On another note, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Be responsible with your eating if you can. And if you can't? I suggest that you kick it into high gear and do something extra as a means of damage control on Friday. Me? I'm planning on an early morning run before the day's festivities (A.K.A. eating till you can't breathe). However, I've promised myself that I will NOT eat too much. I REFUSE to walk away from that table feeling too full and feeling sick. Small portions of everything, only one helping, no seconds, and I'm done! I like to follow a little motto from Bethenny Frankel. She says, "Taste everything, eat nothing". I'll be repeating that in my head when I sit down to eat tomorrow.

Enjoy your Turkey Day and be thankful for everything you have, because we are all blessed. Sometimes, we just don't stop to think about it.

New Goals...for now...

I realize, yet again, that its been quite a while since I graced my own blog with an update. Well, here I am! I feel the need to apologize to those who are kind enough to follow along and read the posts whenever I do post them. Then again, I know these happy few people don't mind and know how busy I've been lately with school. But with my busy schedule has come a new game plan....for the time being. Allow me to explain:

Its odd for me to talk about this subject, because I don't want to sound as if I'm boasting my accomplishments. On the other hand I'm also concious of "counting my eggs before they've hatched" or whatever that old saying is. I don't want to say that I'm already at my final goal, because thats not true! But, I am so very close to my final goal, that getting there no longer seems like such a long, arduous task. What I mean is, here I sit, hovering between 168lbs-170lbs. For all intents and purposes, I've lost a solid 90+ lbs, give or take a few. And although I am not finished, I'm kind of at a standstill, and here is where my problem lies. My standstill of weight loss is the dreaded "plateau" that many of us hear about, but maybe have not truly experienced it yet. I thought I experienced plateau's in the past, but no, I didn't. The previous "plateaus" were breakable within a month or so. Here I sit, for the past two and a half months and my weight has not budged. Yes, I'm eating VERY healthy foods. Yes! I'm still active, if not, even MORE active than I have been in the past. Yes, I'm concious of proper fueling of my body and I'm NOT throwing myself into starvation mode. The fact of the matter is, I'm simply at a weight plateau. This is not so say that I should simply "Give up" and accept the fact that 170lbs (or so) is simply where my body is comfortable. I refuse to give up and I refuse to accept that this is as good as it gets in terms of health and fitness. I mean, I'm going to run a marathon someday people! I AM! Thats a new future goal of mine. So, I'm definitely not someone who is just going accept my body at this weight. I'm still focused on losing, defining, and conditioning my body to become the best runner I can be. My only hiccup right now, is my current life circumstances.

I've talked in the past about wanting to add to my family with another child. Without getting all graphic on my readers, I'll have you know that I'm actively working on that goal. In talking with my doctor, he advised me that before we ('we' meaning women) get pregnant, we should be treating our bodies as if we're already pregnant, in a way. Obviously this would mean, no binge drinking or heavy drinking, no drugs (which include recreational drugs but mainly in reference to medications that you're not supposed to take while pregnant) and of course he mentioned my increased activity. He suggested that I continue to be healthy and active, however, he urged me to decrease my intensity a bit regarding my workout sessions and he asked that I limit myself to a few days a week.

So here I am, listening to my doctor.....sort of. Now, I know I might catch a bit of flack for saying this, but.....his advice is just that. It is ADVICE. It was not a direct order, but more of a suggestion. So, I'm listening to him....about halfway. (haha) I've decreased my intensity during my workouts although I still go to the gym about 5 or 6 days a week. Instead of working out for 2 hours a day, I limit my workouts to an hour or sometimes just one Spin Class for 45minutes. I think this is okay. And on days where I feel tired or sore, I do allow myself a day off from activity. I'm telling you all this to tell you that although I'm still eating healthy and being active, I'm no longer focused on "losing losing losing" at this point. And given my current life goal of adding another child to my family, I think this is okay. Whenever I do become pregnant, I will then become refocused on being as active and healthy as possible during that pregnancy and keeping my weight gain to a healthy minimum (the doctor said we would discuss this when the time came).

I guess all of the above reasoning is also why I've been absent from making my YT videos. I kind of thought to myself, who wants to watch someone who is maintaining her weight where it is, but acknowledges that she is NOT yet at her goal, which is where maintenance should truly occur? LOL Its confusing and I did not want to send the wrong message to any viewers and lead them to believe that I'm giving up or just accepting myself as is. I do accept myself, I love myself! I've been saying this for the longest time, we need to love ourselves first and foremost, before we can ever expect to have success with weight loss. Remember, the correct formula for weight loss is: "I love myself, SO, I'm going to lose weight and have a happy, healthy life." -At least, thats the correct formula as I see it- And that is where I am! I'm happy with my health and athletic abilities, heck, I'm even happy with what I see when I look in the mirror! But the goal of another child is more important to me right now than losing pounds and inches, and I think thats okay.

I would like to make a very BOLD statement in this blog though. I'm making this statement so later down the line, when and if I do feel like giving up, I can read this and be reminded of my true goals and aspirations. Here is the statement: After the birth of my next child, I will not rest until I reach my ultimate goal weight. I believe that a healthy weight for my height and particular build is anywhere between 140lbs - 150lbs. So thats my goal. I'll split the difference and say 145lbs just to be fair. So, these are my new goals.....for now:

#1 - Be healthy and active.

#2- Have a healthy pregnancy.

#3-Post pregnancy, its back to work and acheiving my ultimate goal. No excuses.

So, I'm not giving up. I'm actively choosing to remain where I am. For me, this is whats right at this point in my life.