Day 287: Real Beauty

“Real beauty isn’t about symmetry or weight or makeup. It’s about looking life right in the face and seeing all its magnificence reflected in your own. ~Valerie Monroe~

I was thinking about body image this morning because for a long time I had a distorted view of my own body. When I looked in the mirror I didn’t see the reality that everyone else saw. Maybe I just didn’t want to, because it was too painful. It took those Christmas photo’s to shock me back to reality and to see just how far I had let myself go. I still have a lot of weight to lose and I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to fitness, but I’ve reached a point where it no longer feels like a mountain I can’t climb. I can take a picture of myself and not be afraid to let others see it. I can’t remember the last time a glance made me think that person was judging me because of my weight. I’ll never be a size 4 and I won’t have the body of a 20 year old but I’ll have something I am happy with. Something I can live with. That will be enough. At some point I need to shift the focus of my exercise from weight loss to muscle toning. It’s the only way I’m going to flatten my stomach to something I can live with, but I dread it. Strengthening the abs will help my back as well so I'm going to have to force myself to get started. Whether sit ups or crunches even if I start with 1 it's a start .. and 1 will become 2 and 2 will become 3. I spend a lot of time at home in the winter so it’ll be a good time to get this party started ! I picked out a basic home gym and just need to get it ordered. Going back to body image, I was never one to wear black, even though as a large woman it was supposed to be “slimming”. Sorry, but if you weigh over 300 pounds you can’t really hide that by wearing black. 300 pounds is 300 pounds no matter what color your clothes are. So I never embraced wearing dark colors. I wasn’t about to hide. Now that I’m smaller, I actually don’t mind wearing black. I wore all black today and I loved the outfit. I still like bright colors so I’m not going to the dark side forever but I won’t automatically skip over black tops anymore. There are plenty of large women who claim to be happy with their body and I have a hard time believing that. Being very overweight is going to put limitations on your life that being a healthy size doesn’t, and eventually your health will suffer because of it. I guess if they really and truly are “happy” as they are, then more power to them ! I’m all for not judging people by their weight or looks and I only can only go by how losing weight has made me feel. I thought I was “happy” 100 pounds ago. Guess what ? I was not – so I was eating to dull the pain and make me feel what I thought was happiness. In reality, what I feel today is true unadulterated happiness. Does that make me shallow ? I don’t think so. Feeling good about the way you look is a good thing and I shouldn’t have to hide that, especially after so many years of hating the way I looked.

Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce cinnamon roll with maple pecan coffee. Second cup on the go was brown sugar crumble. Breakfast power fuel was 100 calorie string cheese. I have a bunch of these so I’m trying to eat them up ! Morning snack was a 155 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 3.8 ounce 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt with raw carrots. Afternoon snack was a 5.3 ounce Light & Fit caramel apple pie yogurt and 2.5 cups (100 calories) of Skinny Pop popcorn. This left 365 calories for dinner and an evening snack. Dinner was a 4 ounce 180 calorie artichoke & spinach stuffed chicken breast with brussel sprouts. Evening snack was a cup of hazelnut coffee and a 1.8 ounce 150 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1165 and I got about 80 ounces of water in.

I got my workout in before dinner tonight and I'm really finding this works so much better and I was good and hungry when I got done ! Tonight I completed workout #4 in the Grand Canyon, which was a steady pace of 2.6 mph for about 27 minutes then 2.8 for another 3. These are downhill hikes but my treadmill doesn't have decline so it's a relatively easy workout. A couple weeks ago I deleted the photo album on Facebook of my completed workouts. Every time I missed a day it bothered me and I realized that, although I was using it for accountability, it had become a source of unnecessary stress. I've exercised almost every day ever since, so dumping that turned out to be a good call. I do still document my workouts here, log the information in the Nutrisystem app (NuMi) and I monitor my stats on the iFit website & app, so I'm not hiding anything. One cool feature of iFit is you can see your "all time" stats ! I've put 285 miles on the treadmill, which equates to over 113 hours and 46,197 calories burned ! 

Today turned out to be another cold, gray and rainy day. Since it was only sprinkling at lunch time I went out and put gas in the car. Still loving the fact I don’t have to do this after work or on the weekend ! The drive home was another slow one because of the rain, wind and wet roads. Looks like we're getting a break from the rain for a couple days ! I'm just glad there is no snow in the forecast ! I'm also glad tomorrow is Friday and a work at home day ! I have a lot of work to get done so I'm hoping to be extra productive ! I'm also voluntarily putting in 4 hours of work on Saturday to help out. After that I'd like to get my hair cut and maybe drag mom out for dinner. She'd like to get to Red Lobster's unlimited shrimp one last time and I have a hankering for broiled haddock - no more unlimited shrimp for me !

My abdominal pain and discomfort finally subsided and I slept much better last night, so that was a relief. Still, I hated to get out of my nice warm bed this morning ! On that note, it's time for a hot shower and then I'm crawling back into that nice warm bed !