Loving my Mama Body

Time to break out my Nowex Dusting Mitt and dust off this blog.



Now I'm going to tell you why.

First, I need to post Damon's birth story.  (I am not doing that this post, but I will in my next one.)  Maybe I just don't have enough to do.  Well, that's not true.  3 kids - 2 of them very little.  Jamberry business - over 150 ladies on my team - and I want to be an encouragement to them and I want to be attentive to my amazing customers. Housework - yep, I should probably do, that, too.

This doesn't count my amazing husband.  He deserves my love and attention.
This doesn't count my amazing God, who blesses me even when I forget to read His word regularly, or miss mass.

I know I can find more.  More things I'm supposed to be doing.  So maybe firing up my blog again is "creative avoidance".  That could be.  But I'm going to hopefully use it for more than that.

7 years ago, we lost our first baby to miscarriage in February.  We lost another that same June.  That month (June 2009), I committed to getting healthy and losing weight.  I was inspired by a friend who was blogging about her weight loss (that's you, Megan!), and I decided to share with the masses.  I had people who read my blog weekly to see how I was doing.  I had people who cheered me and encouraged me.

Here I am, 7 years later, and I still have people in my corner.  Matt is #1.  He loves me for the way I am (and how my body looks) right now.  He would be happy if I looked like this forever.  He's NOT happy with the way I feel about myself and talk about myself.  I have a BeachBody coach, Brandon, who is incredible.  He's encouraging and inspiring.  I have family and friends who love me and would ALL be amazing accountability partners.  So I was going to reach out to one of them (you) and ask for help.  But I remembered how scared I was to share my weight here.  Yep, my ACTUAL weight.  I remember how excited you all got when I succeeded and learned about myself.  I remember how you rejoiced with me when I ran my first (and only - SO FAR) half marathon.  I remember how you followed us as we welcomed our children.

I'm leaning on you - all of you - again.  I need more than just cheers when I lose weight, exercise, and eat well.  I need reminded that my body is amazing - RIGHT NOW.  My body delivered 3 babies into this world.  My body has fed those babies using milk that I made.   My body has held, snuggled, and loved those 3 babies for almost 5 years now.  This body, my body, that I say bad things about?  It's amazing.  It's incredible.  God made my body and designed it to do what it has done!

I need to love myself and I need you to CATCH ME when I say things about myself that aren't honoring my body.  And this body?  It's capable of so much.  I know that.  I've seen it.  I've been there.

The plan - starting today - NOT Monday (I always say, "I'll start again on Monday" - which is my weigh-in day):

• First and foremost - love my body.  Write 1 thing about my body that I love every day.  
• Track my food.  I know that I'm not going to stick to the "perfect" diet every day.  But I can do so much better when I track it.  I'm less likely to eat something I don't need when I write it down.  
• Plan exercise I can maintain and want to do.  This may very well be walks with the kids, playing outside with the kids, and getting on the elliptical while I watch episodes of my favorite shows.  It's more than I've been doing this last month, so that's a great start.  
• Make weekly short term goals and post them here.  
• Before I'm allowed to blog again: 
• Read daily from my awesome devotional
• Order a book I've been needing to order about emotional eating (I know, Cassie and Gretchen, I should have done it a long time ago.  I wasn't ready then.)
• Check 6 things off my Jamberry to-do list
• Write 1 thing I love about my body
• Plan food for the week
• Plan exercise for the week

I haven't weighed myself since last Monday, and my weight then was 182.1.  I couldn't face the scale Monday after the way I ate last week.  I will weigh in again Monday and update.  Check out my ticker at the top of the page: goal weight - 140.  If I lose 1 pound per week, that puts me at goal weight just after the New Year.  But more than that, I want to be healthy - emotionally and physically.

And I want to love my Mama Body.