Independence Day!

On holidays it’s become a bit of an obsession for me to ‘get a good workout in’ before I feel like I can really relax and enjoy myself.  Furthermore…  the food.  Holy canolli!  No matter how healthy I try to be and balanced with vegetables and stuff, the sheer variety of choices is a lure to me and I want to try all the things then get seconds on what was the best.  Eyeroll.  I use control, unlike days of yore.  I’ll literally make a plan and try to stick with it by prioritizing what looks interesting and what I can live without.  It sounds silly, but for a food addict like me, these kinds of strategies are key if I want to beat the statistics and not gain my weight back.  I know this is off track but it’s the way my mind works, however I really connect to people’s stories of addiction and recovery from drugs and alcohol.  Listening to Macklemore’s Starting Over, where he talks about relapsing back into sizzerup then heading back to a meeting moves me tremendously and I connect to the public pressure he’s put on himself, the fear of failure, leaving behind the scent of poseur…  it’s shocking how similar my recovery can feel.  I don’t say that often, but damn.  I have to eat so dealing with this demon is a daily occurrence…  A lifestyle.  It has to be.  Anyhow.

We went for the First Ever Annual Lj Independence Day 5k!  I roused my family bright and early and we hit the road right as the heat started to hit.  We ran a little slow since not everyone has been training this spring, but all of us made it.  At the end, each of us collected our fancy schmancy handmade medal.  I’m excited to keep on with this tradition if only to get to make medals every year!  I was especially gratified when Bradley thanked me for taking him out and running.  Made me wanna shed a lil tear!   


This afternoon I got all serious about documenting my arm progress.  I wanted to take pictures so I could see the changes, come August, but I was pleased to see how my arms already look.  I’ll still be excited to see the changes in August, but wow!  It’s so fun, the privilege of a healthy body.  I truly am grateful that I’m capable of making the changes and playing the game of seeing what I can do.  I decided to make a comparison to the arms progress pics I made four years ago and was so pleased to see how far I’ve come since then!  After feeling all cocky at seeing that, I decided to really test my mettle and made this:


I’ve been feeling super down about my weight gain.  I saw some ‘beginning of second grade with Mrs. L’ compared with ‘end of second grade with Mrs. L’ student pics at the end of the year and I felt super discouraged that the kids weren’t the only ones that grew.  I showed some serious side to side growth.  I screwed up my courage today and put this together and discovered that it’s not nearly as bad as I thought!  Yes, I have gained a larger circumference but it’s not totally horrible.  My thighs, belly and boobs seem to show the most but it’s not so terrible!  I’m having the opposite response than the one I usually have- usually I’m unpleasantly surprised!  Ha ha! Onward into summer!  Tomorrow I’ll tackle another body pump class.  

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