New Year - New Me

I managed to live through Christmas without gaining any weight, which is actually surprising since I felt like I was eating all day long the days leading up to Christmas. Mission accomplished.

Now we're in the home stretch to the new year. Tomorrow is NYE. For some reason I decided to get nostalgic and rummaged through an old box of pictures that was out in the garage.

A couple of things that I noticed:
1) I've come a long way when it comes to my weight. But more importantly, in looking back at old pics of myself from high school, through college, with my first love, and through my marriage I never once remember caring or rather obsessing with how I looked. I was anorexic thin in 8th grade, remained muscular/stocky throughout high school, gained some weight in college and just packed on the pounds when I was married. But I never let the weight stop me from wanting my picture taken. It's not until I got divorced did I really take stock of myself and my health did I start obsessing about it. Then losing close to 50 lbs and landing my now boyfriend who at the time was one of the hottest guys I've ever met, and knowing that he would never have considered me 50 lbs ago just reinforced my obsession. But just like most long term relationships, you get comfortable and slowly the weight crept back on and I gained about 30 lbs back. As soon as that weight came back, I didn't want my picture taken and I really didn't want to socialize with his friends because I was ashamed. They only knew me as being relatively thin so to be fat was embarrassing. Not that they even cared about that, but that was how I felt so I isolated myself and my boyfriend from his friends. The sad thing is that by doing that, I feel like I lost 4 years of my life, our life. I just really need to work on not making my weight define who I am.
2) I realize that I've changed so much over the years, to the point where I can't remember how I was back then. It's actually pretty scary because I can't remember a lot of things from my college years (and I didn't drink so I can't blame it on that). I see pictures of the people I went to school with and can't even remember their names or anything about when the picture was taken. Then I see pictures of my wedding and my ex and our dog and first house and feel like it was like a different lifetime. I use to cook, I was the submissive wife and I looked happy. But I was HUGE! I wasn't taking care of myself whatsoever so the smile on the outside was really hiding the misery inside. The only thing I miss from that relationship is my yellow lab Willy and seeing pictures of him as a puppy and then as a young dog makes my heart ache. He really was my baby and he will always have a place in my heart.
3) I also realize that I need to start taking more pictures to document points of time in my life. Case in point, I have only have 1 picture of me after losing 30 lbs. I mean really?! I hope to maintain this weight for a long time but there are no guarantees. I bought my boyfriend a small handheld video recorder for Christmas so we can start filming things, especially our dogs. Simba is 11 years old now and as much as I want him to live forever, I know he won't. I don't know if I'd be able to watch old videos of him after he passes but it would be nice to have.

So with the new year upon me, I have no resolutions. I don't believe in them. I just want to continue to live healthy both inside and out. There is no winning when it comes to the battle of the bulge. It will be a constant battle for me and I can accept that. I just bought some resistance bands and got the P90X workout dvds and the Physique 57 dvds to change up my workouts. I did the P90X cardio, plyometrics, and yoga dvds and they are incredibly intense which is good. I'm in excruciating pain today but I know that it's a good pain. I did find out that I have terrible balance and weak core strength and not much flexibility but I know that I just have to keep working on that. I also signed up for 2 half marathons in 2011 already to keep me motivated.

I do realize that I'm probably the best shape I have been in years and I am relishing in that. Knowing how hard I worked to get to this point a second time has made it all the more rewarding. I hope that I never forget it!!