Fear

We allow fear to rule our lives.

Don't act like you don't, because you do.

We are afraid of so many things, both real and imagined.

We are afraid of being ourselves, we are afraid of failure, we are afraid of trying because we are afraid of failure, we are afraid of what people will think or say about us when we do something, we are afraid of commitment, we are afraid of wasting our time or money, we are afraid of going outside our comfort zone, we are afraid of not living life to the fullest, we are afraid of not living up to our potential, we are afraid that we will leave things undone or things unsaid, that we will die young, that we will live to be too old, that our kids won't be successful, that they won't go to a good college or get a good job, that our parents will get sick or die, we are afraid of being afraid, we are afraid to live it seems like.

 

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Look there are a million effing excuses out there for why you don't do something.

But all you need is ONE reason TO do it!

 

There were a million reasons that I had to not start living a healthier lifestyle. It was expensive, it was time consuming, it was hard, I was fat, I was really fat, I felt bad, people would look at me strange when I tried to exercise or came out of the GNC, no one would get it.

Because lets me honest, that meme is true: bring out a Whopper with large fries and a coke and no one bats an eye; bring out brown rice and chicken with veggies in a Rubbermaid container and folk lose their minds.

This is really what we have made our society. Where if you eat healthy food you are weird because you aren't supposed to eat that and if you lose weight you must be 'doing something' to get there.

What if what you are doing is now giving a flying f**k about yourself?

Wouldn't that blow people's minds?

 

But don't you do Beachbody?

Yes, but Beachbody isn't a fad, it isn't a lose weight quick scheme, it isn't restrictive, it isn't one of these passing BS things that you see on TV that tell you that they are healthy.

Beachbody is exercise and teaching about healthy eating habits that you can keep with you forever!

I did Beachbody not because I thought it was a quick fix (I knew it wasn't) I did it because I had hit a plateau with my weightloss and I was getting tired of doing the same stuff for exercise. I wanted something new.

 

Was I scared? Frig yeah I was scared! What if I wasn't able to do it? What if it didn't work for me? What if I didn't like it? What if I failed? It wasn't cheap and we don't have extra money.

 

But you know what? I pushed past that sh*t. I had to.

I decided that out of all the FEARS that I had I had a more important reason to do this. Of the hundreds of fears and doubts and excuses I had ONE BIG REASON.

 

I decided to respect myself. I decided that I needed to be somewhere near the top of my list. I decided to love ME and take care of ME.

I don't think or expect people to understand when I go and spend money on my nutritional supplements or my pre and post workout supplements, or the Shakeology. Frankly I don't care if they understand. I understand that I am doing it for ME. Because I want to feel better and I want to be better and I want to get over all those crappy fears.

Maybe you think that people won't understand.

Maybe you are afraid of failure, maybe you are afraid because it will be hard.

It is hard.

Changing your life and your habits is hard.

 

I'll tell you this.

I know your fears.

I had those fears.

Fear can be crippling.

All that I'm asking you to do is commit to YOU.

Don't commit to me or to a program, commit to YOU.

Commit YOUrself to a program.

Commit YOUrself to being healthier.

 

Stop being afraid.

Shut those voices in your head up because they don't have your best interest at heart.

Take the chance because you may not get another one.

You may not have another day or another chance to make the choice that will change your life.

We cannot, cannot allow fear to rule our lives.

 

To take a Biblical view of this, do you know that in the Bible God says a total of 365 times "Do not be afraid", that is once for every day of the year.

What do you have to fear?

Comeback

 

 

You want to know what started this whole thing?

It was this song.

This song completely changed my life.

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Now if you follow me on Instagram or anything at all you are probably aware that I have an, umm, infatuation with Mark Kasprzyk. (The front man from Redlight King). It has nothing to do with the fact that he is gorgeous...well, it has little to do with that fact, but it has everything to do with his story.

It has everything to do with him fighting back from disappointment and from addiction and making it and being successful. It has everything to do with him being an inspiration to me and his lyrics being inspiring.

That's why this song meant so much to me.

Mark had cowriters on this song but the message that it gives is the same. I have lived that message. I have lived every word of this song and it inspired me.

It inspired me to make a comeback of my own. So much so that I had the word tattooed on my wrist so that I can always see it and remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. To make a comeback. It inspired me to help other people make their own comeback. I have some big plans for this and they may happen and they may not but I am going to do the best I can to make it happen.

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My personal comeback is still happening. It will probably take a long time to achieve, but I get closer everyday. I went back to school and I have busted my butt there, I applied and was accepted to graduate school at UT, I started to take control of my health. I can see myself changing and I can see my comeback happening.

 

What kind of comeback do you want to make?

Have you lost yourself along the way too? Have you been down those dead end roads? Do you know what it's like to not have a friend even when your "friends" are right beside you?

Make your own comeback.

It will not be easy.

You will have to fight like hell.

But YOU CAN DO IT!

If he can do it, if I can do it. So can you.

The only thing that is stopping you is yourself.

 

Oh, there will be hard days. I'm doing my second round of the 21 Day Fix and even then I have days when I may eat not so good things (have you ever heard of Chocodiles? I just discovered them), when I don't feel like doing my workouts, when I just feel like poop.

But I remember that I'm working on a comeback. I'm proving everyone wrong. I'm giving the world the finger.

 

Maybe that is what comebacks are really about. Giving a little F-U to the world and all the people and things that have held you down.

Skeletons

 

I have a strong love for Bryan Simpson.

Really, I do.

Look, I know that the man is happily married, but that doesn't change the fact that 1- he is gorgeous; 2- he is a genius when it comes to writing songs and music; 3- he is an amazing musician; 4- he is a Godly man; 5- he's gorgeous (did I say that already).

Anyway, I have crazy mad respect for this man in so many ways for so many reasons. When the group that he fronted, Cadillac Sky, went on hiatus my world like crashed down. Honestly.

That voice! How would I live without that voice.

I understand that sometimes God pulls you in a new direction or calls you to get things in line and so I had mad respect for him (even more-so) for walking away from something that was HUGE. My biggest prayer was just that he would come back to music because I just couldn't live without that voice and because you know he was amazing and that talent can't be wasted. I didn't care what music..but I wanted him back.

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Skip ahead.

He came back.

I could not contain myself.

I got my autographed copy of the CD (after listening to it streaming like a bazillion times); I wrote a lengthy post about it too. (No, I'm not crazy obsessed!)

This new project, The Whistles and the Bells, is nothing short of amazing. The lyrics do not disappoint, the music does not disappoint and I have listened from track 1 to track 12 on repeat more times than I can count and the words just get truer every time.

This song is one on the album. It's called "Skeletons".

 

 

I tweeted about this song once saying, "My skeletons won't stay in my closet either" my reply was, "We're all dealing."

His wisdom is profound.

 

All this got me thinking about how we are all dealing.

We are all dealing with these little secrets that we hid from other people and that we even try to hide from ourselves, like if we keep them locked away they will cease to exist or something. How crazy is that?

We are all dealing.

We are all trying to hide things.

We try to hide our true feelings, our true wishes or hopes or desires, our true sins, our true selves.

We all have skeletons.

And more often than not they don't stay in the closet....at least not forever.

 

I've done my share of hiding. No doubt I am hiding things even now. Even now I am hiding things from people that I call family and friends. No one wants to show everything, no one wants to lay all your cards on the table and lay bare before everyone. What will they think, what will they say? If they knew what I think or what I feel what would happen?

It would be devastating.

 

I don't particularly see a problem with hiding from others. In fact, I think that it can be a good choice because as much as we may want to you can't just go around saying or doing whatever you want to people, I mean there are some standards of behavior that have to be upheld you know? But hiding from yourself, that is scary.

You can run from a lot of things but you can't (and shouldn't) run from you.

We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to be honest about our fears, our hopes, our desires. We have to be honest with ourselves about what we expect from ourselves and what we like or don't like.

I have come to believe more and more that really being honest with yourself is KEY to our happiness. Be honest about your fears because if you don't recognize your fears then you can't work to overcome them; be honest with yourself about your desires, if you don't make known to even yourself what you really want, you can't take the steps to achieve it.

Stop hiding your skeletons.

No matter how bad they are they will come out sometime in some way. I would rather they come out on MY terms than on THEIR terms. I would rather just be like, "hey I have this issue, let's deal with it and move on" than to just let it pop out when the pastor is over for a visit you know?

I don't want them jumping out on my grandma or my mom or dad and causing them to have a heart attack when I least expect it! Ha. Deal with those skeletons peeps.

Deal with those things that scare you.

Deal with that loss.

Deal with that heartache.

Deal with that temptation.

Deal with that health issue.

Deal with that uncertainty.

Deal with the regret.

Deal with the doubt.

Deal with that skeleton.

Kill it.

Bury that SOB in a shallow grave in the back yard and move on.



21 Day Fix: Day #22 RESULTS

RESULTS

*Before in blue and after in green*

 

Chest:                                                51                                                           48

R. Arm:                                             18                                                           17

L. Arm:                                             17.5                                                        16.5

Waist:                                               53                                                           49

Hip:                                                   60                                                          58

R. Thigh:                                           34                                                          31

L. Thigh:                                           34                                                           32

 

Total Inches:                                    267.5                                                      251.5

Weight:                                             275                                                          252.6

Body Fat %:                                      45.1                                                        44.9

 

 

Total Inches Lost:              16

Total Weight Lost:             22.4

Body Fat % Change:          0.2%

 

 

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So let's talk about these results, huh? So very awesome!

I do have a few things that I want to address. I may not have actually lost THIS much weight from the program alone. I started the program coming off a weekend at my Mom and Dad's house, where usually I eat things that I shouldn't and come home bloated and feeling icky anyway. So, there is a good chance that at least some of the weight-loss was just due to getting all the crap back out of my system that I had put in over the weekend. But let's not forget that I also went home a weekend ON the program, I still had some pizza on the program and even some candy and not so healthy foods. I wonder if I would have seen more of a difference had I not had those cheat times.

Another thing that I want to talk about is that I'm not sure that the measurement change in my arms reflects what I see in the mirror because they look much more different than the numbers let on. I'm not good at taking measurements so I could have issues there too.

 

Over all I was very pleased with this experience. I will definitely be doing another round and charting my results. I think that I will be able to get stronger with the DVDs, I especially need to work on the Pilates one. I'm using the man places on my Start Here paper that came with the program to record my stats for Round 2, and since there is another space there, a Round 3. Then I may switch on to another program.

A cool thing about this program is that it is short. You still see results, but you can keep doing it and I assume keep seeing results because you will get stronger and be able to put more into it.

 

Something else to make note of is that most of the time I wasn't doing JUST the DVDs that came with the plan. I still ran often. Not everyday with it, but most of the days: and some days I did more than one of these or also went hiking or something. So there is also a chance that I was burning more weight than what the program says that you will burn.

It still really bothers me that I was eating without knowing the calories in vs. calories out for the day. I had been keeping track of this for about 6 months so it was a little freaky for me to go from counting and measuring to not. But since I saw some results I will do another round just using the containers and not calorie counting and see what happens the next 21 days. I'm counting today as my start for round two. With the exception of a couple of celebratory cookies I have eaten along with the program today. I will do an extra workout or two to try and compensate for the cookies. LOL. Everyone deserves a little reward.

 

Oh, and BTW my thighs are getting rock solid. Oh my, yes. :)

 





21 Day Fix: Day #21: The Yellow Brick Road

21 Day Fix: Day #21: The Yellow Brick Road

 

 

When you start on a new 'diet' or exercise plan it usually starts something like this:

 

 

 Oh my yes. You are so excited and skipping along merrily. "Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road!" All the way to see the health wizard. Oh, you don't know him? Well he is a magical fellow that can but wave a wand the likes of which Harry Potter himself could not compare and you will be lean and healthy and in peak physical condition with all of those things that we love to see in men and women.
Yeah, like the story, it's a fairy tale.

The real road to change is more like this.

 FYI, I really thought that "Return to Oz" was pretty frightening.

Anyway. See we want to think that things will be rosy and bright on our trip to the Wizard who will make everything right. We just want to make everything right, we want to go back to the comfort zone place called 'home'. Oh, yes, we may face some flying monkeys and an evil witch who is pissed because you smooshed her sister with a house, but they are nothing, NOTHING compared to those Wheelers in Oz II.

Terrifying.

 

See there is no yellow brick road that you can just follow to happiness and your dreams coming true.

There is no wizard.

No one's road is the yellow brick road anymore. Sure it was at one time, but life changes your road. It breaks it up, gives it chug holes and flaws like in Oz II. The crazy thing though is that even though the road is broken and may be completely wrecked in places... IT STILL LEADS HOME.

It still will lead you where you want to go.

The way isn't as easy. You will meet freaky rock people and scaryass Wheelers and maybe even a scream inducing little chicken that talks; but you will get there. You can get there.

 

My road to get to here was the Oz II road, not the Oz road. My road is no longer fresh and knew. My road has been torn up by heartache and let downs and being done wrong. It's been torn up by lies and failures and just, you know, crap happening. But that doesn't mean that I should stop following it. It isn't as easy to follow, but it still leads me where I need to go and that was to my home. To my place that I longed to me. To the true me.

 

You have to follow your yellow brick road. It may not be in perfect condition but it will still lead you where you need to go. It won't be a magical experience, it will be hard as hell in fact. But you must still go on.

Sing that song in your mind no matter what your road looks like now.

 

If you can't remember the Munchkin song, you can always sing this one

Sorry, this is one of my favorite songs of all time.

 

 FOOD

Breakfast I had my Shakeology with some PB2 and a Banana, made with water..

MID MORNING SNACK

2 boiled eggs, Van's GF Blueberry Waffle, Frozen Peaches and Mixed berries

 

LUNCH

Have I talked about how this plan wants you to eat 800 MILLION veggies? I am almost always short on them. This is 3 GREEN of spinach, a serving of ham and turkey, some shredded cheese and dressing.

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK (old reliable...nuff said)

DINNER

Ok, so I had a good dinner. I was down to 1 RED (protein) and 2 YELLOW (carbs). I usually don't wait until the end of the day to get in the carbs, but because I wasn't doing my exercise until after dinner I wanted to save them a little to give me that boost in my workout.

I will go ahead and tell you straightout that this was mac and cheese (even though I had already had my cheese for the day). Mac and cheese without the cheese is just mac and I had nothing else to put on it.

And yes, those are brussles sprouts on my plate. I think this was my first time ever eating them. I fixed them easily. I got a bag of frozen. Cooked them the recommended time, tossed with some seasoning and then threw them in the oven on low broil until they got a little toasty. They actually were not bad.

So for my whole dinner I had some steak (broiled) GF mac, and cheese, and roasted brussles sprouts. (just 1 green because as you can see that was a TON of them anyway!)

 

The Workout

Seeing how it was the last day I did a little extra today. The scheduled was Upper body. I did upper body, the 10 min ab, Dirty 30, and Pilates. I strongly dislike Pilates. My core is weak and flabby and I have for some unknown reason, pain and limited range of motion in my right hip, which makes it difficult some.

Anyhoo....I'm excited to do my final measurements and everything tomorrow and then dig into round 2!

 



Failure

In a way we are all failures.

We have failed before and we will fail again.

That is inevitable.

 

But you know the god thing about failing?

It gives you a chance to start over.

Maybe things weren't going all that great anyway, you called it a failure and now you can try again.

Maybe you were working on your health and you fell off the health bandwagon. Well, that's okay, start other and start something new. Give something else a try.

 

Maybe you had a relationship that was becoming toxic and so you break-up, you divorce. Yeah, it's sad or hard and it sucks...but now you can try something new. You can try to act different or change the things that were bad before.

Failure doesn't have to mean defeat. It can just be a way to start again and try something new.

 

If what you are doing isn't working for you, if you have failed to stick to your goals or failed to stay happy, or failed this or that. Well, that's okay.

You can start again.
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Did you know that I started college right out of high school? I did, I even had a scholarship to go for free because of my grades in HS. But life happened and while I didn't flunk out I was dealing with a lot of things that made it difficult for me to go or to concentrate on what I needed to be doing and eventually I just dropped out. Even of the local community college.
Did I feel like a failure?
That'd be a BIG right on.
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Did you know that I was in a relationship from the time I was 17 until I was about 24? I was. When the relationship ended (in part because of his alcohol addiction and in part because we had just grown up into different people) did I feel like a failure?
Yep.
See I had had this idea in my mind that I would be able to somehow help him. And I didn't. (Well, maybe in the long run it did, but it didn't then.)
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When I left my job at the pharmacy and I ended up having to go back to the gas station that I worked at as a teenager did I feel like a failure?
Well, a little. But the truth is that I LOVED my job there so I didn't mind it at all.
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When I started eight million diet plans and I ended up going off them and gaining back what I had lost and often more, did I feel like a failure?
Hell yes I did.
And I guess that in a way I was.

But I realized something. Those plans SET YOU UP TO FAIL.
I honestly think that any 'diet' plan sets you up to fail. Anything that is restricting what you eat or making you think too much about it will fail. Why?
Well for a few reasons.

1- They get old/restrictive. Look, no one can live their whole life without bread or ice cream. Who would want to?? Not this big girl!
2- They are time consuming. Now this is a difficult one to deal with because the fact in that you will HAVE to put more time into your food planning. Running out to MCD is easy, but it's not the best option..BUT once you learn what is good and what isn't and what an ACTUAL portion size is you can just go with that and you don't have to spend time looking up and counting points or whatever.
3- They don't TEACH you anything about healthy eating. I'm not picking on this one particular plan, but I have done this plan so I can talk about it. I lost weight on the 'points' yeah. But look spending my points eating at McDonalds is NOT ideal.
I don't deny myself any foods now, but I don't think, "Well, I have 20 points left so I'm just going to go get a Big Mac instead of eating food that has nutritional value." They don't TEACH you about healthy eating and healthy food. How on earth are you going to continue doing this if you get off this plan.
I know that some people will say that you can stay on this plan forever, but I don't have the time or the desire or the patience to be counting and figuring points my whole life.

Anyone can decide to do a diet plan. ANYONE. But it wasn't until I decided that I was tired of dieting, I was tired of FAILURE that I really did something that changed my life.

I changed my life.
I changed how I thought about food. I changed what I ate and got rid of most of the foods that weren't actually food but just food like substances. I educated myself about foods. I made exercise a routine, I made meal planning a routine. It's hard, it takes time sometimes (see #2), but I am so much better for it!
Now when I have days or even weeks when maybe I don't stick EXACTLY to an eating plan I know that it's not failure, it's human. No one will ever eat perfectly all the time. That doesn't make me a failure, it makes me someone who likes food! (HA)

If I miss a workout I'm not a failure, I just missed a workout. (To be honest now though I almost feel bad when I miss one!)
On more than one of the 21DF exercise videos Autumn says, "If you're tired of starting over, stop quitting."
Those are TRUE words friends!

You don't have to be a failure or feel like a failure. You can start again. Use your past failure to be your future success. You know what doesn't work for you now, so lets find something that does work!

If you are tired of failure and you want to get some tips for success, but maybe you aren't ready to commit to a program yet, that is FINE! You can sign up for a FREE account (see link below) and let me coach you if you decide to get a program sometime great! If you don't that is fine too but we can do this together. From one failure to another....

https://www.teambeachbody.com/tbbsignup/-/tbbsignup/free?referringRepId=415508

21 Day Fix: Day 19-20: The Home Stretch

21 Day Fix: Day 19-20: The Home Stretch

 

So close.

I am so close that I can see the end. Literally, because it's tomorrow.

Sorry that I haven't taken any photos of my food in a few days. Ugh, honestly I've been busy and just haven't thought about it.

Yesterday was just yoga day (there isn't a doubles option on Sunday). I didn't do the yoga, instead me and the girlies (my pooches) went on a hike. It was about 5 miles certainly not our farthest hike but it was hot and the way wasn't easy and honestly I thought they were going to die before we got back to the car. (It was so bad, even my pibble went in the creek and she HATES water.)

So considering all I had eaten prior to this excursion was my Shake-o, and by the time I got home I was hot, tired, blistered, and had to shower because I smelled and I found a tick on me, the last thing I felt like doing was cooking.

We had pizza and bread sticks.

Was it in line with the plan. I'm sure that the emphatic answer for that was NO, but given the calories that I had burned from this walk I felt like maybe I was still in the clear with that.

 

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Today is Monday, Day 20. I'm excited to do my measurements and everything in just a day! It's a little exciting. I know that I have not been 100% on the eating plan and that is okay. No one is perfect, I don't expect you to eat perfectly all the time with every plan either...we are human and some days we go to festivals or we want a Hershey bar, or we don't feel like cooking and get pizza. It happens.

I don't think that not always eating the right foods 100% will like totally throw off everything that I have done and honestly I don't feel that bad about it. I'm a work in progress, you are a work in progress... we will never be perfect and I'm okay with that. I just try to be a little better everyday, you know.

 

I'm in a bit of a rush today so I will just show you what I ate and not go into huge detail about it.

 

FOOD

 

BREAKFAST

You know, old reliable. :)

 

 MID-MORNING SNACK

 Consisted of 2 eggs, scrambled, 2 GREEN of spinach, and 1 PURPLE of peaches

 

LUNCH

Steak tips, mashed potatoes (box mix), peas (FYI, you can fix a crap-ton of peas in that green container!), and strawberries

 

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK

I had my Shakeology for dinner. Added in a small banana, PB2, and some dark chocolate chips.

 

DINNER

I forgot to take a picture of my dinner tonight because I was in class. But I had 2 RED containers of ground turkey; 1 GREEN of peas; 1 YELLOW of mashed potatoes.

 

THE WORKOUT

It's going to be a late one for my workout tonight. I think that I will do a few tonight. The usual Full body cardio (Dear Surrenders, I hate you) and the Abs, Upper Body, perhaps Pilates or Yoga, I guess that we will see how I feel. I hate having to wait so late, but you know, stuff happens.

Tomorrow is Day 21! I can't believe it that I have made it, with only a few flubs and NO MISSED WORKOUTS. (Well, I didn't do the one yesterday, but I hiked instead) So tonight even though I am tired and I don't feel like it....I'm gonna do it and do more than one, why? Well, because I stuck with something and that is really something!