getting that motivation back....

Way back when I first started to live a healthier lifestyle, aka diet and excercise...I was so full of motivation, it was coming out my ears. I could have bottled it up and made millions. I never thought it would run dry. I was certainly tempted, but no sir, I was holding fast. I had a vision, you see. And that vision was pure and hopeful and, I was going to finally get thin!

Fast forward four years...I have stayed in the war, but have not been strong through all of the battles. If I had surrendered, I have no doubt I would be back where I started or worse. But I did not wave that white flag. No, I re-started the war. During the long long cold winter, I admit that I veered off course too many times with baking cookies and eating leftover pie for breakfast. But not stacks of cookies...just a few. I didn't totally binge or go crazy...but giving in just a little here and there is deadly for someone like me. The weight goes back on so unfairly, so easily. One dinner out, two pounds. One day of eating pie for all three meals, two pounds. Since January, I have been losing and re-gaining the same pounds. I refuse to go higher on the scale. So I have maintained an almost fifty pound loss, but it WAS an over SEVENTY pound loss. Almost 25 pounds crept back on...

Now I have my head back in the game. I am serious again. Believe me, I have been serious again like every night when I get in bed, thinking that tomorrow will be fantastic. But. Now I really am. See, walking around Washington D.C. for hours and hours...hurt my feet. Even in my old worn out Birkenstocks, my most comfy shoes. Blisters on my insoles, bruises on the tops of my feet from the straps. I worked at a lacrosse game and two baseball games last week, wearing my sneakers, and my feet KILLED. I would get home, and put them up, and they would throb like they were hit with a hammer. I couldn't help but think, I need to lose this weight. It can't hurt.

I have been flexing and exercising them, and putting them up frequently...and working out, and avoiding sugar...and white flour...not for vanity. Not for swimsuit season...but because my feet hurt.

But whatever the reason, my heart or my shoes...I'll take it.

I know how tenuous this motivated state of mind is. I am so easily deceived....

But, "start as you mean to go on", my mother used to say. So I don't want to cut back severely, and not be able to maintain that for life...so I am purposely leaving popcorn on my I Can Eat It list. And, occasional ice cream. But. The general day to day eating is just going to be clean.

Anyway. This is my life

Yesterday, the three youngest kids helped me make my shopping list. They agreed to trying a new thing: buying only healthy stuff from the store so there won't be cookies or candy or chips to tempt us. No bread or cereal. No soda or juice. Just oats (for oatmeal), fruits, veggies, meat, yogurt. I brought home mangoes and bananas and strawberries and pears and apples and grapes, tomatoes, spinach, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, yellow squash, and lettuces. I did buy rice cakes and corn tortillas, and tortilla chips, as well as some sweet potato chips for lunches. I bought cheeses and hummus and veggie dips and butter and eggs and bacon, as well as chickens and sausages and ground beef.

We rarely eat sandwiches anyway, and if the kids want, they can have crackers or rice cakes. I hate feeding them cereal, they are okay with trying to avoid cereal and bagels...white flour just turns to sugar, and is no good for them. They are planning to have yogurt with fruit for breakfast...some of them just eat a banana anyways.

I am not opposed to giving them chocolate sometimes, and we will certainly be having ice cream as a treat...just not so much junk on a regular basis.

I have to get moving, I am bringing my brother to a doctor's appointment and have to leave here soon. Suzanne and Joseph will be here with the little ones for a few hours...they know that if I leave, no tablets or computer or television, just reading books or playing or doing school work...