too fat and too tired

But working hard on an attitude adjustment here. I am getting sick and tired of being so heavy. I had it all planned out, to lose this weight. I would suffer, and I would get thin. I suffered. The pounds came off. Even after I lost the baby, I got back in the groove. I lost the weight I gained in Jamaica, and maintained well over the dreaded holidays. Then this gallbladder thing threw me for a depressing loop. Week after week of working hard and exercising, and blah. I am the same weight this morning as I was like six weeks ago. It is No Fair. Suffering SHOULD equal results. So I think perhaps I should suffer more. blah, I do not want to suffer anymore. Sometimes I think back to the blissful days when I didn't care what the heck I ate, the days when I baked cookies if they sounded good, and I actually ate them. With very little remorse. I had buns on my burgers, and actually ate potatoes. And bagels. Yum. And if I wanted a bowl of ice cream, I had one.

Okay, enough of that. The GOOD things about being 54 pounds lighter now:

I am not as afraid of breaking chairs, although I did break one last week. But it was an old chair, and really on it's last leg.

My feet and legs don't ache like they used to. I would be standing there cooking, and just aching with pain.

My back feels better.

I have more energy. Not tons yet, but more than I had.

I got to get new underwear. Not that I threw out all of my old ones yet, they are still perfectly good underwear! A bit baggy, but on those stay at home days, who cares? Okay, some of them fall down.

I wear jeans now. I still don't look like I want to look, but I feel somewhat "normal". Although it really really bothers me that I feel better about myself now even though I am the very same person I was before.

I am not terrified of stairs. This doesn't mean I am the first one to the top, no, I still bring up the rear.

My blood pressure is better, which was the initial reason I finally made the leap to lose.

I no longer have to shop in the big size stores. I wear a regular large or x-large shirt now, and a 16 or 18 bottoms. That alone is amazing to me.

The extra large men's shorts that I wore when I first started exercising last year are really baggy on me. The first time I put them on, they were so snug I thought they were gonna rip.

So now that we have determined that my struggles have indeed been worth it, let me mention that I still feel really fat. I still don't like how I look, and I still feel like I have a long long way to go. And I wonder if that will ever really change. So I try not to think about it, and try to focus on the healthy benefits of losing this weight.

Today is going to be a GOOD DAY!!!!! Camille and I are going on an adventure! Emily, my oldest daughter, is picking us up in her little Suzuki. Car, not motorcycle. We are going to stop by the school and sign out Evelyn, then go to the big city and hook up with Mali, my number seven child, the fourth of the eleven girls. She has classes today, nursing college. We will then go to the award ceremony for Emily, who won a writing contest at work. She works at one of the big hospitals in the city, an RN on a critical care floor. She wrote about a nurse dealing with loss on a regular basis, and how this one case affected her...anyway, she has to read some of it today, so we are going along to listen. I just hope I can behave myself. I tend to get bored easily, and with Mali around, my goodness, I just have to look at that girl sometimes and everything is funny. And, I am extra tired since I devoured an entire library book last night and went to bed after one a.m.

Benjamin is doing well. He called Paul yesterday. He has to go out on patrol every single day because he is the medic, which is No Fair, good thing I teach my kids that Life Isn't Fair. Ben told me the other day that when he wonders why the heck he is doing certain things, he will say to himself, "Because God wants this to happen". He really copes by believing that God causes all things to work together for his best, as it is written in Romans 8. So yesterday when I got home from shopping...I took a five pound bag of sugar out of the grocery bag and carried it across the kitchen to put it away, not hearing Camille shouting, "Mama, you are spilling LOTS of sugar!" The bag was completely open, and I had it upside down. The bag was almost empty in my hand, but I hadn't realized it because I was talking to like four kids at once....anyway, someone had to clean it up. blah, that would be ME. That sugar got all over the floor, all over by the door, in shoes and boots and in the canned food bin. It was everywhere. And I was grumbling. Then I thought of Benjamin, over there in Afghanistan, working hard to take things right, to get heavenly treasures and be a good example to the other guys...and I was truly humbled. I would take this right! Why should my kids see mom all upset about a mess? I tell you, I hate messes, I hate sticky, but I love what God wants to teach me in these trials!

So, all that being said, I need to get out of this chair and move it!!!! Maybe this exercise I will fit in today will help that stubborn scale move, or maybe it will just feel good and help my blood pressure...but I will do it, because I am not giving up!!!!