BEAUTIFUL

What does Beautiful mean….Well, I am going to tell you what it means to me, what it has meant to me and why that concept has changed so much over the last few months.

To be completely honest, I have always considered myself a fairly good looking person, I take good care of myself, have always done my hair and makeup regularly and aside from the roller coaster of weight gain that I have dealt with, I considered myself pretty. Deep down though, when I was up (in weight that is) I was really down, and when I was down (in weight that is) I had a false sense of beauty. My girlfriends and I would always joke about “getting skinny”. That was our goal, to lose weight!

BORING!

I am completely capable of losing weight, obviously for those of you who have seen me fluctuate from 170 to 240 lbs, yes that is a whopping 70 lbs that I have gained and lost multiple times and let me remind you that I am only 26. And by multiple I mean probably 3 or 4 times. I look back and I am ashamed of how I treated my body, like crap, like a number, losing weight so fast by pushing myself and eating a strict diet and then eating whatever the hell I want in order to gain it all back in half the amount of time.

This has all changed though, since becoming a mother, because my personal hell would be to see my daughter struggle with the same issues that I have dealt with throughout the last 10 years that I have spent yoyo dieting and having a false sense of what BEAUTIFUL really means.

Now I realize that STRONG is the new beautiful, (thank you Mel and thank you NIKE) for summing it up into simple words for me. I have vowed to refrain from using the words “FAT” and “SKINNY” in front of Kaelyn, I may slip up from time to time, but forgive me, it is all I have known for the last 26 years.

I want Kaelyn to know that she is beautiful no matter what her weight is, that is as long as she understands that food is a way to nurture your body and exercise is a way to grow stronger and healthier. That a healthy diet (not dieting) and exercise are essential. I am working on making this concept my way of thinking and I have to be honest with you, I seriously have come a long way. I do follow weight watchers, but I do not have a goal weight because I have no idea the potential that my body has and what the number on the scale will be when I am healthy, energetic and fit.

I am so excited for BodyBack because I know I will push myself beyond where I have ever been before and that I am going to see results I have never seen. I know now, that I am Beautiful, because I take care of the body that God has blessed me with, the body that he created and allowed me to bear children with. I am so grateful for this body and I will not spend another day treating it like a number.

PS- That picture up there, I have never felt more beautiful in my whole life, that is my favorite picture in the whole wide world!

No Babies Allowed!

Ok, as I said earlier, I would come back to this subject. The fact that Kaelyn is not allowed kind of scares me. Wait, just wait, I am not one of those moms who has to have my kid with me every where I go because all I am is a mom, I work part-time and honestly enjoy that time to socialize with my friends ohh wait, "co-workers". :)

I am scared because Kaelyn is part of the new me, the motivated me, the me who strives to be better all the time. All I know of this new me is that I go running with my girl, I go to Stroller Strides with my girl, anything that has to do with fitness involves me pushing her in a stroller or her in her stroller watching me work out. I look at her face and the smile motivates me to be better, I look through the clear window on top of my BOB when I am running to see the top of her head, because she is the reason I run. When I run, I think about the fact that I felt almost 7 hours of labor before I opted to get the epidural and if I can do that, I can handle running another mile.

So on Monday, when it is just me, on my way to BodyBack, I have to motivate myself, I have to remember, this is for me. That even though I am doing this to set a good example for my daughter, I am also doing this to be a healthy wife for my husband, a healthy me so that I can enjoy life for myself.

ONE WEEK AND COUNTING!

Blog, bloggy, bloggy blog! I have been jealous of all my talented mommy friends and their very interesting mommy blogs. So I have thought long and hard, well not really very long and not so hard, but have made the decision to blog, again. So instead of making a commitment to blogging for a year or starting a family blog, I am going to just commit to blogging for the next 9 weeks so that all you curious people can see what BodyBack is all about, and so that I can accomplish creating and keeping up with a blog.

What is BodyBack? Well, I am not too sure because it hasn't started yet, but from what I have been told, it is an 8 week program in which we meet 2 times a week at 5:30 AM, yes that is AM! No babies allowed! (I will talk about this later.....) It is basically an intense mommy boot camp in which we are supposed to see extreme results! Hence, mama getting her body back. But to be completely honest with all of you, I have already gotten my pre-baby body back, and I am not to content with this body. I am not content with not being able to run (jog in my case) more than 2 miles. I am not content, not being able to keep up with my husband, who by the way is one of my biggest motivations for wanting to get fit, (he's a pretty awesome guy). I want to be better, I want to get stronger and leaner, I want to be better than I have ever been, so I can set a good strong example for my daughter, Kaelyn.

So, over the next 9 weeks, I hope I can improve in many different aspects of my life and entertain those of you who do happen to follow this blog. Today marks exactly ONE week from the day I start BodyBack.