I'm BAAAACK BABY!

Yesterday I woke up and for the first time in a long time I felt nearly normal. I can't tell you how happy I was to feel pretty good. I still had soreness in my upper abdomen a little, but not bad.  Best of all I didn't feel weak. I didn't feel nauseated and I didn't feel sick.

I had a smile on my face all day long. I had a great day at work. I had a great food day and a great exercise day. What? You say. OH YES!  I exercised for the first time in nearly a month and OH BABY it felt good.  That muscle memory thing, yep some truth to it. My body was like...FINALLY...I can move.  What a lesson this was for me. What a lesson that I knew was true, but feeling it makes all the difference. YOUR MUSCLES NEED TO MOVE. You body is built for movement. We were designed or evolved or whatever, that way. It's a fact.

When lunch time came I headed home.  I wanted to get on my bike, but there was that little voice. "Maybe it's too soon. You don't want to hurt yourself."  And the other one, "The surgeon said you could do anything you wanted. He did not say you couldn't work out. You are just looking for a way out and you'd rather flop on the bed and watch TV with your fat lazy ass."  Yep.  Plus, I'd told you guys I was going to try. I decided to hop on the bike. If it hurt, I could stop.  But it didn't hurt. it felt great. And I was sweaty and pumped when I was done. 7miles.

After that I thought, well Hell. I might as well try for one of my Hot 100 goals, so you know what I did? I DID PUSH UPS. Boo YAH!  I restarted the 100 push ups program from scratch. I did the initial test. I could only do 12, where before I did 20. But, I did the first day also so I did a total of 50 push ups with the intervals. This morning My arms feel like they did some work, but they aren't overly sore and my belly is fine. Today another workout and back to the gym tomorrow. TKD next week and I'll call my trainer to set up a session. I'm BACK!

For breakfast I ate a Jimmy Dean Lite Sandwich. My first day back at kids plus work left me running late. I grabbed it from the freezer on the way out the door. It's 260 calories and is actually quite good. If you haven't tried them, you might want to. It's egg white and light sausage on a english muffin. We get them in a big box at Sam's so they are cheap.  At lunch I had 2/3 cup cottage cheese, fresh peach, green peas and green beans left over from dinner. It was 306 Calories.

At dinner, I had this awesome bean, lentil and farro soup my Nanny's been making lately. I just love that grain. We discovered it at Costco recently.  It's an Italian wheat grain and similar to Barley. OMG it's so good. It is calorie dense, but it is so high in fiber it fills you up with very little. In the soup it kinda has the texture of rice.  I love it. That and a salad. I ATE SALAD!! I haven't been able to eat more than a bite of lettuce due to my nausea. It tasted soooo good. Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers and feta cheese.  I used my salad spritzer spray to save on calories and I figure the whole meal wasn't over 400. For dessert I had a juicy plum. All total I ate around 1000calories and I was satisfied.

The kids were wild last night. I don't know maybe it was Mom finally being normal and sitting at the table. Everyone was happy and giggling.  After we cleaned the kitchen together and the kids helped me pack lunches. My son took the rest of the soup today.  My husband got the salad with a little turkey pastrami I cut up on top.  If you haven't tried that stuff, do it. It's like 60 calories for 3 oz and it has a great flavor so it doesn't take much on a sandwich. I guess I love those boys,  'cause I got squat from the left overs.

The best part is....... I LOST 2 pounds of the stupid surgery weight I've been carrying around. I weighed 211.2 this am. The lowest I've been was 209.4 so I'm on the road back there and to my other Hot 100 goal, 199. Yippee!

I can't remember a time in my life where I was excited to eat a salad. I can't remember a time in my life where exercise meant so much to me. And now I know I'm never going back.  The way I feel both physically and emotionally when I'm living healthy inside and out is....... priceless.   Is this why thin people are so much happier? I always thought it was because they had better clothes and more friends and boy friends and social status. All that is probably great, but to FEEL GOOD everyday. To wake up and not ache. To wake up and have energy. To look forward to seeing what new things you can do.  WOW!

And the mind set of not IF I were thin, but WHEN I AM THIN. Never. Never before have I thought that way. I was lying in bed last night thinking that my ribs feel the mattress more now cause there's not as much padding. And I found my self thinking, "Huh, wonder what it'll feel like 50 pounds from now."  WHAT? My brain said. I never realized it before, but until now I never really BELIEVED I could lose ALL my weight. I never really thought I COULD do it. I thought I was meant to be fat. I thought It defined me. I thought I couldn't control it. BUT I WAS SOOOOOO WRONG.

And how did I get here? Was it a book? Was it a diet? Was it a pill? Was it because Jillian said? Was it for my family? Was it because I wanted clothes? NO! It's because I DECIDED TO JUST TRY.  TO START. TO DO IT. NO MATTER WHAT. NO MORE EXCUSES. NO MORE LYING TO MYSELF. JUST ONE CHOICE and another and another. And it worked. And the more it worked, the more I believed.

So here's the deal. All of us out here who seem to have it figured out. People like Sean and Jack and  Shelley and Allan.  We don't have magic will power. WE ARE NOT SPECIAL.  We're not better than you. We're not smarter than you. We don't have better genetics. We don't have more time. We don't have anything you don't have.  We are faced with choices. Millions each day. And one choice at a time, we choose to LIVE.

WHAT are you choosing today?