Biggest Loser!

Hey girl! I am doing a Biggest Loser challenge that starts in the next week. Do you want to take part with me? We can log everything we are doing right here and get this train started again! What do ya think?

Back on Track

Okay girlfriend, I may not be a Skinny Bitch - YET - but it will happen!

I have discovered something about myself! I need a goal in life, and now I have it! My foremost priority is now: moving back "home"(AKA your neck-of-the-woods) in 23 months or less!! I think it's been SOOOO difficult for me to take off the weight, or even think about doing anything other than care for my dear kids, because I haven't been really excited about something to look forward to. I've been happily and dutifully following my sweet husband's career and taking care of my young kids - who are now growing up. Now I feel like it's time to get me back!

I realized that with my visit, our family needs to be back "home". I want to set my business up again, reconnect with friends and family and be able to share my children's upbringing with all those special people in my life, who are a part of what "home" is to me. To be honest, I was always worried in the back of my head to re-establish my business on this coast. I have always questioned whether we'd be here for the long haul, and never wanted to make a false commitment to new clients that I would always be around, because my heart wasn't in it. Now I know that I can focus my efforts on doing what makes me happy, and where it makes me happy - and in doing so I will make much better choices for myself, including eating better and exercising again. Because that makes me happy too! WOW - I really am excited!

Thank you so much for being such a great friend, Erin, I am so looking forward to getting this PAH-TAY started!!!!!

book club

I love this book! It's a no nonsense guide to reshaping your diet and the way you think about creating a self you love. Not to mention it is chalked full of truths about the food and diet industry. A big thank you to the skinny bitch who sent it to me!!

"If you can't take one more day of self-loathing, you're ready to hear the truth: You cannot keep shoveling the same crap into your mouth every day and expect to lose weight." -Skinny Bitch website

cooking with Trader Joe's

A couple weeks ago a friend mentioned she had checked out a cookbook from the library that used all the ingredients you find at Trader Joe's. Fabulous! I thought. I love Trader Joe's but never really can figure out how to make an entire meal out of the things I find on the shelves. I love their frozen steal cut oatmeal and the frozen jasmine or brown rice. They also have these mini sized pita pockets that works out so very adorably for my kids' lunches. But dinner??? The idea of making a dinner for five out of Trader Joe's products boggles my mind. In fact, I only shop at Trader Joe's when my oatmeal stash has ran low because I find I only come home with random frozen items and chocolate covered orange sticks. Delish!!

Today, I remembered I wanted to 'google' this cookbook and I'm glad I did. Titled, Cooking with all things Trader Joe's. They also have a blog loaded with great recipes and tips. I can't wait to get this cookbook in my hands!!

Fun in the Sun - REALLY?

What am I crazy??? My family and I are going to sunny tropical beaches on vacation in the next few days, and I am putting off getting anything ready. I am really looking forward to it on one hand, and totally dreading it on the other. This is RiDICULOUS! Why can't I just enjoy myself? Perhaps this is the kick in B-U-T-T that I need, seeing beautiful women with fantastic bodies on the beach while I waddle around chasing after my kids like a blubbery beach-ed whale! It will be an embarrassment, for sure. On the plus side, I am starting to clip pictures of women who I think I really look like (from the inside). They aren't slinky sexy bod shots, no, no - they are casual catalog shots of what I want to FEEL like in great clothes. I just bought a planner, too that I can jot things down in, and it holds pictures, so I figure I am going to start carrying this little thing around, maybe I'll put it on my beltloop so I won't forget it anywhere, and be able to see what I am motivated for, because right now, I'm slumping, big time and I wish I knew why I can't care more for myself.

struggling but motivated

I wrote a post about a recent picture snapped of me and the horror I was faced with upon seeing myself. This weight thing sucks!!! But I have become re-motivated. As my weight watchers leader always says...."you are only one meal away from getting back on program!" Mr. Hawthorne (my hubster) wants to sign us up for a half marathon in June. Today I bought a kids club card at the gym. My goal is to drop the big kids off at school, put my youngest in the kids club to play and run on the treadmill in the mornings. Wish me luck!!

Some time to think about being selfish

Okay, I've been a little off track lately. Some days I hardly eat anything and others I just eat out of boredom.

To be fair to myself, I really think I'm at a crossroads in my life. I just turned 35 and :::OUCH! that looks so bad when it's written out::: I've been thinking a lot lately. I'm not sure if I'm going through a mid-life reflection or what, but I'm really at a point where I am wanting, needing, and yes WANTING, my life to change - to open up and be what I've envisioned it.

The last several years of raising my kids has been a wonderful pleasure and adventure - nothing I would ever trade for anything. But it has also sidetracked many things in my life - which I have knowingly accepted and embraced - until recently. Up until now, I think I became masochistic in a way - putting everyone else's needs before mine, thus hurting myself in a desperate effort to make everyone else's lives happy, healthy and fun. The notion that I needed to fulfill MY needs were really kind of ludicrous and unacceptable to me - I looked at it as being selfish (for myself, but I was very envious of others who were able to do so without passing judgment on them - I'm VERY hard on myself). I've taken care of and focused on pleasing others and ensuring their happiness to such an extent, that I really have never taken an active role in fulfilling MY-self, to my own detriment.

So now, with many things that are in the back of my mind as motivators, I am ready to live the life I deserve and be happy with the fact that I am making myself happy, and that's okay, it's not self-fish, it's necessary and healthy.