A love for yourself is the best kind of love.

So Christmas is over which means no more egg nog, Christmas cookies, and pumpkin pie. I’m over eating like that. It’s time to get back on track, plus the new year is almost here and I want to start it off feeling good. My news resolution is to finally get where I want to be and I hope to accomplish that by my birthday in May. Seriously, it’s on! I’m going to finish cleaning and then do some yoga. Then later I’m going to workout to a Jillian Michaels DVD. 
I couldn’t get my GED this month like I hoped to accomplish because I found out they raised the price to $150! I cannot afford that so I’ve been thinking of other options. My mom and my brother have told me about free GED testing centers so I’ll be doing that instead. So hopefully I can get my GED next month, because I really want to start applying for jobs again and I also want to start college in April. I need to do a lot of self-improvement, a lot of life changes. Not just getting in shape. I’m using the year 2013 to become a better me, but I’m starting now! I’m not going to wait until the 1st. 2013 WILL be a better year for me. I WILL finally accomplish my health/fitness goals, and I’ll finally have a job, I’ll finally be in college, and I’ll finally have money! And with that, I’ll feel so much better about life and myself.
OH I’m also going to start uploading before/during photos again and I’ll also try to log in my food intake/exercise more often. And post more about my journey. I want this blog to be about me and my journey. I don’t think it’s personal enough. So I’ll try!  

I was thinking I can’t believe that even though I’ve been sad about my friend’s death for the past week, I have not looked to food not even once to take away the pain. And I didn’t even notice until now. I’m actually quite proud of myself. I haven’t binged in two weeks. That’s the longest I’ve gone in months. Before I could only last four days at the most.

It’s funny because I’m so insecure about my weight, but I’m not insecure about any of my apparent flaws. I love all the scars on my body, I love all of the stretchmarks. My middle finger on my right hand isn’t straight, it bends sideways and I love it. I have one messed up tooth that I love. I used to hate the fact that there’s a huge birth mark on the back of my right calf, but I don’t care anymore. Flaws make you who you are and there’s a story behind all of it. Whether or not the story is bad, it’s still a story. I can change my weight, but I can’t change those other things and I’ve learned to accept that. Perhaps I can get braces for the one messed up tooth, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Perhaps my stretchmarks will go away but a part of me doesn’t want them to, because it proves to me that I used to be fat and I did an amazing thing to change it. 

I don’t have the greatest memory - some days I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast. But I never, ever forget people. I still remember some people I followed on Tumblr on my old blog from years ago. I still remember some other people I’ve met on the internet from other social networking sites. I remember people from elementary, middle, and high school. I still remember the first boy I ever had a crush on, the first girl. Just today I looked up an old friend from eight years ago on Facebook. But sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone remembers people like I do so I don’t get offended when I recognize someone and they don’t recognize me. And it’s weird because I think about these people from time to time and I know they never think of me. I always care about others so much more than they care about me. 

Tomorrow is my weigh in, I’m excited to see if I’ve lost anything this week. It’d be my first loss in awhile. I’ve had only one slip in ten days, since I re-started my weight loss journey, which I’m proud of myself for because I hadn’t gone more than maybe three days without binging in so long it seemed like. Yesterday while my boyfriend and I were grocery shopping, I was having a debate in my head. We were planning on watching a movie and I wanted a snack. I kept saying, “Hannah, you know if you get something like chips, you’re not going to be able to control yourself and you’ll eat all of it”, and then I’d say “Well, that’s not true. I’ll just have a little.” But I ended up not getting any snacks. My boyfriend made us a delicious chef salad and we just ate that while we watched the movie. Much more filling and delicious than some chips. So I have to say I’m doing pretty good. I want to work extra hard today. I’m going to clean a little, do some exercises, and then take a shower. And I’m hoping the sun comes out later so I can enjoy it on my jog. 

I always say your body is a temple and it deserves to be treated well, but I haven’t been thinking about your mind. You deserve to be treated well, not just your body. I’m spending all this time focusing on trying to lose weight, but I’m not thinking about other things I need to improve and really focus on to make a better life for myself. Sure, weight loss is going to make me feel so much better about my appearance and confidence, but it’s not like it’s going to make every problem in my life go away. I need to work on fixing my other problems too. I have to learn how to stop getting so upset so easily. What’s the point of achieving the body I want if my mental health isn’t okay?? I’ll have this body that I’ve always wanted, yes, but whose to say I won’t still be sad or angry? I have those feelings built up because of my past, I haven’t been able to forgive myself or certain people for hurting me. I feel guilt over things I’ve done, guilt is a horrible thing to live with. I’m ashamed of myself for some things and I just sit feeling sorry for myself instead of doing something about it. And then another horrible thing is to not be able to forgive someone for what they did to you. That feeling will be with you for the rest of your life if you don’t learn to forgive. I guess no one is expecting you to forget, but forgiving is the least you could do for yourself, not for them. When I first started my weight loss journey last year, I felt so much better about myself and things were really starting to change. Having the body you want is not the only benefit you get out of losing weight, it’s the feeling of being proud of yourself and knowing you accomplished something that many people struggle with, and it’s the feeling of having better health. But I realized losing weight isn’t the only thing that helped me feel better about myself, when I first started my weight loss journey I really was trying to make a positive difference in myself and my life. So I read self-help books, I hung up positive messages on my wall, and I kept a “positivity journal.” Maybe that helped more than I thought, maybe I just need to start doing that again.

Since I moved out of the house, it’s hard to make wholesome meals because my mom always cooked. She’s the best cook, I never understood how she could just come up with anything and it’d taste so good. Now I’m forced to teach myself to cook. My mom said she learned how to cook by calling her mom on the phone every day and asking her for recipes. I think I’ll start asking her for recipes as well. My boyfriend and I are going grocery shopping today. We already have some food but I just look at it and have no idea what to make out of it. Would anyone mind sending me some healthy recipes? Just send your favorites to my ask!

I went for a jog/walk by myself for the first time in about two months and it was lovely! My boyfriend started going with me walking and hiking. We don’t run, because I’m embarrassed to run in front of him. I’m too insecure. So I went on my own this afternoon and I finally remembered what freedom felt like. Seriously, don’t you just feel free and unstoppable when you’re running? I ran all the way down this hill by our house and walked all the way up. I’m glad we live by hills. What a great way to get back those calves and thigh muscles. I miss them. Not to mention, when my boyfriend and I go walking together, I don’t listen to music because we talk. So I just loved listening to music, running down that hill with the wind blowing in my face. Endorphins, endorphins, endorphins. And my boyfriend drove by me on his way to the gas station and yelled “WHOOOOO!!!” out the window. It made me laugh. I’m SO glad I went today, god it made me feel good.    

I don’t know why it never occured to me to do this before, but I searched for some of my dad’s family on Facebook and I found my sister and my niece thus far. My sister gave me my grandma’s number. I’m so grateful she’s still alive, because I’ve never met any of my grandparents, not even my mom’s parents since they’re dead so it would be nice to have a relationship with my grandma. I’m trying to get in contact with them because my boyfriend and I are going to Arizona next month to see my dad’s grave and while we’re there, I wanted to have a family union as well. I’d say reunion but I’ve never met them, because the last time I saw my dad was when I was four. So if I have ever met some of them, I was way too young to remember. This is such a big step I’m taking! I don’t think anyone realizes just how huge it is. I wanted to meet all of them years ago but I was too afraid to. So young and sad about my dad’s death. I just felt like there was no point, I was negative and said “It’s too late.” Boy, was I wrong. It’s never too late. These people have an unconditional love for me just because I’m Andy’s daughter. And I have an unconditional love for them for the same reason. And I know how much they loved my dad, so when they see me in person for the first time, they’ll probably be so happy to see my dad in my face. I can’t imagine what it will be like to meet them. My heart will stop.

We had a family dinner tonight and I’m so proud of myself for having will-power. I know not all days are created equal, but I feel like if I can do this once then I should be able to every day. I had a veggie burger instead of red meat and I used whole wheat buns instead of regular ones. I only had half a cup of juice and didn’t eat any chips. And I ate the smallest slice of cake. Plus I’ve been chugging on water. I’m so full, too. It makes me think of when I was on my weight loss journey last year and all of the amazing things I accomplished. I miss feeling this way. It’s such a better feeling to do good on your eating and have will-power than eat crap foods all day that make you feel like crap. I can’t wait to feel this way every day again!

I was one of those people who was overweight all their life and never saw themselves thin. I used to think that was worse than if you were already thin but then you randomly gained weight over the years because of pregnancy, depression, etc, because at least you knew what it’s like to be thin. But I didn’t understand that that’s exactly what’s so hard about it. Knowing that you were thin and that you let yourself get carried away is such an awful feeling. I know it must hurt so much to see old photos of yourself when you were confident and in shape, because you don’t even recognize yourself. As most of you know, I’ve gained around ten pounds. I don’t know how much I weigh currently or if I’ve lost anything because I’m not weighing myself until June 1st, but ten pounds makes a much bigger difference than I thought it did. It’s only ten pounds but I feel and even look like it’s twenty pounds. When I see myself at my lowest weight which was in December, 137 pounds, I want to cry. During that time, I actually thought I was still big but I wasn’t. If you see my photo on my blog, that’s when I was 137 and I look a lot smaller than then I do now. Some of you might think I was still big when you see that photo, but I think you would have to be very critical or blind to think that. Not to mention, my dress in that photo was a bit too loose on me. 120 is still my UGW, but I’d give anything to just be 137 pounds again. I wish I would have been able to see JUST how much weight I had lost. I can only see it now because it’s the first time since I was eleven that there was actually a point in my life where I was smaller than I am now. My starting weight was 185 so I’m still very happy that I’m around 37 pounds less than my heaviest weight, but it’s still so disappointing to know that just six months ago I actually wasn’t big anymore but I was so busy still continuing to pick out my flaws that I didn’t know I wasn’t big anymore.

I haven’t made the video I was talking about in this post yet but I will as soon as I get batteries. Unfortunately I don’t know if I’ll be able to post it until two weeks from now because I won’t be getting my laptop charger until then. Hopefully I can get it sooner but I doubt it. The good news is I lost two pounds last week which is the first two pounds I’ve lost in five months and I intend to start losing weight consistently again. It hit me that my birthday is in less than a month and I’m not even close to being at my UGW so I need to buckle down and lose this weight. I could have been at my UGW long before my birthday but since that’s not going to happen there’s nothing I can do about it except try my hardest to get where I want to be. If I lost anything this week, it’s probably half a pound because I didn’t do so well. My weigh in is on Wednesday so we’ll see. I still have two days to make up for it. In a few hours I’m going to the park with my family to play tennis. The park has its own exercise “playground” so I’m going to use that and then go for a run in the trail. That’ll be my exercise for today and I’m excited because it’s so nice out!

I continue to have problems with getting on the internet and it’s so annoying. At first my problem was because I didn’t have a laptop so I finally bought one but then the charger broke and our internet cut out. We’re having problems coming up with the money to pay the internet bill and buy a new charger. Hopefully all of this will be fixed soon so I can start going on my weight loss blog again. I’m so reliant on it to help keep me motivated and it’s extremely difficult without it. It’s been almost three months since I’ve been off track. I haven’t lost anything but I know I have gained weight.

On the plus side, I have two new motivators. I’m going to take High School Completion classes at this community college near me starting in the summer and I really want to lose weight by then. I honestly want to start a new school with a new body and leave all the insecurities about my old body behind. I feel like if I don’t work on my confidence and my weight loss by the time I start taking classes then I will feel so unhappy and it will probably be just like how it was in public high school. I’m really excited to start though, because I’ll be making 520 a month from being enrolled in high school and 945 a month from being enrolled in college. That’s 1465 total and I don’t even have to work. I get it because I’m the daughter of a veteran which is awesome. I’m really thankful for my dad. And I will be getting a job soon so I’ll have the money I make from going to school and from working. With my first paycheck, I’m going to buy a cheap car. So as far as that goes, things are looking up for me, because I was really worried about school since I’m so far behind and I almost had no faith in my future but now I do.

My other motivator is my boyfriend, because this morning he really pissed me off by saying that girls aren’t tough and he was being really sexist. He was also telling me to flex and was teasing me because I don’t have a lot of muscle. And he’s always offering me sweets which he honestly is a big reason as to why I’ve gained weight and haven’t lost any. I can’t blame him because only I control what I put into my mouth, but he does make it hard. I want to show him that girls can be strong and I want to do that by doing strength training regularly again. Then I’ll actually have noticable arm muscles and I want a toned stomach too. Plus I’m not about to let some man ruin my weight loss. I don’t care if he is my boyfriend. I’ve learned that you should never let anyone get in the way of what you truly want, no matter who it is, not even yourself. I started this weight loss journey long before I even met him and I need to go back to where I was before all of this ever happened. I got off track because I broke up with my ex-boyfriend and was depressed about it for awhile, then I was slowly starting to get back on track but got off track again once I started dating my new boyfriend. Seriously, am I really going to let myself go back to my old habits because of some boys? No, I’m way stronger than that.

Because everything has been so tough these past couple of months with my weight loss, I think I’m going to pretend like I’m just starting to lose weight again. I’ll take new before photos and start taking measurements again. I’ll take my weight tomorrow morning and weigh myself every Thursday. I think it’ll take a lot of pressure off of me if I stop trying to go back to where I left off and instead just start over & slowly get into the swing of things again.

At the doctor’s, their scale said I weigh 154 pounds. I can’t believe how off that is. I thought doctor’s scales were supposed to be accurate? I weigh at least 137.4 and even if I do weigh more than I think I do, I believe the highest would be 145. It could because I had just finished eating beans, a big sandwich, & a lot of water and tea, but I don’t think my weight would fluctuate seventeen pounds. It honestly made me discouraged, because I’ve always trusted doctor’s scales the most. I have two scales at home and checked them both when I got back from the doctor’s and they both said the same weight which wasn’t even close to 154. I seriously need to stop relying on the scale because it makes me discouraged. I’ve got to just focus on how I feel and what I see in the mirror. I don’t need a scale to tell me I’ve lost weight when I’d be able to see it by looking in the mirror.