Reality check.
18 months ago I wrote
THIS.
What happened to that girl?
Since mid 2011 and my success with the
12wbt I have not only regained the weight but have today tipped the scales just above what I was before I started. I am officially the heaviest I have EVER been.
Coincidentally, I also feel hazy, tired, depressed, lethargic and downright bler. My allergies are worse than ever, my asthma is back to Ventolin dependency and I am fat. Fatty fat fat fat FAT!
What is it that gets me (and many others) back to this place? This is my first 'yo-yo' experience - because in the past i've just not tried losing weight. I can't even begin to describe how deflating it is to get up and look at myself in the mirror in the morning knowing that my current weight is not a reflection of size but a reflection of the condition of my heart.
I have a heart for others. I have a love for my family and my friends and for the broken and the lost. I have a heart for those in need. But guess what? I don't have a heart for myself. I will pour every ounce of myself into doing things for and being there for others - and at the end (and the beginning) of the day, there's nothing left for me.
I look in the mirror and I am unhappy with what I see. I'm unhappy because I see a person who choses not to make time for herself. I'm unhappy because I don't have time to make that choice. I'm just plain disappointed with the fact that I had the tools, I had the motivation and somewhere along the way, it all just disappeared. I lost it. I lost myself.
I am depressed when I look at my stomach. Yes I'd like tighter arms and legs and a slimmer face, but the heart of my body issues lies with my stomach. Two babies, the second of which was very large, have left me permanently disfigured and all the sit ups in the world won't fix it. With both my kids I lost around 10-14kgs in one week after the birth simply through breastfeeding and fluid loss. To be 32 years old and have to accept that for the rest of my life (unless I win lotto and can afford surgery!) I will look like a Biggest Loser contestant after the show is done (yep, you know what I mean and it's not pretty) breaks my heart. I live in
Spanx (or a cheap imitation of them!), I wear the clothes of women 30 years older than me and I struggle to breathe. To be honest, it sucks. (and yes, I'm venting and I'm being revoltingly honest, but if you can't do it on your own blog, where the bloody hell can you?).
I can't afford to do
12wbt. Oh how I wish Mish had a scholarship program! I can't afford $200 for the 12 weeks again. And I can't justify it to myself because I have done it before and I know how it works. But I have to admit, as someone who subsequently can't afford the gym, Mish's program is the next best thing to having a personal trainer move in with you. I was so motivated by being a part of the team and having 'access to
Michelle Bridges' and I think that's what I've really been missing. Knowing there were other people in my position made a huge difference. It's the difference I'm missing. I have zero willpower and accountability is EVERYTHING. (I recognise that this is a #firstworldproblem but I think occasionally we are all entitled to one.)
Having said that, my ultimate would be to do the Cyndi O'Meara Changing Habits HCG protocol. Cyndi does things a bit differently in terms of health - she gets back to basics - check out her site
Changing Habits - it'll blow your mind. Perhaps a hybrid of Cyndi's nutrition and Mish's accountability is my ideal? Who knows.
So right now I'm at a point in my life where I need to make a decision. I have no-one who I can be accountable to or who will keep me accountable because I have no-one who feels the way I do or understands where I'm coming from. Every night I sit down to another additive & preservative free but calorie rich desert or I finish my kids dinners (no waste in my house!) and I acknowledge in my brain that something needs to change and vow to start the next morning. And each morning, I wake up and start making the same dumb decisions all over again.
I can sprout positive sayings, Instagram pretty pictures and motivational quips from Pinterest and blog my guts out (but ironically not off!) but at the end of the day, I keep getting what I always got because I keep doing what I always do. It's infuriatingly ironic and stupid.
So there's no 'happy ending' or punch line to this post. This is purely self indulgent venting of pent up depression and anger at myself. I won't be offended if you unsubscribe after this ;) I'm not making any big promises or setting any big goals right now because when I read back through some old blog posts that do just that, I think 'Geez that Steph is a bloody hypocrite!'. So I'm just me. Keeping it real. Recognising where I'm at and hoping it gets better soon. I recognise the change has to start with me. I'm praying for wisdom and self control. As Mish says 'It's time to change the game and take control'... because right now - I am waaaay out of control.
Thanks for listening/reading. I'm going to go wash my custard stained desert bowl that I've been eating as I have typed, set up my treadmill for the morning and sleep in my runners and hope to God that in the morning, the resolve I've been searching for overcomes my sense of hopelessness. It's time to suck it up princess!
xo
