Seaside Great pumpkin contest and drop!

Time to post, I guess!

So my sister sent a message to my Mom to remind me to update this, so I guess I can do that now! The weight journey has been kind of like it always is. I did really good on my medifast diet the first week. I even lost 8 pounds and that was super awesome!

I actually decided to pull together an overnight girls retreat at the coast for anyone that wanted to escape with me. And that was so much fun! With me 5 of us went and it was great fun to hang out with the girls and build friendships and eat! LOL yes...I ate! And I actually think that was a good thing. I don't think I went overboard, but I really did not restrict myself a lot either! We rented 2 rooms in Seaside and shopped a lot! The outlet mall and the small shops down town gave us hours of fun. Plus the weekend that we went they did a pumpkin contest, weighing in entries from all across the state. They were huge!! The biggest one weighed in at 1301 pounds and then they took a 980 pound pumpkin raised it to the top of a crane and let it drop to it and a surreys doom! Really fun to watch! We went to the Lil' Bayou restaurant and walked out after waiting for an hour and a half for dinner and went to Vido's and Guido's, an Italian place. We really just talked and laughed.

This trip was the weekend after week one of my diet and I came home to find that I had only gained 1/2 a pound back! not too shabby! I decided come Monday I would get back into full swing, and recommit. And then to my lack of excitement, I started to get sick, and Monday and Tuesday I could not eat or drink ANYTHING without wanting to puke. Ugg how I hate nausea!! I called in sick on those two days and then on Wednesday I went into work and got a prescription of Phenergan (anti nausea) and then proceeded to down that all day eating a home made chicken soup that Rob did up for me. (he is sooo awesome like that!) Thursday was a really slow do nothing, recovery day, and I only ate the soup again all day!

Now with most people the lack of food would drop them down a few more pounds, but for me? NO...I in fact went up another 1/2 pound, which is just plain out ridiculous!! But no worries. I started doing 3 supplements a day, and I am back down to my original loss. My plan is to keep doing the 3 until Monday and then go all week on the Medifast. I can't say I am super excited, and it really has been hard just eating when I need to when I am working, but I decided after my trip, that I will do a week fully on plan and then give myself a low carb day to just eat with my family. I think that sounds very do-able to me. Most of all I think i am just going to stop stressing over it!

So there it is. My update! haha

New Path on a Long Traveled Journey

If you know me you know a few things about me. One of these is that, like many people out there, I have been trying for years to lose weight. I think that for so long I have viewed this as a selfish venture. Yeah yeah, I know...if I am not healthy, my family suffers...If I am overweight I can't help others...If I am overweight I am prone to keel over early abandoning everyone. But really for those of you that are fortunate enough to be skinny, you really have no idea how much you have to focus on you to reach a weight loss goal. The food, the frequency, the exercise, the restrictions, all of it to help ME with weight. And it is time consuming. I think all of your thoughts when you start a diet revolve around one or all of those areas, leaving you with a lot less time to focus on someone else. Or rather someone else's problems. It's all you.

And for me that hasn't been the most comfortable spot to be in. Feelings that have been buried from the days of "tubby tubby 2x4" or "big fat tomato" or any of the many other names that branded me. And the feeling that I just want people to love and appreciate me the way I am, and not hold me to a skinny standard. Oh I know...that is not what people do, and in fact I really do believe that the vast majority of "weight loss well wishers" generally want me to be happy and healthy, but I still feel that.

Every once in awhile I can envision myself slimmer and happier, but I don't know that I can actually ever get there and stay there, and that scares me. It scares me away from trying, and helps me to sabotage myself so that I quit before I reach the point that I go from the slim girl I have envisioned and return to the land of the plump. And I am happy now right? Do I really need to lose weight to be happy and to feel valued and of worth? And of course my answer is no. But I do know I need to be healthy for my family, and for me.

So all of this to lead up to my decision to restart Medifast. I plan on using this blog as a way to express my feelings on this bumpy journey, and share any accomplishments or set backs that I might encounter. This is day two for me, and I am feeling pretty good. I started out yesterday at 226 pounds, and anything has to feel better than that.

I plan to update this blog once a week, and I hope it is an encouragement to myself to keep going. Join me. I don't care what you do, or how you do it, lets just do it.

Holly

Do I really have anything worth while that people will want to follow a blog on?? I don't know. But it seems like there are a lot of these up and going, and I thought I might as well give it a try.

The new job has been quite a transition for me. I love to be using the skills that I have, and definately learning and growing more. Plus getting a paycheck is a definate bonus with Rob's pay not being a certain thing. I do not think I anticipated how weird it would be to not be home so much though, and I really do miss my time with the girls and Robert. I am working a lot of

Sundays this month, and that is also quite a different pace for me. I am hoping that with time everything will mellow out and just become more natural.

School starts for us on Wednesday, and my girls seem to be pretty excited to go back. Allison will be in 8th grade this year, and she got into journalism and her technology class, so she is a happy camper. Nicole is going into 5th grade, and Mariah into 3rd. They won't find out their teachers or who is in their classes until Tuesday, so I can't say whether they are excited about that or not yet!

Today is going to be a busy one. I will be running around getting all of the girls last minute school items. (with everyone else in town!) I am looking forward to the time with the girls and Rob (yes he has the day off too...weird!!) :)