It took me long enough,,

So all you bloggy friends old and new (welcome!) may recall that exercising is something is important to me. Maybe you recall my super-ambitious attempt to wake up and go to the gym BEFORE work?. You probably recall my many reasons for wanting to exercise and have a runners body and core and mental strength. You may also recall my first race where I tried to run 8k on Thanksgiving!?.

But you also know my vices.. we just chatted a few days ago about a serious problem with chocolate peanut butter!. You know I gave up some stuff for Lent to try to push myself and bring my relationship with God a bit tighter and a bit further away from the 'stuff' that I feel like I rely on and keep me further from joy.

So while I have a good amount of weight to lose, I decided to put a ticker with a small baby step goal. Its by no means a small feat but its not the whole goal. Just like I'm not going to pay off my student loan in one lump sum (unless any of ya'll wanna donate me like 90k? hahaha). So its important to not focus on the overall and instead to focus on a 'chunk' (pun!) at a time!

I have been debating posting this ticker for awhile now, and Shell's Pour your Heart out Meme really helped me to not be afraid (Thanks Shell). (Sadly because I spent all my free time reading other's posts today I might be late on the mclinky but I'm going to try).

I've been debating because I don't want my blog to be about any one topic. I don't want someone to stumble upon this blog and say 'oh this is another weight loss blog' and not look deeper and find the many meandering variations of me. I have gained the weight slowly but the lowering of my self esteem and the mismatch that has happened between who I feel like I am on the inside and who I portray on the outside has did not happen slowly. That happened during grad school when I went to the health center for strep throat and all I heard the physician say was the word obese. From that point on, my self esteem continued to be poisoned and I started the yo-yo of loss and gain, always ending up more on the gain side.

When I was younger I was HUGELY active. Tomboy barely described me. Wearing sweatpants in middle school when everyone else was wearing Gap Jeans and concerned about how they looked. I wore sweatpants. (not always but as often as I could get away with it!). I played a sport EVERY season. When I broke my wrist I couldnt do volleyball as it was still healing after the cast came off, so I joined the swim team. Not being a part of an athletic event was not possible for me. I loved junk food but my mom kept us eating really healthy at home and we rarely went out to eat. I actually got an 'paperplate award' for being the Garbage Plate because when our teams would go to McDonalds after a long trip I'd finish everyone else's plates.. (dangerous foreshadowing anyone?)

In high school it became more complex and while I could be a part of the teams I also wanted to sing and dance and get a job and have a boyfriend and so sports took their place but were not the only driving force.

College was about dancing in bars or on stages and while I was NOT a dancer, I had fun and was very active in an evolving way.

Grad School beat me down all around but my self esteem plummeted when I heard obese. I was aware my sizes were changing in clothes but I still loved myself and I had some kind of reverse body dysmorphia where I didnt realize how I was bigger than I thought I was. The word obese changed that all, and I soon learned that if I was going to eat I had to mock myself and joke about 'fatty' and it just got destructive and not helpful.

I love food as you know and I love learning to cook but not as much as I love eating deliciousness. Buffalo is such a mecca for awesome food, but that is not all there is to life. There is much more and in order for me to find the self esteem that I once had I need to have that ticker up there to make me accountable for my actions.

Its like a reminder that makes me realize that its something I value daily and not just occasionally. I'm ready to be healthier and I'm ready to be thinner and I'm ready to love my body inside and out and make it function better. I am ready, and today it starts.

Baby step #1.:)