Get real!

It’s time to get real.  Let’s talk- I’m 51 years old and I am 50 pounds over-weight.  Yup, there, I said it.  I weigh 182 pounds and I no longer care who knows because, well, you can tell and who am I kidding with these “flowy shirts?”  I’m not fooling anybody, especially me.  It’s time to get real!

Following the lead of my best friend and husband, I am creating this blog to form a community of accountability.  I’m putting this out there by going public with my struggle.  I’m fat.  This year I am going to win at losing it once and for all.  My goal is to lose the weight before my husband’s first state power lifting competition, which is in December.  Why?  Well, it’s easy to start a new plan every Monday but when the world knows your intention that is motivation to make it happen.  I need accountability and if, by doing it this way, I help one other person, then it’ll be completely worth the embarrassment and humiliation of my struggle.  I know I’m not alone.  My goal is to inspire others and help other people by making my struggle and journey to healing public. 

I am 50 lbs overweight and I am full of excuses.  I yo-yo dieted my entire life starting in my teens, learned how to feel bad about my body from Cosmo magazine and struggled to look like the petite lean ballerinas I would see in my dance magazines.  Four years ago, while taking diet pills from a Dr, I got down to my goal weight by dropping 45 lbs but I was scared to death.  Since I never addressed the emotional side of things I was petrified and felt like I was one meal away from gaining it all back.  I managed to diet my way back up and now need to lose over 50 lbs. 

During the past four years I’ve used the excuse that I had a bully for a boss, off the chart stress on top of the death of my father one year ago.  But I now see that the real reason for gaining it all back is that I never felt worthy of my success.  I never felt I deserved to have it and I realized that this self esteem situation is why I have found myself where I am today, starting each morning off ready to be “perfect” and with all the best intentions, only to end each evening in utter and complete failure.  This has been the pattern for the past four years.

I refuse to give up and I am committed to believing in myself.  I do this with the grace of God and with God’s help.   That’s the only way this is going to happen.  God promised me if I do the work, He will produce the results so let’s get to work!  God wants us to be free.  God wants me to be free.  I refuse to live out the rest of my days feeling like a stranger in my own body and trying to hide behind baggy clothes.  We just moved to the hottest place in the country in summer, South Carolina, and I refuse to put on shorts because of the situation going on down there, what alone a bathing suit.  I want to LIVE!  I also want to live a healthy & long life. 

So, here it is, me writing putting myself out there.  I’m also writing to say I am going to lose 50 lbs by December and that’s it!  It is happening because I will make it so!  May it be so, Lord; may it be so.

“Healing rain is coming down; it brings mercy; it won’t be long; it’s coming closer to the lost and found; Tears of joy and tears of shame are washed forever in Jesus’ name.”