Just Three Servings A Day

I am constantly trying to revamp myself, to kick myself back into gear, to improve myself. Really I just keep getting lazy and have to kick myself in the you-know-whatty. Over the Christmas holidays my mother and I decided to help each other loose weight and get fit. We did some fun gimmicky things to get our rears in gear and I lost an awesome 15 pounds and she lost like 20 or 25. The only problem??? I was hating myself the whole time. Every time I gained a pound or broke down and stuffed my face, or woke up and couldn't face another day on the exercise ball I would berate myself and pretty much hate myself. It stunk. I was angry a lot, I started to say mean things about myself (in a joking manner, but it was still mean), it made me understand why women hate dieting. I've never been a dieter and I've always been happy... until I decided to diet. Never, ever, mehver, whever, shmever will I DIEt again. At the pique of my self abuse I bought a great book called Body Clutter. It is written by Marla Cilley, who created FLY Lady, and Leanne Ely, who started Saving Dinner. These gals are great. They are honest, loving, firm, openly Christian, and leave you with no excuses. The biggest point the book made was that you can't go through life being mean to yourself. You shouldn't diet because you hate your body. You should eat right and exercise because you love your body and want to take care of it.

After reading it and doing what it said I really did find my self-love again and felt my old happy self again. In fact, it even helped me get my hair cut. I have been wanting to get my hair cut very short for 3 years now but I had told myself that I wouldn't get it cut until I was at my goal weight. I could never get to that goal weight and my hair just kept growing and I began to hate it after awhile. After reading this book I realized I was punishing myself for not being a certain weight and that was wrong. I went and got all that hair chopped off and I LOVE looking in the mirror again. Now, before anyone gets the wrong impression... I can't tout this as a weight loss book yet. In fact I actually regained those lost 15 pounds. Am I beating myself up for that? No. But I am slowly doing things that are right for me and I am not being mean to myself anymore. I do feel that my current weight isn't the best for me but only because I know that I'm carrying around 10 pounds that wouldn't be there if I were to do things a bit differently. I have always said that the only way to remove bad things in your life is to do so many good things that you simply don't have time for the bad. I also believe in baby steps and doing things that will make you happy, not miserable. So, here is my plan: I will try to do just one good thing every day in three different areas of my life.

Feeding My Spirit (I know I feel more confident when I have cared for ME, not mom, wife, friend, or church goer, but ME. To do that I just need to do one of these during the day.)

Read my scriptures

Study my Spanish

Do something artistic

Practice piano

Answer a Miss Knowitall question

Work on my novel

Write a letter to someone

Do a personal service project

Do my Visiting Teaching

Keeping My Body In Tune (Now I don't have to feel like a spineless ninny for eating carmel popcorn. I just have to do at least one of these to stay on track. The funny thing is that after doing one of these I usually don't need or even want the carmel popcorn, but if I do I don't have to feel guilty)

Go for a run

Do some indoor exercises

Eat a TON of veggies through out the day

No bad food for a whole day

No long sit downs for one day

Do some yard work

Clean the house (You know, the kind of clean where you know you've had a good workout)

Dance around as i go through the house

Building A Better Relationship With My Children to find Joy In Motherhood Again (It is amazing how quickly relationships with children can be built when you put forth just a bit of effort)

Play a board game

Read to them

Play with them

Do an art project with them

Participate in an outing (I often take them to the park, library, or museum. But now I want to interact with them while we are there, not just merely keep them in eyesight.)

~I would have made this a family section but we have that down pat. DSSH and I are on par with each other and we are a great team. I just forget to keep going when he isn't around.

I have been doing this for three days now and so far I am loving it. I was sadly shown how badly I've needed to do this when I asked Pablo if he wanted to play a board game with me and he didn't understand. I repeated the offer and he pointedly said, "But, you don't play with us". Well, I do now and it is great. I don't know when or why I stopped doing these basic things, but I know that they are the building blocks of a happy life.