"You have to make it a battle to make yourself better everyday"

10 days into the no-scale club. I'm doing good so far! I hid them both (yes I have two scales...don't judge, long story) under the bathroom sink. Hid meaning...of course I know where they are, but they are out of my vision, so it's much easier.

I've got a lot of people reaching out to me the past couple weeks; telling me how good I look, sending out all sorts of virtual compliments, talking about different food, what I'm eating, what I'm not eating, asking me questions about what I've been doing specifically, wanting to know "my secret". One family friend even said the new pictures of me brought a tear to her eye, and has motivated her to get serious about getting healthy! That's nuts to view me as a motivating person, when I still see so much more improvement I want to make in myself. Makes me think of a line from my favorite musician, Bryce Avery:

"Do you feel the weight of the world singing sorrow? Or to you is it just not real? 'Cause you got your own things..yeah we all have our things I guess"



So what is "my secret"? I don't think I have one. Since I've never talked about it before...let's chat now. I pretty much stopped drinking anything but water, coffee (black, 2 splenda!) milk, occasionally juice. No more drunken alcohol binges..that helped a lot, and of courseeee it's way more healthy and safe. I started doing research on food, reading memoirs and books, not about diets, but about people's journeys. I started to feed my body intelligently, eating foods that I know will fill me and not be crap. eating breakfast. not eating carbs in every meal. eating way more fruit, and even more vegetables. If I can help it, not using butter, not using salt, not eating anything fried. And of course I started working out and doing cardio. pretty much daily. I think that the changes I've made aren't rocket science. I've always known what it took to loose weight and be healthy, I just never did it. Which is a WHOLE other blog post. hah. ;)

I think I made a huge milestone tonight. I got some pretty upsetting news while at the gym, work related. Nothing I wish to talk about, it has nothing to do with me directly, but it's something that brought up some anxiety levels on the drive home. I immediately started craving carbs, and lot of them. Fortunately for me, I had already discussed dinner with my mother and she made a nice potato and egg omelette. So...I got my carbs but not the pound of pasta I really wanted. I ate my normal dinner amount, was satisfied, and thinking about the upsetting situation I'm going to have to face tomorrow morning at work, I walked mindlessly into the kitchen and went to get more. I stopped myself as i lifted up the lid. Am I hungry? No. Am I trying to fill some sort of void in my stomach about tomorrow? Yes. As soon as the thoughts ran through my head I put the lid down, walked into my room, and started to type.

To the people out there that has reached out to me: I'm glad that you have. To be honest, it's still difficult for me to accept it, and take on this role. I know I must sound awkward and uncomfortable when I talk about it, but just know that it does mean a lot, even if I can't express it in the moment. I end up thinking about the words you all say to me daily, and have gotten me through my workouts the past week or so. And finally a shoutout to that same gym employee as before that walked by me mid-workout yesterday and said "you're the only person that I see here everyday...that's what I like to see".