I feel like all I've been blogging lately about is traveling, having visits and preparing for getting married.  Is it just me or does it seem like the time preparing for an event seems to go by abnormally fast or slow depending on what it is? For me, each week leading up to the wedding feels like we're in fast forward. Sloooww down. I really want to enjoy this time, the preparation.

I'm traveling to my home state this weekend for the bridal shower on Saturday which I anticipate will be a good time. I look forward the most to dancing and singing with my girlfriends and getting together with all of my women-family folk and drinking a mimosa or three. I really feel lucky to have so many good female friends and female family and female family friends to get together with and have a good time. I've made a pretty awesome playlist of popish love songs from times past. Cyndi Lauper-Time after time, Emotions-best of my love, Modern English-Melt with you, Pat Benatar- We belong, The Pretenders- I'll stand by you, Sinead O'Connor- Nothing Compares 2U just to name a few. Yes, can't wait!

In other news not that I'm weighing myself (yeah right) I'm back down which doesn't mean anything until I'm back down to a real weight loss which is consistent. 284 is not news to report. 274 would be though. I've been exercising every day this week and actually said at dinner "we have to exercise tonight". Monday we did Jillian's 30 day shred, tuesday we did 140 minutes at the gym + Jillian's shred, Wednesday we did 40 minutes of tae bo level two boot camp which really knocked us out. Tonight it will probably be another boot camp and possibly Jillian.

I've been eating decently too, I've taken pictures but feeling too lazy to post them on most days. I'm not stuffing myself and making an effort to stop eating when I'm full and making better choices which explains going from 288 on sunday to 284 today. Oh fluctuations. I'm not going to weigh myself again until the end of next week because I just don't need to be obsessed with it.

This weekend while I'm at home I want to work on not falling into my going home habits which includes eating way too much food! I really don't want the trip to be about food and visiting to just be about where we are going to eat. My plan of action? Bring workout clothes, DVD's and sneakers and exercise every day while I'm gone. I know I can do it!

Okay, I'm back from my short hiatus. My laptop basically stopped working for no reason, it couldn't recognize the hard drive so now my sister's husband is working to see if he can recover my files. Oh files, I miss you. I'm obsessive with saving photos off the internet and have folders dedicated for things that interest me like "wedding inspiration", "outfit ideas" , "meal ideas" etc. and hundreds of bookmarked websites. Not to mention all of the graphics I've designed and downloaded music, so crossing my fingers, but its not a huge huge deal.

In good and apperciative news Josh got us new computers over the weekend and here I am blogging again. This laptop even has a webcam so I'm forseeing some videos coming soon if I can get over my stage fright!

So let me tell you, I finally did Jillian's 30 Day Shred last night with Josh and everyone was right it is killer. I kept thinking "if this is level 1, think of level 3" Josh even talked about how hard it was and he is much more fit than I am. It was awesome though and we plan to do it again tonight and the next 30 days according to him. We did however make the mistake of using 8 and 10 lb weights and were pratically dying so we stopped into the wal-marts today and picked up some 3-5 lb weights and an exercise mat for the sit ups. It was also really cool that the session was only a little over 20 minutes which gave me more momentum to keep going. I loved what Jillian said about really working hard to see results and how annoyed she gets when she hears people giving the advice "simply take the stairs at work" in regards to losing weight and getting in shape.

So yeah, give it a try if you haven't already! Exercise today consisted of 140 minutes at the gym, 50 of it was spent doing cardio (elliptical, bike, rowing machine for me) and the rest was doing strength training A.

My eating has not been good for the past two weeks and I'd be lying if I said otherwise. I did peak at the scale (i know i know) yesterday and it read 288.0 just two weeks ago I was at 280. I need to stop, seriously and stop using social occasions as a reason to overeat. Sometimes I feel lame watching what I eat when I'm around friends or family and I need to get over that. I can't keep making excuses and not taking my weight loss seriously. I haven't been taking it seriously, and I know that. The only person I'm fooling is myself.

I've been reading more of anti-jareds blog and I love how truthful he is. He doesn't sugar coat the fact that he is the reason why he got up to 400 lbs. and really shows how hard he had/has to work to lose over 200 lbs in years time . He didn't get that way by making excuses or allowing himself to fail. He just did it, every single day. He goes to the gym, and he eats right and he does it consistently and that is why he is not fat and I still am.

I have so many more things I want to type about, but I will leave it at this and start working or other entries before I get scattered! Did you know I'm getting married in a little over nine weeks? Its crunch time! Literally and figuratively.

It's been really quite around here lately! I spent the last part of the week cleaning and getting ready for my sister and best friend to visit and now they are here! And in other slightly sadder news my laptop is not working and needs to be fixed. I'm typing this on Josh's computer but will probably have to go to the library this week to work. Sigh.

I'll be back tomorrow to update my weekly goals.

Let me just say I had great intentions yesterday and somehow the day passed by and I got a lot done, but didn't exercise! Good intentions for sure. I got a lot of cleaning done, caught up on some work, made two nice meals and then after dinner I felt horrible. It wasn't setting well, so I went to bed. Lesson learned? Exercise in the morning! Anything after that (IE: going to the gym with Josh) will just be a bonus.

I've realized, much to my surprise that I am more of a morning/afternoon person when it comes to getting things done. Once its dark outside, I pretty much do nothing. With that said I did exercise this morning and did 40 minutes of tao bo boot camp one with the resistance bands. I loved it, much like I love most of the tae bo videos and really think I can do version two soon. Version one was a little slow and really good for someone who has never done tae bo before.

Before I exercised this morning I felt my mind battling against me. Telling me not to do it, it would take a lot of time, it would be hard, it would make me tired, I didn't have enough energy for it, etc etc. I told brain to shut up and really wanted to check this off of today's to-do list.

How do I feel after? I feel accomplished, proud, energetic and actually way better than I did before I started.

Yesterday's food:

Breakfast: whey protein shake w/ 8oz skim

Snack: string cheese

Lunch: turkey and cheddar panini w/ spinach and honey mustard (pictured below)

Snack: two SF fudge pops

Dinner: spinach lasagna (one serving) w/ 2 slices of garlic bread

water to drink with everything.

This was really good! Its hard to go wrong here though: ciabatta bread, turkey, cheddar, spinach and honey mustard. I pressed the sandwich on my cast iron with another skillet to flatten it out.

So far today I've eaten a chocolate brownie clif bar and water.

I'm back again! I feel like we've been doing a lot of traveling lately and while its cool to see new places its also really nice to be home too. We had a very nice time in the DC area this weekend with my really good friend (s) Ashley and Marques. Lots of board games were played, sweet tea vodka was drank, good food eaten, and fun times wondering around new towns. All in all, a pretty decent way to move on to another year of life.

I still haven't weighed myself and I'm doing okay with that, my body is feeling a little funky today from all of the food over the weekend. I've decided to cut back this week and consume my old protein-shake standby to replace morning meals. I'm really trying to focus on more protein + less carbs, which I always seem to talk about or go back to. I'm very carb sensitive and excess sugar and refined carbs only make me tired, moody, crabby and slightly depressed. I drank my shake with skim milk which is making me feel really sick right now. I need to mix it with something else, but the thought of mixing it with water makes me want to gag.

Weekly goals: Tuesday-Sunday

- Exercise everyday, document in blog

- keep food journal, document in blog

- eat foods that give me energy, not take it away

- pursue daily actions that create weight loss without scale

- (finally) take photo of myself in size 20 jeans

- remind myself daily with morning private journaling of my goals

Today's Objectives:

Go to gym and do strength training + cardio

Focus on protein rich meals with less refined carbs

Write down food intake and how i feel after eating

Take photo of myself in jeans, post before the end of the day

Write down what actions I can take in the next two months and where these actions will take me

Reminder of upcoming goals: Wedding + Flying

As it turns out its my birthday tomorrow! I'll be 26 and still considering myself in "the mid-twenties" right?!?

If you're curious this is what I wrote last year: Happy smurf day

And the year before: 24 is the magic number

And this will be my third time blogging my birthday and I have to say this: I weigh almost exactly the same today as I did on both birthdays in the past two years. Its very true, and I drove myself crazy every year. Lost weight during summer and put it back on in the winter. The smidge of silver lining? I know how to maintain! haha well, not without driving myself crazy the whole time.

But, I don't want to write about how I'm the same weight or that its going to be different next year for 27, or how I just cannot be this weight for 30! Even though that is what I feel, I've written it in the past and those are just words. And words only bring you to your next birthday at your same weight.

Like 23, 25 has brought a lot of changes. Both ages brought a move, new opportunities and new experiences. It's really weird how much my life has changed in the space of three years. I was a college student, then I was a loan collector who ate my way up to 320lbs in Huntington WV, then I moved to nyc with josh and then I got a job at a non profit making more money then I will see in a long time, I got engaged, and then the non profit was spent away by my boss and then I started working at home and then I moved to rural VA a place where there are more cows than people.

A strange part of me feels like I am back where I started but with new perspective, back with more questions than answers. Where am I going exactly? I really thought nyc was the answer to my questions, but it was just a small chapter in discovery. I don't think rural living is the answer either and starting to feel that it isn't where you live, but what you bring to yourself and what you do with your time. Its not where you are, but who you're with and what you are doing.

That's the cool thing about life: you never know whats around the corner. And I never would have guessed any of this four years ago, I would have totally laughed. Laughed really hard. I'm excited about the next four years, who knows what I'll be writing then, or where I'll end up.

I don't have a minnie mouse cake like pictured above, but if I had candles to wish on, for 26 I would wish the following things for myself:

* To feel more comfortable with myself. In my skin, in my mind, and heal any insecurities that make me not so pleasant sometimes.

* To stop fearing success and happiness.

* To not worry so much about what everyone thinks about what I'm doing. To create art that makes me happy without worrying if it looks "real" or is "smart". To stop carrying the burdens of everyone else's opinions, insecurities or mental problems.

* To heal my body. To cherish my movements, and to really invest time and love into my body. I look at that picture above when I was four and different choices could have brought me to a body today that isn't abused by food, but that's now how it turned out. I want to reverse the abuse and move on.

* To filter through advice with a fine sieve. Everyone has there own experience.

* To surround myself with even more people who are moving forward, positive, creative and happy in their own skin. As I get older, I find how much insecurity really effects the quality of a person. False confidence need not apply.

* To spend more time outside. I have a garden planned out for the summer, and yes it could be a total disaster, but its my disaster. I hear snickers all around me regarding this garden, I have the blackest thumb ever, but how rewarding would it be to eat vegetables that I grew? Ones that weren't shipped in from foreign contries, sprayed with chemicals, and ravaged on a  molecular level in a lab. Plus the money we will save! I look forward to the solitude of this activity outside and the satisfaction of trying something I know nothing about.

* To remind myself everyday of where I want to be, where I want to go and how I will get there. I'm finding that when my goals got lost in the shuffle this past year it was because I wasn't consistently reminding myself of where I want to go. I just got caught up and forget and then remembered again and then would get caught up again.

* Spend less time whining, complaining, worrying, and analyzing assumed problems, people or circumstances. I have control of where I'm at, who I'm with and where I'm going.

* To dance and sing more.

* To create something everyday.

So there's that. I'm 26 tomorrow, horrah! And I'm glad to be alive! I'm going to be in obama-land for the weekend visiting some good friends and then returning back on Monday another year older. See you then!

As soon as I post this I'm going to go in the bathroom take the scale and put it in a very out of the way place. A place where I will not want to get on it twice a day or even be tempted to sneak a peek. Probably somewhere up high.

I love the scale and hate the scale. We've been through a lot together. It has read my ups and downs for over two years now, but it is controlling too many of my actions. Logically, I know it's just a scale, but on some level I haven't realized until now how much I let it dictate what I do next.

I have a problem, if I get on the scale and it is getting lower I sabotage myself and eat too much. If it is higher, I feel sorry for myself and eat something to despite it. Mature, right? I just need a break, I need to get in a place where the desire to lose weight is in my actions and not dictated every morning by the scale game.

I know how to lose weight and be healthy, I have lost weight since the new year and I know that I will keep teetering between 278-283 back and forth if I continue with my patterns. I'm up for the challenge! And it really be a challenge to be in the mindset of weight loss without the emotional roller coaster of the scale. When did it get so powerful?

I know that people stay in check by daily weigh-ins and I think thats great for people who are maintaining a certain weight. I just need uninterrupted action. No distractions, no sabotage.

My goal is weight loss: I'm going to take my measurements today, put on those jeans that don't fit, take my photo and not weigh myself again for a month. See you in April Mr. Scale.

Its so easy to get out of the habit of taking food photos, mainly because I'm lazy and my camera weighs 5 pounds (or seems to.) Either way, its still kind of fun and I really enjoy looking at what other people eat because I'm nosy.

My (unofficial) food disclaimer.

I ate the banana, not the peel

About a cup of homemade macaroni  & cheese. made with whole wheat noodles, which destroys all calories and fat from the cheese. you knew that, right?

I pretty much butchered this orange trying to peel it with a knife. I dropped two wedges on the floor and considered (but didn't) washing them off and eating them anyway. It was my last orange!

Shrimp salad! Check out my new flatware!

Not Pictured because I was too lazy to take my camera: Moe's Art Vandelay (no meat) original burrito w/ about 8 tortilla chips and salsa. Drank water with all meals pictured above.

Thank you all so very much for your supportive, encouraging and loving comments on my last post. If people are confused about why I blog, and why I share so much, your comments are a huge reason why. We all need to know that we are not alone, and being myself in my blog helps me in a therapeutic sort of way. What I share here, especially with the hike, is not what I typically share in my everyday life.

We edit ourselves because who really cares? If I told someone in person that I went hiking it would go like this:

friend: what did you do yesterday?

me: oh, I went hiking. It was really beautiful up there!

friend: really? that sounds exciting, we should go together sometime.

me: yeah totally.

friend: what are you having for dinner?

You get the point, we just don't share the whole story and the context of our lives and experiences. I wouldn't tell someone that I struggled going up, that I cried when I got to the top and I haven't been able to walk properly since. Here, I can be express the context of my feelings and actions. I think of it like I do my new love for people after I watch/read their biographies.

There are many people that I don't think much about, and then I watch or read their biographies and usually become fascinated with that person. I think when we know someone's story, or reasons then we can appreciate what they are saying and doing. Where they are coming from. We don't always get that in day-to-day conversations.

Soooo, its now Tuesday and my walking has improved. Yesterday before getting up from the chair I had to pep talk myself and prepare for the pain "one. two. three. go!" "ouch! &%&*&^!!". I don't have to do that today, baby steps! And thinking I can do some much needed stretching and cardio today.

I was looking through an old notebook recently and I wrote a list to myself titled "If I could wake up tomorrow..." and filled in the blanks with things that would be awesome to wake up tomorrow as: 130 lbs thinner, a shop owner (online or in real life), a well designed and organized house, were top on the list. And then I drew a line from each wish and figured out how I could wake up one day having accomplished these things.

This is the simple and obvious idea that what I do today greatly impacts what happens tomorrow or next month or next year. That things just don't happen tomorrow by the time I wake up. And this all ties in with my new daily efforts of making myself proud. What can I do today, that I will feel proud of doing tomorrow?

Today, it may feel good to do nothing. It may feel easier to give up, but how will I feel about it tomorrow? I want to live for the moment, of course, but I don't want to disregard today's actions and where they can take me. Each day, each week I make a list titled "what will I feel proud of doing this week- next week?" I think this mindset is helping me with my infantile issues of instant gratification.

What do you all think? What are you doing this week that you will be proud of next week? Will today take you closer to your goals or further away?

Didn't I talk about being sore the other day? Well, here I am talking about being sore again. Except this time, the soreness is on a totally different level. I'm walking much like a penguin today, side to side.

We made a last minute decision to go hiking up the cascades yesterday afternoon. The weather is so incredible this weekend, so why not? So many lessons learned.

First, walking in nature is so much different than being on an elliptical machine or treadmill, especially if you are going towards a destination. A 2-3 mile upwards hike to see an incredible waterfall doesn't give you a chance to just stop going when it gets hard. You just have to keep going. My sabotage brain was kicking in big time as we made our way up.

I had to make frequent breaks, I was huffing, sweating and generally having a hard time. I couldn't get off the trail, I couldn't and didn't want to go back. Keep going, keep going. I felt like a contestant on the biggest loser trying to win in order to get my phone call home. The sites were incredible the entire way. Giant boulders, green moss, rippling waters that you could literally touch. Everything was breath taking. We made it to the top right past the last bolder and thats when the hike up is most worth it. All those rocks that you have to avoid, or climb over are totally worth it when you see this waterfall. The pictures don't compare. I forgot about my pain, and weaknesses and cried.

I cried because it was beautiful, I cried because I made it to the top and I cried because it wasn't easy for me. I realized how many things that I miss out on, how many experiences I keep myself from because of my weight. I could have easily opted to stay home, blog, sit in front of the tv, and probably would have if it wasn't for Josh. It was real life up there, everything was vibrant and alive and it reminded me of how deadened I allow myself to be. How much I've avoided movement and what exactly I could miss out on if I didn't push myself to the top. If I weighed much more, if I was just a little be less in shape, it would have been impossible.

I sabotage myself and my brain was reminding me of that as I hiked up every single hill. "this is too hard!" my brain screamed to stop, but my body kept moving, I had no other choice. I do this all the time, not just when hiking up mountains. I do this when anything is too hard, I want to give up and climb back down never to give myself the chance to see the waterfalls at the end of a hard journey.

I needed to do this, metaphorically and literally. I needed to do something even though it was hard because lately I've been doing the minimum out of fear.

Fear of never reaching the waterfalls, so I never give myself the chance. I just give up when my brain screams to stop. But, seeing this has helped me to see that I can do what I need to do to be happy, I just have to give myself permission and keep going.

A better attitude and a lot less complaining wouldn't hurt either.  I can't say the trip down was much easier, in fact it was way harder. We took the hard trail back down, going the wrong way at a fork. This path was indescribable and defiantly for a much more skilled hiker, someone way fitter than me. It was filled with rock steps. Thousands it seemed, winding down the mountain only wide enough for one person. Rock mountain on one side and rushing waters far down on the other side.  I still have no idea how my legs kept going. I was shaking, tired, and scared and it was getting dark very fast. Two miles felt like ten.

Today I am so sore, more sore than I've ever been. All movement is a huge task today, even sitting on the toilet hurts, but I still would do it again if given the choice to stay home instead.

I'm going to make myself proud, every single day I'm going to do something that will make me feel proud the next day.