Food has RETURNED!

I have done a lot of soul searching the past few weeks and I have begun to make peace with food and my body. Does that mean that I will stop pumping iron in the gym? No Does that mean that I will fill my body with processed crap? No I will love my body and give it good clean food

and exercise daily. This might mean that I may not look like a person that could pose for a fitness magazine and I am ok with that. I have come SO far and I have nothing to be ashamed of.. I have begun to stop beating myself up about trying to be thinner, toner, leaner.... For what? In the end I will always be Kathi a wonderful, loving and caring person that will never change no matter what my outside looks like. I will love my body and myself.

I have realized how much I have missed posting about the wonderful food I have been eating and so it returns.......

I like to pack my lunch for work the night before so this is where I will begin. I had bought some wonderful baby strawberries and blue berries so I made a delicious container of sweetness.

I thought I would try to use up some stuff in the refrigerator so I threw this together for lunch I am excited to see how wonderful it will taste.

Salad contains:

Whole wheat elbow noodles (I thought the husband would eat.. Ya Right?)

Cucumber

tomato

green and red pepper

leftover grilled chicken

red onion

goat cheese

1 tablespoon of Baslamic dressing

Clean, fresh....

I look forward to sharing my eats with you. See you in the morning with a delicious breakfast that is sitting in the refrigerator as we speak. Any ideas?

Coming out of the FOG

I have come out of the fog and have found a new perspective and focus. It feels so freeing! I had a HUGE revelation about a week ago and it has change my whole perspective on eating, food and exercise. I can't thank my wonderful husband for being my rock and helping me see this and began to start working on it.



My thinking about food, exercise and diet is very distorted and I have finally come to realize that I no longer want to be in this cage any longer. I am reading a wonderful book that was suggest by a great friend (Thanks Kim!) Life Inside the "Thin" cage. Anyone who could classify themselves as a "Chronic dieter" may find this book eye opening as it has for me. I have also been working with a book called the Appetite Awareness so that I can begin to start listening to my body and its message to eat and to stop. I know this will is a journey and a processs but I can not tell you how at peace I am beginning to feel. I still have my struggles i.e. over indulging, feeling guilty, fasting to make up for it. But I now know this is not loving myself this is not taking care of myself. I am more than my external self I am a loving, caring and wonderful person who no longer has to be in this "thin cage" that society has made me feel I need to live in. I am ready to start living.

"HUGE" Binge

I have thought about hiding this from not only myself but from others who can help me with yet another binge. This binge was bigger and longer than the last. I had not desire to stop it and let it continue as long as I needed it to. I know I consumed thousands of calories and now I sit here early this morning with the my thought of the "after"math.
I sit here and wonder how I move forward from this now. Do I hit the cardio equipment in attempt to get rid of some of the damage that was done. Do I do a "fast" today to not consume any more calories for today to compensate for yesterday out of control eating. Do I just move forward the best that I can.
I have decided that the "normal" and sane thing to do is to move forward the best that I can. But I still question why did it happen? After 5 months of hard dedicated work why did I fall? I guess I could try to guess all the reason and I could continue to have this negative conversation with myself but I know deep down that this will NOT empower me to move forward to achieve peace with food and fitness.
I read lots and lots of blog and some of the women seem to have some what of a help relationship with food and their bodies. I wish for that too. How do I achieve that? How do I find a health medium ground?
I trust that I will find that path on my journey. As always I look forward to the people in the blogging world for support and hope. Thanks for reading.

Thoughts

I have been up for hours with my thoughts. I finally came down stairs to put it on "cyber" paper and also with the hope with anyone who might read this will help me. There are so MANY wonderful bloggers out there that I read on a daily basis but never comment on. I am thinking I may want to branch out to some of these wonderful women for support.
As some of you may know I have been working with a wonderful trainer and have gotten awesome results but I am coming to realize it also comes with a price. I have been feeling not like myself for a few days and I feel like I need to listen to my body. This may not be something my trainer will agree with but for me I feel like it is right. I have been feeling very light headed and just not right.
I had a HUGE binge last night and at first I was devasted and of course I had thought in my head that I would do additional minutes of cardio to complensate today. But is that rational thinking? Is this how I want to live my life? I still feel like I can some how find a medium ground. I love how my body has changed. I continue to hope that my legs will come around but I am not sure at what price I am willing to do that. I have decided that I feel like I need to set some guide lines for myself. Not only for my sanity but for my health.

1. No more than and additional hour of cardio five days a week. I considered only doing a few days a week but I do enjoy my cardio in the morning and I feel like it set my day of right so for now I want to keep it.

2. Continue to do weight training six days a week in the afternoon. I love weight training and I know this will help me with trying to get my legs tighter and firmers. So far now I will continue doing that as well.

3. This is the big one for me and I am not sure how this will go over with my trainer but maybe we can come to a happy medium ground. I want to keep my calories between 1400-2000 calories. I still want to keep my carbs low and protein high but I want to incorporate a more wide range of foods. I miss experimenting with food. Like I said I am not sure if this will help me get firmer and tighter but I am hoping that I can find a medium ground with this.

4. I am really happy with my weight where it is right now. I would like to keep my weight between 140-145. I think this is a good weight for me and like I said over all I am happy with the way it looks.

It feels so good to write this down and find some peace. I feel like I have been obsessed and I was beginning to get really worried, especially with the way I have been feeling the last few days. It may have been a "wake up" call for me and I did not want to ignore it. There are several bloggers that I am going to write personal notes to for support. I have been waiting in the shadows too long and I know a lot of these wonderful women can be of great support to me.

I know I am going to be exhausted today since I have not gotten much sleep but I think this was a good things for me.

I want balance in my life and I know that I have to pick it! I have to find the happy medium, for ME!

Thanks to all who read this and I want to committ to blogging more because I truly have missed it!

Dig Deep!

I had to dig deep this week and I have to admit I was unsure if I was going to be able to pull it off. But I sit here on a Friday beaming in awww at myself on what I was able to achieve this week.
My trainer bumped up my cardio on Tuesday to include and additional 45 minutes. My first reaction was, what the hell? I am already doing 45 minutes 5 days you want me to what? Double it? How am I going to fit that into already crazy schedule? Do I have what it takes to do it? But I did. I can't tell you how empowering it is. I left the gym the other days almost in tears from achieving the extra cardio. I sit here on Friday with only an additional 15 minutes to complete my task!
Do not underestimate what you can do. I know I won't.

Mother's Day and Progress Pictures

This was picture was taken on April 3 and I weighed 150 pounds.

This picture was taken today on 5/9 and I weighed in at 145 pounds. So I have lost another five pounds. I continue to make progress but as you can see the legs continue to hold on to the fat. Sigh.... But I do see a small change and the skin does look slightly tighter but I knew this part was going to take time. My upper body is coming together nicely and I have heard from others that between month 3 and 4 they saw great changes and I am hoping for the same for me.

I have upped the amount of veggies I have been eating just to keep me full and satisfied. Thanks to April I cooked up some cabbage and loved it so I will probably be adding that to my go to veggies. I do love them and it has not been a bad thing for me. I do have my moment when I long for a banana or some peanut butter but I continue to remind myself how long I have sustained from all these things and I far I have how far I have come and do I want to give it all up now for that. So I continue to hold strong.

I order myself a new collection of clothes from a girl name "Wendy" that Kelly O blogged about not to long ago. They should be coming this week and I am so excited. I am not clothes shopper and I have no idea how to put clothes together this was a great solution for me. I will take some picture of me in some of the new outfits to show you. It all still seems so unreal to me because when she asked me what size I was I wasn't sure and when I looked at a pair of pants that a friend had given me I saw that they were a size 6. A 6? I could hard put my mind around it and to say that I could wear a size Small shirt. It was almost to much for me. I still have this fear that the clothes will arrive and that they will be to small for me. I still have a lot of mental work to do to really comprehend all that I have achieved. There are moment that I cry with happiness for all that I have able to do and take great pride in it. But yet I still have moments when I see still how far I have yet to go. Today I choose to hold joy in all that I have achieved.

Stay tuned for the pictures of some of the new clothes!

Happy Mothers Day to all!

Update

I have thought about posting for days now and have finally just made myself sit down and do it. Working three small jobs, working out twice a day and now adding physical therapy into my week there isn't a lot of free time.
Here is a picture of us when we went and saw my son play his spring football game last weekend. My hair did look good before it started misting, with that and a little humidity mixed in that is what you get! :) We enjoyed seeing him and look forward to next fall to watching him play.

I am now entering my 12th week with Tony and the dreambodies program. I have had zero cheat and am doing well. Tony added an additional 25 minute of cardio into my mix and I have to admit I was wondering how and if I was going to be able to do it. But I am happy to report that I was able to do all five cardio sessions this week with the additional 25 minutes. It was so empowering to achieve this and it makes it even more clear to me that you can do anything you put your mind to.

I continue to try to stay patient with my legs. There has been small improvements but this part it going to take time and a lot of patience.

I had a conversation with Sarabeth the other day about beauty. This was a very difficult conversation for me. What is beauty? What makes some one beautiful? I had an assignment to find three pictures of women that I thought were beautiful. It was really difficult. There were many that I thought were cute but not beautiful, but what was it that made someone beautiful? I am still not quite sure if I have figure that out for myself. And the big question is can I find myself beautiful? I do have very rare moments that I look in the mirror and I see my beauty and it totally freaks me out. If I thought I was beautiful would that make me stuck up? Would I see myself as better than someone else? I think those are the emotions that come up for me. But what a wonderful gift it would be to have, look in the mirror and see and feel beautiful.
I would love to get your feedback on this.

I think I am going to do progress pictures next weekend so stay tuned!