Encouragement!

So I haven't weighed in a few days so I really don't have a weight update. I do, however, have a new inspiration. Another friend of mine that I haven't seen in over a month has lost close to 30 lbs in just those few short weeks. I am so excited for her! I haven't seen her in person yet but in photos she looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! I can not believe how much of a difference one month can make.

So, I am once again encouraged. Encouraged to do my best, even after a bad few weeks. Encouraged to get healthy for myself, not to impress or gain the acceptance of those around me. Encouraged to finally get to a weight that I am comfortable with and where I can be completely happy with myself.

I have never been one to dwell on my weight, I guess because I have always been overweight but always able to do as much as the other kids in sports and such. Only recently have I realized that, yes, I am getting older, and while the appearance part of being fat isn't the best thing in the world, the effects internally of being fat are killing me and I'm just sitting by like an innocent bystander. I am responsible for myself and while I was fat as a child I am an adult now and I can not place blame on anyone but myself. It is time for me to step up and get healthy for me and my future family. They deserve a healthy and happy wife and mommy. I can do it and I will!

P.S. In other encouraging news, my parents have both taken to healthier eating and my dad has lost nearly 60 pounds since February and my mom has lost 20 pounds in the past two months! Yay parentals!

Disgust

It has been nearly five months since I have posted. Five months ago I weighed 215. By now I should weigh somewhere around 185 at the most. Do I? No. Did I gain weight? Yes. I'm I super disgusted with myself? Yes. 

I never really thought all of the stress from school and work and family stuff would ever get to me to the point it did. The last three months of school I was getting up at 5 a.m. not to workout but to do homework that I didn't finish the night before when I quit at midnight. 

I know, I know, no excuses. And really I don't have any excuse. I gave up. Simple as that. I didn't stick with my healthy eating or my exercising the way I should have and because of that I have failed myself. 

Am I going to give up on this weight loss challenge I have set for myself? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I may not reach my goal weight at the time that I had originally planned to, but darn it, I will get there. 

As of now I have a new goal. I'm in my super gorgeous (super skinny, get it girl!) friend's wedding in October. October 20th to be exact. That gives me 134 days or just under 20 weeks. I want to loose an average of 2.5 pounds a week. If I keep it up, and I will this time, I will be right around 180 at the wedding. Not my ideal weight but it will be great progress and I will be super proud of myself. 

Looking to friends and of course my girl Mandisa (No, I have never met her and no, she probably doesn't know I exist BUT she did retweet me. That has to mean B.F.F.L. right?), for inspiration and reading my instruction book, aka my Bible, I know I will make it through. Things are not going as quickly as I would like but you know what, God made this body I'm in and I'm going to love it no matter what size I am. Just because I don't have a 5'11'', size 2 body doesn't mean that I can't be content with this 5'6'', size 18 body I'm rockin' now! It's all about how you look at things and I chose to have a positive outlook! 

^{Romans 7: 15-25} 

¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature^[d] a slave to the law of sin.