A Wake-Up Call

So, my inferiorities at keeping up a blog aside it is time to start anew.  And now, with added gusto, I begin a completely new phase of my life in which I take control again of who I want to be and how I want to live.  You may be asking yourself, "why, Amy, whatever can you mean?  You seem so happy with your life?"  or maybe your saying "geez, Amy, finally, now stop your self-indulgent pity-party and get your butt in gear!"  Of course, I'm putting words in your mouth but that is exactly what I am going to be doing, putting my butt in gear to lose weight, change my lifestyle and hopefully my life.

Enough is enough.  This realization came to me in the past two weeks after visiting my doctor and getting some pretty uncomfortable news.  At 29, I am now pre-diabetic, have high blood pressure and am on the verge of a very tall cliff with my internal organs.  At 29.  20-freaking-9. 

So after this news was taken in and process for a whole of 5 minutes I realized that I need to stop playing around.  While a variety of things can cause the above-mentioned issues, I am in no more denial that ultimately my weight is playing the biggest role.  I am 119 lbs overweight.  There, I said it.  Done and done.

The doctor has put me on medication for blood pressure, restricted my diet to little to no refined sugar, no alcohol (aaahhh!!!), and more exercise with the message that if I don't turn my lifestyle around soon, it's going to get worse.  So instead of curling up on my not-so-comfy couch and taking a good, self-pity cry with a bag of cookies and my remote control, I have decided to attack this issue from all sides.  What does that mean, you ask?  Well, in a nutshell, it means this:

• No more fast food
• No more pizza
• No more soda
• No more candy
• No more cookies or ice cream or sugar coated sugar sticks (jk!)
• No more sitting on my butt watching tv all weekend
• Salads for lunch and dinner
• Fruit all day long
• Exercise and activity 7 (yes 7!) days a week
• Etc, etc, etc.

Sounds tough, right?  You couldn't be more wrong.

What it sounds like is I can finally stop kidding myself and giving myself excuses, right?  I have made excuses not to have salads or fruit or healthy foods around me at all times.  I've made excuses not to exercise and lose weight.  I've got every excuse in the book.  And now, there's not an excuse good enough.

What about this excuse:  "I'm too busy to get to the gym every day."

Lame, that's what.  How about this one:  "Making a good salad is too hard and requires too many ingredients."

Ultra lame.  My response now is:  "This is how you live.  You eat salad, you work out every day, you care about you enough to get healthy.  So stop being such a pansy and do it!"

It's actually been a great week and full of discoveries.  I'm remembering that I actually like to live this way and eat this way and it's really not that difficult.  I'm remembering that I am a strong and active person.  I am learning and discovering a lot about the self-sabotage I have used in the past few years that has kept me from making the commitment to being healthy. 

So now begins the journey to find that inner-skinny person who has been fighting to get out all these years.  My first goal is 28 lbs by August 31st and between now and then I hope I will figure out how to keep up the momentum to finish this once and for all!