Mistakes or learning exsperiences???

I've been think a lot about the last two years or so.  As I think back on them I see lots of ups and downs.  Like a very long roller coaster.    It might even go back further than two years.

Let me give you a little back ground on my life and why I think I've had a hard time the past couple of years...at least.

All my life, until a couple years ago, I lived my life in a way most would think was close to perfect.  I tried hard to live this way.   I did everything I needed to do to live my life the way I had been taught to do so in my church and by my parents.  I didn't ever feel like I was missing out on anything.  I loved my life and I felt like God loved me.  I knew I was making my parents proud at how I was growing up.  I took a lot of slack from some of my friends and people I went to school with.  I wasn't a goody goody but I'm sure some people thought I was.  I just wanted to live the right way.

Honestly I can I say I didn't do anything wrong until I was like 20 years old.  I felt horrible.  I even remember at the time thinking OK I'm done with that.  That is not my thing.  I remember girls I worked with having parties and going off in big groups camping and stuff.  Part of me wanted to be apart of that group.  They were always having fun.  But they never invited me because to them I was to good.  You know?

Well after a couple little bumps in the road, I did end up serving a mission for my church.  I went to the Honolulu Hawaii mission.  Absolutely the best experience ever!  Serving a mission made me realize how grate full I was that I lived my life so good and didn't make to many mistakes along the way.  I knew it was all for a reason and I was grateful.  Serving my mission allowed me to fully focus on the real purpose of life and other people.  It was amazing!  I will forever be thankful for that experience. 

After I got home from my mission I wanted to get married and have kids.  After being home about a year and a half I married my husband.........this is where things started to go wrong.  Not right away but eventually.  My husband was also a returned missionary.  I thought we at least had that in common.  I knew that whatever problems we had in our marriage as long as we were on the same page with religion we should be able to make it through.

I don't remember exactly when but right around five years into our marriage my husband informed me he no longer believed in the church we both belonged to.  He hadn't gone to church for the first five years of our marriage.  He worked on Sundays for the first 10 years of our lives together.  I know it's easy to fall away if you don't go to church.  But he was adamant that he no longer believed.  This information killed me!  I felt betrayed and lied too.  The whole life I had planned in my head was not going to happen!  The whole base of our marriage felt like it no longer was there.  It was gone!  Of course we loved each other and we didn't just get married because we both belonged to the same church and were both returned missionaries.  My whole life I was only going to marry a returned missionary!

Ever since he dropped that load of horrible information I began to fall apart inside.  I no longer felt like we saw eye to eye on anything.  I no longer felt like our marriage meant anything.  I felt like if he no longer believed in our religion then our temple marriage was false.  It was a a very devastating time for me.  I seriously considered leaving him just based on that alone.

Well as the years went on, I tried to go to church by myself or with my children.  But its VERY hard to go alone without your spouse.  I don't know why, it just is.  I tried and I still try but it isn't the same.  I always wanted to be one of those cute couples at church that teach a class together or speak in church together.  We have never spoke together.  He always refused the invitation.  I wanted to be that cute couple that held hands and whispered during class together or wrote love notes to each other as the teacher taught.  None of that ever happened for me.  I know it's petty and small but to me it was big and something I thought would always be.

For years now, off and on I have been inactive.  I try hard for awhile and then stop for awhile and then try again and stop.  Sometimes it feels like when I don't go to church that Bryan and I actually get along better.  I 'm not sure why.  Sometimes I find myself being mad at him more for not going to church when I go.  It's weird.

Anyway, I felt betrayed by Bryan.  I felt like living my life so "perfect" was all in vain!  I felt like I missed out on lots of fun growing up trying to be so perfect so I could have this perfect marriage in the temple and then that didn't happen.  So to be honest I quit trying.  I gave up!  Completely gave up on so many things.  In the past two years I have made A LOT of mistakes.  A LOT!  I've done things I'm not proud of.  BUT today I decided that I was going to be happy about my life.  To do that I need to forgive myself for all the horrible things I have done and move on and be happy.  I found myself holding on to all those things and beating myself up for them over and over again.  I did start going back to church in October of 2011.  But I go through phases where I beat myself up again and then quit going.   I really truly hope I can forgive myself and move on.   So from this point on, I am going to forgive myself.  I have learned many things from my mistakes!  That is good right?  I was so glad when 2011 was over!  I was so glad 2012 was going to be the best year ever.  It has been a good year so far in lots of ways but I've made mistakes this year too!  I will always make mistakes, it's part of the process.  It's just hard!

Lets all forgive ourselves today of our pasts and more forward with faith and hope! 

Big Loser Community Boot Camp 2012

Just watch and thats a vote for Justin's Power Circuit Class!!! This is my awesome team!!! We are crazy and totally ok with it!

Starting to see some change

 This picture was taken January 2012

This pic was taken today April 28, 2012

about 4 months later.  I officially started my weight loss journey on February 2, 2012.  Ironic that it was also my 10 year anniversary. 

I think I am finally starting to see some change.  My real face is starting to come back.  It's be hiding under lots of fat stuffing ;) for along time!!!

29 pounds lost since February 2, 2012.

It's not HORMONES!!! Or is it???

 These images say it all!!!

So every time I am pregnant I am a total beast to almost everyone I come in contact with!  After my third baby was born I decided this pregnancy things is for the birds and I quit!  It felt so great to take the control in my heads and decide I'm done!  All my life (since puberty of course) I had horrible periods!  I didn't really know they were all that bad because it's all I knew.  I never complained about the pain or the "flow".  I just dealt with it.  It seemed normal to me.  Since I didn't know any better!  I dealt with it and dealt with it.  Whatever we all do it!  Well us ladies anyway!!!

Well fast forward to November 2008.... I had my third baby on July 1, 2008.  I had a harder time getting pregnant with him than my other two kids.  In fact I had no issues at all getting pregnant with my first two.  A year before my last pregnancy I got pregnant.  That one ended in a miscarriage at about 8 weeks or so.  I was bummed but to be honest I wasn't ready to be pregnant and I think my heart and mind knew it was n;t a good time.  I think I needed to go through that experience though.  I was happy with just two kids and was pretty sure I was done after number two.  Well after the miscarriage I KNEW FOR A FACT I NEEDED AND WANTED another baby!  After the miscarriage I had lots of problems.  My period was not happening.  I was worried.  After several months I went to the doctor and he gave me a few little pills that I took and then after that my period came.  The next month I was pregnant!  Wahoo!

After baby boy number three was born I knew I was done.  Since I have c-sections  I had my tubes tied during the birth of by baby.  Perfect!  Well after a few months I decided that if I was not going to have any more babies I wanted to have my uterus removed so I would no longer have periods.  I mean come on....if I'm not going to get pregnant why in the world would I want to have a period!!!  So I had a bunch of test done.  Unfortunately doctors can't just remove organs and body parts without a reason to do so.  I had an awesome doctor who totally understood where I was coming from.  So I had the tests and found out that I had a pretty bad case of endometriosis.  I had it on the outside and the inside of my uterus.  So lucky for me that was reason enough to do the surgery.

Well, ever since having it removed I have had crazy hormones.  Is it because of the removal of my uterus or is it my age (35) or what in the world is it!!!  Every month I go through some major hormonal times.  Seriously mood swings is not even the word for it!  I need to start tracking it.  I'm a crazy person!  What is the deal!!! 

Well my husband is ALWAYS telling me I have a hormone imbalance! I HATE when he says this.  How does he know.  He's not a doctor!  He loves to diagnose me with things.  It gets old!  I am sure he's just trying to figure out why in the world would I hate him and want to divorce him at a certain time every month!  He's perfect according to him and there should be no reason why I would be upset with him other than my hormones!  It's always the damn hormones!!!  He's a man!  How would he know!!  Makes me soooooo mad!!!!

My new Body Bugg life!!!

If any of you watch The Biggest Loser on T.V you probable already know what the Body Bugg is.  If not, Here it is!  I am the proud new owner!  I got my in the mail yesterday.  I ordered it from 24 hour fitness.  You can get one too and if you use this link and enter in the code you will get $20.00 off!  

http://bodybugg.extole.com/offers/1371740389/interstitial/2R6C6L?dist_src=facebook

What you do it wear the arm band around your left arm and the watch sync to it to let you at a quick glance how many calories you have burned in your day and as you go along through out the day.  It has lots of great features.  I just started using mine last night.  I wanted to see how many calories I burn sleeping.  It's pretty amazing!

If comes with a website you use to log your food and calories.  You plus it in to your computer and it downloads all your info from the day.  It customizes a plan for you based on if you want to loose weight, maintain, bulk up etc.  Obviously I chose the loosing weight plan!  So according to the questions it asked me about food, exercise and stuff here is my plan.  I want to loose 2 pounds a week.  So it told me I need to eat 1900 calories a day, burn 2900 calories a day and I will loose 2 pounds a week! Sweet!

It resets at midnight every night.  So since midnight to now and it's 11:20am I have burned 1015 calories.  So I should be able to hit the 2900 mark in no time!  it's pretty exciting to be able to see what my body is doing on the inside right on my watch.  I highly recommend if you get one!  It was right around $165 dollars.  I don't normally have that kind of money to spend on myself for something like this but my Mom gave all her kids a $500 gift card to use on anything we wanted.  So I bought this and a Ninja Blender for all my green smoothies! YUM! 

So I'll keep you posted on how my Body Bugg life is going.  I have seen it work for some friends and of course it works on the Biggest Loser so it should work for me too!

I can't wait to post pics of me now and as I go along in my weight loss journey!  I'm considering taking pics in just panties and a bra so you can really see the difference as I go along.  Like maybe a monthly pic.  What do you think?  Will you all be to scared to read my blog with half nude pics of me on it???   Let me know......

My Sister My Hero!!!

 This past weekend I loaded my kids in the car and drove 5 hours to support my sister in her very first marathon!  She flew in from Arizona to run the Salt Lake City Marathon.

 She did amazing!  It was so exciting waiting and watching for her to run past us.  

 Seconds after finishing she looks amazing as always!  This girl was meant to run.  She hurt after but not like I would be hurting!  She wasn't very sweaty and wasn't even out of breath! AMAZING!  I can't even run an 1/8 of a mile without being out of breath! 

 The metals were very nice!  It was a fun day!

After she got showered and ready for the day we posed for this lovely shot!   My sister is so pretty! 

_______________

As I watched the racers, I was almost emotional!  I thought about how amazing it is to be able to run and be healthy!  I thought about what was going on through the racers heads.  Everyone has there own reason inside for running and doing a race.  I was so happy for complete strangers as they did this race.    I was so happy to be able to be there for my sister.  My parents also drove a few hours to be there and we all stayed together in a hotel.  We had lots of fun together.  So glad I was there!

WAY TO GO ANDREA!!!  YOU ARE MY HERO!!!

The reason for my blog name

My blog name, Inside I'm Skinny, I really truly feel this way.  I don't see myself as an obese person.  Ever since I was thin like ten years ago, I have never seen myself as being over weight.  it's like the image of how I was then is forever etched in my mind.  When I took at myself in a mirror or in a picture, I'm SHOCKED!  Some people always see themselves as fat when they are very thin but I don't know to many people in my case.   Maybe this is a real thing, maybe some people do see themselves as skinny when they are indeed fat.  So you think?  Or am I alone?

Ever time I see myself in a picture I feel like I look disgusting!  Even now that I'm on a weight loss journey and have lost 27 pounds, I just can't seem to visually see the weight loss yet.  People are telling me they can tell, my clothes a looser, so it must be true.  I really must have lost 27 pounds!  But I can't see it!  It's hard! 

Losing weight can be very discouraging.  It's an up hill battle for sure!   I play mind games with myself and I even have conversations with myself in my head.  I try and talk myself out of working out or eating healthy.  One of the conversations I have with my head every time I work out is this,   

 

my head: At least your at the gym right?

 

me: Yes

 

my head:  as long as you are moving you are doing more than if you were at home

 

me: that's true, I don't need to push myself. 

 

my head: yeah if you were home in bed or on the couch you wouldn't been burning any calories

 

me: that's true, I'll just walk the track or treadmill or maybe slowly pedal the bike.  I'll just be there in the class but not work very hard today.

 

me head: yeah tat will be good, it's better than not doing anything at all!

 

me:  STOP!  You didn't get up early to quit early! (my trainer said this all the time)

 

me: Don't you quit! (another classic from my trainer)

I think we all do this.  No matter if it's with working out or whatever, we all play this game.

I do this with eating healthy too.  I tell myself that just one won't hurt or I've ate healthy all day or all week, I deserve a treat!  We aren't not dogs!  Do not reward yourself with food!  It's so easy to reward yourself with food.   It's an easy and inexpensive reward.  I could be rewarding myself with diamonds or tropical vacations....but no I choose food!  Food as always been my friend.  Food loves me and I love it! We get each other!

 

A chance of a life time!

 Since our team won the Biggest Loser challenge we won a boot camp workout with some real biggest losers!  

We met at 7:00pm at the Washington County Community Center.  We had no idea really what was in store other than a good workout!  It was so much more than that!

Some awesome news, Sarah who has had major problems getting pregnant and keeping her pregnancies is FINALLY pregnant!  She is a couple months along.  Even more amazing news, before finding out she was pregnant, she was chosen by a birth mom to adopt.  So she will have two babies this year!!!  So excited for her!  If you have not seen her you tube video, you should watch it!  AMAZING!  She is such an inspiration to me!  I loved her from the beginning!  I have so many feelings in common with her.  I never had a hard time getting pregnant but other than that we have lots in common.

We started out workout with some awesome stretches and warming up.  I was already dripping sweat on the floor during the WARM UP!!!  Seriously!

We then worked out for an hour and it was awesome!  I was of course pushing myself so I would impress them!  I mean seriously the cutest Tongan ever is working out with me! I'm going to push myself!  But the great part was I could actually do what he wanted us to do!  It was fun!  I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I took it all in! It felt amazing!  

 Myself and the adorable Sione!  Isn't he cute?!?!?!?!

I loved him and his cousin in BL season 7!

Myself and the super cute Sarah!!!  She is so cute! I loved her on BL season 11!

 

This prize was amazing!  After the workout we all sat and they told us their stories.  It was very inspirational.  Sione is HILARIOUS and HOT! LOL  Sarah is sweet and amazing and I connected with her story so much!   I wish I would have recorded their stories or at least took notes!   Sarah said some things that really hit home.  One story she told was while on the BL she was getting a massage by the massage therapist there.  He questioned her faith in God.  She was like no, I'm good there.  She never questioned her faith in God.  The therapist said, I have to question your faith in God,  She was shocked.  He said, if you have so much faith in this supreme being how can you not have faith in yourself!  WOW!  So true!  I've never doubted my faith in God but I have doubted my faith in myself a million times.  She also talked about how once you clear your mind of all the negative things, then your body will follow your mind!  I believe this with all my heart!  Over the years I have held on to negative feelings or thoughts or things people have said to me.  I tell myself I don't hold grudges and I am easy to forgive.  To a points it's true.  I just can't for the life of me forget those negative feelings and I have those negative feelings towards the people who have hurt me in the past and I need to let go!  I tend to hold things in!  Even though I also say it like it is, once I get talking, but for the most part I do hold in A LOT!  Obviously I'm going to get fat holding it all in.  All that negative doesn't have anywhere to go if I hold it in.  So this blog is going to help me with that!  I appreciate all the love and support you are all showing me by doing this blog and the support you are all giving me in my weight loss journey!  Without you I am nothing!

Sione's Biggest Losser Boot Camp

Tonight is the night!!!  Who doesn't love a cute Polynesian?!?!?!

So all along I knew that if I signed up for the Big Loser Community and won, I would be invited to go to Sione's Boot Camp!  I'm so excited!  It's tonight and it's just for my team!  It's going to be awesome! I can't wait to see what he has to say and teach us!  He obviously knows what he's doing!  He works at the Biggest Loser Fitness Ridge here in St George, Utah.  You can check it out at http://www.biggestloserresort.com/

I wish I could afford to go to the biggest loser resort!  It would be amazing!!!

So keep an eye out for my post about the boot camp.  It's going to be awesome!

Some of my Favorite Health Quotes!

My Little Sister and I

Allison and Andrea July 2010

I have the nicest sister in the whole world!  My sister is my hero! 

My sister has always been fit and healthy!  She has always exercised!  I remember time thinking why in the world does she exercise!  She's already in good shape and healthy.  Now I know!  It's because it makes you feel so good and it's better to start early then later on like me when you are 100 wait now I'm only 75 pounds over weight!

It's so fun now that I'm on this health journey.  My sister and I have even more in common now.  We love it!  My sister is my best friend.  I always adored her but she didn't always like me.  I remember when we were young I'd cry to my Mom that me and Andrea would never be best friends like my mom and her sister are.  But my wish came true and we are! 

In this picture we are at a going away party for Andrea's family. They moved.  It was a fun party!  The only thing I really remember from it though was when I was walking across the park to where the party was I saw my Grandpa Brown and went to him first to say hi.  he said, Well Allison...I was wondering who that fat lady was walking across the park"!  I know he meant well.  He was 85 years old and has earned the right to say anything he wants right?   I understand. I'm not upset.  Just funny what I remember from that day!  Now my Grandpa is passed away and I have sooooo many great memories.  Not just this one! :)

I'm looking forward to taking another picture of me and my sister together but this time I hope I'm not 2 1/2 times her size!!!

When I'm mad, working out helps me calm down.....

One thing I've learned over the past two and half months is that after I workout I feel so much better about life!  I've also found that if I'm upset or mad, if I workout I will calm down and fee so much better faster than holding in my anger!

An example of this happened yesterday.  Both of my sons are in scouts.  We had to go to the scout expo because both of their pine wood derby cars won in there troops and so they needed to race them again against the other troops winners.

Like everything, we knew about this forever......but we waited until the last minute to get their cars ready.  My husband was in charge of this and we had to get one of my sons a new car and make it and he wasn't able to do this until the day before.....So the morning of Bryan was running around getting things done on the car.  he even had it weighed at the post office!  We knew we had to be there at 10:30 for the first race.....Well as we are driving there, my husband reads the information to find out we really needed to be there at 9:00am!  We were and hour and 15 minutes late.  I dropped Bryan off and he went to see if we could still race and lucky for us it still worked out.  So that was good!

My son designed his car to look the same in the front and back.  So a sticker was placed on the front so he would know which was the front of the car.  When he raced his first leg, he put his car on the track backwards.  My husband yelled out for him to fix his car.  (side note) I HATE when he yells and draws attention to us.  I HATE it!  It makes me so uncomfortable.  To me his voice always sounds mad and I hate people thinking he's mad at his kids or myself.  It makes me so upset!  I asked Bryan to not yell.  So....anyway the first race was a loss.  The next race he won when his car was facing the right direction.

Here comes the part with me getting mad.  My husband came over and informed me that it was all my fault his car lost the first race.  If I would of let him get his car turned around he would of won!  This is a big problem we have in our marriage.  It's ALWAYS my fault!  ALWAYS!  Things completely out of my control are all my fault!  This makes me so mad!  I asked for the keys so I could go sit in the car.  he would not give me the keys.  So I walked home!  It was a 3.5 mile walk in the rain carrying my purse!  At least I have my running shoes on!  I was so mad!  I just had to get out of there!  The longer I walked the better I was feeling but I was still mad at my husband!  These situations span our entire marriage!  I know that some of my weight issues and self esteem issues have to do with situations like this. 

It's took me 90 minutes to walk 3.5 miles.  The closer I got to home the more determined I was to finish.   When I got home I was drenched in rain and sweat.  I jumped in the shower ate lunch and felt so much better!  Inside I felt better!  I was still mad at my husband but personally I felt better.  Something about music and exercise sure makes like better.

I'll never understand why everything that goes wrong is somehow my fault.  I'll never understands his need to always blame someone.  Btu I do know that I can control how I deal with the situation.  And sometimes that is just by leaving and going for a nice walk!

My Biggest Losser Team Won! Yeah baby!!!

 Here I am with my trainer!  Terica is amazing! I love her so much!

 My team!  We had so much fun together!  Eight of the ten were already best friends!  I think that really helped our team stay strong.  We were very dedicated and 90% of the time we all worked out together at 6:00 am Monday through Friday!  The man of our team was the over all winner of the whole thing!  He did so awesome!  We all did!  At least 5 of my teammates won a special prize for fat % lost!  It was awesome to see our team dominate!   What an awesome experience!  I'm going to do it again next year!  By then I won't need to loose weight but it will still be fun to do it!

 My biggest loser BFF :)  Karen.  We met in line waiting to sign up for the challenge.  I had no idea which trainer to choose.  So I went with the trainer she pick and boy am I glad I did!  Perfect match!  Isn't Karen beautiful???  AND SHE IS SINGLE!!!  She's to hot to be fifty!!!

Our winnings!!!

We all won $100, a ticket to Sione's boot camp, a 3 month family pass to the community center worth $150, a fresh produce basket, $20 in movie tickets.  So fun! 

WHAT A GREAT WAY TO START 2012!!!!

Angry at myself!

This picture sums it up!!!

Ever since I started this weight loss journey I have found myself being so mad at myself!  So mad that I let myself get so out of control!  When I first started working out, I had never worked out before!  Never even been in a gym before with the intentions of working out!  One of my friends once said after a workout, isn't  this great to do things we haven't done before?  I said yeah like being at the gym!  I'm serious!  This was a huge step for me!

When I'm working out, I find myself being mad at myself.  I'm mad I'm so big, I'm mad my body hurts, I'm mad I can't do some of the movements perfectly, I'm mad I'm not strong, I'm mad I can't run fast, I'm mad I can't jump!!! I'm just so mad!!!

I know this is part of the process but as I woke up this morning in to much pain to get up and go workout at 6am, I was mad at myself!  If I was just in better shape, if I would not have put this off for so many years, if I would have chose to be healthy along time ago!  I hate letting my mind and body control what I want!

I find that this whole process is really a mind game I play with myself.  Because when it comes down to it, it's all about me and I'm the only one that can change my life.  I am the only one completely in control of me.  I've found that working out and counting calories has helped me feel in control of my so out of control life.  This new life style feels like the one and only thing I have control over.  And lets be honest, I love control!

Marriage is hard! Why didn't anyone tell me???

So as of February 2, 2012 I have been married for 10 years!  Let me tell ya, this has been the hardest 10 years of my life!  I remember a time when I was younger, so many people around me seemed to have hard times and trials and struggles and I didn't!  I remember never wanting to have any trials but almost wondering why I had not had any hard times. 

 In my religion ( The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), when we feel we are ready, we can receive a patriarchal blessing. Patriarchal blessings are given to worthy members of the Church by ordained patriarchs. Patriarchal blessings include a declaration of a person's lineage in the house of Israel and contain personal counsel from the Lord. As a person studies his or her patriarchal blessing and follows the counsel it contains, it will provide guidance, comfort, and protection.  (you can read more on this at http://www.lds.org/study/topics/patriarchal-blessings?lang=eng)

I received mine when I was 12 or so years of age.  I have read it thousands of times.  I have seen promises made to me in my blessing that have come to past.  But the one thing that I always wondered about was the line that says, "This will not be an easy life."  I've read that over and over again throughout the years and up until I got married I always thought life was easy!  My life was easy!  I'm not joking when I say it was easy!  I got married when I was 24.  Up until that point, life was great! My parents always did everything possible for me to have a great life.  They did an amazing job! I never went without anything!  I was very well taken care of!  I remember feeling lucky as a child.  Some of my friends and people around me didn't have as much as I did.  I knew I was blessed.  All through my school years I had great friends, that was another huge blessing in my life.  I had friends who made great choices and that made making good choices easy for me.  I love the young women's program in my church.  I love my leaders.  I have amazing influences in my life.  I was very blessed!

My whole life was amazing and easy for so long.  I remember wondering when my trials would come.  I was faced with a few tough decision along the way of life but nothing that took me to far away from my goals.  Just little bumps in the road.  Nothing I would have considered a real trial!  

Then comes marriage!!!  Like I mentioned before, my husband and I argued over everything but we were madly in love!  We had some major chemistry!  It was awesome and I knew I need to marry this guy!  He put more effort into our relationship than I did.  The relationship I had before my husband, was totally the opposite!  My husband is from California.  When we met I was living in Provo, Utah with my younger brother and sister in a condo.  We loved living together!  We had so much fun during those couple years living together!  Awesome memories!  Anyway, he would drive from southern California to see me in Provo every other weekend!  Now we only dated and were engaged for 4 months total!  So it wasn't like he had to do it very long but I had a full time job and couldn't leave as often as he could.  It was so fun and exciting when he would come to see me.  We had so much fun and spent every hour together while he was visiting.  Except for sleeping of course, we slept in separate rooms!!!

Anyway, on my wedding day, I had a strong feeling to not go through with it!!!  I know,  huge scary moment!  Maybe it was just cold feet, maybe it was a sign, who knows.  Obviously I didn't listen to the feeling.....  I will always wonder what that meant.  This is the start of all my trials and hard times I knew would come eventually!

I know every marriage has issues and problems no and then.  I guess I just don't know how to deal with that!  I think most of our problems are because we are both stubborn and we were both raised completely different.  He has a great childhood and he has lots of wonderful memories like I do but I can't help but think our upbringings play a huge roll in who were are and how we deal with life.  In my eyes we have hard times because he wasn't raised in a religion.  I was raised very strong in the LDS church.  He was not even taught about God or Jesus.   His biological father died when he my husband was 2 years old.  His mom remarried a wonderful man a few years later and he is still alive and has always been a great person and father to my husband.  I'm grateful he had good parents.  His life was just so different than mine.  Not bad or wrong just different.  He was later baptized into the LDS church and served a full time mission, like I did.  So when I met him, I didn't really care about his past.  In my mind, he was LDS and a returned missionary.  Those were huge on my list!  In our church we are taught and encouraged to only date members of our church and marry a returned missionary in the temple.  So I thought sweet this is going to work out perfectly!  Little did I know, those were not the only things that make an amazing marriage.  It's hard!  You have to work at it!

Through our marriage there has been lots of mean things said to one another, lots and lots of mean things!  We have both made lots and lots of mistakes that has hurt the other person.  Trust has been lost.  When we would fight he would do things to get back at me and I have done things to get back at him.  Neither one of us are proud of our mistakes and childish ways of dealing but it's just how it happened.  All part of the trial I guess.

I truly think all my trials were saved up for marriage!   It has been the hardest thing I have ever done!  Then you add kids into the mix and it makes things ever harder.  One thing is for sure, we both love our kids more than life!  That is for sure!  I just wish we loved each other as much as that!  I think we used to......Maybe it's still there somewhere.....Only time will tell.

Should I or shouldn't I??? I'm puzzled.....

So since I started this blog just a few days ago.....I have been thinking long and hard on how I want it to go.  At first I thought I would just start from now and add bits and pieces of my past in their to give you an idea on where I'm coming from.  As I have thought and pondered on it, I just want to let everything off my chest.  I know people will read this blog but most likely the people who read it will already know a lot of the things I will mention.  But I really truly feel like all of these things have played a huge roll in who I am today and why I allowed myself to gain so much weight.  I'm sure the main reason is and always has been that I just love food and loathe working out!  Somehow I think maybe some of these things have played a roll.  Maybe I'm trying to find a reason to it all.  Maybe I'm wanting to blame something besides myself, maybe.  BUT I also think the reason for my weight issues is based primarily on my self esteem.  I know it's called self esteem because it is how one feels about them self but I truly believe that the way people treat you can have a huge impact on your self esteem.  I know people will disagree, and maybe it will just be my husband who disagrees but it's how I feel and this is my blog and he has given me permission to say whatever I want.  He also did say he would be writing his own blog to give his side of the story.....so look forward to that! LOL  It's my blog and I'll say what I want too! So there! :P  I figure that I'm pretty much an open book as it is.  All my close family and friends already know most of these things and know how I feel about almost everything.  But it really helps me to write things down.  So beware this could get very personal but I'm OK with that.  I do worry that I might hurt someones feelings or embarrass someone and hopefully that won't happen.  I'm sure when people write a book on there life they feel that same way!  I feel safe knowing only a handful of people will read this and they most likely have already heard these stories......Lets hope!

9k Race Day

February 25th we had a 9k race!  This was 23 days after the first day of the contest!

So when this Big Loser Community thing started, I was literally not doing anything healthy!  The only working out I did was cleaning my house!  So day one we show up at the gym!  I had no idea what I was getting my self into.  These workouts are HARD!  It's not like we are just walking the track!  We are sweating our guts off!  It was VERY hard at first!  When I say at first I mean the whole 9 weeks of the competition! 

When I signed up for this I had no idea we would be running a race!  And since I just happened to pick the most hard core trainer available, we got to run the 9K and not the 5K like most the other teams!

So here is how the race went......We show up at the crack of dawn, freeze our butts off waiting for it to start.  We line up at the starting line.  We here GO!  Everyone starts to run........everyone but me!  I walked the whole thing.  In fact, I was so far behind the rest of the group that I got lost and ended up taking a short cut.  I didn't know it was a short cut.  I finished the race very slowly even for walking.  Most of my team ran the whole thing!  When it was all over I felt bummed!  I was bummed that I took a short cut, I was bummed I didn't run any of it!  I totally let myself down.  but since I'm a happy go lucky person I didn't let it show that I was disappointed. It was still a fun day and it was fun to be with my team and it was still exercise.  

A few days later, my trainer asked me if I'd like to purchase a personal training session with her.  I said yes!  I had no idea what was in store for me.  I met her at the WCCC (Washington County Community Center) on Saturday.  I then followed her in her car as we drove and drove, what seemed like awhile...then I started to realize we were in the same area as the 9K race the week before.  AH CRAP!  She was going to have me do it again!!!

This time the 9K was AMAZING!!!  I had my trainer right by my side.  I would run fast and then walk and then run and walk.  It felt so good!  We had some very good pep talks along the way!  She is an amazing person!  I felt so great after.  Honestly after being home for a little while I really felt like I could go run it again! It was the best feeling I have had! 

The best thing that has come out of this process for me is, the feeling I get after I am done working out!  I feel great! I'm not sore anymore!  My body is realizing this is the new normal!  I sleep great!  I no longer take any medication.  I was taking Excedrin EVERY morning to wake up, I was taking a sleeping pill EVERY night to go to sleep!  I was also on an anxiety and depression medication.  I am medication free! I'm so happy!  This last 10 weeks has been amazing!  I'm loving my new lifestyle!!!

A couple things I have learned along the way.......

1- Water is my friend 

2- Sugar is the devil

20 pounds of pure fat

Here is a picture of five pounds of fat next to a dollar bill.  I have lost 4 of those chucks of lard in 9 weeks! I'm so excited!!! It really puts it in perspective to see a picture!

The numbers don't lie

As part of the Big Looser Community, our registration fee included a Bod Pod assessment at the Gateway to Wellness at inter mountain health care.  I went and got my first assessment done on Feb 2, 2002 And then today Apr 10, 2012 I went and got my follow up assessment.  The numbers are very interesting. 

02-02-2012

% fat 50.7
Fat weight 130.21 (pure fat)
Fat free weight 126.71 (organs, muscle, fluid)
Body Weight 256.93

TODAY 04-10-2012

% fat 46.4
Fat Weight 110.29
Fat free weight 127.17
body weight 237.4

So what does all that mean?  The most exciting number is the fat weight!  I literally lost 20 pounds of pure fat!!! Wahoo!  I'm so excited about that!!!

My trainer told us to eat our RMR (resting metabolic rate) in calories everyday.  This number is the number of calories your body uses to just live.  Mine in February was 1722 so I have been trying to eat that many calories a day.  Today mine is 1690 so that is good!  The lower your number the healthier you are.  So now I will start to eat 1690 a day.  When it comes to weight loss, if you want to loose weight you actually have to eat! This is a weird concept for me!  If you don't eat then your body will hang on to the fat you have and thing you are trying to starve.  WE DO NOT WANT THAT!!!  So eating good healthy, balanced meals is the only way to go!  I was hoping my % of body fat would come down more.  It did come down 4.2 and according to the gateway to wellness this is good.  It's coming down and that's all that matters.  I'll take it!  I love getting these assessments done.  it really helps me to see in a number what my body is doing.  It's only $40.00 to get it done and I feel it's totally worth it.  If you really want to know, I'd check in your area for a place to get this done.  I'm going to continue getting them done every few months along my weight loss journey!

All of these stories have to do with my weight gain and weight loss journey I promise....

So I got married........I'm going to be SO honest here.  Some of you will be surprised but most of you will not.  I am just tired of holding it all in.  Maybe this blog will help someone other than me....Maybe.  So while me and my husband were dating.  You know the WHOLE 4 months!  We didn't know each other very well at all but we felt like we were in love.  We had MAJOR chemistry and were very attracted to each other.  We rushed getting married.  Who knows, if we would have dated longer honestly we would most likely have never got married.  We argued A LOT over EVERYTHING!  I'm not joking!  We would fight over if that was a black cat or a white cat that ran across the street!  We argued over everything!  We are both very stubborn people.  Not a good combination at all!   But we were in love right?

 In my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) We believe in getting married before we live with a boyfriend or fiance.  We believe you should not have sex before marriage.  So needless to say.....10 years later I can say we rushed it.  My mom recalls asking me, Are you sure?  Are you really sure?  It's not to late to call it off.  We just argued so much that people were questioning our decision.  I think even we questioned our decision but we loved each other and I had not felt the way I felt about him with anyone before.  I did date a handful of guys before him.  This time felt good, this time felt right.  He loved me.  He put all the effort into our relationship that I had not had before.  He was a great guy!  He was so many things on my list!  He was a member of my church, he was a returned missionary, he was a hard worker, he loved kids, He wanted children, he loved his Mom.  He was a catch!  We were in love and we were doing what we felt right. 

Well, within 3 months of being married, trials started.  Things were already hard.  We still argued A LOT,  He was not having much luck with finding a job he loved, I was hating my job and was laid off.  We were starting to already see things we were going to have to work on together.  I was starting to feel like he wasn't the same person I thought I married.  I'm sure he started to see things about me that he didn't like or was going to have to learn to deal with.  He disappointed me.  I'm sure I disappointed him too.  We came across a trial I wasn't quite sure how to deal with.  But we plugged along.  This trial really effected me.  I let it really effect me.  It was at this point I feel like I started to gain weight and to loose my self esteem that I thought I had.  I'm sure the weight gain was mostly because I stopped taking my weight loss herbs but a mix of the two things I'm sure effected me.  I remember feeling like I needed a bigger pair of pants within our first month or two of marriage.  I clearly remember feeling bigger and like I already looked bigger to my family and friends that I didn't see very much. 

Around our 3 month anniversary we decided that since I was laid off and he wasn't loving the job he had found, we would move back to his home state of California.  Maybe there he would have more luck with work.  I was up for the adventure.  This would be move number 1 of the 9 moves we would make in our 10 years of marriage!!!  Another thing that I'm sure played a roll in my weight gain. 

We moved to California and lived with his Mom.  She also had her other son and his wife living there and I thought this would be so much fun!  We were young and in love.  We could do anything.  Well we only lived there for six months.  During that time I found a job I hated.....He was doing odd and end things for his mom and people she knew.  He did some remodeling work, handy man type stuff.  But this job was not going to last forever and he wasn't looking for work.  We lived like we were on a 6 month vacation.  We had fun!  We took in the sites, went on some mini vacations, saw lots of movies and ate at lots of yummy places! Eating was our fun!   There are some really yummy places to eat in Southern California!  We just hung out.  it was a good 6 months of getting to know each other and being able to just hang out.  We swam everyday, we had a good time but this just wasn't going to work out long term.  At least I didn't want to try anymore.  So we packed up and moved back to Utah!

A little history

I will try and include pictures as often as I can but lets be honest, I have not included myself in pictures much over the past 10 years.  I want to give you a bit of some back ground information on me and my past diets.  When I got married on February 2, 2002 I weighed approximately 130-150 pounds. 

I was HAPPY with my weight but still not completely happy with my body.  I felt like I need to to tone up and exercise would be helpful but my whole life I have absolutely HATED to exercise and get sweaty and dirty and gross. 

About five years before I got married I started to loose weight.  I was never a skinny girl.  I always felt fat compared to my friends even when I was young.  All through elementary school, middle school, Jr high and high school I felt bigger than most girls my age.  As I look back at pictures I was not really.  In high school I might of been but I was in no way fat!  I guess I just had skinny friends!  I could never really trade clothes with my friends, even though I was never allowed too.....if I had been allowed too, I still would have never been able to fit in my friends clothes.  I tried a couple times but it just wasn't going to happen.  I do remember in Jr High wearing a pair of my friends, Aunts pair of jeans.  Those jeans did fit but that was my friends AUNT!  I guess she was at least 15 years older than me.  That is not a good thing! Good for her aunt but not good for me!  

I did not have a good self esteem!  I just never felt as cute as my friends or my little sister who is four years younger than me.  I was always the funny one and my sister was the beauty queen.  I was never jealous of her.  I was happy for her.  I was glad she would never have to worry about her looks or weight.  I still am the funny one!  My sister still is the super sexy skinny, healthy sister!  I love her!  BUT now I'm jealous!  She has worked hard and always watched her food an worked out!  I know now that it wasn't always easy for her either.  We all have our issues.  

So growing up.......boys never liked me.  I was never asked to a single school dance.  I asked boys to the girls choice dances because it was all just for fun but even then the boys I asked, really didn't want to go with me.  I even asked boys from my church group and who lived in my neighborhood, more like brother type boys.  I was never thinking I would need to marry them.  Boys were weird back then at those ages.  I now understand but at the time it hurt.  I didn't understand why they didn't want to just go have fun!  They did eventually say yes and we went to the dances but I know they didn't want to go!  In fact years later, my brother told me that one of the boys moms actually paid him to say yes to me and go with me to the dance.  I'm not sure if the other by said yes on his own but at least I never hear otherwise.  That was hard at a pre teen and teenager. 

Also growing up my siblings weren't very nice to me.  I know now that we were all just kids and kids can be mean but my brothers would call me big Al.  I still am called Al by lots of the people I love but having BIG in front of it really hurt me.  Kids will be kids but it hurt too. 

To be honest, I never even went on a real date or had my first kiss until I was 21 years old.  At the very end of senior year in high school I did have a boyfriend for a minute but we never went on a real date or kiss.  We would just "hang out".  That was fun but still not the same as my other friends.  Now I'm OK with it.  I'm in ways glad I didn't have all that boyfriend drama in high school.  I'm soooooo glad I didn't get married right out of high school like a lot of my friends did.  Even though they are happy, I was glad that I was able to experience some things before getting married and having kids.  So that is a bit of my early years back ground.  I just want you to get an idea of where I am coming from.

In 1995 I started working for an herb company, Nature Sunshine Products in Prove, Utah http://www.naturessunshine.com .  They sell everything from vitamins and herbs to weight loss products and personal care products.  I started taking their weight loss products and very quickly lost weight.  So quickly that my clothes were not fitting almost over night.  People were noticing me!  I was loving it!  I continued using these types of weight loss herbs for 7 years!  Literately everyday 3 times a day I would use these products.  To the point that five minutes after eating, I would have to run to the bathroom!  Nothing would stay in my system.  But I was addicted to the weight loss and scared that if I stopped I would get fat!  I even took an 18 month supply with me on my mission I served for my church in Hawaii. 

I started dating my husband in October 2001 and we were married on February 2, 2002.  I stopped taking herbal weight loss products about four months after we were married.  My system was so messed up!  After stopping them I immediately started my weight gain journey!

Welcome to my first post!!!

Left to right J, T, K, B, S, Terica our awesome trainer, C, ME!!, C, L, K
(picture borrowed from www.allthingsthrifty.com)




Welcome to my blog. I'm very excited to start this! 10 weeks ago I decided that enough was enough and I started my weight loss journey. I joined a Big Looser competition in my town. It was the best decision I have made for myself in a very long time. This picture was taken the night it all began. In this picture I weighed 263 pounds! This blog will give you a back ground on my past, my future, my good, my bad, my ups and my downs. I am going to be very open and honest here. Somethings might be very hard for me to talk about but like Dr. Phil says, "You can't change what you don't acknowledge"! I'm determined to make this my last and final weight loss journey. You know we've all tried this a million times. I've tried lots of diets, bought lots of books, that I never read, in hopes of magically becoming the skinny self I am on the inside! I really do truly see myself as skinny! I am shocked when I look in the mirror and I'm not the skinny person I imagine. Well the time is now! I'm going to look like the skinny person I am on the inside! My goal is to loose 100 pounds by February 1 2013. So far I'm down 25 pounds! it feels great to actually see the number on the scale go down.


I hope you enjoy my journey.

XOXOX