Motivational Monday

For this precise moment in time, this is exactly where I am. I am not happy where I am and I do not want to stay here.

I have decided that the whole eat crap/don't workout/gain weight/wear clothes I'm not happy with-don't fit right is not where I want to be anymore. I will say, it never was where I wanted to be, but...

So, I am deciding to move on. Get back to doing my workouts, changing my meals for the healthy, lose weight, and start fitting back into the clothes I look good in. It won't be easy, but not everything worth doing is.

What are you going?


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Hard decisions

This past week I celebrated my birthday. I've always loved my birthday, who doesn't? LOL! It's the one day a year that's all about you. We spent the day at the Baltimore Aquarium and dinner at the Owl Bar. Both were lots of fun! And I spent the day with my hubby, who is oh so good to me.

But, it made me think about things. I guess I'm at the age where people have those mid-life crises. I'm don't think that's where I am, but this birthday did make me think about my life. That's why I posted the above photos. The one of the left from 2012 was me at the Baltimore Women's Classic. I love that race and have run it five years in a row. The one on the right is from this past August 2014 at Chickie's and Pete's Boardwalk Run 5k. Can you see the difference?

I can. It's so obvious to me. I have let my workout desire and my diet just crash in the last 2 years. Horribly.

I've gotten to the point where I'm having trouble finding clothes I own that make me look good. I just look fat. Yes, it's relative. But to me, having been 40 pounds lighter, I look fat and I don't like it.

I need to make changes. I've been saying this for two years. But, after trying to find things that flatter me for two weddings in the last three months, not liking how I looked on my birthday, and knowing I have a wedding next month and gasp! half marathon training coming up, I gotta do it.

I have a notebook to keep track of my food, water, and workouts. I had a running trainer for the month of September that helped me get back into a workout grove. I need to keep moving with the workouts and add in healthy eating. I'm in a challenge group for the next 21 days and I'm going to put my all into it. I blew off the warm-up week, which is my fault, but I can come back and rock the actual challenge.

So, what have you put off doing? What do you need to work on to make yourself happy?


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Change

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Big Change (at least for me)

I've been having some issues this summer. I've written about them here and if you follow along, you know what I'm talking about.

So, I decided I needed a change. I big change. I was going to wait til our vacation, but I decided why not now? So, on Monday, I hit the salon and had my hair chopped. Seriously chopped.

Long hair

I default to long hair. I had hair to my butt in college. When I was a kid, my mom kept my hair in a pixie because she didn't want to brush it. The one time I had long hair, it got knotted at the neck and rather than brushing it out, she took me to a salon and had them chop it into a pixie. Since then, I've liked having long hair. I also think it is something I can like about myself that has nothing to do with my body.

Front view

So, when thinking of what I could do to quickly change things up I decided it was my hair. As silly as this may sound, I was scared. I'm your typical long-haired girl, I hide behind it. But, I know I needed something drastic, for me, to make a change. So, I hit the salon and talked to the hair stylist. We decided she would color my hair (cause I didn't want to do it) and cut it. Eep! So many people are afraid of color. Not me. I'm more afraid of those scissors. LOL!

At the end, this is what happened...

Back view - a few inches lost...ok, more like 8"

Front view - a bit more flattering? Tell me yes, make me feel better about this!

So, here ya go. My big, drastic change. I'm hoping the fact that I did it will encourage me to make other big, drastic changes. I did do some more research on my book and found a source I didn't know existed. I also looked into a couple archives in Philly that I think may have things, though I'm having a hard time finding things on their websites. This may involve an email to see if they have anything at all. I also sent an email about getting a running coach. Sadly, it's been three days and I've heard nothing, so I probably need to move on. Ugh. That was a tough process, now to start over.

What do you think? Does it look good?
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