Get your head--and your heart--back in the game!

"What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year." -- Vern McClellan

Well, 6 1/2 years and many pounds heavier, I am ready to be kind to myself again. Does anyone feel the same way? Not about the "many pounds heavier" part...the "be kind to myself again" part? Why are we so mean to ourselves???

I can actually pinpoint the day I stopped caring about my weight and my health. I had finished a 5K race, which, quite frankly, I never thought I would be able to do, and I sat across from my husband, announcing that I planned to train for the Army 10 miler which was six months away. He responded by saying, "Oh...that's something I always wanted to do." His voice and intonation hit a nerve, and I reacted with feeling guilty and unworthy. Crazy, right?! I never trained another day, after weeks and months of running in the rain, snow, sleet, heat, and cold to be, at that time, in the best shape of my life. Looking back, I still can't believe how drastically I responded to the comment. But...I did, and this is where I am now: overweight (again) and unhappy (again).

A lot has happened since then. Life has not necessarily been kind (more to share as time goes on...I'm sure we can all relate). But the time has come to cut the crap, stop the self-defamation, replace the worthlessness with worthiness, and make some changes.

I think it's hard to do that part--the "make some changes"--because, if you've ever tried to lose weight and create a healthy lifestyle in your past, you know that it takes work, planning, discipline, and accountability. We kind of gave that up for a while, though, haven't we? We slipped back into eating what we want, when we want, and making excuses with so many reasons about why we don't have time to take care of ourselves. The emotional eating got WAYYYYY out of control. All those healthy responses that we had once trained ourselves to follow were unlearned along the way, replaced with the familiar soothing benefits of food. Sound familiar?

I am committing that, for 2017, I will blog weekly--the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I reflect on these past few years of unhealthiness, I realize that what contributed most to my continued self-sabotaging efforts was a lack of accountability. The blog posts will make me accountable--the accountability is really to myself, but writing it down opens it up to sharing my shortcomings with others who understand and don't judge, who relate but don't hate. In that way, it also makes me accountable to you, too.

So...happy 2017 to each of you! Feel free to jump on the wagon and invite others to jump on, too--the more, the merrier!