Fresh start? More like “life.”

Greetings, long lost friends!  I hope your lives are going well.  I also hope those of you that have been on the path to surgery are either making headway on the process or are now working through the post-op phases without too much difficulty.  Those of you that have been struggling… well, I’ve said this a million times.  You are not alone.  One day at a time.

I am so happy that Kelli has returned to posting regularly and is giving energy to caring for herself.  As we all know, getting back into the good habits after we’ve “forgotten” about them for a long time is pretty tough.  And she’s doing it.  Not only is she doing it, but she’s inspiring me a great deal to join her.

Over the past year my life has changed quite a bit.  Travis and I have been together over a year now and K and I live in a different town (no, we are not living together… taking things slow).  I’ve also gone through a number of workplace changes.  In other words, my world looks very, very different than it did for the first year and a half after surgery.

Now when I cook I think about the health and the tastes of five people instead of two.  I’m not the only one doing the grocery shopping and meal planning.  I devote energy to our relationship and the varying needs of our children.  As you can imagine, K’s experience of going from an only child to having her mom partnered with a man who has two children has challenged her (and therefore me) in significant ways.  There are so many ways in which going from a single parent of one child to a partnered with three children combined has improved my life, challenged my life, and changed my life.

Kelli has also gone through so many changes this past year and all of these life things have meant for both of us less focus on ourselves.  We haven’t even had the time to devote to our friendship the way that we have in the past, which I know has been pretty hard on me.  Not writing felt like a major loss for me initially and then it reached a place where most days, I (sadly) haven’t even thought about writing.  Things seem to be moving at such a rapid speed that keeping afloat with the other stuff has meant putting my needs on the back burner.

We know what a lovely impact that can have!

Weight regain.

Yup.

It’s amazing what happens when you stop complying with “the rules” and stop paying attention to what’s going on in your mind and heart as it relates to your health, isn’t it?  And man, does it happen FAST.

The good thing is that like Kelli, I’ve woken up and am paying attention now.  Building back good habits is going to take time and patience.  I’m willing to do the work though.  I have to.  I just watched my 1 year out video for the first time in a long time.  I half smiled with pride and half smiled with sadness.  While my life has become so enriched with new experiences and people I love so deeply, the passion and devotion to health has waned and I know it shows.  And regardless of whether it shows, I FEEL it.

As an exercise in coming out of denial, I cleaned out my closet tonight.  Put away the winter clothes and sorted the remaining into two categories:  clothes that fit well and clothes that are too snug for comfort.  Far too many clothes were in the “too snug” or “don’t fit” category. It was very motivating to see the tangible impact of my choices of late and knowing that I have the power to change it.  I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.

What I’ve realized recently is that I’ve been trying to make the way I accomplished my goals in the past be exact way in which I accomplish them now.  But my life doesn’t look the same and that means how I go about reaching my goals needs to look different.  How I fit exercise into my life, how I meal plan and the amount of time I devote to meal prep (frankly, I just have less of it now), how frequently I write… it’s unreasonable to expect to return to the same old when life isn’t the same ole!  Now that I’ve realized this, I am paying closer attention to the methods I need to use now in caring for myself.

Here’s my goal:  lose 38 lbs total.  No time deadline.  Just slow and steady and gradual changes back to a lower carb life style with consistent exercise.  Vitamins.  Water.  Food journal.  You know… the basics.

I can’t promise the frequency of my posts will return to where they used to be… but my hope is to post consistently to help me with accountability and to give me a forum for exploration of all of these issues and more.  If you’re still reading Sangria Sisters, thank you for sticking around!  The best is yet to come.