You’ll hear me say/write more than I probably should that the struggle is real. It’s overused, I realize that. But it’s so true.

The mind games I play with myself are truly insane. Being a female, I think/believe we are just naturally inclined to stress ourselves out over nothing in addition to real problems. Lately, I’ve been pressing over my weight and eating and working out and not working out and, and, and! Anyone relate?

I have this love/hate relationship with myself… more specifically my weight and my body self image. It started in my early twenties and it’s been hard to shake off. Currently, I know I’m at an unhealthy weight for me, my size, my age, etc. Sometimes I accept it for what it is and who I am at this moment in time because I tell myself it’s not forever and I know I can fix it, but most of the time I am not accepting and with that goes a lot of negativity that I inflict on myself.

The problem is, that even when I was much smaller a few years ago, I still had the same mind games. And I was fine. I wasn’t a perfect bikini model or anything of the sorts but I was lean and healthy. I was fine. But for some reason I can’t be happy with “fine” even though I should. So even when I get back to a healthier state, will I learn to be “OK” with me? Will I just be positive about the progress that was made?

Hence, THE STRUGGLE IS REAL!

I don’t have this problem in other areas of my life. I have 3 teen boys. I have not raised them perfectly and I would bet money that there are some judgy ass folks out there who would not agree with my parenting. Do I sometimes feel that I’m letting my kids down every now and then or am I too strict or not strict enough? Sure but I don’t get crazy and start trying to do something different. It is what it is. They know they are loved and I do my best and frankly, I think they are pretty freakin awesome kids!

Financially, I’m not the most secure. I could save more money. I could be more wise with my funds. I could find a way to not live pretty much paycheck to paycheck. But I’m not second guessing myself and throwing myself into a frantic frenzy. I will make it work, always have, always will.

But when it comes to be secure with me and my body – you get crazy, unreasonable Stephanie! I did finally learn to not let the scale run my life. I weigh in occasionally. Like when I hit my breaking points and try to get my sh** together. But I won’t weight daily, not even weekly. Just when I feel like “oh these pants are loose” or if the belt moves down a notch! Then I’m like progress, let me weigh in. There’s peace in that.

I started this post almost two weeks ago and never got around to finishing it. In the time that has passed, I’ve missed more workouts than I would like to admit, but not because I didn’t want to go, just had too much taking up my evenings to go. And I still haven’t got to the “do some work at home” mental state just yet. I’m getting there but I’m entirely too sore from the past couple of days of workouts to really do anything more.

My food hasn’t been too shabby. Still sticking with Snap Kitchen for my breakfast and lunch meals. Dinner is mostly a protein with some sort of veggie or something small even if not healthy, the portion is not huge. And the weekends are just average with the occasional dessert or even a beer or two. I’m not OVER-indulging. I’ve even been making cakeballs and not taste-testing them. That what the J’s are for 🙂

And believe it or not, just because I’ve eliminated the excess in regards to eating, I’m already down a few pounds. Might be a few more pounds down if I was working out more consistently but I’ll get there. And please note… I’m not beating myself up mentally over it. The point is that progress is being made! And I’ll take that as a win for now.

I’ve also moved my water intake in the mornings to 33 oz of water! So take that 20 oz water goal! I can’t do much more than the 33 oz because of my drive into work. I got stuck in a lot of traffic the other day (almost a 2 hour drive) and didn’t think I was going to make it in the office without peeing my pants! As long as I stay hydrated the rest of the day, I feel like that’s a good dent in the water intake.

So there you have it. I wrote something down two weeks ago. Realized how sad I was about it and am taking baby steps to getting better about it.

Take those steps to being a better, happier you. It’s not always easy but it’s not always hard either. Just one foot in front of the other.