So here's the new plan

De. Railed. With a capital F.

I was doing really well for a while there. I got hit hard in the gut, figuratively, the day I turned 30. Any chance of recovery was gone by January 4th. I can say, honestly, that aside from one major exception, this has been The Worst year of my life. That major exception is that I just got home from Seattle, Washington, effectively crossing an item off of my Bucket List. I've wanted to go to Seattle since I was a teenager and it was more than I had ever hoped it would be. I didn't want to leave. It broke my heart to get on that plane to head home.

Aside from that one major ray of sunlight, it's been a crappy year. I just can't seem to get back on my feet after being knocked down. I'm tired of my happiness and peace relying on someone else. I'm tired of having someone else dictate for me what goes into my mouth, directly or indirectly. This has got to stop.

I'm back up to roughly 160. I'm hesitant to start tracking again now as Aunt Flo is a few weeks out and I'm due to start packing on water weight in the next week. I don't want to get discouraged.

Still, I need to have goals. Reasonable ones. Goals with room for error or allowances for me to take a break from myself to deal with the issues here at home. Not dealing with them with food, though. With time and patience. So my goals are this:

One pound a week for the next fifteen weeks, gone. That would put me well below the overweight BMI, and put me at a healthy goal weight of 145 by June 22nd, the first day of Summer. I would feel comfortable in my bikini at that weight. In the event that I lose more, that's good too. Two pounds a week would put me at 130 by Summer, but it's not necessary to get that low. I just want to get better food in my body because I'm definitely feeling the effects of chemical after chemical, here. I feel gross. Inside and outside.

My second goal is to train for a 5k. It's something I've always wanted to do but I am just not a runner. I can go for half an hour/3 miles easily on an elliptical but once my feet hit pavement, I feel like the bones in my legs are shattering. I'm going to give the Couch to 5K program a shot again, but not until it warms up a bit more and I can plan out my run a little better without hurdling piles of snow.

My last goal is to start weight training. I've held off because I don't want the effect of being bulky, as I really feel this will cause me to backslide, but I need to get my metabolism kicked into gear. I'm not getting any younger and I'm only getting fatter.

This is all great in theory but I will be swimming upstream for all of this. My real support system is nil and the issues I have going on at home are weights around my shoulders. I'm pulling a whole lot more than 160 pounds.

Pathetic attempt at a decent introduction

First of all, for the sake of setting the tone, I feel that you should know I nearly named this blog "How many calories are in a booger?" Back when my oldest daughter was still a toddler (with a cold) I pondered this question. I did not ingest any boogers but I'm sure you can put together how this sprang to mind at all.

My history is long and boring, but the Cliff's Notes version is that I was underweight until I was pregnant with my first child. I had a naturally high metabolism that let me eat anything and everything that I wanted and I still stayed under 100 pounds. At the time, I was 5'7''. Since birthing the aforementioned child, I have lost an inch of height, gone up two shoe sizes and put on a bit of weight. I topped off at 172 with my second pregnancy and was mortified when I didn't lose any of it after the birth of my second daughter. I mean, shouldn't I have lost at least an immediate 8 pounds? I ended up in the 168 vicinity until April 2008, when I finally had enough.

My first weight loss step was to cut out meat entirely. I have a history of high cholesterol in my family and I didn't want to be the next "heart attack at 38". My dad survived. My aunt didn't. Removing meat was the easiest and quickest way to make an impact. And it worked. I lost 20 pounds in 2 months while my husband was away on business. When he came home, however, I slowly began regaining weight until October 2008 when a very stressful Autumn took its toll on my eating habits. I was too depressed to exercise during the winter and struggled with SAD ("The Winter Blahs"). I wrote during the time in my paper journal that I was 151.8 pounds and was disgusted with myself. Still, I maintained that general weight until this summer when we bought our first house.

I don't really know what went wrong there, other than maybe I'm having the molasses metabolism that comes with turning 30. I'm more active now than I have been in a long time, despite losing access to the gym, sauna and pool that came with the apartment we were previously living in. Still, my weight has "ballooned" to 158.4, as of yesterday. I can't really complain because I'm still 14 pounds from my "heavier than I've ever been" weight. It's hard for me to write these numbers because I've been checking out other weight-loss blogs for support and camaraderie but I'm finding people who are 200+ pounds. It makes me feel like I don't have a right to be unhappy with my weight. The fact is that I am, I'm still in the overweight BMI and I still have bits o' Nicole sticking out in places I don't care to be sticking out from. (I'm talking to you, Back Boobs.) While I don't have the long journey ahead (or behind) me that a lot of other bloggers do, I'm still in the same boat-- struggling with numbers while trying to find the time and motivation to take control of the situation.