Small Changes for a Bigger Life

I love my life, and almost everything about it.  I am very blessed to have a barn and a farm filled with wonderful horses, the means to take care of them, a great group of friends, a loving family, a job, and my health.  I have been very fortunate to never really want for much in my life, which in turn has left me a bit spoiled in some aspects of my day to day life.

I have never been a skinny person, but it has always been something that I have been fairly ok with.  Neither of my parents are post-and-rail type people, and I just always knew that I would never be a size 2, hell I'd be lucky to be a size 8!  I then let this become an excuse for my weight, and even though I was packing on the pounds between turning 21 and changing some things, I found I was suddenly the size of a whale, and no one was saying anything to me.  I would look in the mirror and be a bit disgusted, but then tell myself that it was ok, it was just a part of my body type, and go on about my day.

Finally, after going through a difficult breakup this spring (you know, the one where you're with the person you thought you would actually marry, and then come to find out it all just gets ripped out from under you? Yeah that one) I decided that I had to live my life for me, and I was going to be damn proud of myself!  I had just come back from a trip to Aiken, where my riding was well below par, even for me, and knew that I needed to start by looking at my weight and get serious about loosing it.  Here I was sitting on this fabulous horse, who all of a sudden I could not ride because, and lets face it, I was too fat to stay with him.  No one was going to voice this opinion, but I could hear it on the tip of their tongues when we would talk about my lessons.  So I came home and buckled down.

I'm not going to sit here and feed you a line of crap about how I work out every day, or run 5 miles, and only eat healthy.  I am still human, and I am a very picky eater.  I love chips and cheese dip, ice cream, and definitely a beer or margarita from time to time.  But I have worked very hard to change some small things day to day and I have seen massive results.  I have cut out white bread, introduced things like oatmeal into my diet, and I drink way more water than I ever thought was possible for someone.  I have also added a protein shake into my daily routine, trying to do 2 on the days I can.  I know that I still have a long way to go, but these little changes have all slowly added up and I can feel myself getting stronger.

I may not have time to go and run every day, or even once a week sometimes, but I do manage to carve out 10 minutes for some ab work and squats 4-5 times a week.  I finally have room in my jeans, I have dropped almost 2 whole pant sizes, and I am back into clothes I wore in high school! Most importantly, I feel much better than I have in a long time.  I know I am still not skinny, and I may never be, but I feel like if the girls want to go out onto the lake I can wear a swim suit and not feel like I need to hide the entire day.  I can go and run 2 miles now without stopping, something I have not been able to do for years, I can squat 150 times without stopping (even though I want to kill myself by the end haha), and I ran a full-format event without even having the wind taken out of my sails.

I did not make these changes for my ex, for the public, for my parents, for anyone other than myself.  I feel like as a whole I am a happier and healthier person, and I can still enjoy dinner out with my friends without feeling guilty about what I eat.  I just hope that for anyone who is feeling down on themselves, all it takes is one little change. There is no need to go on the latest diet fad, because I feel like this works way better than all of those.  Just cut out small things, or cut down to 1 soda a day, and before long you'll find you don't even want the one.  I never thought I'd be back to where I am today, and I hope that I can continue forward from here.  Always remember, but never go back!  And just know that it is ok to have a bad weekend or a bad week even, but don't give up because you ate fast food one day, or pasta for dinner.  You didn't put on all the weight overnight, and loosing it is most definitely a marathon.  I'm still training for the big race, but I feel myself getting stronger every day.

Now off to enjoy the weekend!!! If this just inspires one person to get a bit healthier then I've done my job :-)