Don't Forget Your Vitamins

I have never really been one who takes medicines often or even remembers to take them at all.  One reason is because I just don't like having that stuff running through my system.  Obviously I have never done drugs, smoked and I very rarely drink.  To each their own, but I have never really been able to get on board with the thought of any of those.  The other reason is that, in all of the things I have running through my head at any given time, remembering to take a pill or two is just not high on my to do list.  I'm bad enough that I had to put a sticky note on the microwave to remind me to take birth control when I was on that.
Unfortunately for me, this mindset became a real challenge when I started on the "Me Initiative".  Most doctors and weight loss professionals tell you that you should start taking at least a multi-vitamin everyday when you are actively losing weight.  Their is some speculation that a multi-vitamin is overkill when you have a healthy diet and you should just take the individual vitamins you need.  For someone like me, breaking it all down is a pain that I just can't suffer.  If you really want to get that into it ask your physician for guidance.  Myself, I take a Super Foods Multi-Vitamin, a Probiotic, and a B complex for energy once every day and a Fiber with Metabolism Support twice a day.  No matter how you do it, you really need to take some kind of vitamins.  Especially in the beginning of your journey.  You are not eating healthy to start and then you are severely cutting your calories and eventually you are ramping up your activity level.  This means your body needs more of those necessary vitamins.
I have actually gotten really good at taking my vitamins over the last year.  (A big shocker to me considering my past mind set.)  I do have to put the vitamins where I am sure to see them every day, but at least I remember to take them.  Now I only miss if I happen to run out before I make it to the store.  Of course it is much nicer to take vitamins that are gummies that those horse pills or nasty tasting chewable pills that used to be the only option.
Have you taken your vitamins today?

Age Is Relative

If you are like me, this is a hard concept to grasp.  I used to think that the older I got the less desirable everyone would think me.  That by the time I reclaimed my life I would be a dried up old prune that no one would want.  Every year I found myself buried in even heavier armor because I was too afraid to put myself out there and face rejection again.
I went into the Army just after my eighteenth birthday.  I spent the first year of that in training and tentatively exploring the new parent free life I was living.  When I got to my duty station, I would go out but I tended to take a while to warm up to people and I felt like I have always been an old soul.  I think it was because of the huge generational gap in my family and spending most of my childhood surrounded by adults.  After only two years of enjoying life, I found myself married and then, as is the nature of the Army, on my own for more than half of that time.  He went to Germany and I stayed in Texas for eight months until I could move.  I welcomed Summer into the world three years after we were married.  My life kind of fell apart after that.  The donor was around, but not in least bit interested in helping me with our daughter.  Then the incident occurred and I found myself pregnant again.  I discharged from the service and brought myself and Summer back to the states to have a better birth experience and to have my parent's help.  It was a very good thing.  It was only eighteen months after the birth of Summer that I welcomed Mollee to the world.  From that day it has always been the three of us.   The donor has never met Mollee, in fact I received a nice "Dear Sydney" letter from him two months after giving birth.  Apparently he had another family in Germany that he was leaving us and the Army (going AWOL was okay with him I guess) for, didn't that make me feel old and like the worst kind of idiot that I didn't see that one coming at all. 
Between the trauma in my life, leaving the military, and finding myself abandoned with two beautiful babies, my twenties went by in the blink of an eye.  I was constantly in survival mode.  It took me two years to get divorced, it's kind of hard to do when he is AWOL and not in the country.  I used the GI bill to get a quick degree in a well paying career in the medical field.  I raised the girls while going to school, working nights as a temp, then being hired by the hospital and working nights for them until I was able to change my schedule.  I made sure I did my externship at a hospital in the Baltimore area and then, with some help, I was able to get a better paying job there.  Before I knew it my twenties were gone.
My thirties have not been much better.  I was struggling to give my girls a good life, worried over my boss threatening my job on a daily basis, and my parents moved in with me to help them out financially and to help my mom take care of my dad with his slow onset of dementia.  I felt like my life was passing me by.  The older I got the less joy I found in it.  I felt like I had no chance at a future.  My girls would leave to live their lives and I would still be stuck in the rut of my existence.
It was during my lowest time that the right people began to enter into my life.  Their good will and energy set me on the path to start the "Me Initiative".  Because of them I realized that age is relative and you are really only as old as you feel.  Especially my new boss, Cathy is super energetic, she is very active in her community and seems to have an abundance of go power and just an over all zest for life.  Her friendship has really set me on the path to a better version of me.  Without her coming into my life, I might have never found the me buried under all of that armor.
Now I find myself with even more energy than I had when I was younger.  I look forward to each day and the trials it will bring.  I laugh with my daughters, we go do things together and I make time for my friends.  I am constantly joking with the girls that forty-two is the new twenty.  When my youngest graduates, in three years, I will have just turned forty-two and I am looking forward to it.  I will have met my goals in the "Me Initiative" and be open to anything the world brings my way.
I was very scared of the upcoming deadline for a long time.  Just the thought of being alone in this world and trapped in my armor and circumstances made me cringe and the tension pile up on me.  Now I am ready and able to embrace my new life as an empty nester.  I will be able to move if I want, finally get my dream job and hopefully even my dream man.  I will still be able to enjoy the times I have with my girls and the free time I will have without them.  I no longer feel like I will be spending the rest of my life alone.  Everyday I feel younger that the day before.  I am open to the path I am traveling on and the new people and experiences I will encounter along the way.  I have faith that the right people will continue to cross my path and we will enjoy each other and each age of life as it comes.
How do you see your age?
Are you getting older or younger as the years go by?

How Do You React To A Setback

Often it is not our successes that define us, but our setbacks.  Our reaction to the setbacks is so much more important than our reaction to our successes.  In the beginning each of my setbacks made me feel like a complete and utter failure.  I just knew that I must have done something wrong to have failed that week or I must have backslid and didn't realize it.
I would then actually backslide.  I would suddenly have to have a cake, or chips, or something equally bad.  But it wouldn't be just one....Nope it would end up being the entire box or the whole bag.  Before I knew it, I would be on a bad food bender and then I had to start detox all over again.  Detox meaning going back on my healthy meal plan and schedule with the pain of being hungry sometimes until I was back on track.
This kept being my cycle until I realized that a setback is not really a bad thing.  As it has already happened, there is no reason to get upset about it.  I have survived many setbacks and still have managed to come this far.  A setback is really just my world telling me that I need to take a step back, to reflect on my week and see what I did that was great and what I might be able to do better at.  A chance for me to make mini goals to make it to my big goal.
Take this week, I had a minor setback.  When I stepped on the scale this morning I had gained 2 ounces.  I know 2 ounces doesn't seem like a lot, but when you are down to the last 15 pounds 2 ounces seems like a mountain.  My first instinct was to stress out and get upset.  In fact I felt my muscles tensing and I knew I had to take a step back.  I could have cheated, went and used the facilities and gotten back on the scale later, but the one thing I will not do is lie to myself.  I made myself a promise, at the beginning of the "Me Initiative" to always be brutally honest with myself and to take ownership of everything that I did.  No more denial and hiding behind my armor.  That means stepping on the scale only once a week and dealing with whatever it says.
So I took a step back to reflect and realized that my goal this year is to continue to get fit and shed those last 15 pounds.  Last year I shed 80 pounds and this year has only just begun in June.  Why am I stressing out when I have 10 more months to meet my goal?  This week wasn't really a setback after all.  It was more a bi-weekly pause, which seems to be the burgeoning trend in my journey.  According to my Fitbit :
I walked 127'992 steps (10'727 steps more than last week)
I exercised 699 minutes (50 minutes more than last week)
and I drank 859.7 ounces of water (36.9 ounces more than last week)
All of these were improvements over last week.  The only area where I slid back a little was I didn't have as much protein this week.  And it seems Monday is a day I don't usually hit my goal in any area.
I am so glad that I have learned not every setback is really a setback.  It is very important to take that step back and really look at the facts.  So instead of going on a HoHo bender today, I have already worked for the hospital and am ready to start exercising.  I have made it a goal to at least get 10'000 steps this Monday and to put a little more protein in my diet this week.
How do you handle a setback?
Do you let the stress take over and lead you back to your old routine or do you stand strong and stay on the path you are currently blazing?

Like Beget Like

I'm sure we have all heard "like beget like" at some time in our lives.  And, like me, you probably thought to yourself, yeah right.  As I have traveled my path on the "Me Initiative" I have found this to be very true.



It is very easy, now, to see the toxic environment I allowed myself to remain in for so very long.  When I was at my worst, I surrounded myself with "friends" who were:  a Chronic Complainer (nothing anyone did was good enough for her, even if it was what she said she wanted), a Pessimist (the world was always coming to an end and everyone was out to get her), a Deflector (nothing was ever her fault, she took no personal ownership in anything that happened around her), and a Realist (she calls it like she sees it, no matter what).  It's no wonder I felt like I needed my armor.  Just the thought of being in the same room with most of them would make my neck get tight and bring on a tension headache.


One of my favorite co-workers really freed me to separate myself from almost all of them and to look inside myself to see what I needed to thrive.  When I asked how she handled dealing with the boss who seemed to hate me and threated my job daily, she gave me some of the best advice I have ever gotten.  She told me that I couldn't control our boss or what she did, I could only control my reaction to it.  It seems fairly simple right?  Only it's not.  It is just another reason that you have to look deep within yourself and see the real you.  I'm not going to say it's been easy, but now, when I feel the tension building and myself getting caught in the uproar, I make myself look internally to see if I really have cause to be upset.  Will my world end if I take up the banner like everyone else or is okay for me to sit back and go with the flow?

This happened at a restaurant once.  I was ordering for my daughter and myself and I clearly stated that I wanted two orders of French fries, I then paid and sat down.  When I got to the table, I saw my receipt said two orders of Kabuli Rice.  My friend said I should go back and complain.  I told her no, that it was not that important to me.  I then told her about my co-worker and that I would wait to see what came out.  When the rice came it was the best meal ever, my friend actually ended up eating a full portion herself.  She asked me how I knew to wait and I said that sometimes God just wants you to have Kabuli Rice.  Unless it came with some kind of tree nut or peanut in it, I was not going to perish from trying something new.  And why should I make the employee miserable when I didn't care either way?

I use this philosophy in my everyday life now.  If I get behind a slow car, I figure it just means I need to slow down.  My outlook on life is so much healthier now and it has helped me to pick people who are healthy for me to hang out with.  I haven't completely dropped my other friends, but I do limit my exposure to them.  When they start getting toxic, I take a step back now instead of getting drawn into the madness.

Now I surround myself with friends who are:  Always happy (I don't think the smile ever goes away), Caring and Helpful to Others (I don't think she has room for one more volunteer activity), Enjoys Going Out (we are on a constant adventure with our daughters whenever we are together), Forward Thinking (she always has a new goal to achieve and pushes me to make and reach my own), Family Oriented (she enjoys being with the family who matters to her, even when there is a big time between visits), and of course the Realist (you always need that friend who makes you see yourself as you really are and can talk you down from the ledge).  With this group of women I feel like I am no longer alone.  When times get tough and I am in the middle of a setback, I have plenty of life lines to reach out to and I always have support. 

Who do you surround yourself with?
Are they people who make you thrive?

Find Your Motivation

Finding your motivation is harder than you think.  It takes a lot of internal reflection to see what is really motivating you to want to change.  Take the time to look beyond the surface and figure out what your motivation is because what motivates you is different than what motivates your friend.


I had to really look within myself about a month ago to find my motivation.  You would think that I already had my motivation since I have gotten so far in my "Me Initiative", but I found that my past motivation wasn't working for me anymore.


My original motivation was to get healthy, so I would still be here when my daughters graduate in a couple of years.  You are right if you are thinking that it sounds a little fatalistic for someone who is only 39, but my body was failing me.  I knew in my bones that something terrible was on the edge waiting to hit.  My time was running out.


I don't feel that way anymore.  I have my old energy back, I want to do things and I am back to enjoying late nights and early mornings.  I'm talkative and social again, finding friends instead of strangers.  All of that renewed energy made it difficult for me to stick to my exercise routine.  Especially when you factor in the cold weather, which is not my favorite season.  I needed to look deep within again to see what I was really aiming to gain out of the changes I was making in my life.


As you can see, I did find my motivation in the form of "The Notorious" Conor McGregor I know what you are thinking, of course part of it is his looks.  I mean he is shredded, covered in tats and Irish to boot, you have to be dead to not appreciate his looks.   But that is not all of it.  he is dedicated to his craft and still dedicated to his family.  He has worked hard to be at the place he is in life.  He has had set backs, who hasn't, and yet he continues to move forward in both his personal and professional life.


When I look at his picture it reminds me to continue working hard and aiming for my goal.  It also reminds me not to settle.  I have been settling for 15 years, but not anymore.  Like anyone not in a relationship, I hope that the changes I have made will lead me to a guy of my own.  Clearly there are guys out there with the right qualities, who are not perfect, who actually is, but are perfect for me.  I'm only human, I want to find a guy who likes the same types of things I do and the shredded body and tats are always going to turn my head.  But that is not what motivates me in the "Me Initiative".  I have waited this long and I am willing to wait forever if that's what it takes.


If the right guy comes along I am not going to turn him away.  But at the moment I am more interested in continuing on my journey to see what I am really like under all this armor I have been shedding.  I love the me I have found so far.  I no longer describe myself as a single mother of 2.  I am now a motivated, energetic, hard worker who is dedicated to her 2 daughters, her friends and herself.


Look deep within yourself and take the time to find out what truly motivates you.  It can make all of the difference in the world.

Don't Let Your Success Make You Lose Your Discipline

There are many reasons why people fail to reach weight loss goals and their goals in general.  They get bored, lose their motivation, don't succeed fast enough and give up or they do succeed and throw themselves a party.  We all need encouragement when we have reached a goal or milestone, but the problem with throwing a party is that then most people revert back to their old ways.


That is what happened to me over the winter.  I had already slowed down because of the cold weather and I went off my new eating habits because of the holidays.  I thought to myself that I would be fine since I had already lost so much weight..... But I thought wrong.  Before I knew it, I was addicted to Brooksides Chocolate Acai Berry snacks and I was flirting with 5 pounds that would come and go.  I had completely lost the discipline I had gained.  I felt like I was spiraling out of control.


I decided that I had to do something fast or I would be right back to where I never wanted to be again.  I took a month off to regroup and focus on my mindset.  I gave up the Brooksides (which was harder than you think) and made more of an effort to exercise while I had no pressure of documenting everything and weighing in.  I found my motivation.  I remembered that I like to exercise and eat healthy.  I finally feel like I am getting back on the right track.


I have re-found my discipline with every intention of keeping it from here on out.


Have you found your discipline?

Make An Effort

As I have reclaimed my life, I noticed that I never really stayed in touch with my friends anymore.  I waited for them to contact me and when they didn't I felt even more unworthy.  I don't know how I managed to bury myself so far in my own doubt and misery that I felt it was totally up to them to keep in contact with me.  I've always been a very social person.  I love talking to people, going places, meeting new people and having get togethers at my house.  I didn't even realize that I had shut everyone out of my life until I was struggling to begin the me initiative.


It is so much harder to uncover you when you don't have a solid support system.  Especially when it is your own fault as a product of your hiding from the world.  In the effort to protect myself from further emotional injury I gave myself the worst kind of injury.  I left myself with no one to go to for aid in finding me.  No one knew the real me anymore, I didn't even know my true self either.  Thank goodness for Cathy, Stacey, Allison, my daughters, Leesa, and a few others who never gave up on me.


Now I make an effort to connect with my friends.  Every Monday I send a "Happy Monday" message to a group of people whom I don't want to lose touch with.  I also send a "Sydney was here!" message at random times when I'm thinking of them.  There is no pressure for them to respond, but they know they were on my mind.


I have rediscovered that it is not up to other to make me happy, it is up to me.  Everything I do has to make me feel happy and leave me with the ability to sleep at night.


Don't lose your friends and support system because you are hiding from the world.  You will never be happy.


No matter what, Make The Effort!

Exit Your Comfort Zone

Exiting your comfort zone is one of the scariest things to do.  It is our comfort zone for a reason.  It is safe, easy and known.  The fear of the unknown is really what holds us back from leaving our comfort zone.


For me, it was not the unknown that I feared.  I feared/fear what others would think.  It took me a long time to stop worrying about what others thought.  I had a conversation with one of my coworkers about an issue I was having with my old boss.  I asked her how she handled it and she explained to me that I could not worry about what others did or thought.  It is up to them how they think, it is up to me how I react to what they say and do.  If I let them drive me then I would always feel stressed and inferior.  This was a pivotal moment for me.  I finally realized that they had not traveled my path to where I was and their approval wasn't necessary for me to get where I was going.


The hardest thing for me to do now and then is to exercise in front of other people.  I know it sounds stupid, I mean I was in the Army and every day for years I had to do PT in front of thousands of my "closest" friends.  But I found myself unable to even exercise in front of my daughters.


I have slowly overcome this one day at a time.  I started by swimming laps in my pool, very difficult since I hadn't even worn a bathing suit in five years when I started swimming again.  Then I went to an adult tap class at my daughter's dance studio, again very difficult since I haven't danced in over 15 years and I never took lessons.  I had a real break through a few weeks ago.  I actually took my mini stepper out on the balcony and spent my hour exercising in the great outdoors.  Okay!  I made the girls keep me company and I read a book on my iPad, but I did it! 


I consider every time I take it outside to exercise a major win.  Even now, after exercising on my balcony many times, I'm still a little daunted by the thought of exercising in a gym.  One good thing is that I don't ever really have to take that step, but I probably will eventually.


Every day I try to do one thing out of my comfort zone. 


how about you?  What is the hardest thing for you to overcome?

Find Your Happy Place

One of the first things you should do is find your happy place.  Where is that one place, or maybe two places, where you feel the most joy and the most peace?  Your happy place could even be a person, someone who calms you just by being in the same room.  Where you can go to center yourself and reflect on what has set you off balance.


For me it is our pool.  I actually picked my apartment because I have always loved the pool.  I would drive by it and it would just call to me.  Others are concerned about having a laundry set up in the apartment, me I would rather tromp up and down a million stairs to have free access to the pool all summer.


I love being outside and anything in and on the water.  Canoeing, boating, fishing, swimming I love them all.  Something about being out there forces me to slow down and to confront everything in my life.  The quite time, the stillness in the air, the view of the clouds and the gentle lap of the water centers me like nothing else.


I am saddened when the pool closes each September.  I then switch to my balcony and try to spend as much time as possible outside walking and hiking.  But it is not really the same.  Nothing brings me as much peace as a day around the water.


Where is your happy place?

Make a Goal And Then a Plan

A dream is just an idea until you make a goal and then a plan on how you intend to reach that goal.  For years I dreamed of creating a new me, but I never made any lasting changes until I made a 4 year plan in the me initiative.


I know a 4 year plan seems daunting, but let us be realistic.  It took me 15 years to hide myself from life.  And I do mean hide myself.  I wore my fat like armor keeping me from having to interact with the world.  I became this quite, mousy person who in no way represents the me I have been my entire life.  If anyone noticed the me underneath all of that armor, I would immediately go and add more armor.  This was not something I did consciously, I didn't even realize it was happening until it was almost too late.  When you reflect on all of the time I spent hiding, a 4 year plan is a very short time in comparison.


Every person's dream is different, so their plan is also different.  My dream is to be able to live the life I want to live when my youngest daughter graduates in 2020.  I will only be 42 and I plan on enjoying the 20s I spent being the soul provider for my daughters and the 30s I spent taking care of my parents when that time comes. 


My plan is laid out like this......


Year 1 - Get my eating habits under control and start losing weight while I work on finding my confidence and learning how to love myself first.


Year 2 - Turn my exercise routine into a habit, continue refining my eating habits and getting fit as well as lose weight while continuing to find my confidence and learning how to love myself again.


Year 3 - Update my wardrobe and start "dating" my friends to re-learn how to be social with adults and continue everything from year 2, while being open to dating just not actively looking.


Year 4 - Start actively putting myself out there in the dating world, put myself in more social situations and figure out what I want to do with my life going forward, while continuing everything from year 2 and 3.


Don't worry if you have to make changes as you go along.......Plans, like dreams, do tend to change.  It is a good idea to reevaluate your goals and your plans every year. 


What is your dream?  As a goal?  As a plan?

What a Difference a year Makes

Who would have thought that a year would bring so many changes.  Last summer I was at the beginning of my journey in the me initiative.  I was well into changing my eating habits and really starting my work out routine.  My goal was set and my 4 year plan was starting to come together.


It was scary and daunting when I thought about the expected results at the end of 4 years.  I really had to attack it one week at a time or I was almost too afraid to carry on.  Even then, I had moments when I felt that this would all be in vain.  I had many conversations with friends and received some good suggestions and guidance, but for the most part I knew I was on my own for this journey.  Failing or succeeding was going to have to come from me and my own intestinal fortitude.


I know it seems odd to find a new, well not really new but returning to an old, lifestyle scary.  But I knew there had to be tons of changes and sacrifice to get where I want to be.  The unfortunate part is that the closer I get to my goal the scarier it gets.


It seems that the closer I get to my goal the harder it is to get there.  I find that I begin to doubt myself and my right to be happy more and more.  And I start to erect unconscious barriers keeping me from reaching my goal.  This is it, the point where I have to decide to keep going or stop.  I'm 17 pounds from my goal, the closest I have ever been.


I choose to keep going! 


What will you decide?

When you feel like doing it the least you need to do it the most

As I have traveled on this journey, I have found times when I really didn't want to be bothered with exercising.  For me it is when it is cold outside.  I really hate the cold!  It was never my favorite time of year, but after you get frost bite it becomes your least favorite.


Often it took everything I had to make me get up and move.  Once I was into my exercise it was great, but just getting started on days like that is the worst.  But those days are also the most rewarding.


Something about breaking a sweat when you really didn't want to move makes it seem so much more meaningful.  I am free to let my mind wander during my work out on those days and I have such a sense of accomplishment when I finish.


It is those little victories of just getting up and moving when I wanted to stay still that give me the motivation to continue towards my goal.


Always remember, only you are holding you back.