Pros... and Cons

Losing Weight

So last blog I said I would discuss my reasons to change and my reasons to not change. 

Reasons to change:

• I feel like I have lost who I am in all this fat. When I dream I am in my healthy weight, that is who I truly am. 

Ways I have lost myself:

• My husband has no idea the grace and strength I used to have and walk with, and the rhythm I could keep with dance. Such a huge part of who I am and he has no idea it's in me. 
• I can't dress how I would like to dress, because they just don't make my size. I have lost my sense of style with this last 50/60 pounds, I feel like I do not wear this weight as well as I did my lower weights, and that only adds to the insecurities. 
• I feel less feminine and beautiful. I always had insecurities, but I always felt moments of beauty and I always felt feminine... this does not happen anymore. It really sucks and makes me not want to go out. 
• I am a photographer and I feel like I am only half the photographer I can truly be because I can't chase my clients kids, and it is hard for me to move within my studio. 
• I need to get healthy, I am tired of sore bones, and joints, i am tired of walking a small distance and breathing heavy and then having people much thinner than me look at me weird. I am tired of feeling like my heart will beat out of its chest because I climbed some stairs. I am tired of my back aching, my feet aching, my hips aching. I am tired of obsessively pulling down my shirts because they creep up my belly and the worst thing ever would be if a stranger saw my belly. I need to be healthy. This has to happen. 
• I am a foodie. And I am bitter about the fact that being the weight that I am, people don't seem to understand the difference between the food I WANT to eat and the food that I eat to numb emotions. In one of my first blogs I posted about how it's not about liking food too much and that it is a much deeper issue. A couple of people have expressed that they do not believe that to be true, because why would I post pictures of food on Instagram and whatnot? And that frustrates me, because the food I photograph is food I eat for entirely different reasons. Feeling anxious and depressed doesn't make me get all dolled up to go to a fine dining restaurant and have pheasant breast lol. Or it doesn't make me want to go to a different city to explore the culinary greats within that city. It makes me slink off to 7/11 for pop and chips and chocolate, etc. The truth of it is there is a great amount of shame and embarrassment in binge eating, so I would not photograph a binge. I am a foodie and I will be one after this. I will still post pictures of the amazing food I stumble across or discover, even after I have lost the weight. So it frustrates me that that part of me cannot be separated from the unhealthy part of me in some people's eyes, but it is all just a lesson to try not to care about what other people think. I think it is also a lesson on my need to control how people think of me. I need to learn how to let go of that. And despite the public forum with which I am doing this, this is a totally personal and private thing... So I need to let others have their opinions and just not worry about misunderstandings. The important thing here is that I understand myself, and that is why change will benefit me. 

Reasons not to change:

• I have done this for 30 years, it's comfortable, it's easy. 
• It's scary to try and shake things up at this stage. 
• It is hard to face the demons and bad memories inside of me, to see what I have gone through to make me what I am today. To acknowledge that pain and hurt. 
• I worry that changing this in me will change who I am as a person, what if I change so much that I am not the person my husband fell in love with? I know that sounds silly, but its still scary. 

Obviously my reasons to change far out number my reasons not to, and there is definitely a passion behind the change and a great deal of fear behind the no change. I feel that speaking to a psychologist will empower me to overcome those fears as well as embolden me to make those reasons to change permanent in my mind. 

Finding Tranquility

I have a problem with organization. And one huge part of that is meal plans. So I visited this blog iheartorganizing  and boy oh boy does she have EVERYTHING you need for organizing. And seeing as organization is a huge goal to finding tranquility I look forward to reading more. 

I did my first attempt on a meal plan here (last week):

Sorry the quality sucks lol, Iphone pic here :) 

So this meal plan is very repetitive and may seem boring, but I am kinda sucky at picking out healthy meals, and being students a lot of our meals need to be prepared ahead of time (butter chicken and lasagna is good for that). Also the cold cuts we are putting in our breakfasts are not processed meats, but butcher cuts, very yummy :) better than bacon I would assume. 

If any of you have recipes I can use that are easy to prep, or can be prepped to be frozen until we need to heat it up, please comment below :) hopefully my meal plans will get even more balanced and interesting as life goes on :)