Time For a Makeover!

I've always adored ogling "before" and "after" photos of people striving to create a new image of themselves to present to the world. The spanking new energetic visage smiling from the "after" photo is the person they proudly show off to the world around them. Self 2.0. The constipated and unhappy looking "before" photo is someone they begin passing off as their ugly reclusive twin no one has ever met.

In the south, people call this quest "switching it up".

First on my list of things to change is my WEIGHT. I've been lugging around 40 pounds from my last two pregnancies for way too long.

How long is "way too long", you ask? Well... not long enough to lock myself in a Harry Potter closet under the stairs and hide from the world or anything, but certainly long enough to feel like crap about myself every day, loathe my clothing choices, start at least 50 different diets, feel like a complete failure for not completing one of them and long enough for people to continually ask me when my baby is due. Hello??? I haven't been pregnant for 17 months, a-hole! This has happened way too many times to count - by strangers, acquantances, even family members... My friends know better than to ask this question unless I am actually in the maternity ward pushing, with a head crowning between my legs!

I am fortunate to have a dear husband who never ever pushes me on the weight issue. He tells me I'm beautiful all the time, tells me I am NOT fat, tells me I should just relax about it and passes the Mexican food. He is so sweet - I especially love the way he pretends not to notice that I stealthily move in reverse everywhere I go when I am in my underwear so he can't see the cellulite I am sporting from my waist to my knees, not to notice my bat-like adeptness at doing everything in the dark when I am less than fully clothed, and not to notice he can't remember the last time he has seen me fully naked.

So....yeah... time to do something about it.

The plan:

Daily exercise. Either putting my toddler in our jogging stroller and taking a 45 minute "wog", followed by stomach crunches, pushups, butt crunches and stretching; or one hour cardio/weight workout at the healthclub. The important thing for me here is not to miss a day. I am incredibly slothful by nature and if I miss a day, the day turns into a week, which turns into a month, etc... you know the drill. The net thing I know I have a wake up call like yesterday when I stumbled upon a brand new journal I started three years ago when I weighed in 5 pounds less than I do today and when I miserably stated how fat and ugly I was and how I was going to do something about it IMMEDIATELY.

Zone Meals or Zone Perfect Bars. I have used The Zone successfully in my past to drop 30 pounds, so I know it works. For anyone not familiar with The Zone, see http://www.zonediet.com/ or http://www.drsears.com/ . It is an eating plan based on the 40-30-30 model, for proper hormone levels which cause your body to burn stored fat and to not store any new fat.

Water consumption. I am horrible about drinking proper volumes of water in my daily life. This has led to some problems with kidney stones, and even though that bout with a kidney stone two Christmases ago was more painful than any of my three 10 pound babies' births (or even the three of them put together), it failed to change my habits. I know that proper water consumption is key to any diet or health plan. I also know that at 41, if I don't start consuming water at the proper rates soon, I'll be auditioning for The California Raisins before too long!

My goal is to lose 40 pounds. Cheer me on!

Tomorrow, I'll chat about different diets I have tried, or have wanted to try... my goals for dressing more feminine (buh-bye regular sweatpant wear) and leaving my "slimming black wardrobe" (ha ha ha!) in the dust in the future.

Ciao,

The Diva
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