Transformation Tuesday

Yesterday, we had a random "teacher inservice day". I dread these days. I would rather have a classroom full of monkeys than sit in meetings all day. However, I have no choice in the matter, so I did what I had to do. The plus side to inservice days is that we get to leave for a long lunch and usually get to leave an hour early in the afternoon, holla! Since I live four streets over from the school where I work, and Christopher works at the bank that is located on the street we live on, we met up for lunch. I hadn't had breakfast and I was starving. Ok starving is a bit dramatic, but my stomach was doing some serious grumbling.

We went to a place called, "Mama's Kitchen" which serves up exactly what you would think. Home cooked meals your mama would make. At least the kind of meals we make here in Texas. I made bad choices yall. Chicken fried steak, potatoes, green beans. It was so good, but also so bad. After I ate myself miserable and got back to work, I got sleepy. I was in a food coma and started thinking about how badly I didn't want to go home and work out. I tried to think of excuses, none came to mind that were legit. And then I decided to give myself a reality check. I went to our school's website to look at the faculty pictures that we took back in August right before school started. I remembered that I hated my picture, but didn't remember how bad it was. Until I saw it again. And I cried. You know it's bad when you see a picture of youself and you cry. I didn't even recognize the girl in the picture. The one with the bloated face, no neck, double chin, and fake smile.

Who was that girl? How did she get to that point? Excuses and bad, unhealthy decisions, that's how. And then I looked at a picture I had taken earlier in the morning (becase you know, IG needed to see my mug early on a Monday morning). And again, I was crying. But instead of sad, shameful tears, they were happy tears. Tears that represented the hard work I have put in to make the changes that I was seeing in front of me. The scale has not been kind to me lately. I feel like I have been gaining and losing the same 3 pounds for months. I have felt defeated so many times because of a stupid number. In reality though, I should be focusing on the changes that I feel, and now that I see. I hear people talking about "breaking up" with their scale, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to do. It's not helping me in any way, and instead of feeling triumphant because of the progress I have made, I feel overwhelmed at how much farther I have to go because of the number goal I had set for myself.

I will get there, eventually. There is no quick fix to the damage I did to myself. My lifestyle and habits are changing, and will continue to change as I truck through this journey. I'm so very thankful to all of my friends and family who encourage me and support me day in, and day out. Yesterday when I did the side by side picture comparison, I sent it to Christopher. I imagined that he saw the same fat girl I saw during that time. His reply was, "I like them both." It never dawned on me that he's going to love me no matter how fat or skinny I get. Does he like the changes he sees in me? Yes, I think so. He tells me often when he notices things that are changing on my body. Would he still love me if I was that fat girl in the picture? Yes, he would. And I know this, because he did. The past year and a half as I packed on the pounds and was lazy and miserable, he never stopped loving me. When I cried all summer and complained about being fat and unhappy and dreading putting on a swimsuit, he never stopped loving me. That makes me love him even more that he accepts me for me, no matter my size. But that doesn't mean I'm ok with being fat and complacent. He deserves someone who is happy and healthy. And I am doing my best to be both of those things these days.

P.S. I would pay a large sum to the person in charge of our school's website to take that mothereffing picture off of there. I should send her an e-mail right now...

Happy Tuesday!