Reality.

First of all, Merry (belated) Christmas! I hope you all had as lovely a holiday as I did. We were blessed with many opportunities to spend time with loved ones and we truly enjoyed it.

Onto the point of this. Wow. It's been a LONG time since I updated, and I feel the need to explain why. Losing weight is HARD. Actually, no. The commitment is hard. It's painful, and it's tough, and it's challenging, and sometimes I hate it. I've been having a rough time, people. My weight hasn't gone down (since my last update), and it's a result of many things combined.

This is a hard time of year. As I get older, and as life happens, the holidays become a harder, sadder, more difficult time. I find myself feeling lonely, or exhausted, or sad, or sleeping a lot. (This, I believe, is because of a recent family loss that I'm not going to get into right this moment.) On top of all this, I still struggle with my eating habits (the bad ones). The last ten or so years of my life I "ate my feelings". I ate when I was happy, when I was sad, when I was angry, when I was bored. My instincts still tell me to eat when I'm feeling any and all of these things. They don't, however, tell me to go for the Muscle Milk when there's a perfectly good bottle of wine in the fridge. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

So I guess the purpose of this update is to let you all know I'm human. I still struggle every day to make the right choices, both with food and exercise. I skip my cardio sometimes because it's the last thing I want to do in the whole world. Other times I break down and have a few cookies. It's still a challenge for me to stop and think before I make that choice, and it probably always will be. But the right choice is worth it in the long run, friends!! Someday I WILL achieve my fitness goals, and I WILL be able to wear those jeans that have been in my "shrink into" pile for years, and I WILL be able to stand in a full-length photo without cringing about the outcome.

I hope you all believe me when I say that I know this is hard. I need you to know that I don't always make the healthy choices, and I need you to know that I haven't forgotten my commitment to this new life I'm making for myself and my family. You're all such amazing friends, and you're so encouraging and supportive, and you're GREATLY appreciated. I gladly accept all forms of constructive criticism and positive reinforcement, and I hope you'll all let me know if you need it as well.

HERE'S TO A NEW YEAR, A FRESH MINDSET, AND A NEW LIFE!