The Eve of Greatness

I want to start this entry off with what I think is an important thing to be open about: my fears.  I am feeling all kinds of positivity and excitement right now, but I will say that I wasn't really feeling like that this past week.  It may have been partially because I was coughing up my lungs...but mostly, I was (and still kind of am) scared!  I'm setting myself up in front of everyone to either succeed and be an inspiration or fail and be a disappointment.  My family, my fella, and I have awesome expectations--but what if I can't?  What if I fall off the wagon?  What if my body has some kind of weird voodoo now that makes it invulnerable to exercise?  What if people laugh at me?  Or worse, what if I do succeed and no one sees and my dream of helping others push themselves crumbles?  All of that would be terrible, but what would be worse is not even giving it a shot.  I don't want to be Little Miss Perfect, thin and perky and always sounding like a freaking Hallmark card.  That just isn't me.  But I do want to inspire you.  I want to make you feel like "If she can do it, so can I."  And that's why I'm capturing this whole thing from the beginning instead of waiting until I can post a before picture without feeling ga-ross (which, by the way, I have been dreading).  So before I launch into the rest of this blog, here are those cringeworthy before photos that I have to leave hanging here until I get off my butt and start making changes:

Just for reference, this is what I used to look like in this bikini four years and about fifty pounds ago:

In any case, I am now on the eve of beginning my first round of the 21 Day Fix program.  I spent a few hours this afternoon putting together all thirty meals for the next six days (yes, you eat five meals a day!)  I was actually extremely anxious about the whole thing because I've never done something like this before.  I was very disorganized, so it took me a few hours.  I started to stress myself out worrying about what Tom is going to eat (he isn't doing it), but ended up having several things to set aside for him to eat this week.  Then I started worrying about doing this every week for the next few weeks and I realized that it will probably actually save me quite a bit of time.  No running out to buy food, no piddling around the kitchen figuring out what to eat, no ransacking the cabinets, and no getting hungry at work.  My cooking for the week is donesies and that feels awesome.

VICTORY!

Now, just a quick little update before I finish: As you may well know, I have not blogged in about a week now.  I have been sick and unable to work out at all!  However, I did get my Shakeology and I have been having a shake for breakfast every day.  I'm going to be embarrassingly honest.  With the 21 Day Fix eating plan looming and while feeling junky, I was eating everything under the sun: potato chips, hamburgers, quesadillas, ice cream, and candy in great abundance--I was certain I was going to gain some weight.  It's kind of insane, though, I lost two pounds this week and one of those was after only two days of shakes.  I messaged my upline coach and was basically freaking out because I had no idea how quickly Shakeology could have an impact.  She had the same experience (albeit probably without the bingeing).  Needless to say, I'm happy with it.  Definitely excited to keep it going.  I'm good now, but I'm going to be GREAT soon: happier, healthier, stronger, more disciplined, and more energized.