It has happened...

I am finally getting bored with my workouts. I was moving along so nicely with my 5 day a week circuit training.. It was kicking my butt, making me burn lots of calories, and getting me excited to get downstairs and get it done.

Now that I am at the end of the 5th week, I am feeling a sense of dread in the mornings before going downstairs to workout. I really really hate when that happens. I guess this is why I never stick with the same thing for too long. But I do really want to keep at this for 12 weeks (or 10 at the very least) just to see what it can do for the shape of my body in the long run. I want to wake up one morning and see lines that were never there before. So I must continue. I need to try and give it 110% for at least 5 more weeks.

I'll let you know how that goes....

And when the time comes to change up my workout routine eventually, I have NO CLUE what I am going to do. I know that at this point I would not be ready to take on heavy lifting again. I have made up my mind not to go back to that until after summer. Maybe around October? Then I will hopefully be happy with the fat loss project and can move on to the muscle building project. It's just that eating enough protein and calories in general to build muscle scares me a little. So I don't know, maybe for a while I will just do some bread and butter compound moves. A lot of repetitions and often.

Yesterday was my goal deadline. I knew it was there but I couldn't get very excited about it since I still deal with the same issues I had at the beginning of the year. I am smaller in size, most of my clothes fit me horribly now as a result (you know how unattractive saggy pants are on a woman?) and I guess I feel at least some sense of accomplishment. Still, it isn't what I wanted. I don't want to just keep getting smaller and smaller, I want to look healthy and fit all over. My upper body is great, I am happy with it. But I don't feel like my lower body matches.

I know that I could stand to lose more fat around my hips, thighs and butt. And I think that if I can just do that, I might see some improvement. The muscle will be more visible being closer to the surface of the skin, once the fat is gone. But I sometimes wonder if I am creating lose skin with this loss, thus making the appearance a little.....I don't know, saggy? Ripply. Droopy. It's anything but taught. I know that can happen in people who have lost significant amounts of weight. But that really doesn't describe me. I have tons of stretch marks all over my legs and backside from quick weight gains and losses, but I am ok with those. For some odd reason, I don't mind the stretch marks, even though they aren't very attractive. They are mostly from pregnancy. I gained weight like my life depended on it when I was pregnant. Strangely, I didn't get them on my belly. Just my butt and thighs. My butt definitely grew faster than my belly did.

Last year, March 2010, I weighed 117.6 lbs and was 16% body fat. My hips were 37 inches, my thighs were 21 inches and my waist was 25 inches. Now, a little over a year later, I weigh 110.6 lbs, and am 13.8% body fat. My hips are at 35 inches, my thighs are at 19.5 inches, and my waist is at 24 inches. That's some pretty good improvement. It's not an earth moving huge amount, especially over a year, but for someone who was already pretty small to begin with, it seems monumental. 2 inches off the hip area is big in any woman's eyes!

This leaves me to wonder....how far am I planning to take this? I am not a figure competitor, nor will I ever BE. So why should I be so obsessive over maintaining this state of leanness - or feel the need to be even leaner?? I ask myself this daily. Especially now that I have gotten smaller and still don't feel like I am "there". I watched this show a couple nights ago called Eat, Pray, Love. There was a part in this movie that was like a slap in the face. I just have to quote it for you.

Here's the scene:
Two woman are at a pizza place in Italy. One woman is halfway through her pizza and the other hasn't even started, she is just staring at it. So the 1st woman says, "What's the matter?"
2nd woman: "I can't"
1st woman: "Why"
2nd woman: "I want to but I've gained like 10 pounds and have a muffin top"
1st woman: "I have one too. Let me ask you this, have you ever undressed in front of a guy and had him ask you to leave? Has he ever walked out? Left?"
2nd woman: "no"
1st woman: "Because he doesn't care. He's in a room with a naked girl, he's won the lottery. I am so tired of saying no and waking up in the morning and recalling every single thing I ate the day before, counting every calorie I consumed so I know exactly how much self loathing I need to take into the shower. I'm going for it. I have no interest in being obese, I'm just through with the guilt. So this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to finish this pizza and tomorrow, we're going to go buy ourselves some bigger jeans."

Sigh......if only I had the strength to look at it that way.

Here is the way I look at it, this is why I am so obsessed with changing my body for the better. Of course, there is the health aspect of it. I want to be around for my grand children and great grandchildren. I don't want to rely on medication to keep my blood pressure at a healthy range. I don't want to get diabetes. I want to be healthy and set a good example for my kids (not an I'm too skinny and obsessed with exercise and dieting kind of example - but a use moderation and keep moving kind of example). And I want to be able to wear a swimming suit at the pool without feeling like I am a 36 year old woman with the lower body of a 70 year old woman. Now I know that sounds drastic, and it is, but there is cause for some embarrassment here. I am young, healthy, vibrant, I workout regularly, I watch what I eat, and STILL my bottom half looks as though I am a heavy smoker, drinker, eater of fried foods that does nothing but sit on her ass all day.

I don't want to to care about it. I want to be able to have child-like fun at the pool, running and skipping with my kids without a care in the world about the jiggle going on in my trunk. I really don't want to care. I don't want to stress out my husband because of my obsession or warp the fragile minds of my 3 young girls. I fear that at this point I am just being selfish and dragging everyone around me down into a dark ugly pit, where I sit and criticize myself and hate myself for not being perfect. For not having the body of a wife I feel my husband deserves. I don't really know where all this desire to improve comes from. I've never been at an unhealthy weight. No one has ever told me that I'm jiggly. I just don't know the root or the cause of it all. Sometimes I wish I did.

But I know one thing - I don't want to feel guilty for splurging on unhealthy food once in a while. And another thing - I don't want to feel guilty for having a dream, a goal, something I will feel proud to accomplish. Nobody else has to understand it, I don't even understand it at times, but for some reason it is important to me, and it gives me the drive to push on. Forever striving to become better than I am now. And to help others with my knowledge, who might have extra weight and not know how to lose it in a healthy way.  All I want is happiness. I want to be happy with who I am. I want to feel like I am a good mother, a good wife, and a good friend. Not perfect, but good. And I want to be ok with not being perfect. I just want to be ok.