Day 3

I woke up in pain today.  Took me a while to get moving.  Now that my son is napping, it's time for my workout.  I took him swimming today.  He's three, so it's time to learn how to swim.  He was scared of going alone in the water, even with his floaties on.  I had him chase me back and forth across the pool a few times, and his confidence was boosted.  I think we will swim pretty close to every day during his summer break.

My mom took this picture of us the other day.  I hate how round I look.  It was one of the things that made me start working out again.

I have a problem.  There I've said it.  I hate working out.  Over the last 10 years, I have continually grown more fat and lazy.  I didn't used to be like this.  Sure, from the time I was 8, I was a little bit bigger than all of the other kids, but I was never just fat.  Before that, I was the skinny kid. My grandma would call me anorexic, and try to force me to eat. Eventually I took that too far. I remember 6th grade, that was the year I quit dance for good.  One of our teachers was downright mean, and I just wasn't enjoying it anymore. I remember watching my thighs grow from the lack of activity.  I started martial arts the next year.  The martial arts were fun, but hard on the body.  It kept me in decent shape, but after 8 years of it, I joined the Army and that, also, went by the wayside.  I thought the Army would keep me in shape, but I seemed to be prone to injury.  In basic training, I fell down a lot, mostly scrapes and bruises.  There were a couple of sprained ankles.  In lab school, I twisted my ankle farther than I thought it could go.  A few months later, I was told I needed ankle surgery.  The new lack of activity because of my ankle caused me to gain weight.  Then was the snowball effect of remedial PT, more weight gain, and my attitude toward working out going swiftly down the tubes.

When I got out of the army, I came home and got into working out again.  That lasted about 3 months before I was in a car accident and on the injured list again.  I rapidly gained weight after that.  My confidence went out of the window.  By May of 2007, I weighed around 230 lbs.  In December of 2007, I met my husband.  He worked out.  I weighed 230 lbs, and he was in really good shape.  In April, I left the dead end job that I had, and started back into school.  I started following a diet plan and started rapidly losing weight.  I didn't work out all that often, but I was a little.  Then, in December of 2008, we decided to paint our house.  I had been starting to run, and was almost able to make it a mile without stopping.  Well, instead of using a step ladder, I was climbing up barstool height chairs to paint hard to reach areas.  This managed to screw up my knee.  Instead of letting it heal and picking up where I left off, I let myself go.  Over the last few years, I've bounced back and forth, depression, illness, injury, pregnancy, it has all affected me negatively.  The depression still eats at me.

Now that I have left my husband, I have no continual negative influence on my life.  I no longer have him harassing me, degrading my self esteem, pushing me farther down into my spiral of self loathing.  I started this post in December of 2012.  The end of the worst year of my life.  2013 brought divorce, rebuilding, and a new life for my son and I.  Do I still have work to do? Yes.  Though I am not at my heaviest, I know something needs to change.  I am weak and flabby, I hate the way I look.  I see photos of myself and cringe.  Is anything external going to change that? No.  I have to be the one to change.
I have no excuses now.  I have my house, my son, my dogs, everything is as it should be.  My hands are shaking as I type this.  I am sore not just from the workout I just completed, but because I am always in pain.  Arthritis in my back and my knee keep me that way.  Am I going to hurt if I work out? Yes.  Do I hurt when I don't? Yes.  What's the difference?  If I work out, I will get stronger and learn to love myself.  I never have loved myself.  I have had low self-esteem since childhood.  This has to change.  I have to find that part of myself that I have never had.

This is me.  I am tall, so my weight distributes decently.  However, I see where I am now, and know where I used to be.  I am sick of having a stomach, of having back fat.  I want to change my body.  I know how to do it.  I just need to.  Please help me on that journey.