Perspective

Happy Monday! If you follow me on IG you know a few things happened this weekend.  

1)      On Friday (Valentine’s Day), GSN re-aired my husband and I’s episode of the Newlywed Game! How fun, right? I’m a little honored that we were one of the episodes chosen to air on such a special date J

2)      On Saturday, I started the 21 day fix.

  These things are more tied to each other than you realize. Let’s start with Friday, when I watched myself on TV…the episode originally aired January of 2013, but we filmed it in August 2012.  That date was my official “AHA” moment.  We took a picture with Sherry Shepard which was emailed to us the next day.

I remember seeing the picture and being MORTIFIED.  Holy crap. Did I really look that awful? Was it just the lighting?
Bad camera angle? I was looking for all kinds of excuses that would explain away how terrible I looked in that picture.  It was that day that I took a long hard look in the mirror, and I realized that it wasn’t the lighting.  It wasn’t the camera.  It was me. I was uncomfortable in my own skin.  I remember crying trying to find an outfit that I thought flattered me enough to wear on national TV.  I thought I chose wisely, but when I re-watch the show, I can see how the buttons were pulling, how my bare arms were wiggling, and how much I looked like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin because I just didn’t have any self-confidence.  It was that day that I decided to make a change. I decided I’d had enough of this yo-yo dieting.  This lose a few pounds, gain it all back plus some.  This half-assed effort to just diet until I got to a more comfortable weight then reverting back to my old ways. It was time to make a change, and it had to be a lifestyle change, not just a temporary fix.  This time I knew it was going to be different.  I started this blog a few short days later. I realized watching that episode last Friday, that I was slowly letting my old ways creep back in.  I was being lazy about my diet and exercise.  I was letting the old me settle in.  I have gained some weight over the past few months, I’ve made no secret about that.  The holidays were tough for me, and my work schedule in January was the nail in my coffin.  But as I watched that episode, I knew I had the power to change.  It gave me some perspective: I’ve come so far, and there is NO WAY I’m EVER going back to where I was that day.  I never want to feel like that again.  I had already planned on starting the 21 day fix on Saturday morning, but watching myself on national TV Friday night was all the motivation I needed to kick my butt into high gear.  It’s time to get serious again.  Time to let those healthy habits I had created make their way back in.  Time to reign in my diet.  Time to step on the scale again and face the music.  Time to do work. I weighed in on Saturday and took my starting measurements and “Before” photos.

 

 

I’m excited to share my progress with you, but I’m going to wait for the big reveal at the end of these 21 days.  I can tell you that so far, on my 3^rd day of this program, I’m really loving it.  The workouts are challenging but very simple moves; if you’re a fan of Jillian Michaels style workouts where it’s not about complicated choreography or speed, it’s about proper form and powerful reps, then you’ll love this workout program.  Seriously, Autumn is like everything I WANTED to like about Jillian, plus a million times better.  I have an issue with JM workouts…I find her very annoying, I find her workouts tedious and boring, and I feel like she’s berating me.  Autumn is the exact opposite.  She encourages you, she pushes you, and she makes the time fly by, and I can tell you that I’m so sore today I can barely walk!  Plus, with 7 different workouts, I won’t repeat any of them until next week when I start the second week of the program, so the variety is really nice to have something new every day. If you don’t follow me on IG already, please do..I’m sharing a lot of my 21 day journey there, so if you’re interested in seeing my meals, food prep, workouts, etc, make sure you’re following me, there’s fun little button in the sidebar on the right that will link you right to my page. Feel free to email me or leave me a comment if you want to know more about the Fix, and I'd love to hear about your own "AHA" moment!