I don’t want to make you guys barf or insert side eye/intense eye roll….but I’m just so happy!  Sara here and I just want to say, it’s always easier to focus on what isn’t going well, what is a struggle, what we wish was different since we are such a goal oriented society that is discouraged from sharing their true feelings, but sometimes we forget to say when things are just going swimmingly!  This has been a really tough year, but it is turning out to be the best year I’ve ever had!  In the spirit of positivity, let’s cheers to the good times.  So here goes…I want to celebrate that I have made huge changes in my life and that my life is joyfully responding.  It feels so nice to not be devastatingly sick.  It feels amazing to be dealing with my past so it doesn’t keep creeping into my present and future.  It is nice to feel and embrace all the feels…even the ones that make me uncomfortably vulnerable.  It feels stupendous to complete things I signed up for. Trying new things makes me tingly.  It feels kind to really listen to my body.  And it feels so warm to bathe in empathy and unconditional love and connect with everyone on a deeper level.  I feel so good that I fee like I’m literally glowing. #stopit #noreally I know that obstacles will creep their way back in but I feel better equipped to recognize the decline and tap into my healthier coping mechanisms.  I’m not poisoning my body with foods that I am sensitive to.  I’m not poisoning my mind but judging myself and beating myself up for the missteps.  I’m not poisoning my body by running it into the ground.  I have changed.  Jenny and I have made such huge changes!  As you read yesterday, my meatball and I went to yoga at Bliss Body last night…

And as yoga always does, it sparked a really great conversation between us.  We are both so much more open than we were a year ago.  In March, we are coming up on 2 years of the journey to health together and we have changed, evolved and thankfully grown together. #loveyoujenny  Here is where we started!

Big, boozy, reckless babes.  We both thought that we had it alllll figured out.  But the gift is accepting that you can always learn more.  Here is a run down of our weigh ins thus far…

 

We were at our smallest on the stairs with the front and back view!!!  Then we both really started gaining weight back and slowly realizing that we were moving further from our goals and that this was about to become so much more than paleo.  We always know we are doing well when we want to post our #ootd or Outfit of the Day!

This was both of our teeniests!  And we love a before and after!  I mean somebody look at these!

We really fell off of doing these around February.  We both just weren’t in it anymore and just couldn’t seem to find our way out of the darkness.  And by the time Nikki’s shower rolled around, I had hit 300 and beyond again.

To go from 340 to 255 to 306 felt so discouraging and like I had really failed.  Thank gah for therapy, yoga and health care professionals and a burning desire to change. I had to accept that what I had been doing, might not be sustainable.

So, now that we have both done some serious soul searching we both know that ultimately nothing has changed about where we want to go.  We both want to be healthy and to keep evolving into better versions of ourselves…and we want to do it together.  So we had to find new ways to keep it interesting and to keep getting real with ourselves.  Like for instance that as good as Edible Art cupcakes are, they probably definitely aren’t a positive contributor to our lives/addictions/end game.  And you know what, amazingly enough, we started eating healthy, putting ourselves first, exercising and exploring all the areas that make you healthy and ultimately wanting to do #ootd’s again and before and afters.

I haven’t weighed myself since we decided to take a break from weigh ins.  I am really trying to get healthy and I had a very unhealthy obsession with my made up math of weight loss.  It feels very freeing to not have the constant literal and figurative ups and downs thrown in my face every morning.  I can’t lie, of course I’m curious…and that is what brings me to a little segment called…So, Weigh in is Coming Up.

So, weigh in is coming up in the beginning of November.  We used to do a weigh in shoot every single month to post our progress.  When I got very sick again and had to got to the hospital, we decided to postpone our weigh in and start doing it quarterly.  We both desperately needed a break and we wanted to have some real time to actually see progress since our numbers had been moving in the wrong direction for awhile.  And wouldn’t you know it, November is just weeks away.  How does it fly by so fast?!  I am really at a crossroads here.  My obsessive compulsions with my weight have really been silenced by not stepping on the scale.  It has allowed me to really focus on my physical health instead of my actual weight.  I have some major trepidations about weighing myself.  I worry that I will fall into that rabbit hole of obsession once again and possibly sacrifice some of the amazing progress I have made chasing that dragon of a minus on my chalk board.  What if I feel this good but my weight isn’t where I think it is in my head.  What if I start defining who I am and what I am worth by a number again.  What if this spirals back into a relapse  and I start gaining weight again. #lifeofa4 And then the clouds part and I see the light.  I don’t have to be shackled by fear, worries or what ifs.  I can measure myself and my progress in any manner that I see fit.  As this post began, there are so many things to celebrate and Jenny and I have no reason to be anything but proud and accepting of our resiliency in the face of great obstacles.  We created this blog to help ourselves and others and we get call the shots.  I am not going to let a number send me off the cliff. I am not a number and I won’t let a number define me. We are striving for progress not perfection and we had both been working so hard…why not continue to share the ENTIRE journey with everyone.  This is hard, and that just means it will be worth it.  As long winded as this was, I will close with, we will see you at the weigh in, chalk boards in hand, feeling brave and empowered.  Sending you all my love. Xoxo,

Sara