Goal Setting: 10/30/11

I read somewhere once that writing down goals makes them more real to you and hence you are more likely to work to achieve them. Here are my goals for the week!

1. Lose 2-3 more pounds. (I would love to see 180 on the scale!)
2. Exercise 3 times for a least 30 minutes.
3. Continue working on having a more positive attitude. This week I want to work on not automaticallysaying "no."
4. I will continue Bible Study this week and try for a lesson a day again.  I am also going to church (and taking the kids) with a friend on Sunday. I'm praying the roof doesn't cave in on me ...
5. I will do something nice for one person (who doesn't live in my house) this week. I'm not sure who or what, but I'm sure the inspiration will come to me.

This Week

Just a little review of how I did this week:

1. I hit my -10 lbs. mark! Hooray!
2. I only exercised 1 of my 3 goal days. Boo!
3. I have tried having a more positive attitude which is ... let's call it a work in progress ...
4. I'm not sure if I helped anyone else with the exceptions of my kids. I spent 2 very longs days sewing Halloween costumes. Does that count?
5. I did start Bible Study this week, but I didn't do it everyday like I planned.

So all in all, I didn't meet many goals this week. Next week I will try harder!

HOORAY!

Just a quick post today 'cause I'm in full-speed Halloween costume mode at the moment (I know, the very last moment...lol), but I still need to tell someone ....

I'VE OFFICIALLY LOST TEN POUNDS!

TEN POUNDS, PEOPLE!

Ten pounds was my first small goal! Wish there was time to celebrate,

but I think I'll settle for a few web fireworks!!!!

I'm SUPER excited (couldn't tell, could you?) and even more

determined to lose the rest. My next goal is a little different.  I'm not looking for

a weight loss number this time.

My next goal is to be able to get rid of my size 16 (gulp) jeans and slide back into the

next size down. (I am actually really  looking forward to the day I don't

have anymore big sizes to slide into and am FORCED to go shopping!!!)

It's all coming together! I just know it!

If you were here now, you'd see my happy jig!

(Think if I do it long enough, it'll count as a workout?)

Because I Said So!

Do you ever find yourself answering a whining or tantrum-throwing child with the phrase, "Because I said so!"?  I always hated it when my mom said it to me when I was a kid, but I've definitely found myself falling back on this line of reasoning once or twice (cough-cough-a-million-times!-cough) since I had kids.  This usually comes in a moment of frustration when no other answer seems to be just right, and I just blurt it out!

BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!

Well, I've decided to use that same logic on myself today. I'm going to be happy and let go of the little things that bug me ... because I said so!

I read an article this morning on Prevention magazine online called "How You Too Can Be an Optimist" that made some really good points on how to ditch a negative attitude.  Basically it boils down to this:

1. Do things that make you happy. (Easy enough.)
2. Learn to make light of negative situations. (That used to be my strong point! I can get that back!)
3. Remember that not everything is your fault. (This is a toughy, but I can work on it.)
4. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.... (I love Dory! Now THERE'S an optimist for you!)
5. Hang out with optimistic people. (Positive peer pressure, anyone?)
6. Do things to make others feel good. (Always a nice idea!)

It's funny, coming from the pessimist I seem to have become, how simple these six steps seem to be and how much sense each step makes!  (They make so much sense to me that I think they'll be the blueprint for my positive attitude makeover!  Today #1 and #6 are on my agenda. I'll let you know how that goes!)

The most basic idea that I got from this article though is that sometimes  you have to "fake it to make it." Sometimes (like for me ... RIGHT NOW) you just have to tell yourself that you are happy over and over again like it's your mantra. 

It's kind of like a basketball player standing on the free throw line when the game is all tied up and there's no time left on the clock.  He tells himself, "I can do this. I can do this. I CAN make this shot!" If you tell yourself you can do it, you probably will.  A pessimist might question "why would I think I could do that?" or "what if I fail?" while that optimistic player just keeps on whispering, "I can do this! I can do this!"  AND HE MAKES THE GAME WINNING SHOT!  SCORE!!!

So today I'm going to be a game winner! I'm going to be happy!  I won't ask how or why because I already know the answer ...

Because I said so!

Me and My Self Esteem

Self esteem is a big topic in my head lately.

(Yes, in my head. In all reality this blog is a just a place where I can attempt to empty some of my musings to make room for more  real life productivity, i.e. less thinking about it, more doing it.)

Anyways, self esteem.  For most of my life I’ve thought “low self esteem” was a whiny way of saying “poor me, look at me, nobody likes me.” I never really thought about how much it could affect a person’s life.  In fact I never gave it a LOT of thought period.

Until I had my third (and seriously unexpected) baby at the age of 33 (and gained a little too much weight).

Then my family moved 3000 miles away from the place we’d called home for the previous five and a half years.

To the dreariest place I can imagine just at the beginning of the dreariest season of the year. (Here they call it winter; I call it “the vast majority of November thru May.”)

In six months time, I gained 20 pounds (on top of the 25 I was holding onto from my pregnancy), quit visiting the few friends I had met since moving, barely spoke to the friends I’d left behind, and basically holed up in my living room lonely and depressed. I was just a bundle of joy to be around. (Ok, that all sounds more like depression, but I’m getting to the point.)

After a while (about the time the sun came out again in June), I began to snap out of the trance I’d been in only to find I was fat, out of shape, pale (ok, I’m always pale, but this was more like sickly pale), and needed a good hair cut and a mani-pedi. Also, because of the weight gain and general never leaving the house issue, I hadn’t wanted to buy new clothes either. I lived mostly in yoga pants and my husband’s old t-shirts.

(My theory was and still is I don’t care what it is or where you buy, it ISN’T cute in a size (gulp) 16. crestfallen sigh…)

I found that I didn’t want to go out in public much.  My few date nights with my husband were strictly dark movie theater only and "getting romantic" with him was cringe-worthy for me.  Naked is not a good look when you look like "eight pounds of sausage stuffed into a five pound sack." (Thank you, Caroline Manzo!) 

The only time I really did go out was to my husband's work events (of which it seemed there were many), and to me they seemed tortuous! I hated going, couldn’t wait to leave, and was generally grumpy the entire time we were there. We even had to attend one event that is considered a “cocktail party.”  Picture me the day before sobbing my eyes face down on my bed because there’s not enough Crisco in the world to have slid my fat ass into the dress I had been sewing for weeks.  (Funny story, I had originally thought that trying on dresses in my real size would have been too traumatic. Don’t you just love a good dose of irony?)

I think it was at that rock bottom moment that I truly understood what low self esteem REALLY feels like. It hurts. It’s painful. In short,

LOW SELF ESTEEM SUCKS BALLS!!!

Anyways, my own self esteem is something I’m working on during my Six Selfish Months.  I know that the weight loss will help.  As always spending time with my kids always helps because they are sooo awesome and love me more than I probably deserve. Also sorting out some issues I have with friendships and other relationships will help as well.  I’ve been doing some online research about books I can read and honestly I’m seriously considering therapy as well.  I’ll basically be trying anything and everything and simply sticking with whatever works.

I’m certain that you’ll be able to read about all my successes and failures here.  I hope that if you are struggling with self esteem issues maybe my blog can help you in some way.  If so, feel free to let me know!  At least the very least, we’ll both know we are not alone.

(By the way, the cocktail party story above happened less than a month ago so I’m still healing. Please if anyone reads this, be kind. I don’t need mean comments from the peanut gallery. I will most likely delete them and, at least mentally, give you my best one finger salute!)

On the Subject of My Fat Butt ... Good News and Bad News

One of my big goals is to lose weight.  A lot of weight. More than I've ever needed to lose before, in fact.  At my heaviest (less than two months ago) I had gained about 20 pounds since we moved to Washington and weighed MORE than I weighed the day before I gave birth to my youngest (who is 17 months old now). I still weigh more than I did when I gave to birth to each of my older girls. It's depressing. Yuck.

But the weightloss thing has to happen, guys.  I can't stand looking in the mirror anymore, and the very idea of buying new clothes to fit this body depresses me. And my old clothes are starting to wear out.  Seriously.  Also even though I've always scoffed at the whole "low self-esteem" issue (my theory always was "suck it up and get over it"), I now understand it perfectly.  My own crap self-esteem has been affecting my relationships with my kids, my husband, my friends ... pretty much everyone in my life.  When I am feeling bad about myself I am less patient with my kids, and I definitely don't want to "get romantic" with my husband. As for friends, well ... that's another story (and a BIG part of my makeover process) altogether.

Seriously, I have to get a handle on this weight thing.

On to the Good News and Bad News. 

GOOD NEWS:  At my heaviest I weighed 193 pounds. Gulp. I hate saying that out loud, and I hate reading it. I can't really even believe I'm sharing it here. Ugh. 

The good news is that I weighed myself this morning, and my scale smiled up at me and said 184!!! That's 9 pounds down!!! WOOHOO!  I knew I had lost a few pounds, but NINE?!? I'm so stoked.  I can't wait for next week's weigh-in because I desperately want to be able to say I've lost TEN POUNDS. 

BAD NEWS: This isn't really BAD news per se, but ... I didn't really do anything to lose that weight. Seriously.  Actually I did less. Well, I ate less at least. I cut out the "I'm bored snacks," and I have been watching my portions a little better.  That's it.

Why is this "bad news"? Well because it kind of kills me to know that I could have been making these changes all along and could possibly not gotten so deep in this hole I've dug myself. When a simple change like not being a pig at meal time helps you lose nine pounds, well ... it really says something about how big of a pig you've been. Seriously. Oink-oink.

Anywho, the weight loss game plan for this week is this:

1.  Exercise for 30 minutes at least 3 times. I like to dance so I'm going with just Dance on the Wii this week!

2. Continue with watching my portions and not snacking as much.

3. Prayer. Yep, I've decided that along with my own efforts, I need to give this transformation up to God. This isn't a "Please, God, make me skinny wish." It's more along the lines of "Please, God, help me be healthy and whole."

There you have it. That's the plan. I'll be posting a "How I Did This Week" type thing on Friday just to keep up with my own (fingers crossed) progress.

The Plan

Some people have a 5-Year Plan or a 10-Year Plan. I am not one of those people.  I am just three months shy of turning 35 so five and ten years down the road are ages I am just not looking forward to at the moment.

Instead I have a six-month plan (hence the title “Six Selfish Months”).  In the next six months, I plan to give myself a 100% makeover; mind, body, and soul.  From my very red hair to my pedi-needing toes and from my “Mommy-itis” stricken thinker to my needing-some-guidance heart, I am ready for some change.

I have some set-in-stone goals. For instance, I want to lose 45 pounds.  (I know. Yuck.)  I want to fit back into my size 8 “skinny” pants.  As I go along the weight loss route, I also want to update my hair, make-up and wardrobe.  For me this may be harder than losing weight seeing as how:

(a)    I’ve had the same basic hairstyle for most of my adult life and had my last make-up makeover in 2005,  (I think I may even still have some of that make-up … ewww) and

(b)   There are many days when I don’t even get dressed or wear make-up, and my motto of late (aka the last 10 years) has been “a ponytail is a girl’s best friend.” (sad, but true)

I have loose plans on how to achieve these goals (a YMCA membership, a few (ha!) trips to a salon, and a lot of shopping (in my opinion the WORST part of the whole process), but I’ll probably get a little more in details with those later.

But those set-in-stone goals are doable.  One step at a time.

Other goals are a little more loosey-goosey.  I want to learn something new. I want to give back to my community. I want to find my faith again. (It’s not really lost; we’ve just been driving around in circles for a while.) I want to be a more positive person. (Living here in the dreary, rainy Pacific Northwest, this can be a challenge that I’ve failed at a lot lately.)

Those goals … well, I’ll just have to keep you updated on their progress.

There you have it: The Plan.  Not the most exciting post for a reader, but certainly a positive step for this blogger.

All About Me

My name is Jodi, and I am a housewife.

Some people think “housewife” is a derogatory term, but I don’t mind it because that’s what I am – a married woman whose main purpose in life is taking care of my house and all the people, animals, and things that live inside it. My days are spent cooking, cleaning, chasing kids, checking homework, and driving back and forth to swim lessons. (Insert bedtime, then repeat.) In fact my entire world revolves around my family. That’s pretty much the very definition of being a housewife, and I’m okay with that.

What I’m not okay with is the recent descent (read: freefall) my life has taken into the negative stereotypes of housewife-dom.  By that I mean that my current living situation has become eerily similar that old TV sitcom, “Roseanne.”  I am overweight and out of shape. My wardrobe is dismal, consisting of more yoga pants than jeans, dress pants, and dresses combined (and no, I DON’T do yoga). My attitude stinks. I’m bored all the time, and honestly, due to all of the above (plus a few more poor-me things I may share at a later date), I can honestly say I’m a little depressed.  I have good days and bad days, like anyone else, but sometimes it seems like the bad days seriously outweigh the good ones.  

Boy, don’t I sound like a barrel of fun?

Lucky for me, underneath the frump and gloom, deep down beneath the bad fashion and worse attitude, lays an optimist.  I know that I am in control of my situation, or at the very least that I can TAKE BACK control of it.  I know that I have the ability to change and that the tools for this change are out there. I just have to find them.  

And that’s what this blog is all about. I’m giving myself six months to work on me.  To get those tools and shed the frump, lose the weight, shake off the doldrums, and find not just the old me, but a new better version on me. Happier, healthier, and ready for anything. It won’t always be fun or pretty, but it will be real. 

I think Bette Davis said it best in this little clip …