Day 259 Someday I Will Be That Confident and No More "Pass The Zantac"

Day 259

Someday I Will Be That Confident and No More “Pass The Zantac”

You get what you give. When it comes to workouts, this couldn't be more true. I remember early on saying that I couldn't match the intensity of my Y workouts with Sweatin' To The Oldies, well you get what you give. When I do the Sweatin' workout now and I get into it heavy...Yes, it kicks my rear! You get what you give. We swam twice this weekend, both times in a lake. I prefer pool swimming, much cleaner, but it was still an amazing workout. We've added swimming to the regular schedule of our workouts.

I'm still very self-conscious, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to overcome that. Probably so, but not until after I reach my ultimate goal, get really far along in weight training, and have had a surgery to remove stubborn excess skin. I always knew that I couldn't abuse my body to over 500 pounds without causing some pretty good damage to my skin. I hate that. So if you see me swimming and I'm completely covered, you'll know why. Someday I'll be ready to “expose” a bathing suit body, but for now I'm still dealing with a lifetime of self-image discomfort. The mind can be a very stubborn thing. I guess it's just like getting my mind ready for this journey. I finally did that, thank God. But I'm just not able to go out there and take my shirt off yet. I wish I didn't care. I want to not care, after all, I've made some amazing strides, I've changed my appearance dramatically. Why should I care what others think of how I look? I know of people larger than me who couldn't care less and I see them and I think I wish I could be that confident. All in time, all in time.

I'm so proud of the girls for getting in there and watching those calorie budgets and exercising so hard. These girls want it so bad. And I want it for them. Courtney has slimmed from a size 20 to size 14, and today she made it into some size 13's for the first time in a really long time! The look on her face, the sheer joy she's experiencing, it's all so wonderful. Amber has really opened up to me and shown that she too is committed and focused on this critical mission. It was so hard when she was away at college. It's such a wonderful thing to have her home for the summer. The next 10 weeks is going to be a wonderful experience for all of us. We're making everyday count.

My beautiful wife is also getting smaller and smaller. She also fit into the size 13's today. She's gone from size 26 to 13/14! Isn't that amazing? I'm so very lucky to have her by my side, giving me support every step of the way. The wonderful benefits of our family slim-down are so numerous and new benefits make themselves known all the time. It just keeps getting better and better.

The amazing differences in our family dinner table are quite a contrast. We buy less, we prepare much less food, we set the table with just enough for everyone to have a serving, and guess what? Everybody is satisfied! Nobody gets stuffed, none of us gorge on anything, there isn't enough food set on the table for seconds, it works really nice. After we all prepare our plates, we go through the calorie counts of each one. It's hard to imagine eating like we did before. I can remember preparing enough pasta to feed eight hungry people, and the four of us would eat until we needed medication. At our dinner tables of past, you could just as easily hear “Pass The Zantac” as “Pass the potatoes.” No joke. After a giant meal it was a normal thing to pass around the Zantac bottle. Isn't that horrible? I can remember preparing two trays of enchiladas for the four of us. Twenty enchiladas for four people! We usually had left overs, but still, those would be gone within twenty-four hours easy. We make really good enchiladas! It's really wonderful to be over that way of eating. We're finished stuffing and gorging. We're finished being completely out of control. We're all learning how wonderful eating responsible normal portions can be. It's really a refreshing change that we've needed for a very long time. And I honestly can't remember the last time we all sat around after a giant meal, hurting from the gorge, and passing around the Zantac. That just doesn't happen anymore.

It's really been a fabulous weekend. I didn't get the lawn mowed like I planned, but I'm ready to do that tomorrow evening. I haven't gone out and mowed since I weighed over 500. I remember how hard it was then. I doubt it will be that much of a challenge now. We're getting ready for a movie tonight, so I'll wrap up tonight's blog. Thank you so much for your continued support. Goodnight and...

Good Choices,
Sean