Week 2 - Birthdays and Bloodwork by Liimu

We have eight, count them, eight birthdays in September. And I hate to admit that birthdays are pretty much sugar all day long in our house, from the donut with a candle the birthday girl/boy gets first thing in the morning all the way through to the cake of their choice at night. I have resisted the temptation throughout all these birthdays but I swear I came close tonight. Cold Stone Creamery actually makes a cake with whatever candy you want inside the ice cream. I call it "Devil Cake.".

Despite my resolve, my second weigh in was anti-climactic to say the least. I don't know if it's because I am what they call AMA (advanced maternal age) or if there's something wrong with my thyroid (I had bloodwork this morning and should know for sure by the weekend) or if the nibbles of pretzel goldfish here and there are wreaking more havoc on my program than I'd like to admit. All I know is that I had my baby over six months ago and I have lost a grand total of 30 pounds and that is including the initial post partum loss of 17 pounds. So in five months I have lost a whopping 13 pounds. That stinks. After my other kids, I lost that in a month. The last time I worked with this online trainer, I lost twice that in a month. So I am frustrated to say the least.

That's the bad news. The good news is that my eldest daughter is paying close attention and making some good choices of her own. She gave up the last bit of donut this morning (first time for everything) and she even said that next year she wants to have fruit instead of cake, I told her we didn't have to be extreme, that it's ok to have cake every once in awhile. Her response, "But mom, fruit tastes really good!"

So, maybe this new healthy lifestyle of mine (which is what I call it, rather than a "diet") is having some positive influence I hadn't even foreseen going into it. Either way, there's no turning back now. I am committed to this thing until I get my cute little body back. (Though I do secretly hope maybe something's wrong with my thyroid that good old-fashioned western medicine can fix.)

Weight Loss and The Law of Attraction (oh, and Money and Abundance, too)...by Liimu

Both because my blogging day is nearly half over and because I recently downloaded and listened to Esther and Jerry Hicks "Think and Get Slim," I am inspired to share a blog I posted to my own site, Recreating Liimu, not long ago.

While I am still waiting for the scale to show the numbers I want to see, I remain as confident as ever. I recently ran 5 miles outside ofr the first time, and just a couple days ago ran 2 miles in 20 minutes! That's my first time running my old 10 minute pace I was happy to be running before I got pregnant. I am SO happy with that because I know I will be ready for the half-marathon in November.

I have really made some significant progress since I had little Max. My body has definitely toned up and I have lost 15 pounds since the beginning of June, more than 30 pounds overall. I still have 40 pounds to go, but I know the Universe is going to suck that off of me with the quickness. One reason I know this to be true is that I have experience with affirmation prayers of abundance working WELL and now all I have to do is come up with an equally powerful prayer around my weight loss.

The abundance is prayer is amazing. Since I have been saying it consistently, I have been seeing contracts that were already for a good amount of money get DOUBLED by the client, have seen checks come in weeks early that were for thousands more than I expected them to be, have seen small projects pop up out of nowhere for work I've already completed. It's amazing - like magic.

I have a friend who is skilled in the Law of Attraction and she swears that since she figured out how to apply the Law of Attraction principles to her weight loss, she now has the figure of a Victoria's Secret model. She says what she does is to put on the best music she can think of (for me, that's currently "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5), gets all into an uber happy state of mind and then and ONLY then, she envisions herself at her perfect weight.

I know for a fact that I have been disallowing my ideal body to manifest by making the mistake of thinking and talking about weight loss from a negative mindset. Only starting today, I have started getting really excited about the fact that I KNOW the Law of Attraction works, so it absolutely has to work in this area if I am diligent about keeping my thoughts and words positive.

I know how it feels to be in really good shape. I know how it feels to be eating healthy and exercising, to look in the mirror and like what I see. I know that's right around the corner. I'm just going to focus on how good it's going to feel when I get there. I have seen it work with regard to manifesting abundance. Now it's time to see it in action with regard to achieving my ideal body. Oh, and case you're wondering, it looks like THIS:

Thank Heavens for Little Girls, and Big Ones Too...By Liimu

I have a theory. I believe that the size of my kids directly correlates not with their weight at birth, but rather with how much weight I gained during each pregnancy. When my eldest daughter was born, she weighed 6.5 pounds and her thighs were so skinny, I could circle one of them with my thumb and middle finger and have finger left to spare. Now, at 8 years old, she wears a size 7.5 women's shoe, is nearly 5 feet tall and weighs as much as many of my friends. I gained 90 pounds when I was pregnant with her. 16 months later, after gaining only 45 pounds, I gave birth to her sister, who weighed in at a respectable 7.5 pounds, but had not reached Devon's 2-month length by her 4-month birthday. She is 7.5 years old now and shares clothes with her 4 year old sister.

I've tried to explain this to my 8 year old when she complains that she wants to lose weight (sad, but true) because she wants to weigh what the other girls in her class weigh (75 pounds, vs. her 110). I try to explain to her that she is growing at exactly the rate she has her entire life - which is literally heads and shoulders above her peers. I tried to explain that when she was 6 months old, she wore 12 months clothes, and when she was 12 months old, she wore 2T, and when she was 2 years old, she wore 4t, etc. Nothing has changed. I tried to explain to her that as long as she stays active and makes healthy choices, she will continue to be healthy and beautiful. I try to set a good example for her of how to do just that.

My sister pointed out that there is one thing I could do better than I'm doing now, which is to set a good example for her around loving and accepting myself. I realized recently that the extent to which I have been pushing myself to get back to my prepregnancy weight quickly (like all those freaking celebrities do that are all over the tabloids - think Penelope Cruz), I have been sending a conflicting message to the love-yourself-you're-perfect-just-the-way-you-are message I've been trying to send her since she saw her first class photo that looked like she had taken a wrong turn from the elementary school and ended up in a day care center. Much the same way my beautiful 8-year old daughter is built to be closer in size to her 12 year old cousin than her 7-year old sister, I'm built to make big, strong healthy babies by having big strong, healthy pregnancies. Love it, deal with it, accept it and get over it. And just as sure as she will blossom into a statuesque beauty in her teens and adulthood, I know for a fact I will be back to my beautiful, sassy post-partum self in no time. I've done it before (three times!!), and I will definitely do it again.

So to all my girls all over the world, whether you're 4'10" or 5'10", whether you gain only 10 pounds when you're pregnant or you gain 100, I challenge you to love and accept yourself as you love and accept your children, your nieces, your mothers, your sisters and your friends. I challenge you to hold yourself to the same firm but gentle standard of healthy eating and activity you would want your daughters to follow. I will not force myself to workout for an hour every day anymore than I would force my children to. But I will try to find ways to be active. And if it's a beautiful day and I've been working on the computer all day, I will say to myself, "hey, get outside for awhile!" just like I would say it to my kids. And when I reach for that second piece of cake, I will lovingly ask myself if I'm really still hungry or just wanting to taste a little bit more, just like I do my kids - and if it's the latter, I promise myself that I can have it again in a day or two (and I even put it in the freezer so I can do just that).

It was a huge epiphany for me to realize that (a) I'm doing a pretty good job managing the beast of insecurity that threatens to take hold of my girls and (b) the one area where I can improve is to slay the beast within myself.