Life Happens

It’s true. Life happens. And it happens EVERY SINGLE DAY.

When I look at the pictures of my transformation between June 2014 and July 2015 I absolutely love it. But when I look at myself four years later, I don’t like it much at all. I worked so hard to lose that 50 pounds, and I kept it off for a long time. But then life happened.

• 3+ years of Seminary on top of work and family = STRESS
• Loss of my father = GRIEF
• Bouts of depression and anxiety =DAILY STRUGGLE
• 3+ months of illness = NO EXERCISE

And all of this led to me eating things I had previously removed from my normal eating patterns. Many days I didn’t have it in me to get off of the couch to make one healthy meal, much less meal prep for the week as was my habit.

For most of the last four years I continued to work out, while trying my best to fight the urges to eat things like ice cream covered in caramel and tortilla chips covered in cheese, but the culmination of seminary paired with an extended illness even took that away from me, and it wasn’t long before my clothes weren’t fitting right again.

The good news is that the healthy habits I have created over the years paired with the things that I have learned through my journey are never lost, and every minute of every day is an opportunity to embrace what I know to be true and live into that truth.

Since I have been feeling better, I have added exercise back into my routine, and have been slowly working my way back to my norm of five to six workouts per week. It has been HARD, but I am trying and will get there. I have also gotten back to tracking EVERY SINGLE THING that goes into my mouth. This is also hard, but a necessary piece of the weight-loss puzzle that will get me back to where I want to be.

It would be easy (and has been) to beat myself up for eating things I typically choose not to eat, and for skipping workouts. It would be easy (and has been) to cringe every single time I look in the mirror or delete every picture that made me feel fat.

But I refuse to let set-backs be what define me.

There’s a saying out there that says, “fall down seven times, stand up eight.” When life happens, we don’t have to succumb to the fall, we can and should always get back up.

Anne of Green Gables is one of my favorite book series and movie series and it includes this saying: “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.” In other words, it’s never too late for a fresh start.

So here’s to standing back up, making a fresh start, and not letting the stuff of life get the better of us.