Greetings!

Okay, it's been a while since my last update but considering I've had, maybe, two readers in that time period, I suppose I'm not too concerned. I still have time to get in the flow of doing this right. And I am working on that. :)

I'm not really sure why I struggle so hard with this. I really need to figure it out. I really do want to lose weight, but I'm starting to ask myself if I really believe I CAN. I thought I did. After all, once upon a time I lost 60 lbs. I was really clicking along.

But I was also starting to slip and I knew it. When I injured myself, I was getting ready to get myself back on track that day - but then I injured my leg and didn't walk for 10 months and everything went downhill. I'm still - 11 years later - dealing with the repercussions of that. Including how weak I am - weakest of my life - and how heavy. I need to do something about this.

I really need and want to get back on track. I want this weight off while I'm still young enough to enjoy my life. I want to feel strong and healthy before I'm old and gray. If I even make it to old and gray carrying around so much unnecessary and unhealthy weight. I really do want this. I need to find my way to it. It's time.

I know that one of my biggest issues and worries is that I'm weak. I'm afraid to go take a walk around the block by myself because I'm so weak and so heavy that I'm afraid of my knee giving out or of someone messing with me and hurting me or of having a heart attack with no one around to even notice until it's too late. Okay, probably not the last one. My heart is very strong. But the other two things are very real concerns. And those fears are enough to keep me trapped in the house.

But I can start with basic exercises and weight train with free weights. I can do leg lifts for my hips and sit ups and leg lifts for my abs. I can work my biceps and triceps and back muscles and shoulders. I can work on projects to get me standing and walking around the house more often and I can work the principals I'm learning as I listen to the Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits
series of audiotapes by Dr. Wayne Dyer. (Link provided is for the book - these audiotapes were part of a PBS fund drive package and I didn't seem them listed at Amazon. I'm sorry.)  He says, "Contemplate yourself surrounded by the circumstances you wish to produce." So I am doing that as well. I'm contemplating how it might feel to live inside a healthy, thin, strong body. I'm contemplating how good it would feel and taste to eat good healthy fresh food and have little to no contact with junk food and loads of sugar. I am contemplating myself feeling good again. Feeling strong again. You know what feeling I really miss? I miss feeling the power in my legs when hiking up a hill or peddling up a hill on my bike - standing up on the pedals off the seat. I miss that so much. It wasn't easy and it made me out of breath - but I loved feeling strong like that. I want that again. At least whatever version of it I can get, depending on how much my knees heal.

I want to get into cooking. I said that before. You know, I bought all the stuff to make two recipes but then I never actually made those recipes. I need to do something about that, too. I would like to start blogging the recipes - showing pictures. Not just recipes from that book - the Biggest Loser Family Cookbook - but from others too. I want to start trying out vegetarian recipes too. I want to build a new personal cookbook full of recipes that we all like and that are really good for us. The more vegetarian, the better. I want to try some of that fake meat stuff and see how good it is. I want to treat this as the new adventure that it is. I want to have fun with it.

I started taking inventory of my kitchen yesterday. I only managed to document all the food contents of one cupboard so far, but it's a start. I want to document everything (which also gives me a chance to clean out old food that really shouldn't be in the house) and use that to figure out healthy foods and less than healthy foods and then also plan meals with what I have on hand and build a grocery list and generally get working in the right direction with food planning. Which of course will not only make for better quality meals but also will save money on the grocery bill.

I would also love to get back into baking. I think it would be fun to try some of the many recipes I have for dessert items that are supposedly low calorie, yet wonderfully tasty. I miss baking. And learning to bake things that were wonderful and healthy would be - well - awesome! :)

I am also thinking about creating a blog about my creative side. I make jewelry and other items with polymer clay. It's a lot of fun and I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I am always looking for other ways to be creative, as well, and am particularly interested in ways that we can recycle trash into art. A blog dedicated to all my arts and crafts projects would be a lot of fun - and give me yet one more link to my Etsy and Facebook pages. (I will post them here, too, after I have built things to where I feel ready for that.)

So, yeah, sounds like I'm gaining a little bit of direction here. :) That's good. Keep it up, woman!

Contemplate yourself surrounded by the circumstances you wish to produce.

Contemplate yourself surrounded by the circumstances you wish to produce.

Contemplate yourself surrounded by the circumstances you wish to produce.