5 weeks and 5 days out...

Everyone hits that time when they are over it.  Over being in the gym so much.  Over being so regimented with food.  Over being self-obsessed.  And I am at that point.  For today.

I had a moment this past weekend when I finally accepted that there is a good chance I may not be ready for this show.  I am going to push through and train until the last day, but I still have a ways to go.  What made me realize this was a video I took of me posing this past weekend.  Pictures can be deceiving, but video doesn't lie.  When I watched myself in the video, I stopped looking at my progress and started looking at where I need to be.  That was a different point of view for sure.  Here are some clips from the video:

I allowed myself a bit to get down and get frustrated, but that really isn't my nature these days, so after a while I needed to readjust my attitude and focus on the positive.  First of all, I have come a long way.  After months of feeling frustrated and stagnant, this process has given me some very focused goals, all of which I have met along the way.  As a result, I have made a lot off progress.  For the sake of documenting it and giving myself something concrete to look at, totaled my numbers from the first day of my prep - 4/9/12 - to now.  In that time (16 weeks to be exact), I have:
-Lost 26.4 pounds
-Dropped 8.6799% body fat
-Lost 1 inch from each of my calves
-Lost 3.75 inches from my right thigh and 3.25 inches from my left
-Lost 5 inches from my glutes
-Lost 4.5 inches from my hips
-Lost a whopping 8 inches from my proper waist
-Lost 6.25 inches from the largest part of my waist (below my belly button - the baby pooch)
-Lost 4.5 inches from my chest (i.e., I have no boobs left!)
-Lost 1.25 inches from my right arm and 1 inch from my left arm
-Lost 0.75 inches from my right forearm and 0.5 from my left forearm
-Gone from a light size 14/heavy size 12 to a size 6

I really have to celebrate this, as I have worked hard and been disciplined.  I don't want to lose sight of this by being too focused on an end result.  The second thing I want to keep in mind is that I can always do a show later in the year if I don't come down in time for this one.  All along my coach and I have talked about how we don't want to crash into this show, and I am committed to that as much as ever.  As a result, that means I need to be flexible, and understand that I can do another show if I am not quite ready for this one.  That also means I don't give myself an out on this show either, something I realized today I might have been trying to do.

Which brings me to another positive of this process - the fact that I can focus on the process.  In realizing that today, I was able to acknowledge (ok...I am just acknowledging as I write this) that I was setting myself up for self-sabotage.  I get in fear - in this case that I am not going to be ready in time - and that snowballs...to me wanting to just go ahead and scrap this show and plan for the Jen Hendershott show on November 3rd...which then means I can take a day or two (or a week) off from the gym...and that I can have a piece of pizza if I want (or go out with the girls for milkshake night Wednesday night)...and so on and so forth.  So what I did instead was freak out and email my coach, go the gym, stay on point with my diet, share it out loud with JP and Becca, and then put it out here.  My coach told me to stay the course, that we won't make a final decision until a week out, and that his concern is making sure I do this at a healthy speed so we can keep my skin tight and not put me into a metabolic crash.  If he had been with me, he probably would have had his hands out like a hostage negotiator, telling me to put down my old way of doing things and trust him.  Which I do.  So I see it, I acknowledge it and I let it pass on like water through a crack.

At the end of the day, the end goal is great.  But I can honestly say that what I have learned along the way has been an unexpected gift.  Yes. I am over it right this second.  But this feeling will pass, and I will be grateful that I pushed through, and in the end - if I don't get to compete in this particular competition - I will know it wasn't because I skimped, cheated or self-sabotaged. :)

Updates and ramblings

6 weeks and 4 days out.  Time is starting to fly now!  I am hitting the wall a lot of people hit - feeling a bit resentful about having to spend so much time at the gym and wanting to be able to take a day or two off.  I saw this and thought it was so true!

I think this is also a control issue, as I my endurance is waning as my time in the gym gets longer.  My workouts are still hard and fast, but as I lose endurance, my strength fades a little, which I hate.  Overall, my workouts are still very solid so far.  And I am only doing 5 more minutes of cardio per day that I was a few weeks ago, so that isn't too bad, although I still hate cardio.  What is wearing me out is trying to expand the time I spend in posing practice at the gym.  I like to do it at the gym for two reasons: 1. because there are mirrors everywhere and the lighting helps me see what I need to work on flexing, and 2. I can do it uninterrupted there.  It is good to practice after my workouts, too, because my muscles are tired, so I gets used to holding poses when I am exhausted, which, in theory, should help when I hit the stage.  I feel better about my posing, even though it still needs a lot of work.  The more I practice, the easier it is to get the basic mechanics of the pose, the easier it gets to remember to flex everything, and the less I have to think about it, freeing me up to also starting working on my transitions and forming my posing routine.  I'm steady leaning out, and though I still have some fear I'm not going to come in on time for the show, I am less dominated by that fear.  I think the thing I have to remember is that I am not trying to come in perfectly conditioned, but conditioned enough to experience my first show. 

Here are my pics from 7-21-12, with my usual commentary, of course!

I am happier with this pose, as I can see improvements:

 I can't take this pose seriously.  It feels so awkward!  It is easy to see that I still have a long way to go with my stomach.  In the end this is going to be what makes or breaks whether I do the show.  I can see where my upper thighs are starting to lean out some.  Thank goodness, as I never thought that was going to happen!

 I can make this one like a search it game...this pose brings up an obvious training error for me.  Do you see it?  If not, I'll elaborate on this in a bit.  Again, my stomach is an issue in this pose, which for now accentuates that I am still carrying baby weight right below the belly button.  That has been leaning out a lot recently, though.  You can see hear where my upper legs are leaning out more, but refer to the back quarter turn pose to see where I am still thick...

 I am getting better at bringing my arms down and still flaring my lats.  My legs are showing more definition, as are my arms and shoulders.  As with the other front poses, the stomach is the major problem area...

 Here I can see where my actual waist is starting to leaning out, giving me width in my lats and shoulders.  The skin is an obvious thing, especially when I have my top pulled down to expose my lats.  This is something that will come taper down in the last few weeks and is normal.  The thing that I really noticed here was that I am still pretty thick through the glutes.  That has been leaning out from week to week, too, so we will see...

 I have really been struggling with my leg placement on these side poses.  It has gotten better, and more comfortable, but it is still weird.  I can move my front leg around for transitioning, which is a huge improvement over two weeks ago. 

 I am happy with the side quarter turns.  I really worked this past week on what it feels like to pull my shoulder back without pulling my elbow back and think I have made a lot of improvement in hitting this pose better, in general and in transitions.

 As with the side chest, the side tricep posing is awkward due to the leg placement.  I can see definite improvements and can identify here what I need to tweak.

Like the other side, I am gaining confidence with this pose overall, although my elbow may be a little far back here.

Now...back to the front bicep pose question...did you see the training error?  If you look closely, you will see that my left bicep is fuller than my right bicep.  I thought for a bit that it was related to my inability to flex it fully do to some tendonitis, but I am realizing that it is a conditioning issue specifically related to the inner head of my bicep.  If you look at my back bicep pose, I have full and symmetrical biceps.  Not so with the front.  I finally realized that, as a result of the pain of the tendonitis, I was probably making minor adjustments with my hand placements, resulting in less stress on the inner head, thus resulting in less fullness overall.  I am not a fan of self-portrait pictures, but here is a side:side comparison, where you can really see the issue:

 Left

Right

I started working on correcting this yesterday.  It's funny when people walk by and see you with different weighted dumbbells.  I was waiting for someone to say something, but no one did.  I had to do this a while back with my front delt, so I know it's a relatively simple fix.  Hopefully it gets corrected in time.

That's it for today!  Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Things that have changed for me...

I can't remember, no matter how hard I think:

The last time I had chocolate, or any sweets for that matter.

The last time I ate fast food.

The last time I had a soda.

The last time I had salad dressing.

The last time I had condiments, such as ketchup or mayonnaise.

What it was like to live life without drinking tons of water.

There was a time when these were all staples in my diet. I take that back, there was a time when I would use ketchup on occasion, but I have never been a big fan of condiments, so that wasn't much of a change. :)

I do remember a time when I was absolutely dependent on Diet Coke.  I would play games with myself, like only allowing myself a diet coke after forcing myself to drink 2 (small) glasses of water. I didn't get people who didn't drink soda and I definitely didn't get people who only drank water.  It seemed such a weird thing to me.  Then I got pregnant, and anything with artificial sweeteners in it made me sick.  That made it easy to give up diet soda.  But I picked up drinking tons of sweet tea. But, by that time, drinking water was a normalized behavior for me, and I was aware of the signs of even subtle dehydration, so I was drinking lots of water, too.  But up until the end of December of last year, I drank sweet tea a lot.  I can remember my regular sweet tea - New Year's Day.  I think I have only had one or two since that time.  My last soda was probably last August or before.  That is nothing short of miraculous.  But my story is that change came over time.  That was 3 years in the making.  As was everything else I listed above.

Last night we went for coffee with a couple we're friends with and one of them had a  piece of tuxedo cake.  One of my faves because it has all of the kinds of chocolate layered one on another.  A little slice of heaven.  Only, save for when she ordered it, I didn't think anything of it.  I didn't drool.  I didn't wish or want.  It was like my experience with alcohol after being sober for a while, I was in a position of neutrality.  It was an amazing experience.  I can't remember a time - ever - when I haven't lusted after a piece of anything with every type of chocolate in it.  Even when we went Paleo, I would gorge myself on cocao or dark chocolate, especially if it had almonds and sea salt in it, too. ;) 

Like so many other things in life - the unintended benefits usually reap the biggest rewards.  I started all of this - way back in 2009 with my first go around, I mean - with the intention of meeting a goal.  A seemingly lofty goal, but a goal nonetheless.  In the process, I have made and met many small goals, but my focus has largely been on the external changes.  I ponder the internal ones here a lot, but what takes up a lot of my time, energy and planning in the process are the external changes.  Yet here they are...the unplanned fringe benefits...the small changes that were made to meet a different goal, but became part of the deal, in and of themselves.  In this case, the progression of limiting the big junk, then slowing weeding that out, then learning to live without some of the smaller junk, then slowly weeding that out, and being left with a healthier understanding of the healthier lifestyle I inadvertly picked up on my journey to compete in a physique competition.  Intertesting how that happens.  Kind of like when I got sober....fear of drinking again drove me to take suggestions, suggestions I took out fear, that led not only to a relief from the obsession to drink (my intended goal), but brought me peace of mind and comfort with life as I never knew could exist (the unplanned benefit/outcome).  So I abandon myself to something radically different than what I can conceive of with my own limited scope of experience, and in return I get something vastly beyond my imagination?!?  Yup...that's it.  Funny how that works. 

So it is with change.  It happens.  And sometimes I am forced into a position where I ride along with it, rather than resisting it, and I get to experience it all rather than react to it all.  What a blessing.  What a blessing, for sure!

Another thought for today...or I guess I should say...another post for today...

As many of you know, who know me, I am not a fan of social media.  I had Facebook for a while, and My Space before it, and it never brought anything positive to my life.  Sure, I had a bunch of superficial relationships with people I would either 1. not be friends with otherwise, or 2. in some cases ever meet or see again (as in the case of the people I met once through other people years ago or people who I just didn't turn down when they friended me saying that we had a mutual friend).  Further proof this theory (that it's superficial...just to clarify)...the fact that I sent my contact information to everyone on my friends list (all 700+), asking them to do the same if they would like to stay in touch, and I got less than 20 replies.  I even got messages that said people would miss seeing my pictures (i.e., really Jenna's pictures) but no return contact information.

Which brings me to the idea of social media other than the obvious FB & Twitter.  I recently, at the suggestion of a friend, checked out site that is for women in the fitness industry.  And there is a lot of good information on there, especially on topics like metabolic issue and all.  It is set up in a social networking kind of way, where people start threads and other can subscribe and comment.  There is a section for introductions, for training logs, to find others who may be looking for roommates at shows, for products, etc.  I decided pretty quickly to try to introduce myself, which was ok.  And then I started a training log, which was also okay.  But almost immediately, I found myself checking back...more and more often.  Within a week....a week...I realized I was increasingly anxious, especially with anything I considered criticism or judgement...and that I was starting to get full of fear and questioning my competition prep.  This in turn led me to start becoming more and more self-consumed, resulting in more anxiety. 

So I stopped.  I resigned from my training log.  Stopped checking in on the site.  I immediately experienced peace - the anxiety went away.  And I have been at peace since.  Sure I have my moments where I question whether I will really be ready - and from what I can see, this is a normal thing, especially for a first show.  I know I am not going to be perfectly conditioned, ready for a national show or any of the above.  It's a goal to get on the stage and do it...and then decide from them.  To have the experience for the experience.

As I started writing the training log, I asked myself how that was different than this blog.  At first, I didn't put much into that passing thought.  But as my anxiety grew, I did.  I did (and do) this blog just as much - or more - to document this process for me - and for those closest to me.  Anyone can read it, but the people who normally follow it are people who know me.  My motive from the beginning with the training log on that site was for self-promotion.  I can dress it up and call it something else, but that was what it was.  As a result, every view and comment after that was something that either supported or did not support my self-promotion.  Hence the anxiety.  I have had to ask myself before if this blog is self-promotion.  Of course, on some level, writing about yourself is a self-consumed activity, but there is a distinction.  First and foremost, people rarely comment on here.  I literally only know of one person who reads every post I put on here (Hi Justin!), so I don't seek affirmation or confirmation from blogging.  I started it as a motivator for myself, and if you go back to the original posts, they are pretty raw.  And they still can be.  I usually try to end on a high note, but I also try to be honest about what I am thinking and feeling through this process.  I don't feel a need to defend myself - or prove anything here.  I don't feel a need to careful construct my words to account for this person or that person or to avoid the comments I knew would come from some people.  Here, I am me.  Just like my tag line says...this is me...this is my journey.

What I have learned about social media - for me - is that it doesn't work.  It forces me to put faith in superficial feedback (that is what happens when I feel good or bad based in the content, nature or amount - or lack of - comments or interaction on there), causing me to lose focus on what is real, which is what is tangibly in front of me.  My training is solid.  My nutrition is healthy.  I'm not using any supplements (save for protein powder) and I am accountable to my sponsor,  my coach, my husband and a handful of people who are friends in the industry.  I am still on an amount of calories that are considered more than maintenance for a lot of people and my cardio is still at a rate that is normal for many people off-season.  I feel good about the process, and I am not striving for perfection - just progress.  That is validation enough for me.  Just like some people can drink like normal people and others can eat less restrictive than I am at the moment and get good results, some people can use social media and not feel like it's sucking the spirit out of them.  I am not one of those people, and I am okay with that.  So, I will blog.  And be content with it.

Yeah...so it's a "hollow" day...but keeping it simple still does the trick...

I can't take credit for the use of the term "hollow day" to describe one of those days where you are hungry, even right after you eat.  I have to admit that it was a line in one of the Hunger Games books, but I remember it because it was a perfect description of it.

The feeling I am having is similar to what I feel right before I start my period - a general sense of hungry that won't go away, even after having eaten.  I'm quite a few days into my caloric drop, so I know this is not the reason for it.  It's just one of those days.  I actually had a lot more of them when I was eating junk all the time, and they are more rare now than anytime I can remember.  But they still suck - because on these days I think about all of the stuff I think I want to eat (that I really don't want, but are fun to daydream about - not unlike a new car or designer clothes) a lot more.

So I will indulge the obsession for just one moment...because yesterday I really wanted a blueberry muffin with cream cheese I saw in the conference room, or a piece of the cheese and Jenna and JP ate yesterday afternoon, and Jenna's turkey sausage smelled like something supernatural this morning.  And I would love to have Stevia in my coffee, a piece of gum, salsa, soy sauce, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray, fruit, feta cheese, half & half, and turkey bacon as a part of my healthy rotation of foods.  But that is not to be right now.

Actually I can find gratitude, even in the obsession, because I realize that it's all a facade - just like wanting a new car or designer clothes.  In the end, I truly want to be healthy, to see the results of the hard work I put in, and I know that having one of those blueberry muffins with cream cheese in them that are sitting in the conference room won't get me there - even when I am not on a competition diet.  In following the previous comparison, I have had a new car, and it still got me from point A to point B - and now that car is 8 years old and paid off, and I like not having a car payment much better than I like the idea of having a new car.  Same thing with designer clothes, a new house, the latest toys and so on.  They are all a reflection of giving into the delusion that having them will make me happy.  And, as with eating like crap or cheating on the competition diet, once I have them (or eat what I think I want), there is always that moment of regret, when the illusion of the moment is washed away, and I am left with the reality that it didn't even come close to doing for me what I thought it would.  If fact, it does the opposite.  because eating junk lends to eating more junk, and spending money lends to spending more money. 

So, when I have a hollow day, like today, it does me good to remember that the idea that eating crap will make me feel better is actually a delusion.  Does it mean that I don't give into cravings sometimes?  Of course not.  Ok...right now, I don't, but when I am not in competition mode I do.  And I have learned that I can enjoy the simple ones, like having a Stevia in my coffee, a bit of feta on my salad, or a little soy sauce on my brown rice, rather than gorging myself on a cheat meal of pizza and cookies with ice cream on it (which I used to do once weekly and wonder why I couldn't lean out more).  In my social network there is a saying, "Keep It Simple."  I guess this applies to this area of my life just like it does the others...and like being happy with my older car, my house that isn't in the perfect neighborhood and needs new carpet, and loving the hand me down and thrift store clothes I wear everyday...keeping it simple has a bit of wisdom that brings peace...even on the hollow days. :)

7 weeks and 4 days!

I have not fallen of the map - I just have been busy and my brain power is diminishing with each caloric drop!

Here are pictures of me from last Tuesday (of course I have to critique!):

This pose is much harder than it looks.  It's the one pose where you have to keep everything flexed from head to toe and it's the one a lot of people spend the most time in on stage.  Here my arms are too wide out because I have trying to keep my lats flared, so I have been working on bringing my arms down while keeping my lats flared and bringing my chest up.  Easier said than done. :)

 This was my first time working on my side quarter turn. 

 Like the front pose, this one is harder than it looks.  The thing I have been working on most is keeping my lats flared and not sloping my shoulders forward.  I also have to work on putting my rear out further on this pose.  I joke and say, if I can see my tan lines under my butt, then I'm doing this one right! Lol.

 Side tricep.  Did posing with David this past weekend and really tweaked this one and improved it a lot.  In all of the mandatory poses, I am realizing that I am not doing it right unless my lower back is screaming.  Posing is not for wimps!  Thank goodness I have a great chiropractor!  As for these next poses, I will try to get some updated pictures this week for comparison, but my mandatory poses are still pretty rough.

  I was really surprised by this.  My bottom half has leaned out a lot more than I thought it had.  We made the decision last week to not try to cover up my tattoo on contest day.  It would be a lot of work, and I think we will be able to see what I have when we get there.  I still have a lot of leaning out to do in my back, shoulders and arms, but I have made a lot of progress. 

 I still can't take the ab pose serious.  I has to be the most awkward pose of them all.  You can see here how my legs are coming in and getting some size.  You can also see that my stomach is still quite stubborn.  It has shrunk a lot, a LOT, from before, but it's still holding steady.

This week has been the reality check week for me.  My diet has become real - I dropped 100ish calories two weeks ago and another 100ish last week.  I actually don't really struggle with the discipline of the eating.  I still eat a lot of food, given that all of my macros are coming solely from whole foods.  I am not yet having issues with feeling hungry or having insane cravings that I have heard others report.  The caloric drop has really shown up in my energy level.  I was so excited that my strength held through my first big caloric drop.  Little did I know that was short lived, as this past one did a number on me.  My energy level has waned some, which means I am really just high energy versus my normal manic state (HA!), but I feel it.  It's not unlike when I was early in my pregnancy.  I feel a little scattered and a general sense of fatigue.  My workouts are still strong, but I do not have the energy or stamina I had even last week.  I also have been getting to bed later than usual recently, so I think this compounds the issue, and I will likely see an improvement in my energy level once I get back to getting enough sleep.

The big thing with diet this week is the elimination of all sweeteners.  Even Stevia.  Big frowny face! :(  Coffee with almond milk and stevia has been my one indulgence, as was I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray on my veggies, and that is gone, too.  I guess Orbitz was an indulgence, too, as I had to cut that out, too.  This will help tremendously with some of the stubborn belly fat.  In the meantime, I power through black coffee and have coffee breath.  Oh the irony - eating more broccoli, tilapia and asparagus, and drinking black coffee, and no gum to offset the breath!  Sorry guys! :)

The other reality check is the fact that I am not going to step on stage looking like I am ready to compete in a national show or even a more attended state show, for that matter.  This is ok and I am not distressed about it, but the reality of show vs. life conditioning is settling in more and more.  I am in great shape, I look great and I feel great.  Conditioning for a show is a lot more than that, and I am starting to settle in with the idea of a happy medium.  This is a good place to be for a first show, especially a smaller one - ready to get on stage in the best shape I have been in in a long time, but understanding that it's me I am competing against, not anyone else.  If that makes sense.

In the process, I am more and more used to the disciplined eating.  Although I look forward to having more variety in my diet than I do now, I am accepting that this idea that I can once again eat whatever I want is not a healthy one.  I have talked about this before, but I think, if anything, this process has really driven home for me how much food is about control.  When I have cravings I generally stop and analyze them for a second, and I almost always realize that it is about me wanting what I think I can't have rather than having a real craving.  When I look at it from that perspective, I have found that the cravings have lessened and I realize that I am happy and satisfied, so long as I stay on schedule with my eating.  If I miss my timing, it's a whole different ball game, as 30 minutes late can equal ravenously hungry in a very primal way, which kicks off my desire to eat anything other than the food I have prepared.  But I have learned that even when that happens, if I acknowledge the fact that I am legitimately hungry and go ahead and eat what I have prepared, after the first few bites, my cravings settle down and all is peaceful again.

On a final note, I got a mileage check from work, so that paid for my posing suit!  Woot!  The idea of the posing suit simultaneously fills me with excitement and with fear.  I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that I will be on a stage, doing a posing routine, in that thing, in less than 8 weeks.  Hold on while I have a mini panic attack...

...ok.  I'm ok.  I have always been ok, and I will be ok as I progress on.  7 weeks and 4 days.  It may be something I pursue further.  It may be something I check off of my bucket list and then move on to something else.  Either way, I have set the goal and I have followed through with it.  That, above all else, is what feels really good. 

Did I ever tell you I'm horrible at math?!?

Because I am.  Somewhere in this process, I lost a week.  I'm actually 9 weeks and 4 days out, rather than 8 weeks and 4 days out.  Oh well...a week is a week!  Lol.

8 weeks and 4 days out!

Slow and steady.  That is where I am right now.  Last week I was feeling like making the show might be a lot harder than I thought.  I was starting to lose faith, as I was focusing on the stubborn areas of my body that don't want to move - like my entire lower half.   And then I had moment this past weekend where I saw myself in the full length mirror in the hotel room and I could see - I mean, really see - how the development of my quads has come up.  This is due to my legs leaning out, but I have also been working on putting on some size in my quads.  And then later that day, JP took this picture of me:

Ok...ignore the outfit, as that was a joke...and the hair and face, as we had been walking around downtown Charleston in 100+ degree weather, so we were sweating like crazy!  What immediately drew my attention was my legs.  My legs!  Where did they go?  My friend, Elizabeth, said she told her husband, "Honey, have you seen Julie's legs?  They seem to have disappeared!"  This picture is such a testament to how I don't see myself in an objective light.  I was still feeling like I had these crazy thick legs, and I realized (finally) when I saw this picture that my legs have actually leaned out a lot.   I still have a ways to go to be in show shape, but I have come a long way.

Which brings me to another thought...as we were walking around Charleston this weekend, it occurred to me that, in trying to get into shape for a competition (or, should I say, in trying to get into competition shape), I have sometimes lost sight of the fact that I am in better and better shape every day.  I am stronger, leaner, healthier than I have been in a long time.  I'm fitter, too.  I took 5 flights of stairs full steam, in heels, without losing my breath at all.  That blew my mind.  It may not sound like a lot, but even running on a flat landscape is much different then pulling your bodyweight up - even if it is only for 5 flights.  I can remember not long ago that walking up steps would wind me, so I am happy that it doesn't anymore.  I have also realized recently that I am now leaner than I have ever been in the time that I have been with JP.  I always had this idea that I was so much leaner when we met, but I was in a size 10 then, and I still have two pairs of pants from that time - my "skinny" pants - and they are now too big (which they were not then).  The dimensions of my body are different thanks to having been pregnant (i.e., I carry weight in different places), but it blows my mind to realize that I have been carrying this extra weight for so long.

And that is just what it is.  To understand this, I just needed a quick trip down memory lane.  This started yesterday, when my co-worker, who I worked with back in 2000, said to me, "You are starting to be the Julie I know again."  This really got me thinking, and I realized that the weight I have been carrying for the last 7 years or so really isn't me.  I could explain with words, but I think pictures carry more...ahem...weight (ok..that was bad, but it was funny!):

10th Grade

Senior year

21st Birthday (no comments on the outfit - I thought it was badass!Lol)

1999

2000

2001

2001

2002

2004

I have a gap of missing years on Photobucket, but you get the idea.  I know the blond hair may come as a shock to some, but this was how I had my hair until June 2006, when I walked into Carmen! Carmen! salon for my first ever appointment with Deni, and said, "Chop it all off!"  As for the weight - after Jen died in October 2004, I was so burned out with school and work and everything, I just stopped going to the gym.  I stopped cooking and started eating out a lot.  And the pounds creeped on.  I stayed at a steady 8/10 until after JP and I got married and I have pretty much chronicled the story since that time. 

It's funny how insidious it is...how you can rationalize to yourself...how, when heavy, you see a smaller, thinner version of yourself, and when you lean out, you see a heavier, thicker version of yourself.  How does that happen?  Just like I looked at that picture from this past weekend and thought, "is that really me?", after having Jenna, I would look at pictures of myself and say the same thing, only the reality I was seeing was that I could so lie to myself about how much weight I had actually gained.  Funny how we don't really have an accurate perspective.

But just like the day I cut all of my hair off...



June 2006



...and owned a "new me" - like everything else in life, I have a new awareness, a new perspective - and I am now reclaiming a part of that old me that got lost in the process.