Donuts all around...

Donuts, donuts, donuts… is everyone’s feed filled with donuts?  Good. Great!  If you want a donut, eat a donut, but let me tell you about a realization I’ve had in the last few days.  It’s long and fairly personal so, please, don’t feel obligated to read it.  

I’ve had a HARD time getting back from baby #3.  He rocks my world every single day so I wouldn’t change it for the world, but growing him kicked my body’s booty!  With the girls I lost the baby weight within a month.  I had on my old jeans and once my skin bounced back I was back to where I started (which was far from in shape, btw).  With this one, I was in shape when I got pregnant.  I ran a half marathon at 10 weeks pregnant.  I might have also been partly crazy but that’s beside the point.  

When I came home from the hospital with Beckett I weighed 170 lbs.  I topped out at 180 at 37 weeks.  Ten lbs of baby and water were gone when I got home… that left me with 35 to go from my pre-baby weight. No problem, I thought.  A few weeks of nursing will take that right off.  HAHAHAHAHA.  Eleven months of nursing didn’t touch it.  I’m here to tell you I’m still holding onto a solid 30 of those 35 lbs 13.5 months later and it’s making me feel like I have multiple personality disorder.  I'm happy with my life, my family and my job, but I'm not happy with my body, my patience or my energy level. [Please don't send me your product pitch... I don't want a magic bullet, I want self control.] But I have been hesitating to make the changes that I know how to make.  I’ve done this before.  I know what to do. Remember this girl… she’s still in there somewhere (probably eating a donut today).

So on to the realization.  Thanks to FB memories, I was reminded of the Cardinal’s game we went to a couple years ago.  We had so much fun on our little escape in STL; we took this cute family photo. 

Our girls were so excited to watch the Eagles play after the Cards game with their friends.  We moved down really close to the field for the second game. They cheered their hearts out and crashed about 10 minutes into the drive home. That day is full of memories.  Sean and I were finishing our first Whole30.  That day was full of (Chipotle) compliant foods for us; not hotdogs, nachos and cotton candy.  But that fact is really an afterthought.  I still remember the day.  I was happy, I was not deprived.  My memories are not tied up in the food I did or did not eat.  I probably have a total of 10 memories in my life where the food I ate was so strongly tied to the memory that it stuck with me.  

But I’ve been hesitant to push myself toward giving up the foods in life that I love, namely, SUGAR. I love cake and ice cream and brownies and cookies and candy and yes, donuts!  I keep telling myself, I’ll start on Monday, I’ll start after our next BBQ, I’ll just get through this road trip or that week of ballgames.  It wasn’t until I realized that my memories are not all about the food I eat, they are about the people I’m with, the experiences I have and the challenges I conquer.  So, here I am, 3 days into giving up added sugar and dairy.  This is not going to be perfect by any means but I’m done feeling this way and disliking this body that grew my 3 perfect (ornery) little nuggets. I’m taking it back now… I’ll let you know how that goes.