You know what tends to grind my gears? When someone tells me to love myself the way I am. This tends to be someone who has never dealt with issues stemming from poor self-esteem. I could make the antithesis to Shakespeare's sonnet about comparing me to a summer's day with all of the self-hatred I've got running through my brain. For every positive thing I think about myself, there are at least 2 negative things. I'm working on it, but goddamn it's hard.
How can I find positivity when all that I see in the mirror is imperfection? Zits, grease, rolls, lumps, scars, stretch-marks. It's just too much sometimes.
But I'm working on it.
My new goal is to find one thing I like about myself every week and write about it. Interspersed with how my 'get healthy' journey is going and pictures of the food I'm eating/making.
This week I'm going to focus on my eyes. Yeah, it's a cop out. But I need to start small!
It's no secret that I've got a different set of genes than my brother and sister. It was kind of a no-brainer when my brother was tall and slim and my sister is short and slim, and I'm shaped like an oversized teapot (not so short but definitely stout). I'm also the only one with blond hair and blue eyes. Sure, sure, my brother has dark blond hair and blue-green eyes, but that's beside the point.
My blue eyes are cool. They're pretty light, although not nearly as light as my daughter's, and they're two slightly different shades. One of them even has some brown around the pupil. There's navy blue around the very outside. They're not too big and not too small, my lashes are relatively okay but they curl well and that's awesome. They're very expressive. They leak when I'm happy, sad, eat hot food, or am outside in the cold wind. All in all, they're pretty neat.
I've been using My Fitness Pal to keep track of my food. Thus far I'm doing okay with tracking, even if sometimes I fall off the wagon and eat absolute garbage. I can't say that I've lost much weight yet nor have I lost any inches, but I've gotta get my mentality there before I can push myself. I've been phasing out my morning coffee and drinking more water and tea. It doesn't hurt that my digestive system has been going haywire lately, getting angry when I consume anything that it doesn't like. For example, all things milk or coffee. Or deep fried. Tim Horton's food, in general, is a trigger. So... yeah.
The exercise thing is going alright as well. I've picked up another WiiFit board after an off-brand rechargable battery pack destroyed mine many moons ago, I just need to get more games for it. Actually, come to think of it, have the EA sports game tucked away. I should try using that in addition to just using the game it came with. Yay brain!
I've managed to catch a nasty flu after a fun party this weekend, so I'm sore throat and full of phlegm. Even sneezing this time and I never sneeze. Thank goodness for tea and Nyquil.
I picked up Jessica Seinfeld's book 'Deceptively Delicious', which is basically making purees of vegetables and sneaking them into foods. I mentioned it to my husband today and seemed suprisingly amenable to the deal. I don't know if he's playing along because it seemed like something I was interested in, or if he's actually interested in eating better. Either way, I'll take it.
Speaking of husband, he leaves on Monday to Alberta for a month. He's 10 days on 4 days off and he'll spend the 4 at home, but still. It sucks. They just asked him today if he'd go out here and he has to give an answer by tomorrow. The money that he would get for overtime and living allowance would help us a LOT right now, especially because we're in talks about having our second kid and we need to make sure we can afford it. Although I've crunched the numbers... we'd save roughly $1000/month by me staying home. And that's literally just daycare fees, parking permit fees, and the gas costs for me driving into the city every day. That's not even taking into account the excess money spent on food items and the like. But that's rambling.
Hopefully the next post I make contains some food related items. I'll try my best.
