Losing Weight...

I feel like I've been on a diet for the past 5 years. I go on a diet and back off again. I try calling it a  "lifestyle change," instead of a diet. I try exercise, eating less, counting calories, and any number of apps. The problem is that I use food to feel better. I use food as a reward or remove it as a penalty.
I don't want to be super thin and super fit. I want to be able to play with my kids while sitting on the floor comfortably or run after them without feeling winded. I would like to be able to purchase cheap clothes that fit well and that I like. I don't want to buy things just because they fit. I don't want to track my calories for the rest of my life. I don't want to never eat chocolate again.
So I recently started trying Paleo and it was working ok until I started eating McDonalds...which isn't really good for me...and really doesn't taste that great. I feel like I'm self sabotaging and I don't have any idea why. So I thought maybe if I write about it I can try to see a pattern and find out why I am doing what I'm doing.
Back to Paleo tomorrow because for the 3 weeks I kept it up I lost 18lbs and felt great. I wasn't as tired in the afternoons and I wasn't always craving sugar. It's so weird that the more I eat sugar the more I want to eat and when I remove it from my diet I don't want it as much...until I have it once...then I want to just stuff my face full of sugar for ever and ever.
I'm also trying to remove the guilt from my life and increase my choices and responsibility. I have the choice of what I eat every day. I can choose to give into a craving or choose not to. I will not feel guilt. I will simply choose to continue on. Eating better really does make me feel better.

This is a book my Grandpa wrote when I was a little girl. It is the story of our tent. It brings back so many amazing memories.

One time when I was little we had a tent - and it was left set up in the backyard after an afternoon of fun and playing. Unfortunately, it hadn't been staked down and it blew away. We found it later in a field.

Totally boring story right?

But my Granddaddy Ray took that boring, normal life event and turned it into an amazing story about a tent who wants to be a kite but after experiencing life as a kite decides it is happy just as it is - as a tent who is loved by it's family.

Fall

The air was crisp again this morning. I love walking outside in the morning during the first few weeks of fall. I love the smell and taste of fall in the air. I love it even more this year since the air conditioning in my car is broken. I'm looking forward to the day when I can drive all the way to work with my windows up! Then I can go back to listening to audiobooks on my commute.
Fall is all about new beginnings for me. Fall more than any other time makes me reflect, set goals, start anew. Partially due to the beginning of school, partially due to my birthday in October.
I want to find out what my passion is and then I want to find a way to incorporate it into a career or at least a hobby. I want to help people and help myself.
The only thing I don't like about fall is the explosion of pumpkin. Why does everything need to be pumpkin flavored? Pumpkin spice toilet paper, pumpkin flavored q-tips? It's a bit excessive and I hate pumpkin flavor.

A beginning

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I think because it sounds
easy and like it would be a very versatile career. I wouldn’t have to sit at a
desk all day (currently I’m typing in bed on my laptop…my kind of job), show up
at a certain time, or get a dr’s note for being sick. No one would yell at me
for being late and I could have a completely unproductive day whenever I
wanted. But even with this ever present desire to write how often have I put
pen to paper or fingers to keyboard? If you guessed rarely to never you are
correct.

I have an ever present fear of failure which is somehow
assuaged by just never trying. If I never try to write I can never fail. I am completely
aware that never trying reduces my success likelihood to 0% but somehow that
doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t try.

I expect a book or article idea to jump, fully formed, into
my head. Then I would feel this ever present desire to just type it all out and
after a couple days … BAM… a fully formed manuscript which I would send in to
someone(really no idea who) and they would tell me I’m the next J. K. Rowling.

Obviously this isn’t going to happen. Ever. Because to be a
good writer I’m assuming I actually have to write, probably a lot. I have
to accept that failure is a likelihood not just a possibility and that no ideas
are going to jump out fully formed with absolutely no effort. Also maybe no one
will ever read anything I write, or everyone that reads it will hate it.

Oh well. You don’t learn to run without taking a step. So
here’s my first step….