All I Will Ever Need: New Month, New Me?

The summer is almost over and I am sorry to see it go. I love summer, I love going to the beach, family barbecues, margaritas with friends and when the Delaware State Fair comes to town. One thing I love, but also hate is the food associated with those places, after a day on the beach I love going to the boardwalk and eating Thrashers french fries filled with tons of vinegar and ketchup. At family barbecues I can guarantee that I will have second helpings of my mom's potato and pasta salads. They may have the word salad in the title, but it doesn't make them healthy. And then the Delaware State Fair...where do I began? It's deep fried heaven, funnel cakes, cheese cakes, snickers...you get the point!?

In March after four years of not exercising or watching what I eat I got serious about losing weight. I wanted to lose 60 pounds and I would be at the weight I was when I met my husband, six and a half years ago. That's right in six years, I have gained around 10 pounds a year (I also had a kid so I still have some of that baby weight). I blame a lot of that on not having an active lifestyle. I went from leading an active life style, going to the gym, playing softball to working a desk job and then coming home cooking dinner for Daniel and I and then just sitting in front of the TV with him while we watched one of oru favorite shows on the DVR.

So in March I joined My Fitness Pal, a great website! With the help of MFP's Android app, MFP's online support community, going to the gym and working out at home, I lost 17 pounds in a little under three months. Then in mid May things got a bit crazy. My mother in law who had been battling cancer for the last three years took a turn for the worse and went on Hospice care. Instead of going to the gym I was trying to spend as much time with her as possible. Daniel and I worried about convenience for dinner and not how healthy our food was. We wanted something we could eat quickly so we could be over to his mom's to spend time with her. My mother in law lost her battle with cancer on May 19th (which was also our four year wedding anniversary). The weeks following friends and family brought us all kinds of food, casseroles, sandwich and meat trays, lasagna so I drowned my sorrow with food and lots of wine.

Once summer came we were running here and there going to a picnic, having drinks with friends or going to see one of my cousin's little league games. In July I recommitted myself to losing weight, I did great until July fifth when my dad called me early in the morning to tell me my grandmother had died. My grandmother who I was extremely close with, I saw her at least twice a week and talked to her on the phone almost every day. It was like deja vu. What I was eating didn't matter, what mattered was that I was surrounded by family. Once again the casseroles, meat trays, lasagna and desserts poured in and I was back to not caring about what I was putting in my mouth.

Well, September is a new month, a new season. I need to lose this weight so I will be happy with me. Surprisingly I only gained five of the seventeen pounds I lost back, but I can feel in my clothes that I gained more then just a few inches back. Starting today (yes I know today is still August) I am going to start eating right, I am going to the gym after work to do the bootcamp class I used to look forward to and maybe tomorrow I will dust off my 30 Day Shred DVD and get reacquainted with my old friend, Jillan.

I'll keep you posted on my journey, I will need all the support I can get!