Have you ever written yourself off as a lost cause?  Given up hope in yourself?  Disappointed yourself one too many times?

I have.  And it hurts.

This quote means a lot to me because I’ve been there and I’ve given up on my dreams before.  Sometimes I gave up on them with a shrug and the muttering of a disappointed “Oh well…”.  Other times it was as a reaction to some unforeseen circumstance becoming an obstacle making my dream too hard to accomplish.  And still other times there were dreams that I readily gave up on because I never thought they were meant for people like me. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

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I’ve learned a new skill recently that has empowered me and given me an apetite to learn more.  I suppose I should give a little background to help put this into context. 

I do not like to cook.  I’ve tried changing that.  Hubby and I took a cooking class together.  I watch cooking shows with him.  I absolutely love Top Chef.  And of course, I love food.  But interested in the process that the food goes through before sitting on my plate?  Not a bit.

Well, being a stay-at-home mom and not liking to cook don’t really go hand in hand.  Regardless of how I feel, meals do need to be prepared and in the interest of having a family dinner with nutritious food, I try to make this happen.  I try to avoid handling raw meat because it’s gross, and since I love baking, I try to do casseroles and stuff like that.  But there aren’t very many healthy casseroles so… you get the drift. It’s an ongoing battle in the kitchen.

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So check this out!  Lisa from Iowa Avenue wrote a wonderful article about the relationship between weight gain and marriage.  The article dives into the trend of newly married couples gaining weight together in their first 5 years of marriage and according to her research, at an average rate of 24 pounds for women and 30 for men!  Those are astonishing numbers to me because I really thought Hubby and I were the exception, not the rule.  Of course being the overachievers that we are, we went above and beyond the average weight gained by newlyweds. 

So yeah, hop on over to Lisa’s blog if you want to check out the post.  You might even find a mention of the Domestic Weight Wars in it! 

Well folks, there’s something I’ve realized as the Domestic Weight Wars challenge has continued on… I am too cocky for my own good sometimes.  Did I make a mistake in challenging my Hubby?  No way!  Did I make a mistake in making the challenge stakes pretty high?  Heck no!  So where did I make the critical, crucial, game-changing error?  <sigh> 

In insisting that we NOT use percentages!!  UGH!!!

My cockiness led me to believe that I could wipe the floor with my Hubby in this challenge by the mere pound to pound weight loss comparison!  When drawing up the details of this challenge, I felt no need to use the percentages, after all, I was going to win no matter what!  And that, my friends, was my fatal flaw and a lesson I am going to spend the whole month of July learning. 

The fact of the matter is that I am winning in percentages and losing in pounds.

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Jojo from Buddha Belle is running a feature all week called My Delivery Story.  And today, my story was featured, pictures and all!  Haha, okay now that’s just got to make you curious!  Please hop over to Buddha Belle if you want to be intrigued by the scintillating tale of the birth of my little girl! 

Each weekend I am going to start posting a quote from SparkPeople that I find to be motivational or inspiring.  I will share with you how I relate to the quote or what meaning I take from it.  I would love it if you all would share your thoughts and interpretations as well!  Or if you have a quote, Bible verse, or comment that you find particularly inspiring, please share it!  I’d love to see a potpourri of motivational snippets.  (Using the word potpourri makes me feel so domestic!)

I would like to kick off the first Weekend Wisdom with a quote that I have found to be so completely true and also one of the keys to living a fulfilled life.

 
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Have truer words ever been spoken?  This is something that I have always known in my head.  I’ve heard it a million times in many forms and I’ve always believed it to be true.  But knowing something is much different from living something.  For many years of my life, I wasted time spinning my wheels trying to use external things to “complete me” or to bring me peace and contentment inside.  Things that made me feel like my life was fulfilled and that could give me that feeling of just being satisfied.  I chased that feeling hard and it lead me down paths I never would’ve imagined possible.

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So on Saturday I ran my first 5k, the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure, and I had a blast!  There were so many things that I learned and noticed that I really did not expect.  The experience was so new and so different for me, that I almost felt like a kid running around with that child-like wonder. 

Let me start out by saying that there was a ton of people there.  The website states that there were at least 23,700 people registered participants but they don’t have the official numbers yet.  A LOT OF PEOPLE.  Very cool.  So it took me awhile to get up to the starting line because there were so many people packed in waiting for the race to start.  It actually started before I made it up there! 

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Do you smell that?  No?  Wait… wait for it… Yep!  You guessed it. 

The smell of fresh cut grass.  Maybe.

Okay, so I lost Week 2, folks.  Apparently burning 50 gazillion calories during my 5k run wasn’t enough to push me past Hubby’s 2.2 pounds of weight lost this week.  Yeah, you read it right. 

Official numbers are as follows:  Hubby lost a total of 2.2 pounds this past week.  And I lost a total of .4 of a pound. 

I’m not discouraged though!!  Oh no, my friends, I have the heart of a fighter (poor Hubby, I know) and I am not going to give up!  Plus I suspect there are reasons for the small number this week.  I have a feeling that I retained a lot of water from the run on Saturday.  (I had been weighing less all week long until Sunday.)  And there are also feminine reasons that need no further explanation.  (Never in my life did I imagine that I would be blogging about that!!!)

This momentary setback only furthers my determination to win this Weight War!  GRRRRRR!!!!  (Can you tell I’m getting all pumped up?)  Help me stay motivated!!!  I don’t want to be that lady in the picture!!!  And I sure as heck wouldn’t be smiling!!!

What do you do to get all pumped up?!  How do you keep up your momentum and motivation?  And seriously, I need help with this one because summer and ice cream are synonymous in my mind… what are you eating instead of ice cream in the summer?!

I did it!  I did it!  Not only did I run the 5k, I ran the entire 5k!!  WOOOHOOO!!!  Yaaaay me!!!! 

…and now I am ready to crash!!!  Here are some pics from the race!!  I will write more soon about how it went and let you all know my impressions.  I learned a lot from this first race and I can’t wait to share it with you all!!

Okay and one more thing.  In the picture of me running and looking at the camera, I look like a total freak!  I had been looking for Hubby and it was that exact moment that I found him, and the dawn of recognition was entering my face.  So please pardon the goofy look on my face! 

Oh oh oh and we have some video too!  I will post that soon.  The video is funny because it was taken right after I was done and I was ready to pass out from the heat so I was somewhat delirious.
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

So last night Hubby, Aly, and myself went out to the mall where they were having packet/t-shirt pick-ups for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  Wow, did I feel cool walking into the mall for that reason!  I was so excited to get my shirt and my cool number to pin on my shirt while I run!  I get to wear a number!!!  I will really look like a runner now!  (Okay so they give them to walkers to but hey, don’t burst my bubble!) 

The race I am in, the Open Recreational 5k, is set to start tomorrow morning at 9:00am.  Apparently there is supposed to be 30,000 people there in the morning and we will all be taking shuttles from the RBC Center over to Meredith College, where the festivities are.  That will be interesting!

I am drinking plenty of water today to prepare for running in the heat.  Earlier this week I was able to run the complete 5k on my treadmill without any problems.  It felt great!  So my goal for tomorrow is to run the whole thing.  I am not so much concerned with the time at this point as I am with just running the whole distance. 

I will make sure to post pictures tomorrow after we get back!  I’ve asked Hubby to make sure he gets some shots of me actually crossing the finish line. 

I can’t believe it’s finally here!