Learning to Love This New Body..and Myself.

When I started counting calories and running, it was for two reasons: first of all, I needed to get healthier and secondly, I was part of a competition.  Throughout the course of the Biggest Loser competition, I worked hard.  I worked hard because I enjoyed seeing the results, but as I look back on it, I think the real reason I worked hard was because I couldn't stand to let my friends [my team] down.

Now that the competition is over, it's much harder to be motivated.  There isn't a prize to be won or the once-intense accountability, and most importantly, there isn't a team to benefit from my weight loss.  I have to be motivated by my own desires to be healthier and lose weight.  It has to be for me.  And that's where the struggle is.  I have to remind myself that I am enough--my self esteem, my health, my future, my body--that's motivation enough to run and eat spinach and drink water and lift weights.

I am enough.

Here I am, 15 pounds away from my goal weight and, truth be told, I think I sabotage myself because I'm terrified of seeing that magical number on the scale and still not being completely satisfied with what I see in the mirror.  I want to love myself regardless of size or weight.

I am enough.

I wanted to share some of the little things that make me feel successful on the days when I feel like I haven't done anything extraordinary.  The little things that are helping me to love my new body...and myself.

[i have a collar bone now!]

[there's room to spare in my once-tight rain boots]

[that ring used to go on my middle finger and then it started falling off]

[mediums are sometimes too big nowadays]

[drawstrings are a must because this waist keeps shrinking!]

It's definitely a process, but a good one :)