Race Schedule and Results

Monday, February 24, 2014

My why...

My mom sent me a text the other day saying that she wishes I see what she sees when she looks at me.  She wrote "You see yourself so different than I see you.  I see a beautiful woman, confident, focused, happy and who looks amazing to me".  Now granted, she IS my mom, but I want to see that person all the time too.

I have a big hairy goal of looking at myself in the mirror and seeing what other people see.  Easy peasy, right?

I started on a personal journey two weeks ago in hopes of learning to love me a bit more (remember, that?  I wrote a post about it).  It's something that I have been thinking about for a while now and trying to figure out how I would tackle feeling better about me.  Is it what I eat?  Is it how I workout?  Is it who I surround myself with and what I do with my free time?  The thing is, it's a little of all of that.

Being a new mom, I think we sometimes get into this "everything is about the baby" mindset and we lose sight of other things that are important, ie, ourselves.  It's not that I have let myself go... I just haven't given me the attention I deserve.  You know what I mean?

For the last two weeks I've consciously cleaned up my diet.  No more soda (gah).  I'm shopping on the perimeter of the grocery store.  I'm buying stuff that doesn't have an ingredient list that's a page long.  Today I officially started TWO challenges.  Two.  Two challenges that I'm fully committed to.  The first is called 21 Day Fix.
It's a very clean eating plan couples with 30 minutes workouts that focus on the whole body and a shakeology shake each day.  I'm packing my body full of nutrients, aminos, and vitamins.  I'm taking care of me from the inside!!!  The second challenge is a No Sugar Olympic Challenge.  No added sugar in my diet and workouts provided to me every day but a friend who's a personal trainer with a focus on Olympic sports.  Both are fun, exciting and SUPER hard for me.  But I need to step outside of my comfort zone a little.  It's good for the body AND the soul!

And in these challenges, I'm surrounded by amazing women - some I know and some I don't.  They are all on a personal journey of their own, for whatever reason and we are there to help each other every step.  I'm wanting to come out of these groups with not only knowledge about nutrition that I didn't have before, but maybe some new friends.  But most importantly, I'm hoping I leave these challenges equipped to be a better me.

My daughter deserves to have a mom that doesn't compare herself to others.  She doesn't need a mom who constantly complains about her weight and her thighs and her muffin top.  She doesn't need to grow up wondering how she looks and feeling like there is a list a million miles long that she would like to change about herself, a habit she learned from watching her momma.  I mean look at her, she'll always be beautiful!
My husband deserves to have a wife that believes him when he says I look beautiful, instead of rolling my eyes and listing the top 5 things that day that are bothering me about my body.

My mom deserves a daughter who can look at herself and say "I AM a beautiful woman, who's confident, focused, happy and looks amazing".

Instead of complaining, I'm asking myself - WHY NOT ME?



**Have questions about either of my challenges or think maybe I can help with your journey to feel comfortable in your own skin too?  Email me - thekingerys(at)hotmail(dot)com.  I'd LOVE to talk to you about taking that journey with you!!!**

 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

All you need is love…




I’ve often thought that loving someone else was the greatest gift that I could give.  I love my husband more than life itself.  My daughter… there’s just no explaining that love.  I love my family, my friends, even some of my neighbors.  And it truly is a gift to love these people.  

But I'm starting to realize that the best gift a person can give themselves is love - loving who they are, what they do, what they look like, what their limitations are, what they fear. And really, once you love yourself, you are giving those around you a gift as well - the gift of someone who is comfortable in their own skin.


Think about it – do you truly love yourself?  

That’s not a trick question. I hope you can answer that honestly, but if you can’t answer it with a resounding “YES!”, then you aren’t alone.  A lot of people aren’t 100% happy in their own skin and it affects so much of their life – probably more than they even know.

Sure I joke, “what’s not to love about me” but why is that so hard for me to answer myself?  There’s just something, deep within, that judges ME more than anyone.  I’m so critical of myself. I'm not skinny enough, fast enough, rich enough, patient enough.  Many days I feel blah at the image staring back at me.  Many days I feel like I don’t have a purpose, that I’m kind of empty.   And that’s gotta change.  I’m a smart woman.  I’m an accomplished athlete.  I’m a darn good mommy.  I have a great big heart and definitely jumped into the caring gene pool. 

Today I turn 34. While that’s not really a big deal, I have decided that this is my year.  I’m going to learn to love the most important person in the world that needs love – ME.  That starts with loving me from the inside out. Yes I have "flaws" but why not take those "flaws", change the ones that I can, accept the ones I can't and move on.  So I'm not a size double zero - really, that shouldn't be a size because really 00 just means two times nothing.  So I'm not fast... I get more race for my money by finishing in the middle of the pack.  So I'm not rich... money doesn't buy happiness (yes, it buys cute workout clothes and vacations and stuff like that, but there's more to life than money alone).  So I'm not patient enough... okay, see, that's one of those that I can work on!
What I'm getting at here is that I'm going to start looking at myself differently.  I'm going to take what I've been given and learn to love it.  If I can change something that I don't like, then I'll work hard to change it.  Because really, I can complain about it or I can change it... simple as that.
I’m going to challenge myself in ways that I haven’t done in the past and I will see results. (sounds convincing, doesn't it?)

One of the things that I have decided to do is join a 21 Day Fix challenge.  A super successful friend and someone I admire greatly for the love she has for herself, is heading it up and I’m committing to 21 days of nutrition, fitness, accountability, vulnerability. This is outside of my comfort zone a little bit.  I have to take pictures of myself (yikes) and I have to be honest about what I'm doing.  It's three weeks... three weeks which will hopefully lead to a lifetime of change. 

It takes 21 days to form a habit - I'm giving this a full 21 days.

I think it’s going to be the jump start that I need to tackle my next challenge – becoming a Beachbody Coach with Team Courage.  I’m really excited to start create an environment for others that struggle like me in their journey to fully love themselves to come, be a little vulnerable, and let me help them.  I think this is going to be a very fulfilling career and it will just help me become a better me.


And really, I need to learn a thing or two from my daughter.  I mean, she loves herself enough to kiss her all day long! :)

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