2013 - {hopefully} A New Beginning

I am DONE having babies! I'm excited and sad about that decision, but really, my uterus is not a clown car and the insanity must stop. 4 kids are a lot by today's standards, trust me, I get a lot of "looks" when I take all 4 to the grocery store. Not only is having 4 kids expensive, time-consuming, exhausting, and a strain on our square footage (yes, it is incredibly wonderful and fun too, I'm not all doom and gloom!) but it was really hard on my body. REALLY hard. I developed bad lower back pain (Sciatica) that *was* only affecting me during pregnancy until #4 when it decided to just be my new norm. I have lingering knee pain from carrying an 8mth belly AND a 1 year old around. I am also covered in stretch marks and have loose skin issues (gag). But my biggest issue is my weight.

Having babies close together was great for their relationship (my kids are 6.5, 4, 2, and 8mths) but not having much "recovery" time in between pregnancies meant not enough time to devote to getting back in shape. My starting weight wasn't that great to begin with but then keeping around 10lbs per pregnancy didn't help the situation.

My first go-around

 I originally started this blog back in 2006 after the birth of my oldest and I was really successful. I lost all the baby weight and then some. But a miscarriage a few months later sent me into a tail spin of emotional eating and it all came back. Then I got pregnant again and got stuck in the "I'm too tired and there's too much to do to work out." excuse cycle. Then I had another baby... and another.

I'm STILL tired and there is still TOO MUCH to do, but I need to do something for ME, and my husband and kids. I need to take care of myself. What good am I to anyone if I develop heart disease or need back or knee replacement surgery at 35?

So I'm going to do Weight Watchers again because it worked for me before, and I'm (literally) dusting off my elliptical/step machine to use. I'm going to attempt to do my pilates DVD but have no delusions that I'll be able to finish the Hundred for a while as I rebuild my core.

I think a big part of why I was successful the first time around was that I really committed myself to this blog and felt like I was being held accountable by it, whether anyone was reading it or not. So I'm going to (try) to do that again, post my successes and my failures for the world to see. I took my weight and measurements this morning which I'll share and I took pictures of myself, in spandex *shudder* that I'm going to hold off on posting for a bit until I have some progress pics to post with them cause I'm vain like that. If anyone else out there is starting the same journey today I really encourage you to start your own blog or at the very least, share your progress with friends and family via twitter or Facebook. The support you need is out there!

Here's to 2013, the year I get myself back!

Starting weight - 196.5lbs yeah, I know, so bad
Goal weight - 135lbs this is a marathon, not a race.