I Love Fall Because I Hate Sweating

My favorite time of the year! Not just because my birthday is in October, but because the humidity and extreme heat have headed south for a few months. Ugh I hate sweating. I hate feeling all sticky and gross. I do NOT enjoy the summer. I remember loving summer when I was a kid. No school, swimming, playing outside, long days filled with nothing. Well now that I'm all grown up, summer is just like any other time except the kids are all home and it's beastly hot outside. I have to pay to go swimming, so how many times do you think I took my 8 kids swimming? Like never. I was secretly glad we couldn't afford it, because me + swimsuit = delightful video on youtube or america's funniest videos. We would go swimming at my brother's once a year, my kids always looked so forward to that, and I did too, once I was in the water. There my weight only meant I could float on top of the water effortlessly! I was just as good a swimmer as when I was a kid, and I could cavort like everyone else. Until I  had to come OUT of the water. Man, the feel of all that weight after none was just incredible. Hits you so hard.
I have always loved being able to cover up my body with more clothes! Summer means clothes come OFF and all the cute little girls and women with their cute little bodies and their thin legs and no cellulite or stretch marks anywhere can run around and be so attractive and here I am, in my black pants and t shirt, too embarrassed to wear shorts in public, hating and envying them at the same time. 
I get so mad at myself sometimes for letting my youth fly by and not getting to enjoy it. I am 50 years old now. FIFTY. That is so OLD to me. I never got to wear pretty clothes or swing on a swingset or play with my kids at a park or hold them on my lap instead of up on my stomach. I look back on all those years when my 8 kids were growing and yes, I was very very busy. I didn't even go to the bathroom by myself. You either 
a. go the bathroom with the door open because if you don't the little kids stand outside the door and cry and bang on it and put their little fingers under it and who can concentrate and the older kids say ewwwwww mom shut the door that's gross but they were the ones who always wanted it open in the first place!
or b. Take all the little ones into the bathroom with you so they won't get into stuff or make messes or squabble and maybe even nurse the baby because they just cannot wait 2 minutes and the toddlers hear your poo hit the water and want to look and you  have to talk to them the whole time about going to the bathroom and wiping and how important it is to be big and not poo in your pants.
How do women have time to even think about themselves? I had 8 children. I had a baby every other year since 1989. We homeschooled for 10 years. And I was busy. And I look back at those times and I hate myself for letting all the fat pile on but I just can't change the past.
I can only start now and work on today. 
Today I will eat 1500 calories.
Today I will rejoice because the children are all in school and I am home alone and it is quiet and peaceful.
Today I will take a walk.
I am not putting off my weight loss until tomorrow anymore. Because how many tomorrows do we have? I have wasted too many of them. I want to live my life without this burden that I carry, the fat, the anger, the self-loathing, the disappointment, the discouragement. I want to LIVE. 
**********A List of Random Wants and Wishes****
I want to run if the urge hits me and have it not be a big deal at all.
I want to be actually cold and not hot and sweaty all the time, needing a coat instead of a thick sweater.
I want to revel in the warmth of summer, not hiding in my air conditioned house, but out and about in cute shorts and tops and not look hideous but trim.
I want to go up the stairs 2 at a time without even thinking of it, like I used to, because I am in a hurry and it takes too long to go one at a time.
I want people to see me for who I am, not see the fat which is what people only look at and I am not criticizing because shamefully I do it too.
I want pretty clothes. Pretty.
I want to go canoeing again and not worry about my end of the canoe sinking WAY down into the water and my husband's side flying way UP in the water, or not fitting in the canoe, or any of the scary things I can imagine about being in a canoe while fat.
I want to be able to sit in any chair without looking carefully at it first.
I don't mind being big chested I just wish they weren't so HUGE.
I honestly don't care what other men think, I do want my husband to think I'm attractive, I just don't want people to think I am UNattractive. 
I want my outside to finally fit the image I have of myself in my mind. They never do match. I see myself so vibrant and lovely and trim and I can deceive myself when I look in a mirror but videos and pictures bring out the horrible truth. I am floored, ridiculously so, to see myself the way others do, the way I REALLY AM.
I want wise food choices to be natural, not forced. I want my eating less to be the way of my life, and overeating is just something I wouldn't do. I guess I mean having it be second nature.
And I wish I could lose like 10 pounds a week but it will probably be around 2 or 3 pounds. 
And I wish I could be thin tomorrow but it will probably take a year. And I wish that I could see a difference RIGHT NOW in my clothes or my reflection but it will probably take a few months. 
I wish I was more patient. 
***********End****************
And because I want these things more than I want to be fat, I will eat less today and take a walk. 


Such a cold and blustery day. I want to make Cindy's Soup for dinner. It's a cheesy potato soup. And now I'm in agony because I'm going to have to figure out how many calories this is which means much laborious figuring. 


Walked the horseshoe and my husband went with me! He said at first he thought it would be cake but by the time we finished he was huffing a bit. Now he understands why I need a few minutes to recover when I'm done!


Food Diary for today:
Normal breakfast 200 cal
burrito 400
chips 160
small peanut butter and chocolate brownie heated up in the microwave yummmmm. I'm assuming it's horribly high like maybe 350, 400? I really am unsure on this one.
1/2 c Cindy's soup I estimate this between 200 and 250 cal
1 roll 90 cal


So I am pretty sure I came under my calories but dang I don't know for sure. I hate eating stuff that I don't know what the calories are. 


Went out tonight to WM with some of the kids. They asked if we were going to McDonald's afterwards. Because sadly, that had become a regular part of my trips to WM up north. (there is no fast food in my little town) We did not. I told them we weren't and why and they were cool with it and didn't say another word. Sweethearts.


Making wise choices the cool hip thing to be doing,
Laura