Rome Wasn't Built In A Day...

My name is Lesli and this is my blog. I own Two Birds Baking Company. I have a rad 7 year old son. I have awesome family and friends. I am overweight. I am out of shape. This is my journey into losing my fat kid and getting healthy. No gimmicks. No pills. The only bands I'll be using are resistance. Just good old fashioned hard work and clean eating.

3.4.12 We made history when we were a part of the first ever all Vegan Episode of Cupcake Wars

Starting today I began training for The Spartan Race in December.  I have never run any sort of race so of course why wouldn't I start with a death match? My friend Taryn who owns Crave Personal Training will be the Mickey to my Rocky. (Insert Eye of the Tiger here) In all fairness I have been going to "boot camp" at Crave for 2 months so I am not starting completely from scratch. But I am still very overweight and the idea of doing a 5k with 15 obstacles including barbed wire and rings of fire scares the living crap out of me. This not anything I ever even considered doing in my lifetime. Willingly entering a race with pain and misery is so not on my bucket list. But yet here I am starting this insane journey just to see if I can do it. I'm also the maid of honor in my friend Tori's wedding in October which is followed by a week long cruise to Mexico and I don't think I need to explain why I want to shed the extra fatty.

This whole weight loss things started a couple months ago when my son saw a commercial for Jenny Craig and told me I should do that because I was squishy and kinda fat. Out of the mouths of babes.... It really stung but he was right. It's hard to face myself in the mirror some days because if I can't see it then I don't have to own it. It's so easy to just buy a bigger pair of pants than face the reality that you've gained weight. Now it's time to face the music and own where I am at. They say the first step is acceptance. Every Monday I'll be updating my stats only I will be doing it in inches not pounds. I think scales were invented to torture women. For reals. I also think that shows like The Biggest Loser are a crock. We could all reach our optimum weight/health/strength levels if we lived in a bubble and worked out 6 hours a day. I am doing this day by day in the real world so you will all get to see my real life struggles up close and personal. So grab some popcorn, pull up a chair and enjoy the show.

Today's Measurements: Arms 15. Waist 50. Hips 50. Thighs 26. 

8.6.12 Post Crave Workout. I don't usually look this red and sweaty :)

Here is a little background on me. I didn't start off a fat kid. I was average build, I danced and played sports. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted. It wasn't till I was almost 11 when my flower first decided to bloom (I'm an overacheiver what can I say...) that the hormones kicked in and the composition of my body changed.  I have been fighting my body ever since. I dropped out of Ballet at 13 because my new womanly "blossoms" were becoming a nuisance (and by nuisance I mean that when I did a Pas de Chat my breasts would still be moving after my feet had stopped.) By high school I was so self conscious I was petrified to leave the house some days but it was a trying to fake it till you make it kinda thing. I was on the drill team, got good grades, (except for my freshman year but that's a whole other story) went to church and had friends. I say this because this is not your Dr. Phil poor little fat girl kinda story. I went through your average teenage ups and downs. I always felt just a little on the outside and was never comfortable in my own skin. It was in high school that I became an emotional eater. Food didn't judge. Food never let me down. Food made me feel better. (There's a reason that fat kids love cake.) But I was pretty active so I didn't really see a lot of the weight gain. After high school I stumbled for a while trying to figure things out. I eventually moved to Seattle and gained a ton of weight because I was still an emotional eater only now I wasn't an active person (rain, booze, laziness, whatevs) so I went from slightly overweight to Macy's Thanksgiving Parade float. I amassed a large collection of overalls and flannels to hide my double Frappucino figure. Which worked out cause I was in Seattle in the 90's. Upon returning home to Huntington Beach I weighed in at my top weight of 275. 275! I didn't even weigh that much when I was full term preggers! My life evened out and I worked really hard to lose all of the Seattle weight and then some. It was time to start dating and for the first time I felt genuine confidence about how I looked. Then I met the man who would be my husband and of course there's the weight gain from living together, the weight loss for the wedding, the weight gain from the baby, the weight loss after the baby, weight gain from the separation, weight loss from the separation....and I think you get the picture.

I have been on a constant roller coaster with my weight for the last 23 years. There is no worse feeling than feeling trapped in your own skin. I have PCOS and Endometriosis, which are two diseases that like to mimic Hypothyroidism. So nature is already working against me. I want to be able to run and climb stairs and go on hike's without fear. It's going to take patience, perserverance, hard work and old school hard work. The time for excuses is over. I have to face my demons head on. This is war and I'm not going to lose this time. There are going to be daily challenges but I just have to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day....