Saggy Bottom Girl

Gads. I'm glad my legs are thinning. My butt is thinning. But seriously I HATE this saggy bottom time when the next size in pants isn't going to fit because I look like a major muffin top, spillage of my belly roll over the pants in the next size down--I look BIGGER in a smaller size even though it fits. I will eventually have to just go for that smaller size--I own some but really hate hate hate how it makes my belly look. So I have a choice--saggy bottom or major belly. I'm going for saggy bottom right now. I'm too old for this teenage boy gangsta look but I cry when I see my belly looking very...belly esque and not in a good way.
This health journey--it sucks. I wish I'd never gained weight. I don't know how it all got here--inch by inch it took me by surprise. And now as a line backer who doesn't back anything--I struggle with self love. I know--I KNOW that if I can't love myself during the process it all just falls apart. Been there done that would have bought the T-shirt but it wouldn't fit. So I am here in my 'today' of not being healthy. In fact I'm ill. my body is ill. I don't have diabetes. I don't have prediabetes...not yet. I don't want to get it either--and that fact along with the impending age of 40 coming up--well I'm more reflective. I'm taking time to pause and say what do I really want my life to look like? What do I want to look like? How do I want to live? And what is stopping me from living that life? I use my lack of health to explain my lack of health--I can't go walking because it hurts my hip because I'm fat. So there's this cycle that is created.
Stop! Break the cycle!
So many messages of motivation and propelling forward--but HOW to implement it instead of just falling back. I feel like when I was potty training my kidlet and she'd get it and be going in the potty and then Dad would deploy or come back from deployment or TDY and she'd regress and everything would fall apart--
I was giving some comfort and "advice" on what I had done with kidlets potty training regression and I realized this is me. I'm wearing the saggy pull up because I don't want to put in the effort to wear my big girl panties and change! Its comfortable even though its oh so uncomfortable. Change is scary. Its confusing and its hard. And sometimes its easy to just pop a squat in a corner than to walk to the toilet.
Metaphors! I love them. I use them all the time. In this case my saggy bottom really lined up with the lesson I want to learn today. I'm kidding myself if I think it will just be learned today--in one day. So no kidding. Its going to take work, praise, rewards, encouragement and some accidents along the way--but the saggy bottom has got to go. Just like kidlet wasn't going to start kindergarten in a pull up...I'm not about to turn 40 in my saggy bottom pants.

I have 2 1/2 years. It is a long time and yet its nothing all at the same time. I feel like giving myself a realistic time frame of 2 1/2 years gives me permission to screw up but to be focused. To learn and add in good behaviors instead of beating myself up when I have a bad behavior or habit. With my daughter--if I told her no we go potty in the toilet! She seemed to get more adamant about NOT going in the toilet. She resisted that change especially because it was criticism. BUT when I didn't make a big deal out of it other than to point out a consequence--Sorry kid you can't wear the pretty panties you have to wear a pull up because you don't like to go in the potty. She was motivated to change because she wanted her Dora panties by dang!
We also read lots of books. Potty books. Princess and the potty. Zoo Poo. Everyone Poops, Potty Train...if there is a story with a potty in it, we read it. All the time. We indoctrinated ourselves into the joy of normalizing the choice of using the potty. I have noticed when I am reading about health, about making healthy choices, when I am talking with friends making the choices to better their lives and their health its more normal. It becomes easier to make better choices. I'm indoctrinating health into my life!
I would tell her how proud I was of her good choices to pee in the potty or poop in the potty--but I didn't make a big deal out of an accident. Accidents happen. I've been doing this all wrong with my eating and working out. I berate myself for skipping a work out then I feel depressed and worthless and I miss another one and I am mean to myself more and then finally I give up because whats the point I obviously can't do it.
So instead I am going to focus on saying Good job when I make a healthy choice. Its ok to have a brownie. Wow you picked sweet peppers for your treat! Thats amazing. I love sweet peppers. I think you are awesome for picking them! and clapping. I think I need to download an app that claps for me.
Woohoo! the way we make a big deal out of our kids accomplishments--I want that for me.
So I'm off to download a clapping app...and lets say goodbye to the saggy bottom girls!