Happy Wed! I am officially 3 weeks post op from my surgery and healing really well. I still get sore and am swollen by the end of the day but this has been much easier healing than the tummy tuck.
It is strange though how our mind plays tricks with us (body dysmorphia). Some moments I look in the mirror and think how small my arms look and other times I think they look the same as before. That's been a very tricky thing with weight loss overall. Someone recently asked me how I see myself, do I see myself before I lose weight or do I really see myself as I am now.
Too be honest it really depends on the day, and it's probably somewhere in between. It is really hard to see noticeable changes in ourselves day to day, and often times we can't really see how far we've come at all. We spend too much time criticizing the parts of ourself we still aren't happy with.
This is why I always talk about how important it is to take pictures! I was feeling swollen and very puffy yesterday , I make this collage of myself and went, 😳"Dang okay that is a big difference". And then I look back at pictures of myself from before I lost weight and it's just so crazy the difference. Yet why do I have a hard time accepting that sometimes?
My friend Ashley in the YouTube interview I did with her joked she had the opposite problem. Even at her heaviest she always thought she was smaller than she was, and then once she lost weight she liked back at pictures and said "Wait I was actually that heavy?"
What has they been like for you? Do you have a hard time seeing how far you've come when you look in the mirror? Do you see yourself for how you are now or are you only focus on what else you need to change?
Yesterday we surprised the kids and brought home a puppy!! They have been begging for one for years and we felt like the time was right to bring one home.
Meet Angus 🐕 He's a Golden Retriever/King Charles Cavalier Spaniel mix. He's 11 weeks old and currently weighs about 8 pounds, he should be around 35 pounds fully grown. I know it will be an adjustment for a while as he gets potty trained etc but we are so excited. 😂 Wish us luck! 🤪
Cheese is good! I ate a block of chipotle oven baked cheese with lunch yesterday and it was divine. I love it, but know that it halts any progress I'm making, and will even trigger eating in excess to where I'll gain weight. It's sad but I have accepted it. If I eat it in small quantities with a meal, it's ok, but I really have to work to keep it in check.
What's your favorite cheese? How do you incorporate it? Do you see negative results when eating it?
Happy Sunday! Sharing a video today from our week, one of the highlights. This was Wednesday evening church, normally they have a more casual prayer meeting where someone plays the guitar, but they were doing some construction in the fellowship hall so they had their prayer meeting in the sanctuary. No one was there to play the piano so my my Grandma did it, she's been playing the piano in church for probably 80 years.
For context, she's 88, she had a really bad fall 5 years ago now and hit her head and ended up with a lot setbacks, similar to having a stroke. She has a lot of dementia like symptoms also (I am sure related to her Type 2 diabetes), she really can't read music anymore, and she has trouble seeing well, and she needs to wear hearing aids to hear but hates wearing them, so on this night she didn't want to wear them. My 93 (almost 94) year old grandpa takes care of both of them on their farm. Anyway, on this night she sat down on the piano and led worship as people called ...
Happy Monday! We made it to Big Sky, Montana yesterday, WOW it's so beautiful!! It just feels like you are in a movie all the time. We grilled steaks and just spent lots of time outside enjoying the beautiful weather.
The house we are staying in is owned by LMNT, so it has all kinds of electrolytes and wellness goodies everywhere. Plus all kinds of natural soaps and laundry soaps etc. They host a lot of meetings here so one of the walls upstairs is a huge dry erase board so the kids are having fun drawing on it.
We sat in the sauna 🥵 and took turns doing the cold plunge. 🥶 Today we are going hiking and white water rafting.
How was your weekend? What is your non-negotiable for this week?
Happy Sunday! We made it to Idaho Falls last night, it was just a stop over place for us and we had no idea that it would be so beautiful. We got here early in the evening after the hot springs and had a really lovely walk along the river. The weather has been so nice!! We are only 3 hours from Big Sky so headed over there this morning, we are staying in a house there for 5 days. I am excited to stay in one place for a few days. 😂 We are super excited because the house we are staying in has a cold plunge, a sauna, and a gym.
What are your plans today? You doing any prep for the week ahead?
Yesterday we had a PACKED day and some really amazing experiences!! We started the morning in Page Arizona looking at the Glen Canyon Dam, which opens up to the beginning of the Grand Canyon. It looks like you're on a totally different planet!
We then headed up to Redmond, and stopped along the way to take a hike up to some Salt Caves. The drive alone was just amazing as well!
In the afternoon we took a tour of the Redmond Salt mine, WOW what a cool experience!! We went down 700 feet and were completely surrounded by salt! They have 29 miles of tunnels through the mine! I will tell you all about it on a future Livestream! But we all licked the walls and the kids got to mine for their own salt rocks!
We ended the day just south of Salt Lake City. It was a super packed day but thankfully everything went very smoothly.
Today is going to be much more relaxing, and the kids planned the perfect "Mom" day. A slow morning followed by a soak in some Lava Hot Springs this afternoon. ...
