And So It Begins

I need a place to write. 

Lately, I have been watching MTV's "Awkward" with our Amazon Prime membership, and so I've been reflecting back on my high school days (which were SO different from the days portrayed in that show). I never wanted to admit this guilty-pleasure of a television show to anyone, but last night I mentioned this absolution to my amazing husband, and he remarked that it is human nature to have a guilty-pleasure TV show. And he was not ignorant of my addiction-- Amazon kept sending him e-mails asking him to review the show he has never watched. He assured me that everyone watches some crap TV stuff they are not proud of watching; while he didn't cite a specific example, I'm pretty sure EVERYONE that has a brain and watches "The Bachelor/ette" franchise knows what we meant.

Today, as I finished up the series, I remembered how much I used to love to write. I had promised myself that I would never stop writing back when I was an optimistic teenager. Optimistic... I think that is the main thing I hate about becoming a true bonafide adult is that you begin to realize there are limitations. If my 17-year-old self could see my 28-year-old self, I think my 17-year-old self would be asking a lot of demanding questions. The main question being, "What happened?"

I'm wondering that myself. 

I'm hoping that if I can commit to a blog, then perhaps I can commit to other massive changes I need to make. I don't know what happened, because I used to be a pro at sticking to decisions. For example, I used to do crunches and push ups and other calisthenics every evening, and take long hikes with my wonderful dog (R.I.P. Joey). Now I watch TV, or veg out until it is time to lay awake in my bed with my mind running non-stop until I can finally eek out some sleep. When I was a kid I would often bite my nails and cuticles until it made me sick. So I decided I was done, told myself I would stop, and I stopped! Where did that go? Eating a large Dairy Queen Mississippi Mud Blizzard makes me sick, so why can't I just abstain from that chocolatey, gooey sweetness?? 

Which leads me to the second reason I want to start this blog. I read about a woman who decided that she and her family would go without refined sugar for a year. I hate linking articles on a blog because the Internet is too mercurial in nature, and within a few months that link will be dead. So I'll cite the woman's name, and the post title, and I'm sure Google is going nowhere, so you can look her up to learn more: Eve O. Schaub, "My Family Stopped Eating Sugar for a Year and This is What Happened".

The article fascinates me. Here again is the phrase, "What Happened", and here again is one of my major, glaring weaknesses that I struggle with-- Sugar. Why can't I just tell myself to stop, and then just simply stop? And how did Eve do it (the article woman, not the woman from the Garden of Eden)? Perhaps she and her family were not to the level of sugar addiction that I am at... in her picture, she does kind of have that hippie vibe I grew to love as I lived in Santa Cruz my high school years... 

So, this blog is two-fold-- a public forum where I can write again, and a public forum where maybe I can learn to be accountable again. Accountable for my massive weight gain since finding the love of my life and eternities (I have put on 65 pounds since dating and marrying my husband), accountable about my sugar intake, accountable for the crappy career decisions that have me working a temporary bookkeeping job, and accountable for my wasted hours. 

I'm going to chronicle my battle with my Sugar Demons, my realization that I needed a daily dose of brain insulin (just wait, I'll address that), and my quest to get back to the sanguine person I remember being when I was, myself, a high schooler (and for the record, I made way better choices in high school than Jenna and her band of friends!)

Here is a picture of my nephew when he was ten-years-old. He weighed then as much as my weight gain has been. Therefore, I have gained a ten-year-old child to my midsection: