Can't Wait to Get Where I'm Going

January was an interesting month for me.

I am nowhere near meeting the goals I set out to accomplish by March 1st, but that's okay, because other life changes became priorities and despite the fact that I've gained more weight and daily beat myself up for making bad food choices and missing workouts, I'm happy.  Happier than I've been in years.

So here I'm going to discuss something only a handful of my followers here know:

I'm married. I have been married 8 1/2 years.  I've been unhappy in my marriage for 4 years.  I've been separated from my husband physically (living separately) for 2 months, and emotionally (disconnected and mostly uncommunicative) for about 6 months.

Last week I hired an attorney and made the decision to file for divorce.

This was not an easy decision.  My husband is a great father and a good person for the most part but he was not a good husband to me, and unfortunately no one but me can see that, because he kept it to home. I care desperately what others think of me, and the hurt I've caused my husband and his family and friends, hell, and mine too, is not an easy burden to bear.  No one on either side of my family has ever been divorced.  I'm employed only very minimally part time - I think I made about $6,000 last year total.  I haven't had a full time job in 12 years.  I have two children and I worry how this will affect them.  I wander around my house and wonder how the hell I'm going to cram all my things into an apartment, not to mention my boys who are already outgrowing the house they've grown up in.

That said, I'm making the right decision.  I've been so much happier, more peaceful, more free since being separated from him.  I'd rather be poor and have people looking down on me than to live with him again.

I've missed my online community of like-minded fitness-loving people, but I haven't had the mental energy to be there lately.  I'm eating like crap because I've been mostly living in a hotel for 8 weeks.  I'm only getting to the gym sporadically and have been so bored with my workouts that I haven't pushed myself in ages.  I'm gaining weight and I know it's time to refocus and get back to eating clean.  I'm committed to doing better in February.  Hold me to that, please.  I won't be deadlifting 200# or getting my bodyfat down to 15% by March, but I will be healthier.  I will put my physical health back up on top of my priorities.  I need that to keep my mind sane while I navigate through the scary process of divorce.

So this is my apology to all of you who deserve so much more of my time and attention who haven't received it lately.  I'm so sorry.  Please be patient.  I do love you.  I will be back.  <3 <3 <3

Detours Suck

So here's the post where I tell you what happens when you have a month full of stress, lack of sleep, lack of time, lack of energy, coupled with birthdays and holidays, traveling and extended family.

You lose your marbles.

First off, if anyone says sleep is unnecessary, they are crazy.  I went from sleeping 8-10 hours a night, to barely getting by on 4, regularly.  This had the ripple effect of devastating my heavy lifts - they went out the window.

Lack of time and energy meant less effort put into cooking and more time eating whatever was available - which typically was something covered in some sort of sugary processed sauce or made with refined flours and sugars.  Not good.  Less time also meant the gym fell down my priority list.  It had been my top priority for years - I worked everything else around my "gym time".  But in December I went several days between lifting, many times.

Then there were birthdays, for which I'd made cupcakes and cake.  And snow days from my son's school, which meant the cupcakes stayed home instead of being eaten by 24 munchkins in the classroom.

So all in all, December was a mess. And it shows.  My mental clarity went out the window. I've been overly emotional, super sluggish, lazy, achy, and cranky.

And my abs went to crap.  In the month of December I gained 1.75 inches in my waist and .75 in my abs.

End of November:

End of December:

Goals:  

Cut out the crap. Back to 95% clean eating.  By March, I want to be at 15% bodyfat and do a 200# deadlift for 1 rep. 

I'm going to do this. 

Hold me to it.