Husbands.

Mine is entering another competition this week. That means he's been busily intentionally putting on weight (i.e., eating crappy) to improve his chances at winning. This means my own loss goals have somewhat been thwarted. In fact, to the point I gained back all 6 pounds that I'd lost last month.

*sigh*

The good news is that he is starting this week, so we are working our way back to healthier eating. Thank heaven.

The gal who wrote BFL for women says we need to change our vocabulary and not talk about "losing" weight because when you lose something, you want to find it. Rather, she says to "remove" the extra, unhealthy pounds. Dr. Zonnya (motivational speaker) says to "release" it. I like "remove" better because it indicates that you are actively engaged in doing something to get rid of something you don't want, much like I remove spots from clothes or remove myself from unhealthy situations. "Release" to me is a more passive word.

The other thing I've noticed in life is that if you remove something, you have to replace it with something else (except stains on clothes, but you do use tools to do that). But if you're removing a bad habit from your life, you have to replace it with something good, or you create a vacuum and your bad habit will sneak up on you again.

So, I start anew. I choose to remove 50 pounds of fat in the next 12 months and replace the old habits that got me here with living a healthier lifestyle, including walking and moving my body every day and eating healthy foods, and still giving myself permission to eat some chocolate once a month (ha, pms), in order to create my new body. I commit to myself to remove in total, over the next few years, 80 pounds of excess weight, bringing me to a healthier baseline weight of 170 pounds, and I commit to myself to continue healthy living for the rest of my life. I choose to take care of me in this manner, putting my health in the top 3 of my priorities: God first, family second (which includes me and my health, as well as hubby and kidlets), and my career third.