Christmas Dress Countdown…September 11th-December 18th…

The challenge and the dress. It is the first dress Jim bought me 32 years ago. The tag says it’s a size 10. I am a bit leery of using this dress as part of the challenge. The belt misses my middle by 5” and I’m not positive in 14 weeks this dress will fit but I am going to try my best to see if I can wear this Christmas day for him. It’s old, it’s well worn but it would be a fantastic surprise and gift to Jim if I could.

There are many rules to this challenge so here are my goals for each rule:

1. Today, September 9th, 2011 my weight is 185.2. My goal will be 165 (though when I wore the dress it was 150 lbs) but even in my wildest dreams I can not lose 2.5 lbs every single week. There will be those weeks it might happen and more weeks then not that I’ll lose a pound or so. So I’ll set my goal to lose 20 lbs in 14 weeks.

2. The size of this dress is a 10, before babies, before getting a bit older. I wore this when I was 18, now I’m 49 so my shape is not anywhere’s near the same as it was but still I can try to be a hot mama in this dress for Christmas day.

3. My book: A bit about it: One of the hardest tasks on a spiritual journey is letting go of ingrained thought processes, beliefs, opinions, and obsessions in order to plunge directly into the reality of the moment. And yet Eckhart Tolle believes this is the key to transformation. THE POWER OF NOW is a direct, simple, and highly readable explication of this powerful principle. Written in a Socratic question-and-answer form, Tolle describes the process of letting go of our ego-identified selves, our "pain bodies," and embracing the present moment. He outlines the pitfalls that sabotage our attempts to change our lives, and gently leads the reader to discover the incorruptible joy that resides within all of us. I have been learning about meditation and in order to work on myself I have got to learn to not listen to all the outside stuff and just center myself and listen to God’s will, God’s peace and God’s voice and if I can learn to just LISTEN I think I’ll be able to take better care of me.

4. My calorie limit will be no more then 1200 calories or a total of 8400 a week. So that will allow for some days a bit higher and some days lower. I know with Halloween, Thanksgiving, more camping and school breaks there will be days my intake is more but I also know that when that happens I’ll go less or IF the day before or after to make up the difference.

5. This one for me is an easy one, exercise. Since I am back at the gym I have to go at least 3 times a week or 12 times a month in order for my insurance to help me pay for my membership so I’ll be there with bells on. As for my exercises, I am working on running a full 5K by October 1st. This run is something for me, I want to do it. I want to do it on or under 30 minutes. I’ll do my best and when it’s over I’ll work hard on Brad’s 5K in 100 days so I can learn to run and enjoy it too. I need to trim my middle, my fluffy, way to fat middle. So even though you can’t really target certain areas I can work a bit harder on that area while toning the rest of me.

6. The picture, well you seen it already up top.

7. Water. Water for me is another easy thing. I don’t drink anything but water and a glass a milk a day. I don’t drink pop, coffee, tea, cocoa, anything else so I always drink 100 or more oz of water a day. So I’ll keep it like that or even a bit higher and shoot for a gallon a day.

Because I falter this summer I am a bit worried about this challenge and the dress. I know I know how to lose the weight, I know I know how to exercise but I also know how to fall off big time and I am a bit worried that I won’t get back on full force because what happens when I make my goal, will I screw up big time again? Will I have learned this time around? It’s hard but I am determined to give it my best shot. I am determined to get that dress on and surprise Jim. I so want to see his face Christmas morning when I walk in wearing it. A size 10 is mighty tiny, at least from my point of view. Possible, I sure do hope so. Will I give it my best, you bet I will and I also know when I screw up, all you out there will pick me up, dust me off, give my butt the kicking it needs to get back on and get to losing and becoming the most healthy, toned Julie I can possible be. And in return I will be there for you, cheering you on, picking you up and kicking your butt to China if I have to so that you too can rejoice in the Lords birth happy, healthy and beautiful.

Good luck to each and every one of you. You can do this, I have faith in you. Now to work up the faith in me again. I know I can, and I know that I will do my best. Take care and have an awesome and blessed challenge.

Also thanks Mir for this challenge. I really think now that I have thought about it for a week or more that this is just what I needed.