I have recently noticed the influx of people giving up and going the way of diets. And I don’t mean diets in the way of watching what you are eating and not treating your stomach like a garbage can. i mean diets in that you let someone else dictate what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat. And I find it ridiculous. Sure I am counting calories right now and being more conscience about what I am putting in my body (minus the bag of dill pickle potato chips I ate for dinner last night. But hey – I still did not go above the number of calories I should eat in a day, so hey!)

My friend Jen wrote about this exact thing the other day, which is most likely why I can’t stop thinking about it. But let’s break it down and compare to other moments in life:

1.) Jr. High/High School: I allowed what was “cool” dictate what I wore, how I talked and what I participated in. I barely allowed myself to be my own true self. Then again, I did go to some heinous catholic schools where I was mocked viciously. Another post for another day, however.

2.) College: I don’t even know what to say about this one. So I’m just going to skip it. It was fun, but it wasn’t pretty.

3.) Life in my mid-twenties: OKAY PEOPLE. This is what I call a TRAIN WRECK. From heartbreaks on various levels to being challenged personally, this is where I figured it all out. I would never do anything in which I give control over my own life to someone else. It is my life to live and I’m going to live it as I see fit. End of story.

Participating in some “fad diet” relinquishes control over my own life. Although I am counting calories as I said before, I still get to choose what it is I eat. It’s a lifestyle change as my pal Jen has said before. And I AM IN CONTROL. Not any stupid company dictating my life during the time of whatever said diet.

• Attempted to deal with the passing of my best friend
• Dealt with heartbreak – it had been some time since I allowed myself close enough to someone to get my heart broken
• Did a lot of up and downs from a career standpoint

And actually, all those things made me crazy in one way or another. Crazy in the sense that I learned you cannot control your emotions. We’re all going to feel what we’re going to feel and that’s that. You never “get over” the death of a loved one – it’s just a matter of learning to live with the fact that they are gone. I unfortunately feel things a little harder than the average person. I spent a LOT of days in tears in my cube at work, in my car, in the shower, in my bedroom, at the mall – the list goes on.

So what was I doing over the last year then? I was learning who my friends are and how lucky I am. So, I’m going to spam you with photos of my last year. 2011 was filled with so many great people – and not every person or moment was captured via photograph – but this is a start:

Spending time with Scheri's family in Louisiana in January

With Jason, in Louisiana

Participated in the NoH8 campaign photoshoot in Feb.

I jumped into a frozen lake in Feb. for a good cause! The Polar Plunge, 2011.

I went for Fort Meyers/Key West in March with two of my best friends.

My dearest friend Jillian and I took Chicago by storm in April.

I, of course spent some time going to hockey games with friends.

Celebrating a Wild win, maybe?

And onto May - going to Twins games!

Fortunate enough to spend time at Rock the Garden in June.

Obviously I am sad that we lost Cuddy.

My amazing friend Ry and I at the Bruno Mars concert in June.

I turned 3! Or 21... +7.

Days in the sun look like this.

Roommate bonding time at the race track in August!

Time with my friend Jen at my housewarming fiesta in August.

My friend Andrea and I at our pal Dan's concert in August.

What is summer celebrations without the State Fair?

I love beer tours with friends in September.

My friends Jason and Ryan. These two have shown me such great friendship. They've also shown me what it means to love someone else.

Celebrating Rachel's birthday..... on a boat.... in October.

Celebrating college friendships at the wedding of friends Ann and Marcus.

There is nothing like roomie love.

What is December without a Christmas Tree headband?One of my favorite things about this year is reuniting with great college friends.

Like I said before, this is just a smattering of my year. It was difficult, but I pulled through. I’m ready to stay focused in 2012. I hope.

I received an e-mail from my good friend Alexa tonight:

I just saw your comment, and for some reason it has me in emotional tears.

I love you to pieces, I’m so glad we’ve become friends, you are so blunt and honest.  Life is great with you as a friend!

Life is all about the paths we take, the decisions we make and the relationships we build. Right? Right. So I think about this journey I am on right now; and I would not know Alexa were it not for this journey and if it wasn’t for my amazing friend Jen’s journey, I wouldn’t know Jen OR Alexa.

So while I think anyone who is on any kind of path to better themselves (it’s a lot of kicking, screaming, crying, frustration, anger) it’s important to see those upsides once in a while. So I think, in all honesty, if I had to decide, I would do things the same over and over again if it meant I would end up here with friends like these. Quite frankly, my friends, I would not survive most days without them.

I am one lucky lady.

I will never forget about 1.5 years ago. I denied myself sweets. Chocolate, ice cream, candy – you name it, I stuck my nose up at it. I quite frankly, was so impressed with my own ability to say no or find healthier replacements so I didn’t feel like I was completely missing out. One day, I allowed myself to have something sweet and oh man, I was like a gremlin. And not only was I like a gremlin but a new love for sweets was welcomed into my life.

GREAT.

Because of that experience, I no longer deprive myself of anything. It just leads to worse habits. Obviously, no, I’m not saying you should eat ice cream every day (well, maybe you should.) or that if you have a french fry craving every single day, that you heed the call. I’m simply saying that we are human and we all have cravings and our bodies generally don’t let go of the cravings. It’s okay to give in, really. You won’t die. In fact, sometimes, if I know that I want something that is 500 calories, I eat it, enjoy it and get my butt to the gym that night to work off those calories. OH THE JOYS OF WORKING OUT!

But you know what? I still enjoy things like this:

And when I eat a salad, I never, ever feel like I am missing out on something else. And THAT, is a good feeling.

Fast forward to last night – I was about three minutes into my workout and my heart rate jumped to 200-207. I would say for the 10-11 minutes it took me to do my first mile it ranged from 196-207. Is this okay? Is it strange? I honestly have no idea. I’m only concerned because I was working out at the same intensity last week and it did not have the same effect.

This is my plea to understand what is going on with my workout.

!!!!!!!!!!!

On a lighter note – I worked out 5 days last week and it felt amazing. Getting there is always the part, but I did it and it felt good. I even did a 5am workout one day! I’m on fire.

I fell off the face of the earth in December as far as the gym is concerned. Between the holidays being just crazy and with my friend’s death, I always found a reason to go home after work and curl up in bed and not go to the gym. In retrospect, I wonder how I would have coped differently had I not let myself stop living.

Whenever I am done with a workout I look like this:

Okay, maybe not. Sometimes I look like this:

But on the inside, I feel much of what was happening in the first picture. In fact, I called a friend after my workout this morning and he said:

I love talking to you after you workout. You just sound so happy and I know you worked out. I don’t even need to see your sweat.

I thought that was so silly at first, but damn it was true. Working out just lifts whatever gross feelings I had before. If I’m mad, I run faster, lift more – and then when I’m done, I just feel like a weight has been lifted. No pun intended!

How do you feel after your workouts?

It’s funny (well, actually, it’s not funny) – I had finally gotten to this point where I was over Adam, moving on. Dating a decent guy and boom. One of my best friends in the whole world died unexpectedly. Talk about turning your life upside down. I was shocked, confused, mad, sad – the whole gambit. And the thing of it is, every time I talked to her, she mentioned this blog and how proud she was of me for making changes and being healthy. So there was a large part of me that just wanted nothing to do with this blog. But, she’d hate knowing I did that.

So here I am. Trying, yet AGAIN to get my life on track. It’s been a very hard month of trying to keep myself as busy as possible and that lead to eating as terrible as I possibly could, honestly. But I guess this my leaf. At least, I’m trying to make it my leaf.

I went to the gym tonight and it felt good. I cried after my workout. I don’t know. The problem with big moments in life when they are tied to you emotionally is that you don’t know what is going to break you. So I can never be too sure when something will remind me of Scheri.

Tonight, I sleep and again at 5am, I work out and it’s going to feel amazing.

Life has been crazy amazing lately. Work is keeping me busy in a very good way. I generally keep work talk off of my little blog here, but I have to say that I am incredibly happy at work right now. I was frustrated for a while because I accepted a new role back in March, then my cohort went out on maternity leave and it was really difficult and I am finally (nearly a year later) feeling as though I have my bearings on everything; for the most part.

That aside, I feel like I need to show off some muscle that I’ve been working on. About a week ago, one of my co-workers said, “Your arms are looking really tiny!” And I was pleased, naturally. I’ve been working on these babies since the summer. Not hard, but working either way.

I tried to take a photo of my back/arm because that is looking pretty sweet, too. But I am not that gifted, apparently.

I think it’s really important to have small victories when trying to lose weight/be healthy/get in shape. So that is one little victory for me. I used to not want to wear short sleeves or tank tops because I was embarrassed by my arms, but now, sometimes I like to show them off a little.

I know I shared on twitter earlier this weekend that I am “hovering” over my twelve lost pounds. So I guess I should be celebrating that here, too.

And on that note:

Happy Monday!

well, let me tell you a little story about a silly girl who went to Caribou with a craving and did not look up caloric information prior to doing so.

So, one might be thinking, how horrible can white hot chocolate really be? Well, let me tell you, friends, I nearly had a heart attack at work yesterday when I looked it up after enjoying the delicious white chocolate-y goodness.

I had decided the following:

• This would be my breakfast, so I would order a medium.
• I would get skim milk, as always.
• NO WHIP.

So I order my hot chocolate and wait, chat with my girlfriend. The barista loaded on the whip and I sighed to myself. I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it.

So are you ready for the nutritional information? I hope to whatever it is you believe in that you are sitting down.

Calories: 580

Fat: 32

Carbs: 58

Sugar: 57

So, you can imagine to my dismay how much I started to freak out. I started thinking about how I had already spent 14 points in the day. I only get 24 and I hadn’t even eaten anything. I was trying to figure out how I’d survive the rest of the day with 10 points as it was only 10am.

I really had to rationalize with myself and take deep breaths and say, “This was one time, your world won’t end.” And it didn’t. When I got home from work, I strapped on my heart rate monitor and did not leave the gym until I had burned at least 580 calories.

My lesson?

Caribou Coffee is evil.

Dear Cindy,

I hope that when you open this letter today you feel good about yourself & proud of the things you have already accomplished in your life. You have what it takes to be healthy & happy. I hope you have taken the time you need to change your lifestyle in order to achieve your goals and be on your road to being healthy.

Sincerely,

Cindy

What can I say other than “holy crap”? I read this over a few times. Put it away. Sat on it. Shoved it in my purse and read it while out and about. Sometimes I read it with a smile on my face and sometimes I cried. “& proud of the things you have already accomplished in your life.” I have been muddling over this one. I want to outline my accomplishments in the last 4 years – as dorky as they may be:

1. Graduated from college – this never seemed like a big deal for me. It seemed natural, graduate high school and go to college. I continue to run into folks who haven’t and so now, this is on my “things I am proud of” list.
2. I work for a pretty great company and have a challenging job to boot.; even if I do complain about being a human punching bag.
3. I’ve run two 5Ks. Certainly a feat for someone who hates to run.
4. I fell in love, twice, really. Pre-blogging I loved a boy & it didn’t work out. And then I loved again. And crap, you guys, as much as the second one hurt and sometimes still does – that break up changed my world.
5. I learned the meaning of “giving back” and have passion that surrounds it. I always joke that I am broke because I am always giving money to charity. But I’m okay with that.
6. I’ve learned what being a friend means.
7. I have grown leaps and bounds. I know this shouldn’t feel like an accomplishment, but it is. For someone who used to be painstakingly shy – it is huge for me when I step up and step out of myself. I’m a very quiet person in general, but growing into myself is considered an accomplishment to me.
8. I have a savings account! Anyone who knew me in college might be laughing. I never had money. Seriously. And now that I am in a place where I am actually SAVING? Amazing.

So those are my things to be proud of that I’ve accomplished. I have a good friend who constantly sings my praises and says, “I am so proud of you.” In early October, I called her to thank her for what started off as a business relationship and helping me find my strengths and into a beautiful friendship. I’d still feel small were it not for her. I still feel awkward when people come up to me and say, “I am so proud of you!” This happens a lot, actually. Last week, I was giving a presentation on creating a 360-degree vision in business and my Jr. High English teacher and I actually work for the same company now and she was at this presentation. She came up to me afterward to give me a big hug and tell me she is proud of me.

This blog post is getting increasingly long so I am going to say this:

Wherever you are in life – whether it is personal, business or otherwise, I hope you are out there praising your accomplishments and that you have a cheerleader. While it is important for us to realize our own accomplishments and be proud of ourselves, it sure is nice to have someone else rooting for you, too.