Pushing Yourself

These past few days have been a whirlwind for us. Dan found out he made it to the alternate's list at BYU the same day he found that his employers deceived him and when they told him they would "re-evaluate" his salary they implied giving him a raise. Unfortunately when times get tough for a business, owners end up doing things that are out of character and hurtful. I don't want to say too much about this on the world wide web, but I am publicly disappointed in husband's boss. We MOVED to American Fork from Provo so Dan could run and operate this business and receive a salary. They informed him that they no longer need a salaried employee and they are changing his pay to hourly. It's hard not to take this personally for him because he is so dedicated and loyal to this company and takes so much personal pride in his work and the business's success. Sadly, it's the kind of place where working 40 hours a week can get very challenging. There's just not always that much work to split between all the workers. He's struggling as the manager how to take hours away from people in order to make sure he gets what we need. He usually works about 40 hours total but the owners also re-hired a person and insisted she gets 25-30 hours a week so poor Dan has been so stressed, hurt, disappointed, and confused about all this. He is such a giver and taking hours away from people he knows need the money is such a hard thing for him to do, especially since he disagrees with the decision to bring on another employee.

What do this have to do with food? Nothing. Well, actually a lot. For the first time since starting my new program I wanted to quit and eat massive amounts of cream cheese. CREAM CHEESE? Who eats cream cheese by the spoonful? Well people who eat when they're stressed do. Now I didn't quit my program but I did eat more than 1 TBSP of cream cheese as if somehow it would give me some comfort. It just reminded me how important it is for me to have other ways to relieve stress because these past few days have been very stressful and all I want to do is eat cream cheese. I've had cream cheese in my fridge, unopened, for awhile now and even forgot I had it. I cannot even recall a time when cream cheese tempted me. It's never one of my "danger" foods but man these past few days I just wanted to eat a whole block of the stuff!!

Moving on.

I have been killing it at my bootcamp class. I feel like I'm on the biggest loser sometimes. We even got to use the double rope thing where you have a long rope in each hand and then you move your arms up and down. The trainer told me that on that station I could just use one rope and I was like, "No way dude, I've seen these ropes on TV and it's my dream to do it like they do on biggest loser." He just laughed and let me have my way and I lasted about 10 seconds.

Who knew? Those ropes are KILLER. I used 1 rope on the second rotation. Even though getting up at 5 AM to go sweat your guts out isn't fun, it is so fun to see muscle definition in your shoulders again. It feels so good to notice that your buns are getting TIGHT and that you are getting closer to your goal. It feels really awesome to do real, full, man style push ups again. Sure, it may be less than 20, maybe even less than 15 but it's more than 1 now and that is huge.

I have been so short on time this week and sadly I did not post workouts like I intended. If I have some extra time tonight or tomorrow I will, I promise! I have decided something though. Well, actually this isn't news to me, but it might be news to you. Working out is not enough to lose weight. Sorry, it's just not. Even this awesome bootcamp guru trainer told us the 2 most important parts of any weight loss program are nutrition, and nutrition. Yup. There ya have it.

There's no getting around the fact that nutrition is the most important part of ANY weight loss program. I would like to think it has more to do with hours spent at the gym because sometimes it's way easier for me to go to the gym and push myself, or go mountain bike for a few hours, or ride my bike for 40 miles, but honestly it all comes back down to how I'm nourishing my body and making sure I take in less than I burn.

I'm figuring it out. Things will work out. Dan and I will be fine. It's good to have stressful situations because it reminds you who is in charge, and that's the Lord. We really are at His mercy and He won't let us fail. Sure, we will struggle, but it's to make us stronger. I won't fail at my weight loss journey. I won't fail as a person as long as I'm always putting the Lord first. We are so blessed and can't wait to find out where we will be next year for school!!!! We're headed to Seattle at the end of the month for another interview and we can't wait.