Hello, again.

Well, hi. It's been a while.

I've gained 15+ pounds.

Oh, and moved southeast a few states.

Not that that is an excuse.

I'm not pleased. And now it's two days before glorious Thanksgiving and I'm anxious to uncover skinny Rebecca

Have you ever noticed how this desire is stronger at nigh?.

As we sat watching a show, I said to my husband, "It's time to dig up Skinny Me." So I googled how to conduct an archeological excavation while remembering the awesome presentation my sister gave during job week when I was in elementary. Yes. My sister is THAT cool. She is an archeologist/anthropologist. Beat that! Ha! 

How to excavate 

1. Make a plan
• Why excavate? 
• Skinny Rebecca is suffocating.
• What questions do we want to answer? 
• Is my happiness really linked to my size and is my size really linked to my emotions?
• Can I lose weight without becoming obsessive?
• How will we excavate? 
• Crucial moments/Vital behaviors
• Sadly, it feels like every moment of every day feels like a crucial moment. It is definitely time to go through the steps of Change Anything again.
• How will we analyze the artifacts? 
• Thank you, Change Anything.
• Do I have enough time and money to write a report? 
• You betcha.
2. Setting out the grid
• Give context between the artifacts (objects made or used by people) and natural features
3. Excavating units
• Take it a unit at a time
4. Identify artifacts
5. What does it all mean?

Steps 2 through 5 are coming!

Just needed to get this much out of my head tonight.

Here's to sleep,

Good night, world.

-R

Trust

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;

and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him,

and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

21 Day Happiness Challenge

My husband recently shared this TED talk with me and I absolutely loved it. 

Mr. Archer talks about outliers. We have a country filled with people studying the average and we forget how remarkable the outliers can be, because they are well statistically insignificant usually. I used to be an outlier. I wasn't the norm. The average. The trend. And somewhere around the time I hit adulthood, I fell in line. 

My husband and I have been following Shawn's suggestions for rewiring our brains for happiness in an attempt to reclaim our outlier status. 

And I am loving the results in only ten days! I have a notebook with pages of gratitudes and details about them and I wake up ready for my routine of exercise with scripture reading followed by some meditation. What an amazing way to start a day! 

I have been a negative soul for too long. 

Well, hello!

Its been a while. How are you? Also, if you are new to reading this because I finally got brave and decided to share my journey on Facebook. WELCOME! And please be gentle. I went through all of my previous posts this morning, deleting all remnants of where I gave an actual number for my weight, and I realized this blog is a culmination of a lot of my most tender feelings. I, incorrectly, connect my personal worth to what my body looks like as well as what the scale says. You will find a lot of very sad posts. I debated deleting them but I don't want to deny those feelings. For anyone who has tried to change something about yourself you don't love, you may recognize the feelings of disappointment, despair, and frustration.

The last almost five months, since I last posted, have been interesting. I have to admit it was nice to not feel like my journey was being shared publicly and thus my accountability was less. Sadly, I also gained weight. However, I read a lot of interesting material. I read a book about getting the processed foods out of our lives, I read a book about a diet program designed to be a 28 day Jumpstart. And I learned a lot. I attempted to put things into practice little by little. I didn't see much success.

However, in the last 6 weeks I have been putting into practice a different book, Change Anything, and I have lost 4 pounds and am feeling more confident in my ability to make lifelong changes that can result in the body I have always dreamed. Yes, I know, four pounds isn't much. Oh how I wish it was more, but I have had a lot of data points in the last six weeks, meaning a lot of unsuccessful days. 

I love this book for two reasons. 1) It can be applied, well, to ANYTHING. Not just weight loss. Finances. Quitting an addiction. Getting a promotion. and 2) It felt peaceful. It made sense. And because of all that, it finally clicked.

I have created a page if you are interested in more about the book. See the "CHANGE ANYTHING" tab above.

And here's to more blog posts in the near future as I continue to become a new creature.
Thank you for joining me!
-R

Week Ten: + 0.2 [+0.4]

Woke up at 6:30 for a bike ride today. Felt great. I need to do this every day. 

Happy Thursday!