Crossfit...

When I first started this blog a year ago I did it to hold myself accountable as I transformed my body...

 At the time I had no idea what the following twelve months held in store for me. Divorce has literally been the most painful thing I never could have imagined going through. A hurt I wouldn't wish on even my worst enemy. In spite of all the pain that I have felt emotionally through this I have found a way to positively use that to fuel changes in my body.

October 2011-July 2013--20 months, 124 pounds



Today I am in a place I could never imagined physically a year ago in my wildest dreams! And it can only get better from here. Four months ago I got inspired by my girl friend Shelly to give crossfit a try. Have you seen her by the way, total MILF status.

I had been wanting to try crossfit for a while, but always just thought I was too big, and felt limited by me ACL and Miniscus injuries. In the beginning they did hold me back...but thankfully I had a wonderful coach who was willing to modify to help me build the muscles that support my knee to make them stronger. Today I no longer have to modify, I RARELY feel any pain infact. In the beginning I was one of the last to finish, today I keep up with the other girls (girls that are a good 30 pounds smaller then I am), and when it comes to power movements I am so surprised that I can literally deadlift, squat and clean weights equivilant {if not greater} then my body weight.

May 2013 Mother's Day--July 2013 A day in Saratoga with Addy
About a 15 pound difference

Crossfit is the most humbling, inspiring, motivating truly amazing thing I have ever been a part of. When I walked into ADK four months ago, I was scared to death. I was way over weight, and so intimidated. Never then could I have imagined the way the people there would become a family to me. Something about sweating your guts out with the same people every day of the week creates a bond unlike any other. We are a family. We encourage eachother, laugh together, sweat together, compete together.



My wedding shower in February 2009 (pre-baby) May 2013 (post-baby)

In the last month I have made some changes to my training. I had felt myself stuck at a plateau, eventhough I wasn't weighing anymore, and it was super frustrating. After a lot of research I decided to add a thermogenic fat burner to my program, and really clean up my diet. On a normal day I eat organic oatmeal, bananas (for my startchy carbs), peanut butter, protein shakes, greens, chicken and eggs. But that doesn't mean that last week I didn't gorge on some coleslaw and fried chicken, or have an ice cream cone with Addy over the weekend. It's all about balance, you have to find what works best for you. For me Monday-Friday I am pretty strict. On the weekends I am a little more lenient with myself. I'm not suggesting you eat yourself into oblivion to reward yourself Saturday-Sunday, but if you want something, have it.

On top of that two days a week I'm doing two a days, an hour of regular crossfit, then an hour of working on my power movements. Our box is moving this week to a bigger facitily, my commute will now be two minutes (literally) instead of twenty and I plan to start dragging my butt out of bed in the morning to go over and lift and work on some endurance...ie running my LEAST favorite thing to do on top of my evening class. I truly would rather do burpees all day rather then run one mile, maybe because I'm not very good at it...Identifying the areas that I fall short and improving them has become addicting to me.

Crossfit has honestly changed my life. The mental strength it has given me is unlike anything I could have ever imagined. My little brother started last month with me...we decided to sign up for the team portion of the Garage Games that's coming to a local box in September. For me this is a way to show myself how far I have come. It happens to be exactly a year from the weekend that Adaline and I moved back to New York, and my marriage to Adam ended. It means so much more to me then just any other WOD, it is the sum of all my mental and physical work over the last year..it's proof to me and everyone around me that even in the middle of the biggest storm imaginable through crossfit and my faith in GOD I have overcome that pain and channeled it into making myself a better, more whole version of myself. I cannot wait to share that expirence with my little brother, and the rest of my crossfit family.

February 13 (pre-crossfit)-- July 2013 (post-crossfit) 35 pound difference ((where did those dimples come from))

The ABC's for Single Moms...

Accept where you are in life

Be ready for the hard questions

Challenge yourself..you are stronger then you think

Depend on GOD, he will lead your family

Encourage your children {and yourself} to try new things

Find supportive friends who listen and love you well

Grieve fully what has been lost. Don't move onto another relationship until you do.

Have an idea of where you want to be in a year...five years. It may be hard but it's necessairy.

Identify the good and bad patterns in your marriage...why did it fall apart?

Keep the traditions that are meaningful for your kids...even if they hurt your heart.

Love yourself well.

Monitor your self talk. We are our own biggest critic.

Never stop believing that you can do this alone.

Object to being called broken.

Plan the routine that works best for your family.

Question the feelings that tell you that your responsible for everything.

Release feelings of frear, anger and unforgiveness.

Seek out and connect with other single moms.

Treat yourself with love and kindness, teach your children to do the same.

Uncover and change unhealthy patterns.

Volunteer your time.

Weigh your options, you have a lot of them.

eXpect to feel sad and lonely sometimes. Have a plan for what to do when that happens.

You are beautiful. You are loved. You are enough.

Zealously guard your time with GOD. You need it.

I spent years building a throne for a man who did not deserve to be given the honor and privlidge of my love and loyalty. Even after he betrayed me, and broke my heart I kept praying for GOD to allow him to see what he left behind when he kicked us out of the house. For him to see what he was missing. For him to understand the immense disappointment I felt when I looked next to me in moments of happiness with my Addy girl and he wasn't there. I just wanted for him to see what he was missing and come home. To love US again. For the last ten months I have said the same prayer...

"Lord, bring him back to us. We are a family. We began our life together in your home, to honor you and your will in our lives. We deserve to be together, Adaline deserves both of her parents. Father, surely you can not have planned for me to do this on my own. I trust that you know best and that you will bring him back to me in your own time."

I asked myself the same questions...What did I do wrong? Why all of them, what do those girls have that I do not? What more could I have given? What could I have done different to keep my family together? What did I do to make him not want us? How could it be so easy for him to walk away? How could he not want us? Why doesn't he see his importance in our life? Why isn't he here?!?

I have continued living, holding onto the idea that surely he would come around. That we would wake up one day, hear a knock on the door and he would come back on his hands and knees. That he would apologize, see what a great woman I was, see how perfect our child is. That he would want to be here with us again. Recently I have realized that he didn't see those things in the five years we were a family, and he certainly is not going to see those things now after months away from us. Mostly because he has found a surrogate family, a girl to take my place in his life. A place that is a dark and empty place to be, a place I realize now that I do not want to be.

I have been living to find myself.

To be strong.

To be faithful.

To be loyal.

To be a good mother.

So that maybe he would see that and want to come home.

In changing myself to spite him...I found myself! I found the girl he fell in love with, and she doens't love him. With everything inside of me I wonder if she ever did. The woman she has grown into certainly does not. The most important lesson we can ever learn as humans is to believe with everything in us we need to love and accept ourselves...

You are enough.

You have enough.

You are loved.

You are beautiful.

Most importantly You are STRONG.

 

Yesterday I lived for the first time in a long time. I truly enjoyed myself and my sweet Adaline for the first time, honestly in as long as I can remember. I looked at her on that carousel and instead of seeing what was missing from that perfect picture I saw HER. I saw the joy in her heart, and I finally realized nothing is missing from her life that she needs. I had been living everyday fearing that she would see a father missing from her life, and wonder what she did wrong. Instead of focusing on trying to fill that place that he left empty...yesterday I embraced the place that I fill.

I am her world and she is mine.

There is nothing in this universe that I wouldn't do for my sweet Adaline.

No pain I would not feel to spare her own.

My heart has broken a hundred times over. Loss is something I have felt deep down in the darkest corners of my soul. From that pain I have drawn strength. I have found myself. I have found my sweet baby girl. I have found the power I posess inside myself to purservere through the hard stuff GOD throws my way. Crossfit has shown me my strength, GOD has shown me my power and my worth, Adaline has shown me my love.

The thing that I have learned about myself through my abusive marraige, and now through this divorce is that above all I am a survivor. My heart is still open and full of grace even after the difficult lessons I have learned. This pain has made me into a woman who is more capable now, after the fight, to raise a strong and independent little girl who sees the beauty of the world. She will never know the hurt that I have known, that is a mountain I will live and die on.

Yesterday I fell in love with my sweet girl again.

Instead of looking for what was missing from us, I looked at what we had.

We have so much love, More happiness then we ever had with her father.

I have a stronger faith in trust in GODs path for us.

I am thankful, and we are BLESSED.

Infinitely Blessed.

"Father I want to take a moment to thank you for the family you gave to me. They have been my strength and have helped me raise Adaline when I allowed my pain to cause me to fall short. I have not been the mother I know you inteded for me to be because I thought inorder to be her I needed to have the father you intended for my Adaline to have, standing next to me. I know now that is not the truth. I am thankful for the beautiful day I was blessed to share with Addy, Anna, Ryan, Aunt Dee and Poppa yesterday. I am thankful that through your unconditional love and protection I have found a way to love, dispite my struggle. You always know what is best Lord, I trust in what you give and take away. I trust in your timing. My heart and my life belongs to you Lord, take it and use it to let your will be done."

I know the shame in your defeat.

"It's empty in the valley of your heart

The sun, it rises slowly as you walk

Away from all the fears

And all the faults you've left behind

The harvest left no food for you to eat

You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see

But I have seen the same

I know the shame in your defeat

But I will hold on hope

And I will let you choke

On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain

And I will change my ways

I'll know my name as it's called again"

The choices when we are too young to fully understand the potential concequences they can yeild are the most potentially damaging, life defining choices we will ever make.

When we are young we all dream of happily ever after. We find someone who we think will give us that, and we hold on tight. Sometimes too tight. From the outside looking in, everything was perfect, or so it seemed.

Twelve months ago I was living my dream. We had a beautiful home, a beautiful child, and plans to make another that fall. I had no idea that in the weeks to come everything was going to fall apart. I had no idea what I had coming for me that August as the walls of his lies came tumbling down around us. The feeling as I saw that text message, and then sat there on the bathroom floor as he told me the truth behind it is a feeling I will never ever forget. I didn't even cry as he told me about her, a different her than the her that currently lives in MY home...about them, I think it was the out I had been waiting for.

Thinking back to the day that we got married four and a half years ago I can honestly say that as my Daddy walked me down the isle towards the boy waiting for me at the alter, I knew it would inevitably end this way. I never pictured myself old and gray with him. In my dreams the man sitting beside me in a rocking chair as our grandchildren surrounded us...it never was him. Even then he was abusive, distant, cold...scary. Even then I knew I was far better off alone then I ever would be with him. He took a strong faithful young girl and made her his wife. He tried to make me question myself and my worth, and for years I did. Until I found out about the others I constantly questioned if I was enough. Once I found out the truth there was no more question, I KNEW I was more then enough. I was more then he ever deserved.

Today we have court in Arkansas. I am literally physically ill as I think of him in that court room with her next to him. As I think of the lies he will tell if given the chance. But I also find comfort in the fact that nomatter if court is here or there, I will have a chance to tell my truth. A chance to show who I am, what I lived through, and how that made me who I am today. Today five years later, five years older, five years stronger and wiser I am the woman and mother that I was meant to be. There will never come a day when I will stop fighting for those little blue eyes, she is my whole world and I will die protecting her.

When I think of her little face looking up at me as he held me against the wall and she said "Daddy why you do that to my Mommy" I could crawl up in a ball and die. But I won't. That is something that child will never see again. That is a fight I will never surrender. I will at all costs protect my baby girl from becoming me, from becoming his battering post. Never will he ever be alone with that child. Never will she ever know the pain and guilt and self hate I felt. Never will she have to feel like she needs to fight back. I will NEVER ever, ever let that become her reality.

The reality is that when she was made, she was made in love, and it is love that she will be raised in. The abuse that began as she grew in my belly that first January we lived in Arkansas is something she will never know. I have grown so strong in the last twelve months, it has taken a lot of tears and heart ache...and a few lessons I would have preferred not to have had to learn. But I survived. I will always survive. I will always fight for the truth that I know.

How we pick ourselves up is what defines who we are as humans...not the fall.

Memory

mem·o·ry/ˈmɛməri/ Show Spelled [mem-uh-ree] Show IPA
noun, plural mem·o·ries.
1. the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.


Memories come and go as they please. Sometimes we can control them, choose them, choose to ignore them. Other times they come creeping in with out warning and refuse to leave.

In the months since I have writen so much has happened. Loss. I lost my grandmother. The woman in this world that I admired the most. My Nan was one of those people that you couldn't help but love. She was so strong, so warm, she was perfect. She was everything I want to be. I am so thankful that at 3 am on that Sunday night that I was here, at home, in New York when my mother called me and said you need to come to Nan & Pop's, she's had a heart attack. I am so thankful that the last thing she said to me was, "I love you" as Adaline and I walked down the sidewalk and she waved from the porch. That is how I will always remember her. Smiling, full of love, full of life.

Tragedy, and Pain. Those are two things we often forget. Memories we cannot find. Just as I cannot recall the way she looked when we went to her bed side after she passed, to pray, I cannot recall the evil look in his eyes as he held me against the wall by my throat. We cannot choose what we remember, or how we remember someone. Our brain protects us from those things that will hurt us and tear us apart.

Sometimes that is a blessing, sometimes that is a curse.

Tomorrow we have divorce court, in Arkansas. I won't be there. But he will be there with her. I want so badly to hate him, to remember the evil in his eyes, the hateful words he said...the way he hurt me. But all I see at night when I close my eyes is his pleading eyes as he apologized, as he loved me with everything inside of him. I can not taste the iron in my blood as it fills my mouth, I can only taste his soap on his skin. I cannot smell the lavander baby shampoo on my sweet girls head as I read her favorite book to her at night, I can only smell her scalp and the way she eerily smells like him.

In the three precious years of my Adaline's life she has spent more then 20 months with out her father. She barely knows him. Yet she walks with the same exact bounce as he did, she rolls her eyes exactly like he did, when she is trying to make a joke or tell you something she shruggs her shoulders and bugs her eyes EXACTLY like he did. Yet if anyone asks who her Daddy is, she will tell you Pippay is her Dad, not him. On the rare occasion that he decides he would like to skype, she calls him by his first name, not Daddy. As much as I would love to take credit for that, I can't. I didn't encourage her not to call him Daddy, that is a decision she made on her own. At the tender and yet so incredibly intuitive age of three years old she relaizes what a Daddy is. In her world Pippay fills all the criteria of a "Daddy"...he does not.

I do not love him.
I do not miss our life.
I do not want him here.
I do not want to be there.

Yet I cannot help but remember, rember the good times. My Lyshie reminds me of the bad times, and as she does and the mascara runs down my face I cannot bring myself back there. WHY?!? I can feel the hurt in those words, in those memories...I can see myself on her soft brown velvet couch as she colors ornaments with my sweet Adaline, as I call my Daddy and tell him I'm ready to come home. His anger has gotten out of control again, his own guilt for cheating, yet again has come to the surface as physical pain directed towards me. This will be the last time I let him hurt either of us. She will never again walk into the sight of her mother held up against the wall, that is something I can gurantee.

Logically I look around, I look at my life, my Adaline, My family. I am happy. I am loved. I am where I am supposed to be. I have bruises on me from crossfit, or from splitting wood with Daddy all weekend. They are not the marks of ten fingers as they squeezed my writst because the laundry was not done, or because I didn't leave the hose on the flower beds long enough. Why when I look at them do I wish they were the latter.

With everything inside of me I am happier now. Yet I still have this aching feeling. The feeling of failure. The feeling that I failed my daughter. I am a survivor. By surviving I saved my daughter from feeling the same heart break, and having the same bruises I had. My reality with her father is a truth hopefully she will never know, never have to know...because I saved her from that. I know and believe with everything inside of me that I am exactly where I belong, that we are home, that this is family. Why at night when I close my eyes can I only see those pleeding hazel eyes...why can't I remember the taste of iron and the feeling of hands around my throat?

Memories come and go as they please.
We cannot control them.
We cannot choose them.

What If Girls Were Encouraged to Be Strong...

What If Girls Were Encouraged to Be Strong Instead of Skinny...

Everyone has that pair of jeans in their closet from their high school days that they are just dying to fit into. There's this one pair that I have had saved, I remember I wore them on my first date with Adam seven years ago, and haven't fit in them since...well this morning I got a, hmm what some might call, a wild hair up my ass, and tried them on. They FIT! Three weeks ago I couldn't get them up over my butt, this morning I not only got them over my butt...I also zipped and buttoned them with no muffin top! Whattt Whattt!

Anyways the point is this, in highschool we all just want to be a size zero. We are taught that the skeletal model who's skin is literally hanging off her bones is the ideal of perfection. Not only in the eyes of the males around us, but in the eyes of other women. Sorry Dudes, honestly we don't get dressed or starve ourselves for you, we do it for other girls.

I can remember being in a size two, and standing in the mirror pinching my "fat"...looking in the mirror loathing my "fat" butt, and my big boobs. I hated them. I hated myself. I would go to school, chew gum all day so that I didn't get hungry, drink some "peach and papaya" falvored juice drink loaded with high fructose corn syrup, then come home from school and sleep through dinner so I didn't have to think about food. I would wake up do my homework and eat some stupid toast with mozzerella cheese on it then go back to bed. I didn't exercise, I didn't pay attention to my caloric intake or the nutrituonal value in anything. I just focused on the number on the tag of my Abercrombies. The summer when my hips came in and my boobs grew and I had to buy a size six when we went school shopping...I thought I would die.

Never then at 140 pounds, with zero muscle tone, could I have imagined that I could have reached a staggering 289 pounds the day I went in to give birth to my sweet little Addy Bear. That thought still makes me sick. In my journey back down into "onderland" I learned so much about myself. I think a lot of it has to do with the divorce, and the removal of Adam from our lives...but as I sit here today I feel like more of a strong, complete, honorable woman then I ever have before. I am strong, in every sense of the word and that is amazing...

I look next to me at crossfit last night and the room is filled with people that I love. My Adaline, who is doing "box jumps" and wanting to pick up the bar. At home she does "exercises" and tells everyone when she grows up shes going to "ecessercise like Momma". She has little pink dumbells, and thinks jump roping is the coolest thing ever, and dangg that girl can squat. My heart swells up with pride. My child has looked at me and seen the positive example I am setting every day and she wants to be strong!! The room is filled with people that love me and my beebe...other women that want to be strong. Those same girls that were next to me in highschool killing themselves, literally, to fit into the size 00 jeans at Weathervane. Now here we all are with chalk on our hands, hair thrown up on top of our heads, squating down to pick up a bar with 200+ pounds on it. Clearly still looking like divas while doing it...I mean obviously. Now when we stand in the mirror we flex our muscles insead of pinching our non-existent fat. Yes I flex in the mirror...every morning.  Now as grown women we are inspired by, and inspiring eachother to be strong! To pick up that weight that we would have never even thought we could...to love ourselves, to challenge ourselves every day to do better, be stronger.

I look in the mirror now at my obnoxiously large calves, my big booty and my ridiculiously thick thighs and I LOVE them! They are powerful. They are strong. They allow me to squat hundreds of pounds. They allow me to run, to walk, to carry my child AND the groceries. They are the base to my entire exsistence, every functional movement we make every day uses our legs. That is a heavy load they need to carry, I am grateful for my legs some people might call "big" or "fat" because they are strong!

The point I am trying to make is what if instead of teaching girls that skinny  scrawny frames with clothes draped off them and hip bones pertruding from their waistbands was sexy...What if we tought girls that STRONG IS SEXY. We are the women who will shape the next generation. Their self esteem, their values, the way they see themselves. What if they based their self worth on the amount of push-ups, or how strong their back squat is instead of the number on the inside of their jeans! Would that be the worst thing in the world? I want my daughter to be strong, I see the way picking up heavy things and puting them down has changed my outlook on physique and life in general in just two short months...I want her to grow up with a strong spirit, a strong body...I want her to love herself. I want her to be proud of who she is and what she is capable of. Not be proud that she starved herself and can now finally fit into a pair of size 0 pants!!!

WIW: 10 Things Crossfit Has Taught Me

Ahh It's Wednesday again. I decided to extend my blogging break, I needed some time, I took it. Now I am back refreshed & wayyy over my break! I missed you girls! It's Wednesday, which means we are supposed to report in our weight progress for the week. Yesterday when I stepped on the scale I was down 2.5lbs from last week. Honestly I was very surprised...Since beginning crossfit I haven't really been loosing weight. Like at all. In two months I have lost 8-10lbs, BUT I have put on tons and tons of lean muscle mass...I've gone from a 14/16 to a 10 in eight weeks. Yesterday  I was even able to put on a pair of my old 8's, I about had a heart attack. It is amazing the things that happen when you stop focusing on the number on the scale going down and instead focus on the weight on the barbell going up!

Left is me at the very beginning of my crossfit journey, Right is me two weeks ago.

10 Things Crossfit Has Taught me: 

1. I am stronger then I think, and more powerful then I ever imagined. In that moment as you are walking up to the rack, about to throw a ridiculious amount of weight over your head, any bit of self doubt goes away. Just Pick It Up.

2. Sometimes it's a good thing to do more then you think you can...Scared to add another 10 pounds to your bear complex because you're scared when you come from your back squat to over head press that it will crash down and bounce off the top of your spine...you're probably right. Speaking from expirence, it will hurt, it will bruise, you will be fine. And that failure will humble you, make you stronger for next time.

3. Failure is a good thing!! In life it is inevitible that we fail, if you're sitting there thinking "not me I always win" then you are a giant douche who's lying to themself. Failure keeps you humble. If we always win, if we always succeed the first time we try something...where's the lesson? Where is the excitement when we finally do suceed?

4. Spray Tans Should Be Scheduled Around Rest Days! If you spray two hours before you go to crossfit, and that workout includes running, even if it's raining...you WILL still be running in the rain...and you WILL look like a streaky little faaareeeaaakkk. Not to mention probably definitely sweat it out. Not cute. Been there done that. Ain't nobody got time for that.

5. I Can Do Anything for a Set Amount of Time. You walk in, look at the white board and the WOD is full of burpees...but it's only 8 minutes. I can do just about anything for 8 minutes, even burpees. So basically that means I can survive a n y t h i n g!

6. Wine and Pasta should be are considered paleo...ohh they're not? Hmm. You must be on the other Paleo diet! I mean, wine is grapes right?  ;)

7. Calluses Are Effin' Sexayyy. Calluses are a result of hard work and dedication. Picking heavy things up and putting them down, day after day. My hands are now contantly callused, cracked and blistering. I'm damn proud of it too.

8. Stop Focusing on the Number on the Scale!!!! The scale basically tells you a random number of what your body weight is at any given time. BUT it does not tell you what your lean muscle to fat ratio is...or that you are retaining a little extra water because your workout was super intense and your muscles are holding onto it for recovery purposes. We put WAYY WAYYY WAYYY too much emphasis on that number! It's just a stupid number, it doesn't mean a dang thing.

9. Working Out Is FUN! All day I look forward to 5:30 when I leave to go to crossfit. I enjoy everyone, we laugh, we joke, we work wicked hard and encourage eachother every step of the way. We are a family, and it's a wonderful thing to be a part of.

10.  I Can Overcome Anything!! I will and I have.


Crossfit has made me into a brand new person...Or maybe it has reminded me who I am. I look back on the last eight months since Adam kicked us out I left Adam...In the beginning it was hell. I was a miserable mess, falling apart and full of anger. Then two months ago when I walked into crossfit my world changed. Crossfit has taught me to focus, when you walk up to that bar nothing else matters, there is no time to think about anything besides picking it up. That is peaceful. Crossfit has given me strength to press the ignore button, to not pick up the phone when I have a weak moment as I'm watching Adaline sing about squirrles and I look to my right and he is not there... when I get pissed and just want to tell Adam what a heaping pile of garbage he is. "It is what it is" is my new attitude about everything..."Let go and let God" every single thing in life is a lesson, or a blessing. I've learned to take things as they come and just get through them, just like the 15 min AMRAP from hell, this too shall pass and I will be stronger on the other side! The sense of pride and accomplishment you feel when you come out at the end of something you struggle through is astonishing.



Left: Me last June Right: Me yesterday



Weigh In Wednesday...Where Have I Been

Heyyyy Divas.

Have you missed me? I know I've missed you.

Let's just talk a little about why I took a little hiatus from blogging. A couple weeks ago I walked into crossfit and heard the words no blogger wants to hear.."I read your blog." It turned into a discussion about Adam, divorce, infedility, and the hurt I feel about Adam choosing not to be Adaline's father.

Ya'll know my raw side, the real side you've stuck along with me and held me together as I have sorted out this mess and written may way to this new place of peace. Single motherhood was something I was ashmed of, scared of. It was the reason I stayed in an abusive relationship with an unfaithful man who I didn't love anymore. Now, today I can honestly say being a single mom is something I am proud of. I am so lucky, we are so blessed that I have such an amazing family that has been there through every bit of this. I get to come home, and be safe...I get to fix this mess and start over. I honestly don't have it figured out, who ever does, but the fact that I know we are safe for the first time in years...that is the best feeling in the world. BUT I wasn't ready for anyone who I "knew" to read any of this, to know that I went through what I did. I didn't want any one to think less of me because I stayed with a man who hurt me. SO I took a break for a couple weeks, and now I'm back!!

It's Weigh In Wednesday, as you all know. I'm still not really weighing...okay I'm not weighing at all. That number doesn't mean anything to me anymore. The fact that I was able to go into underarmour and buy a pair of size MEDIUM capris..that means something. I may or may not have wanted to wear them inside out with the tag showing. The fact that I am able to run around and play soccer with Adaline and not die while doing it, THAT means something. This week I gained 30 pounds on my PR for deadlift (175), 25 pounds on my PR for hang cleans(100), and my one rep max for the Bear Method by 15 pounds (85)...those numbers are all way way way more important then anything that scale has to say.

For me finding a balance has been a challenge. I will have great weeks where I am nearly 90% Paleo, then I will have a week like I had last week where I decide drinking way too much tequila is a good idea, and McDonalds for breafast when I'm hung over is an even better idea! Such is life. I will never be the person who doesn't enjoy time with her family and friends because she's "dieting:" It's more then a diet, diets have deadlines, an end date...this is my life now. Fittness is something that has become part of me. Crossfit is all I think about from the time I wake up till the time I go to bed. I just want to get stronger, better then I was yesterday.

I am a different person then I was seven months ago when I left Adam.

I am a different person then I was six weeks ago before crossfit.

My spirit is unbreakable, I know I am strong

I know I can and WILL do anything and everything I want to do.

My sport has given me confidence, taught me to love and care for myself again..

My sport has given me my body back, it has taught me to love it in a different way.

And on top of that it has given me love, a family, friendships that will last forever.

It has given me PEACE.

Where have I been...I've been taking some time for me. Some time to be quiet and enjoy my life.

I've been searching for my happy again...

I have found it!