Ten years ago I started a blog when I had my first daughter, Addison, and I wanted to create some sort of journal about motherhood. One of my sisters found one of my video blogs and suggested that I should try doing it again. I thought about it and said to myself, “Why not!?”. I wanted to make a journal about my weight loss journey but decided to just write about random stuff that I feel like talking about.
I would like to reintroduce myself. My name is Patience. I’m married with 3 children. We recently gave birth to our 4th child – It’s our first business venture called Game Knight Leagues. This baby is only a year old and just learning to walk.
This week I wanted to focus on my weight journey. I Have gained 50 pounds in the last 3 years. I used to blame it on weight gain during my pregnancies, but I wasn’t pregnant at that time so I can’t blame it on that. For the last 3 years, I have been feeling a little lost and looking for my purpose – my passion. I went back to school for Business and we opened a new business while raising 3 kids and working during the day. I have tried fasting, working out like crazy, low carb diets … I love healthy food and sports so I figured it would be easy to lose weight. I talked to my doctor, tried acupuncture, I even tried hypnosis. Recently, something clicked in my mind; Why am I trying the hard way? Why am I starving myself and working out so intensely? I should preface that when I shop, I only buy clothes in the size that I used to be to motivate myself to get back to that weight. Yes, that means I have an entire closet of clothes that don’t fit me. Yes, that might sound insane … And it could be true, but I have learned to embrace myself, my insanity, my crazy, and whatever other titles people like to give me because I’m all those things and I love it. I see my traits in my children every day, and that’s had a weird effect of causing me to fall madly in love with myself because I love my kids so much and they’re me! I love myself and that means loving my flaws, too. Yes, I will ramble and change the subject randomly but that’s just me and that’s why this blog is called “randoms”.
Let’s get back to my epiphany. I decided to be kind myself and start over in my weight loss journey. I will fail countless times and cry but I will always get back on my feet and try one more time until I succeed. I gave myself goals for the month of February 2021. For 28 days I will try to accomplish my goals. I say try because I will not force myself to do it but I will try my best, one day at a time. I gave myself 10 months to lose 50lbs. Here is the list of my goals:
-My husband and I used to go to the gym together every morning before lockdown. So when I mentioned running every day he wanted to join and I said “no” because he wants to be the coach and encourage me and pushes me and that shit annoys me lol. I’m a team player but running for me is a personal experience. I feel like I’m slowing him down, I have to perform and feel judged when I stop to take a breather. Let’s get back to the goal: running 1.2 km every morning.
– Eating 3 meals a day plus snacks( no cutting carbs)
– Drinking 4 bottles of water a day but so far I can only do 2 and a half bottles of 24 oz cuz that shit is harder than running.
– Read 2 books in the month of February but I only have read 19 pages in 3 days.
– Give up social media. This one is hard. I tried but still working on that because Tik Tok is super addictive.
– Removing people that don’t uplift me
– Eating more fiber
– Exercise every day
– Stretch every day
– Meditate for 5 minutes a day. This one has been hard too for the simple reason that I cannot shut my mind down
– Wash my face twice a day.
If you know me then you know that I’m a bootleg girl. I will say that I have succeeded so far in running every day and I still stop but every day I push myself to continue to run past where I stopped the day before. Feeding my body with good nutrients is something that’s working well too. I have decided not to check my weight progress on the scale because it literally kills my mood so I’m relying on how I feel instead to keep motivating me to continue on this journey.
I made a video of what I eat at night – I’m a night eater so I decided to preemptively make healthy snacks containing just fruits and vegetables. I made myself a bowl of apples and some steamed kale (that shit is nasty). I made myself a glass of pure ginger juice (helps with inflammation), I add celery, carrots, an apple, or mango to minimize the burning of the ginger. Word of caution is that I fart non stop but with time it did get better. Hope that your family, friends, or roommates love you enough to endure that nasty smell because mine do. Another tip to eating steamed kale is mixing it with grapes or jerky meat. Sometimes I bake sweet potatoes and sprinkle with marshmallows – by sprinkle I mean a lot. I don’t want to deprive myself of the food that I enjoy. I want to lose weight on my own terms so I’m not stressed out. Being stressed doesn’t help you lose weight. 2021 for me is a year of “no fucks” given. Well, as much “no fucks” you can manage because as a mother you kind of have some obligations.
I’m rebuilding myself and that’s what life’s all about. Rediscovering oneself, relearning who you are at every stage. I’m embracing this self. My overall goal for this year is to run a 5k with my ride or die Tristan. I don’t really believe in the dying part but Bill Clinton to my Hilary, my Jason to my Carly, or my Gayle to my Oprah (Oprah is on a timeout for disrespecting my Michael Jackson) so let’s say my Scottie Pippen to Michael Jordan. See you next week.