Shedding for the Wedding

I am so sorry its taken so long for me to post again.  The life of a kindergarten teacher is a busy one.  haha.  Also, the cord to my MacBook is caput, which means I either have to go to the Apple store and buy a new one, order one from Amazon, or my fiance has to attempt to fix it.  Either way, my computer is out of commission and will be so until I have a way to charge it.  Mike's computer is great for typing and talking, but all of my lovely pictures are saved on the Mac, and I definitely don't want to talk about my amazing venue without pictures to back it up :)

Now on to a topic that I know is pretty common in the wedding world.  Yes, thats right.  I'm talking about prewedding weight loss.  Brides want to look their absolute most beautiful on their wedding day.  We view it as the most important day of our lives, and if it isn't the most important, it definitely is the most photographed.  Now unless you are naturally tiny with a killer metabolism, chances are you have thought about losing weight to look your best for the wedding.  Lord knows I have.  When trying on dresses (a story for another day), I don't know if I put a single one on without thinking about what I would look like in it 10 pounds lighter.  It sounds so vain, and is really embarrassing/sad to admit, but I wanted to be totally honest about our wedding journey, and this is honestly how I felt.

By the way... I in no way am saying you have to lose weight to be a beautiful bride!  I actually think the opposite. I think girls look so much more beautiful when they look the way God intended, curves and all.  I didn't want to send out the wrong impression that losing weight is something you have to do to be a beautiful bride, because its just not true.  Its just something I felt I needed to do.

Here's a little background on me.  I was naturally pretty thin in high school.  I was a dancer and that helped keep any unwanted weight off, while also helping me build muscle and look fit.  In college, I still was thin, but my weight would fluctuate.  It would go up when I was happy, but then some huge life event would happen (break ups, parents moving away, death of a friend) and it would drop 10 to 20 pounds. After college, nothing changed.  Same ol' up and down.  The only difference is, I had absolutely NO motivation to work out.  I don't like exercise.  I'll admit it.  I absolutely can not stand to run, the elliptical drives me insane, and I just couldn't make myself take the time out of my day to go to the gym.

When I met Mike, I got happier and happier as our relationship progressed... This means I got heavier and heavier!  My weight hit the highest it had ever been.  In February (long before we got engaged) I was looking at pictures of myself and I just started to cry.  How on earth had I let myself get so much bigger?  I could see roles where there previously had not been.  My jeans didn't fit as well, and my shirts were tight.  I decided I needed to fix it.  Luckily at the time, Weight Watchers began a promotional offer making it cheap and easy for me to sign up.  In March, I began counting points and keeping track of everything I ate.  I was literally amazed to see the bad things I was putting in my body.  One meal I ate literally came to 32 points!!  My daily allowance was only 29!  It was an eye opening experience to see how the food I was eating was affecting my weight and my health.

Since going on Weight Watchers, I have lost 19 pounds.  I am so close to my goal weight I can taste it ( only 7.5 more pounds to go!).  As I get closer to my goal though, I have been losing motivation.  My brain keeps telling me "You've already lost 19... You don't NEED to lose those last 7."  You would think that being engaged, and wanting to look great in my wedding dress would be motivation enough, but I'm just struggling.  I know that if I didn't lose a single pound, Mike would think I was the most beautiful girl in the world anyway. But I really want to do it for me.  I want to hit my goal weight (which incase you are wondering, is 100% in the healthy range for a person of my height... I don't want to look emaciated on our day.. haha), and be proud.  Not just that, i want to hit my goal weight, and stick with it well past our wedding day.  So I am recommitting to my weight loss plan and even adding in some exercise to go with it.  I know that these 7 pounds are going to be so much harder to lose than the first 19, but I am putting faith in myself that I can get where I want to be, get into healthy shape again, and hopefully look the way I always envisioned.