Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

BOO!

Good morning Cute and Perky people…and that one moonshiner who said he read my stuff at night!

I know y’all think I went away, but I didn’t. Well…I did, but I didn’t! Shush!

I’ve been working on some projects that I’ll be telling you about soon. I have several in the works!

You’ll soon see an article I wrote in Muscular Development! I am proud to announce I am the first, and so far only, female to ever win their writing contest!! WOO HOO!!

The other stuff is still under wraps! (Yeah, bite me if you think I’m going to tell you!)

I logged in last night to start getting caught up, and WOW what a sweet bunch of messages I had.

I promise you I’m never more than an E-mail away. If you need weight loss motivation, do not hesitate to contact me. FitAdina@aol.com

But you know, no matter how many times I throw that E-mail address up there, there are some who will never use it. And it’s usually the ones who need it the most.

You know, I’ve never looked back and said, “Thank goodness I didn’t reach out.”

Fear of failure was usually what kept me from reaching out. I knew that once I told someone I needed help, they would know I was trying.

And they would know I failed if I didn’t make it.

But hear this people…I could not even begin to count how many times I started a diet and failed.

It matters not how many people believed in me or thought I could do it.

It mattered that I believed in me…that I was worth the 5,000th effort.

Some may have rolled their eyes, but that’s OK. They rolled them back the other way when I walked by skinny!

I was lucky. The people who reached their hands out to me kept them out till I was brave enough to take them. And I do not regret it.

The journey you’re on is a long battle to the end, and it does not have to be fought alone.

I have a friend who keeps a jornal she callsd Phoenix Rising.

I love to use the story of the Phoenix when I am talking to people about losing weight. It’s just such a great story.

You see a Phoenix is born of the ashes. Just when you think there is nothing left, something wonderful immerges from something ugly.

And that’s what we all have to do at one time or another. We all have to be born of the ashes.

The ashes of depression.

The ashes of anorexia.

The ashes of smoking.

The ashes of pity.

The ashes of self-destruction.

So many people will tell me when I ask what they are waiting for, “I guess I’m waiting to hit rock bottom.”

But the thing is, there is no rock bottom. Wherever you are, there could always be worse.

And you usually don’t have to look very far to find it.

So when people tell me they are waiting to hit rock bottom, I tell them, “You have to rise from the ashes, because you could always go lower. You will never get to the bottom of that pile of ashes. No matter how far you dig. Because life happens and here and there along the way things will be added to that smoldering pile.”

I thought I had a rock bottom with my weight. I swore I would never go over 250 pounds, but I did. And I could have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. There was no rock bottom, so I had to pull myself up from where I was.

But the good thing is, when you realize where you are and immerge out of if as something new, that pile of ashes that once buried you under becomes the very thing you perch yourself on right before you fly.

And when you are soaring above the pile of problems that once held you down, and they appear so small, you will wonder why you stayed so long in the ashes.

I watched my child give the shirt off his back yesterday.

He’s on the 7th grade B Team. The shirts are far too big for any of the junior high boys, as they are hand-me-downs from the high school.

Jonah weighs 84 pounds and is counting the days until I let him lift. And because the shirts are so big, most of the kiddos wear Under Armor beneath their jersey. It is a MUST for Jonah!

So with seconds left in the game I look over and realize I could see more of Jonah’s skin than I could a few minutes prior.

I wait for him to get dressed and come over to me after the game. I say, “Jonah, what happened to your Under Armor.”

(Cause that stuff ain’t cheap, y’all!)

He causally points to the A game already in progress and says, “Number four. He forgot his.”

And I wanted to say, “Do you know how much that little red piece of fabric cost me?”

But thank goodness I controlled my reaction. Because immediately it struck me that my child had done a good thing. He shared something important to him and he chose to trust the other kid to take care of it and bring it back to him.

But I have learned to control my reaction to things. That was a big factor in my losing weight.

When my immediate reaction to sadness was to eat, I learned another way.

When my gut was telling me to skip the gym, I learned to ignore it.

Gut reactions are not always the ones you should go with. And I know every other morning exerciser will agree with me here…

Every single time my alarm goes off at 4:00AM, my gut tells me to shut that alarm off and catch another hour or two of sleep.

My gut hates me, because I ignore it every single time.

Hell-O cute and perky people!!!

It is a beautiful day today.  Know why?  Because I’m alive to enjoy it.

I’ve already done my lifting for today.  I did it at 4:00 this morning.  Yes, you read me!  FOUR!!!

Sometimes, you do what you have to do.

I’ve had a lot of writing projects going on lately, and it’s really been eating into my gym time.

So, I had some choices to make.  Either give up the writing or find a way to fit my gym time in.

And I wanted them both that bad.  I want the writing badly enough to use my gym time.  I want my gym time badly enough to use my sleep time!

What’s that?  It’s called a sacrifice, people.  Do you hear me?  A sacrifice!

And it is worth it.  But isn’t anything worth doing worth sacrificing for?

That junk food I used to eat…it wasn’t worth sacrificing for.  So, I gave it up.

That sitting on the couch watching TV… it wasn’t worth sacrificing for either.  Gave that up too.

Going out to eat junk food with my friends…wasn’t worth the gym time it cost me or the feeling of lethargy and fatigue that always lasted into the next day.

Life should be filled with things worth sacrificing for.

Anything else is just too ordinary…and you are too fabulous to be ordinary!