Life By Design- 30 Day Challenge.. Count me in.

I have been MIA.. again.. Surprised? Well, you shouldn't be.

This is a long one, so be prepared...

The posts that will follow will not be this long, I just figured I'd offer a bit of a recap here.

I am back now though, and I am making the commitment to be here for at least the next 30 days.

Over the past year, I have been fortunate enough to cross paths with some pretty spectacular folks. The people that I am talking about specifically in this post are those who are Life By Design'ers...

 I could go on and on about how wonderful these people are, and how much I love hearing about the way they lead such AWESOME LIVES! They have a purpose.  I feel like they are helping me find mine.

One large component of Life By Design is "Eat By Design". and when I think back to the past couple of years of my life, I have been intuitively listening to my body, listening to my brain, recognizing what foods make me feel best and what foods make me feel tired, groggy, sad...

Without even knowing that this way of eating had a title, I adopted it.  I think that is pretty cool.  If we actually want to create change in our lives we have to listen to our bodies, we have to listen to the way we feel, and hone in on WHY we are feeling that way.  After honing in, I realized that cutting out grains, cutting out sugar, cutting out dairy were all things that were contributing to a lower quality of life.

Now, here comes a bit of a back story about me.  A little history lesson on Sandy.

This transition took me a long time of listening and addressing how I was feeling, and why.  It all started when I was with my ex boyfriend in 2007.  We ate junk food all the time, we watched movies all the time, we had enormous meals that were unhealthy... all the time.  Surely.. this lead to the two of us gaining substantial amounts of weight.  I put on a solid 30-40 lbs, and he matched that... and then some.

Things in our relationship started to go sour, he became depressed, and I felt like I was no longer desirable due to my weight gain.

I got a gym membership, and slowly... very slowly started to make some changes.  I jumped from one fad-diet to the next... but then after countless attempts of trying to listen to what OTHERS said I should eat, I started listening to what SANDY should eat.

This was a long, hard battle.  It was challenging at times. It led me to a few dark spots in my life.  It led to some interesting relationships with food, and it led to an interesting relationship with myself and my physical body.

Growing up, I was always teased for being chubby, I was teased because I had a crooked smile, I was teased because I could eat more toast in the morning than my older brother.  Moving into my early adulthood and trying to lose weight... I often went back to the feeling that I felt when I was a young girl.  I felt embarrassed, I felt alone, and I felt extremely unhappy with my body.

It has been a bit of a roller coaster, and well, its only recently that I am able and willing to talk about it.

Over the past few years I have dealt with incredible amounts of criticism.  Criticism from friends, family, and believe it or not, even strangers.  People looking at me and asking WHY do you eat that way? Why won't you eat "Carbs"? Why? Why? Why?

For the first while, I would succumb to this.  I would go ahead and eat it because I didn't want to seem.... anal.  After a while, I realized that it was not worth it.  When I would go ahead and eat things that I knew were not right for me, I would go home and suffer from it.  I would feel tired, I would feel uncomfortable, and I was never happy with myself afterwards.  So why continue doing it? Don't.  Simple.

As with many of my previous posts, I have explained that this past year has been a pretty interesting year of my life.  I have gone through a lot of transitions.  Some more challenging than others, but all of which are leading to a life that is even MORE AWESOME.

Being in a committed relationship for so many years of my life, and then being single for an entire year of my life has allowed me to focus more on me, and learn to love myself a lot more than I ever thought possible.  I am getting there.  I am starting to be OK with my own company.  Go figure.

Not only am I more OK with my own company, but I have also learned to make better choices with the people that I choose to keep in my life.  I am allowed to take time for me, and not feel obligated to others at all times. It has been a refreshing year to say the least.

With regards to food, I eat what I want, when I want it.  I eat real food.  I enjoy real food.  It makes me feel good.

Day 1 of the 30 Day Eat By Design challenge has begun.  Over the next 30 Days I will do my best to be more technologically savvy and throw in some pictures of what I will be eating, and how I will be Thinking, and Moving By Design.

Oh Yeah- and Thank you Masonville Starbucks.  You've brought some pretty awesome people into my life.

:)