Bridget Jones-ing for some change

The woman of this posts title (if you haven't seen it before let me recap) wants to take a step up in her life and transform herself from a "spinster who will eventually be alone and eaten by dogs" into a woman with a quality boyfriend, good outlook and body sans 20 lbs. She documented all of this in her trusty diary. Well, I've decided to sort of use her idea. I'm not in need of a man, so the only part I can really feel Bridget on is the weight loss. And keeping track of it...on here.

I plan on shaping this shit up. I've been very negligent on my body's behalf. I've been eating far to much crap, exercising far too little, and becoming increasingly irritable and touchy at the fact that I'm avoiding jeans like the plague due to the dreaded "muffin top". So I've decided to nip this in the bud and shape up in time for our upcoming trip to Ixtapa Mexico, and maintain that into the horizon. I don't want to crash diet or swallow a tapeworm. I'm not into gimmicks or starvation. I'm going to do this the old fashioned way- eat less, exercise more.

So welcome to the newest segment of this blog- Operation Get My Skinny Jeans Back.

Starting off-

Height- 5'7''
Starting Weight- 140 lbs. (this is an estimate of the last time I weighed myself which may have been a couple weeks ago, I don't keep a scale in my house, all weighing will come in after visits to the in-laws as they have a scale).
Goal Weight- 130-120 lbs.
Targets- Arms (tone up), abs, ass, thighs.
Weaknesses- Chipotle, Wendy's, baked goods, soda (specifically of the Pepsi variety), salty food, food in general.
Strengths- I'm a good swimmer (I swam competitively for four years in high school) so I'll likely jump back into that as the heat rises. Supportive people around me. I've recently got into drinking lots of water (21 years to get to, but hey...they didn't build Rome in a day).
Exercise Plans- Pilates, tons of ab targeted exercises, more cardio, less carbs (this will be tough since I'm a self proclaimed carb junkie, I could eat mountains of spaghetti a day if you let me), promote a more vegetarian lifestyle in myself, cook more vegetarian friendly meals.

This isn't turning into a weight loss blog. This is merely another aspect of my life which I plan on documenting so I can see change and have it motivate me. I'll be posting progression pictures when I get to them (hopefully starting tonight when the husband gets home as I suck at self photography). That is all!

Body Language

I live in a peculiar time when it comes to body image, and consequently I find myself torn down the middle. The ever apparent Pisces, not sure whether to go with the tide or battle against it. Even if it leaves me stranded on shore, no more oxygen in my lungs.
About four years ago I never gave my body much thought. I was a 17 year old girl, taught and perky. I ate like a bird but not because I was desperate to stay thin but because I had so many other things on my mind, moving swiftly to consume and feel the world and "maybe I'll actually eat dinner with my family tonight". Once I moved in with my now-husband I ate more. I settled down, became content.
When I found out I was pregnant I was 115 lbs at a height of 5'7''. I wondered what my body would become, but I was more concerned with what my life would become and when I focused on the emotional the physical fell behind. I gained 50lbs in those nine months. My frame was a mix between a girl (being that I was only 19) and the full fledged essence of a woman. Confusing and beautiful in equal measure. It had its up's and down's. My hips are small so I ended up with a wicked case of sciatica which at one point left me completely bed ridden achy with baby weight pushing my bones aside to make room for the world. My skin unable to handle the sudden weight gain stretched and became a map of motherhood and dermal abuse. But my mind was suddenly level. Once a woman who battled depression with dark rooms and razor blades and now someone so flushed with life I had no choice but to let the sun shine in. For me, for us, for him.
After Jack and I finally met, after the rush of all that oxytocin that floods one after childbirth left, I looked in the mirror and I cried. I cried a lot. I cried so much that I began to resent everything and everybody. "What the hell happened to me? Why don't they tell you these things?" I was 20 and while everybody I knew was bikini shopping I holed up in my apartment caring for my newborn yet feeling like I was pulled through a meat grinder.
It was then that I got to thinking about women and body image and society. It was a topic that made me want to rage and yet at the same time it made me want to hide myself away. Even now. Even in this very moment.
I became hopeful after I became involved in our local burlesque troupe. These women are amazing. Pillars of feminine power and allure. They built back up my self-esteem and while it has taken me miles from where I was I still find myself looking in the mirror, head cocked to the side, skeptical eyebrow raised. While I want to praise myself for being a natural woman I want to abuse myself back into a size 4. Because fashion isn't made for women like me now, for mothers who ate too much Burger King when knocked up. I hate the industry for not accepting me, I hate myself for not accepting me.
And so here I am today, torn between two possibilities- embrace what motherhood has given me and dress it, feed it, exercise it, love it or reject it and starve, exercise, deprive. Maybe soon I can get to where I want to go, with ME still intact.