Admire Your Own

The name of this blog is something that I've mentioned briefly in the past, but I think it is worth revisiting. I often remind Michael (and myself) that comparison is the thief of joy. To that end, I often try to redirect my thoughts when I find myself feeling envious of what others have, or feeling like what we have isn't enough.
1-2 years ago it seemed like all of my very close girlfriends were announcing pregnancies, I was genuinely excited for them and not one bit jealous. Michael and I were on a different path, he was living two hours away and going back to school full time, we were living on one income in two different households. Pregnancy was not on our minds, we were focused on learning to navigate the first year of marriage without living together, learning to prioritize communication because phone calls, text messages and Facetime were they only ways we got to connect some weeks. We knew we wanted children, but we weren't there yet.
If I may toot my own horn for a second, although long distance marriage was hard, and frustrating and sometimes sad, we rocked it. I mean seriously, our marriage is so much stronger and we are so much happier as a couple than we were before Michael moved. Living apart was great perspective, we put aside a lot of small stuff in the name of enjoying the little time we had together, we learned to communicate like champs because we had to, and we made some big, tough decisions as Team Butzen-not Lauren and Michael. I hope our season of long distance marriage is over, but I sure am grateful for it.
After we hit our stride and Michael was settling into the second (and final) year of nursing school in Augusta we decided we were ready to start thinking about growing our family. I stopped taking birth control in June of last year knowing that if I got pregnant at any point after that Michael would either be about to graduate or recently graduated. We were pumped! For 11 months I tracked my cycle and ovulation and we tried our best to make things happen despite living apart. According to my calculations, we missed our prime time window to conceive during 3 months (or less) of that entire 11 month time frame. I felt like we were doing everything right, hitting the right times, keeping track of everything on my end, but after a year nothing had happened.
We attended baby showers and one year old birthday parties for our friends and while it crushed me on the inside I kept reminding myself that we were on our own path, we had to admire the things that we did have-Michael graduated, we were living together, our time was coming, we just had to keep the faith.

Whole30, Trying Again

January 5 Michael and I started our first Whole30 adventure. I made a meal plan for the month, prepped food like crazy and jumped in. I LOVED it, I felt amazing, had so much energy, slept like a rock, and lost weight. Michael also loved it! He realized he was super addicted to sugar, did a lot of emotional eating and healed his gut in amazing ways. But, my dirty little secret is that on about day 12 I cheated and had alcohol, and then I drank again on about day 18. After that, I pretty much quit Whole30. Since then I have been eating everything in sight, pizza, fast food, beer, wine, the list goes on. And to be quite honest, as I sit here writing this, I feel like complete crap.
I woke up with a huge zit on my chin this morning, I can't tell you the last time that happened. My stomach hurts, I'm bloated, my face is fat, and something has to change. My New Years resolution was to lose 30 pounds by June 1,  I need to get serious about my diet and exercise if I have a chance in hell of meeting that goal.
My birthday has come and gone, I have had more than my fair share or indulgences, and starting tomorrow I am embarking on my first, full Whole30 adventure. It is easy to focus on all the things that I am giving up, but I am going to try to focus on how horrible all of those foods make me feel, and how good Whole30 makes me feel. That should be motivation enough to stay on track, but for some insane reason it is not enough of a deterrent to keep me away from foods I know I shouldn't eat. Here's to taking it one meal at a time.