Love Yourself.

Hello Hello!

Last week and these past couple days have been a huge realization to me of how much I have grown. More specially, how much I have grown to love myself. I’m not saying I ever hated who I was, but I was definitely one of those girls in high school who would be in awe of other people and wish I had something they had. Whether it be their hair, their body, their humor, their ability to talk to a guy and charm them immediately. You get the point.

I did A LOT of growing through high school and mostly through college. In college where there are no groups, cliques, or identities, you are your own little person in a new world. Some people will say college is a place where you can redefine yourself and start over. I didn’t want to start over. I just wanted to (as cliche as this is) find myself. When I say that, what I mean is, I wanted to be able to be as comfortable around everyone I meet, as I am when I’m around my friends, and not be a shy quiet girl anymore.

I don’t think it was until my sophomore year of college when I started to not care. I didn’t care what people thought about me, and my shyness shell slowly started to crack. I basically found this new thing called confidence. I was like that little raptor dinosaur in Jurassic Park that Sam Neil watched break out of its shell all on its own.

Now I can’t say I did this all on my own. At that time I was starting to endure on something that would ultimately change who I was from then on. Nothing huge (for most people) , just my very first actual long term relationship. Going into sophomore year my and me boyfriend had been dating for about 7 months at that point. In my “About Me” section, I had only explained a small part of my break up, and for you to understand my whole story, I feel its necessary for you to hear my beginning…(Also because its snowing so I have A LOT of time tonight…LUCK YOU! 😉 )

My relationship with my boyfriend was a HUGE roller coaster ride. Of course it started off steady and it was the “getting to know you” period. Meeting each others families and take everything at a nice slow pace. Because I was shy I really didn’t let him see who I truly was till about a year and a half into dating. And he was very patient and kind about that.  He grew to become my best friend. We loved the same movies, listen to pretty much the same music, loved the same sport, lived 15 mins away from each other (which was weird since we met at school in New Hampshire 2 1/2 hours from home). We had the same humor and even grew comfortable enough to fart around each other. I have honestly never felt THAT comfortable around someone, where you could share a silence and it never be uncomfortable.

He opened me up and let me feel  every emotion…loved, happy, and beautiful…But of course when I say every emotion..I mean EVEY emotion. I also felt pain, anger, and disgust. As perfect and amazing as our connection was, our relationship was farrrrr from perfect. I was a victim to being in a relationship where there was no trust. Now as for how he caused the pain and hurt I am going to keep to myself (but don’t worry it wasn’t psychical abuse, he would never hurt a fly). But I had become one of those girls who didn’t get out of a relationship because they “didn’t want to be alone” or because “the connection was there and they belonged together” and “afraid they aren’t going to find anyone else”! I used to think those girls were crazy and why would they stay in a relationship where they weren’t happy, didn’t trust their boyfriend, and crying more than smiling!?! And now I know.

It had gotten to the point of where even the littlest thing would set me off, because I just couldn’t let go of all of what he had done to me through our time of dating. It was like every time we would have a fight it would get worse and worse like a snowball affect. I drove myself crazy, and when the trust isn’t there, thats what happens. Once one thing happens where the trust flies out the window, theres no getting it back. And as much as I tried to not accept it, it was true. I held on to that relationship for four years…four years, of being a weak girl who was in this spell of wanting something so badly to work out, that she would keep torturing herself by accepting and forgiving the pain that he caused her. Then try and move on and keep going with the relationship.But it inevtiable that this HAD to stop. This relationship had become far from healthy.

And so last December thats exactly what happened. After starting our weight loss journey together, he broke up with me. After hearing that he didn’t love me and maybe after four years never did, I can tell you right now I have never felt anything like what I felt that day…Orrr for the next 5 months that would follow for that matter. And by no means do I EVER want to feel that way again. But I’ll admit, as much as I cared for him for those past 4 years the only time I felt like I really loved him was maybe for a little less than a year. It wasn’t real love, and I know that. How could you when it’s that same person who broke your heart over and over again??

Now I shall try and wrap this up, because this is getting sappy and sympathetic and the last thing I am looking for is sympathy! A little over a year later I am here, still growing, but truly happy, healthy, and single. Last year, if you told me that I’d be where I am not doing what I’m doing (which most of the people who I’m close with did tell me at that point) I’d never believe it! But honestly, when your at your toughest times you CAN overcome all! I honestly didn’t think I’d ever recover after my breakup (as stupid and girly as that sounds). I was severely depressed and HATED myself. I thought I was the ugliest person who no one would EVER want to date. I mean sitting in the Khols fitting room crying while out shopping with my mom. Not being able to listen to a love song or watch a romance movie without sobbing through the whole thing. But with the encouragement and help from my family, close friends, and a little voice inside of me, I am who I am today. And after crying so much, that I’m pretty sure my tear ducts are now dry… I knew that I NEEDED to move on.

I will be posting other posts of how I did that part exactly, but lifting was definitely a large part of that. And all I’m saying is that right now I’m proud of myself and truly LOVE myself. I love the path I’m on and the focus I have gained. I love being single and letting myself accomplish so many goals and continuing to accomplish more. I’m learning who I am and what I can do. I am so much stronger inside and out and know that I will NEVER EVER EVER allow a guy to treat me like that. Do I regret my relationship? Never. It let me grow to become stronger, and let me know what it is that I want and don’t want within a relationship. I take every experience I go through and now make a decision that is best for me, because after all, this is MY life..and I’m going to fearlessly live it how I want to. I am now confident in myself, more so than before. I’m no longer meek and unsure. The best thing you can do is to love yourself, before you allow someone else to do you. Because riddle me this…How can you even truly love someone else or let them love you, if you don’t love you?? Be confident in who you are and know that you are smart, beautiful, and Independent person who can and will conquer all! p>

Welp, I need to give my fingers a rest. And will be back with some recipes later! 🙂

“I hate food!” Said no one ever!

 Since today is a snow day, I figured I’d keep myself occupied and do another post, lucky you! 😉

And the main thing that has been on my noggin is foooooood. I love food, who doesn’t?? Especially these days where I have been very strict about the things that I throw into my mouth. Thanks to myfitnesspal it has made it a lot easier in seeing what foods have carbs and which don’t. Because let me tell you, there are a lot of foods that I wouldn’t have even guessed have carbs, but do. For example, carrots, peas, and onions! Now I know your probably thinking, those aren’t bad carbs, those are the good complex carbs. I understand that, but with this diet of eating only 30 grams of carbs or less a day, I don’t want to risk anything and try to stay away form carbs as much as possible! If I do eat carbs, I make sure that they give me other benefits as well like, fiber, protein, and fats (good fats).

      One carb food I always make sure to eat everyday is a half an avocado a day! An avocado is a power food, with good fat that includes the fiber I need to have a successful morning poop (yes, we get real personal at this blog). A couple days into this diet after being very strict with no carbs and eating around 20-23 carbs a day, my poops were less than sub par! I reached out to a friend (who did the Keto diet) and asked what the hell is going on here! He told me I needed fiber to make sure that everything comes out as smoothly as it goes in. After I incorporated the avocados back into my diet (which made me a very happy girl because I LOVE avocados) my morning poops were back to normal!

I shall now show you some of the recipes I have been making to survive these ten days! A BIG help from food gawker  and pinterest for the ideas for some of these meals!

This deliciousness is a low carb pizza. Probably my favorite recipe so far! It most definitely helps with my pizza cravings! You can find the recipe here! It may seem strange and may seen like it just won’t be the same as regular carb loaded yummy pizza, but trust me it is! You also get your proteins and fats from this meal! Now if you are going to do this diet, because this pizza does contain some carbs your gonna wanna just watch how much of it you consume. But it’s rather filling, so that might not be a problem anyway.

 These next two recipes, are my bacon wrapped inspired recipes! Now one of the things that I am enjoying about this process is that I can have all the bacon I want! I’ve been trying to keep it to turkey bacon so that my calorie intake isn’t too high from just one meal. But let me tell you, these were deliciousssss.

The top photo are my low carb jalapeño poppers! So simple: cut jalapeños in half. Take 1/3 the fat cream cheese and spread it inside. Wrap in bacon. Bake at 375 until bacon is cooked!

The photo on the bottom is my bacon wrapped stuffed chicken: Take some chicken cutlets and pound them flat. Spread cream cheese on one half the chicken. Add in some jalapeños for spice. Then fold the other half of the chicken on top (so it kind of looks like a taco). Then wrap the chicken up in bacon (I tend to use 2 slices per breast). Then Bake at 375 until chicken and bacon are cooked. This meal is low in carb, and high in protein!

With these next photos obviously the one on the left is NOT low carb at all! This was a temptation test after a coworker brought in a container of soft baked chocolate chip cookie heaven. My week was full of temptations full of sweet things! I have a HUGE sweet tooth, so this is particularly hard for me to say no to. Plus they smelled so gooooood, but I didn’t even have 1!  Instead I went home that night and made myself a low carb cheesecake. Another super easy recipe here that can help out any sweet tooth. Whats nice is you can also adjust the serving size depending on how much or little you want to make.

Welp the countdown continues with 3 more days left until I can have some legit carbs! YUM! If you interested in some more info via photos check out my instagram