Today was a very motivating day for me in general, and I came up with an audacious goal: I want to lose 31 pounds by my 31st birthday, which is on December 31, 2013. Lots of “1” and “3” up there. 🙂

By the way–I hate posting about this. It’s so much easier to just ignore my problem and tell myself that “it’s not that bad” and that it will be too hard to change. Whatever. From this day forward, I’m declaring war against weight-gain. 🙂

Science tells us that it is safest to lose 1-2 lbs per week. Given that I have 19 weeks, that means that I should be able to lose 38 lbs (my ultimate goal is 45-50) by that time.

How am I going to do this? I know that when I am strict and eat “clean” (and eat NO sugar), the weight comes off so easily. Add working out regularly to that, and I think this should be an easily obtainable goal.

How am I motivating myself? Three main ways:

One, I am not going to allow myself to donate my hair (working on my 4th donation) until the weight is gone. I am really ready to donate it, so this is incentive.

Two, when I lose the weight, Brennan and I will have some updated pictures taken of ourselves, since the last professional pictures were at our wedding nearly three years ago. I really don’t like having pictures taken of me right now, since I am heavier than I have ever been.

Three, I will get to go shopping! I haven’t really bought a ton of new clothes in the past year because I keep saying “when I lose weight…” Well, given the fact that I own ONE pair of jeans now because I can’t fit into the rest of them, this needs to be a major motivation.

The other silly motivation is our Wii Fit. My “Mii” is SO round and it makes me annoyed every time I see it.

According to the Wii, by BMI puts me in the “obese” category (cringing right now as I type that), and I want it to be back to “normal” (though, according to those charts, I need to lose 60 lbs, and that’s not likely to happen).  I want to wear a single-digit size for the first time since high school. I want to be more comfortable around people, not fearing what they are thinking about me.

Most of all, I WANT to be healthy. I want to be active. I want to feel great, and I know that eating clean, cutting out sugar, and starting to exercise more regularly will help tremendously.

So, it starts today. 133 days until I turn 31, and I want that birthday celebration (in California, with my family) to be AMAZING. By our anniversary on November 6th, I want to be able to fit into that black dress that I’ve NEVER worn because it didn’t fit.

I’m going to keep posting updates here because it creates accountability, and it is also forcing me to own up to my weight problem. Vulnerability is freeing and I’m trying to embrace that more often.

Most of all, I want to honor God by taking better care of this body with which He has blessed me, and I never want my weight to hinder me from serving Him in any way.