it's been a long time....

*A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.*
A. A. Milne ~Teddy Bear

I have not been around here too much lately...and apologize to anyone who has come to visit!!! :) ...For a quick little update, I am now down SEVENTY pounds....getting very close to my smallest adult weight ever...AND also have been able to maintain the positive trend in my weight loss of KEEPING it off and GOING the right direction... trully a lifestyle change! Not 100 percent sure at the moment of the exact inches but at last tally it was getting close to 80 total inches lost!!!

When I started this journey... I was wearing size 26/28's.... and those were sometimes tight! Now in some things I am down to a 0X~14/16!!!!! Gaining muscle as I lose, so a lot more * fit* then I think I was even when I was my smallest physical weight number wise years ago... :) Here is a recent pic from a week ago.... after a crazy, but fun concert I attended...Fun eyelashes  ( that fell off during the end of the concert... too sweaty of a turbobear! LOL! ...this was the first time in years I have worn my hair swept to the side like that... because for once, I actually wasn't mortified by the view of my face from the side! Getting there, slowly but surely!!!! :)

NEVER give up on who you know you are inside!!!!!! 

It's been awhile.... up to 62 total inches of flubber lost! ;)

*A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.*
~A. A. Milne


And so it's been some time since I've posted....Had some trouble with my back and trying to type while sitting on the edge of my bed was making things worse.;) (TINY room....so no computer chair! LOL! )... in any case...finally found an app on my android phone ( ohh android..I love thee and thy free apps galore!.;) so here I am! ;)


Have an exciting new tally of inches lost.....62 TOTAL! As many inches as a 5 foot 2 person! I need a second measuring tape to attach to the first one!.;) ELEVEN of those inches are off my hips alone....!!!


Expecting even MORE goodness soon as I am now doing a combo of TurboFire and ChaLEAN extreme ( muscle burns FAT baby! ) also have decided to cut out pasta/rice etc after 3 pm ( and eat the whole grain ones as I have been already anyway before 3p.m.) and see how that effects the scale... I am DETERMINED to lose another huge chunk o' poundage (and inches!) this year! Excited and honestly loving being a bit of a workout junkie! LOL! It makes me feel accomplished...keeps me sane and motivated and sooooo much healthier....


If you're reading this...and think you can't do this...and ESPECIALLY if some snousy naysayer is tryin' to TELL you can't..... stand up...cover your ears ( preferabally with some killer workout tunes in your earbuds) and SHOW em' what your're made of!!!! No one can stop YOU except yourself. Fear of failure can seem imobilizing....I know! But you can only fail if you never try!!


An awesome thing I've seen is FEAR...False Evidence Appearing Real! FALSE my loverlies! A lie straight from the deciever of your souls who longs to see you unhappy and afraid...That's NO way to live! Get up and work your way into the life you've either been afraid to live...or havn't seemed to find beneath the guise of these flubber suits...and that's all they are! Outward manifestations of insecurities...lack of disciple etc....but the good news is those suits are flammable and will incinerated in the fires of determination and hard work ;) !


Okies...tangent over for the time being....please let me know if you read this and am inspired to either start or REstart your journey and I can help you in any way! I believe in you! Let's rock this year!!

A bit off normal subject, but hey, this is my blog so why not ;) Newest artwork!

Artwork Titled *Tree of Whimsy*


This was painted for a fear co-worker who is moving away... we are forever talking about photography and art, so I thought I would send her off with something special...well.. hopefully it is special ;) This is my first Acrylic Painting... all I've done before are watercolors... it didn't take too long though, only a few hours, so more to come soon! :) 

When you face the flaming arrows of a hurtful word or deed~use them as fuel for the transforming fires instead!

*A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.*   A. A. Milne ~Teddy Bear


This post is a tad bit venting, a tad bit holding onto His strength, and a tad bit resilience...to my loverly followers, take what you can from it whatever your spiritual beliefs are... my belief in my Lord Jesus is critical to who I am, and so it will come out from time to time in my blogs :) 


Today once again, I heard of some VERY negative, demeaning, frustrating things said about me. I know the person saying these things has some deep emotional wounds themselves...and so some of that negativity is merely their own hurts and frustrations coming out.... I do not hate the one saying the words, no matter how fiery mad it made me...that too, is by the help of my Daddy God... because sometimes that's not very easy for me....  and actually...I also owe them a thanks in another somewhat un-related realm for being far stronger then in the past...and for that I am very very grateful....I can actually say I am proud of them for a wise decision made at a critical moment...and also say, I believe that strength pleased the heart of our Daddy God..... This person may or may not read this blog...I will not call them out publicly, which is why I'm being as tad bit vague, so bear with me.. ;) ... though I think they might come across this. 


THAT being said... make NO mistake... I WILL conquer this battle with my weight. Nearly 60 pounds and oodles of inches is no easy task, and i am DARN PROUD of how far I have come....... I'd like to see how some people would fare if they had to do so...  We ALL wear suits of destructive things we hide behind... Mine happens to have been weight..... it happens to be externally evident... but there should be NO pointing of fingers, because we ALL have struggles!!!!  However NOW.... that weight, which was once both physical, spiritual and emotional...has lost it's tethering.. perhaps little snippets of the emotional and spiritual elements remain, but is 97% just a physical burden at this point! 


It IS being shed, and yes, I do believe this... for me in my personal spiritual walk..... it is being shed by the blood of Christ. He will give me what I need to win this battle. He has been working on getting me strong enough mentally and emotionally the last few years to really tackle what's BEHIND my flubber suit....and that is ALL that it is!!!! The outside person needs to come now into proper alignment with who I have become inside..and the inside Aimee is MUCH stronger then she used to be... MUCH MORE willing to stand up and fight for herself and not be pushed around by others' words or even my own insecurities.... so that NOW with proper nutrition and dedicated exercise.... it is only a matter of time before I am outwardly healthy as well....how MUCH time... only He knows... but the point is, is that as long as I continue on my dedicated path.....IT WILL BE!


The point of this blog, other then my need for a bit of venting... is also to encourage those of you with weight struggles ( or any other thing that threatens to hold you in bondage to shame and feelings of low self worth and  inadequacies) that YOU ARE PRECIOUS. YOU ARE WORTH fighting for! YOU ARE one of a KIND.... YOU ARE BELOVED...... again, I am going to my spiritual roots here... so please bear with me if that's not your thing...but a verse a dear friend, in fact the friend who first told me about the depth of God;s love for me shared with me and has now become my * life* verse says... 


* ¹³ For you created my inmost being; 
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 
   your works are wonderful, 
   I know that full well. 
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you 
   when I was made in the secret place, 
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; 
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be. 
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God! 
   How vast is the sum of them! 
¹⁸ Were I to count them, 
   they would outnumber the grains of sand— 
   when I awake, I am still with you.*

Psalm 139:13-18  NIV 

I am fearfully and WONDERFULLY MADE.  YOU...are fearfully and wonderfully made!!! NO ONE is an accident to the heart of God... no matter how they were physically conceived.... 

And if faith is not something that drives you... find this truth in other ways. Look into the eyes of your children. Hear the lift in a tired voice when you treat a weary stranger with kindness at the cash register.... See the lives of those around you, each of whom you touch that no one else can..whether it's for 30 seconds, or 30 years... YOUR LIFE means something to SOMEONE! Get yourself HEALTHY... for yourself, yes...but more so, so you can POUR your love... your charity of heart into the hurting souls around you. 

Life is not about money...or fame... notoriety.... life is about relationships... nurturing people...giving of yourself and allowing others to replenish you in turn....trying to see the hurts thrown at you in a different light, and trying to see the best in others, even thru the haze of hurtful things...  if we ALL could live like that... this wacked out world we live would run SO much more smoothly! 

Okies. LOL. I know this was a kind of crazy, random tangent rant...but hey, it's my blog, I can say what comes to my heart ;) We can let the hurtful things around us either destroy us, or refine us....I am trying, my hardest, to use this life-long struggle, from every cruel name I was called as a child ( jabba the hutt) to these current flaming arrows to instead toast away all the layers of lies I've believed in about myself and strive to see myself through the lens of God's eyes, and those who are in my life He has sent to cherish me. 

Stand up for yourself... get yourself healthy, inside AND out... so you can be who you were created to be. Love deeply, forgive even when it cuts like a knife...and above all... seek goodness... for me, it is resting in Him. For others, it may be letting go of an unhealthy situation so you can breath again... whatever it is.....

I heard this on an audio book I was listening to yesterday...and it is such VERY sound advice! 

*Don't look only at how far you have to go,
but in HOW FAR YOU HAVE COME , consider your progress!* 

So let's get up, have a little cry if need be .....brush the tears of frustration away...and use anything opposing us, anything telling us that we CAN' T achieve our goals as fuel for the transforming fire instead! 

A happy little update. ;) Muscle DOES make you look smaller! ;)

*A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.*   A. A. Milne ~Teddy Bear

So...!!! LAST month... I was in a 2x...loverly people kept tellin' me I was losin' and those clothes were lookin' big......WELL.. now.. 1x! Not a lot of weight movement on the scale, but the body is changing!!!! Sometimes that's all that matters!  ;) And more inches are melting too! Woot! I went through again and measured, lost a few MORE inches, PLUS found my measurements for strange places like between the bust and waist ( an evil flubber roll..but I've lost SIX inches... since FEBRUARY! ahhhhh. I adore my workouts! ;) ...in adding up those other measurements which I will list in another blog.. it was... ready? Over FIFTY inches lost!!!!! Ahhhhhh!


I got rid of a huge bag of clothes as well.. many of them SWIMMING on me!!!!! SUCH an AMAZING feeling!!!! THEN this weekend some wonderful ladies and I were chatting away before our Northland Fit Club...and I said how much I still had to lose @ minimum.... weeeeeeelll. ALL THREE of them...were like NO WAY! You can't possibly have that much to lose! SO... I am LOOKING thinner then my physical weight ;) Ahhh... muscles building beneath the flubber make me happy! SOME DAY there will be NO more flubber in the way and those muscles will be showin' in their true glory!  ;) heehee...


Anyhow..just a quick update;) But some exciting things happening for this Turbo Bear!!!! :) Stay tuned my loverlies, stay tuned!!!!

Walking in Confidence! LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE!!!!!!!!

*A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.*   A. A. Milne ~Teddy Bear

 It is interesting to me.... browsing you-tube... I have seen a few videos of girls that have done what I am on this journey to do, lose about 150 pounds or more total...... From their first vids @ their highest weights to further into their journey...the thing I am noticing the MOST....., even more then how amazing they look, is the change in their CONFIDENCE! Some of them start out almost shy.....and as they go along, they are getting pretty darn sassy ;) LOL. I love it, because as the Flubber Suits are being melted off of them through their exercise and nutrition changes they are like a Butterfly emerging from their Cocoon! Their true UNHINDERED selves are coming to the surface!

For me, I actually noticed a bit of this in MYSELF this past few days...I am usually insanely picky about going ANYWHERE without my make-up and hair done... because it's always been the thing I have control over.... now the other day after work, I went out to one of the big chain stores...and had no make-up other then foundation and I think some faded lipstick. lol... hair was up in a twisty thing, and wearin' my work clothes and a sweater that's getting too big on me ( one of my * new* 2x's from a month ago! woohoo! ;)...there were about 5 gazillion people in the store. lol. Go figure, right? But in I went...

Now at one point... I began to feel some of those old , rotten feelings of being super self-conscious trying to rear their ugly heads...BUT...here is the thing. I STOPPED it. I saw myself in the mirror, and instead of saying, * Holy cow... you look TERRIBLE! look at that flubber! Look at that hair! YIKES!*.... I said...* Ok WAIT. You know what girlie? You've lost FIFTY-FIVE pounds! 38.25 INCHES! STOP. So you look a little less then perfect today. It's Walmart for pete's sake, and who cares?! *

I know it may sound a little silly.. but for ME.. this was a  HUGE mental change. Some of those nasty bits of the insecurity stronghold I have held onto my entire life are fallin' off me left and right along with those pounds and inches!  (on a side note, a really WONDERFUL book about how we talk to ourselves it *Battlefield of the Mind * by Joyce Meyer... VERY powerful!). And guess what? TODAY I did the same thing. We had our awesome Northland Fit Club this morning ( burned about 700 calories in an hour! woot!) .... I hadn't even washed my hair this morn' when I showered....just stuck it up in pigtails...was wearin' my workout pants, and a sweatshirt ( and once again, this 2x is getting baggy! I know, cause both my fellow fit-club coaches told me so! ahhh!:)  and once again... no make-up! But what did I do? Off to Walmart, off to look at costumes....I was up by those stores and simply did NOT care! I even bought the most GORGEOUS dress.... it is a size 8/10.... it was 5 dollars..lol.. lovin' the thrift stores... it's gonna be a looooong time until I could possibly fit into it, but this is my * Goal dress* A beautiful, shimmery, gothicy little black dress... TOTALLY my style and TOTALLY something I would never have been able to even CONSIDER I would ever get into. BUT.... I am NOT stopping until I reach my healthy goal! It may or may not be the right size by then, but for 5 dollars to hang on my door to remind me what I want to look like and FEEL like...( a REAL woman! Not a marshmallow! ) it was SO worth it!

As I have said a few times... this change is not just physical! In fact, it MUST start with your mind. Because until your mind us ready to commit, your body will not cooperate. You will not stick to your plans. But once the mind is SET. NOTHING...and NO ONE can STOP YOU!

am I 100% comfortable in my skin? Of course not. But I am MILES more confident then I ever have been before. I have the MIND-SET of a HEALTHY FIT person...and so that is what I am becoming! It may take many  more months for that to completely come to the surface, but it is the truth! And you know what? People are starting to notice I am coming out of my shell. And it is a WONDERFUL feeling! 

I'm DONE with being a wallflower, and am on this journey to let my true sassy, confident self shine! God didn't make me to hide my light under a bushel! He created me to love and support people, to encourage them, and to actually ENJOY my life! He has plans and purposes He made just for me, that I am SO done letting fear, failure and fat steal!!!!!  ( just as He has for YOU! YES every single ONE of you! ...not matter WHERE you are at in your journeys.. you are SPECIAL and PRECIOUS! )

GRRRRRROOOWWWWWWWLLLLL says this Turbo Bear! LMAO!

Let's ROCK our lives my readers... GET UP and WORK it! Fat is only a shell. Don't hide behind it anymore! It won't happen overnight, but oh YES, it CAN and WILL happen if you are determined!

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE!!!!!!!!

Measure your progress by the INCHES!...NOT just the SCALE!

My current progress? 55 pounds lost has equaled 38.25 inches OFF my body! Crazy!

I will be posting another you-tube video SOON showing this in a visual way, but have been having trouble with my goofy camera and computer ;) ...But for me, adding it all up this week, I was astounded! It made things SO much more tangible! When you start at the weight I did, sometimes it can be frustrating that the change does not seem nearly as dramatic as someone who *only* has 50 or 60 pounds to lose.... ( Though I am certainly NOT demeaning that struggle by any means! Be PROUD of ANY sustained weight loss!) However VISUALLY it's a totally different creature...so you need something else you can base your hard work upon...USE the measuring tape...and a scale with a bodyfat percentage to gauge how you're doing......you WILL be shocked and pleasantly surprised!!!
 
Stay encouraged, stay COMMITTED , and stay positive! You ARE changing yourself for the BETTER and should stand with head held high! Count every inch a victory my loverlies.... I certainly am, and know every thing I do daily keeps me going towards my goals of a FIT Turbo Bear!  :) 

~ Aimee :)

*A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.*   A. A. Milne ~Teddy Bear