Belly

There is an adorable little girl at my kids' bus stop in the mornings. Her name is Isabella, but her parents affectionately nicknamed her "Belly". She is extremely social, but not in the typical girlie way, almost forcefully social. One morning, just before getting on the bus she asked, "you're a mom? You look like a kid". I love her. She wears a Transformers backpack with no apologies, and loves to tell you about which teeth are wiggly and which have come out. And sometimes, when I'm standing in the frigid Wisconsin winter, waving to my boys as their bus drives away, I can't see them waving back, but I can see Belly, big toothless grin waving frantically. From my point of view, Belly's world must be a fantastically colorful adventure!
I have been fantastically on-track lately, though I don't always want to be. The weekend brought slightly less structure as it was my youngest's birthday on Sunday. Friday night we ordered pizza and I indulged full-on. It was so good. On Saturday my son went out for his special birthday lunch with his grandma, and my husband, my other son and I went to lunch at our newest haunt, a build-your-own burrito joint. I had a fairly clean meal of chicken breast on whole wheat. I still consider it a cheat meal, and it was good. Sunday was clean except for cake. My son chose a small brownie chunk ice cream cake. It was devilishly cravable. I was really happy that it didn't seem to activate cravings after, and had no problem getting back on track. There were times when the rest of my family ate sweets, and I chose not to, opting for fruit or sugar-free Popsicles instead.
My weight seems to not be fluctuating much, and it's a little disappointing, but I'm not trying to put too much stock in the scale, and most days I don't even weigh myself. I do feel somehow, that this particular week will be the one that changes the game, that I'm going to start seeing results. I'm challenging myself to keep my diet clean and not skip any workouts this week. As part of that challenge, I made some wise choices today. The first one was getting out of bed to get to the gym, despite being so sleepy. Then, knowing snow is coming tonight, I figured I might not want to drive in it at 5am, so I switched up my schedule and got my chest/shoulder workout in today, so I can do my cardio at home tomorrow if the roads are bad. The endorphin rush I get from lifting weights is so euphoric. I am also on meds that make me drowsy, so I felt pretty good this morning. And knowing that I am not compromising a weight session feels good. The other good choice I made today was when a coworker won a catered lunch for our office. The place that is catering is famous for their butter burgers, yep, beef cooked in butter. And they have fish burgers and veggie burgers too, I could have...but I ordered a chef salad with turkey instead. I am proud of my decision. I'm sure the salad will be a nice change of pace.
This morning as I was leaving the gym , still dark as midnight out, I pulled up behind a car stopped at a flashing red light. Despite there being no traffic coming, the car stayed put. I said out loud, "it's flashing. You have to make your own green light." And I realized that there are those who do that in life, and those of us who wait for someone else to change the light for us. I bet Belly turns all the lights green for herself. Beautiful, rebellious, toothless Belly.
Have a great day, and don't forget to turn the lights in your favor!