This is about to get ugly up in herre…

I mean duck for covers ugly. Fine, I am being dramatic but I’ve finally made the decision to start posting progress pics. Like taking back to when I first started progress pics. Honestly, this is incredibly difficult to do. The thought of clicking that submit button makes me cringe.  And it isn’t because I don’t like the way my body looked a few months ago but it is what my body represented.  Seeing my pictures remind me of all the emotional and mental abuse I put myself through, the pain I was harboring and the people that let me down. Plus, who wants to share pics of themselves when they feel like they look like a chubby monkey whether that is true or not.    

These pics date back from March when I started with my new coach. Even though I began this journey in January,  I think my mental progress kicked in with her.  Before I go ahead and show this pictures, let me procrastinate just a little more.

There are a couple things I’ve learned in measuring progress; the scale, tape measures and any tools to measure your body fat are toys for the devil.  I had an obsession with the scale for many years and I would hate it for calling me fat.  It practically yelled “FATTY” every time I was near it.  I finally got it wrapped around my head that the scale was not a way to measure my progress. Even though this is something I now know, I would still get trapped in getting pissed when I didn’t see my weight move.  My weight has yet to change by the way. 

Recently I became obsessed with my tape measure. I swear that thing must stretch out every night because according to those numbers nothing had moved.  For a few weeks I got smaller in places that I wanted to see but then it stopped.  You mean to tell me after all this fish and nights of sweating at the gym that my waist didn’t get smaller?  Piece of garbage I tell ya!  I even went as far as to record my measurements on my calendar so I can see the 1/8 of inch change and it drove me absolutely insane. 

Then there was my body fat calculator app on my phone. Great idea, get an app that tells me how much body FAT I have and obsess about that. Brilliant! I’ve never used calipers and I just plugged in my info and let the phone do the work. According to that my body fat slloooooooooowlly went down. It never moved fast enough and knowing I was at about 25% and needed to get to 12 max, but preferably lower, was enough to make me binge on ice cream.  I drove myself insane with these tools and it distracted me from really appreciate the progress I was making and remembering that it is all a work in progress.

I focused so hard on the end result and compared it to what I saw on paper that I felt like my hard work was useless. Yet at the same time my boobs got smaller, my ass was picking up, my body was defining, so why didn’t these measurements confirm what I could see?

Thank goodness for our vein society that selfies are totally in. Pictures have been my best reminder of my progress and have also been my slap in the face when I’ve cheated. Yesterday I took my first ab shot and decided it looked good enough to put on Facebook.  I got such great feedback it made me wonder, “do I really look that different?”  I went ahead and put some pics side by side and was floored that this was my body!  

Seeing the change has finally given me the confidence that I WILL be ready for the stage and I cannot wait to see what my pics will look like a month from now. So kids, I’ve thrown out the devil’s toys and am going to continue to find the strength within in me to do this because this bitch will be buff! 

Without further adieu, here is my progress….

xoxo 
Kristine