Fashionably Late-r than ever.

It has been over a year since we've chatted, readers.  I named my blog partly because of the fact that I am very much a late bloomer, and largely because I am almost always late.  Well...  Better late than never.

To try and catch you up with everything my mind, body, and heart have gone through and learned in the last year in one blog post would just be silly.  So where do we start?

The end.  The beginning of the end.  Or, well...  A new beginning.

This blog began when a late bloomer was asked by so many to share her weight loss story - of growth, of struggles, tips, advice, hope, inspiration, defeat, a fair few archaeological discoveries, and a handful of other things that became part of her life changing.  The pounds began to shed.  My mind and body became stronger.  Becoming part of a community of you all who have been, are going, or are about to go through it by sharing through this blog helped me accomplish great things.  It gave me accountability.  It helped me sort through the remarkable chaos that is my brain at times.  It gave me support, goals, and so many people who helped me succeed by becoming a part of my little journey.

But what happens when things aren't so great?

You stop writing in your blog for over a year.
You can't do a single push-up.
You can't plank for 3 minutes anymore.
That pilates video that was too easy now seems impossible.
You don't make healthy meals at home on the regular.
You eat thoughtlessly and have developed a sweet tooth.
Your clothes still fit, but where they once were up against 190lbs of lean, mean, muscle machine, they now slightly cut in to 205lbs of wiggly, wobbly, fluffiness.
You now look like you weigh 205lbs, whereas before, that 190lbs was a toned-up-almost-size-10.
That picture of you 2 years ago when you were healthier and happier than you've ever been is now more difficult to look at than a photo of you from 4 years ago when you could barely work out the logistics of which bathroom stall you'd fit into best.
You forget that you can once again ride roller coasters.
You forget that you can shop in pretty much any store you want, and you own clothes that legitimately fit and have the size Medium in them.
You forget that walking a 5k in less than 40 minutes is the usual.
You forget that you now opt to ride your bike to work, and then go on bike rides for 20 miles like it ain't no thing.
You forget that so many people who worried about you for so long, but loved you as you were, are still happy to see you living life in ways you kept yourself from living before.
You get annoyed that people who know you as you are don't realize where you've come from, but before, looked forward to the day when people didn't know you as you were, but just as you are now.
You forget that you've had so many new experiences that are possible because of how you chose to change your life.
You think you have pretty moments, but don't like yourself as much these days.
You see all the things you didn't do, didn't do as well as you wanted to, or did wrong - and you never think about all the things you did, did well, and did right.
You have the most colorful, varied, brilliant, distinctive, wonderfully ridiculous, perfectly peculiar, absurdly loving bunch of fictional characters that are your real-life friends.
You have little cousins that see you in your bathing suit and say, "Remember when you used to be fat?!"

I am flawed.  I haven't made the best choices.  I've stumbled.

I sometimes feel like a failure.

And then I remember.

I am an intelligent, talented, respected, beautiful person who loves people and is so very fortunate to be loved in return.  I have had my dream jobs.  I've lived in another country.  I have an amazing job at a Michigan craft brewery that has so much potential it's silly, and I work with a cluster of dynamic, passionate, driven, supportive people.  I've had little adventures that you think only happen in the movies, but really happen every day.  I have so much to be thankful for, and so much to look forward to.

I was Sarah Bauman who lost 123lbs, her life changed, then wound up a bit lost.

As of today, I'm Sarah Bauman who's lost zero pounds, is choosing to change her life again, and can see the path off to the left, but just needs to cut through some overgrown shrubbery and will be right back on it.

I'm a late bloomer for life.  Sometimes things take a little while.  But while I have life, I choose to accept that blooming late is better than never.

I'm back.  I've missed you all.  Here we go again.

A New Resolve for a New Year.

Ending 2012 trying to remember how
far I've come!

Dear, dear readers!

A year ago, and feeling amazing.

Oh, my, so much has happened in the last couple of months.  So very much.  And you can be sure I intend to fill you in little by little.  It would be too much for one conversation.  Silly as it may seem, I do view these blogs as more of a conversation with all of you lovely humans I picture as I write.  I have missed you all.  I have missed our chats.

So, let's get reacquainted.  Catch up a bit.

How are you?  Did you have happy holidays?  What did you get for Christmas?  Did you indulge happily, satisfyingly refrain, or a bit of both?  Did you kiss someone on New Years' Eve at midnight, or did you make the most of a bit of mistletoe?  Did you make any resolutions this year?  If you made any last year, how did that go?

The New Year has never felt particularly new to me.  I've never felt like January 1st is anything other than a new day on a calendar.  I've never felt any particular significance to the magic date change that begins the next year.

Since I can recall, my year's always begun around August to September.  Having parents in education, being a student once upon a time, and working within the entertainment industry lends to things winding down in June and kicking back into high gear in August and September.

It just so happens that something's been brewing within me for quite some time, and the resolve to push forward finally made its way to the forefront.  I like that this happened to happen right now, the beginning of a brand new year.

When people have talked about "plateaus" in the past, I always surmised that it was a physical one.  Turns out, it can be mental, too.  And mine certainly has been.  A few things have happened in the last week, though, that have renewed me and instilled a drive and lust for life that I've been missing for a while.

A dear friend of mine put it like this:  there's a wall in front of you, and you've got a few big cement blocks you can stand on just enough to see over it, so you think, "Sweet!  I'm out of it!"  But, it turns out you aren't over it - you just got a view of the other side.  Then, something happens - and whatever it is, it puts its hands together, gives you a foothold and a lift, then nudges you on your way up the wall.  Before you know it, you're on top of the wall and all you have to do is start down the other side. Or, if you're like me, you just jump.

A year ago also, thrilled to be turning 30
and DJing alongside friends.

So, with this new year, I will not make resolutions.  I will embrace this new resolve and the faith that things are better, will continue to get better, and remember what I have done and what I am capable of doing.  I will be thankful for the things I've done and experienced in 2012.  And I will start out 2013 with the resolve to work on these things:

I will be thankful for the wonderful humans that have entered into my life, some of these even in just the last couple of months.
I will work harder.
I will focus, organize, and start ruling the world once again.
I will start tracking my food and working out a minimum of 5 times a week (and attempt to do so in the morning).  This is not because of a desire to be thin, but because of the satisfaction and contentment and happiness an active, healthy life brings me.

And I'll tell you all about it along the way.

Happy New Year, friends.  I hope and pray your 2013 is one full of truly living life, and things that may not be comfortable, but will be very, very good.

Cheers.

Breaking fat.

I’ve never thought of myself as “fat.”  I’ve always quite liked quite a few things about me.  But, how would I describe me if asked?  Do I see the same person in the mirror that others do?  How do I perceive myself? 

I’ve been struggling intensely over the last 6 months with a battle of projecting my leftover “fat girl mentality” onto others, by assuming their perception and potential reactions towards me are ones that only I have toward myself.  I’m consistently a bit baffled by all of the ways my weight affected me, and I really had no idea just how much it had influenced my mind.

That's me there, on the far right... Cowardly Lion at your service.

For years, I was literally an obstruction.  I was well over 320lbs at some point, and there’s just no getting around it – I was an obstacle at times, both physically and mentally.  I’ve had people in my life who’ve rolled with it the best they could and never made me feel as though I was a burden.  But some part in the back of my mind was and still is perpetually in this mode of constant apology, always feeling and assuming that I am an imposition. 

Something as simple as wanting to text a friend to hang out with her: 
Well, I don’t want to bother them…

I see people I know and I want to walk up to them: 
Should I? Shouldn’t I?  I don’t want to bother them…  Will they think it’s weird I’m just out and about by myself?  Will they mind if I join them?  I dunno…

“Sorry to bother you guys… Do you mind if…”

If I want to talk about anything personal with a friend, or, God-forbid, maybe show that I’m not 120% happy and ruling the world all the time, I’m petrified and just know it’s a bother, so I don’t.  I keep it in, or as you've heard me mention before, I "pull an ostrich."

Why would they be bothered? They are my friends.  If they were to walk up to me, I would most likely be overly giddy and delighted that they were there and wanted to join me.  Why do I assume people have such negative reactions to me? 

It is because it is not nearly as much about perception for me as it is projection: a projection of this bizarre, intense fear of vulnerability, rejection and failure.  At some point along the line, I allowed myself to be a defeatist.  I’ve come leaps and bounds since beginning this process, and sharing with all of you, in realizing that I have such a propensity to sell myself grossly short and prematurely fail.

Premature failure: the tendency to over-analyze things to an excruciating extent before actually taking action because, despite all potentially good outcomes, the result is nothing short of impending doom, hurt, and/or humiliation.

Problem sorted. Crisis averted.  Humiliation avoided.  Progress: none.

When it boils down to it, the problem is fear. 

Fear can be a crippling, stifling, cruel beast if you give it too much power.  I have no idea why my tendency is to submit to it, but I’ve reached my limit. 

It has been really, really tough. 

Here is what I am going to do about it.

I’m going to talk about it. Both to you all, because you deserve to know about all the mind-bending wonder you might encounter through the weight-loss process, and to someone who’s a pro.  I think it would be good for me, especially if I can find someone who's talked to people going through the weight loss process.  I’m going to make a conscious decision to do the opposite of what my fear is saying in hopes that, eventually, I’ll have ignored it enough to have overcome it.  I’m going to create a structure for better managing my time, my budget, and my work. I’m going to track my food more meticulously for the time being.  I’m going to create a new list of goals and desires to strive towards.

As someone said to me recently before I set off on a cold walk alone in the rain, “Everybody’s gotta be a big girl sometime…”  And it’s about that time.