You definitely know who is truly on your side and who is just all talk online after you start having good, consistent success with weight loss — *crickets chirping*. Don’t get me wrong, there are so many of you who read this and are fully supportive, offer words of encouragement, cheer me on, you are more instrumental in this process than you know. But for the others, I don’t understand you. I don’t get it, do my fat friends want me to stay fat so we can be fat together and die early? Do my skinny friends not want to acknowledge the effort that goes into weight loss because they only want to show off my success story when it’s all said and done, but won’t acknowledge me while I’m a “work in progress?” And lastly, when you’ve had more success than 3 people combined on a program, yet those 3 people are asked to share their experience and have people oo and ah while you are blatantly ignored when it comes time to speak up about your own results — that’s when you know you’re being passed over because you don’t fit the image they want to put out there — which is only slim, energetic, wealthy and successful. I’ve met all of these forms of opposition over the last several weeks, and I know that people that fall into either category aren’t necessarily ‘friends’ at all. But ya know what? Bite me. The slim, fit person I once was is still in there, and I currently in the process of digging her out. I am energetic, but by the time everyone else sees me at the end of the day, all that energy has been spent. Wealthy? Ha, not even close if we’re talking monetary value! And honestly, even if I ever do get to the point of money-wealth, all the things that rank high on my list of importance in my life are still going to rank in that same order…I’ll probably just take more vacations, order steak more often, and give back to all the people and organizations who are important to me. And lastly, as far as success goes…hold my beer (or in my case, my gin & tonic)…

• I have 4 beautiful, creative, smart children.

• I have always been able to make money and pay my bills.

• I have played my horn since I was 11 years old…I am now 39. There is not anything else in my life I’ve been committed to for that long.

• I have performed on the stage of Carnegie Hall.

• I have solo’ed with the New York Philharmonic’s principal tuba, Alan Baer (thanks to Doc composing a piece with a custom solo just for me…did I mention I was 8 months pregnant with my 4th child when I did this?)

• I earned my BA in music all while navigating marriage, mortgages/bills, and becoming a mother 4X over.

• I was asked to come back and earn my MM by my alma mater, not only to earn a masters degree but to take a GTA position and help run athletic bands and teach classes to undergrads…which I did…all while married with 4 kids.

• I began a daycare from nothing and not only been very successful, but I have a waiting list a mile long of people waiting to get in. Also, I have extremely low turnover, my kids who begin with me as tiny newborns stay with me until they either move away or age out.

• I can cook/bake most anything…recipes not even required sometimes.

• I can crack open crab legs with my bare hands AND get the meat out in one whole piece, if that doesn’t impress you then I don’t think anything else will, so I’ll stop right here

It’s been quite a while since my last blog, but NOT because I have been slacking off, no sir! I actually have been hitting the exercise regime hard everyday and I’ve been too tired to blog at night! My abs are sore, my quads are killing me, my arms ache from all the pushups…but I have started gaining muscle and now my fat loss is accelerating. So, that does mean that the weight loss has slowed, but the inches are still diminishing, so I must be simultaneously loosing fat and gaining muscle. Score!

I can actually see my super quads coming through again, and I’m not sure how I feel about that! I have always had very strong, muscular legs. Those legs served me very well all the years I was involved with dance (recreational and competitive) and cheerleading. I did do a brief stint in soccer, I could run fast and send the ball allllll the way down the field, but I definitely lack the sports-aggressive, competitive nature needed (I didn’t play for long). But I always longed to have less bulky, more toned leg muscle. As mentioned often, I am short. For me, I just wanted my muscular legs to look more natural with my petite 5′ frame…it’s not like I was/am insecure about this, but as the weight drops and my muscles return, I am for sure going to step up the efforts to tone the muscles as I go along.

There is one thing I am dreading when this weight loss is done — the loose skin. I already have loose, wrinkly skin on my abdomen from having my kids. You know when you blow up a balloon as big as it can get, then you let it fly loose around the room? When it’s done, you have a stretched out, wrinkly empty sack — so we blow it up and send it flying again, and again, and again. This is a direct comparison to what happens to most women’s bodies after pregnancy, especially multiple pregnancies. The loose skin was already there and I filled it with fat over the years and made it worse. Now, it hangs off my body unnaturally and looks like I have stuffed something down the front of my pants. Unfortunately, the more weight I loose, the worse it hangs, the worse pants fit in the lower abdomen area, the more self-conscious and embarrassed I am. I have no choice but to keep plugging away, pound after pound, inch after inch, and see what I’m left with when it’s all done. Sadly, I know this will require skin removal surgery, which terrifies me.

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Well, just now I received a phone call from my youngest’s teacher. My first thought was “oh no, she better not be sick, not with only 1 1/2 weeks left of school left!”, but that wasn’t it. I had never responded to let them know that I couldn’t be there for ‘Muffins for Moms’ today at 9:00am, and they were waiting on me to start in case I was still going to be able to make it. As usual, I can’t, I’m trapped in my own house all day. Yet another thing I’m missing out on with my kids. Going to the school to eat a muffin with your first grader may not seem like much, but when she’s consistently the only one at events like this with no parent there, it really bothers me. Really, really bothers me. So, I’m going to end this here and try not to cry the rest of the day for letting down my youngest child yet again.

Ugh, I need to get my books written, like NOW. If only my child #3 hadn’t destroyed my computer…sure would be nice to get that process underway, but very hard to do when you have to resort to pen and paper again. Not impossible, just very inefficient and impractical in this day and age.

As for my song to sum up my post, I’m going to revisit my attitude in the opening paragraph. So, turn the speakers up loud, channel your inner beast, and blast Liz Phair’s “Extraordinary.” I’ll feel better, you’ll feel better, and we’re all going to make the best of the rest of this day. And just to lighten it up, here’s a picture of the kids forcing a snail to ride a skateboard in the backyard…these are the goofy things that fill my SUCCESSFUL life every day.

~~ Amie