Siblings are a Blessing and Occasionally a Curse

I have an insane number of siblings! If you count the bunch to the left, you'll see that there's a total of 9 of us. I could bore you with the details of which kids belong to which set of parents but it's hard enough for me to keep track of it all, let alone for someone without an emotional investment in the group. That being said, I'll spare you the genealogy lesson.

I have always been extremely proud of my younger minions siblings and I've loved having them in my life. They have defined a lot of who I am and how I see the world. When you look at life through 8 different personalities and 16 additional eyes you tend to get a really broad view of what's really important and what's not. But not every moment in my relationships with them have been smooth sailing. Sometimes, quit frankly, they've annoyed the piss out of me.

One of my sisters managed to accomplish that last night. See, some of them live close and some of them live far. The one's that live nearby have a tendency to randomly show up on my doorstep from time to time. I never mind. I like that they want to stop over and hang with their big sis, but I mean it when I say different personalities. Not a single one of us is exactly alike and that means that sometimes we have different views on things. For instance, with this whole not being a fat slob trying to live healthier journey I've started my household on.

James made the silly mistake of mentioning it to her when she was busy looking through our kitchen for a snack. Being in nursing school she felt overly compelled to share her opinions on the subject. To use a cliche here, Rome was not built in a day. I'm not expecting to move a mountain in less than a week. I'm just trying to introduce and guide my family in making some healthier choices at the moment. You know, baby steps? However, the mere mention somehow morphed into a complete nuclear attack on the eating/exercise decisions we've made.

"Well, if you're going to be healthy you have to stop buying white bread. It's terrible for you and that will need to go!" Ummm...

"You really need to join my gym with me. You don't have any excuse not to. It's only an extra hour out of your day." Well, my dear, you don't have kids. When I get a grand total of 4 hours a night at home, I will not be giving an hour of it to the gym. Me and Wii are getting along just fine thank you.

"Your diet has always been complete garbage and a lot of that is how much pop you drink." I'm fully aware that pop is not good for you. I get it. That's why I limit myself to one 12oz can a day.

Ultimately, I'm very aware that I haven't always made perfect decisions. If I didn't know this, I wouldn't be making any attempts to change anything. And it's very easy for all 110 lbs of her with her magical metabolism to sit in judgement of my decisions. News flash though my precious one from the lucky side of the gene pool... I don't however plan on halting all the joy in life (it's a little obvious I have a bit of a food addiction, okay?) just so I can be thinner. I just want to feel better and I want my family to feel better. No more, no less.

Most days things are like this between me and my siblings....

And some days... Well... They're just not.

Anyone Wanna Be My Buddy??

Monday marked the beginning of a new journey in our household thanks to Christopher Titus: Love Is Evol and his question about "Ask yourself, are you within 5% of your first date weight?" Thus far, I've been doing pretty good the past couple of days. Or at least I think so...

1. I have not had a single bowl of ice cream. That's a pretty monumental event for me. Ice cream is simply part of my nighttime routine. Get home, change, make dinner, homework, shower, tuck in... ICE CREAM! Even though we still have one of those gallon sized tubs screaming my name from the freezer, I have managed to ignore it.

2. I actually went out and bought some Lean Cuisine meals to take to work for lunch. I will say, there's nothing like a Lean Cuisine to make you suddenly start day dreaming about cookies (or ice cream), but I figure I can't really screw up the "healthier choice" factor if it's pre-made for me. Coincidentally, I also purchased some organic noodles, green pepper, and green onions to use when making last nights dinner. This may not seem foreign to some people, but believe me, Lena thinks I've been abducted by aliens right now.

3. I've started researching recipes (thank you Pinterest) that I can make that go outside my "normal" dinner menu. I'm a pretty big supporter of the chicken nuggets folks, but they will no longer be on the menu. I suspect the children will last about a week before they revolt and you see the missing person news broadcast.

I have yet to...

4. Start establishing a workout routine. My sister offered to add me to her gym membership, but getting to the gym still currently seems next to impossible. I don't get home until 6pm and by that time I have things that need to be accomplished (see #1 above, please exclude the ice cream). I do have the Wii and a couple workout games to go with it, but I haven't figured out how to pry the big TV away from James just yet.

5. Step on the scale. I probably need to do that to see what I'm starting with here. I know when I mentioned it back in October I started using the My Fitness Pal app for iPhone, but it could certainly use a bit of an update. If anyone is currently using the app, please leave me a comment with your username or add me on there so we can link up! Maybe getting some friends on there will help kick my ass into gear lend a little more encouragement. As you can see, I only have 4 friends on there right now and most of them haven't logged in anytime recently. They do say it works better with a buddy right?

Something else I've noticed though... James hasn't done anything yet. After his bedtime outburst that he's had enough and he'll be joining a gym this week (which I support) and his comment about how I used to look much better before, he hasn't made a single effort. I know for a fact that he's gotten off work on time the last 2 days (3:30) and that when I got home he was sitting comfortably on the couch watching TV. Part of me wanted to throw something at his head last night for it, but I know that I can't force him to do it if he really doesn't want to. Not to mention it would be like the pot calling the kettle black here, because I've said it plenty of times and done exactly that.

For now, I'll just be proud of me and continue to take it one day at a time. That's all I really can do and I'm okay with that.