4 week challenge

I was going to try to do this challenge unofficially, and see how much of it I could stick to. I don't do a lot of fries or chips, so that one should be easy... I only do soda on rare occasions at this point, and only ginger ale (I used to be able to polish off a two liter of Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper on a daily basis, so this is progress!)... Ice cream is an occasional treat, but not super often... I don't really do fast food since going vegetarian/pescatarian (except for those random times that fries or a milkshake sound good)... Fried food is going to be tough because mozzarella sticks are one of my top favorite foods... I can do the white bread thing - I just need to go and buy some non-white bread... cakes, donuts, cookies, and candy are my absolute weakness. I can generally easily do without the salty snacks, but I love sweet treats so much!

But, in typical me fashion... I got the brilliant idea to post this image on Facebook and say that I was unofficially trying to do it, and now two friends want to do it with me. I suppose that means I have to actually really try to stick to it, huh? I guess I need to figure out if white rice counts as white bread, because they're basically the same family. I suppose I could buy brown rice as an alternative anyway, and work on liking that (that said - I don't eat much rice either, as a general rule - but I happened to cook some for Jeremy's lunch the other night, and turned the leftovers into a healthier version of rice pudding).

I made Jeremy take some before pictures last night, so hopefully I will have something to show for this in four weeks. Like I said yesterday or the day before... I have gained a little bit of weight back in the last few months, because I let myself get complacent and lazy. I've already re-lost eight of those pounds, but am still about twelve pounds above my lowest weight. I am hoping to lose those twelve back over the course of these four weeks. I think that's a realistic goal at this point. From there, I will see what I need to do to keep up the momentum through the rest of the summer.

I really want to be more confident this summer, and I really want to let myself buy a new bathing suit. Of course, I'll still be heavy - I'm not going to be an ideal weight this year, just because it isn't physically possible to lose that much weight that fast. Last year, I was confident enough to wear my simple black one-piece bathing suit, with shorts over it, to the pool in my community and occasionally to the lake. This year, I want the confidence to rock it without the short - or to buy a new one that I can rock without a pair of short. Still something modest, and simple and one-piece, of course... but to rock a bathing suit? In public? Without covering it with shorts? If I do it, it will be the first time since I was six or seven years old - and that, my friends, will feel like a huge victory.