Goals

While doing some stretches and basic yoga moves this morning, I realized that I should probably have some goals in mind. This is hard for me because I'm more concerned with being healthy than the number on the scale. The more I thought about it though, the easier it was to come up with things that I'm looking forward to as I lose weight and tone my body. Ladies and gentleman, here are my top 10 goals:

1) Lose 40 lbs. This would put me back at the weight I was when I first met Nick (poor guy didn't know what he was getting himself into). I'm fine with weighing more if I start to build muscle so I guess the real goal is to get back into a size 5/6.

2) Stretch without breaking a sweat. Right now I'm so out of shape that my body thinks the slightest muscle twitch is a full workout and makes me sweat like a whore in church. Not attractive.

3) Wear tucked-in shirt fashions. I miss being able to tuck a shirt into my dress pants without looking like a can of biscuit dough exploded. I want to shrink my muffin top and flatten my belly so I can sport that look again.

4) Wear leggings as pants. I would normally never do this, but I would like to know that if I do people will think "What a whore!" instead of "Omg gross!" I've seen leggings done right with a long shirt or a short dress, but I'm far from that point.

5) Be Flexible. I've used this word to describe myself (at least physically) and I'd like to change that. I want to be at least as flexible as the average, healthy person so I can do more yoga and pilates-type workouts. The same goes for my balance because it's pretty abysmal right now.

6) Wear a swimsuit proudly. Summer will be here before we know it and I'm tired of having a panic attack every time I picture myself in a swimsuit. Two summers ago I loved spending time by the pool with my grad school classmates and I'm desperate to get back to that.

7) Look good naked. Enough said.

8) Shop without depression. There's nothing worse than finding a bunch of cute clothes at a store and grabbing a size up even though it looks huge (just in case) and then discovering that you can't even fit into the bigger size. Last summer I needed a dress for Chicago in White and spent weeks agonizing over how terrible I looked in countless dressing room mirrors. I eventually settled on one because I was running out of time, but spent the whole evening gazing longingly at the hundreds of thin women in tight (by choice) dresses. I vow to have fun shopping for my Chicago in White dress this summer.

9) Be stronger. Let's face it; I'm a pretty big wimp. I mean I've got that amazing pain tolerance that all women have, but I can't do any manual labor to speak of. I'd like to be able to lift heavy things and climb stairs with ease. Part of the difficulty has been that my lungs are scarred from a 2 month spat with whopping cough 5 years ago, but I know that dropping some weight and building muscle mass will help with that.

10) Enjoy having my picture taken. Everyone has embarrassing photos of themselves, including Victoria Secret models, but the number of pictures of me that I would describe as terrible has grown at the same rate that my body has. I even told the boy to hold off on proposing for a long time because that meant I'd have to lose a bunch of weight before the wedding. I was kidding (sorta), but I'm tired of thinking about future events and knowing that I'll need/want to be in better shape for them. It's time to buckle down and just do it so I'm already happy with myself and prepared for life's biggest events.