I often wonder why we are are own worst critics.  I mean we would never say to another person the crap that we fill our own heads with.  You know what is even stranger?  Before I started this journey, I had good self esteem.  I mean I may have been 100+ pounds overweight, but I really did like myself.  That made it easy to be fat.  It made it easy to ignore that I was getting fatter and fatter.  But now down 100 pounds I wonder what happened to that self-esteem.  I have really been struggling lately with my body image.  I try so hard to see the changes in myself, but sometimes and especially lately all I see is fat.  HUGE legs, flabby arms, 2 stomachs.. yep even still I have 2 of them.  This is not how I envisioned myself at this weight.  I just can't get over it.  I'm really not sure how to stop judging my appearance, and just love myself for what I have accomplished.  I so so so want thin legs.  Is that wrong?  vain?  They are not even close.  I'm not sure they ever will be.

And... the negative self talk goes beyond my own appearance as well.  It goes to my critique of myself on running or any exercise.  You see last night was pretty much a disaster.  I didn't run in the morning because it is just getting too dark again (depressing but true.  We've actually lost 14 minutes of daylight in the morning in the past 2 weeks), so I decided I'd run around 7 pm.  This is my first run in almost 2 weeks.  I started out walking, and around minute 4 broke into a easy run.  I made it 10 minutes and needed a 1 minute walk, that's OK I thought.  Then I only made it another 5 minutes, and needed to walk, and I never started running again.  I got a horrible stomachache, and walked home almost doubled over, feeling like every person driving down the street was judging my legs in my short running skirt.  It was a number of things I'm sure, but #1 the heat and humidity is horrible here right now, and apparently I am ultra sensitive to it.  Also my stomach was feeling kind of icky all day, and I ate about 1/2 hour before I ran.  I think all combined turned into the failed run.  I got back to my house, and was pretty distraught about the whole thing.  I thought, "Great... now I can't do this and won't ever be able to again!"  As you can see I'm really good at making things into a catastrophe.  I started mentally beating myself up over it all, and then realized... its not worth it.  Will it change anything?  Nope.  I have come so far, and this doesn't mean I'm a failure.  It's OK.  Shake it off.  Try again on Thursday, and most importantly FORGIVE YOURSELF.

Forgive yourself for not running longer than 15 minutes.  in April you could run 0 minutes.  Think of that.
Forgive yourself for not seeing the changes in your body.  20 months ago you wore a size 24, your a 10 now, something must have changed.
Forgive yourself for hating your arms and legs.  Did you really think you could abuse your body by being morbidly obese for so many years, and have everything shrink back up perfectly.  Its OK.  Give it some more time.  That is not what you are doing this for, right?  Right.
Forgive yourself for the less than perfect vacation.  You probably ate better than your vacation 2 years ago.
Forgive yourself for drinking the second glass of wine.  Work was rough today and at least you didn't eat through it.
Forgive yourself for eating the handful of honey roasted peanuts and M&Ms and not journaling it.  You know you won't do it again tomorrow.
Forgive yourself... its time to move on and lose these last 10 pounds.
Forgive yourself, because you're good enough, you're smart enough, and dog gone it people like you!

Weigh in tomorrow... forgive yourself for that too.  NOT GOING TO BE PRETTY!