Steps to a better me!

When I started this "meal plan", I knew that I was in need of a good reality check. So this plan could not have come at a better time. I needed to accept the size I was (size 14 - I can now admit that - now a 12), determine where I wanted to be, how I would get there and more importantly to get to a better place mentally and love who I was no matter what the size.
A few months back, I was making photo albums for my daughter of each year of her life and I realized that there were so few pictures of me in those memories. Six years have gone by and I was more comfortable behind the camera, but I was cutting myself right out of her memories. If I have learned anything recently with the failing health of both my parents - life is too short to cut yourself out. What was I teaching my daughter in the process?
I feel bad for those people who have negated the Belly Fat Cure because they felt it was "failing them". A diet is about lbs. - this is a meal plan to a better you - a healthier you. Health is not just about a scale its about taking ownership of your mind & body. I take ownership to the weight I've gained before this program (years of poor choices and misinformation), but I own the weight that I have lost on this program (13lbs and about 5 lbs. before the program) and to the weight that I could have lost if I didn't cheat during one of the weeks or a week I was too busy to log my food. Ultimately, it has to be about more than just some 4lb. marker for me. It has to be about this reality check that has led to a journey of sorts. This is a journey of steps - steps that one day the step is a weight loss (maybe even only a lb.), next step may be a success that prior to this plan I would have tumbled, and the next step is the fact that I can look at myself in the mirror and not cringe and think back to a time that I looked or felt better - because that time is now! Oh heck, Thanksgiving week - that step was the fact that I didn't gain anything at all - I didn't lose but I didn't gain either. I may not lose 4lbs a week, and I had years of misinformation so I could have perceived myself as unlucky because I needed to take probiotics and wait & be patient for a good week's results. But I don't think that way - I can't think that way. Jorge can't do this for me - I have to do this for the self I am today, and the self I want to be when I am old, and for my lil' girl. She is soooo proud of her Mommy! She has taken this journey with me, and I didn't even realize it! A week before I started this program, she had to use the word "big" in a sentence and she wrote - "My Mom is big". Ouch! Wow! Again, with the reality check! Now if I am laying on my stomach watching t.v. - she comes and puts her head on my bottom and asks "Why is your butt smaller - I can't use it as a pillow?" Oh yeah! Reality check! Write down your steps... you just may surprise yourself on how many steps you have climbed in such a short time!