Woot Wednesdays: Welcome Edition!

So, Wednesdays are woot! Wednesdays. I don't know where woot came from, but urban dictionary cleared that up for me:

"Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t". "w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement."

So, from dungeons and dragons....to here! I like to use woot! mentally, (I can't recall if I've ever actually said it out loud) when I've accomplished something, or done something I'm proud of. So, on Wednesdays, I'm going to be writing about goals and stuff that I've done, or am in the process of doing. 

This all came about by two different sources: my brother and my friend Jaime. 

A couple of weeks ago... or maybe a month ago, my brother tweeted the following:

I sarcastically replied that my life doesn't go without diet coke and sleep. (Just sleep now, say what! 2 whole weeks with no diet coke!!) But it got me thinking, what are things I do that constantly keep myself propelled in forward motion, in my life? I had a deep feeling of....well, maybe I've stopped what I used to do.

Then, my adorable friend Jaime, who puts nearly all bloggers to shame, by running an awesome craft blog, and then a couple of personal (private) blogs, posted about goal making. In fact, she specifically posted about goals for her life that had come about by taking a personal finance course from BYU, that I had suggested. I'm in the middle of the same course. Have I finished it? Nope. Did I make the goals? Yup. Did I tell anyone about those goals........ well, no. :/

On top of those goals, Jaime also has a happiness project going on, inspired by the book, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben. (Haven't read this book? You should. Seriously.) Since I've met her, Jaime is doing something different every month, to inspire happiness in her life. It's so awesome and inspiring. Then on top of that she has her 26 for 26 goals. 26 goals or things she wants to do, in the year that she's 26. So awesome. 

So, with both my brother and Jaime as inspiration, I decided I needed to get back to the things inspire me the most to move forward in my life. I thought about the times when I've worked my very hardest to get things done-- and they were always centered around "getting in" to something exclusive, hitting a benchmark,  or being better than everyone else (ego much?). I realized that in college I started to let things slip when I no longer had something to get in to, or beat someone out at, and that in my adult married life, I've fluctuated where at times, I've wanted to do everything in my life 100% perfect, or on the complete opposite end, just survive the day, only I was just surviving the day, for weeks at a time. 

So, I need big goals that boost my ego. hahaha. I've got a bunch floating around, that you'll see some of next week. But for now, I want to tell you about the big goal that I'm working on right this second: weight loss!

I've struggled with my weight for the past few years, and I knew that I wasn't doing anything right for myself. It just takes a lot of courage to stop blaming and acknowledge, "No one force fed me the brownie. I put it in my mouth. I haven't put on my tennis shoes and hit the gym. It isn't anyone else's fault, it's mine." It just felt like a battle that I was always losing at. Then, something clicked for me: my husband decided to help me out and go to the gym with me....and my gym was doing this thing called TEAM weight loss. I signed up. It's 3 hours every week, 6 am, 2.5 hours of cardio and a half hour of a nutrition class. Then outside of class, it's 2 hours of strength training and an hour of flexibility. Plus counting your calories, and reporting those calories. I've gone for 2 weeks, haven't missed a day, and as of today I've lost 6 lbs. total!!! My goal for the remaining month and a half was supposed to be 10 lbs. but I think I'm going to shoot for 20! I feel I can do it. It's required a complete overhaul of what I've been eating, how I've been sleeping, what I do every morning...but I'm loving it. It makes life feel so full.

So, that's my first woot! wednesday. I'll be checking in next week and sharing some of my other goals. :)