A New Me

Good morning!
So I thought I would start today with a blog post for once. It's just about 5:30 in the morning and I'm currently sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, watching Tom & Jerry with my cat.
Last night, or more like very early this morning, I was talking to my boyfriend about how I'm really insecure about my body and that I wish I was skinnier. He went on to tell me that if I wanted myself to look different, that I'm the only person that can do anything about it, and that I should work for the change I want to see.
I took that to heart and started my new workout regime this morning. I decided that I would run across town to the high school (which would normally take me about 30 minutes walking there and back) and decided to see how long it would take me to get there and back with a mix of running and walking. I did it in about 25 minutes, give or take a couple of seconds.
Now, I know that shaving 5 minutes off probably doesn't sound like quite the feat, but trust me, it is. I'm very proud of myself for being able to shave those 5 minutes off because it means that next week, my goal is gonna be to make it in less than 25 minutes. Part of my new regime is going for a run at least every other day and doing strength exercises the other days. I also plan on doing yoga as often as I possibly can. Each week, I'm going to average all the times it took me to run the route and that's going to be the next weeks goal. I think that this is a reasonable goal, and I know that it's going to reach a point where I won't be beating my time anymore, BUT my main goal is just to be able to run to the school and back without being completely out of breath.
My goal is to do possibly a weekly update on a different section of my blog about all my workout and weight goals, but I'm not quite sure if that's something that I'm completely comfortable with posting, so we'll see. I do, however, want to tell you guys about my goals. My senior year of high school (I graduated in 2012) I was at my lowest weight, and that's my goal for now...which is about 30 pounds lighter than where I am. BUT once I reach that goal, I want to lose about 20 more pounds. I know that this seems kind of a far stretch, but I also don't plan on trying to lose all that weight in a month. I understand and accept the fact that it's probably going to take me at least a year, but I am proud to say that the 30 pound goal was originally 50, but I have lost 20 pounds since March. SO BAM!
It's also kind of nice because every other Saturday my friend Sam and I are going to do a 5 mile walk and talk about life, and at the same time, every other Sunday my friend Jessica and I are going to do something similar. So some of my cardio days are already planned, which is extremely satisfying.
But that's just about all I have for you guys today. Have a great one (:
With love,
Summer xoxo

Body Peace

I have a little story for all my followers. Note: all of this happened today (June 18, 2014) sometime in the evening and is all completely true.

I have always suffered from low self-esteem and self-confidence, but today I experienced something I have never experienced before.

I was laying in bed, watching a Rooster Teeth YouTube video, when for some odd, explainable reason I started thinking about what I looked like when I lounge around my room. My cell phone happened to be sitting right next to me, so I decided to turn the front facing camera on and snap a couple of pictures of myself from the side and from above, just so I could see what I looked like. When I saw the pictures, I was pretty much dumbfounded. What I saw was the exact opposite of what I had always thought I had looked like. I actually felt kind of skinny for once in my life. At that moment, I also realized that that was how I was seeing myself in the pictures, was how my boyfriend saw me, I could just never see it until today. I am so happy that I can finally see what he sees. It was a wonderful feeling.

Whenever him and I are cuddling, he always drapes his arm over my side and pulls me close to him. He knows that I absolutely love to be that close to him but, every single time he has done this I have said some comment to him about not wanting him to touch my 'fatty' areas. I would then start to move his arm and he would do one of two things: 1) he would pull away from me and just not say anything at all, or 2) I would move his arms higher up, closer to my chest, so that he was not touching my stomach. I never really thought anything of it, but this last time it happened (which just so happened to be a couple of days ago) he actually responded to me. He said that he did not think I was fat. That he wished I would stop moving his arm. That he wished I would just let him hold me. That he loves me for me and that he didn't care if he was touching my 'fatty' areas, because as far as he could see, there was no fat. It makes me so happy that I can see this now. I can not wait until the next time I see him so I can tell him all of this, and so I can finally cuddle into him and not care what area of my body he is touching.

This experience has made me realize something else as well though. It has helped me realize that other people are more than likely going through the exact same thing I was, and still am to a point. In all honesty, all I can say to try and help someone else is love yourself. Don't listen to what others say about you, because they don't know your story. Their opinions shouldn't matter to you, what so ever. 

As soon as you stop caring about what everyone else thinks, I promise that you will be a happier person. It makes me so sad to see young girls starve

themselves to try and make themselves skinnier, especially when they are obviously already at a healthy weight. This really hits home for me on another level though. One of my younger cousins is going to start high school in the fall, and one of the main things I learned what I went to high school was the fact that people can be cruel. There will always be the cruel popular girls that make fun of not as developed or over-weight girls and the boys that are equally as bad, if not worse. 

I don't want my cousins to ever feel this way, and I know that I can't prevent it from happening, but I always make it a point to tell the women and girls close to me that they look pretty, beautiful, or gorgeous whenever I feel it necessary. I have a few friends that say these things to me, and I never really believed them, but I think I am going to start. The thing that helps me the most though, is when my boyfriend tells me this. My favorite moment with him rose my self-esteem to its highest level. I had just woken up, my make-up was smeared and my hair was a curly mess and when I rolled over, I saw him gazing at me. I giggled and asked him what he was doing. He responded by telling me that he was admiring me, and that I was as gorgeous as ever. I could feel myself turn a deep shade of red as I turned away from me exclaiming that I wasn't, but he reassured me. It was the best feeling in the entire world. 

I'm sorry for such a long post, especially with so many pictures, but I really wanted to post something on this topic while it was so fresh in my mind. I hope all of you guys have a fantastic night.

Love you all.

Summer xoxo