February has been a real shitty month for our family. Within two weeks, we lost my grandmother and my uncle. They were two of the most loving people I’ve ever had the fortune to run into. It’s difficult to lost people who taught you how to be you. The shock of the whole month is starting to wear off and we are left with our thoughts and memories of these two beautiful souls. I will miss them more than I can say.

This was the family on my mother’s side so a road trip to West Virginia was in order for my grandma’s funeral. The problem with long driving trips is it is next to impossible to eat healthy, especially on a time crunch. There is no salad eating in the car for the most part.

Between eating badly on the road and just overall grieving, I have lost any gains that I had made since the New Year. I had lost about 7 pounds in the first 5 weeks of the year. When I jumped on the scale yesterday, I was back to my original weight – the most I’ve ever weighed in my life. Why does it have to be so easy to put back on weight when it’s so hard to lose it?!

It’s important to stop the yo-yo of weight loss/gain. I’m not real sure where to begin, but I did join a 52 week weight loss group at work through my insurance company. Having those supports should help. My goals are to get under 250 by the time Summer is over. That’s 30 pounds in  5 months. It’s doable. I have intentions to exercise 3-4 days a week. I already eat pretty healthy, but cutting out rice and pastas will be a challenge.

Mrs. Optimist is in the midst of a biggest loser type competition at her work so we’ll be doing this together, which is nice to have a partner. I have faith in us and think we’ll be able to get back in some sort of shape together.

The blog will also be updated more regularly (it’s been exactly 2 months – too long!) and it’s about time for our 2nd annual March Madness brackets. Theme and play-in games will be revealed on my Facebook and Twitter soon! It should be a lot of fun again.