balance

What a lovely weekend. My friends took me to an amazing French restaurant called Clementine. All the waiters spoke French, and the chef (French) came around and greeted us. The atmosphere was just like a Parisian restaurant, the kind far removed from the touristy ones near St. Michel. It was so tasty.

I spent the night at their house since it was pretty late, and I did have wine with my dinner. We watched Dan In Real Life. Pretty decent. I love those Steve Carell moments where everything he does makes you cringe. He's so good at that. I have those moments a lot.

Next day, we ate breakfast at Eats on Clement. Another tasty meal. Sometimes I wished I lived in the city so that I can enjoy all these things. Living in the outskirts makes it hard for me to go out, especially when I LOVE my apartment. It faces a golf course, so I feel like I'm in the woods or something.

Just this past week, my friend told me that she had a scare. She woke up with chest pains and her left arm was all tingly. She's better now, thank God, but it was quite a scare, and it really frightened me as well. I thought about my own health, and I've been battling my weight since grade school (I was borderline obese), but I've lost most of the weight senior year of high school through the first two years of college.

I gained weight since Paris (10 lbs.), and this scare just got me thinking that if I don't watch out, I can gain it all back. And I really want to be healthy, and I want to be fit, and I love how I feel when I'm all healthy, so I worked out for almost 2 hours yesterday--no joke. AND IT FELT SO GOOD!

I figured, I indulged all weekend with foie gras and yummy buttery things, but I need to balance it all out. I jogged on our treadmill on an incline. I NEVER jog, and I did weights on our balcony while facing the golf course, and it was so beautiful outside, and then I did some karate moves and stretched, and it was just the most amazing feeling in the world. I'll never forget it.

I'm so sore today, but I feel so good. Balance. Balance in my life. Exactly what I needed. I'm going to try and do this every other day. My goal is to reach my ultimate goal weight of 118 pounds (healthy for my 5 foot 1 in frame) by June 23--my birthday. I'm not aiming to be skinny, just healthy for my body size.

I can do this! And this time feels so different than all the other times I've tried to lose weight. It has a lot to do with Paris. When I was in Paris, I noticed that the women there are different in that they dressed up when they went out. You never saw a woman out in her pajamas and Ugg boots. And they all walked with a certain confidence. They loved their bodies and they flaunted the parts they loved about themselves. I was never really aware of that when I was in America. Seeing all these women of different shapes and sizes with total body confidence gave me confidence. I started wearing dresses and skirts and I stopped hiding what I thought were my flaws. It really opened my eyes.

This time it's going to be different. I want to be active and healthy, and I finally want to lose this weight.