My Life. In a Nutshell...

So every year I like to update this blog on who I am and who I have become. This is always fun for me to read later on and I will eventually publish/ print this blog for my family. This fight against obesity is the HARDEST trial I have had to overcome all by myself. I have had other struggles that were challenging, but I wasn't alone in them. THIS is a lonely battle. THIS can only be changed by ME. And so keeping an appropriate record of this battle of the fatties will be my legacy for my children. (Hopefully not my only legacy... but one for them to be proud of.)

So this is me... in the raw. As of September 2012.

I am 28 years old (awaiting my impending 29th birthday in a few short months). ACK! Next year will be my DIRTY 30! And by that, I of course mean some sort of food fight... right? ;)

My husband and I bought our first house this last November. It was a very LONG process... and I had hopes to paint all the walls and make it super duper trendy. 9 months later I am FINALLY finding things on swap sites for super cheap. YAY! Money is definitely not to be spent frivolously at this time in our lives. We have a mortgage now people! haha!

I ADORE my sister. She is my best friend. She is also my BIGGEST inspiration right now. She's the skinnier version of me on the LEFT... haha! :)

I think it is important to figure out what and who inspires us, and she does it for me. She started out in a not-so-different situation as I concerning her weight gain. But instead of letting it take over her life like I did... she took care of it. When ever I see her I feel renewed. I KNOW that I can look like that too! I mean- we do have the same genes and all! ;) HAHA!

When I reached my 25 pound loss I got a little bit of a makeover. I went from ghetto to fab in 4 hours! haha! Yeah... it took me 4 hours! ;) That's how much of a hot mess I was.

 ^2012

v2005

 My husband and I are having our 7 year anniversary in November. We have grown up so much in that time! Looking at both of these pictures kind of make me giggle. We look like such THUGS in the bottom one! Yeah... we were super fly. BAHAHA... Not so much.

I also reached my heaviest weight this year. 279 after Lyndi was born. This has DESTROYED what ever pride I have ever had in who I was. But I am working hard to get it off. I have hit a plateau and know all the jargon behind it but still need to find that inner strength to fight through it. I have it in me, I just NEED to find the energy.

Any suggestions? ;)

My favorite color is an olivey/ lime green. LOVE IT! Want to decorate my entire house in it! :)

I am a photographer. Mostly for hobby... but I am starting to move away from just being an artist into making a little ooh-la-la on the side. ;) (By that I, of course, mean money... what are you thinking crazy???)

And the biggest part of who I am right now is a SAHM of 3 cuddly, crazy and cute bug-a-boo's! I love them SO much. So much I want to rip all of my hair out... daily. So much we live practically destitute so that I can be home with them... daily. SO MUCH that I pray for them several times ... daily. I just can't imagine my life with out them, even if it is a difficult life right now. They can make me laugh like no one else. (They can also make me yell like no one else either! haha!)

But with those few little facts make up a whole lotta me. I love chocolate and hate whole grains. I love ice cream... and can settle for skinny cow. *And don't be fooled here... SKINNY COW IS PRETTY AMAZING! I just love me some nice creamy cream ice cream.*

And in closing I would like to re-explain my title. Not to you... but to me. Sometimes I get a little shy because it sounds a little narcissistic. I mean, doesn't it? "ISN'T SHE BEAUTIFUL?" I mean... REALLY? Couldn't I have chosen something a little LESS vain?

Well here's the thing. EVERY woman- young, old, and every one in between- needs to KNOW that she is beautiful. It doesn't matter the number on the scale. My number is 253 but as you just read you know that that isn't what makes me Nichole. Nikki. Babe. Goose. ;) There is so much to me then being the fat sister. I am outgoing and funny. I am also very hard to get close to. I have a love hate relationship with relationships. My best friends are that... They are MY BEST FRIENDS. They had to fight for that title. But THAT'S who I am. I am NOT the fat girl.

Every woman needs to find that INNER beauty and rejoice in it. We are AMAZING creatures. Seriously. A-MAZE-ING!  *Any thing that can endure the horrors of labor... and then endure the pain of breast feeding is freaking awesome. We are freaking awesome even if we don't breast feed. We are AWESOME because we have the choice to do what ever the heck we want.

We are amazing.

And we are beautiful.

And I need to keep my title the way it is... because I need to see it. Daily. For myself.

Because I am just like the rest of you... with just another 70 pounds to go before I am normal. And no, that doesn't make me the fat girl.

It makes me beautiful.

BECAUSE my friends. We are ALL beautiful... and freaking AMAZING!

Love Nikki

Starting Over...

Hello hello my dear readers. And so it has began... and I can hardly move my arms to type this due to HARDCORE working out! :) Yesterday my husband and I weighed in with some new freinds to start off a Spring weight-loss/ lifestyle change contest. Can I tell you a secret? I think I might have punched the scale. I mean... it had to be off right? There's NO WAY I'm back at where I started again. Just no way.

Well, alas it is the sad truth. I have to start over. I know some of you are probably thinking, "eh... no biggie, you know you can do it."

While other's are probably thinking, "YOU IDIOT! How could you do that to yourself again?!!!"

And then there are those who are with me in thinking, "HOLY CRAP BATMAN. I have to do THAT all over again??!" Boy am I in for a ride. *insert face palm here*

Last year I got down to 234.

Right now I'm at *cough* (I will divulge in a week... lets just say I AM starting over.)

And lets add that HOODIES are NOT my friend right now...

My husband is coming along for the ride this time too!

This makes me happy since I am the one that kept bringing home the junk for him

to eat right along with me. :( Poor guy!

 This is where I used to be:

But this is where I want to be (a little more rounded out and soft, just like

the hubs likes it! haha!)

And this is where Josh and I will be together at the end of this!:

I love my family. I adore my children. And I love my new home. With all of that I still fight the war against over-eating. I scoff at people who try to tell me how to fight it... when they have never been there themselves. It is a fight I will have for the rest of my life. But I want to have that life... and so I will sacrifice this year of yummy pleasure eating to a torment of hell in the gym and nasty tasting food that will kill the taste buds, so that my children will have a mom AND dad as they grow. (Whew! That was a terrible run-on sentence, wasn't it?)Because... aren't  my children worth it?

Wasn't she worth all the weight in the World?

...And aren't Josh and I worth it?

I would like to think so...

So come along for the ride because it is going to be a rough one full of silly moments and terrible disappointments. It will also be full of triumph and friendships that are tested...  and I can use ALL the encouragement that is out there.

Because aren't we all beautiful? 

It's Been... Awhile!

Hello hello everyone! Today I am 39 and 5 days pregnant! You know what that means, right? Baby Lyndi will be here ANY day now and I just wanted to leave a quick update about how I've been doing.

Well...

Not so great weight wise! But that's okay. I am not going to allow myself to feel guilty or to beat myself up over this pregnancy's weight gain. I am resigned to the fact that me and pregnancy are not friends and this has been a pretty intense year for me. So- weight gain was inevitable. The new question is... WHAT am I going to do about it now?

As soon as I have my baby girl and get cleared I am on a new mission. Same idea, just some new motivation.

I hope you all come back to help support me along the way, and I hope I can inspire any other new mommies to join me too! :)

Because remember... WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL! *Even if we are the size of a beached whale at nearly 10 months pregnant! haha!

Come and See...

I'm excited to announce I've been added to a blog archival page. :) Come check out my "description"! :)

http://www.addyourblog.com/health/Isn-t-She-Beautiful-l2241.html

Love Nichole

I've Got the Grumpy Blues...

Daniel Olsen LMT said...
Nikki, I want to put your results into perspective... The American College of Sports Medicine says it is healthy to lose 1 to 2 lbs a week. so far in your journey you are averaging on the high end at 1.9 lbs per week, and that includes your bad week. according to the original goal we set you are still ahead of where we first projected. Good work, I'm proud of your effors your hard work is paying off. if you need a little extra boost, convert your results into sticks of butter, for you that means you have lost 76 sticks of butter, AWESOME .

Everyone- meet my trainer. This is Daniel Olsen- licensed personal trainer, licensed massage therapist and certified physical therapy assistant. And if you haven't been following my blog let me just tell you that he has been AMAZING at helping me see my own potential. He's very optimistic and always helps point out all the good I've been doing when I feel especially sloppy.

To prove this I've decided to share an awesome comment he shared with me last week; and I felt since this is my second week in the DIE HOLE I thought I'd post it to perk myself up.

I've been going a little stir crazy since I haven't been able to go out and do my now regular routine. I talked to Dan about it and he actually told me that I need to take this week to feel better and rest my body. It makes sense, I probably would be on the stationary bike and wheeze myself into an oxygen deprived HORRIBLE death.

Just think of the poor old manager lady and how she would react to seeing a blue fat lady folded over in fetal position on the floor. I guess I wouln't want to start some chain reaction or anything.

So here I sit contemplating how to get over these grumpy blues and enjoy my time off. I've done some crafts, and watched a LOT of movies ... but what I most look forward to? A massage! Tomorrow at 5 pm. Dan will massage my neck since a lot of my headaches are tension and stress related. And as pricing comes he's very comparable and competitive! I must say I've lucked out in finding a great trainer and friends out of his wife and himself. Thanks guys!

So the plan for the rest of this week is to cut out most carbs during lunch and in the evening and add in fruit- LOTS AND LOTS of fruit! Yumm... this will be add more calories but I'll also be upping my protien intake a little so the fruit should help my body absorb the protein. (I may have misunderstood this...)

I've also been concerned about my muscles. I've worked hard at building muscle and would be devastated if all of sudden they got all soft because of this illness. Dan also said that as long as I'm eating regularily and sticking to my meal plan I should be able to bounce back and hit the "track" in perfect condition.

Here's to praying!

And So It Begins ...

My name is Nichole Gaertner and I have a long journey ahead of
me. I started out as an average every day girl who lived an average every day life. Of course I went through all the struggles a young teenage girl goes through, and yes that includes a slight eating disorder. Through out my life, however I have managed to go from starving myself to eating myself into a happy oblivion. Or so I thought at the time. Needless to say I started this "adventure" at 100 pounds over-weight.

If you've read my regular family blog, then you may already know what I am going to say (I promise I didn't copy and paste it ALL! LOL!) ... if not- then enjoy!

In the last five years of my life I have gone through many life- changing experiences, all of which left me emotionally vulnerable to a point. A long-term relationship of mine was ended dramatically, I met and married the love of my life in the six months that followed. My parent's moved to Idaho and I was all of a sudden in Ellensburg, alone with a husband that I still had to get to know. I started my junior year of college, my best friend's father died, I had a falling out with my best friend, got pregnant, had a baby, got pregnant again and had a miscarriage, reconciled with best friend, moved to Seattle, finally graduated CWU, and then had another baby. Talk about stress!!! HAHA! Needless to say I'm an emotional eater.

Now none of these life changes are so drastic, and in fact my life probably resembles that of many other young wives and mothers. I just didn't cope correctly. And that, my friends, is what this new found goal of mine is really all about so that someday I may be healthy enough to play with my distant-future grandchildren!

This blog is going to follow my struggles and achievments as I progress through this life altering change that I have decided to take on with full force. With the help of Dan Olsen as my personal trainer, and his wife Rachel as my work-out support system and confident I will hopefully end this blog at my goal weight of 169 pounds and 20% fat. I know this won't be an easy task, especially since I have had three pregnancies and two births in under two years ... but I just have to do it. My husband Josh and the rest of my family have all also decided to join me in making healthier life-style choices as well, which makes me feel blessed to have them all a part of my life.

I hope you follow along, and I hope you root for me as I make this change. I also hope you find the strength and enough encouragement to make yourself your own beautiful self as well.

The first step of this journey, though, is to recognize that no matter what- YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

Love Nichole