{Looking Ahead}

Hello Everyone!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your families. I was so happy to spend quality time with my loved ones. You cannot ask for a better gift than that!

I have a lot coming up and I am planning everything out so I can accomplish all of my goals for 2012. I will be spending 18 weeks for my spring semester student teaching in a second grade classroom. That is going to be my #1 priority. I am really looking forward to learning from my cooperating teacher and touching the lives of children every day. I am hoping after I graduate I can find a job teaching summer school right away, and then look at a full time teaching job for the upcoming school year.

It has been going back and fourth in my mind about competing again. I know how much I love doing it, and the feelings it brings to me are unexplainable. I had just been given some recent news late last week that I have Celiac disease which means I cannot have gluten anymore. For those of you who are not familar with it, there are a lot of foods that contain gluten in it (the doctor gave me a nice 5 page list of DO NOT EAT). My body has a difficult time digesting it and it makes me feel sick. When I got this news I was sad because I only looked at the negative aspects. I just thought about all of the foods I could not eat. I looked around the kitchen and knew I was not going to be able to enjoy any of the delicious holiday treats my mom made, or the Christmas dinner at my grandparents. On Christmas day I  packed up my chicken, green beans, and sweet potatoes so as my family enjoyed the delicious meal prepared for the holiday, I was going to have to eat what I brought because I knew it was safe. We live in a society today where so much of our lives are based around food and eating. I know I continue to face challenges with it every day, but if I continue to plan my meals ahead like I have learned to, I will be just fine.

I then thought about the positives about making this permanent lifestyle change. I am going to feel a lot better, and I am going to be making better choices for my body. A lot of the foods I am allowed to eat are similar to the way I eat when I am getting ready for a show. Since I will really have any temptations when dieting because my body will no longer let me eat those foods anyway, I thought how hard can it really be? I know they make a lot of gluten-free products but I am probably not going to tempt myself with those for the time being.

Everything happens for a reason, and God gives you obstacles to test your strength.This is just a little bump in the road, and if anything it should push me a little further in the right direction to meet my fitness goals since I have one less disraction.

Keep pushing forward. Write down your goals, and make yourself accountable for every single one. If you truly want something, you will make it happen!<3 SJ