I don't want my picture taken.

It's true. I don't like to have my picture taken. You know why? Because I don't want to see what I actually look like.

Don't I look at myself every day in the mirror, you ask? Well, of course. But when I'm doing my hair or brushing my teeth, I don't really look at myself. Usually I'm just trying to hurry up so I can get out of the door and on to something more important. And besides, what I actually see in the mirror and how I see myself in my mind don't really match up.

You know how anorexics see themselves in their mind differently than they actually are in real life? Well that's me, but...the opposite. Instead of thinking that I'm too fat, I actually think I look quite good which in truth is quite the opposite. Yes...quite.

In the deep parts of my brain I know this to be true. I know that I need to lose weight. I know I do. I know, I know, I know. I've even shared a little bit about this on here before. But my love of food and lack of desire to exercise don't help matters much.

So I struggle to find the motivation to change things. Most days I choose to ignore it. I work hard, I'm a full-time mom with a husband that travels a lot, I deserve to eat what I want, when I want. Right?

Not so much.

Yes, I realize that if I want to be healthy and not become gigantic then I cannot continue this current way of thinking. My mom is a petite flower, but the rest of the women on both sides of my family weren't so skinny-minny. I gotta be careful.

Like my grandmother for example. When you look at pictures of her when she was in her 20's she was beautiful and slender. She had a lovely figure. But by the time I knew her, by the time she became a Gan Gan, she wasn't so slender anymore. She was still beautiful, but she had a love of food that ran deep. It's one of the many wonder qualities that I inherited from her.

Yes even knowing my genetic heritage doesn't seem to motivate me, but something happened today that changed all that.

Now here comes the funny part (if there is such a thing when talking about a subject such as this.) I choose to share this here because frankly...I think it's funny. But as funny as it was, it was also a huge slap in the face. My 5 year-old didn't mean to, but today he became all of the motivation that I needed.

In my daily hurry to get the kids out the door and off to school, I was standing in my panties and a sports bra (because indeed I was planning to work out thank you!) and I was helping the Monkey brush his teeth. He suddenly realized that I was standing there in my underwear and turned to look at me. He then said the words that I will never, ever forget.

"Mom! You have a fat belly!"

You're laughing right now aren't you? It's okay. You can laugh because it's funny. It is. I even laughed when he said it, mostly because I couldn't believe what I had just heard, but still I laughed.

Need some motivation to start paying more attention to what you put in your mouth and how often and how hard your work out? I'll send the Monkey over. He'll tell you like it is.