Tag: Fat Person

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General Weight Loss Tips

Weekly Weigh-Ins Start Today

 

teaplease Weekly Weigh Ins Start Today

Caramel and vanilla Bigelow tea to the rescue! This is exactly what I needed last night. And my favorite quilt too.

Around 10:30 I was starving. That’s what happens when I eat dinner at 4:30. Six hours later, I’m getting close to bedtime, but my stomach is growling. I settled on two graham crackers, eaten pretty slowly. They tasted really sweet to me, and I think it’s because I haven’t been eating real sweets lately. I can remember thinking in a not too distant past that they weren’t sweet and adding peanut butter. I also had a clementine and more water before bed.

weeklyweighin2 12 121 Weekly Weigh Ins Start Today

So here it is! I’m reintroducing weekly weigh-ins to the blog.  I need the structure of a weekly weigh-in and the accountability of posting it publicly. I’ve been losing and regaining the same weight for way too long now and I’m just way over that. I’m so over being fat. Not that I was ever for it, I’m just done justifying it and making excuses.  Done convincing myself that I don’t look that fat. That I can pull it off.  Done convincing myself that I eat well for a fat person. And all of the millions of other rationalizations I’ve come up with to make being this big okay. Done. Done. Done. You can follow these updates on the left-hand sidebar.

turkeysandwich Weekly Weigh Ins Start Today

This morning I had a turkey sandwich. Nitrate/filler/antibiotic-free turkey with organic mixed greens on oatmeal bread.

Weigh-in: Is it obnoxious or helpful to mention when my food is local/organic/nitrate etc. free? I don’t always mention it and I’m not at all trying to say bacon is health food because I’ve found a healthier alternative. Eating this way is important to me and I like to share when I make that choice. I’m not perfect, just always trying to be a little better. What do you think?

Today I’m going to do another resistance band workout and do some jabs and punching for exercise. I imagine it will be a good two weeks (if not longer) before my knee is fully recovered. I’m seriously thinking about making a morning trip to the indoor pool with Josh on Valentine’s Day.

51TBH6Q4ZPL. SL500 AA300 Weekly Weigh Ins Start Today

And now I’m hungry again. Time for lunch, what are you having?

 

Fun and Interesting Stuff:

California Chef Forages a Feast (I would love to learn how to do this without poisoning myself)

Peanut Butter Qunioa Cookies (going to try these this week!)

This dress is making me crave warmer weather (and brown leather sandals!)

Guess what? Me and my mom are going to BlogHer this year in NYC. Are you going!?

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Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Dole Health Summit Recap: Part One

Sitting down to write this post is daunting. Mainly because there is so much to cover and much to still think about. So my solution is to break it up into little pieces and go from there.

A couple of months ago I got an email from a PR firm representing Dole asking me to join other bloggers in California for a summit. They covered the airfare, hotel costs at the Four Seasons in Westlake Village, transportation and the food during my stay. It was hard to say no.

To start, I’m still not 100% sure why I was invited. I’m not a full-time blogger, nor am I a “popular blogger”, not sure what that means, but I’m no KERF, right? To be frank, I struggle with blogging. There were ladies at the summit who were blogging the entire time. Tweeting, facebooking, networking, linking, and did I mention blogging? They were on top of their blogging game.  I just kept looking around thinking “I’m at Dole! I’m in California! oooh this food is good! wow,  I’m learning so much! palm trees!”

Not to mention the elephant in the room. Pun intended, I can’t help myself. The thing is, if you look at the roster of bloggers, and the group photo. You’ll notice the obvious… I was the only fat person there.  I couldn’t help but sing “one of these things is not like the other”. For the most part, I was okay with this. But, I’d be lying if I said I was super confident about it either.  Before I even stepped foot on the first plane to California I did a lot of self talk. Some of it was purely indulgent to make myself feel better. Here’s what it sounded like in my head: They want you to go for exactly who you are now, you are providing a different perspective, you’re representing other Americans who struggle with binge eating, you are on a journey, you can do this!

At one point I almost asked for a refund and high tailed it home when I found out our first flight was cancelled.  I was uncomfortable. A lot was out of my control and I was vulnerable. If Josh hadn’t been there to convince me to keep going, I probably would have chickened out.

When we arrived in California 16 hours later, I didn’t care that I was sleep deprived and looking like a hot mess, I was in California. Once I stepped foot into the king suite at the Four Seasons, nothing else mattered. Awkward encounters and ugly duckling feelings be damned, there was a TV in the bathroom and a soaking tub, not to mention l’occitane soaps and shampoo. I was in heaven.

Because I arrived a few hours later than expected, I missed the cocktail hour and the Thanksgiving food challenge. But, I was just in time for the first Dole meal and it was incredible. We started with a creamy asparagus soup before we were lead to the buffet filled with fig salad, fish, turkey, cauliflower gratin, and the star of the show: roasted yams with bananas.  Everything was savory and flavorful, yet healthy and light. They even gave us recipes for the dishes served to recreate a home.

Enjoying a cup of banana soft serve- my favorite!

I ended up sitting with those working for and with Dole. Their PR team and marketers. I’m not sure how this happened, but it strangely put me at ease. I felt 12 again, hanging out with the parents on a 6th grade field trip. I  chatted with Marty Ordman, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Donna Skidmore,  Director, Consumer Services and Michael, who works for Dole, but I cannot remember his last name or title. Amanda Notarangelo who does PR for Dole with Gibraltar Associates in DC was also at our table . We were ooh and aahing over the food when I had to go and ruin it with a question about local food and farming, GMOs (which I was told they don’t use) and pesticides sprayed on fruits and vegetables. I kicked myself immediately for asking during dinner, but it just came out. I thought for sure I was going to have to sleep outside of the Four Seasons that night. But, they took it in stride, apparently these were frequent, yet valid questions. They explained that they support and encourage local farming, they support people eating more fruits and vegetables regardless of where it comes from. And that they are always working on new ways to work with local farmers with their projects such as the salad bars they sponsor in public schools. But I learned something else.

Not everyone is as lucky as I am. I live in a town where local food is prevalent, abundant and affordable. This is not normal for small-town America. For example, on my way home this evening I stopped at a locally owned grocer and bought a big bag of local and organic mixed salad greens for $3, organic/fair trade bananas for about $4, and a few other produce items that were either local or organic, if not both. I even got a zucchini for free because it was a little soft. My total was $37 and the food will last till the end of the week. Not to mention that I was about 2 miles from my house.

But there are people in our country, children, who have never had fresh fruit or vegetables. There are a lot of mouths to feed in the world and I’m not sure that small farmers could keep up with the demand. I don’t have a major point or opinion other than, it’s easy to throw our hands up and talk about how screwed up the system is. It is. But, it’s complex. Dole is trying to make bananas affordable and look as cool as soda or twinkies. I can get behind that. I’m trying to get to a point where I’m not becoming narrow from my assumed opinions of the food industry. I think sometimes we want an easy answer, and there isn’t always one. There are better answers and solutions, but I appreciate that they are taking public opinion seriously. I appreciate that they took the time to answer the harder questions, because I wasn’t the only one asking.

I took some time to research Dole before I went on this trip and found the documentary “Bananas!” enlightening and heartbreaking. I also found out that Dole launched www.doleorganics.com in 2007  in response to demand from consumers who increasingly want specific information relative to the farms where the Dole organic bananas are grown or purchased from growers (referenced from www.non-gmoreport.com) You can also read about Dole, Monsanto and GMOs here.

Next up: Part Two, Dole food testing, the other bloggers and much more!

Here are a few recaps from some of the bloggers who attended.

Meals and Miles: Dole’s Test Kitchen, A Cooking Challenge

Run Eat Repeat: Double Dole Day, Dole Healthy Lifestyle Blogger Summit

Cranky Fitness: An Unusually Frank Blog Update

Iowa Girl Eats: Healthified Meat and Potatoes Meal

CarrotsNCake: Dinner At Onyx, Sunrise Run + New Dole Products, Dole’s Healthy Lifestyle Blogger Summit, It’s Over Already

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Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

It’s Time

I gave myself three weeks to get over not eating sugar by allowing myself to eat pretty much what I want in the amount that I wanted. What did I discover? I can still eat a lot of calories even when sugar isn’t involved. But I already knew that and I bet you did too.

What else? white bread + real butter is crack. For real, I love bread with butter, just as much as I love a good brownie- if not more. I think.

So while I love that I’m not eating sugar, not eating it alone won’t tackle this excess weight. And that is kind of the point. I’ve been having serious conversations with myself lately in the form of:

  • How am I going to lose this weight?
  • What am I willing to sacrifice/change in order to make it happen?
  • Am I ready? (thanks to Roni for that one)
  • Why is weight my struggle?
  • And finally: WHY do I want to lose weight?

A lot of you comment/email me and mention how honest and candid I am, and I really try to keep that in my blog. I try to be as real and as honest with what I’m dealing with as possible (without totally embarrassing myself or my family) and I want to be more of that. Why?

Because I think there is a certain level of denial that goes into being a fat person. There are things I tell myself to make it okay. And why shouldn’t I? I have to function in this world, and to constantly be “woah is me” about my weight can be a waste of time. Besides, who wants to hear it? I’ve realized that few people in life care as much about my weight as I do.

I make an effort in my real life to not put myself down about my weight. I don’t play the “I’m so fat” “I have no willpower” “I’ll never be thin” “I’m off the wagon–again” card with anyone. I used to, in college, but I’m too old for that now. Nor do I praise those who seem to be effortlessly thin.

I say this all to say: denial is a big word. It’s huge, and it means something different to everyone. So I’m asking myself lately to really dig deep:

What am I telling myself to make this lifestyle okay?

How do I justify sabotage?

How do I explain eating four thousand calories in a day?

I don’t have immediate, easy, or uncomplicated answers for these questions. I’m not even sure there is one answer to them. What I do know is this: I sabotage myself out of fear. Fear of greatness. Fear of accomplishment. Fear of what other people will think. Fear that bad things will happen once I lose weight.

Illogical fear, that right now, I cannot explain. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George says to his therapist :”God would never let me be successful; he’d kill me first. He’d never let me be happy.” Therapist: “I thought you didn’t believe in God?” George: “I do for the bad things.” It’s as crazy as that. For some reason I believe that I’m not worth caring for myself on that level. And as I type this, I know that is very silly and in my case George’s God would be me.

This is what I came up with:

How am I going to lose my excess weight? According to those often debated BMI charts I need to weigh somewhere between 108-145 lbs. The 108 made me laugh. I have no interest in weighing 108 lbs. I haven’t weighed that since I was in 4th grade. This means that I need to lose 160 pounds to be in a normal weight range for my body.

And according to the basal metabolic calculators I need to eat (at my current weight) about 1,700 calories a day with 5-6 days of exercise a week to lose a minimum of two pounds a week. And those are the mathematics of it all. I’ve discussed this here before.

But how do I make this happen? The answer leads me to…

What am I willing to sacrifice/change in order to lose weight? This is a good question and one that I’ve avoided answering for a long time. Making my weight loss a priority rather than an option is one mental shift I need to change. I want to lose weight, that is a given, but I’m not willing to do it by eating foods I don’t love, that is also a given. But what I have to understand and implement in my life is that I don’t need so much food to be a healthy, functioning adult. I don’t have to eat 100 calorie packs of popcorn for lunch to be thin. I don’t have to skip meals, drink diet soda, eat frozen meals or drink meal replacement shakes to lose weight.

But I do have to plan. I do have to be prepared. I do have to compromise and stop believing that I deserve to eat so much food instead of feeling pain. That is something that I need to come to terms with.

My next answer touches on the Am I ready? question. Am I ready to plan my meals out the day before? Am I ready to stop bringing trigger foods into the house? Am I ready to make dinner even if it’s easier to order pizza? Am I ready to take care of myself on days when it’s hard to get out of bed? Am I ready to choose the smaller portion? Am I ready not to give in to any desire to overeat? Am I ready to take the time to count calories? Am I ready to keep a journal? Am I ready to become a healthier person? Am I ready to believe I deserve to become this person? Am I ready to exercise even when I’m tired or too busy?

Up until now…I don’t think I was ready. I know I wasn’t ready, or I’d be there. I would have done this. I wanted it to be easy. I wanted to eat whatever I wanted in the amounts that I wanted and still be thin. I wanted to make few changes if any at all. I wanted to rely on a diet or a program to change me. I wanted to just buy the book, or the exercise dvd or the gym membership. I wanted the results, but I did not want to change my actions the get them.

Why do I want to lose 160+ pounds?

I truly, truly want to know what it’s like not to be fat. Not to feel overweight, not to squeeze my thighs into chairs. I want to know what it feels like to make this happen.

I want to be accepted into a health care plan. Right now, I would be denied and I couldn’t afford it. I’ve tried.

I want to get pregnant and not be fearful. I don’t want to be fat and pregnant. I don’t want to worry about a c-section, or being a high risk pregnancy. I don’t want to be exposed on the table in front of people at this weight. The thought is absolutely terrifying.

I want to be a better wife. My husband deserves a healthy wife- long term. He deserves to not worry about me having a stroke, cancer or heart attack when I’m in my 50’s.

I want to be able to run for three miles without having to stop and walk. Or having my feet go numb.

I want to go to the doctor and not have the weight talk. I want to go to the doctor and not have everything be about my weight. Like the time I had an ingrown toenail and the nurse practitioner was convinced it was because I was pre-diabetic. I wasn’t, I just needed the toenail removed.

So there you have it. I’ll be back tomorrow. It’s time to make this happen…