8/27/2009

c25k graduation day.



last night, i graduated c25k.

on my final c25k-run, i walked 500m each during warm-up and cool-down and actually ran a full 5k. which was hard, but enjoyable, and awesome. when i started this, it didn't seem possible that i'd be running for 30 minutes, without stopping. and actually crank up the speed while doing so.

it was still on a treadmill, though. and the thought of having to replicate that on a road in two weeks and two days scares the shit out of me. i'll go for my first road run on saturday morning, in lugano. or so i hope. r. thinks, i won't do it (we're camping, and partying and all). which makes me want to prove him wrong. i actually reckon he said that just to motivate me. :) after my run, i'll get to swim naked in the lake. could i ask for a better premiere? not really.

i can't believe that i've done this, that i finally completed this running programme. and that i enjoy running now. and that my life is so different to what it was two months, six months, a year, two years ago.

i love my new self.

i'll keep on running. and i'll miss robert ullrey. thanks so much, robert. your podcasts have changed my life. no kidding.

8/26/2009

pouring.

my mom's in the hospital. she's been there since saturday, which i didn't find out because my mobile was turned off. remember: we had argued all week, and i wanted to let things cool down a bit before being in touch again. bad timing on my part, that.

found out yesterday morning, when she called me at work to tell me. she's been hospitalised for cardiac arrhythmia, and was in the icu for two days. her docs are kinda using a medicate and wait-tactic right now, she's on bisoplolol and they're observing what's happening. no talk of shocking or giving her a pace maker as of yet. still awful. everything.

i'm scared for her, and feel terribly guilty. because she has - of course - given me that 'our fight has been stressing me out so much"-talk and again urged me to visit, which i can't possibly do before october. unless i ditch all my holiday plans, which i don't feel like doing.

[and i am also really happy that i am looking after my health these days and working out and running and eating well.]

duh.

and something else has been worrying me since this morning (and i am all concerned that this will be the foreshadow-y blog entry i'll re-read for the rest of my life): there's a strange little sore in my mouth at the very back of my jaw, right next to my right molar. as i was eating dinner last night, it suddenly felt like i had logged some food right behind my molar. unsuccessfully tried to get rid of whatever was there with various dental tools last night. it was so annoying, that i asked r. for help, but there was nothing he could do and he was like "it looks like you've got some weird little growth there". well.

that annoying feeling of having something stuck behind my tooth persisted this morning, so i called my dentist, who saw me just a few hours ago. and there's nothing stuck. what's annoying me is a sore. he showed it to me and it's kinda plaque-y and white, and he put some medication on it that's supposed to get rid of it, and he told me that if it wasn't better in two days, i'd need to come back in for a biopsy. "in young patients like you, we really want to check these kinds of things out."

uh.

guess what? it's not a good idea to google "oral cancer symptoms", when you've got a mystery sore in your mouth that your dentist wants to biopsy. and whatever is hanging out there is making me a wee bit uncomfy, and some lymph nodes on that side of my jaw are swollen, too.

it's probably nothing, i know. but still.

if this thing is not better by tomorrow night, i'll have my dentist check it out again on friday morning before we head to switzerland.

8/24/2009

hey, you. [#1]

you bought that crunchy muesli to eat it - a tablespoon at a time - in your yoghurt as a healthy snack during the workday. not to munch on entire bowls of dry, healthy, but kinda fatty, cereal while working.

put the remaing cereal in the office kitchen. have it in your yoghurt. and don't buy it again.

8/23/2009

hell, yeah!

66,6kg


66,6kg, as of this morning. ha!

this is not just a appealingly hellish number, it's also a nice non-metric milestone for me: 50lb lost. one super big carp! boo yeah!

had a lovely couply weekend with the bf: we had a full blown homemade pizza orgy saturday night (thanks to jamie olivers pizza dough recipe, our homegrown tomatos and buffalo mozzarella from the italian supermarket), hung out (ahem) in bed till mid-afternoon today, had lunchy breakfast on the balcony, rode our bikes to a nearby lake and went skinny dipping (first time this summer) and finally bbqed on the balcony and watched our usual sunday night crime show (the only tv we ever watch).

in addition, i had a great work out on saturday morning, ran my first week 9 run (30 minutes, yeah!) and bought four bpa-free nalgene bottles so that i can get rid of bottled water at home and at work. and today, i also did four loads of laundry, finished a book and read the sunday paper. and worked on my tan.

life's full and awesome and i am so very very happy. oh yes.

right now, however, i'm struggling with a bit of sunday-night-dread. this week is going to be crazy, work-wise, and i still need to sort out that conflict with my mom. but the week will be over oh-so-very-soon: thursday night, my pal s. will be in town from munich, which is super-awesome. we only met a few months ago, and i have a total friend-crush on her, and it's fab we get to spend some face time together instead of just plotting stuff via email. on friday morning, the bf and our crew will be heading off to lugano for a long weekend and another tattoo convention. have never been in the italian part of switzerland, and can't wait, really. we'll be staying with friends right at the lake, so there will be more skinny-dipping before the summer is over. oh yes.

so this week - even if it will be busy - will rock. only four days of work, i'll work out on monday and wednesday, will graduate c25k, hang out with s. and go to switzerland.

i'm so very lucky.

narcissistic pre-work out-photo.

narcisstic pre-work out-shot.

without make-up but with pulled in abs. still pretty awesome, methinks.

8/22/2009

we feed the world.

last night, the bf and i watched we feed the world with the kids. it was long overdue, we'd both wanted to see it ever since it came out.



i thought i was already all disillusioned about the food industry. i've been a vegetarian (and at times leaning towards veganism) for the past six years, and buy lots of organic, locally grown food because of how horrible the food industry is. but that movie had me crying, yet again, over tons of discarded bread, veggies planted by immigrants in spain, chicken slaughtering machines and the diabolic man who runs nestlé. i'd seen it all before, yet the movie was a total kick in the gut. using violence as a political force seems kinda reasonable to me right now, at least as long as it's against nestlé, monsanto and friends.

plus side: i think the movie freaked the bf's 18-year old son and his galpal out so much, that they are permanently turned off maccas. that'd be awesome.

the bf and i are now trying to come up with ways of turning our anger into action. for starters, i'll get rid of the bottled water that i drink at work and avoid nestlé as much as possible. the bf will get rid of his nestlé water cooler at the shop, and together, we'll make an effort go even more local and organic with our shopping than we already are. maybe it's time to get a veggie subscription from a local farm?

8/21/2009

self-love vs.self-hate.

just realised when re-reading my earlier post, that i sounded a wee bit hateful there. i am not though. not at all. if at all, my weight gain was all about misunderstood self-love.

i gained weight, because (subconciously, obviously) food instantly,if only temporarily, healed my various hurts and pains. i thought i deserved all that food. i thought i was pampering myself there. loving myself. all those sweet and creamy foods that i longed for and always gave myself, were an expression of love for and care to myself. it felt good to eat entire packages of chocolate chips, at least for a while. i felt entitled to eat cheesy lasagne and cheese covered bread rolls and to double my fave brownie recipe because i knew i'd be eating most of them anyway. i was taking care of myself with food, when no one else seemed to be loving or caring for me.

it's not something i discovered in my late twenties, obviously. i had -like so many women, i guess - been medicating with food for much of my teenage life. i remember days in high school (a new, scary high school, where i knew no one), when i would come home from school and cook and eat half a litre of vanilla pudding in an afternoon. later, there were months when i would eat entire packs of semolina pudding for babies, or countless toasts with nutella. always the warm, sweet, soothing stuff. i'd hide my binges, obviously. and when i moved to uni, without any clue as to how to feed myself, it just got worse. fast forward ten years (and past some bouts of overexercising), superunhappy and in a crappy relationship, i was still eating crappily and still making myself feel better with food. until i pulled the plug, that is, spring last year.

this whole 'medicating with food'-thing sounds so damn simple, and so stupid, but i was that wrong. i wish i was kidding. it sounds so cliched, but i started to lose the weight when i realised that what was going on was hurting me, that i was unhappy and unhealthy.

it's not much better than hate, and quite paradox, too, but i actually feel sorry for and about my former self. i am sorry that i let that happen to her, i am sorry she had to go through this.

in any way: i might hate the photo of the fat girl. but i don't hate her. never have, never will.

the before shot.

in order to drag myself out of that hole i've been hanging out in all week, i tried to find what i consider to be my most accurate before photo. and here it is.



it was taken at my brothers wedding in mid-may 2008. so it's not quite a true 'before', as i'd been on weight watchers for two weeks by then and had already lost like 2kg or so. but damn. i hate this photo so much.

you know why? because it's a good photo, taken by a professional photographer. i look *good* but - well, fat. because i was fat. obviously.

i'd never realised that, back then. not even when i'd joined weight watchers and stepped on the scale for the first time in months, two weeks prior. it took this photo to make me fully get it. previously, when i'd seen unflattering i.e. fat looking photos of myself, i'd deleted them, telling myself, that they'd just been taken at a bad angle. there were lots of bad angles of me.

this is not one of those unflattering photos: this is a very flattering picture of me, at 87kg. i look pretty, here, well dressed, even, but damn, i was not just overweight: i was obese, at least by nhi standards. my bmi was 32.

i guess i just never looked at myself, for real. i looked in the mirror and saw a reasonably healthy sized person. i know some people insist that they are healthy at this kind of size, i however, wasn't healthy. i had untreated hypothyroidism, my cholesterol sucked, my blood pressure did as well, i was always tired and i got out of breath from walking stairs.

that's a size 44 (16) dress, that i am wearing, btw, and it took days to find (i cried several times during the dress shopping) and it is bursting at the seams. i actually tore off one of the belt hooks that day, through sitting down on a chair. i hated the fact that my boobs were spilling out of the dress and i actually had to have the top of the dress sewed together, to minimize boob spillage (these days, i actually miss those boobs, a tiny little bit). i got lots of pretty horrible comments from my mother about my boobs and my weight that day.

anyway. days long gone. contrast and compare with these shots, from a friends wedding on august 1st.



that's much better, isn't it?

in actual (har! har!) news, this morning, the scale showed 67,2kg. my goal, btw: 65kg by my 5k race on september 13. totally do-able, me thinks.

[very odd: i keep typing 77kg instead of 67kg. as if my mind hasn't realised that those days are over.]

8/20/2009

proxy freak-out.

well. that was a wee bit ridiculous, wasn't it?

a day of healthy, within-points eating and three hours of sweating at the gym later (including my week 8, run 3, 30 minutes inside the hypoxy treadmill and a compliment by one of the reception girls, who said that she was impressed by how much weight i'd lost since i joined back in june), and i'm done with my freak-out.

i'm just a wee bit stressed right now: the next few weeks at work before i head off to the south of france are going to be superbusy (colleagues on holiday, new interns, big projects), there's another road trip coming up the weekend after next, we've got houseguests again and my mother is stressing me out quite gloriously right now, too. things have been stressful with my parents for almost a year (haven't visited them since them - 600km away - which they are upset about), and i need to take care of our relationship but just don't feel like doing that right now. not dealing with it and trying to ignore it, however, is not making me any happier though. in addition, i haven't been talking about it with the boyfriend (just not enough time in the evenings, i guess, also upsetting and hence ruining our precious time together), and trying to work this out by myself is obviously not working and just not healthy. kinda like what i did in every relationship so far. need to ask for his input and help.

anyway. i was stressed out about all of this the whole time, and about being sick last week, and whatnot, and instead of freaking out about both of that, i freaked out about that stupid number on the scale. not good.

in any way, my body's feeling a lot better, and i'll start sorting through that other mess on my lunch break today to make my mind feel better as well. and call my mom tonight, even though i don't want to.

8/19/2009

fuck you, scale.

68,3kg this morning.

[if the boyfriend hadn't had a vasectomy, i'd totally be buying pregnancy tests now, mysterious weight gain around cd70! weeh!]

however: yesterday, i stayed within my points, and saved some, didn't have any bread and slept a nice solid 8 hours. so that's all good. today, i'll get off work by 5pm (worked till 9:30 last night, very much deserve to go home early), and work out. should be interesting. it's supposed to get to 34°c this arvo. fun!

also: i should probably not weigh myself every day. it is, quite obviously, driving me kinda crazy.

8/18/2009

weigh-in woes.

last sunday, the scale showed 67,1kg. yesterday it was 67,5kg. this morning, it was 68kg. i decided not to cheat and typed 68kg into the weight watchers site this morning, and got that condescending little "it looks like you gained a little"-note.

my first 'gain' since may.

boo.

i should not be surprised, though. crappy eating this weekend, just two workout sessions last week (and i had to skip yesterday's scheduled session, because of working late), and crappy eating all day yesterday, despite my best intentions. i had sorbet twice, because it's superhot right now, and i feel all puffed up and yuck. pcos is giving me perpetual pms, i swear. cd 69 today. (conversation in our household last night, as i was looking at my cycle calendar: "i'm on cd 68, btw." "do you think you'll ever have a period ever again?" "no.")

but yeah. wake-up call. yadda, yadda, yadda. can't let my guard down. gotta step it up at notch. blablabla.

you know what? i hate this. i really, really, really do. i hate what the last few weeks have been like, weight-wise, and stress-wise, and sleep-wise. i am happy, yes, life is awesome, yes, but i am tired. and i need a holiday. not freaking sorbet. not bread.

i know that this fluctuation is nothing, normal, water, quite likely, not fat. i have not magically grown a kilo of fat on my hips overnight, or even over the past week. no way. but this weigh-in comes after being stuck at 67,something kg for three weeks. and i'm just tired of it all right now.

i want to lose these last few kilos, and it sucks that it's getting harder and that i'm so stressed out right now with work, that i've been planning so badly and getting hungry, and that i am tired, tired, tired. i've been letting down my guard, eating freaking bread (seriously, my downfall), and i just can't do that. not now. maybe never.

i need to try harder.

the bf reminded me, that even at goal (faraway, so close), i'd obviously have some weight fluctuations, because skinny people have those, and don't care, and i won't lose any sleep over this, but i'm PISSED OFF. at myself, obviously.

immediate measures:

  • no more bread this week. none. i have to go cold turkey. they're my crack, those carbs. over the past few weeks, i'd let those tomato-mozzarella-whole wheat-rolls from the bakery down the road slide into my meals, like, three times a week. no more. they are not good for me. at all.
  • slow down the snacking, unless it's fruit & veges. before i give in to those powerbars i keep in the fridge, i'll make myself wait 15 minutes to figure out whether i really want one.
  • two full-programme gym trips - wednesday and saturday, i'll do my whole programme, including those 30minute-hypoxy-sessions. when in dropped those, a few weeks ago, my weight loss slowed down.
  • in order to accomplish that, i need to get out of the office by 6pm. focus more during the workday, leave earlier.
  • go do bed before midnight. and set the alarm no earlier than 7:30am.

i love myself. too much not to lose these past few kilos.

8/17/2009

summertime, and the dieting ain't easy.

this weekend? rocked.

turns out tattoo conventions are just like music festivals, just without the music. you get a wristband and sit in the sun with your pals all weekend, working on your tan, ogling weird people and having the same conversations time and again ("last year, xyz was better/worse", "really love what yxyz is doing this year"). every once in a while you walk around the grounds to check out what's happening and what everyone's up to, and there's also lots of (free) beer by day and spirits by night.

and the food is crappy.

the food on the backstage menu (the bf did a body art performance at that convention) pretty much sucked for a dieting vegetarian (greasy veggie lasanga! plain pasta that tasted like bacon! iceberg lettuce!), and when i woke up superhungry on sunday, with all shops closed and without any protein bars left, i quite simply gave up trying and had apple pastry for brekkie, pizza for lunch and cake for dinner.

i wish i was exaggerating, but that's exactly what i did (i just wanted to write "happened" but that kinda sounds like it wasn't my responsibility. oy). the rest stop food i settled for on our drive home were salt & pepper crackers. discovered, btw, that regular crackers have the same fat content as low-fat chips, which is certainly good to know. i was still enjoying it by lunch (the pizza was really, really nice and thin and lovely), but during our late-night drive home, doubtlessly on a carb high from the dinner-cake, i was struggling and lusting for more carbs, cookies, crackers. and i was hating myself, as i reached for my second piece of white toblerone. oh yes. but just briefly.

that's all over, and done, and can't be undone. was a bit of a binge compared to what i've been eating like these past few months, and definitely way above my points, but it was nowhere near as bad as it would have been say two years ago, or five years ago, or at any other time, really. this was a few glasses of panache (beer with lemonade), an unhealthy breakfast (half the size of a regular breakfast of past days), a delicious pizza, a second piece of cake, a second piece of chocolate, a second cookie. there were no thirds.

my eating was bad, yes, but not a nightmare, not a total failure. just a weekend of crappy eating. that is over. this morning, the scale showed a pound more than at my last weigh-in, a week ago, and i have no doubt that this was retained water from the damn salty crackers, alone, and not real gain of whatever kind.

i'll properly hop on the scale for me weigh-in and my photo for the accountability pool tomorrow morning. after a day of regular, healthy eating, obviously.

it's all good, really. i'm not a failure. this is hard, i did as good as i could, i should try harder next time. i had a great weekend, i really and throughoutly enjoyed myself. i just wish i had planned better, and quite simply had brought more food. both france and the benelux are notoriously bad foodwise when travelling, and i just didn't think about it in advance and just wasn't prepared. and when you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.

this tiny little weekend trip was a good test run for my holiday with the bf at the end of september, when we're heading for the south of france. and it's great that i failed so spectacularly now. i'll be packing a shitload of fruit and veges for the drive, oh yes.

and now i'll go and peel my carrots for lunch.

8/14/2009

....and another change of plans.

i didn't go to that 90 minute yoga class at my gym yesterday.

instead, i did two rounds miha circle, a session on the power plate, my usual weights and my week 8, run two of c25k. i just felt like it. and guess what? my mood is SO MUCH BETTER.

i'd felt like crap all day yesterday and barely got through work and an afternoon work out instruction session with my physio. hung out at the bf's shop after work, whining about feeling like crap and not knowing what to do and whether to go to that yoga class or home or [ad nauseam].

and then i had a few ricecakes and a small serving of lemon sorbet and just snapped out of it. no idea how i did it, which is a real bummer, because i'd sure like to replicate that. got to the gym by 7:30pm and just went for it. and it felt great.

when i got home, the bf had fixed a lovely dinner (pasta and homemade veggie sauce), and we sat out on the balcony, eating, and i was feeling better than i had in a few days. so yeah. can't decide whether that's worrisome (overexercising!) or awesome (feeling better!) and have decided for now to not give a shit, for now. fact is: i feel better, and that's important.

have also decided to start taking that acid/alcali-supplement again, even though i don't believe in the theory behind it. last time i was diligent about taking it, it seemed to help with the recurring yeast infections. i'll also start with a pre-biotic-something-or-other regimen from the pharmacy once i'm done with my meds next week. don't believe in the theory behind that either, but after ten months of yeast-and-other-private-parts-fun and pretty much all kinds of anti-fungals that my gyno could prescribe, i'm willing to try pretty much anything.

in any way, it's friday, and we're roadtripping with the crew to luxemburg today, and i'm excited. oh yes. i'm also prepared: i'm eating a big, healthy lunch today, and some rice cakes, apples and protein bars for the weekend. "the foods always awesome there", the bf told me last night. "i hope that won't be too stressful for you." thing is: good food? not a problem. bad food is a problem. if something is worth the points that it costs me? i don't care. :)

this is life, after all. and life comes with weekend trips to luxemburg.

8/12/2009

change of plans.

it's wednesday night, and i am not at the gym. and i am trying really hard not to get all worked up about breaking my routine.

thing is: i've been feeling spectacularly crappy all day. a viral infection that i thought i'd conquered last week made a surprising return last night. i cried in bed this morning and practically crawled to work and got through the day by pretending to work and writing emails instead. walking the dog during my lunch break sucked big time, because i felt so weak and tired, and when the dog and i got back to the shop, r. pulled me on his lap and told me that i had to stay home tonight. and i knew he was right.

i had been all exhausted on monday as well, until i hit the gym, but today, i just couldn't do it. my body is tired, and the fact this infection made a return is a pretty direct message, that i need to take it a wee bit easier. like: staying in tonight, instead of working out for three hours to do my regular gym stuff.

i have got to heal, and i know it, and there's no point in working out if it makes me weaker, especially because this coming weekend is going to be kinda crazy, with the trip this coming weekend and all. i'm at a loss here, really: i don't know what else i should be doing to be healthy: i've been eating well, taking those super expensive anti-stress supplements and whatnot, and still got sick again, this quickly. that's not right.

and yet: i feel bad about not being at the gym. i know i would have felt a bit better afterwards, even if it had been not so great for my general health. and i won't be able to go this coming weekend and all.

and i also know that all of this is silly: one missed gym date will not magically make me weigh 90kg again tomorrow. it will not mean that my running will suck at my next gym visit. it doesn't mean that i will never get back to the gym ever again. it is just one missed gym date, and IT IS ALRIGHT and OKAY because I AM SICK and MY BODY NEEDS REST. (all caps, yay! to drive the message home). one missed gym date is not a drama, it is life. i'm doing the best that i can, and today that was walking home with the dog, cooking a nice meal and watching grey's anatomy (which i never ever do) with our houseguest.

tomorrow night, after packing my stuff for the trip, i'll take a 90 minute hatha yoga class at my gym. i'll watch what i eat during our weekend trip, like i always do, without getting to stressed out about it, and on monday, i'll be back on my normal fun, exhaustive gym schedule, and all will be fine.

inspiration. [#7]

nutrition by eve: normal eating

active.com: is your diet making you gain?

8/11/2009

it's not a competition.

the treadmills at my gym are grouped in threes. the other day, i was doing my c25k run (my nikeplus is still broken, and all) on a middle one. as i was just starting my run (i start slowly, and about halfway through the run usually pick up my pace, increasing it until the finish), a woman started running on the treadmill on my left, and immediately started running at the pace that i was running.

a little later, another woman started using the treadmill on my right, and also started running at exactly my pace. as i started increasing my pace, both of them, glancing sideways, started increasing theirs as well, and it irritated me tremendously. i started glancing at their speeds as well, possibly being just as irritating to them as they were for me.

it was pretty ridiculous: as i got to my last five minutes, and kept increasing the speed, we were all three running faster than 11.5kmh. which is pretty damn fast for a stupid treadmill run.

and i was so. effing. angry. struck by a really bad case of gym anger.

was this a coincidence? or did we three collectively turn our (joint) runs into a competition? no matter what it was, it felt bad, and wrong and hurtful. if i'd been less angry, i might have thanked them for the good run afterwards, but i was angryangryangry and growlingly headed to the stretching area.

it's so weird, this gym anger - i've been struggling with it a bit these past few visits, off the treadmill as well. that anger sucks: it ruins my mood, and it sends off bad vibes. why is it so easy to be supportive of others (and especially other women) on the internet but so hard when someone's not following the weight circle rules and thus making me wait a whole! effing! minute!, someone doesn't wipe down the machine, someone who turns a treadmill run into a race or blocks my access to a weight machine with their towel. or takes ages, because (s)he has no clue about what to do?

i don't want to be the mean looking woman at the gym that shoots off evil glances, and i don't want to bring a bad mood home from the gym. so what to do? treat the whole thing as a metta meditation? possibly.

inspiration. [#6]


  • linda @ all & sundry
    it sounds kinda stupid, but linda made me lose all this weight. no kidding. i'd been casually reading her blog for years, when she suddenly posted three months. i read it, looked at the photos, and just couldn't believe it. wow! three months? i saved her post in the 'fave blog posts ever' folder in my bookmarks, and re-read it again and again and again. it took 9 months of re-reading that entry to make me want to try to turn my life around as well. it took me three months, twice, though. once in the summer of 2008, to fix my eating habits, and now this summer, to get my ass moving again. i guess i am a a bit of a slower learner than she is. linda is never content: her ability and desire to challenge herself are mindblowing. currently, she's training for a triathlon, andi have the feeling that unless the seaweed zombies get to her, one fine day we'll see her run across the finish line at ironman. and that three months-post? i am still re-reading it, regularly.

  • shauna @ the amazing adventures of diet girl
    shauna got me started on blogging. almost ten years ago, by the way. we were both keeping online diaries at an online diary site, when she started one of those weird sites where the newest posts were on top. a blog, or something. odd! if shauny did it, it had to be cool, and so i followed her lead. i loved her for her love of radiohead, gomez and harry, the dog and for her writing and silliness and her brownie recipe. i never knew that she was overweight. a few years later, after she'd moved to scotland, i stumbled across dietgirl. i knew right away: either, shauny had a secret twin, or that dietgirl-person who'd dropped all that 'lard' was her. it was her, obviously, and i am still amazed that she did that, that she lost half her body weight, changed her life, got married to dr.g, what have you. in 2002 we had plans to meet up in melbourne, that fell through. and i really hope to hang out with her one fine day.

  • one twenty five
    one twenty five made me pick up this blog again. i found her when randomly searching for weight loss tumblrs (it's what the cool kids do these days, isn't it?), and i immediately fell in love with her drive and lust for life. i can so relate to her desire to lose weight for reasons that other people doubtlessly deem superficial, like wearing certain clothes and feeling less self-conscious around others. but let's be real: yes, weight loss is about getting healthy, but it's also about fitting into whatever you want to wear. she's training for a half marathon now (and getting up at the crack of dawn to train!), and for this woman who's in the middle of week 8 of c25k, that's a great inspiration.

  • roni @ roni's weight
    roni is the grande dame of weight watchers bloggers, isn't she? reading her blog reminds me that this journey (oh, i hate that word, but can't stop using it in this context) won't end once i get to goal (whatever that is, anyway), it starts anew: maintaining is an ongoing challenge in a world that eats hfcs-loaden, ready-made meals, in a life were you get stressed, move house, get a new job. and roni also reminds me that eating well and moving your body are essentially expressions of self-love.

8/07/2009

inspiration. [#5]

good advice from the nutritionista on dealing with different eaters.

had that kind of situation on tuesday, when the dinner plans the bf and i turned into classic german style abendbrot (literally "evening bread" - think cheese, cold cuts, bread) with the crew.

i was really taken aback at first - i'd saved points for dinner, and was just not prepared to waste them on stuff i didn't like anyway. and well - i eat neither cold cuts nor cheese and hardly any bread, after all.

i was pretty annoyed there for a minute, because all the shops were closed at that time already, and i couldn't buy healthier choices for me, and our friend t. kept pestering me that 'one time didn't matter'. the bf felt rather guilty about that sudden change of plans and his inability to do something about it; he's awesome in trying to accommodate my eating style, doesn't dress salads like he used to and the like, and really wants to support me.

he couldn't then, so i decided to not get too worked up about it, headed back to the office where i grabbed what was supposed to be next days' brekkie and my jar of vegemite. so while everyone else indulged, i had an ok (if not particularly exciting) 7.5 points dinner, that left me feeling nicely full. and later at home, i indulged with some choc.

i could never ever be with someone, who was not supportive of my eating habits. i don't expect the bf (who is super-skinny, by default and can eat anything, really) to follow my 'rules', but i do expect him to support me in following them and to work on compromises that work for both of us, such as not using butter when he cooks or undressed salad that we then each fix however we like it. he's awesome, in that regard, and it helps that he's into cooking, big-time, and and adventurous eater in general. and he doesn't even laugh when i break one piece of lindt choc into 12 little parts.

it sounds harsh, but dating a fat person is something that i will never ever do again, should i ever re-enter the dating pool (which i don't plan on doing, anyway). my ex was seriously overweight, and i tried to tell myself, that it didn't matter, that his personality was so awesome and whatnot, but it mattered. a lot. we had no sex life to speak of because of his weight and bad body image, which totally killed my libido as well. and i adapted his unhealthy lifestyle and gained about 10kg in the first year that we were dating, before i started ww. anyway. those days are over, and i'm very happy about that.

8/06/2009

progress.

i did not buy the first (ever?) size 36 (8) dress that i fit into. it was supercute, and cheap and at esprit (of all places - i hated them so much because their 42's were way too small for me, back in the day). but way too tame for me.

no more buying things just because they fit! progress, people, progress!

the fine line.

i've been wondering about 'normal'. not in relation to my body, though (the fact that it is, keeps sinking in), but in relation to my eating. when does a healthy diet turn into disordered eating?

i know for a fact that my nutrient-free bakery binge sessions and compulsory chocolate desserts that got me to the weight i used to be were disordered eating. i often had two pretzels and two pastries for brekkie, ate a whole package of chocolate chips right after two portions of pasta at dinner, or a super sized burger king menu, followed by a donut and a muffin. i'm still wondering, though: is what i am doing now - the endless carrots & quark combo, broccoli pasta whenever i get the chance -'normal'?

i have no idea.

i'm worried that my worrying about sliding into unhealthy behaviour is my subconsious trying to undermine my path to success. and at the same time, i know that the way the majority of people eat, what they consider "normal", is disordered, anyway.

very odd, this.

inspiration. [#4]

"the omg-i-hate-doing-this curve? it goes away, this i promise. the feeling of taking control of your body, of doing this yourself, is worth every tear of sweat, every missed chocolate bar, every undignified jillian-michaels induced grunt.

i’m here to tell you: you can do this. go, girl."

[kristin @ bodies in motivation: boyfriend in motivation]



kristin is spot on with this post. that feeling of control? is sweeter than chocolate. it is a choice to be fit, to keep your body machine well-oiled and in top condition, in the best that you can achieve. it is my choice to work out as much as i do and to eat what i eat. does it hurt? at times yes. but not as much as you'd think. and i'm rewarded for it every single minute of my day. when i walk up the stairs and can feel my glutes working, when in finish my 25 minute c25k-runs, when the boyfriend strokes my hips, in search for the lovehandles that used to be there.

8/04/2009

contrast and compare.



on the left: me, carrying 22kg of vegetable shortening, the weight that i have lost so far.
on the right: me, carrying 3kg of vegetable shortening, the weight that i still have to lose to reach my official ww goal.

't was a humbling experience that one. surprisingly emotional, too. literally ran into the boyfriend in front of the supermarket on my way home from the gym last night, and so we finally took that photo i've been meaning to take for a while.

these past days, i've been really struggling with the realisation of what i look like now, what kind of sizes and what kind of clothes fit. it's a bit eerie, but my mind doesn't seem to have caught up with the reality of my body yet. it's the exact reverse of what i was suffering from back in the day, when i looked in the mirror and didn't realise that i was fat.

i've been looking at snapshots someone took of me at a wedding yesterday, and can't quite grasp that i don't hate a single one of them. i look athletic and fit and happy in all of them. my arms and my back have definition. how weird.

this is me now, and if i dare say so myself: i look pretty damn fine. i'm partly this stunned, because i never expected this at 67kg. 67kg is not that little. my bmi is 23 or so, and it's definitely significantly more than i expected to weigh when being able to fit into a size 38 (10) dress. but i'm not complaining, at all. ever again. i'll lose those 2 point something kg, and then i'll continue a little more and then i'll focus on fitness, and nothing but fitness, and all will be well.

it's so weird that there was so much more of me, not so long ago. that i was lucky when i found clothes that fit and wore worn-out pants, and bought mainly underwear and shoes, because most of the time nothing did. i can buy a 10 euro dress at forever 18 in a size medium now, and make it look good. i can wear one of those almost see-through halterneck hippie dresses from nepal. i can buy clothes whenever, wherever. i don't have to buy something, just because it fits. that flowery dress i ordered from frontline the other week arrived yesterday, and it fits perfectly, but it just doesn't look like *me* at all. so i'll send it back, and possibly order something else, or get a custom-made dress from etsy or go out and buy another. clothes are so much more fun now. my body is so much more fun now. everything is.

the weirdest thing, though, is: i not only lost this weight that i carry in that above picture, i *gained* it, before, obviously. how did i let that happen? how did i not *care*? life must have gotten harder, as i gained. i must have bought bigger pants and whatnot. i must have noticed. but i can't remember noticing it until trying to buy a dress for those weddings in spring last year.

in any way, i'm trying hard to not put too much importance to the number on the scale (or the number of packages of shortening): i am so much healthier now. i eat yummy, healthy stuff that gives me energy, instead of stuff that makes me feel bad. i bike everywhere, i run, i lift weights, i go for 15+k walks with the dog, just because i feel like it, i sleep better. it's a different life. and right now, i can't quite believe that it's mine.

i'm starting to feel all guilty about chucking successphotos into the accountability pool, lately. i can't quite believe that i've done it, finally. i really have. wow.

crazy.

8/02/2009

i bought a dress yesterday.

and it's a size 38 (10). i can't remember doing that ever before.
crazy.

and that is all.