inspiration. [#13]

the great fitness experiment: who would i be if i weren't broken?

[which is yet another reminder that i shoul finally, finally pick up geneen roth's "breaking free from emotional eating" that's been on my nightstand for a few weeks and that i keep putting down because it hits too close to home.]

indeed.

"in the morning i think how i should get things under control, at night i tell myself i’ll get back on track tomorrow. i start feeling bad about myself, which sends me right back to the source.

i want to stop, and at the same time the idea of stopping makes me sad and . . . scared, somehow. i’m overwhelmed by the idea of having to give up the instant gratification in favor of long term happiness."

[all & sundry: fix]

i should have known that going hungry to a work meeting at 7pm last night just wouldn't work. i ate some strawberries that i brought, but eventually i dug into some crappy, fatty food not because it tasted great, but because it was there. and because it made me feel good, ever so briefly.when i got home, i ate a good dinner, though. and my alloted piece of choc. and this morning, i tracked that crappy food.


i can do this.

like linda writes so eloquently "the good news is i know how to quit. after all, i’ve done it about a hundred times now."

inspiration. [#11]

"it’s counter intuitive, but true, that losing weight is very emotionally taxing. i read a lot of blogs by others who have also experienced a similar weight-loss and feel this sort of anticlimactic remorse. it’s like setting out for a long journey in which you are isolated and consumed by this quest and when you finally reach your destination, well…it’s akin to being reintroduced into society. it’s exciting, frustrating and invariably disappointing. that’s kinda how i feel sometimes – like i was gone in this quest and, now that i’m back, i have no choice but to acknowledge how different my life is and how differently others receive me. i also have to acknowledge how it’s not different in the ways i thought it would be."

[feed me i'm cranky: big fat musings]

annabel's entire post really resonates with me. what i'm also struggling with a bit right now is a weird kind of delayed guilt for gaining the weight, treating myself so poorly in the first place - and, above all, failing to realise how far gone i was.

"i was still fat!" i exclaimed while looking at a picture of me a few weeks ago. the pic had been taken in the spring of last year or so, when i weighed about 12kg less than i did when i first started. "yes, you were", said the bf. and bizarrely enough? that hurt me. in some totally warped way, i'd somehow thought that no one had noticed that i was overweight. i mean: i hadn't. really. but of course they had, including my most favourite person, the bf. "you were actually the biggest person i'd ever dated", he added. "did you ever consider not doing so because of my weight?" i asked. "yes, i did. but before i could come to a concluion, i had already fallen in love with you."

phew. that stung for a moment, too. i'm thankful that he's that honest, though.

i've been thinking about this, since then: i could have missed out on this awesome relationship (the best i've ever had) because of my weight (and this would have been his loss, obviously, too). now i am nowhere near blaming my fat for things that didn't work out in the past (and if my fat is to blame for stuff, i quite likely will never know, anyway), but it makes me sad, retroactively. and wonder about the now, too.

i, too, believe that i have not fundamentally changed. i am still vegetarian, i still suck at paying bills, still talk too loud and i can't, for the life of me, answer email in a timely fashion. however, i am now superdedicated to being healthy, i eat in a very specific way, dress differently, work out. and above all, the way people perceive me has fundamentally changed. and i still just can't seem to find a balance (yet) between their image of me and mine.

inspiration. [#10]

"what has the potential to trip me up once in awhile is not so much the physical transformation as the emotional transformation. i’ve said many times since reaching goal that i finally feel like the outside me and the inside me finally match, but the longer i maintain, the more i think that descriptor may be a bit premature. in many ways, my inside is still catching up.

the emotional transformation from obese me to maintaining me is perhaps even more astounding than the physical transformation. it’s just not as apparent. the transformation began the moment weight loss “clicked” five years ago. most people who successfully lose and maintain their weight had an “aha!” moment – that realization that things are different “this time” as opposed to all the other times they tried to lose weight and failed. for me, that moment was followed by an avalanche of changes, not just in the way i ate – that was the easy part – but in the way i related to food and, even more important, how i related to myself. i began to demand from myself respect, forgiveness, and understanding – three things i rarely asked of myself or others. i often hid in my fat or other emotional insecurities and believed i didn’t deserve to be treated fairly.

physical transformation is, for the most part, finite. we can sculpt our bodies through weight training and surgery, but if we remain the same weight, we pretty much look the same. emotional transformation is infinite, an evolutionary journey."

[lynn @ refuse to regain: emotional transformation and the skinny girl]

inspiration. [#8]

"i’m realistically only 10-12 pounds from my goal weight. it doesn’t feel like i thought it would. it’s not a sudden elation. it’s more of a feel-good-all-the-time situation." [ben does life]

'tis the same for me, even at three (or whatever) pounds away from goal. whatever goal is, anyway. but that 'feel-good-all-the-time situation'? is pretty intoxicating.

inspiration. [#7]

nutrition by eve: normal eating

active.com: is your diet making you gain?

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.

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.

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.

inspiration. [#3]

"at 29 i finally had enough. how did i "start"? i went out of my comfort zone. i stopped hiding in big baggy clothes. i embraced who i was at that moment. no more excuses. no more perfection needed. i am who i am and that’s good enough.

that mindset prepared me to learn how to eat. i approached weight watchers like a class, not a diet. i made a commitment to my blog. i decided the only way i would fail is by giving up and i wasn’t about to give up. i couldn’t give up, i can’t give up. this is my life and i need to make the best of it. for me that means staying conscious and honest with myself. no more sneaking food or finding excuses. no more going off plan. again, this is my life, everything is on plan. face it, count it, move on. no apologies necessary."

[roni's weigh: dieting my whole life]

i was 29 as well, when i'd had enough. and i totally agreewith her that the decision to be fit and healthy has nothing to do with dieting, and everything to do with life. this is my life, and i need to make the best of it. and it's more likely that i'll find my best self at the end of a long run or out exploring the world on my bike. and not at the bottom of an ice cream bucket.

inspiration. [#2]

this is why you're fat always makes me long for fruit and veges. i fear it's a rhethorical question, but: do people really it that garbage?

inspiration. [#1]

outside mag: fittest real athletes. [via]