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.