Two in one day ( I must have lots to say)

I have been reading over some of my posts and I am realizing that in some of them I sound like a big whiner. I really am not. I normally try not to complain, I normally don't talk much about my issues, at least not to my friends. My poor mother hears me bitch and moan more often than not, sorry Mom I love you. :) I have my health, I have my family and I have my friends, I am blessed. I know this, and yet, lately I have been dwelling on the negative. I am comparing myself more than I usually would to other people. I get mad when I feel like I am missing out. I keep focusing on the fact that my dad is no longer around, the fact that I am 23 and living at home, the fact that my weight isn't coming off fast enough and the fact that I am not done with school yet. Yes I know I am working full time and going to school part time and the beginning of my college experience wasn't normal or easy. I still feel like I should be done. Maybe it is the time of year, the end of three 4 really hard months when I miss my dad the most. It will be five years on February 15th since he died. I still miss him like he died yesterday. I think that may be it, me missing him. I am such a downer these days. I apologize to all of you who have been reading this, sorry for being so depressing.

In truth I love so many aspects of my life. I LOVE my family, immediate and extended. I am blessed to have supportive relatives and a HUGE family (Mom is one of 8 and Dad was one of 5). I have lots of Aunts and Uncles and lots and lots of cousins. I love them all. I am so thankful for my mom, without her I wouldn't know what to do. She is so supportive even when she doesn't agree with my decisions. Thanks Mom for always being there for me. My siblings are fantastic, Andy and Anna, I know I can always talk to them if I need to. While my dad is gone he taught me so much, I hope to be like him when I "grow up". I hope to have his kind heart and his ability to see all the good in people. I hope to have his selflessness, he would have given you the shirt off his back if you needed it. I am his number one fan forever and always. I love my Noni (grandma) and Papa (grandpa) more than life itself. Noni, I would not have survived with out you. You are such a strong woman, as your mama said, "We are porcelain" we have come through the fire stronger than ever. My Aunt Christine is the one who made me feel that even if I am a bigger girl I am still beautiful and worth taking care of myself, she turned me into the shopping addict that I am. :) I will never forget her waking me up at 7:30 in the morning and telling me that we were going to get me a whole new wardrobe. I have so many other people that have touched my life and made it better. My best friend since the 6th grade Jenny, she has been there for me through thick and thin. I can always count on her to be here for me. She has my back no matter what and I hope she knows I have hers. I am blessed, I know I am. Maybe I just had to write it all down to convince myself.

I'm shrinking :)

Well I am happy to report that week one is over and I have lost 4 lbs. :) Yay yay. A good week overall but a few minor slip ups, it is hard to stay away from carbs and sugar all together so I modified it and if I was going to have carbs I only had them with one meal. I also tried to drink a ton of water. The exercise thing didn't work out so well, I made it to the gym twice this week but I did get on my treadmill at home a couple of times so I guess that counts. The hard part about losing weight is when it comes off slowly, you just want to make it into that next smaller size but it just doesn't work that way. I have lots of goals to meet but I am doing it 5 lbs at a time. Maybe that will make it easier.

Goals for this next week are to make it to the gym Mon-Thurs. I need to do this because then the weight will come off faster, hopefully that will make me feel better. Maybe when I am stressed I can go work out instead of going shopping I am sure my pocket book will like that better. Any suggestions in how to enjoy working out? I don't know what it is but I just don't like it. I don't know if I just get bored or if I feel awkward or if I am just being silly and not wanting to do something that is good for me. Who knows. :)

Why am I punishing myself?

I have just read a very scary article on the Today Show website (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35125799/ns/today-today_health/page/2/) It is all about how women who are overweight may not get the same treatment from doctors, they may not work as hard to find out what is wrong with you. People tell you not to be so hard on yourself or to forgive yourself for certain things. How the hell can you be OK with yourself if the people that are supposed to help keep you safe and healthy are the same people that may not care enough to figure out what is wrong with you medically? What is that about??

I am always hard on myself, even though some may not see it. I compare myself to everyone else. The grass is always greener. I don't know why it is just the way I am. I resent myself, my situation, my choices. I should be done with college but I'm not, I should be financially independent but I'm not, I should have already lost all this weight but I haven't. I have to stop beating myself up and comparing myself to everyone else. I need to sit down and make a plan, I need to make a plan for not only how to lose the weight but how to be OK with myself. What do I need to do to be OK with me? It isn't going to be easy but nothing worth doing is ever easy. I have people that tell me all the time that I am sweet, strong, pretty and a good person. I don't believe it though. I never have, I need to be OK with myself at some point and the harder I work the closer I will be to being OK.

Temptation around every turn

You would think that an office would be free of temptation, that it would just be a place to work and not a place to find all sorts of delicious (not healthy) foods. I am here to tell you that office's are evil environments for those of us on diets. There is a candy dish on every desk, THERE IS A CANDY DISH ON MY DESK!! I didn't put it on the desk but there it is, taunting me all day long with it's Hershey kisses and York Peppermint Patties.So far I have resisted temptation. It is hard though. I walked into the kitchen at work today and what was in there but two boxes of chocolate truffles, damn truffles how they tempted me. There is always someone in my office that is baking and there are always things to tempt me. Such is the life of a fat girl and her food.

Food is a friend and a foe, a love and a hate. I like to cook and now I have the help of the South Beach Cook Books. I love them and even my friend Jen M. who is the pickiest eater in the whole world has liked everything I have made so far, although I do know how much she hates olives and coconut so I avoid those things when I cook. (She is sitting here with me as I write this) I don't know where my obsession with food came from but it has been something that I have loved and hated for a long time. I love eating, I love the taste of food, I do not love the way I feel when I have eaten something that I know is bad for me. I feel and enormous sense of guilt, I know what I am doing is wrong but at the time I just don't care, not until I have taken the last bite of whatever calorie laden thing I have eaten. Then I feel like the lowest thing on the planet. Don't ask me why I do it, I don't even know. Maybe someday soon I will understand. For now I will leave you with these words of advice; please, please, please do not EVER ask a heavy person if "they really want to eat that" because I guarantee that even if they don't they will now that you have said it, it is like a triple dog dare. You can't say no. You aren't helping you are hurting, just thought you should know.

Demons in the closet

You know what they are, you have them too. Articles of clothing that haven't fit you in years but for some reason there they are, looking back at you. Taunting you for not fitting into them any more. You don't know why you keep them but you can't get rid of them to save your life. Maybe one day you will fit back into them, maybe one day you can be that size again (although you haven't been anywhere close to that size in many many years). You keep hope alive and back in the closet they go.

I have so many clothes spanning so many sizes it is ridiculous. Most of them are pants, evil pants, I love them and I hate them all at the same time. I try on a regular basis to let go of such items but every time I pull them out of the closet I can't manage to part with them. All I can think is "What if I manage to fit into these again." For the first time in a long time I have gotten back into a size of pant I didn't fit into for while. Normally I just grow out of them and then the sad pants hang there looking at me and reminding of my ever growing self. It is an amazing feeling to move down in sizes, one that I am not used to but hopefully with any luck in the coming weeks/months/year I will drop down size by size. I shouldn't say I hope, I should say I will. I keep taking this whole eating thing one day at a time. It seems to be the best way to operate.

I have many more hurdles to jump over including overcoming my distaste for exercise. I hate it almost as much as I hate pants, the same love/hate. I know it is good for me but I don't like the way it makes me feel, flabby, out of shape and sad. Just like when I try on those demons in the closet (pants). One day I will master both. This is the week I try to incorporate as much exercise I can stand. I am shooting for three days a week, whether I like it or not.

Fashionista with a problem

I just would like to know who decided that all plus size women want to wear their pants underneath their boobs.That person better hope I never meet them because I may have to take off my shoe (very cute shoe) and beat them with it. I have an issue with any pair of pants that I have to pull up well above my belly button. It's not cute, it doesn't make us feel sexy or fashionable. I am so tired of trying on clothes that are super baggy and pants that have a crotch that is a foot long. IT'S ANNOYING!! To all of the fashion designers out there please listen to us! If the skinny women of the world want to wear it the more voluptuous women want to wear it too.

I am so tired of being made to feel like there is something wrong with me because I am a bigger woman. I know there are things I want to change, I know why I want to change them. I want to be healthy, I want to be sexy. I don't want to feel like some kind of social deviant because I have extra weight on my frame. Why do people feel it is okay to make comments about the size of a person? Some people don't mean to hurt you with those words but if I said every random thought that popped into my head when I met someone new I probably would have been beaten up several times. I had a guy say to me last week that I was "Very fashion forward for a big girl." I wanted to tell him that he was "very fashion forward for a jack ass that had just escaped the farm". I wanted to punch him right in the neck! Anyways, that's my rant for the moment. I would just like to say that I can guarantee that shoe companies have it made when it comes to making money from larger women, shoes always fit and a good pair of shoes can make you feel like the sexiest person in the room. For those of you that know me well and know my obsession with footwear I hope this has shed some light on why I own so many pairs of shoes. :)

Life and it's curve balls

I have had some things happen in my life that I have had no control over but me being me I wanted to think I could have made a difference. It is a double edged sword for me. I worked very hard to keep a member of my family on this earth and in the end he left anyways. Nothing I could do about, no words I said would have made him stay, it was his choice alone and I guess I have to accept that. What does this have to do with my weight you ask? Well I will tell you. When I was coping with the possibilities of losing him I ate, when he died I ate. I can say I gained 60 lbs in the three years he struggled, I was killing myself in a way.

I have always struggled with my weight, ever since I can remember. In the beginning my eating habits where a way of rebellion. As I got older I solidified those habits of coping through food, in turn I gained weight and felt worse about myself. When the most important man in my life began struggling I tried to help him, I tried but while trying I put myself out of my mind and focused on him and his struggles along with the pain it brought me and my family. I kept getting bigger and I kept feeling worse.

I am the type of person who wants to help people, the type that can give tons of advice but can't take any of it. I don't like talking about myself, I would rather get wrapped up in other peoples struggles than my own. In the last year I have started to look inwards and I don't like what I see, I am not happy. I don't feel like I have accomplished the things I have wanted to accomplish. I am not where I want to be at 23. So rather than wallow in the what ifs and should haves I am doing what I tell my friends to do, I am putting on my "big girl panties" and taking control. Only I did this to myself. Only I can fix it. It wont be easy and it wont be quick but if it gives me an extra 15 to 20 years on my life I am going to do it. I am angry that I let myself get to this point, that I put myself and my health on the back burner. I am better than that and I deserve better than that from myself. No I am not going to start listening to tapes that say I am worth the work and you probably wont see me in the gym for 3 hours at a time 6 days a week but I am taking the steps to make myself better. Slowly and one foot in front of the other, life is what it is and nothing "happens for a reason" but s%&$ happens and you just have to deal with it and move on. The man I lost is always with me, watching and encouraging me. I still feel him and I know he is proud of what I am doing. My heart still aches for him but I know that just because he is gone he wouldn't want me to give up. I would say this ones for you Daddy but really it is for me so I can be the woman you and Mom raised me to be. Strong, independent and in control of my actions and the path I take. I will make you, Mom and myself proud. I promise. (I would add "I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!!" but I feel like that would be too much. :) )

I'd rather not have the compliment at all

I can't count how many times I have gotten a compliment that has had a backlash to it, a compliment that isn't a compliment at all. Such as, "Wow you have such a pretty face" or "You have such lovely eyes, lips, hair, etc." or my personal favorite of "You are really pretty for a fat girl." What do you say to that other then f&%$ you very much. What women who have who have a couple of extra pounds on their bodies hear is, "You have such a pretty (fill in the blank) but you have a really fat/unattractive body." In my opinion it is just better to not give the compliment at all.

We live in a society that puts so much pressure on people, women in particular, to be beautiful and thin. It isn't going to be that way for all of us. Almost half of all Americans struggle with their weight, it is a sad fact but it is the truth. I can't count how many times I have thought, "If I was thinner I would be happier." The truth of that matter is I would be happier if I was thinner but I want to be thinner so I can live longer.

My greatest fear is developing some sort of weight related disease. So far I have been lucky but you never know how long your luck will hold out. The problem with being overweight is that most of the time there is a reason you became that way. Some reasons can be fixed by medication, some have to be fixed by looking inward and figuring out what the root of the problem is. I have figured out what my root is and now I have to figure out how to tackle it. I am an emotional eater and if something stresses me out or makes me sad or I get bored or I am celebrating something I eat. I can't help it , I know what I am doing is bad but I still put the food in my mouth. In the end I feel guilty and it has done nothing to soothe me. Hopefully some day soon I can figure out how to stop completely but right now when I get the urge to eat out of stress, sadness, fear and happiness I try to eat something that isn't going to put 5 lbs on my a$$ and cause people to give me compliments like, "You have such a beautiful face" and instead give me a compliment of, You have such a great a$$!" Here's hoping. :)

Day 1

Lets face it, most of us have a few pounds we want to lose but people like me have lots that they want to shed. I dont know how I let myself get this way but I did and now I have to face the facts. Time to get my rear in gear.

I have tried many diets, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystems, just trying to eat better and exercise, and last but not least South Beach. Only one out of these four have had an affect on bringing my weight down and that is South Beach. The others, especially the first two (Weight Watchers & Nutrisystems) failed miserably. Weight Watchers became a game of points, "If I trade these points for that piece of chocolate cake than I will just eat fewer points tomorrow." Nutrisystems food just tasted AWFUL so I lived like a rabbit and ate only green leafy things which worked for awhile but wasn't sustainable. Then the South beach diet came along, it made sense to me. It tells you what you can and cant have for a period of time and how to introduce foods back into your diet. I had been working on cutting out the carbs and sugar and that can make anyone into a crazed psychopath. Not fun but totally worth it. :) I have been on South Beach since August and so far I have lost 45 lbs. Not too shabby but I have about 110 more to go.

That's just a bit of background on my previous endeavors now onto the good stuff. This blog is to keep me accountable and maybe help other people through their struggles. The more I write and the more it is read the better I will do. I am making the commitment to write at least once every few days if not once a day. Hopefully I can finish this journey. Wish me luck.