Friday Photos

I tend to get in a bit of a crazy and excited mood on Fridays. I get distracted by my weekend plans and I can't concentrate at work very well. Don't tell my boss!

I know it seems like I whinge a lot on this blog, this is a great outlet for my anxiety and neurosis, but I am actually feeling very happy and blessed in my life right now. I feel like I have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to look forward to in my life. I am happier than I have been for a very long time.

I can't focus enough to write anything interesting on this blog today (can you tell my brain is scattered today?), but here are some recent photos from my iphone for your entertainment.

 The beautiful flowers my mum sent me to congratulate me on getting my new job

A dress my mum bought me that I was trying on to see how it looked

Walking through my favourite park in Melbourne

 Cute little mini burgers that AJ made me at 3.00am after I had been out drinking and needed a late night snack!

Delicious and band friendly burrito bites AJ made me for dinner one night (I like mini things!)

This lovely rainbow I caught as I was walking past a window at work. Winter isn't all bad.

This photo was taken just a minute ago at work. I got my hair cut and coloured last night at the hairdresser. OK, I know it's not a drastic difference, but I like it!

HAVE A FABULOUS WEEKEND!!!

Breaking The Cycle

I watched a very interesting documentary on TV the other night called Why Are Thin People Not Fat. The premise was for naturally thin people to eat double the amount of calories than they normally would and see how different people gain weight. We are always told that weight loss is as simple as calories in and calories out, but documentaries like this disprove that food and calories have the same effect on everyone’s bodies. For anyone that hasn’t seen the show or is interested, this blog sums it up quite well.

After the show finished I mentioned to AJ that I really need to stop binge eating if I want to successfully control my weight. What he said to me really shocked me, but made complete sense. He said, what you need to do is stop starving yourself if you want to control your weight.

In a way I wasn’t even aware of how much I still starve myself and I certainly wasn’t aware that anyone else noticed either. I am still depriving myself of food and constantly battling hunger. I guess my messed up head still thinks you have to be hungry to lose weight and feeling full and satisfied makes me feel guilty.

I can still remember when I started starving myself; I was 5 years old and on my first day of primary school. When the bell rang for class we had to line up outside the classroom and one of the boys walked up to me and said that I couldn’t stand in his line because I was fat. I was shocked and didn’t really know what to do, but my young mind only knew that being fat was bad and food makes you fat, so logically I should stop eating.

I started starving myself during the day and only eating the evening meal at home. I continued to do this on and off throughout my entire school life, with periods where I would also skip the evening meal and eat nothing for weeks on end. It was easy to get away with because I had a fraught family life and no one took any notice of me. When people did occasionally notice my odd eating behaviours they weren’t concerned because I was still fat, so their assumption was that skipping a meal would do me good.

So if I was eating so little, why was I still fat? As soon as I started starving myself, I also started binge eating. Some days I would come home from school and feel so hungry and weak that I would sneak into the kitchen and stuff as many slices of bread and butter, cheese, sweet biscuits, muesli bars and whatever else I could find into my school jumper and go into the bathroom (the only room in the house with a lock) and eat until I was sick. I grew up in a poor family and food was often scarce so it was noticed that this food went missing. My older brother always got the blame for taking this food and no one ever suspected that I would do this because I was the ‘good’ child. I still feel guilty for that…

I was bullied all through school for being fat and the only thing that brought me comfort were these quiet times where I could sit alone and eat. Unfortunately, I am now 30 years old and 25 years of a starving and binging cycle is difficult to break. I still feel stronger when I am starving and I still feel comfort from food. I am taking AJ’s advice and working on eating more in the hope I can find a better balance in the way I eat. I have to relax and not make weight loss the focus of my life and instead concentrate on a healthy and balanced lifestyle. It will be easier said than done, but I’ll keep trying.

Fat Bashing

I have been following Stephanie’s blog for a few months now, she is a fellow lap bander who has lost a tremendous amount of weight and works harder than just about anyone I know. If you’re in Melbourne you may have noticed her story in Mx (the free public transport paper) yesterday or on the Herald Sun website. I have such a huge amount of respect and admiration for this woman for going public with her story.

Stephanie got fed up with the abuse she received about her weight while using public transport and the fact that Mx constantly publishes attacks on fat people in their paper. She contacted the paper and they allowed her to share her story and she is receiving quite a bit of publicity about it now.

Before I lost 50 kilos I received quite a bit of abuse and nasty comments while using public transport (and in many other areas of my life). I would purposely skip certain trains or trams that were too busy and wait for the quieter ones where I wouldn’t feel in the way. I never used to take a seat because I felt like people were judging me for taking up too much space, so I would stand at back, despite the fact my feet were aching from standing on them for 8 hours a day while working in retail. When I lived closer to the city, by the time the tram came to my stop it was always full and I couldn’t push on like other people did because of the comments I would receive, so I started walking into the city to work because that was my only other option.

Just two days ago while on the tram I noticed a woman who was a bit larger sit next to a man who appeared irritated that she had sat next to him. A few minutes later when another seat became available elsewhere on the tram, he made a big point of getting up and moving, giving her one last disgusted look. I was mortified for her because I can remember that feeling.

There is nothing more crushing than receiving abuse from strangers calling you a fat cow or telling you to lose weight. Most times it happened to me when I was by myself, but the occasions when it happened in front of friends, family or colleagues was so much more humiliating. The abuse of fat people in society continues to tolerated and even encouraged. There is so much anger and hatred directed toward overweight people and an assumption that being fat means that you are lazy, unhealthy and lack discipline.

Being overweight is not a choice we make because we think it’s the fun and easy option. There are numerous complex reasons that people can be overweight and many of us that are fat are trying every single day of our lives to lose that excess weight. Most of what we have been told about weight loss has only hampered our ability to lose weight and the diets we have been put on our whole lives have made us fatter.

That is not to say that I think that any one who is larger than the norm should be trying to lose weight. I am a huge advocate of size acceptance and loving the body you have. I think you can be healthy at any size and I only wish that I was better at loving and accepting my body. It is just so hard when you have had people telling you your whole life that you are a disgusting fat pig because you end up believing them. We need more people like Stephanie standing up for the rights of overweight people so that we don't have to feel like second class citizens.

*****

Stephanie is also raising money for the Cancer Council by climbing the 46 floors of the building she works in. You can donate here: http://vic.cancercouncilfundraising.org.au/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=342014&langPref=en-CA&Referrer=direct%2fnone

Wish You Were Here

My laptop has started dying recently and I can’t afford a new one for a while, but my only concern was making sure I have my photos backed up before it takes it’s last breath. This brought me to look guiltily at the thousands of photos from our 3 month holiday around Canada, America and Mexico last year and lament the fact I still haven’t sorted them. We had the trip of a lifetime and it seemed a shame not to document it properly so that we can bore our friends with travel photos and stories.

So while I have been feeling sick and sorry for myself on the couch with a pissy winter cold, I looked up some online photo album services and thus started a new obsession. I have wasted countless hours choosing photos and laying them out to tell the story of our holiday. 

It really feels like I am re-living all the fun again and laughing hysterically about all the things I had forgotten. I can’t wait until I get it printed and can see the finished product. It’ll definitely be my little happy place to go to escape the realities of work, bills and house cleaning.

On this very cold and dreary Melbourne day, here are just a few places that I wish I could be again...

 Hiking through Yosemite

 At a beautiful resort in Mexico

 Watching AJ play with rocks in Chilliwack (Canada)

Walking through Vancouver

In a prison cell in Alcatraz!

Hiking through Big Sur

 On a beach in Cape Cod

 Walking through Centra Park

 Eating Cheetos in bed

 Eating yum cha in Chinatown, San Francisco

 Drinking cocktails on a beach in Mexico

At the Most Magical Place On Earth

Riding the rollercoasters at Dollywood

Drinking with friends in Vegas

 Touring through Graceland

 Having a private picnic at the Grand Canyon

 Eating gumbo in New Orleans

 Hiking with family in Tofino, Canada

 Eating In N Out Burger in California

 Hiking through Joshua Tree National Park

 At the Kennedy Space Centre

 Eating key lime pie in Key West

 On a sleigh ride in Lake Louise, Canada

 On a beach in Mexico

Eating ribs in Memphis

 Walking along the Mississippi

 Drinking mojitos in Miami

 On the shore of Monterey

 Eating Mystic Pizza in Mystic

Mucking around on Santa Monica Beach

 Meeting deer in my brother's backyard in Banff, Canada

 Walking through the beautiful Savannah

 Eating hot dogs at Shake Shack in New York

 Walking through the Canadian Rockies

 Hiking through the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee

 Sun baking by the pool in Palm Springs

 On a gondola on Sunshine Mountain in Canada

 Pretending to be a tiger at San Diego Zoo

 In a hot tub in Tofino, Canada

 Walking on the beach at Tybee Island in Georgia

 In the decadent Venetian hotel in Las Vegas

 Whale watching in Tofino, Canada

 Walking past the White House on dusk in DC

Drinking wine in Napa Valley

Bear spotting in Canada

 Drinking beer on Granville Island in Vancouver

I guess all that is left to do now is to start planning the next holiday. I am thinking Europe in 2012...

Happy Middle Year!

I have to admit that I am thrilled that we are now in the second half of this year. It feels like a little bit of a fresh start and a good way to put the first half behind me. I have had probably the worst 6 months I can remember and I am just looking forward to making the next 6 months of 2011 better.

Here is an update on how things stand for me on 1 July 2011…

WEIGHT

I don’t weigh myself very often because I hate measuring myself by what the scales say and it tends to make me feel like crap. For the sake of knowing where I am mid-year I did weigh myself this morning and I am currently 77.1 kilos (169.5 lbs). I started the year at 82.5 kilos (181.5 lbs), so that is a loss of 5.4 kilos (12 lbs). Granted, at one point this year my weight got down to 73.2 kilos (161 lbs) due to a crazy low carb diet, but once I looked at chocolate again my weight went back to normal. I am happy enough with how I have done with my weight so far this year. I know I could have done a lot better and I know I could have done a lot worse, so it’s just OK. I would be thrilled if I could get another 7 kilos (15.5 lbs) off by the end of this year and get down to 70 kilos (154 lbs), so I’ll keep plugging away.

HEALTH

My health took quite a beating this year while I continued to fight the virus I got in Bali and then also was diagnosed with a B12 deficiency and anaemia. Worse than all this was my mental health. I suffered from quite severe anxiety this year due to some personal problems I was having. I have always had bad anxiety, but it got to a level that was unmanageable this year. I got very brave and saw a doctor about this and I am now taking some tablets that are taking the edge off. I must admit that I thought they would cure everything, but like the lap band, I have to do a lot of work myself to keep my mental health stable.

EXERCISE

Oh exercise, the bane of my existence… I can’t even say that it is a love/hate relationship because it is mostly just hate. This year I quit my gym membership because I was completely hating it and just didn’t have the energy for it. Once I started taking correct medications I felt I had a bit more energy and re-joined another gym. I still don’t love it, but I am doing it because I value having fitness and mobility. One thing I did start doing this year is Pilates and I am thrilled to say that I am really enjoying it and the class I do is the highlight of my week. So I just need to keep trying different exercises and hope to find others that I love just as much as Pilates.

LAP BAND

I am now over 2 years post lap band surgery and I have lost and kept off over 50 kilos (110 lbs). These days the lap band doesn’t play a major role in my life, it’s still in there and some days it helps me and some days it pisses me off. I currently have 5.9 ml in a 10 ml band and that is the most fluid I have ever had in there. I think I could probably do with at least another .2 ml because I am still constantly hungry and looking for more food. For now I’ll keep using good old willpower because I don’t want the band to be so tight that it makes eating out difficult. I haven’t had anything stuck in the band in at least a month (that I can recall) because I know what I should and shouldn’t be eating and I am trying to work with the band rather than challenging it every step of the way.

FINANCES

Boy oh boy, I got myself in the shit financially last year. It wasn’t even the 3 month trip around North America that screwed me up, it was everything I did when I got back. I made some extremely poor financial decisions, teamed with some expensive health issues, and the worse my finances got… the more I let things spiral out of control. Paying off debt is just no fun at all, but it has to be done. As of next Friday I will have paid off one credit card that at the start of the year owed $6,000. I have another credit card that owes the same amount that I need to work on in the second half of this year. I don’t know that all my debt will get paid off this year because in the next couple of months I need to pay a $1,000 car insurance bill and a $3,500 dental bill. Thinking about it gives me heart palpitations, but I’ll get there eventually.

CAREER

For the first half of this year my career was not going well. I was in a temporary job that bored me to death and paid miserably and I was starting to think I would never move forward. Just last week I was offered a fantastic job that I will start in August and I feel hopeful that my career is on track again. I’m looking forward to having a job that challenges me, where I am treated with more respect and pays me much better than my current job.

So the first half of 2011 has been tough, but I am pleased with the way I managed it and I am excited about the second half of the year and all the good things to come. Happy Middle Year to you!!!