It's been a rough couple of days for me emotionally. Some people in my life are slowly destroying themselves and there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it. Yesterday was my day to be sad, and man, did I take advantage of that. I cried, which I haven't done in a really long time. I wrote some stuff that ended up sucking and being unusable and it didn't even make me feel any better. I desperately wanted a candy bar. I wanted to drink myself into a stupor. I was dying to hit up Starbucks and drown myself in a venti peppermint mocha (my favorite thing ever -- also, 560 calories).
But I didn't. Instead, I watched America's Next Top Model with Izzy, read Jane Eyre, drank black coffee and I got through the day. So I think I might be a superhero.
Life is too short to not celebrate these tiny accomplishments, even if there are bigger things, massive things, that feel like they're crushing your entire life and stripping you of everything you are and everything you've ever tried to do. You'll survive. You always do. That is worth celebrating.
I'm using this mess that is my life to make myself a promise: No matter what happens to me, I'm never going to stop improving myself. I'm always going to be proud and strong, and even on the days when everything feels like it's going to shit, I'm going to smile and remind myself that it could always be worse, and at least I'm doing everything that I possibly can. That's all I can do.
Anyway!
I have lost 4 lbs and that means I only have 1 more lb to lose until I hit my before-Thanksgiving goal!
That turkey will be well-deserved. Turkeys around the globe should be trembling. Get ready, turkeys.
The first time I ever picked up a Postsecret book, I was a tragic, fat high school nerd. I wasn't really picked on in high school (though after middle school, I still prickle every time anyone around me whispers -- I'm 22) but I was no kind of prom queen. I had a great group of friends, but I wasn't particularly popular. I was strong and bright and funny, but I'd never had a boyfriend. And in high school, nothing mattered to me more than that.
I fell in and out of love like it was going out of style, told myself that this one would be different and he will see me for the wonderful person that I was. It never happened.
When I saw this secret for the first time, I sat cross-legged on the floor of a Borders in The Woodlands, TX, and I ached. This girl was me. This girl knew exactly how I felt, I knew it, and I agreed with her so wholeheartedly, it was as if I'd scoured my Cosmo Girl for a skinny model's body to write on, taped the picture to a note card and sent it in myself. I truly believed that the only thing holding me back in life was my weight.
As it turns out, I was wrong, duh. My weight itself was not the problem. The problem was the fact that I never made a move to alter my situation. I sat around and blamed it and I could have done that until I was blue in the face, but in the end, I'd still be overweight. I had much bigger problems than that.
Being skinny wouldn't have made me irresistible to my ideal man, just the shallower ones who probably weren't worth my time, anyway. Being skinny wouldn't have gotten me better grades or made me any cleverer or more beautiful. I had to learn to love myself before anybody could ever love me properly, and as cliché as that is, even though you've heard it 3 trillion times in movies and books and on television, it's true.
I really don't know where I'd be if I'd never learned that the most important person in my life is me. I'm a happy, independent (ish) college senior. I'm so excited to face my future with confidence and to attack and wrestle to the ground every obstacle that will ever present itself to me; that includes, of course, my weight. I'm so freaking proud of myself for finally doing what I've always put off in favor of fear of failure and ineptitude. I will be what I've never been, and I can't even explain how incredible that makes me feel.
So here's the breakdown: Since coming back to school, I've lost 9 lbs. Only 1 more until I reached the half-way point of my by-Thanksgiving goal! If I could achieve all of this in just 1 month (and keep in mind that I'm gaining muscle like a boss and muscle weighs more than fat), who knows what the hell else I can do? Take on the literary world and absolutely own at everything I've ever wanted to accomplish, hopefully, and even if I can't do that, I'm confident that this whole experience will mold me into a greater human being. (PS: For those of you who don't know, I'm a creative writing major -- writing is my thing, yo).
Boys aren't the answer. Boys aren't the goal. Boys are nice, but in the end, all that matters is me and being happy inhabiting my own skin.
Also! Unrelated! Halloween is coming up. You guys know what I look like, so you know I've bleached my hair and cut it short and that I'm totally adorable, so I'm posing a question: I want to be a celebrity for Halloween. Who should I dress up as? I'm considering Kelly Osborne, but I'm open to and kind of relying on your suggestions! Comment here or drop me a note on Facebook! ♥
I talk a lot of cool shit, but you guys are absolutely what keeps me going in this whole endeavor and in life in general. I'm so thankful for all of you who have always supported me and supported me since I started this silly little blog. You're the bestest.
So friends that I didn't even know read my blog have been pestering me to update. And I am eternally grateful to them. Because I am a lazy fucker, apparently, when it comes to this kind of stuff. So here's an update!
I know I missed the weigh-in day I've set for myself, but it took me and Izzy 9 years to buy a scale, but since we have and since I've started working out at school, I've lost a whopping 7 lbs! Proud of me.
This whole thing hasn't been without its tribulations, though. For example: I've discovered that I hate most vegetables. I've been in vegetable denial for a while now. Whenever somebody accused me of being too picky, I'd maintain that I like a lot of vegetables, thank you very much, just not this one in particular.
I'm a total liar, hahaha. But as Izzy is the queen of passive-aggressive disapproval, I've been choking down carrots even though I hate them and trying to eat spinach even when I'd rather not, etc. (For the record, I like spinach. But I have to be in the mood for spinach. And this is why I am a Fat Chick).
I've also been drinking exclusively water and my workouts are growing more and more rigorous, which I'm enjoying immensely. It really helps to have somebody to go to the gym with me, even if she is my insufferable roommate.
So uuuh, other than that, no news to report! Next entry will include a progress report and some delightful introspection. GET READY. Are you ready?
I'm back at school and utilizing the awesome (free) gym.
My calves feel like they're about to explode out of my legs. It's niiiice.
It's my birthday! I'm 22-years-old today!
I like bullet points.
So being back at school is doing absolute wonders for my ludicrous body adventure. The worst thing I've eaten since getting back last Thursday was a single oatmeal cookie. It was delicious. But not delicious enough, HAHA. My dark passenger insists I watch cake challenges on the Food Network and it's absolutely excruciating, yet somehow I am managing to be continuously awesome.
Izzy (that's my roommate) has been a very good Jiminy Cricket. She all but slaps me when I reach for something without reading the nutritional facts and doesn't hesitate to boss me around when it comes to our shared diet. My 20-lbs-by-November goal seems so much more attainable to me now that I can be super hardcore about all this business. Goals are important. Goals are encouraging. I'm going to kick the shit out of my goals.
It's been like, 30 years since my last update. I don't even remember when my last weigh-in was. I could offer excuses, but to be honest, anything that I could say that'd paint me in an innocent light would be complete horseshit. (Side note: Really, BlogSpot? 'Horseshit' is a word, but 'BlogSpot' is a typo? Hilarious).
Here's a fact: I've been sucking out loud lately. I haven't been working out because school ate up the last half of my summer and by the time I got home in the afternoons, all I wanted to do was take a shower and pass out. Also, my brother just returned from a year in South Korea, so beer, quintessentially American foodstuffs and inactive afternoons of cartoon-watching were unavoidable.
Here's another fact: I go back to Santa Fe tomorrow, so things will change. I will have access to a free gym (though the sexy soldiers I've been ogling all summer will be replaced by dirty hippies) and I'll be buying my own groceries, assisted by some bitch who lost a ton of weight this summer herself and looks fabulous (and a little bit like Justin Bieber). So things will turn around. They have to.
And finally: I present to you, readerz, a short-term goal. By Thanksgiving this year (that is, November 25, 2010) I will lose 20 lbs. This is doable if I stick to my guns and stop being stupid. So this Friday I will be weighing myself for my personal benefit and on September 3rd, regular weigh-ins will resume. Thank you guys for being so supportive even though I've been so dedicated to being awesome at sucking. ♥
So my darling friend Anna Smith alerted me of this article about our favorite guilty pleasure, Pretty Little Liars. Now, I've already mentioned that Ashley Benson is the absolute opposite of a Fat Chick, and uuuh...it's pretty obvious:
"'I put the fat suit on, and honestly, I almost started crying when I started saying my lines...I felt so sad for her, when she’s asking Sean to go to a party with her, and he’s looking at her like she’s crazy. And he’s trying to be sweet to her. I know what it’s like to have the courage to just talk to a boy, and honestly, tears were welling up in my eyes while I was doing the scene, because I felt so bad for her.'"
QUICK. Someone please explain to me why Fat Chicks are supposed to have low self-esteem! Seriously. Asking guys out really isn't that hard if you approach it with confidence, and if they guy looks at you like you're crazy, he's probably not worth asking out, is he?! Yikes. There should be a disclaimer at the end of this article: "Disregard statements of skinny actor; she doesn't know any better."
In other news, I've hit yet another clothing-related milestone. I only own one belt, as those of you who know me know well ("My fucking pants are falling down." "Damn it, hang on, I need to pull my pants up." "I should invest in another belt.") Said belt is now too big. I have run out of holes and have to make my own in order to tighten it to suit my needs. WOO.
Unfortunately, I don't have much else to say. Things have been kind of kooky and busy around the homestead these days, so I haven't had a normal week or weigh-in in a while. Back on track on Monday, see you then!
Blogging, not working out and dieting. Working out and dieting I'm getting progressively better at. But blogging, haaa, well, those of you who have been following this blog can see how that's going. I need topics to leap up into my face and scream "WRITE ABOUT ME," I guess. That's no good. What am I going to do when I'm writing for reals? I can't let myself get bored with long-term projects, (seriously, what in my life wouldn't suffer from doing that?) so from now on, I'm going to take this blog as seriously as I am my workout routine.
I will write every Monday and Wednesday and weigh in days will be Fridays instead of Mondays because getting on a scale after the weekend is just masochistic.
SPEAKING OF MASOCHISM, weigh-in on Monday...happened. I guess. I haven't lost any weight since the last weigh in, which, to my credit, wasn't a full 2 weeks before this latest one. Hence the switch to Fridays. My schedule's all messed up, ugh. How am I getting skinnier? I definitely am, but the scale doesn't appear to notice.
But hey, I hit a few epic milestones lately! Here they are:
I actually fit into my favorite red pants. They are crazy awesome and until recently gave me a crazy, not-so-awesome extreme muffin-top. not anymore!
And on the treadmill the other day, as a personal experiment, I decided to run for as long as I could without stopping/slowing to a walk. I went for a full 5 minutes before getting winded. Those of you who knew me in high school PE can guess what a big deal this is to me.
In PE when I was 15-16, I had the pleasure of being instructed (see: tortured) by a particularly prickly and ornery Skinny Bitch. We'll call her Coach W (don't worry, bitch, nobody could possibly guess who you are, lol).
Coach W had it out for me and my friends, who we'll call Alma and Amber (because those are their names). Now, I know how not-credible it always sounds when someone complains that a teacher has it out for them, especially in high school when we're all prone to high drama to begin with, but seriously, this woman hated us. When running the track, she would yell across the athletic field that we were out of shape and needed to go faster/work harder/stop being lazy, etc. Coach W made us targets for harassment from the Skinny Bitches in our class and turned a blind eye when they taunted and sometimes threatened us. We grudgingly dealt with it for 2 stupid, humiliating years. Point is, instead of motivating us to get into shape, Coach W exacerbated the body-image problems we didn't even know that we had. I had no desire to get into shape after class with Coach W -- I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Nobody, least of all a teacher, has the right to make somebody feel inferior because of their body.
So screw you, Coach W. I'm going to run my ass off (literally) and write you a letter telling you all about how you're a hate-mongering, self-esteem crushing, miserable woman but despite you (not to spite you), I've bettered myself (so suck it).
(PS, that's my boyfriend Jensen Ackles as a gym teacher in an episode of Supernatural. Not particularly relevant to this entry, but look at him. Damn. ♥)
I've been goin' through some shit, y'all. This isn't really the best place to talk about this, I know, but it's relative to my process, so damn it, I'm going to talk about it.
I just found out on Monday that my dad is going to prison for 5-10. I'll spare you the full explanation, but long story short, I've been incredibly bummed out, so much so that I even missed weigh-in on Monday and didn't get around to it until yesterday. I lost 2 more lbs! That's 3 in the past 2 weeks. Not terrible, but not good, either. I'm gonna have to step it up!
I'm doing okay now, keeping myself busy etc., so don't worry! Tomorrow is Monday, start of a whole new week, and I plan on making it my bitch.
I've been such a screw-up this week, guys. Bouncing back to my regimen after the holiday (which was 3 parts awesome and 1 part totally effing ridiculous) has proved to be much harder than anticipated. Everything was closed on July 5th, so I gave myself a lazy day. If bank tellers don't have to go to work, why should I have to go to the gym? My logic is flawless, shut up.
But yeah. I've been a lazy ass all week. I only got to the gym 2 of my 5 days this week. Monday, my excuse was a holiday hangover -- pretty legit, actually. I don't want to puke all over the hot USAF guys who frequent my gym. Tuesday, I had no money with which to put gas in my empty tank (I put my last 77¢ in so I could putter home, at least. A new low). Granted, I could've walked to the gym, but it was raining and apparently, I think I'm the Wicked Witch of the West. Tuesday night, I stayed up until 3 or 4 because I excel at procrastination and had a paper due on Wednesday morning, so I spent most of Wednesday in a delirious haze.
Thursday was the day I finally got my shit together, dragging myself to the gym after some serious mental coaxing and ugh. I'm never taking a long, pointless break like that again. My body seriously didn't thank me for my laziness.
Today was better, thank goodness. Got back on track and then some. My morning motivation was awful, though. I dragged myself out of bed, considering very strongly not going to the gym because I was tired and it is Friday and I am tiiiired. So I brought out the big guns. I weighed in early because after my week of lazy debauchery, I knew there's no way I'll be happy with what I see on Monday morning.
And I was right. I've only lost 1 pound in 2 weeks, which is a pretty stern wake-up call. If I'm say that I'm committing to this process, I seriously need to commit. Telling myself that I have a whole year so there's no sense in worrying and that I can afford to let myself slack off is only going to hinder me and I won't reach my Great Big Goal.
That being said, I know that my entire life isn't going to change overnight. I know that there can't always be successes and that's part of the journey. I'm learning and learning is stupid and hard, but in the end, I'll be better off for it. I promised myself that and I seriously owe me.
I've been kicking some ass lately. My own, specifically. I've amped up the cardio in my workout and it's really pretty incredible how much of a difference I can already feel in my body. I have ridiculous stamina (well, ridiculous for me, anyway) and I've fallen in love with the elliptical. We're getting married. It's serious.
When I'm rich and famous, I'm going to have a gym in my house, I think. I don't mind going to a public gym, but there are definitely some irritating elements to it. Like the people who come and harass me about free trial etc. and so-forths every 4 seconds and the trainer who got super bitchy when I asked him to show me how to adjust a machine.
This weekend was July 4th and so there was barbecue and booze, but I'm not beating myself up about it. It was totally worth it and only makes me want to get back to the gym even more. What I'm not looking forward to is getting back to school. I'm taking summer classes so I can graduate in May (woohoo!) and it's absolutely mind-numbing. All I want to do is lay out in a pool and work on my tan.
I know this entry is pretty durr hurr durr, but I don't have anything to talk about right now but I've gotta keep myself on track with the blog. So here you go! An entry of nothing! I think I'm going to start doing regular updates on Mondays and Wednesdays. Just fyi.
Weigh-in day sneaked up on me even though I've been gabbing about it for the past two entries. And so as not to keep you in suspense, the results are in!
Lbs lost: 4. Lbs left to lose: 96.
It seems like nothing, I know. Believe me, I know. But I figure that 90% of this first 2 weeks was just supposed to get me used to working out/eating right and now it's time to step it up. (A teeny, wangsty part of me would also like to blame my stupid ear infection for throwing off my groove, but please, feel free to ignore this).
Either way, results are results. Despite my horrific ear problems, I'm still feeling pretty good (though motivating myself to go to the gym is steadily becoming more and more difficult). Somehow, 96 lbs is a lot less daunting than 100. I think it's the triple-digit thing.
I've been dealing with an ear infection for a little while ("dealing with" = "taking lots of ibuprofen and pretending it's not there") and yesterday it got so bad I had to hit up the doctor. So now I have his awful medication dripping into my brain, I didn't get to go to the gym yesterday because my head felt like it was going to fall off and I feel like a lazy, sickly, unmotivated turd.
[/complaining]
Weigh-in #1 is happening in just two short days. GET PUMPEDwhile I take a nap.
These days it's like Hollywood thinks we're all idiots, though. Like, seriously, I'm supposed to believe that the spindly chicks playing "the fat girl" are/have ever been/were ever picked on for being a Fat Chick? Puh-lease. For example: I'm unabashedly obsessed with Pretty Little Liars, a horrible, wonderful show on ABC Family. One of the titular characters is played by Ashley Benson (pictured right) and is supposed to be a Former Fat Chick who vomited her way into popularity. This would be all well and good (believable, anyway)...if it weren't for the flashback scenes. They show Benson looking just as hot and svelte as I'm sure she always does (but in a sweatshirt), yet for some reason, her friends heckle her for being fat and she supposedly shops at some hilariously named plus-size store. Bad form, ABC Family.
I mean, it's not like I expect a ton from ABC Family to begin with and I'm not advocating for actors to fluctuate in weight for believability, but it's just sooo silly. I'm not self-righteously insulted or anything. I'm not gonna whine about the sort of message this puts out to kids about healthy body standards because kids should have more common sense than that. If they don't, they probably have bigger things to worry about than body image.
You know what show did Fat Chicks right, at least briefly? Degrassi: The Next Generation. Though I absolutely loathed the Fat Chick character, Christina Schmidt (left) is an actual Fat Chick, which was heartening. Then her character suffered a massive head injury and she left the show. But don't worry, they still talked about body image. And by "they still talked about body image" I mean "they made like, 25 skinny bitches anorexic or bulimic." Sigh.
And then there's this new show, Huge, starring Nikki Blonsky (who is once again typecast as a Fat Chick with Body Issues, wah wah wah -- you don't get a picture of her).
Why are we expected to hate ourselves if we're fat, again? I don't hate myself. Being fat, to me, has never been so Earth-shatteringly horrible that I cry about it or can't make friends or can't get laid, etc. Sure, there are insecurities that come with being fat, but there are insecurities that come with being super skinny, too. Or freckled. Or brunette. Or, you know, alive. Everybody's insecure. So why do all these high school sitcoms that I watch only show Fat Chicks dealing with being fat? There's so much more to the life of a Fat Chick than that.
Happy fathers' day, gang! It's the first weekend of my magical weight-loss adventure and tomorrow will mark my first weekiversary! I've seen some teeny-tiny differences in my body already -- nothing major, of course, and I'm not weighing in until next Monday -- but there definitely little, heartening changes. My face has slimmed out a little from all the water I've been drinking and I dig it!
So I want tattoos. Correction: I want more tattoos. I have one on my ankle (a nice, safe place for a tattoo if you're a Fat Chick) and I want dozens more, but it's tough to plan for permanent body-art when you're living in a body you don't particularly want to live in.
Now that I'm thinking about it, my size has always had some hand in dictating the way I express myself. When I was 13, I cut my hair really short and was mistaken for a boy, credit carded by a girl who, when I turned around, exclaimed, "Oh shit, it's a girl!" Yowch. Ever since then, I've kept my hair as long as it'll grow before becoming ratty with split-ends.
But hey, there's a big difference between a 13-year-old in shapeless parachute pants and a baggy Powerman 5000 T-shirt and a 21-year-old in curve-hugging jeans and cleavagy camisoles. These days, I could probably pull off short hair without looking like my own twin brother, but I won't try. Pixie-cuts are a skinny person thing, my brain tells me. If Kelly Osborne weren't famous, she'd look like a boy. Or a lesbian.
This whole fear thing, fear of trying and failing to look how I want to look, being mistaken for something I'm not (see: boy, lesbian), is for the freaking birds, man. And why is it that I look at skinny people with short hair and don't automatically assume they're gay-slash-quasi-transvestites? It says something about me more than anything else. It says that despite my feminine wardrobe and the fact that I was only mistaken for a boy that one time, I still care far too much about what other people think of me.
This whole experience is already putting me out of my comfort zone -- I would never ever have been caught dead in shorts in public before, just for example -- that I can't help but be hopeful that by the time a year's gone by, I'll have a whole 'nother comfort zone to call my own. That excites me. It exhilarates me. It motivates me. Stand back, bitches. My body will be my masterpiece.
Now to turn it over to y'all: What do you guys think about tattoos? Body decoration or body defamation? (I think you guys can guess where I stand...)
So I'm sure you've all figured, because I am so awesome and dedicated to this process, that in addition to cigarettes and all the horrifically fattening foods I love, I've also given up alcohol and all the empty calories therein. Well, I have. Now.
Yesterday was my BFF Kelly's 22nd birthday, so I went out with she and a couple of our friends. I was planning to be sneaky. I was planning to pretend to order some kind of hardcore, badass vodka-rocks-type drink and covertly sip water for the duration of the evening.
As it turns out, Kelly forgot her wallet and so we ended up at Kroger pursuing the dieter's Pandora's Box: the beer aisle. I'll admit it, y'all. I caved. I bought a 6-pack of that 55 calorie Budweiser which, as it turns out, is more of a tragically mislabeled and funny-tasting seltzer water than a beer. The mere 55 calories per bottle seemed doable, but then drinking your own urine is also doable. Doesn't mean you wanna do it.
After an evening of silliness and instant beer-drinking regret, I headed home and climbed into bed, waking every few hours as I sometimes do when I drink and using the opportunity to get some late-night laundry done. Happy endings all around, no consequence to my actions, tra-la, tra-la.
I. Wish.
I just got back from the gym and the workout I've been steadily growing used to and even starting to enjoy absolutely kicked my ass. Your body knows when you've been drinking after a month or two of sobriety and your body knows when you wake up and walk around in your underwear doing laundry at 3 a.m. And it doesn't like it.
So, lesson learned. No more booze apart for special occasions, and sleep, sleep, sleep. A good amount of sleep is important for your body's natural regeneration, or so I hear from like, everyone. Insert credible medical source here.
I'm really loving this so far even though I'm only 4 days in and it's probably a little premature. I know there'll be times when I won't see results right away and I'll be discouraged and frustrated and wonder why I'm bothering with this whole thing in the first place, but for now, I'm feeling good. I'm proud of myself. And this feeling is way better than a 12-pack of Blue Moon could ever hope to be.
I'm not one of those people who habitually turns to food to make themselves feel better, though I hear that's a big thing amongst the overweight set. It never even occurred to me that food had any real impact on my life (I know, I know) until I was in bed last night trying to sleep and my stomach suddenly yowled like a trapped cougar.
I was hungry. Like, really, really hungry. And I realized with something like disgust that I hadn't been really hungry in a long time.
My name is Liz Lucas and I am a snacker. (Hi, Liz).
I'll reach for crackers or chips or some kind of sugary drink to sate my potential hunger before I even have a chance to feel it. That's no bueno, amigos. Yesterday, the official start of my Life-Changing Ludicrous Adventure, I missed out on breakfast in favor of studying (I know, I know), went to the gym, had a decent lunch and a decent dinner, but without the snacks in between that I was accustomed to, my stomach gurgled unhappily into the night.
And it felt awesome.
There's definitely something to be said for putting your all into things, especially when you're me and your favorite food is the honey barbecue chicken strip sandwich from Whataburger. Wow, I feel fatter just having written that. It's a 960 calorie monster.
This got me thinking about this whole undertaking and how, if I want to achieve my Great Big Goal, I'm going to need to make up some rules to this game. I'm so freakishly motivated right now. So here goes:
1.) I will go to the gym 5 days a week (M-F), changing my workout routine every week but sticking to the same general pattern: Cardio, weights, cardio.
2.) I will drink 8 glasses of water a day, as recommended by like, every doctor ever.
3.) Whenever I find myself with an urge to break out the yogurt pretzels or the jalepeño Cheetoes, I will drink water instead and find something with which to busy myself.
4.) (And here's the one that makes me whimper a little bit) As it is my absolute favorite vice, I will refrain from eating Whataburger until June 14th of next year, when I accomplish my Great Big Goal. Then and only then will I allow myself a celebratory honey barbecue chicken strip sandwich.
What is it about the word "fat" that's so upsetting? Why is it insulting to call someone fat? Why, when I was 11, did I throw a stick through a bus window to strike a little boy who yelled "Fatass!" after me as I departed at my stop?
There's a lot of taboo attached to fatness. Fatisity. Fatitude. I like that. "Fatitude". I've always referred to myself as a fat chick. I'm certainly not uncomfortable with it, but I've found that more often than not, it puts people off. They feel compelled to quietly insist, "You're not fat," gasping at the very idea, like being fat is the absolute worst thing I could say that I am.
It has to do with self-image, plain and simple. There's a huge difference between seeing yourself a fat person and seeing yourself as a person who happens to be fat. I fall into the latter category. I was fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by a support system of friends and family who never treated me any differently because of my weight. I've been big my whole life, and of course there have been times when all I've wanted to do was climb out of my permanent fat-suit and go about life like a normal person would, but it doesn't work that way. You either accept the way your body is, or you take steps to change it.
Even after I lose the weight, I can pretty much guarantee I'll still refer to myself as a Former Fat Chick. It's the kind of thing you shouldn't let go of. My BFF Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," and since I haven't died from my fatitude yet and I wouldn't be attempting this epic turnaround in my life without it, I figure it's one of those stepping stones, the things that will ultimately make me into a stronger and more well-adjusted human being.
I'm proud to be a fat chick. Everybody needs to start somewhere.
And by "I'm no good at dieting", I mean "I've never really tried dieting."
I can't help it! I'm a lover of life, a lover of myself. I'm young. I love my big, fat ass and the huge boobs that are an incidental perk of the whole being a fat chick thing.
But here's the deal, y'all: I'm unhealthy. I've reached this conclusion, finally, after years and years of doctors ham-handedly trying to politely tell me how fat I am. Struggling up stairs instead of walking up them. My jeans wearing out at the upper, inner thigh because my legs rub together when I walk. Gross? You bet. So why haven't I wanted to do anything about this until now?
I don't know. Laziness definitely has something to do with it. Insecurity probably moreso. I want very much to be able to say it's because I'm so secure with myself and my body that I just don't care how it looks or how people view me, but that sure as hell ain't the case. I'm dreadfully self-conscious when it comes to my body image. I don't hate myself. I love myself. And because I love myself, I've decided that I'm going to do myself a favor and finally, after 21 years of being a fat chick, I'm going to lose the weight.
This blog, I hope, will serve to keep me on track and keep me motivated, for you see, Dear Reader, I have a goal. I have a few goals.
Goal #1 (aka The Big One): By this day exactly one year from now, I will lose 100 lbs.
If that seems excessive, let me put it into perspective for you: Right now, I am almost 100 lbs heavier than my heaviest friend. Luckily, I don't look that heavy (I'm pretty sure that all of that weight has been making its home in my tits, but who knows), but the number is pretty devastating.
But it isn't about numbers. It isn't about poundage or muscle mass or body fat content. It's about my health and my happiness. This leads me to my next goal.
Goal #2: Be happy.
Sound reasonable? I think so. So here goes nothing.
560 calories).
