Confidence; Do you have it and how do you show it?

I read a blog today where the author writes 10 things that she would like the confidence to do, a bucket list for confident activities.

It made me think about what makes us seem confident, and what we consider an activity that confident people do.

One of the items on the list was walking with eyes and head up right. Not downcast.

Now I am a confident person. I am confident in my abilities, my strengths, my weaknesses, I am confident that I know who I am and what I am capable of, and that it is not related to my body. Mostly. So for me, walking eyes up front is not something I would consider as being on my bucket list. I do it most days.

I think it also comes back to the philosophy of facing things head on- shoulders up, back straight and face your fears. I am the sort of person who realises my flaws and tries to work on them. To show that I am more than my fears and eventually overcomes them. For example; as an introvert, I hate crowds of random people and struggle to start a conversation. So one night I went out on the town by myself, went to a bar, sat down and tried to make a conversation with some randoms. It was a great night and it made me feel so much more confident in myself and my abilities.

Another lady mentioned that they wish they could wear a bikini in public. I actually did this in summer. Originally I had a t-shirt on over the top but it was annoying and baggy and was going to take my forever to get dry. So I was like you know what, I don't give a damn, and took it off. And swam and had a ball and even got a few glances from some males. No one glared or looked away disgusted. No one got up and left or looked me up and down as if to say 'you're wearing that?'. It was just another reminder to me, which is happening more and more, that for everyone person who bullies and bashes being chubby there are so many more who don't care. Who have family, friends, partners, colleagues who look like I do and all they really want is for you to be happy and get on with life.

It's heartening, encouraging and inspiring.

So what do I want the confidence to be able to do? I want the confidence to wear sexy clothing and not worry about my cellulite or stretchmarks or saggy belly (damn you weight loss!). I want the confidence to look someone in the eye and say 'Fuck you, I am beautiful too'. I want the confidence to be myself without having to worry about what people think, without worrying that I need to justify myself. I want the confidence to jog down the street and puff and pant and simply relish being able to run, not worry about the people will be looking at everything 'jiggling'.

Simple things, but important ones to me. So what does confidence mean to you?

Breaking the Hate Circle

Catching up on posts from some of my favourite bloggers I came across Diane's post here>http://www.fittothefinish.com/blog/2013/05/the-judgmental-weight-loss-blogger/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FitToTheFinish+%28fit+to+the+finish%29&doing_wp_cron=1369006643.5576798915863037109375.

Sorry for some reason I can't hyperlink.

Anyways the blog is about judgemental blogging within the weight loss community.

I have been very lucky that I have never come across any of the bloggers/blogs that attack struggling weight loss bloggers but it doesn't surprise me to hear that they exist. If they exist in real life then why shouldn't they exist in cyberspace?

One particular comment really got to me:

"Haters are going to hate. I know I cannot fix or change them just like I cannot fix or change a person who does not want to stop binge eating or loose weight.
Draw a circle around the haters. Don’t go in there. We have that choice. We also have delete buttons, ways to block people. Underused in the hater world. There’s hate within every community out there.
Bravo for not linking to the sites. It’s what they thrive on. Any site that is commercial will get money for the clicks. Since I like the right to free speech, and I have limited time and the freedom to choose, I read what takes me further. It’s nice to have that power.
Don’t step inside that circle you’ve drawn around the hater. I won’t change the hater, but I can change me."- Karen.P.

Another commenter said "Most people struggling with weight issues are mean enough to themselves without outside meanness"

I love the first comment about drawing a circle around the hater. Protect yourself and don't let them affect your life and your struggle because life is hard enough without someone hating on you.

The second comment I think really nails it, we are own worst critic. More than any hate blogger we criticise our efforts daily- hourly even.

I am sure there are many people who if they read my blog might not have seen much progress in my weight loss journey and would like to think I'm not trying hard enough. Yet, if they were to have met me a year ago and were to meet me today they would be able to see the difference. Daily I am grateful that I made the choice to take my weight and life in order. I am fitter and getting fitter all the time. I can do squats, sit ups, crunches, lunges, dips, push ups, reverse push ups, burpees and all the different versions of them. Slowly I am getting better and doing more of them. I can run around the block without stopping. I can walk up stairs without panting. Small things which make such a difference in how we live our lives.

My confidence has increased immensely. I am happy with myself and my body again. My measurements have decreased and every time I put on something I haven't worn in a while I have room where I didn't before.

Am I depressed that I am not losing faster? That I haven't got down to my "ideal" weight? To be perfectly honest- no. I have lost weight fast before and each time I have put it back on. This time I don't want to put it back on, which means I have to do something different. I have to figure out all the mental and emotional issues that goes along with weight gain and loss, and that takes time.

So long as I continually strive to improve myself and my body I am happy with the smaller changes. I have lost weight, I have dropped dress sizes and I am actually not that far off from where I want to be.

I am not in a hurry.

I want to do this once and do it right.

Friendships and doing what is best for you

There are so many bloggers out there that say they have lost friends on their journey to lose weight. And that saddens me. I am lucky that I have supportive friends. We are all different sizes and shapes but we love each other and support each others decisions.

For those bloggers out there that have lost friends, I often ask myself these questions 1. Did you try to explain your journey to them in terms they understand so that they know what role you want them to play? and 2. If they did not accept and support your decisions, could they really be called friends?

Now they probably sound like very harsh questions, but as an introvert I value and choose my friends with care and as a result only have a few friends. But quality over quantity is my motto.

Of course that's not to say you can't have lots of decent friends. Just that I don't.

Losing weight is such a personal journey. No one can understand what the other person is going through, because completely different things might have brought them to that point in their life and is now motivating them to change their life.

Someone who has never lost a significant amount of weight can never really understand the struggle and emotional issues tied up with it.

Someone who has lost weight still might not understand the issues. And often will believe they know they answer and will tout advice.

I have often received advice from well meaning others. At first I took it all on board. Then I got angry, feeling like they were criticising me for the way I was doing things, or for simply not doing things fast enough.

Now that I feel like I am doing enough, training 4 times a week and eating right, I feel like I can go back to the beginning, take it all on board, but politely say that I am doing all I can and am happy with my efforts.

Losing weight is a journey, in more ways than one. Often people do not know how they are supposed to react or be when you say you are losing weight. They do not know whether they should bring it up and congratulate you. When you say you've gained a kg, they do not know whether they should offer advice or commiserate with you or clap you on your back and say that you can do it.

It is often hard to know what someone else wants from you in terms of support. Some people are better at understanding than others and sometimes what you need is not what you want.

I think it is important to be upfront from the beginning and to be clear on how you want to be treated. For the most parts my friends will not bring it up unless I bring it up first. Then they say you look great and ask me what I am doing. That's all I want from them, and that's all I need.

If you are not up front, then you can be hurt by a friends misguided comments and this can affect your progress too. If even after being upfront they still continue to hurt you, do not waste time and energy on them- they are clearly not true friends.

Staying Positive, being strong and most of all be HAPPY!

The weight loss journey can be a long and trying one. There are lots of ups and downs, emotional and physical battles to be fought. It can be hard on you and everyone around you. It can affect your relationships and change your lifestyle to something completely new and unexpected.

It can also be really hard to stay positive. Especially when you are particularly stressed/emotional/sick/tired/injured and just plain unmotivated. It could be that you're not doing as well as you like, or someone in your life is doing "better" than you. It could be that you have something come up, at work or in your personal life, which demands all of your attention.

The important thing is to stay positive. To think of the good, not the bad. To think of the future not the past.

I am probably the biggest girl at training, including boxing. Not necessarily the most unfit (or at least not that far behind) but probably one of the biggest.

Yes, that can make me feel bad. Especially when we run as a group and I come last. I am not a good runner. I hate it.

When they talk about how much weight they have lost, it can make me have negative thoughts.

When they talk about how dedicated and motivated they are I often wonder why I bother. I am clearly not on their level.

When they talk about their next challenge, to run 10km, to bench press 20kgs, to hold a plank for 2 minutes etc I think, I'm not even close to doing half of that!

And yet, when they talk about their journey, they talk about the 5kgs to go. The stomach or the arms they hate. The loose skin that they despise. The friends they have lost because they didn't understand. The calories they have eaten that day. The workout they are going to do to make up for having a bite of a piece of cake or a glass of wine. (I am not saying that they shouldn't work it off, just pointing out obsessed they can be.)

Do they talk about how happy they are? How great they feel? How far they have come? NO.
Do they not understand that there are hundreds of thousands of women that have never achieved what they have, and would be happy with just that.

Listening to them talk makes me feel like I'm not doing enough. I am not pushing myself hard enough, that maybe I should just give up now because I will never be like them.

But then I think, I am happy. I am happy with where I am, who I am and what I am doing. I am committed to what I am doing, I am continually improving and getting better. But most importantly I am positive and happy in my life and it shows in my relationships and work.

I do not want to get to my goal weight and have it not be "enough". I am not one of those people that thinks that once I get to my goal weight everything will fall into place. It doesn't work like that. I know because I've been there before and I yet I gained weight and ended up at the beginning again!

I don't want to be miserable for the next 9 months and then once I've reached my goal suddenly be happy and want to go out with the friends I've ignored and might have lost because I've been focusing so much on me and weight loss.

Because it does take a long a lot of energy and time and effort to lose weight. BUT it is so much easier when you are happy.  I have found that since accepting myself and leting myself be happy, committing myself is so much less effort. Yes I believed for far too long that because I was fat, I shouldn't be happy. I  didn't deserve it.

It is so much more positive to be happy. It is less emotional guilt tripping and stressing because I have not reached a goal by a certain date. It is about being happy with the successes and continually improving so that there is only more to come. It is about enjoying myself, enjoying exercise and enjoying healthy food.

It is not about comparing myself to others. It is not about being disappointed in myself or thinking I am not good enough. I am good enough.

For everyone out there that is struggling: stay positive, be strong and be happy with your successes. Think of all those women out there who haven't even taken the first step to lose weight. Who might never have the chance to. Remember that there is always one person out there that will look at you and wish they were like you. Yes there is always at least one!

Fellow weight loss peeps will probably think that I am being unrealistic in my approach. That I am not being rational by not setting goals and reaching them, weighing myself on the scales every day and counting my calories every day. That I am too relaxed, that I am not disciplined enough.

Only time will tell right?

Remembering a Conversation

I was remembering a conversation I had while I was in Sweden with my host-sister Emilie.

Emilie was complaining how her mother, Agneta, was telling her that she needed to jump on the diet bandwagon to lose the 4 kilos she had gained over the Christmas and New Year.

This irritated me to no end. This is because a) Emilie was recovering from being depressed and near suicidal b) she wasn't overweight and was still a comfortable size 10 and c) Agneta had had surgery at the beginning of the year to reduce the size of her stomach and had lost 30 kilos.

Ok so the last one probably doesn't make sense to you, but to me here is this mother who had been overweight for almost all of her entire adult life and who had to resort to surgery for her to lose weight. She has done really well and looks amazing BUT she points it out at every opportunity that she has lost weight. And that really annoys me.

Because it's not because of her that she has lost the weight, it's not because of her changing her lifestyle and eating habits, but being forced to. She physically can't eat much. And here is she is telling her daughter who has no weight problems and who is still in a vulnerable mental position to lose weight??! It just makes me mad.

A couple of days later I was watching TV with Agneta (I should point out that I was staying with Agneta and that she is like a second mum to me) and we were watching an American TV show where they match an anorexic with an obese person together and get them to swap diets. I had never seen the show before... anyways we were talking about the show and it came up about how people can be obese/overweight and can't take advice from others. They need to do it themselves.

So of course she brings up Emilie and how she's just trying to help.

Now you should know that I have a big problem with how I come across to people because I don't moderate what I say or how I say it. It's not that I do it on purpose, I just do it without thinking. So more often than not I try to keep my big mouth shut.

This time I couldn't. So I pointed out to her that I know that I am overweight, I know that I need to lose weight BUT that does not mean I want people to tell me to lose weight or offer me advice. They do not understand nor are they me or know what I am doing. That includes my mother. I made my point.

This prompted me to think of all the people who have well-meaning friends and family who constantly ask questions, or are offering advice or trying to help who don't realise just how hurtful and demeaning it is. Like catching you eat a piece of cake and saying "Should you be eating that?"

Often these people have no understanding of how hard it is. Or they think that because they have lost weight that now gives them the right to tell you how you should lose weight. Or what you are doing is wrong.

Sure there are times when advice is exactly what you want and what you need. But often it is not.

Often I just want to be left alone to deal with it myself, and not be reminded that I am not normal, that I am overweight, that I have to watch what I eat and do exercise.

And this makes me realise that dieting and losing weight can often be a lonely road. Not many of my friends need to lose weight or exercise or even eat healthily. So that means that there aren't many people that I feel I can talk to or relate to.

All I can say is thank god for the internet and blogs, where I can get all the advice I need and meet people who I can relate to who share their triumphs and failures.

Thank you to all the weight loss bloggers out there!






<Me and Mum.

Society Shift

I was reading one of the blogs I follow -Fit to Finish. Diane had written about Fat Acceptance on her blog which raises a controversial topic and one that is heavily talked about within "fat" circles. I have touched on this subject before, but reading it again in Diane's blog made me want to post about it again.

As someone who is overweight and not obese, I do not think my weight has affected me too much, but it HAS affected me and some of my choices in life. Sometimes more because I thought I was fat and shouldn't do something than because I actually physically couldn't do it. I can only imagine how that must feel for someone bigger than what I am.

Recently, I have made myself shift my way of thinking, forcing myself to stop thinking I can't do something, just because I think I shouldn't. But I get off topic.

I believe that people should be accepted for who they are, but that fundamentally as a society we need to shift towards a healthier way of living.

In my generation (Gen-Y) eating fast food, binge drinking, not being able to cook from scratch, energy drinks. Xbox, play stations, TV, iPad, iPhones and tablets are all things we have grown up with and simply what is done. Many people and younger do not know any other way of living. It is affecting our waist line.

So what do we do?

Like any other generation, we resent the comments "Back in my day.. " It is not your day, it is ours and things are very very different. Society has taken a fundamental shift from having to make do with what is in the cupboard, from simply being able to survive- to having excess. To have that feeling of affluence, of having things in our cupboard and going "you know what, I don't feel like that I am going to have this, this and this"

So we create these movements trying to force others to see it OUR way. Believing like every generation before us that WE are the ones that are RIGHT and know better. After all they didn't grow up with all this did they? We think we deserve this. We think that we work hard and deserve to reward ourselves with whatever we want.

But this not right. As anyone who wants to be healthy knows, what you want and what is good for you are two very different things. You want candy, but what good is that going to be for your body? Your body does not need sugar to function.

As a society we need to educate our young people to what is needed and what is not. That exercise is a NECESSITY not a choice. That HEALTH is important and cannot be compromised.

We need to teach children about growing, planting and eating from the garden. How to use those foods in cooking. How they benefit your body. How just like smoking, energy drinks are going to ruin their body. So too is being overweight and obesity. If not now, then in 20 years time as they start to slow down and stress, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and aches and pains start to kick in.

Already struggling to get pregnant, polysystic ovary syndrome and diabetes are kicking in for some of my friends who are overweight. They are only in their early 20's!!

If we as a society do not change, do not decide as a majority that we need to do something now I can only imagine what our future is going to be like.

Tired of perfection

I am so sick and tired of those that seem to be the perfect weight loss loser.

You have more will power than me, you can stick to your diet goals, you're going harder at the gym.

Woohoo good for you. There is no need to brag about it in my face.

I am genuinely happy for you. But don't you dare make me feel as if my weight loss is not good enough.

Just because my journey is different to yours does not mean it is right or wrong. People work through things differently.

I understand that I have a lot of emotions tied to food. And I know it will take time to work through those. Just because I give in to those now or then, or because I seem more relaxed about it does not mean I am not dealing with it.

All I have heard about dieting is that is bad for you. You stick to one restricted plan for too long and you crack. I have heard that almost 95% of dieters regain their weight and then some within 2 years of losing it.

Why? Because they haven't worked through their issues. They lose the will power to stay on something so restrictive and they start to go back to old habits. I have been so good for so long I deserve to have a piece of cake now and then. And so it begins.

That is NOT how I want to be. I want to work through my problems. Find a balance between the food I love and the foods I need. To enjoy and actually want to do exercise. To be able to go out with friends and enjoy the same foods without being judged or judging them.

I want to be normal.

Yes that sounds idyllic. And so many people will say that I am being unrealistic to think I can make any changes without dieting or restricting.

BUT

It has worked for me so far.

I CAN go out. No I don't eat dessert, I make a healthy choice for dinner, and I do NOT feel guilty.
I CAN eat a piece of chocolate when I am tired and stressed.
I CAN enjoy life.
I do NOT need to be good ALL the time.

As long as I exercise more than I eat. Then I am fine. Which is what I plan to keep on doing.
Yes I might hit a plateau and need to change something to keep losing weight. But that does not mean I need to drop everything in my life, go completely organic within a week and then crash and burn within 3 days.

I understand my body, my mentality and what I need to do to make sure I achieve my goals. So congratulations that you have done so well. So have I. Now leave me alone.

Fat v's Skinny: a Fashionable Debate

There has been a lot of controversy here in Aus lately about "Fat Fashion bloggers" and the increasing acceptance of overweight and obese women as beautiful. The debate comes down to those that are "Fat" and "Fashionable" debating that being fat does not affect their ability to be beautiful and/or fashionable and if they do not have a problem with it then nobody else should.

On the other side there are those that believe that they are promoting obesity and being overweight as normal and healthy and this can lead to an increase in weight for women and consequently health issues.

There are also those that believe that being Fat does not mean you can be beautiful, healthy or fashionable. That you have to be a certain size/shape to be beautiful.

As a bigger girl, I have a healthy interest in this debate. As a woman I believe that everyone has the right to look and feel beautiful and fashionable. If you can do that at any size, good for you. I also believe that it is wrong to discriminate against someone just because of their size. What size you are is your personal choice and it is wrong for others to say that because you are a size 20 (for example) then you cannot have a fashionable wardrobe or wear clothes of a certain shape.

I do not agree however that being fat is healthy and should be encouraged. I do not want to see our children and our children's children to become obese at a young age and never know that it is unhealthy. To have them grow up with health issues and never experience a happy healthy life.

I also think that there are many different sizes of "healthy" and that the current fashion industry is only just recognising this. Many "plus" sized models are size 12 and 14!! That is a healthy weight and size and is the average size of Australian women.

I personally would be a happy if I fitted comfortably between the size 12-14 Australian sizes. I do not think of my being size 16 as unhealthy, but I know that I have fat and am not the healthiest I could be. I do not want to encourage others to become like me, because that could lead them to be worse than me. I exercise and I eat well and I know that many people would not see that when they look at me.

I also think that I can be beautiful and fashionable even if I do have fat. This is a picture of me when I was at my lowest. I was still a size 16 and overweight. But I love this picture and I think it is beautiful.

Do you believe that you can be a beautiful and fashionable as a bigger woman? Do you want to encourage obesity and being overweight as healthy? Or would you rather that there was more acceptance of a broader range of shapes and sizes?

As long as we are healthy I think all shapes and sizes should be accepted.