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?

Moving in a new direction

So I have not been posting so much on here lately. Mostly because I have recently discovered instagram and the amazing community of body positivity on there.


I am a huge believer in body positivity. I believe that no matter what size or shape you are that you should be able to feel good about yourself. Not depressed, not deprived, not angry or disgusted. These negative emotions do not help someone to lose weight or make a difference in their lives, instead they lead to more eating and drinking, drugs or suicidal thoughts. Making someone feel bad about how they live their life does not achieve anything except perhaps to make you feel better about how you live yours.


That does not mean I support being unhealthy, overweight and lack of exercise. But I am more accepting that there are people out there that do eat well and look after themselves that do not fit into the standard shape or weight range. Perhaps they have just started their good health journey, or perhaps that is just what their body looks like, or perhaps that is what they are happy with looking like? Who am I to judge. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or personal trainer.


Anyways, back to my own personal troubles. I have been in a bit of a slump, however I am slowly but surely coming back out of it. It was a combination of a few things, being really unwell, stressed and exhausted had a lot to do with it. Basically I had pushed myself too far with work and it had taken it's toll. At the same time my PT made the decision to go back to full time work in order to get the bank loan she needed for her house. Which means two things a) I have more money now that I am not doing PT and b) that I need to find some sort of physical activity to do.


I've been taking it slow as I really just wanted to get my health back and to prove to myself that I wouldn't fall off the band wagon just because I wasn't doing PT and having someone look over my shoulder. I did binge a little, but I have regrouped and am pulling myself back again. Key to this as always is preparation. The more meals I plan in advance the less thinking I have to do and the less chance I have of making decisions that I later regret. So far so good.


Right now I am focusing on finding healthier alternatives to satisfy my sweet tooth and looking into new physical activities to try- dancing or martial arts perhaps. But it is nice to know that after 3 years I am finally in control of my life and that even when I fall off the band wagon it is not for long. I just pick myself up and dust myself off and start again :)

Been a while

So it's been a while since my last post. A lot has been going on, with work and personal life and all those things that creep up on you.

In my last post I went on about how I needed to adjust my diet and really get of the carb wagon.

Since then I went quite seriously off carbs for a few weeks and then life got in the way and I went away and it became hard to control my food intake. BUT I have not gone back to what I was before and am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

The reason being is that I noticed such a big difference in how I felt during those weeks, and also in how my stomach and intestine felt, and really noticed a difference in my energy levels as well.

I am still not eating too much gluten, trying to avoid it but for the occasional toast or sandwich, same with my dairy, and I am still reaping the benefits inside. Just not as much as before.

Other than that everything has been on track. I have had some incredibly stressful moments over the last few months but they have come to pass now, so it's time to take a moment for myself and really get back to being the healthiest and most rested I can be.

Key to getting through these moments have been in taking time out to paint, or draw, or to simply duck down to the beach or away for a picnic. Actually embracing the moment and getting outside is really beneficial to my moods and stress levels. I feel like I've actually achieved something and gotten away from things, even if only for a short while.

Another big moment happened a few weeks ago, a friend of mine and myself decided to join in the Perth skinny dip to try and crack the Guinness book of records and to also raise awareness and funds for those with eating disorders and mental illness. It was a fantastic event and I am so proud that we did something like that. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, but still such a huge achievement to be able to show my my bare body to so many people.

Such a big part of how happy we are is on the inside, inside our heads, not just the way we look on the outside of the number on the scale and it's important to acknowledge that and work on our own self worth and appreciation long before we make our goal weight.

THE Dream Body

Everyone has a shape, a goal, a size that they think is healthy, sexy, attractive. Everyone has that dream of what they want to look like when they lose weight.

For some it is simply to be within a healthy weight range. For others it's to be toned all over. A flat stomach. No longer taking medication. Fitting into that dress. Single digit clothing. So on and so forth.

Everyone has a dream of that body.

For me, it is to be healthy, to be fit*, to have a flat stomach. BUT I still want my curves, I still want to have soft tissue. I do not want to ever be too thin. I don't really care about toning. It would be nice, but it is not terribly important.

*Fit is also something that is subjective. To me fit means to be able to get up the stairs without puffing, to be able to do push ups if I want to, to be able to run after a child, and play games without being short of breathe.  A very broad fitness is what I want. I don't need to be able to run for miles on end, to be able to do lift my own body weight ( although that is something I would like to do once!) or any of those things. My main reason for exercising is to be healthy and to do something I enjoy.

Anyways as I was talking about what I want and don't want. I realised everyone's goals are different, everyone's reasons are different.

What is your ideal?

Do I fall into that "fat" stereotype anymore?

So after enjoying a nice long weekend, where I went hot ballooning with my mum and then pretty much crashed most of the rest of the weekend. I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was sleep. Which to me tells me I really needed the sleep as normally I am one of those people that can just go, go, go.

Anyways as I was laying around the house on Friday afternoon, all I could think about was how it irked me that if I told someone about my weekend all they would think was that I was being a typical "fat" person and being lazy.

Now I know there is no "typical" "fat" person or behaviours, everyone is different and often came to be fat/overweight from different reasons, whether it be medical, physical, emotional or behavioural.

But as I was thinking about this, I tried to summarise how I lived, and whether it would fall into that stereotypical category. Because for some reason I really didn't wanted to be associated with that lifestyle anymore.

So here are a few things which I believe are associated with being fat:

• Watching T.V. - of course everyone does it, but for some reason fat people are associated with it.

Just picture an obese person. What do you get? An overweight man in a sofa with a beer watching telly. Or at least I do.

• Fast Food.- Going through HJ's/ Macca's. I know this is completely unfair but these are the sort of images that come to mind.
• Large servings
• Lack of exercise
• Anti Social behaviours
• Smoking/drinking excessively.
• Snacking-sneakily. This in particulary was a bad behaviour of mine. If noone saw me do it, it was ok.

And now my lifestyle:

I don't drink most of the time. Usually on social/special occasions such as birthdays etc Usually only a glass. (Unless I am being particularly peer pressured.)
I don't smoke.
I don't go through fast food restaurants unless it's 2 am in the morning after being out with friends and I am the DD. Honestly though we're getting a bit old for that, and I can't even remember the last time I did it!

I have my personal training twice a week, and then I also do a large amount of exercise through my job, which is to set up events- so lifting, packing, walking up and down stairs and walking around show grounds etc
If I don't have an event on I try to do something on the weekend, usually taking the dog for a walk, my favourite place is about 15 minutes from where I live and is a national park which has some great trails up and through the bush and hills, so it's not too easy!
This coming weekend I am participating in my 3rd walk for charity event.

Serving sizes is still something I struggle with, mostly because when you live at home, or go out for tea, people are plating up for you, and they tend to be quite large. However I have started to notice that I can leave things on my plate once I am full. This goes against everything I grew up with, but I know I don't need it and now I don't want it either.

Television. TV is a funny one for me. I love movies, I love T.V series. But I hate TV. I can't stand the advertisements and shitty television shows. And somewhere in the past year I have realised that there is no point in wasting my time watching T.V. Sure there will be times that I will sit down with the family and watch a particular show. But mostly I will wait until it comes out on DVD and then watch the DVD. Half the time and double the pleasure of watching it without the ads.

Mostly though I read. To me reading is becoming increasingly rare and outdated and that saddens me. I have read and loved reading for most of my life, and despite most of my job being increasingly online, I hate the idea of reading a book on a e-reader/kindle. Where is the enjoyment in that? 

So now looking at that, looking at how I live, and feel and the things I do, and what I personally associate with being a "fat" lifestyle. Can I honestly say that I fall into that category anymore? Can I blame my lifestyle for my weight? The answer is no. Which only proves just how far I have come.