Big Fat Deal
Lokes was watching CNN online and suddenly, up floated two female voices discussing some celebrity news, and they were talking about the stars of Desperate Housewives. I’m not a big fan but what caught my attention was that apparently, Felicity Huffman (whom I adore from Trans America) had called Eva Longoria fat.
Seriously CNN, this is news? Someone calling her friend fat?
On and on they went about how disrespectful the word “fat” was and how Eva is far from fat (duh!) and they even had someone who made plus-sized clothes talk about the implications of the “F” word, how demeaning and rude the word is and how it sets us back like a thousand years when, what? Fat was in? Come the hell on.
Firstly, speaking for my people, we are AWARE we’re fat. Not using the word in front of us does not make a damn difference. You can call me fat in front of my face and I really don’t give a damn because it’s the truth.
Secondly, calling someone like Eva fat is funny. Are you guys really that idiotic NOT to see it for the joke it is? Have you all lost your damn minds to make such a big fat hairy deal of it? It was said in jest because EVERYONE knows it’s NOT true. It’s like calling Bill Gates funny or Gandhi selfish.
IT’S A WORD, BITCHES. GET OVER IT.
The reason why those women don’t find it funny is because if someone ever called any of them twigs fat they would simply stop eating for a month or go hurl into the nearest latrine.
Let’s hope Eva is more secure than these idiots.
Technorati Tags: Desperate Housewives, Felicity Huffman, Eva Longoria, CNN
R.I.P, Jim
There are photographers, and then, there are photographers.
Jim and his wife Lori wrote a wonderful little story about my blog and a book club I’d started and then the little preschool I helped to found just a few months after we’d moved here to our little town.
Many of you may remember this photograph that Jim took:
I found out about Jim’s passing a few days ago and he’d already been gone half a year.
I did not know much of Jim, except that he took one of the best pictures of my family (one I’ve enlarged and put on cards and passed around until now). Lori was kind enough to share with me this link to his portfolio and I am humbled.
Here was someone who had dedicated his life to a craft I’m just starting to pick up. Words fail (or maybe I just don’t know enough of them) to describe the mixture of sadness and honour I now feel to have been one of his subjects, even if it had been only a while.
Rest in peace, Jim. I hope you’re still making beautiful pictures wherever you are.
Technorati Tags: RIP, tribute, life, photography
The perfect reason to lose weight
A few of my friends from way back when have asked me since I posted the two photos of myself in my recent posts, “Wow. Why the change?”
No, they’re not being rude. They know me, these guys. They know I’ve never been a vain person, because I believe that there’s only so much time and resources one has, and as such, image has never been one of my priorities. I prefer to go after other more, shall we say, meaningful pursuits, like how to enrich my mind or my writing, to be a better parent.
Don’t be mistaken. I like looking at beautiful people. Who doesn’t? I totally grasp the concept that appearances matter and the slightly narcissistic but totally primal desire to be admired, but I’ve been one of those fortunate ones who’ve always been able to slip through the cracks of this societal pressure, managing to get by without needing to constantly watch what I eat, spend a lot of money on product or fashion. An example of my good luck is that I married a man who was 150lbs overweight (”was” as in not anymore – no, I’m not divorced, he’s just lost over 130lbs so far). He fell in love with me even when I was a good 50lbs overweight.
So, I figured I could continue to get by.
And then I had a six-year old.
Living in a country where extremes like obesity and bulimia can co-exist so comfortably within a square mile of fast-food chains, yoga studios and everything in between telling you one moment to love the shape you’re in and the next that those 10lbs can come right off if you just drink some Oolong, is a little like being Alice. You don’t know the next moment if you should get bigger or smaller, or stay the same size. If it’s confusing for a grown-up, what more a child?
A month ago, Raeven told me she didn’t want to eat because she didn’t want to be as big as me. I know, brutal but cute at the same time. I told her that it was okay to eat, as long as we eat the right foods and exercise to keep us healthy.
“Do you exercise?” she’d asked.
“Of course,” I’d managed, without even blinking. The next day, I started walking three to four miles each day and went on the South Beach diet.
That was four weeks – and 6lbs – ago.
What I’m saying is that I am losing weight and trying to look good to set an example for my kids, because like it or not, we’re the sun and the moon to them. Like it or not, at this young age, they look to us for guidance and we’re the be all and end all of all standards in their world. If Daddy swears and hits, then it’s okay for me to swear and hit. If Mommy is fat and lazy, that’s good enough for me.
Those who’ve followed my weight-loss journeys (emphasis on the plural) have known that staying motivated is my biggest challenge. I’ve always told Lokes I fail because I just don’t care enough about how I look and put no stock into what total strangers think of me when they see me lumbering by, particularly when my health is still tip-top (I go for annuals and my doc reluctantly tells me it’s a miracle). So preaching to me that I have to be healthy for kids so I can get old enough to see them get married and give me grandkids, doesn’t really hack it either.
But what my children think of me, in the midst of all the noise about health and a healthy body image? Now that matters. It really does, because what they think of me shapes – pun intended – who they are.
That’s more power than I’m willing to screw with.
Technorati Tags: weight loss, parenting, self image
A glimpse into the past
Before The I’mPerfect Mom, there was the I’mPerfect Party Animal who had NO idea the life of servitude that awaited her.
If she’d known, she would’ve gotten naked and smoked a joint.
Don’t worry, Mom/Dad – that’s Photoshop smoke.
And Photoshop naked.
Which reminds me, textures from Resurgere and smoke effect from Talk Show on Mute from DA.
Also this week’s Self Portrait Challenge.
Technorati Tags: photography, self portraits, portraiture, self portrait challenge
Ex-fat people are wise people
Pasta Queen (your name should be in a spelling bee, lady), a fellow blogger and hostel mate I met in Chicago last month at Blogher, just wrote this amazing post about the importance of remembering how it feels to be 300lbs.
Her book, Half of Me: The Last 200lbs are the Hardest, out April 2008, is about her painful but poignant two-year weight loss journey. Make sure to get it because she is a truly remarkable writer, as you can probably see from her blog.
Being on The Journey myself, I am not yet at a point where I can say, wow, I can now fit in a swing without looking up at the bolts. And that is perhaps my most sensible reason to lose weight.
It’s not about being able to shop at a regular store or fitting into an airplane seat. It’s about fitting into a ride at the county fair or go down the slide at the park with my girls without getting stuck.
It’s not about getting stick thin so I can get into my secondary school clothes again (no amount of money will make me get into those fluorescent yellow leotards). It’s just getting to my ideal weight so I can do things with my children without embarassing myself, embarassing them or damaging public property.
Although I won’t be able to reflect on memories of being fat for a while, I will feel good about myself now, because while boogying to Maroon 5 at Jazzercise this morning, I felt better than I had ever felt in the last five years. I was jumping, skipping, plié-ing and relevé-ing up a storm, energy and endorphins rushing through my veins. And like Eliza Doolittle triumphant over her vowels, I felt like I could’ve danced all day.
A friend in diet
It’s been over a month of jazzercise classes and so far, so good. The classes are fun and well-paced for one such as me.
However the one thing I’ve yet to do is to track what I’m eating. I’ve given up carbs but for one spoon of rice or one piece of bread per day, just to stem my craving for those blasted things. Just so you know, Lokes went down eight sizes from six months of no carbs and no exercise. Amazing, and unfair!
Anyway, check this out: My Fitness Pal. It’s got a free calorie counter so you can track your meals and work out a diet plan – any diet plan, be it Atkins or South Beach or what have you. Best of all, it’s free.
The registration process includes making a diet profile that lets you enter the ideal weight you want to achieve, your current level of activity (or inactivity) and how much you want to lose. My ideal weight (you can get use a calculator to do this) would be 160lbs, which means I have 50lbs more to go, and I work out five times a week and want to lose two pounds a week. And right off the bat, they tell me that:
My Target intake should be: 1,200 calories/day
My nutritional goals should be: Carbs / Day: 165 g | Fat / Day: 40 g | Protein / Day: 45 g
My fitness goals: Calories burned per week – 2,310/week, @ five workouts of 60 minutes each a week
Within My Fitness Pal is a Food Diary, an Exercise Log, a weigh-in and a forum so like-minded individuals can prompt and motivate you on. You can also generate reports on your progress at the click of a few buttons.
So if you’re serious about losing weight and keeping fit, try My Fitness Pal out. You need all the friends you can get to make the journey easier – and a lot more fun!
This post is brought to you by My Fitness Pal.
Why fat people (after 30) deserve to be judged
My name is Jennifer Tai and I am 34 years old.
I weigh 100kgs, give or take, and have been obese for almost six years. I have been overweight half of my life.
When I got married at 28, I was around 85kgs. I convinced myself that if I managed to find a man (who was overweight himself, clocking at around 120kgs at the time we were married) who loved me for what I am, I should not care about what other people thought of me.
This was my attitude for a very long time, even before I was married. As I ballooned up in size and weight, I continued to believe that as long as I was happy and healthy, that was all that mattered. And if people judged me for being fat, they were just vain idiots.
After Rae, I continued to prosper, gaining another 20kgs. After Sky, my weight hovered around 112-115kgs. And it has been there – until a year ago.
Thing was, I was not healthy. I could hardly climb up two flights of stairs without feeling as though I would pass out my insides. My second pregnancy was horrendous, most likely because of my diminishing health. My cholesterol level slowly crossed over to yellow.
And as far as happy went, I was barely hanging on. I could not shop in any of the stores back home and so I gave up shopping altogether, convincing myself that this was good for saving money. My self esteem, having built up over the years after an abusive ex-relationship, plateaued at about “I am okay as long as my family loves me and I have my job”. I tried some of that “Love the body you’re in“, you know, the Monique crap, but you know what? Self love is overrated. There is a lot of stuff I love myself about, like the way I dance and my nonsensical sense of humour, and that I can write reasonably well, but c’mon. Let’s be honest.
No one likes to be fat.
Seriously, ask anyone. Ask a fat person if he or she chose to be fat. Hell, ask Monique, if she had one wish, and if that wish could only be that she would be half her size, or nothing else, that she would refuse it.
No. Way.
The billion-dollar weight-loss industry out there trying to get the thin person out is evidence enough that if given a simple choice, no one chooses to be 300lbs.
No. One. Not the teen with the overactive hormones that contribute to the eating disorder. Not the man whose family is genetically obese. Not the child who developed eating disorders due to childhood force-feeding.
But you may say that people who choose to eat themselves to death CHOSE to be fat and chose to not give two tosses about their health. That is true as well. I was in this category. And that is why today, I believe, that fat people deserve to be judged for who they are: Lazy, undisciplined, weak-willed individuals.
However, I believe that fat children (including teens) are to be excluded from this category. Be it a hormonal disorder or lack of good eating habits or nutrition, these are aspects outside the control of a child. Parents are the ones to blame for their fat child.
In Malaysia, it is common practice for children to be fed until they are in their teens. Children are placed next to a bowl of rice big enough to feed a small country and made to finish all of it at the end of a cane.
“Do you know there are starving children in Ethiopia?!” my mother oftened asked when my sis and I were kids, although we had no idea where or what Ethiopia – or starving – was.
In short, we were never taught to listen to our own bodies, our own tummies, as to how much we ought to eat. We listened, instead, to our mothers and nannies and caregivers, eating and expanding our little stomaches to unreasonable proportions for no rhyme or reason than to live up to the expectations of those who love and care for us – expectations that sometimes take into account only the fact that food should not be wasted, rather than real nutrition or good eating habits.
And therefore, children are to be excused from this group of fat people I will summarily judge as Lazy and Undisciplined.
In fact, this is what I believe: That anyone above 30 who is grossly overweight are Lazy and Undisciplined. We deserve to be passed over for jobs and promotions and be looked upon as unattractive sloths. And since we are often told (mostly by ourselves) not to give two shits about what others think about us, isn’t it fair that we be isolated and singled out and avoided?
I am being hard on myself because enough is enough. Let me tell you why.
Appearances DO matter. Perception IS reality. And this is especially important for a 30-something who is overweight to get through to our heads because WE ARE ADULTS. We have entered an age where we should be mature and sensible enough to do the right thing BUT WE ARE NOT. We have been bombarded with enough science and doctors’ appointments to force the truth down our throats.
And yet, here we are.
I asked myself today, if I were to go out and look for a job, one for which I am highly qualified for, and have more than enough experience to get, and I walk into the interview looking like I do. And then, this other lady, all together in her tight gluts and her sharp suit and her bright smile, with exactly the same qualifications and experience, goes in after me.
Who do you think should be hired? Is it unfair for the sharp lady to be hired simply because I’m fat and slovenly?
Why?
Because perception IS reality.
Because being fat after 30 means only one thing: A lack of discipline. And if I do not have the discipline to take care of myself, where will I find the discipline to do my job well?
You may be depressed or have no time or think that eradicating poverty and suffering has more clout than losing weight. You may think that having a good body image is essential and that people should not be thought unkindly of simply because they eat too much. You may think that as long as you are happy, it does not matter.
At the end of the day, all you need to ask yourself is this:
Will you hire the fat lady or Miss Altogether?
This post is not intended to insult anyone or to practise some kind of reverse psychology on fat people – including myself – to go lose weight.
It’s just the opinion of someone who’s made enough excuses. Or blogged enough about how it’s okay to be obese, when it’s really not.
Someone who not only wants to live long enough to see her grandkids, but also someone who wants to set an example for her children to take ownership of their bodies and minds.
And that as far as your own health goes, you make your own second chances.
Why not make yours today?
Project 12: One year later
Not a lot of difference but I feel healthier, have more energy, and am down to a size 14-16/XL top, 16-18/XXL bottom. I can’t seem to resist the carbs so I take rice or noodles in the afternoons, one spoon.
Here’s to another year and hope to make 12 next summer!
Project 12: Retail Motivation
So I’m down to Size 16.
I’ve been going for jazzercise classes, three times a week. So far, I’ve clocked in five classes and two netball sessions. I’m back on my calorie counting and low/no carb.
To keep me moving, I ordered a dress from JC Penney.
A size 14.
Said dress:
Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s on sale!
Excuse me while I go do some crunches…
The I’mPerfect Mom Podcast is back (and then some)!
Reviving an old project, I’ve now made my entries available on audio!
You can listen to my rants now instead of read them.
Er-woo.
Er-hoo!
Can you see? I’m channeling all my anger and frustration at the last two days positively. I’m blogging and podcasting the hell out of my misery!
Speaking of old projects, I’ve also revived Project 12. I’m now going for jazzercise (three times a week) and netball.
I think I have four more sizes to go. Wish me loads of luck.
Project 12: 18 – 3 more sizes to go!
A long-due update on my weight loss journey (started 3rd August 2006).
Two days short of two months, I have lost 9 kgs. Should’ve been more but I have been slacking due to some challenging schedule changes, with Rae going back to school and me working the one day at the preschool. Nevertheless, I am officially back on the wagon today.
The fantastic news is I am now a size 18 (was a size 20) and bought myself my first belt in years. Woot!
103kg was how much I weighed before my second pregnancy. Or maybe a little more.
Here’s how I looked before we had Skyler:
And me before I started my diet and exercise routine:
This is me today:
Three sizes, 40kgs to go!
For the love of coffee
I got bored of going to the gym in the mornings and decided today that I would, instead, take a brisk walk through downtown Redmond, right at the crack of dawn.
And what did I have to motivate me?
A venti non-fat doubleshot latte from Starbucks.
No, not the one just a stone’s throw away from my complex.
Not the one two blocks away either.
Not the one two blocks away from THAT outlet.
But the one in Redmond Town Center, some two miles away.
I know, it’s ambitious, but you don’t know how much I value my freshly brewed caffeine, especially in the mornings. Even though I’m in coffee land where there are more espresso joints than there are bus stops so I don’t really need to walk THAT far. Thing is, I know that if I ever do wimp out, I can stop at a Starbucks (or Seattle’s Best Coffee or Tully’s) within the next five feet.
Ah, coffee and me. BFF.
ps. On a totally separate note, the seller of the house we wanted to buy in Duvall came back with a counter-offer and we had the house inspected today. Some very minor water damage in the garage which the inspector guy said to that the seller should remedy, or else. I’m not very keen on the ‘or else’ so I’m keeping my fingers, and toes, crossed.
pss. And WTF is with all the comments in my last post, huh? I craft out beautiful entries and I get like four miserable, “Aww shucks, that’s sweet”, and then something about my husband’s rekindling with Modern Talking gets a whopping 11 comments (well, two of them were mine, but still!!!). What is up with that? Friggin’ egg recipes and jinjang Joe posts getting more love than my lovingly written soul-searching pieces.
And for the record, until recently, my husband was listening to Regina Spektor, Madeline Peyroux, Snow Patrol and freakin Kings of Convenience, okay? To suddenly be assaulted by Back Street Boys and Modern Talking is traumatic. I felt betrayed, I tell you, betrayed!
Regressing to kitchen idiot
Also known as the post about what the fuck am I going to do with all the food in my refridgerator?
Since Lokes and I started on our weight loss journeys, I’ve been trying to make really, REALLY low calorie meals (with low to zero refined carb) for us.
And since I’m no cook, this has boiled down, literally sometimes, to eating raw veggies and baked chicken/pork.
Every.
Single.
Day.
It’s gone to a point where I loathe making dinner because no longer can I experiment with recipes from the Net, something I’ve enjoyed doing so much that I created a blog to journal my experiences. However, at the same time, I give thanks for the fact that dinner is the only meal I have to worry about because for the rest of the day, we are content with eating cardboard and drinking coffee to keep our bodily functions afloat.
Plus I just don’t have the energy or drive to make yummy food anymore because everything I make is going to have more calories than just plain chicken and raw vegetables.
This dieting business is just so…boring.
Project 12, Day 29: 16lbs and still going!
Do you guys think I gave up?
Not a chance!
I’m 0.5kgs to 104 now, which was my post-Skyler weight, and have officially lost a little over 16lbs. Today is Day 29.
To be honest, I didn’t work out the last two days due to pre-planned activities, so I’d fully expected to have gained at least a pound due to all the food (had turkey wraps from Costco for dinner – delish!). Man, was I surprised when my weight continued to go down despite the lack of exercise. Guess that’s the difference between just dieting, and dieting and exercising.
I also decided to try this Green Tea extract thing I saw, also at Costco. Called Green Tea Fat Burner, it’s supposed to help curb your appetite and kickstart thermogenesis. Contains caffeine so I’ve had to cut back on coffee (started taking it yesterday). Let’s see how effective it is.
My gym, my remote
The one thing I love about the gym in my living complex is that it is rarely used.
The equipment is fairly sophisticated and new-looking. They have a TV and a stereo and VCR player (hey, haven’t you heard of DVD players? Come on!). Two treadmills, two bikes, five jogging machines (you know, those with the paddles), free weights, those four in one island weights thingies, and even an exercise ball.
And yet, ever since I started going, I’ve never seen anyone there WHEN I reach. This makes me very happy because I get to use the treadmill I like, which sits right in front of the TV. Most importantly, reaching there first ALSO automatically makes me the MASTER OF THE TV UNIVERSE. I get to control the remote and everyone else who comes after has to watch MY channels, muahaHAHAHahah.
Except for this one time.
A tiny Japanese lady came in with her teenage son. I was on the treadmill, about 15 minutes into my workout. After a few minutes of looking at the TV and discussing in loud whispers about something, the mom approached me.
“Are you watching?” she asked, all smiles, pointing to the remote which was sitting on the things holder on my treadmill.
As I was huffing and puffing and could not stop to say, “No, go ahead, I’m just looking at it for no reason”, I simply nodded.
“My son would like to watch, can he?” she asked louder, and then pointed at her son who was sitting on a chair, looking sullenly at me as though I’d stolen his remote.
I got here first, you little punk ass. I have remote privileges! Go brush up on your gym ettiquette!
In breathless surrender, I nodded again, signalling for her to go ahead.
She smiled in sincere appreciation, took the remote and passed it to her son, who all of a sudden, sprang to life.
And then “America’s Got Talent” popped on. David Hasselhoff was getting rigged up for a couple of jugglers and in what sounded like very excited Japanese, mother and son got onto the jogging machines and paddled the hell out of them.
I’d literally never seen two people happier to just be alive and watching TV and exercising at the same time.
That was when I made a mental note to come an hour earlier the next day.
And to bring Raeven.
Technorati tags: Project 12, cute and funny
Project 12: Remember those jeans?
You know, the ones I blogged about a while ago?
I got into them, and walked around Seattle in them, all day, yesterday.
I even needed a belt!
All the exercise, all the dieting. All worth it.
And my mom even called me after my sis told her about the weight I’d lost. Being overweight had been such a thorn at my side for so long that it’s become a family affair. You could cook an egg in my mom’s excitement (and relief).
So I went to the gym yesterday (told myself I can only miss a day a week) and found I’d lost another pound and a half, ladies, bringing the total lost today to 14.5lbs, at Day 18. That’s what, 7kgs?
I am doing it. I am fighting my fat!
It IS plateauing now and I need to perhaps lengthen my workout even more. Any suggestions, anyone? I’m now walking on the treadmill for 30 mins, staying in the weight lozz/cardio zone for about 20 mins. Then free weights and 15 mins of biking.
Three more kilos and I’m at my post Skyler weight. Ten more and I’m at my post Raeven weight!
I weighed 80kgs when I got married.
And 65kgs when I started writing.
Size 12 is about 58-60kgs?
Loooooong way to go!
Technorati tag: Project 12
Project 12: 14 days and going…
How much have I lost so far?
6 kgs, to 106kgs. That’s about 13lbs. So a little less than one pound a day, woohoo! Haven’t measured today so will let you know if anything’s changed.
It’s now tapering off and I have to extend my cardio to one hour from today onwards, perhaps 30 mins on the treadmill, some free weights and then 30 mins on the bike to round it up.
Been really good on the diet front as well. Cut off carb completely except for the Quaker Rice Cakes which are 50 cals a piece (two pieces a day for snacking). Lokes tells me from the occasional hug that I ‘feel’ smaller already.
Yay!
Project 12: Wait, is this thing working?
So today is Day 8 of Project 12, my weight loss journey.
As usual, after my breakfast, I walk to the gym (which is just two minutes away, it’s in my complex) and on my way there, I do my stretches and warmups against like benches and the sort. An old lady sitting with her dog gives me an odd stare. She’s probably thinking, “About time, isn’t it, young lady?”
So I get to the gym and the first thing I do is to weigh myself. And guess what?
I have gone down FIVE KILOS!!
This can’t be right. This CAN’T be right. Yesterday, I was just two kilos down. I can’t have dropped three overnight. Did I remove my shoes yesterday? I don’t remember but GAWDAMMIT this is MAGNIFICENT, I think to myself. I am elated.
And then my cautious, paranoid self takes over.
Come on. Something is wrong with the scales. Someone fiddled with it, don’t be fooled you gullible nitwit, it says.
I look at the thing. It’s one of those old ones where you need to push the weights back and forth until the tip at the right end balances. I call them tease scales because they keep you in suspense until you get the thingie to balance and it’s freakin’ nerve racking.
I mean, HELLO? Ever heard of digital scales?
You get them at hospitals too, where the nurse does the ‘balancing’ for you while you stand there like a child being punished in your knickers as she takes her own sweet time to get the final tally. It’s the healthcare institution’s little way of punishing you for being fat.
ANYWAY, so I check the thing because, you know, I am suddenly the tease scale expert. I look at it from the front, and the back, and this way and that to see if any of the screws are loose. Of course, it’s an exercise in futility since there ARE a dozen screws on the thing and none of them look like they are loose or screwable with just fingers.Â
And so I decide to weigh again.
Shoes off. Get on. Push bottom lever. Push top lever. Nudge. Another nudge. Another nudge back. Rulers go up and down and up and down. Eaaaaasy does it. There. Floating, beautifully balanced…thingie.
107kgs. I was 112kgs. I had dropped 5 kilos.
That’s 11lbs.
11 FREAKIN’ POUNDS!!???
Â
God I’m good. Someone hand me a tissue.
Project 12: Day Five
Went to the gym today and had a really good workout. Varying exercise ‘methods’ is important because it keeps it interesting. Wonder what I’m going to do when we move to a new house if it doesn’t have a gym. My right knee is beginning to feel a bit painful because I busted it like 20 years ago playing squash (do you believe I used to play for my school?). Have a feeling the lubricant between the joints has been worn off.
Diet food: I’ve been eating Vietnamese spring rolls whenever I can, but feasted on Dungeness (sp?) crabs last night ‘coz Lokes’ colleague gave him like four – yummy.
The Vietnamese rolls are really simple to make. Gonna post the recipe up on my cooking blog soon when I remember to take a pic of it.
Project 12: Walking it off
Good news, guys. I went the extra mile today, literally.
Yesterday, I walked about 1/3rd of a mile. Today, I went the full mile, and then some.
And discovered that crunchy, pebbled, untarred paths are easier on the knees than regular roads. Is that why some parks provide them? I’d always thought it was because of limited budgets.
Must say I feel really psyched. I never liked brisk walking for exercise before (thought it was boring), and had always opted for the gym or dancing (I still prefer dancing but those cost money, which I don’t have). But today, it just felt SOO good to be out there. The sun was just warming up the crisp morning air. Someone had just cut the grass, and I had Massive Attack gently pushing me on. I think I was even smiling a little when I felt the first bead of sweat drop from my face to my arm.
Lokes tells me that I should perhaps try the gym tomorrow but I dunno – I think I’ll stick to the walking for a while.
A brand new day
Today, I walked my first morning walk down the river and back (about 2/3rd of a mile).
I woke up at 6am, had my coffee, and at approximately 7.05am, took my first step into a long and what I hope will be a rewarding weight-loss journey.
I haven’t gone and purchased a weighing scale yet but for now, just know that I am a size 20.
Hopefully, a year from now, I will be a size 18 or even a 16, through enough work (with the time I have).
Tomorrow, I’m hoping I can walk over the bridge, across to the other side, and back, which would be approximately a little more than a mile.
I can try.
To this endeavour, I dedicate a new category: Project 12. Size 12, that is. Phew. Eight sizes down. That’s about a hundred pounds, I gather.
Will probably take me a couple of years, or even more.
Important thing is I have a goal, right?
Cheer me on!