The Fat Chronicles: Beginnings

 

One does not simply decide to get a healthier lifestyle. Of this I feel most certain. I decided ten million times that I was going to lose weight, go on a diet, get 'hott' (with 2 T's). But, I didn't. Or, I would for a while, but it would never last. I'd end up weighing more than I did before.

 

 

No, before you REALLY decide to change your life, you have to have a wake up call, an epiphany, a come to Jesus moment for you Southerners. You have to have a moment like in "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie has just mindlessly said yes to the football from Santa and then shouts to himself "WAKE UP STUPID!". You need a moment like that.

 

 

It may take more than one for you, it did for me. I can recall every moment that pushed me towards a better lifestyle. Going to the theme park with the kids and not riding rides I wanted to get on because I was certain that I would not fit in the seats; watching My 600lb Life on TLC and being fearful that that would be me one day, not being able to get out of bed or do anything without feeling like complete garbage. Then, one day, it just hit me!

 

 

It was like a low flying bird pooping on you at the beach. I had my moment. The planets aligned and something in me snapped and I thought NO MORE! No more will I be sick and tired of being sick and tired, no more will I live a life that I know is less than what I am capable of living. I was fat, I was miserable, and I thought I was stuck.

 

 

Notice that, I THOUGHT I was stuck. See being almost 320 pounds makes you feel pretty hopeless anyway. Because society teaches you that you are hopeless at that weight. You start to believe the people that look at you like you are nothing because to them you just can't put down the fork. To them you are eating McDonald's Big Macs like cough drops in winter, to them we sit at home and devour extra large pizza after pizza not caring what is happening to our bodies. To them, you are disgusting. Lazy. Ugly. Worthless; and hopeless.

 

 

I've felt hopeless. I've felt hopeless a lot of times. I was not going to spend my life as a victim. And that's what you are to your fat. A victim. My soul and my spirit were a victim to my body. That freaking sucks ass.

 

 

I decided that day that this year was going to be MY year! This was going to be the time that I turned my life around and stopped DYING and started LIVING! I was tired of living a half life, tired of being in the shadows on my own making. I had to make a change.

 

 

I have said it once before and I will say it once again that your diet is what you DO eat, not what you DO NOT eat. I am not on a diet. Diets get old, they are restrictive, they fail they suck immortal ass. Nope, I was not going on a diet.

 

 

I was CHANGING my diet. I did some research (always a good starting point for any project). I researched the whole Eat Right for your Blood Type thing. I'm a type O, so there are things that my ancestral blood are not fans of. We are the cavemen! We enjoy meat and veggies and natural grains. So refined grains are not our friends, dairy isn't either. We have high acid content stomachs and so high acid foods do not sit well with us either. The more I read about it, the more I found that I did in fact feel crappy sometimes when I ate these certain foods. My Mom was diagnosed with Celiac disease. I had a LOT of the same symptoms that she did (she is also Type O) and the type O foods and the Celiac foods really go hand in hand. So I did what any educated person would do. I tried to cut out those foods.

 

 

I started getting Ezekiel or Gluten Free bread, I started buying more fruits and veggies, I switched to Almond or Soy milk, I bought GF pasta and sauce, Veggie cheese (non-dairy, GF), even GF ice cream! And an amazing thing happened....

I started to feel less like the underside of someone's shoe.

 

 

Then an even MORE amazing thing happened! When I started to feel less like shit, I wanted to exercise more. I had more energy, less head aches, I felt dare I say vivacious! The more I moved the better I felt too. It's an amazing cycle. It's so funny to me that the same downward spiral that we can get caught in also works in reverse.

 

 

That was a lot of words to get around to what this series of blogs called The Fat Chronicles are all about. It's about MY journey. Not to lose a ton of weight, not to be a size zero, but to be HAPPY and HEALTHY and to be LIVING my life instead of existing and just moving through it. That sucked. That sucked a big one. I don't EVER want to go back to being that girl that stood still while life moved around her. I'm tired of feeling like garbage...but it's no wonder I was putting GARBAGE in! So of course I was getting GARBAGE out!

 

 

Here are a few quick tips to help you start on your journey.

 

 

1. What is your wake up call? Remember I said everyone has one. You have to find yours in order to be able to REALLY implement any kind of permanent change into your life. Maybe you have a kid and you want to be able to play with them at the park, maybe you think that you will want to have a kid one day and you realize the risks of being obese and pregnant, maybe you want to go shopping with your best friend, maybe you want to stop living in the background, or stop feeling like trash. FIND YOUR WAKE UP CALL.

 

2. Set a goal & a reward. This doesn't have to be something grand. DO NOT start your goal with weighing 150 if you weigh 280. DO NOT set your goal and being able to do an Ironman run if the most exercise you get is walking from the couch to the mailbox. Make SMALL, ATTAINABLE goals. You are going to feel so much better about yourself if you actually REACH your goals than if you are always chasing them and not feeling like you are making any progress. Maybe start with saying you just want to lose 5 pounds, maybe you want to improve your mile time from 20 minutes to 18 minutes, maybe you want to try to exercise for 30 minutes a day 3 times a week. SET SMALL GOALS. Bigger goals will come with time.

Now set a reward for reaching your goal. What will you get for losing that first 5lb? Maybe you will get a frozen yogurt, or a new pair of earrings or something. Maybe you want to go bigger and say if I can lose 20 pounds in x number of months I will get a new pair of shoes. You NEED a motivator! You do not need an ultimate goal, you need a in the next month goal and an in the next month motivator. People THRIVE on rewards. Give yourself one.

 

 

3. Get a calorie counter tool.  You don't have to spend a shit-ton of money on WW or any other plan that wants you to buy their calorie books or their foods or whatever else. You don't need to get special shakes or special meals you have a grocery store near you. You don't have to carry around a book and a calculator. Counting calories SUCKS. I mean, it's time consuming, it's annoying, AND IT IS ESSENTIAL! Allow me to assume for a minute that you know NOTHING about how the body works. Gaining/losing weight is simple math. I understand it and I freaking HATE math. Calories IN vs. calories OUT. If you take in more than you put out, you will gain weight. If you put out more than you take in, you will create a calorie deficit and you will lose weight. Sound simple...well, that's because it IS! It is essential that you count calories or you are just going at this blind. If you have an Android or iPhone I recommend you use the My Fitness Pal app. It is FREE to download and it has a HUGE list of foods. What does this mean? Well, it means that if you go to Taco Bell you can just bring up your MFP app and type in the search bar what you had and it will bring it up for you. It also has a cool scanner tool where you can scan the barcode on a food package and it will bring up all the nutritional info and input that for you. If you have a favorite recipe at home, you can input everything that goes into the recipe and the number of servings and it will tell you the nutritional value per serving. You can also access this online so if you don't have your phone or you don't want to enter ingredients on the phone you can do it that way. Besides tracking calories there is a section to track exercise. You can choose the activity that you have done and the amount of time that you have done it and it will give you an estimated caloric burn. The list of activities is also pretty extensive. Another thing that I like about this app is that you can search your Facebook to see if you have friends that use the app and you can add them as friends so you have extra people cheering you on. It tracks your weight and other body info on a graph, you can see your nutrition info, and you can set goals. Based on your current weight and your goal it will set a daily caloric goal for you, it will even alter your goal based on your level of exercise through the day as long as you track it in your app. It also syncs with a lot of other fitness applications. It won't be easy at first, but after a month or so tracking your calories will become second nature and since most of us have our phones on us at all times anyway, you are already ready already.

 

 

4. Get a GOOD pair of workout shoes and maybe even some other gear. Okay, so the 'other gear' is not a necessity, well it kind of is, but the shoes DEFINITELY are! Fat people have feet issues. Why? Well think about all the weight that your legs and feet are carrying that is in excess. Now imagine becoming more active. YOU MUST HAVE ADEQUATE SUPPORT FOR YOUR FEET!!! If you don't know what is a good shoe for what you are doing, go to Footlocker or Hibbett's or wherever they sale athletic shoes (not a huge shoe store a specifically ATHLETIC shoe store) and ask. You may be embarrassed but I can guarantee you that you will get more respect from them than you think because they know that you are taking steps to improve your life. The salespeople will be happy to help. Even if they should say something off color or think down on you if they help you get a good shoe it's worth not having aching feet. If your feet hurt when you exercise you will be less likely to do it again...see where I'm going with this.

Now, for the cute workout gear. It's kind of a necessity. What do I mean, well, look, you cannot properly exercise in jeans, you just can't. You at least need to get some good pants to exercise in. If you want some that are cute and good quality and cheap, www.walmart.com has some great options from Danskin Now. Just search under apparel, women's plus, and active wear. The bad thing is that they are not big on restocking often. Another brand that I really love is Old Navy. I love ON clothing and their workout gear is AWESOME! It is a little pricey, but the quality seems really good and it's cute and it fits well. Their compression pants are GREAT...they really keep things in place and are super comfy. If you don't want to do compression they have non-compression clothing too. Of course you can do an online search and there are probably more places that do plus size workout clothing, but these are two of my favorites for things that are not made for a 60 year old woman. They are cute and look young, and I mean I may be fat, but I still want to look cute. :)

 

 

5. Don't fall into the hype...aka the money pit. Let me warn you in advance, the amount of money that you will begin to spend on food will increase; SIGNIFICANTLY. Fresh, organic, gluten free, NON-PROCESSED foods are expensive. You may find yourself having sacrifice some things to afford the better food, but it will be worth it. I promise you. All those foods that you are buying albeit easy on the wallet are killing you. They are full of things that you cannot pronounce that aren't even food. But this tidbit of advice is about the 'weight-loss programs' out there. ViSauls, Shakeology, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and NutriSystem are all MONEYPITS. Don't waste your money on these programs. I'm not saying that they don't work. I'm not saying that they don't  have good ideas about weight-loss, but they are a BUSINESS. Their goal isn't your success, their goal is to make money. Using these programs you will spend about $300 a month on their product AND you will still have to buy regular grocery store food to supplement it. There is NOTHING that they will give you in their food that you cannot get from regular food in the store. If you need to get vitamin supplements, get them, if you aren't sure what you need, go to a health food store and find out, ask your doctor what may be good for you. These programs are not teaching you how to make good food decisions, they teach you how to become dependent on their product for success. You DO NOT need some gimmick to get healthy and lose weight. You only need yourself, some education and the RIGHT foods. Of course if you choose to use these programs that is fine, but remember they are about making money not helping you. They may be good programs but they are money that you do NOT need to spend to be successful.

 

 

6. Educate yourself. There is some truth to the blood type thing. You don't have to run out and buy the book, you can find that information online. If you know your blood type you should do this, if you don't read about it and then you will probably be able to know what you are, If you try to eliminate some of the foods that are not good for your blood type you WILL see a difference in how you feel. The key to feeling better is working WITH your body not against your body. If you have thyroid issues, find out what food could help you, if you have blood sugar problems, research foods that have slow burn carbs that will keep your blood sugar steady. LOOK AT FOOD LABELS. If you don't know what you are eating and putting in your body that is like driving down the interstate with your eyes closed! You wouldn't do that (hopefully) so why in the hell would you fill your body with random shit? You wouldn't. You shouldn't. Don't. Educate yourself about what foods may be good for you, your blood type, your health situation and what you want to accomplish with your body.

 

 

7. Invest in a fitness tracker. This is certainly NOT a necessity, this is why you have found it so far down the list. BUT, it is a wonderful tool, an INVESTMENT that you will not regret, because it just may change your life. These are not cheap, the low end are still about $100, but they are WORTH EVERY PENNY that you spend! I have found mine to be a HUGE motivator (especially true if you are competition motivated like I am). There are a LOT of options now that you can choose from. Just to name a few that I am personally familiar with there is the Jawbone UP, the Misfit, there are trackers made by Nike and Garmin, and Fitbit is also a popular tracker. I personally have a Fitbit so let me take a minute to tell you about it. (You can search personal fitness trackers online and see, literally TONS of options and information about them. I have some limited knowledge of the Misfit too so I will drop on you what I have about that in a later post)

 

 

8. Get social supports. Losing weight is usually a very personal thing. We don't want anyone to know that we are doing it and really I have been guilty of this too and I wonder why we do this. But I digress, this is not a weight loss journey that you are on this is a get healthy journey that you are on and YOU WILL NEED SUPPORT. It will NOT be easy. Oh, yes, there are things that you can do to make it easier, one is to realize that you are not the only person in the world trying to live a healthier lifestyle, you just aren't. Even people who weigh 120 can be unhealthy. If your significant other gives you shit about cooking healthy food instead of what you used to cook, tell them to buy and fix their own damn food; if your friends keep wanting to take you to the buffet, they are not your friends and you should accordingly tell them to go f*ck themselves. There WILL be people in your life that want you to live to be old and senile. THESE are the people you need. There are MILLIONS of people on your same journey RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

This is why I make suggestions like My Fitness Pal and even the fitness trackers because they get you in a network of people who are just like you. It's so HARD to want to do the right thing. It's hard to exercise when you don't feel like it, or hard to pass up dessert at your favorite place, it's hard to not eat that whole pizza, it's hard to change. Find people like you. This is another reason that I decided to start this blog because again, the 130lb marathon runner isn't like you. You may be her one day, but you aren't now. Right now you don't have her struggles, so you can come here, or to your online family and get support.

 

 

9. Don't forget that you are still living life! The biggest stigma about a diet is that people associate a diet with things that you DON'T eat! This is crazy! Your diet is what you DO eat. Your diet is your day to day sustenance for life. You wouldn't say my dog's diet consists of...and list all the things he doesn't eat. You say my dog's diet consists of...and list all the not so good for your dog things that you give them. (McChickens, doggy ice cream, raw hides, etc)

So if you wouldn't describe your pet's diet in terms of what they don't eat, why would you yours?

Having a better diet isn't about being restrictive. If you are a human being there are things that you may like to eat.

Cake.

Ice cream.

Beer.

Pizza.

All of these awesome things that the word 'diet' tells you that you can't have.

 

That is bullshit.

If you deny yourself all of these great things what kind of life will that be? Pretty craptastic because I'm telling you if I had to go without ice cream the rest of my life, I would NOT be a happy camper!

The key is to remember that those foods are not very good for you, so maybe you shouldn't eat the whole cake, the whole pint, drink the whole 6 pack, or eat the whole pizza. Be AWARE of the calories that you are taking in (seems like I have said this before). I can say that I cannot think of ONE food that I have completely crossed off my list of foods I eat on this healthy lifestyle journey. No one wants to go through life feeling deprived, and you don't have to feel deprived of anything either. I enjoy food. Hell, I love food. I love cooking, I love enjoying it with people I love, I love so many things about food. But my life became about food and that old saying is true you eat to live not live to eat. So enjoy your food ALL OF THEM, but remember what you are putting in needs to be in line with what you are putting out.

 

 

10. You are not Hitler and you are not one of Hitler's Jews. Look, this isn't meant to be derogatory in anyway, my point is that you don't have to judge yourself so harshly, there is nothing wrong with you. You will not always eat all the right foods, you will not show a weight loss every time you step on the scale. Sometimes you will be on vacation and over indulge, you will go to visit your Momma and God knows that her cooking isn't always healthy, you will buy Girl Scout Cookies or something. Something will happen that you THINK will throw you off track. But don't think that way! No one is perfect, no one will do right all the time. You will have good days and bad days. You will have days where you don't want to exercise, you don't want to eat right. It will happen. But one day doesn't undo all of the work that you have done to that point. Don't let those days where you gain weight get you down or put you back to square one, don't let those times where you eat not so good things make you think that you are a failure. They happen and they are a part of life and they are not the end of the road, they are just a detour. Get your shit back together and carry on.

Yes, carry on.

Stick Fitness vs. Fat Fitness

I have, for reasons completely unknown to me, found myself joining a number of 'healthy lifestyle/fitness' groups on Facebook or through Pinterest and a number of other outlets. What starts out as excitement that you will get some healthy lifestyle tips soon turns into a beginning to a long list of people that you want to maim.

 

Why?

 

Because the women (and I assume men too) that run these blogs ARE IN SHAPE!

 

Now, look I know what you are thinking, why would I take fitness advice from a fatty? I get it. if I hired a nutritionist and went in and they weighted 300lb, I would probably turn and walk right out. But if you are trying to get a better lifestyle, you are having to deal with a lot of things that someone who is there, well doesn't.

 

So look, girl running the fitness blog. If I ever see you, I'm going to punch you in the face. Your blogs about making every trip a chance to exercise really doesn't apply to me. Your posts about getting back to your marathon weight just makes me want to eat a donut. Unless you can somehow make my trips to the bathroom exercise, you are not helping. You want to talk about getting back to running marathons and I just want to be able to walk from my car to my office without LOOKING like I just ran a marathon. You want me to do bench dips at the park with my kids. Look unless a bench dip is a new kind of sandwich or ice cream at 31 Flavors, I don't know what you are talking about and I am not interested and I can't do it.

 

If your highest weight was 145 and that was when you were 9 months pregnant, YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE FAT. Please stop acting like it was such a struggle for you to get healthy. My days consist of trying to find non-elastic waist pants that fit, people who won't sneer at me when I go through the drive through or who won't treat me like I am less than a human because I'm fat. At my highest weight I weighed as much as all the children in a small undeveloped African village, I was harassed at Sea World for leaving my exhibit, I was mistaken for Uranus at the planetarium, I was used as a stunt man fall pillow. I wasn't still able to shop at American Eagle, in fact the only thing that I can own from there is perfume and a purse. I wasn't able to go to the beach in a bikini because I didn't want to have a Raspushia moment from Norbit when they ask me if I had on bottoms, I didn't want NOAA called out because there was a whale that was beached. I didn't take a thousand selfies a day. DO NOT, talk to me about being fat!

 

Now, look, I understand that you can not be obese and still be unhealthy. I get that. But I don't want to see you posting pics of your abs to try to motivate me to exercise more. Your ab pics make me think about how if I punched you in your stomach I wouldn't have to hit as hard because you don't have fat there.

 

I will not be running marathons in the near future. Hell, I'm not sure that I will be able to walk to my basement to do laundry without getting out of breath. If I am looking for healthy lifestyle advice I'm sorry but I don't really want to hear it from someone who has NO IDEA what it's like to be like me.

 

I want to read about someone like me. Someone who fights a battle every day to find clothes that fit, seats that fit, anything that will accommodate your body.

 

So I guess that is part of my purpose. I guess that I know that people like me who have to start small by maybe NOT eating McD 5 times a week, who can do a 25 minute mile IF they push themselves, want to hear from people just like them not a person who has never had to deal with the stigma of being obese. I need BABY steps. I need less than baby steps, I need hand holding to help me not, you know, DIE. my biggest worry isn't toning up for beach weather or being able to do that big race that in coming up.

 

My goal is to actually live till middle age. My goal is to be able to play with the kids in the park. My goal is NOT to end up as a TLC special or having to get cut out of my house. My goal is to be able to go into a store and buy clothes without worrying if they have my size. My goal is to stop feeling like shit.

 

I don't need stick fitness. You are done. You cannot help me. I need fat fitness. I need to hear the words of my people to help me make the changes that I need to make in an environment NOT filled with 7% body fat ab photos. I want an environment where we talk about how we did great to not eat that second cookie, or we didn't eat the whole pizza, the brownie batter made it to the oven. I want a place to talk to people who are trying to lose a person with their weight. I want a place where I'm on the same journey as the other people, not where I am, once again, a spectator on the fitness road.

 

So, I think to myself, what is the best way to find this? Well, do it I suppose. So here I go, along with my ever entertaining and informative musings on life, I will start to share my healthy lifestyle journey. So hold on for the ride ladies and gents. Fattys get on your girdles, sticks get thrown....prepare yourself with lowfat snacks of all kinds for....The Fat Chronicles! (dum, dum, dum!!!)