The purpose of this blog? I am holding myself accountable for my actions. I am making a commitment to write everything down. The struggles I experience along the way, and the triumphs as well!
This is a picture of myself from my sisters graduation in May 2012. This is also the first time I met my Nephew. Every time I look at this picture it makes me so angry that at 23 this is how I look...NEVER AGAIN! Why now? As I said before I have started diets and successfully QUIT many times in my life, but there was a recent incident that led me to truly question why I am making myself this unhealthy. My boyfriends sisters wedding is next week, (yay weddings!) and his mom and two of his sisters wanted to take me shopping for a beautiful dress to wear to the wedding. When he told me that this plan I immediately started to cry. No no no, not tears of excitement and happiness, but rather tears of fear and dread. The last thing I wanted to do was go shopping with his two beautiful, skinny, and stylish sisters! I rarely like to go shopping for myself if it's not for shoes. As much as I didn't want to go, he told me it wouldn't be a big deal and that I am over-reacting. Little did he know, that was not the case at all. I reluctantly embarked on this journey, only for it to be MORE miserable than I had anticipated.
Unlike in America, there are not stores here like Macy*s, Layne Bryant, Nordstrom ect... where there is clothing meant for plus size woman; so after going to about 6 stores and not finding a single dress that fit, there was nothing I wanted more than to crawl into a little hole and cry. For the first two stores they actually had me try on dresses, dresses I knew would not fit! But until they tried to squeeze me in to the breaking point they wouldn't hear "no" for an answer.
Ultimately this was not their fault, I didn't know how to explain to them that if I don't feel comfortable in the dress, or if someone needs to squeeze me into it, I don't want to wear it. So after the first two stores we decided to start asking the sales people if they even had my size... each store except for one said, "no" snickering along the way. The one store that did, the dress was way to big... I could actually fit two of me in there, and we decided to get it because we feared we wouldn't find anything else. Luckily a week later, kicking and screaming, we went out on another dress finding adventure. This time it was successful, but not after the same experience of stores just not having my size.
There was nothing more embarrassing to me than 1) going shopping with his family and going through that and 2) being snickered at each time I asked if they had my size. It was during these experiences that I knew I had to make a change in my life. The problem was, I just didn't know how. I am living in a foreign country, where serving sizes are based on ounces and grams, not tablespoons and cups! The food in general is different, so I didn't know how to look up how many calories each item was, and because how they measure calories is different I didn't actually know how many calories I was taking in!
The other thing was that I really wanted to start working out. Everyone always says, that the key to successful weight loss is exercise. But who likes running outside when all your fat is flying around for the world to see!? And going to a gym out here is so expensive.
Solution: yes! I got it! After chatting with my lil' sister from my sorority last night, she told me that she too is on a diet. She told me about this website: sparkpeople.com It's a free website that gives you meal options, work out plans, and discussion groups! The best part, when you input your food, you can put the servings in any measurement you want!!!!!! How does it work? You put your current weight in (210 lbs.) and the weight you want to be at (130 lbs.) and by when. They work out a calorie system so allows you to do so. But, they want you to be healthy so their computing system doesn't make it so that a person would lose 10 lbs in one week... rather they have me goaled at 2 lbs/week. Sounds totally possible! I type in each thing I eat or drink, and they have it on the website. The calories, protein, fat, carbs ect and they calculate it all for me! They also have work out plans. If you want pre-set meals, they got it! They give you recipes for different meals of the day, and if you don't like the meal they provide you can change it to something else, and they make sure it all adds up to no more than the calories they allotted you for the day! But it's not just about calories. It's also about carbs, fats, proteins and fiber too!
As for the gym, my school as a small gym that is available for all the students to use. And while the gym isn't the more equipped, it has a treadmill, elliptical, and weights...I figured this was enough to get some physical exercise in!
Today I started with the food part of the diet and so far so good, just like any first day of a diet because I am fully motivated! Since school isn't open today Sunday is the say I am going to begin my workout. But this blog is my way of holding myself accountable for my actions during this journey. I plan on laying everything out right here, because by not, I am lying to myself, and you and ultimately hurting myself. I know I am a beautiful, smart, generous, outgoing young woman, so why not compliment those features by taking care of my health? So please join me during this adventure of becoming a better version of myself!
