‘Know thyself’ ~ Socrates

Filed Under Quizzes | 1340 Comments

 


Like chocolate cake, you are friendly, dependable and make a great friend. You’re the perfect person to turn to in times of need!

‘Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign that something is eating us’ ~ Peter de Vries

Filed Under Discouraged moments, Emotional eating | 263 Comments

I think I was always sceptical of the phrase “emotional eater”. It sounded like an excuse - the idea of using food as a crutch, eating when something upsets you, seemed like a silly thing to do. Until I realized that I was the queen of emotional eating. I ate every time someone made a comment about my weight. I ate every time someone said/did anything that upset me (even non-weight related stuff!), and I even ate every time I was too happy :) I got an A on that paper? OOO let’s celebrate by ordering pizza and wings!

Breaking out of that pattern is the hardest thing for me. Every time I have an extreme emotion, especially when I’m feeling sad/angry, my first inclination is to reach out for some sort of food.I’ve had a difficult day at work today. Nothing bad per se, just very difficult. And I’m fighting tooth and nail not to just walk over to the Safeway, buy myself a big bag of cheetos and some coke, and just downing that while sitting in front of the TV.  I know I don’t need it. But why does it feel like I do?

Does anyone else ever have this problem? Knowing not to do something, and being able to resist doing it!?

‘Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.’~Maria Robinson

Filed Under Introduction | 5290 Comments

Welcome to my new weight loss blog! For years, YEARS, I’ve been trying to lose weight. I’ve obsessed about it, dreamt about it and then …did nothing about it. But recently, I have started to change my ways. Slowly but surely, I’ve been making some changes. In this blog, I hope to journal my thoughts regarding my weight loss and my body image. I also hope to use this page as a way to keep myself accountable and committed to a healthy me.

So a little introduction to my story:

It was the last year in high school that I started to gain weight. It was pretty gradual, and I did not notice that I was no longer average, but starting to be called chubby and cute. I started university at 118 lbs, which when you are barely 5 feet tall, is actually close to the upper limit of your ideal weight range. Still, I was fine with myself. Like a lot of self-centred freshmen, I was so absorbed in my world of late night snacking/pizzas, dancing and skipping classes, that by the end of first year, I was a whopping 130! “Still”, I thought to myself, “it’s only 12 lbs more than what I used to be - that’s not fat! I can easily lose this”.

Little did I realize that I had not developed the habit of healthy eating. Or exercise. Not only did I not lose the extra 12 lbs, but the weight kept creeping up till by the time I graduated and started grad school, I was a whopping 145 lbs! I looked like a squashed bull-frog! By this time, I had gradually started accepted that I was grossly overweight. I started making self-deprecating jokes about my weight - a common way for people to deal with their weight gain. If you call yourself fat, and can laugh about it, others won’t be able to make fun of you.  I became the funny overweight sidekick to my skinny, hot friends.

But self-deprecating humour is funny for only so long. And when people start to echo your jokes, it’s not funny at all. I finally realized how unhappy I really was with my weight. I saw how other people viewed me, and it was no longer acceptable. I had fooled myself into thinking that I was okay with myself.  While I knew (and still know) that there are plenty of people who are comfortable with themselves, regardless of how much they weigh (and rightly so!), I personally wasn’t. Somehow, I had started to view myself as a failure in life because I felt that people never saw past my weight. I could - no, I can and do relate everything negative in my life to my weight (although I’m trying not to do this anymore). And yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself from eating junk food every time someone called me fat, or any time I felt miserable because of my weight.

I finished grad school in 2006, and languished at my parents home for the summer, looking for a job and also soul-searching. Things started shifting in my head. I started keeping a notebook, nothing serious - but just writing down random tidbits, pasting funny comics about diets and weight loss, inspirational quotations and stuff. I hardly lost any pounds, but I think the process finally got me started to deal with all the body image and self-worth issues that I had been ignoring all these years.

On January 1, 2007 - I weighed myself at 140 lbs. I decided that this was it. I had to change.  For myself. Six months later, I am starting this blog to talk about the changes, both weight wise and emotionally. I weighed in at 126 lbs this morning. 14 lbs down since January. With another 10 lbs to go. Progress is being made. It’s slow, but inevitable. And I feel very good about that.