Shakesville's Fatsronauts 101

2:43 PM Posted In , , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
Shakesville’s doing a wonderful series on fat-shaming and the myths people have about fat people.
               

Love Your Body (Warning: Contains Adult Content)

1:34 AM Posted In , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
Another step in my weight loss was learning to love my body.  When starting out, find something that you like about yourself.  Even something that might seem silly like your hands, hair, anything.  Look at yourself in the mirror every day.  Most of us who are larger have developed the habit of only giving ourselves a cursory glance to ensure we are ready to go out in public.  Stop and admire your body.  Stop and move on before you begin to focus on the flaws, real or imagined.  Over time you will begin to like what you see more as you change.  Even at my heaviest I had strong, muscular legs with decent definition and focused on those.  Then I began to admire the same attributes in my arms.  Now I'm noticing that my tomach is shrinking, too, although it will never be as muscly as my limbs.  No one will ever love their entire body 100% of the time, but the point is to develop your working relationship into a more intimate one.

It is ok to like yourself.  Really, you have my permission.  Without devolving into a diatribe, let's just summarize with mainstream media and various industries make more money if you hate yourself.  Add a female gender to the mix, and you've got a wonderful barrel of monkeys of image issues.  Listen to the little voice in your head that says, "Damn, I look good."  (It's even quieter than the one pointing out the not so fine points of your physical being).  Don't worry that you'll come off as arrogant because what you are really developing is confidence, and there is a difference.  As a friend once put it, confidence is "I'm pretty good."  Arrogance is, "I'm better than everyone else."  So don't worry about your self-esteem being too strong until it crosses that line.

Sex counts as exercise!  Unfortunately, you aren't likely to find it listed on myfitnesspal, sparkpeople, or Fitocracy.  Even masturbation burns calories.  Obviously I haven't found any scientific studies to give a more definite idea of the math involved, but sexual activities that result in sweat, heavy breathing, and lethargy obviously counts as physical exercise.  If you're wanting numbers to plug into your calorie counter, then use your best judgment.

The mental battle is harder and has to be won before the physical will follow suit.  The more you like your body, the more confidence you will have which means you'll be perceived as being sexier, thus leading to more sex.  Make the Psycho Hamster Wheel of Doom work for you in a positive way.

Healthy Weight Loss vs. Diets, or How to Lose the Baggage

6:57 PM Posted In , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
Several of my friends have asked me how I managed to lose 30 pounds.  The quick answer is: I cheated.  I went from a sedentary lifestyle to working as a CNA on my feet all day with heavy lifting.  Now I actually have to work at it by learning how to cook, unable to go to the gym, and deal with stress eating and a junk food addiction.  One of my ex-girlfriends loves to tease me about when we were together because I'd habitually eat two cheddarwurst dogs and a pomegranate Rockstar energy drink for breakfast.  So I've got some major hurdles to overcome.

I started with little changes, and am working my way up.  If you have anxiety issues and an addictive personality, you will become too disheartened and overwhelmed by everything and fall off the bandwagon.  So don't look at my advice and go whole-hog, you want to make lifestyle changes.  If you want to lose weight quickly and then go back to the life you were living before, I can tell you now that it's not going to work.  You have to change your whole self.

Most "experts" will tell you to ask yourself why you want to lose weight.  Being the woman I am, I sure as hell knew my reasons.  I did not feel good in my own body.  I didn't like the way I felt, looked, or moved.  I would constantly refer to myself as a "hideous, fat cowbeast."  It started out as a joke about when I was emo and tried to laugh off my depression and body issues with exaggeration.  The problem was, was I had brainwashed myself into believing it.  I wanted to get into SCA heavy fighting, but knew that I couldn't physically do it until I lost some weight.  My body simply wouldn't be able to handle it.  I wanted to make later period garb, but didn't want to put forth the time, money, and effort until I was where I felt I would look good in the dresses.  So I have some very personal, practical reasons.  You need to assess your motivational factors to ensure that this is something to which you want to commit.

The very first thing I told myself is, "You are not on a diet."  Say it with me: "I am not on a diet."  Again.  "I am not on a diet!"  Doesn't that feel good?  There is so much stigma, marketing, and general insanity in American culture regarding the word "diet" that I refused to burden myself with that.  Hell, I had 75 extra pounds to lug around as it was along with the baggage that society associated with my weight.  Not to mention that diets are seen as something temporary or something that can be ruined by one piece of chocolate.

Don't set yourself up for failure and accept now that you will make bad choices.  You will make excuses for your bad choices.  Acknowledge your mistakes, figure out what to do next time, and stop before you slide even further.  Ok, so you had an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's.  Not the best choice of lunches in the world, but deal with it and move on.  No, it doesn't mean you should go ahead and eat out at the all-you-can-eat buffet.  Nor does it mean you can only have celery and carrot sticks for dinner (unless you like that, in which case you are either insane or a were-rabbit).  It means you should have a well-rounded dinner that's especially low in fat.  Don't beat yourself up, and don't keep backsliding just because of a mistake or three.

Drink water.  I know, I hate water and am very picky.  Yes, I know that living off of soda, juice, and tea is not good for me, but I'm addicted to the caffeine.  Water will help make you feel fuller, flush toxins and other crap from your body, yadda yadda yadda.  I will only drink purified water, preferably with tons of ice.  There are flavoured waters, packets to add to your water, and other products on the market.  The possible chemical content of those scares me, so I haven't looked at them yet.

Good fats are good.  I'm not an expert, but natural occuring fats are fine in moderation, such as olive oil, avocado, and nuts.  Just don't go deep-frying an avocado stuffed with walnuts.

Speaking of moderation: stop when you're full.  That's one of my biggest problems.  If it's yummy then I just want to om nom nom nom nom and some more nom.  It's so good I don't want to stop.  No, I don't have impulse control problems at all.  Luckily I'm also easily distracted.  For lunch today I threw some hummus, salsa, and lettuce on a tortilla and wandered off to play on the computer while drinking some water from my Brita pitcher that's kept in the fridge.  After checking my email, my stomach informed me I was still hungry.  Rinse and repeat.  Also, don't eat straight from the container, that's kind of a no-brainer.

Buy fruits and vegetables that you like.  I hate celery so much I used to have disturbing dreams where I'd go to the grocery store and all I would buy was celery.  I had some anxiety issues when I first lived on my own and had no idea how to grocery shop or cook.

More to follow as it percolates through my un-caffeinated brain.  By the way, quitting soda cold turkey sucks.

Why "Man" Sized Burritos Are Tasteless

1:14 PM Posted In , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
I hit the drive-thru of one of my favourite local franchises, and this is what I wrote in a quick response on their feedback form. This is just a knee-jerk reaction as opposed to an in-depth critique.
"I recently visited your Springfield location near Winco and was offended to find a menu item described as "man" sized.
Food is not gendered, and by buying into the notion that some food is for men and some is for women automatically alienates half of your customers.
In case you happen to be visually impaired, all people come in various shapes and sizes. You would do best to remember this when dealing with the public.
Please be aware that I will be notifying my friends and acquaintances as to the inherent sexism and sizeism in this failed marketing ploy."

Even Robotic Women Have to Conform

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"A new walking, talking robot from Japan has a female face that can smile and has trimmed down to 43 kilogrammes to make a debut at a fashion show.
But it still hasn't cleared safety standards required to share the catwalk with human
models.
Developers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, a government-backed organisation, said their "cybernetic human," wasn't ready to help with daily chores or work side by side with people - as many hope robots will be able to do in the future.
"Technologically, it hasn't reached that level," said Hirohisa Hirukawa, one of the robot's developers. "Even as a fashion model, people in the industry told us she was short and had a rather ordinary figure."
For now, the 158 centimetre tall black-haired robot code-named HRP-4C - whose predecessor had weighed 58 kg - will mainly serve to draw and entertain crowds.
Developers said the robot may be used in amusement parks or to perform simulations of human movement, as an exercise instructor, for instance.
HRP-4C was designed to look like an average Japanese woman, although its silver-and-black body recalls a space suit.
It will appear in a Tokyo fashion show - without any clothes - in a special section just for the robot next week."
43 kg = about 95 pounds. 58 kg = about 117 lbs. 158 cm = about 5' 2"?
So the first model was too "fat" and they had to slim it down. Then the first two "career" options are housework and modeling. Oh wait, she's not thin/tall/pretty enough to be a model. What does that say about the current artificial concept of feminine beauty if even robots fall short of the ideal? Ergo being too heavy, unpretty, and sucks at household chores she is a "bad" woman.
And since when do robots have gender, anyway? If it was designed to be a "male" robot, would they still be complaining about the same "faults"? Oh that's right, it's a robot so it is designed to be submissive to another's will which means it has to be female in order to be willingly controlled by another.

Why I am not on a diet

12:22 PM Posted In , , , , , Edit This 2 Comments »
All right, so after my last post I feel the need to come clean. I am not on a diet. I am completely altering my lifestyle. Here is what I wrote in a forum on Ravelry when I began two weeks ago:

"So eating healthy/losing weight is a huge can of worms. I have several health issues so when I exercise everything below my knees soon hurts. My family has been on my case basically ever since high school, when I put on the weight after my first foot surgery. So I tend to get easily upset over my weight, just grocery shopping has been known to bring me to the brink of tears. I realized I really can’t do this without a support system.
I play Dungeons and Dragons a couple nights a week, and on those nights there’s the junk food/7-11 pilgrimage. Sunday night, most recent game night, I announced my plans to not indulge in junk (i.e. no more bags of Doritos to myself and energy drinks in the course of one game). Cheese is one of my true loves, next to crafting and s/o. “Bob” is a big guy, and really great cook of unhealthy stuff. He started everyone in a
round of teasing me with, “Jer is so full of Brie.” Or “I promise I won’t mention those compressed bits of dairy curd.” “So no Swiss for insert my character’s name here?” It wouldn’t stop, even after I threatened to stab everyone with size 2 Addi Turbos [knitting needles]. I almost started crying.
Luckily, my s/o and I are doing this together and he cooks on game nights when I don’t have time after work.
The plan of attack is what I did when I was on LA Weight Loss (but couldn’t afford that much food/so many trips to the store at the time nor driving across town to the center, as well as shame when I fell off the wagon for a couple of months).
Weight: No idea, perhaps around 200?

Highest weight ever was 205

Height: 5’3”

Size: 18

Goal: 140?

Goal Size: 10-12?

Veggies: 4 servings

Fruit: 3 servings

Carbs: 2 servings

Protein: 2 servings

Dairy: 1 serving :( Fat: 1 serving Water: 8 glasses Exercise: When I can get it, in addition to bellydance with friends a couple of hours once a week.
Today: low fat string cheese, an apple, applesauce cup, a can of Progresso Healthy Request Soup, two cups of coffee (creamer added, which was still in the fridge and needs to be finished to make room for low-fat versions), and no water.
Not too bad, but could be better.
Edited because a stated goal is a good thing. I don’t really know how much I want to lose, but at least 50 pounds would be good."

I only threw in the last bit about the amount of weight I would like to lose because I don't want to stop after 10 pounds, thinking that I did good and not continue. On the other hand, I don't want to go overboard and starve myself to skin and bones. (Not that have ever been, nor ever will be skin and bones, but I want to be healthy).
And this is what I wrote this morning:
"So I have this habit of occasionally grabbing my belly (where I carry almost all of my excess fat i.e. anywhere else but my boobs) with both hands and just jiggling it up and down. Sometimes I’ll yell at it in frustration. Sometimes I do it just to make me laugh. Sometimes it’s to remind me why I’m doing this. The past couple of days, it’s felt, I dunno, somehow looser. Less dense.
Being an anti-scaleworshipper, I hopped on my non-digital one. And I’ve lost five pounds since I last posted. Granted, I was fairly bad last week for my birthday (two
parties, one involving pizza and cheesecake, the other lots of rich Italian food).
But I’ve been hiking (not uphill really because we’re working up to that) at least once a week. I haven’t been drinking enough water because I work in a cold warehouse and the thought of cold water is enough to make me run for the coffee. And when I really want junk food, I have some. Not an entire bag of chips, which I can do without even blinking, but last night I wanted jerky and a couple of mini chocolate donuts. So I did, but my dinner wasn’t just junk (which was normal on game nights for me)."
The scale was only out of curiosity to see if it was my imagination or not. This isn't about fitting some insane ideal image that has been pressed onto me by society and the media. This isn't a New Year's Resolution to be forgotten in February. I am not going overboard and denying myself everything but carrots and water. Hell, I don't even have a gym membership.
I want to be able to get out and do all the things I want to do like hiking, camping, and biking. I want to be able to fit into clothes, theatre seats, and other crowded spaces. I want to have energy. In short, I want to be healthy. My previous ways of eating and sedentary lifestyle were the exact opposite of that.
And eating healthier, home-cooked meals is a) cheaper and b) not contributing to huge evil fast food corporations.
The focus isn't on weight and how I look, but how I feel.

Just another reason to hate Fox News...

12:12 PM Posted In , , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »
They think Jessica Simpson's fat.

Rather than grace Faux News with a link, I'm going to send you over to William K. Wolfrum Chronicles where I read it first, who deserves it far more than they do.

Btw, not fat. ------->

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