‘Obesity Is a Tricky Thing’

18 Sep

rosieWe like to have fun here at I’m Skinny, Now What? Talking about boobs and butts and bikini shopping is all part of the journey.

But what we can never forget is that for many people, weight-loss is a health issue. There are men and women out in the world right now who, if they don’t get on the path to weight loss, it will mean the end of their lives.

Rosie O’Donnell came back as a host of “The View” this week. What no one expected was the drastic weight loss. For nearly 20 years, the 5’6″ actress-comedienne held more than 200 pounds on her frame. We’d gotten so used to seeing her that way, I don’t think it crossed any of our minds that she could look any different. It certainly didn’t occur to her—until she had a heart attack.

The block in her artery could have killed her. It should have, according to her doctor. Weight loss would be the only way to prevent another scary instance. But losing weight the way I and many others have didn’t work for her.

I preach a lot about diet and exercise here. I am a firm believer in its benefits. But when you’ve become so comfortable in your weight, it’s extremely difficult to break bad habits. It took me months to get my mind around the task I was about to take on. And then it took another few months to start the journey. For Rosie, she tried weight loss the old fashioned way for nearly a year without good results. So she decided to take the surgical route.

I am not a doctor, and I don’t know Rosie. But I know desperation. A year in, and I probably would have thrown in the towel, but she took the next step and took charge of her health. In an interview with “Extra,” she says that since the surgery a little over a year ago she’s lost about 55 pounds.

A few things Rosie said in her interview touched on some things that I hope gets across to everyone on their journey.

“I haven’t gained since I started losing. Sometimes it’s only a half a pound in the whole month, but that’s okay ’cause it’s going down.”

And it is okay. It’s okay to take control of your health in a way that works for you. For some of us, it’s strictly dieting. For others, it’s hitting the weights. Those of us, myself included, trying to lose a pound or two for beach season may never understand the what the severely obese have to go through. We can offer support and encouragement, but the journey is their’s to walk alone.

“I’m so not used to the new body that it’s hard for me to even buy the right-sized clothes when I go to the store.”

When I got got in beast mode with my weight-loss journey, I had tunnel vision. I knew how much I wanted to lose and what parts of my body I wanted to work on. I knew what kinds of foods I wanted to limit or restrict from my diet. What I didn’t know was how to dress myself. If you’ve been a certain size for a long time, you get used to shopping a certain way. Rosie was buying extra larges when she needed mediums. It wasn’t until a friend took me shopping that I realized my 12s were too big and I needed 8s. Weight loss is as much physical as it is mental. It takes a jolt of reality wrap your mind around your progress.

“There are reasons people become big. It’s protection. It’s layers of protection.”

You may have heard this before, but life is hard. There are people with metabolic issues who can’t lose weight. There are people with depression issues who eat to hide or comfort their feelings. There are more reasons for people to gain weight and have it stick than there are people in the world. But when you reach the point where you realize what you’re doing is not good for you, you’ve taken a major step toward an active role in your health. When you realize that the protective layer you’re hiding under isn’t doing you any good, then you’re on the road to a better you.

photo courtesy of Rosie.com

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Fear as the Great Motivator

15 Sep

blairwitch

When talking to people over the years about how I began my weight-loss journey, I often describe my laziness. I’m a self-confessed, couch-potato bum. I wasn’t an active child. I come from a house full of readers. We may not know how to play sports, but we can navigate a library with ease.

But I got older, my ass got wider and every flight of steps began to look like Mount Everest. I knew I needed to make a change, but I’d never done anything like this before. Of course I hadn’t. That’s how I got into my situation in the first place. Besides dancing for a few years, physical activity was a foreign concept to me. And things that are foreign can be scary.

Fear is one of the biggest obstacles you will have to overcome as you embark on your weight-loss journey. It can be so powerful that it’s debilitating. You know how to walk, obviously, but you haven’t run since recess in elementary school. The last time you rode a bike it was a Huffy 10-speed. You haven’t taken a class since college almost 15 years ago. Doing these things will muck up your routine, and they’re all unfamiliar to you and the body you’ve developed.

Have you ever been so scared to something that you did it anyway just to relieve the anxiety of fear?

That was how I decided to just go for it. You’ll hear lots of disclaimers about not participating in any strenuous physical activity without your doctor’s consent. I’m a big believer in that, too. But after you’ve gotten the doc’s OK, the only thing holding you back is you and your fears.

So what are you really afraid of? That you’ll run out of breath? That you’ll hurt yourself? That you’ll make a fool of yourself? Let me help you out: you will do all those things and more.

If you’re brand new to the whole exercise thing, you will definitely get short of breath a lot faster than some of the other people around you. And you will deal with it. Never, ever push yourself to the point where you absolutely cannot breathe. But don’t shortchange yourself to the point where you’re not really working yourself. Always remember: oxygen is good.

A little pain got you scared? Again, you will deal. Your body is going to fight you so hard on the “damage” you’re about to do to it. You will ache in places you didn’t know could ache. I knew my hamstrings would get tight, but I never thought my butt muscles would betray me. That’s when I became good pals with my friend Epsom Salt. A quarter-to-half cup of that in a hot bath will ease a lot of your aches and pains. Or, if you’ve worked your legs overtime, an ice bath is the trick for you. Just think bath.

Humiliation is a fear we can all relate to. Who hasn’t tripped and fallen in front of others? Who among us hasn’t seen that one guy at the club looking like he’s having a seizure when he’s supposed to be doing the Dougie? It’s embarrassing to be the new person. But you won’t always be new. You will get the hang of things, you just have to keep trying. The person killing it in front of your Boot Camp class wasn’t always the star pupil. They tripped over their aerobics stepper just like you did. The fastest swimmer at your pool once had to doggy paddle to do laps. And then they got better, as will you.

Don’t let your fears keep you from doing what’s important to you. Use them as motivators to keep you moving on the right track.

What scares you most about working out? What steps can you take to overcome them and even use them to your advantage?

photo courtesy of Tumblr

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Where There’s a Will…

10 Sep

medium_10911602524Misty Copeland is amazing. Have you seen her? Have you heard of her? She is a soloist for the American Ballet Theater.

I’m not sure how much you know about ballet. My own knowledge is slim. My history as a dancer is limited to one year in preschool, three years in high school and one year in college. But what I do know: ballet is a very difficult art form. As a dancer, you have to be highly attuned to every muscle in your body. You must have immense strength of both body and mind in order to precisely execute sublimely graceful movements. This takes years of training. Some of the best ballet dancers have been working at it since they were toddlers. Misty didn’t start receiving formal ballet training until she was 13.

Lots of naysayers gave her plenty of reasons why she shouldn’t pursue this dream: her age, her feet, her lack of training, her body. But she had the desire to keep moving and is now one of the most famous ballerina’s in the country.

Under Armour took note of this and decided to feature her in its new ad campaign: “I Will What I Want.”

I’m not big on brand loyalty. You find what you like, whether it’s a a well-known name or something in a bargain bin. But Under Armour may get a new customer out of me. Unlike some other fitness apparel brands, Under Armour is celebrating women who are passionate in their drive to achieve a goal. You have skiers, soccer players, tennis players and the like in these ads telling us how they kept after their goals, what it took for them to achieve them and why it was so important.

One of the campaign’s newest ads features Gisele Bundchen. Yes, Gisele of the idyllic life with a superstar-athlete husband, Victoria’s Secret contracts and amazing legs. But Gisele’s also had two children. Whatever you may think about celebrities, know that they are still human and pregnancy does…stuff to the body. Gisele’s showcases her strength in a place you wouldn’t think would naturally assume is her element: a boxing gym.

We’ve all heard white noise about the things we can and can’t do. The second you tell a few friends you’re going to start monitoring your diet, one of them will find a way to tell you all the ways you’ll fail. The day you step into the gym or the pool for the first time, someone will look at you like an alien. God forbid we don’t all start off with the perfect shape or the perfect dietary plan. Your weight-loss journey takes work. But more than that, it takes will.

Under Armour was brilliant in executing this campaign. They are showing how to, for lack of a better phrase, make your haters your motivators. You can do whatever you set your mind to, health-wise, career-wise, love-wise, whatever. It’s all about what you plan to do to achieve your goals. So muffle the white noise and get cracking.

What do you think of the ads? How do you get past the white noise of naysayers?

photo credit: notmydayjobphotography via photopin cc

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A Song for You

8 Sep

For as long as I can remember, there have been songs praising the ample bottom. From “Da Butt” to “Rumpshaker” to “Back Dat Ass Up,” men have not been shy about their appreciation for a large posterior.

But somewhere along the way, women began to appreciate it as well. There’s been a sea change over the summer. Songs dedicated to well-sized rumps have, for the past couple of months, been sung by women. Jennifer Lopez, queen of big-butt kingdom, released a song with Pitbull called “Booty;” Nicki Minaj set YouTube on fire when she dropped “Anaconda;” and new artist Meghan Trainor is “All About That Bass.” Three women, differing in shape, age and career level, have taken it up themselves to reclaim the big-booty song.

And why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t any woman appreciate what she has?

http://instagram.com/p/sKcMstmuKa/

I’m Skinny, Now What? isn’t about changing you. It’s about helping you along on your weight-loss journey. Part of that journey is accepting certain things about you. Either you can accept the things that can’t change, or you can struggle a lifetime trying to fix them.

For me, I’ve always had a large butt. Pre-puberty, I was elbows and knees—just ridiculously skinny—but still had a little something, something. Eventually hormones kicked in, growth spurts happened in weird places and I was graced with the cushion upon which I’m sitting now. The thing is that I’ve never had a problem with it. I’ve always been a little awkward, so there was no added anxiety with my new shape. When it came to weight loss, by boobs and my butt were the two things I didn’t want to lose. Both got smaller, but I haven’t flattened out yet.

I think that’s why I get a boost from the girl power that comes from these women appreciating themselves and telling others to either celebrate their shapes with them or don’t. If I don’t have a problem with certain—um—assets, then no one else should either. I’ve embraced by backside. But that’s me. You may not like what you’re sitting on. Then work to change it.

Like their male brethren, these songs come with a downside. Many people have taken issue with how the songs portray skinny women. Nicki and Meghan, specifically, call less-round women “skinny b—–s.” I can see both sides. There are some women who cannot gain weight no matter how hard they try. Maybe they’re envious of the curves your’re trying to lose. I can appreciate the songs as I feel they are talking about someone my size. But I feel my smaller sisters’ frustration with being blamed for society’s damnation of larger women.

American society as a whole values a smaller size. That’s just facts. The constant barrage of images of the ideal from in the media, and even not-so-subtle hints from family and friends, can be a real drag. Occasionally, we big-booty girls could stand a little pick me up. Having three ladies out there happily singing love songs to a round bum works in that capacity.

Jennifer, Nicki and Meghan are here to remind those of us big-booty girls to drop it like its hot if we feel it. And skinny women, you can do it to. These songs are supposed to be in fun. So let’s not tear each other down; let’s just twerk to “Anaconda.”

Do you have a song that you use as a pick me up? What do you think of women reclaiming big-booty music?

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‘Snackpocolypse’

4 Sep

fod_snackEverybody snacks. It’s actually encouraged to keep your metabolism up. But while some people see a handful of almonds or some apple slices as ideal, others take to a back of Goldfish crackers and wash it down with a Cherry Coke.

Look, we’ve all slipped. But schools can sometimes be the worst. When I was in high school, my lunches consisted of cheese fries and a soda, chips and a soda, a soda or nothing at all. We had open lunch, so occasionally we’d go out and order Chinese food, McDonald’s, Taco Bell or Subway. Our menu options were…inadequate. We had a salad bar, but not a lot of veggie options (plus, I’ve never been a big fan of buffet lines). We had Domino’s delivered every day, but a daily slice of pizza was not always appetizing.

That was more than 15 years ago. Not much has changed. Some schools have done good work, and started their own snack bars. Others have banned soda machines. But not everyone has caught on. Many teens, faced with the opportunity to make their own decisions, will opt for a Snickers and an orange soda instead of some cucumber slices and some water for a snack. Honestly, a Snickers bar sounds more appetizing. Still it’s not always the right thing to do.

What kids need is someone to save them from themselves. They need a hero like Katniss or Tris. Or even Hit-Girl.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f51b3917dd/snackpocalypse-with-Chloe-Grace-Moretz-Tyler-Posey-and-First-Lady-Michelle-Obama

This video is hilarious, and not just because Michelle Obama wants to get back to watching “Frozen.” Chloe recognizing she’s not different from everyone else, she just likes apples? I died!

If you’ve got a teen, maybe they’ll get a kick out of this video, too. And maybe they’ll think twice about how that two-liter soda could turn them into a sugar zombie.

What did you think of the video? Have you ever turned into a sugar zombie?

photo courtesy of Funny or Die

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