Going Out and Having Fun!! (With No Guilt)

So in case you were unaware I am a young single girl (know any hot, professional, nice, younger guys send them my way please ;) ) anyway that being said I do go out occasionally for dinner and drinks sometimes a movie and I've had to learn how to go out and not feel guilty the next day about the calories I ingest.

First I'm gonna tackle the movies, I don't snack at movies at all. No popcorn, No candy and I buy an overpriced bottle of water to drink. I know it sounds impossible, but honestly you are going to ingest 500 plus calories mindlessly during the movie and you just don't need it. First rule of thumb don't go to the movies hungry. Eat dinner first whether at home or a restaurant those calories are going to be better for you calories (nutrient rich) than a bucket of popcorn and a pound of red hots and if you're full then the smells won't make you as hungry and it will be easier to say no. If you absolutely NEED popcorn get a small one, no extra butter, no extra salt, it's plenty buttery and plenty salty all on it's own.

Next drinks, drinking probably won't make you put on weight but it does inhibit weight loss. So here are few tips to drink caloricly responsibly (because we all know not to drink and drive right? I hope so!) Don't drink a whole lot, we don't need to plastered to have a good time, I have three drink maximum on a night out that's enough now I'm not able to drive, but I'm not falling down drunk and its probably about 400 calories I ingested here, that's my snack maximum for the day. Also if you get plastered and you feel like crud the next day you aren't gonna want to work out, so not only did you you drink lots and lots and lots of calories, you don't burn them off the next day, that is bad, bad , bad. So three drinks, no hang over and work out the next day! Now what should you drink? No beer, not even light beer, honestly beer is liquid bread, are you going to eat a whole loaf of bread while on a diet? NO, so don't drink it either. If you loooove beer, have one, only one and make it a light one. Clear alcohols are the best, light rums, vodka, gin these have the least amount of calories and are always good mixed with a diet drink. Margaritas, i love me a margarita, most restaurants have a skinny version, this is great! TGIFridays has two skinny margaritas both only 130 calories. This is how you don't blow your work out at the bar :)

Dining out. When you go to a restaurant be smart okay? First ask yourself how much do I eat out, if your answer is once or twice a month go for it, treat yourself don't worry about it, that Alfredo pasta is not gonna kill you, you are good the other 28-29 days out of the month. If your answer is more like mine and you go out to eat 3 to 4 times a week (dinners and lunches, I told you I had an active social calender) you need to be more aware of what you eat. Stay away from cream sauces and fried foods. Eat lots of salads (not salads with fried chicken on top) and soups. Soups are a good way to one fill you up because it has lots of water and not get a lot of calories. The soups need to broth based not cream based, so get the minestrone over the cream of potato soup. Sandwiches are good, anything covered in gravy is bad (I'm from the south). Baked potatoes are good, make sure it's small about 5 ounces if you get cheese no sour cream, if you get sour cream not cheese. Veggie plates are great, at Chilli's i get the veggie tacos, super good very filling and I don't eat all the tortillas. Skip the desert, get some coffee instead. :)

Can you go out and have fun? YES and you should. If all you do is work, gym, home you aren't living and the whole purpose of being healthy is to live a better life. I believe in living in the moment, so if I REALLY want some pasta and white sauce I'll get it, but i am also aware I will have to put an extra hour on the treadmill the next day to work it off. So go out, have fun, but have fun responsibly and you won't have to stress about the extra calories. Always go strong no matter what!! :)

Shopping Thinner!!!

So if you know me personally you know I love to shop. I am a girl, I love fashion, I like looking good and i LOVE finding bargains. At my biggest finding bargains was super hard to do, plus-size clothing just costs more and there is less of a selection, it is just a sad fact. Even though the woman in the United States (and western Europe and Australia) are getting bigger there is still not much of a selection out there for us curvy, bigger ladies and it sucks.









Shopping at 430lbs was a challenge, but I still loved it. I never got weepy or sad when I went shopping, there was just less of a selection. Don't get me wrong it sucked that the ONLY place I could buy jeans was Lane Bryant and only one style of those jeans AND they were getting tight. I always thought I looked good, and I liked to dress well. Dressing well when you are big is very expensive, I would do it but it made things difficult.









Now I'm no longer a size 30 jean (yes I said size 30, not the inches size, in inches i had a waist of of about 50 inches and hips of about 63 inches.) I'm a size 14 - a size 18 jean depending on where I buy them and I haven't been inside Lane Bryant in at least two months.









So like everything else in my life I'm having to learn how to shop thinner. Before if I tried on something cool and fashion forward if it fit i was ecstatic and I bought it. Nothing probably looked good on me per say, but if it didn't look horrible I got it. Now that I have a better selection I am more choosy in what I buy. Most shirts fit me now, I'm a size Large to Medium and I can pretty much walk into ANY store and find something that will fit, that I like, that I can buy and it is the most liberating feeling in the world.









Being thinner is also saving me money, the cheapest jeans at Lane Bryant are 50 bucks, now I can get a pair at most stores and I don't spend over 30 bucks now. I go shopping a lot with a friend of mine who is a size 4 and I am still amazed that we can both go into Macy's and find the same dress for both of us her in an XS and me in a Large. I had never been able to do that before. I love it! I am a fashionista at heart and it is nice to become more normal sized and being able to find clothes easier.









For me being able to buy smaller clothing is a huge motivator. No doubt in my mind at the end of this journey I am going to be a curvy girl, my boobs are still big (36 DD) and I have a big butt, the more I climb the StairMaster the rounder and higher and bigger it seems to get. I now have a 37 inch waist and 47 inch hips, which is a lot of inches down. I can't wait till my jeans aren't plus size at all ( I want to be a general size 8 pant) and I can buy EVERYTHING on sale.









Shopping is one of the things I take great pleasure in being smaller, it may not bring you the same kind of pleasure, the trick is to find what makes you happy and what you like to do smaller that you couldn't do heavier, maybe it's running or playing with your kids, or maybe it's bedroom time with you spouse. Whatever it is find it, embrace it, and don't let it go because it will help you maintain your healthier lifestyle and it will help keep you going strong no matter what!!!

Benchmarking Our Lives

So in case you didn't know I am six months away from turning 30, wow it's very crazy if you think about it. I'm not at a place in my life where i thought I would be when I was like 20. If you asked me at 20 where i would be at 30 I would've said I'd be, successful, employed, fabulous, living in a big city anywhere but in Texas, married, probably a couple of kids and a house. All of this is not where I am, I'm still in school, I'm single with no long-term relationship on the horizon, no children (besides my doggy children), still living in small town Texas, I do have jobs but not career type jobs and I'm still living with my parents. We tend to gauge our lives by where we are "supposed" to be and by where our friends are. I am at the age where my friends are getting married and having kids and at times I feel kinda left behind.

I don't want this to sound all woe is me, because that's not me. I love my life, I love who I am, I love what I've accomplished but I can't help but feel left out at times. I've decided to put my school kind off again this semester (I'm only going to go part time) because I really need to finish getting my final 80 lbs off before my 30th birthday in six months. I kind of feel like I'm prolonging my real life by doing this, but I also know it would be a wasted semester anyway.

Being on this journey I have learned about so much more than just how to lose weight and keep it off. This journey has taught me so much about life, love, relationships, people and how I fit into this world. I've reached a point in my life where a LOT of my close friends are finding their soul mates and getting married and are having babies, and I am happy for them but a part of me is like hey what about me! We tend to benchmark our lives, a lot like I mark my weight loss, however life does not work on a schedule. Even if I had finished school at 21 or 22 I still wouldn't be were my friends are in their personal lives because how can you share your life with someone if you don't know who you are? That was me my entire 20's, living day to day slowly sabotaging myself because I didn't know who I was.

" Life doesn't deal the hand you want, it deals the hand you need. Whether you believe it, accept it, want it or not, it is what it is. Be content with your own hand. STOP trying to rush life, just let it happen. Learn to live out the life dealt. What will be, will be!"-Antonio Talbert

I think that quote is perfect, one of my best friend's in the world who is marrying her Prince Charming in May constantly talks about wanting to send a thank you card to all her Ex-Boyfriends thanking them for not wasting her time and teaching her what not to look for. I think this is kind of great. I don't regret anything in my life, because I learned from it. I learned I was really unhappy at 430 pounds and that i wasn't living I was existing. No more existing for me, I'm going to live. I'm going to have that amazing full filling career, plan and had have that ridiculously expensive wedding to my Prince Charming when he does decide to appear and sweep me off my feet and I will have a couple of great kids. I just probably won't have them by 30 and that's okay. It's my life and I make the rules.

Life is hard, no one promises you happiness you have to find it. Do I know exactly what I want? Not completely, but I know I know myself a little bit better now at 245lbs than I did at 430lbs, so things change and I'm single at 29 years old and that's okay. I'm almost done with school, am I gonna go to medical school like was my mom's dream? Nope and I'm totally okay with that I'm gonna work on making me happy and when I am happy that's when I know this journey will be over. So here is to the next six months, because by July 12th, the day I turn 30 I will be 180 pounds (or darn close to it) and I will know more about me and I will be one day closer to the rest of my life. So here's to never settling, never giving up (or figuring out) our dreams and going strong no matter what.

Life's Little Pleasures.

Hola my friends! How are you doing today? I've had a not so hot week, including getting the flu and a sick car... So gym time was abbreviated this week, one thing I am grateful for is my car being in the shop the same days I felt like a corpse and needed to sleep 18 hours a day. Today I am feeling mucho better, my car is well again and well back to the gym I go after work. This week while i was laying in bed with a box of tissues and snuggling some NyQuil I was thinking about all the things that are easier now that I don't have an extra person worth of fat attached to my body. I think it's the little things that really make this process worth while.

At my biggest I drove a tiny little truck (a Nissan frontier king cab) not a lot of room right, and even with the seat all the way back the steering wheel would still rub the bottom of my stomach, so much so that I would get thin spots in my jeans from where the steering wheel rubbed. I don't know how I ever was okay with this, how I ever thought oh I'm not that big. This week i had to get in said truck ( i now drive a Ford Fusion, but I kept the truck cause it's always good to have a truck ya know) to jump off my car and talk about room to spare! It was insane, driving is so much easier now, and turning around to yell at my dogs in the back seat when we are on a trip is no problem. Even after I got my much more roomier car, I still couldn't like bend over if my cell phone fell on the floor board at my feet. Now I can no problem. I don't have to pull over anymore to retrieve it (even if I should). Adjusting my seat? At 430 pounds? There was no wedging my fat arm in between the seat and the door I would have to open the door to adjust my seat, now since my arm isn't the size of gigantic sausage i can move my seat back and forth with the door closed. When I first made this realization I called my mom in tears I was so happy, because I had never been able to do that all before. When I realized I could do that I felt like I had truly accomplished something in my life.

Movie theatre seats, I hated going to the movies at 430 pounds. I would go, and wedge myself in the seats and have bruises, huge ugly bruises on my hips and the sides of my stomach. Of course I never told anyone this, it was just a sad fact at my size. Booths in restaurants, I would fit in them (or most) but my boobs would cover my plate making it hard to eat. Now i have a lot less stomach and sadly a lot less boobs (the one part of my body that I am actually remorseful to see shrinking). I think the most embarrassing seating issue i had at 430 pounds was at my university. There were usually two types of desk-chairs, the regular sized one that I did not fit in at all (again more bruising on my stomach when I had to wedge myself in one) and the bigger ones that I did fit in. Sadly there was usually only two or three bigger ones per class and were always in high demand. So I would have to get to class early to get a seat I fit in. Now i don't have to worry about any of these problems. Movie seats I fit in comfortably, booths, typically if I'm out with a friend or a loved one who knew me big I'm usually like "oohhh look at all this room i have between the the table and my belly, my belly is getting smaller" and they laugh, but it's a major accomplishment for me. As for the bruises I am happy to say I haven't had any of those in awhile and I'm loving it.

Sex, 'lets talk about sex baby', sex is much much easier 150 pounds lighter. I am the kind of girl that really enjoys sex, and I had boyfriends at 430 pounds, and trust me I never let my weight bother me in the bedroom. I totally lived under the philosophy of well if he wants to have sex with me he must want to see me naked, so I was never shy once he got me in the bedroom, but logistically there were somethings I could not do, or were uncomfortable. For example, sex standing up, even braced up against something at my biggest was not possible. A few months back, like August, I had sex standing up. I was in the middle of having my heart broken, but utterly ecstatic that I had sex standing up! I remember I was shopping at Dillard's and my friend called to ask how I was doing with said imposing break up and I told her "well I'm devastated that he's gonna break my heart, but upside when I saw him last night we totally did it standing up, I was always to fat for that!" So even through a really sad time, I could take joy in the fact that all my hard work at the gym was paying off!

Whether your 200 pounds over weight or 50 pounds, there is stuff that that extra weight holds us back from doing, whether it's playing with our kids for extended periods of time, feeling more comfortable out in public at the movies or at school or being able to fit on roller coasters (again something I couldn't do at 430 pounds) or being super sexy in the bedroom. We shouldn't let a little (or a lot) of weight hold us back from living our lives. I know I am more alive now, because I am more fit and I can do more and really enjoy my life and I can't wait to see what life has in store for me at 180 pounds compared to 260 pounds. So just remember that it's your life and you're the one responsible for it and always go strong no matter what!

Turning I can't into I CAN

So a few weeks back a friend of mine posted this on Facebook and I instantly stole it, printed it, and put it up on my bedroom wall. I think we all have people in our lives that tell us we can't, and we tell ourselves so often we can't, when actually we can. There really is nothing your body can't do it is our minds that get in the way.

When you say to yourself "I can't work out today" turn around and then ask your self "okay why can't I?". Are you in pain? Is your pain just regular soreness or what I call super soreness, a kind of soreness that can lead to injury. Regular sore? Go to the gym, do what you did yesterday but don't push for more. Super sore, i think you can still go to the gym (I do) and just do less. On my super sore days, I've been known to only do 30 min of cardio and go home. Did i burn a pound of fat that day? Nope, but i still fed my routine and keeping that routine in the long run is more important than pushing for burning that pound of fat.

Let's back up and say your "I can't" is I can't work out period, I don't have time. I call bull on this. Everyone has time, you just might have to give something up. Unless you work 16 hours a day, you have time to exercise. I've said it once and I will say it over and over again. YOU CAN FIND 30 MINUETS A DAY, FIVE DAYS A WEEK to do some cardio. Cut out one show a night, there is your 30 minutes. Get up 30 minutes before your kids do. I have a friend who gets up a full hour before her baby does to use her treadmill, I would get up at 5am to have breakfast to be at the gym at 6am before my 9am classes. Does it suck? Sometimes yes, do you have to go to bed earlier? Yes. But it is worth it. This is me taking away your excuses, your I can'ts.

Is your I can't a health problem? Completely possible. I was lucky even at 430 pounds I didn't have any health issues, you might. But staying inactive on the couch is only gonna make these health issues worse. Most communities have a public pool. Swimming is a very low impact, great cardio exercise. If you are very morbidly obese it is so good to work out in a pool because it does not hurt your joints. Can't swim? That's okay stay in the shallow end and hold on to the wall and kick your feet. You won't go anywhere, you wont drown and you will burn a lot of calories. Have trouble getting into and out of the pool? Most pools have the handicapped stairs now, if your public pool doesn't go to the one at your local college I bet it does. Not a student there? Get some courage go to the people who maintain the pool and ask if you can still use it. It is great community outreach for the university to let community members use their stuff, exemptions can be made. It is not expensive to go to these pools, 2 -5 bucks each time and you may be able to buy a cheaper pass. You don't have the extra 15 bucks a week, I bet you do. Don't buy some junk food. Give up Internet for awhile, give up the smart phone and the smart phone plan. Your health is way more important than checking your Facebook at will.

You can't eat better? Your husband won't like the food? I get so TIRED of this excuse. My dad threw a temper tantrum one night when I fed him tofu stir fry but only after he ate it. In all honesty your husband will not leave you for changing his diet along with yours. He may grumble, throw a fit but he wont leave, and girl if he does, seriously you are better off and you need to sell that story to lifetime, because that would make a crazy lifetime movie just sayin. Your children wont eat it? This makes me angry, as a parent it is your job to teach them good eating habits, and saying oh my child will only eat MacDonald's chicken nuggets is your fault not the child's. You need to work harder on feeding them good food. Saying a child will only eat junk is YOUR excuse to eat junk. Again they may not like it at first but they will eventually begin to like it and you are doing them a favor teaching them to eat good young, this is a skill they will take into adulthood. This is not to say I am advocating never giving your child a Happy Meal. No, Happy Meals are fun treats, but should be treated as such, a treat, not a daily source of nutrients.

Now some of you may chew me out on the kid stuff by saying "Laura you don't have kids, you don't understand." This is true I don't have children, however I was one, and my mom tried (somewhat in vain) to teach me to eat right and I learned a lot from that nutritional foundation. I am scared to think what I would have been like if I hadn't known how bad particular foods were for me and how good others are. When I was a child I would demand the bad foods also, they taste so good, but my mom just got pretty good at figuring out how to make bad foods a little healthier, and you can too. Your kids will eat the good stuff, when they get hungry enough. ;)

I think these are some of the major I cant's we go through in our lets get healthier lives. It's said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well how about the road to a really big butt is paved with good work out intentions. The next time you say oh i just can't today, you need to turn to yourself and say watch me, and show your I cant's that you're gonna go strong no matter what.

Embracing who we are!

Heeeey strangers, long time no talk. I have had a crazy busy couple of weeks. Some stuff has been really cool and a week ago I decided to organize a charity 5k for March and I've spent the last week trying to get that all in order (not having much luck, the week flew by!) but I've missed blogging! I've had numerous ideas that I should blog about, but didn't have the time to blog about :(. But I'm back, and I kinda want to talk about embracing who we are.





I have a lot of friends that have lost weight, one that's lost a whole person and then some like me and several who've lost you know 50 or 60 lbs. Significant amounts of weight and I've noticed I'm the only one that embraces my fat photos. I don't understand it, I am so proud of the weight I've lost, it's like graduating from college proud or having a baby proud. This journey is so hard, it is hard to lose any kind of weight and keep it off. I don't understand why my friends are so ashamed of their fat photos. It's like a hidden secret that they never want to admit that it happened. That to me is kind of scary, in that if we don't learn from our past we are destined to repeat it kind of way. Maybe that's why I keep my fat photos on Facebook, they are a reminder of what I never want to be again. I never want to be that girl hiding behind the extra cushion and not living her life to the fullest, at 430 pounds there was so much in my life I could not do.



I actually think the problem is two fold, one is shame and the other is we focus way to much on how we look as a society. The shame is silly. There is nothing to be ashamed of if you're over weight, especially if you were overweight and are smaller now or are actively working to change your lifestyle. The only thing that is bad about being bigger is the detriment it has on your health, we should all want to lead healthy life styles because it allows us to lead fuller, longer lives.





Beauty is relative, and true beauty comes from within. I was talking with a friend of mine whose lost and kept off about fifty pounds for the last three years or so. Generally when we hang out we talk about men, fitness and shopping and for some reason these topics never get old. We started looking at old pictures of each other and her response to a picture of me at 430 pounds, was I never realized you were that big. Then I looked at an old picture of her and said the same basic thing, something along the lines of I always thought she was beautiful and she replied "I guess love is really blind." I don't think it is that love is blind, but instead we don't love the outer parts of people. Yes there is such a thing as attraction (especially in romantic love) but you don't LOVE attraction. A really beautiful person become super ugly super fast based on their personality and an average looking person will become more beautiful if they have an awesome spirit.


I think we forget this and are way to hard on ourselves. Like if we go out with our friends and have an awesome time, but feel like the pictures taken that night are blah it shouldn't matter, our friends, family all the people who love us love us FOR us. Life is about memories, not about how we look, when we are 80 looking at the photos from our 25th birthday party it won't be "look at hot fat i was" or "that dress was horrible" it will be "look at how young we were and how happy we were". I am constantly stressing about imaginary back fat ( I always ask does my back look fat in this, and it never does) but it doesn't matter. To the people who love me I am beautiful, my friends and loved ones are just as beautiful to me. Perfection is boring and overrated, true beauty lies in our flaws. So lets embrace our past, be proud of our accomplishments, know that our true beauty comes from the inside not the outside, be healthy and always go strong not matter what!

Having a bad week..

Hey y'all,

So if you ask anyone I am an upbeat, bubbly full of life kind of girl. Always have a smile on my face but this week has been kind of hard on me. Without boring you with details there's been some family issues and some romance issues and this week was just hard. I think a lot of people would use this time to not go to the gym and I didn't, i don't think you should either.

You know they say when life gives you lemons make lemonade. Well I'm not always up for the lemonade, and sometimes the bitterness of the lemon teaches us not to forget important lessons in life. I guess this week me and my lemons went to the gym! When your feeling down working out is good, it raises endorphins and I don't know about anyone else but I always feel accomplished after a good hard work out, way more accomplished than I would feel bumming on the couch eating bon bons.

So when you hit rough patches in life (and we all do) don't let the rough patches take you away from your goals. Don't stop being active, having a fight with your husband go for a walk, clear your mind a bit and maybe you will see things better. I just know that in the past a week like this would have just brought me really low and I wouldn't have wanted to do anything, but I knew for my body that just wasn't the right thing. So i went to the gym and tried my hardest to literally exercise some of my inner demons out. It didn't work, but I lost two pounds this week so i did some good.

Next week at the gym I'm really gonna amp up my workout. Here lately I've been doing only about 1.5 hours of cardio and about 45 min of resistance. I'm gonna try my hardest to do 2 hours of cardio (stair master for an hour and run for an hour) and then an hour of resistance, plus my swimming 3 days a week. I need to shift my minds focus off of things I can't change and on to things I can which is my workouts. So this week is gonna be an experiment (hey I'm not a scientist for nothing). Let's see how my calves love me come next Friday, hopefully they are still speaking to me!

So lets just all try and remember to not let things bring us so far down that we stop pursing our goals. I'm not just talking work outs here, if your having a bad week don't skip class, or work, go on like nothing is wrong because in the end if you skip out on your life the only person you are hurting is yourself. So like my mom always said fake it till you make it and always go strong no matter what! Love you guys!

Being Selfish

Hey guys, soo it's been forever since I updated, I'm having Internet problems at home, but I'm hoping they will be fixed by Monday so I can update more often. So much has happened this week and I'm like " I wanna blog about this" and then can't get online so yeah, here is to fixed Internet!


So yesterday my mom and I are driving to the pool to swim laps for an hour and she made a comment that I was self-centered, talk about hurting my feelings! It's okay though she was a little bit right, because in order to make the changes I have made in my life I need to be a little bit self centered. No one else can go to the gym for me, do the work for me, deal with the pain of sore muscles and muscle pulls for me, nor can they truly benefit from the success for me. Beyond appreciating the aesthetic no one can feel my heart pumping better, or the pain free long walks but me.

Unfortunately I am the type of person that has a very hard time saying no, I also have a lot of responsibilities. Flat out I am never home and I love that, but of course this causes problems at home (don't worry i have no children I am neglecting, just parents who feel neglected at times). I love spending hours on end in the gym, I love helping my friends with their workout goals, pushing them and them pushing me. I love my jobs and I love to work hard and play hard. Just like my new body, my new attitude on life is going to have some growing pains.

The biggest difference I feel in my life is I feel like I am finally living my life for myself, and I don't think I have ever done that before. Of course we can't 100% be all about ourselves all the time we all have people in our lives we take care of, but we cannot allow that care taking to rule our lives. Maybe one of the reasons I got so big is because I did not care enough about me to change it.

This post maybe a little to harsh and brutal to put on the Internet, but I refuse to sugar coat this journey. Just like when I was big if you didn't like how i looked you are more than welcome to look in the other direction, now it's if you don't like my attitude you don't have to hang around me. I think the easiest part to losing weight is the actual losing of the weight, that's just a scientific calculation, it's all the emotional, social stuff that I am struggling with. Nothing in life that is worth doing is easy. My favorite quote is from Saint Catherine of Siena "Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring." This is so true, this journey wouldn't be worth it without all the pain, sweat and tears. So just remember to go strong no matter what, I know I am.

The Weekend Baby!!!!

Hey my friends!!! So how was every one's Friday night? I had an amusingly fun night that included dinner out with some really great friends and some adult (not good for me calorie wise) beverages. Oh who am I kidding the pasta I ate at the restaurant wasn't good for me either, but it's totally fine. I'm going to the gym today to run off those tasty adult beverages!


Last night i went out for some margaritas and dinner with my friends that because of our busy schedules we hadn't been able to see each other a lot lately. It's special nights like this that I love being in my new body. I have always been a confident, happy girl, but at over 400 pounds one is going to have some insecurities. One of those for me was eating in public. Now I didn't let my insecurity rule my life and no one should, I still went out to eat with my friends and enjoyed myself, but in the back of my head I always thought oh someone is watching me eating this and that didn't matter what it was and is saying mean things about me somewhere. "Oh look at that fat lazy girl stuffing her face at a reasturant". I don't think like this anymore, someone may still be talking about me for whatever reason ( because not everyone is going to like you and oh well their loss) at a table down the way from me, but I've done something amazing and no one can take that from me.


A lot of people tell me they don't want to use a gym because they are afraid people (the buff dudes or the tiny girls) are gonna stare at them or just be plain mean to them. I am here to tell you this will not happen. It never happened to me and if it for some reason it does happen to you tell the gym staff they will handle it. The people who work for and own gyms are not there because they want to look hot, I think that is a major misconception, they want to share their knowledge of health and fitness with others and they are there to help you more importantly they WANT to help you. That being said I think 90% of people who use the gym are there because they want to be healthy, not pick up people or make fun of people. I've noticed that gym people rarely talk to each other, we all just kind of do our own thing and focus on our workouts. So don't let what other people might say to you keep you from using a gym if you want to use a gym. Gyms are great ways to get motivated, if it hadn't have been for the gym on the campus of my school opening I may not have started this journey. In the beginning I was not a workout oust side type person. If you do pay for a gym or fitness classes DO NOT WASTE THEM, go use them, even if you don't feel like it, it's your money don't throw it away. Like I say all the time, if I can do it anyone can. So get over being worried about what other people think and make a healthy change for YOU! You are the only thing standing in your own way! Have a great Saturday guys!!! :)

Dating and New Challenges

So being thinner opens up all kinds of new doors (now that I can actually FIT through a door mind you). One of those is active dating. Now i dated when I was bigger, had men that loved me and that I loved, heck I almost got married, but dating when you're really big is different than when you date thinner. I think really big girls are sure of two things when we date, one lots of guys will sleep with us but not take us out in public and two if they do take us out in public this means he REALLY likes us.
Now I'm not skinny yet, don't get me wrong, but I am becoming what my mom lovingly calls more "normal sized" (the average pants size in the United States for a woman is a 14, i am currently a 16 go me!) and more men are attracted to me. Great! Right? Maybe? um hmmm.. I'm not so sure. Dating now is WAY more confusing than it has ever been in my life.
Now I go out on a really great first date (or dozens) and I think "wow we are totally hitting it off, we're out in public (400 pound girl train of thought) he must like me" and then I don't sleep with him and he never calls again, I'm left thinking "wait we had dinner, a walk on the beach, a great kiss, whats wrong here?" I'm learning the smaller I get the less up front men are about their motives in seeing me. When I was big, a guy would be like "hey I wanna have sex with you but no I can't take you around my friends" now they take me around their friends hoping, I guess, to impress me into bed, and when it doesn't work they don't call (or occasionally it works and then it doesn't last for whatever reason and rarely do they give a freaking reason).
Now I'm confused when I get dumped. Recently a guy I really cared about dumped me, we had been seeing each other awhile (like nine months) but i was convinced he didn't want to be seen in public with me. I never asked, because honestly what big girl wants rejection. Well I get to the size I am now and he leaves me for a girl bigger than me and I'm left confused. Because the only reason a man might not want me is my weight. Right? Wrong, and I'm slowly learning that. Everyone always said beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I gotta say i was kind of convinced that no one would ever REALLY love me at 400 pounds and once I dropped it magically everyone would love me. I was so wrong on both accounts.
So I've learned dating sucks, at any weight, being smaller is not making it any easier. Sure there are more men attracted to me, but not necessarily more good men. So now I guess I gotta kiss even more frogs to find my prince? But goodness frogs are slimy, and here's to hoping my prince is worth all the icky, gooey frogs.