Another birthday just flew by. Geordie and I spent our birthday weekend (our birthdays are 5 days apart) in Las Vegas, which also happened to include Halloween. Now I’m a sucker for Las Vegas. In my younger, more judgmental days I used to scoff at the idea of Las Vegas. I though only trashy brides-to-be and their skanky bridal parties and seniors who liked buffets and RVing made trips to Vegas. I can now say with 100% confidence that now, after my 6th (and certainly not my last) trip to Sin City that this is completely inaccurate. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Fat
Resolving to be Resolute
Christmas came and went. New Year’s Eve is fast approaching. I flew home to Winnipeg for Christmas, and I knew I would want to indulge in all of the fine Filipino cuisine my Dad would be cooking up, and wanting to gorge myself on my Auntie Jocie’s shortbread cookies. So I told myself in advance that I wasn’t going to use myfitnesspal and I was going to give myself free reign over the holidays. The week before, when I was up in Fort St. John was a big loss week, I lost 6 lbs without even working out very hard.
I came home a few days ago, and after 5 days of eating garbage, going out for drinks and generally misbehaving I haven’t lost a pound (I haven’t gained either). This is one of the first weeks that I’ve completely stalled out, and I felt like garbage as well. After being home for a few days and eating clean and high protein I already feel sooooooo much better.
It’s that time of year when everyone spews out their bullshit resolutions that are so specific and unattainable. I typically don’t put much thought into them because I’d spent so many years saying “this year I’m going to get healthy” and then never following through. This year I didn’t make a resolution, but I made the biggest change in my life, I decided to own my obesity and change the path that I was on. Continue reading
Exotic, Adorable, and Other Words I Detest.
As I’ve started to become more self-aware (and less clueless) I’ve discovered that men are attracted to me visually. Not that I’ve never had a guy be interested in me, but usually it’s because of my fantastic personality, or my seemingly obsessive knowledge of trivia. But nowadays I catch men staring, I get complimented more regularly. But sweet goddamn, some of the compliments are so awful I don’t know where to begin. I have to question myself, am I overly sensitive to the way certain words sound or are the men who find me attractive complete asshats? Lets discuss shall we? Continue reading
Weight Loss and Self-esteem, the Legend.
I like to keep myself well-informed about the ideologies within the weight loss community and their different sects. I’ve liked to keep myself well-informed long before I made the choice to lose weight. Immersing myself in different articles, blogs and documentaries I’ve always found one recurring theme, people who have lost tremendous amounts of weight claim to have found their long-lost self-esteem. They rave about how they now carry themselves differently, that their perception of who they are has changed completely. I feel the exact opposite, and it makes me wonder, am I the exception to the rule or am I one of the few who is willing to admit that they are more unsure of who they are now than ever before?
Who wouldn’t feel different? 100 pounds is a hell of a lot of weight to lose in 5 months. That’s the size of a baby hippopotamus (seriously, I googled). For every change that I notice physically there are just as many that I’m oblivious too. When I do become aware of a change I become even more concerned with if the change is noticeable to other people, if they approve, and most importantly if I look strange. I know that my close friends must be so frustrated with my interrogations, “Do I look weird?”, “Does my face look like a muppet?”, “Do my legs look too scrawny?”. I was never this outwardly insecure until now. I feel like I need more reassurance. Skyping with my 7-year-old cousin and needing him to tell me I don’t look strange is a regular occurrence these days. My favorite part is that his response this last time was that I didn’t look weird but I looked like I needed a shower.
So when does this new-found self-esteem kick in? At what point to I stop feeling uncomfortable in my own skin? Will I ever feel comfortable in my own skin? These are the questions I’m struggling with these days. I’m sure that part of me thought that I would be like these weight lost poster children who lose a fuck-ton of weight and then are miraculously these happy, shiny people who like to run 5k’s. That’s not me. I still feel like I’m 300+ lbs. My mind hasn’t caught up with my body yet.
Wanderlust.
Wanderlust [ˈwɒndəˌlʌst]n a great desire to travel and rove about
This has always been me. I’ve always had a passport that is valid, ready for the next adventure. As I retired my old passport, full of stamps from across the world, and picked up my new one I had this weird sense of excitement. A new passport with 24 empty pages waiting to be filled with stamps for all of my new adventures.
I’m curious to know what it’s going to be like to travel without being so conscious of my size. I find that when I travel I try to draw as little attention to myself as possible. In North America being overweight is not out of the ordinary. So when I walk around I don’t feel self conscious because I know that I’m one of many overweight people walking around my neighborhood. But when I’m somewhere like Spain for example, I know I stick out like a sore thumb, so I do my best to be as incognito as possible. It’s places like this that I’m most excited to visit again once I’m healthy and in shape. I always feel this way when I visit the Philippines, aka the Father Land.
One thing about Asia that may be a stereotype to some, but a reality to me is that everyone is tiny. Even the fatties are tiny by western standards. I come from a family where being 5’7″ make me a giant. And weighing more than 100 pounds soaking wet is a shocker. So when I travel to the Philippines and I step foot on the soil of my ancestors, I feel automatically out of place. I’m the ultimate antithesis to everything that is Filipino. I’m half white so that’s already one strike against me. My complexion is what they call “puti”. A word I hear often when I’m there. I’m tall, which is noticeable, but even more noticeable when I’m walking alongside my 4’8″ grandma and 5’4″ father. I have thick curly hair, which people seem to like to touch and remark about; this is also something I’ve been bitter about my entire life. Straight black Asian hair just wasn’t in the cards for me. To top it all off I’m big, not just “mataba” as the locals would say. But I am gigantic in their standards.
When I’m in the Philippines people are curious about me. They aren’t out and out rude, but they want to see me, this big, tall, pale skinned curly haired girl. I’d like to visit and just fit in. Fly under the radar. I want to know what it’s like to travel like a local.
The wanderlust in me is building.
Rock, Paper, Thinner. 