Losing my Plus Sized Identity

It's been a few weeks and I'm trying to become consistent with my blog posts. So for anyone interested I'm aiming for every Friday.

 So Im down close to 20lbs. It creeped back up again and has gone back down. This is a hard freaking process. Im not gonna pretend i don't cheat. I do. But in general my cheat consists of a bite of someone else's food or an orange to help me go to the bathroom. Oranges keep you regular!! But a few weeks ago I fell apart a bit. Im in school and it's been super stressful and i just got tired of not eating. So everyday i kept having things I shouldn't like a cookie and some rice and other junk food that i knew would sabotage my success. So I'm trying a food diary now for any intake that's not optifast. 3 shakes a day and something healthy should be fine. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I digress, I'm going to a huge event on Sat. The International Makeup Artist Trade Show (IMATS) think comic con but for makeup, and i don't have a lot of clothes. Working as a PSW I'm in yoga plants and leggings all day. So i decided i need to go shopping. Then i got scared, what if I'm still in the plus sizes? Well Ive lost 20lbs I don't think it's quite enough to be out of that zone for me.  Although, almost stranger was my anxiety over NOT being plus sized anymore.

Ive always been big, my whole life I've been chubby. The difference between now and then is now I don't feel healthy. I go up 2-3 flights of stairs and I'm huffing and puffing. I love my body. I just wish i could tighten things up a little...well alot.  Loosing weight is only the first step in that battle. Many of my goals ride around feeling more so than looking a certain way.

I have pain in my hips because i was born with hip dysplasia. Weight loss will lessen that pain. I want to walk around in a skirt or dress in the summer and not have to wear shorts cause my thighs rub and it hurts. (Can I get Hell Ya! For all of you out there that chafe like i do??) I want the flaps on my arms to go away. But in those goals i dont look at my size 4, 120lbs sister and go "that's what i want". I just want to be comfortable in my own skin.

So im scared. Im scared i'll lose my DD/DDD breasts, I'll loose the curves in my hips, I won't have the traits in my body that took me so long to learn to love. Will i be pretty? Will i be ugly? Will I still find the clothes I love? Funky fun curve clinging clothes, that show off my big thighs, and breasts, and nicely shaped waste? I had no idea I liked myself that much till the fear of no longer being BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) creeped in.

Change is hard, change is scary. Change, at least this kind of change is also painstakingly slow.
I'm going shopping today so ill post a little look book when I'm done. I wont be buying much. Probably just one outfit but I honestly have no clue where i'll be shopping, "regular" or plus sized? I guess I'll have to find out.

Till next time, please feel free to post in the comments bellow if you've been feeling any of the same anxieties i have? Am i totally alone in these thoughts?

Note To Self: Hot Coffee and Optifast do not mix!

The other day I thought I should mix my Optifast with coffee to get a good boost of energy.  Great idea, i thought to myself. Energy boost and you're allowed coffee so it's not a cheat! Im a genius!! Well genius me had no idea how badly that idea would go. The coffee was really hot, and it separated the powder and turned it into little clumps. Not pretty. I mixed and mixed and it didnt do a thing. So i tried mixing it in my Blentec high speed blender. Ok it worked, but it tasted terrible, my poor tastebuds. After a few stubborn tries, thinking I just need my caffeine fix I gave up altogether.

However in my class today at the clinic  I did discover the joys of cold coffee! Just add a teaspoon or two of instant coffee, maybe a bit of some flavour extract and there you have it. Let me tell you, there IS a God! I was getting so sick of various crystal light or MIO flavours in my Optifast. But this was my saving grace. I've tried it with chocolate and with vanilla and I dream I'm having a timmie's ice cap.

For anyone wondering about my cheat and how that went. I didnt lose weight this week. Between being sick and not being constant with taking my 4 shakes a day I gained 1.5lbs apparently. I thought it was more but who am I to argue with the smaller number?  Eight weeks left on pure Optifast and transition. I dont want to obsess over my numbers but dammit I have a goal weight in mind and i want to get there. But I just have to learn to be persistent!

If you have any tips or tricks to keeping on track let me know in the comments!!

I cheated...But at Least it was Tasty!

Gained back a bit of weight!! So mad but I'm back on track and I'm putting this behind me. I've been drinking a tonne of water. But man it's tough I'm tempted constantly. Today i had a bite of someone's pizza....it felt sooo good!! Until I felt guilty. Every moment is a test, people always ask if it gets easier and the answer for me personally is no. It doesn't. Every day is different. Some days I don't want to eat at all, and end up with two shakes. Other times I wanna cheat so bad, i give in.

Like last Sunday. My sister and friends were all going out for sushi and I wanted to go out with them. I gave myself permission to cheat a bit. "Just a few rolls of sushi, you dont weigh in till next Friday anyway." And that's where it all begins. I weighed myself the other day and i was up about 3 pounds from last week. I felt horrible, told my family about it, who were all so supportive and encouraging about it all. So I picked myself back up again and decided not to dwell.

I went to the Optifast Support Group on Facebook and confessed. Something i wont do in my local group.  It's odd how we just dont seem to click that way. The Support group  had some awesome encouraging words and some fantastic advice. DONT LOOK BACK! that's a big one. Ok i cheated. Let's jump back on that band wagon and move forward.

That took care of the emotional aspect of things. But what do i do about this weight? I was told to flush it out. I drank more water than one person ever should and have popped so many meta mucil vitamins that things should be FLYING out of me. But they're not. Which again is another exercise in acceptance. My body will work at it's own pace and i cant change that. But it's hard when you have a goal weight in mind and just want to get there!!

In the meantime i'm practicing self control every day. Ok i had a bite of pizza. There was an entirely uneaten slice of pizza sitting in front of me and i didn't touch it. SO there's a win right? Weigh in tomorrow, i'll post my results in the weight section. Ill be happy with even one pound down from last week. But if that doesnt happen ill just have to try harder for next week.

Keeping positive thoughts ill talk to you guys soon.

Four Weeks In!

Hey Everyone!

It seems people have actually been looking at this blog!! I really thought no one would notice it but thanks to Google i can see that people have been popping in.

So here we are and yeah life is getting easier. Not gonna lie i have had some cheats. I was traveling to Toronto recently, and was on the bus. I thought i had packed a shake in my purse and didn't. I didn't notice till i got to my destination cause i was so packed in there that i didn't think it would be appropriate to ransack my purse in search of my shake and then potentially making a mess as i shake it up. I just had this image of spilling Optifast all over the gentleman sitting beside me!!

Anyway i got to my destination and i was STARVING!! I had only had one shake that day at it was already about 4:30pm. Looked in my purse no shake. All i had was at the bottom of my suitcase. So I went to the nearest place to eat and of ALL places it was McDonalds! So i had a BigMac, fries and coke...haha no just kidding. I had a grilled chicken salad with no dressing. Perfect. I couldn't even finish the whole thing but it just got me to a point where i felt human again.

For anyone interested in weight I'm down to 182/183 (i like 182 better but i gotta go with my scale rather than a friend's!)

I think what i find hardest part is not having different flavours and textures.  Everything tastes sweet and I'm kind of getting sick of anything sweet tasting. So 4 weeks in and im 13 lbs down so far. That's ok right? Hope all of you are doing well to? How are you handling everything?

Well That Wasn't so bad

Ok so end of day 2 ...It wasn't so bad today. Mind you i did take a 2 hour nap. I suddenly felt exhausted around 2:00pm and enjoyed myself a lovely nap before heading to work. I've been thinking about weighing myself. But it's only been two days. But you know how it is with the excitement and all.

I work as a PSW which means i work with people who have disabilities and the things i do range anywhere from company, to cooking a meal to showering someone, brushing their teeth, feeding them, and dressing them. So i need a lot of energy. I've been learning today how to pace my shakes so I'm not going to a shift tired. I typically wake up around 7:00am so my first shake is within that hour. As soon as i feel that energy dip, i take shake number 2 until i feel the next dip in energy and so on. I usually spread them about 4 hours apart. It was recommended that i do 3 hours but i just don't feel ready for the next shake by the 3 hour mark.

Am i the only one who feels like I get a big crash around 6:00pm? 

Tomorrow's going to be a big test. I work with 3 different clients between noon and 7:00pm. So it'll be a big test of my ability to balance the shakes and work. I'll keep you posted!1

Hello World! Follow me on my New Journey

When i was 4, Ariel sought a whole new world, when i was 7 Aladdin promised new horizons to pursue, and now here i am freshly having turned 30 trying to follow that very thing. I've struggled with weight my whole life. Looking back on childhood photos, I was a chubby kid. Through elementary and middle school and even early high school, I was teased mercilessly for my weight. As i grew up and those people stopped mattering, so did that opinion about my body. I began to like myself exactly as i was but i wanted a change and wanted to get healthy. So i did. I began changing my eating habits, working out several days a week using both weights and cardio. Weight began to drop, much more quickly than expected. Who am i to complain? I'm lookin' good and feelin' great and can chase after a bus without feeling like my lungs were about to explode!  I even climbed the steps of the CN Tower, from the bottom all the way to the top! When my yearly checkup came around I was more than happy to get up on that scale and show off my 50 lb weight loss.

Next came the blood work...well the results didn't go exactly as I had expected. I had hyperthyroidism or graves disease. To make a long story short I was put on meds and despite exercise, giving up gluten dairy and refined sugars for several months, every pound lost crept back up. So here I am trying again, with Optifast this time. I've been followed by a doctor who agreed that maybe this was the way to kick start a new weight loss journey. I turned 30 on January 30th so i figure since a new program was starting with the hospital, it would be a great time to begin. Four shakes a day, a minimum of 3 litres of water, and a total of 900 calories. There are 2 flavours, vanilla and chocolate. I think I'm allowed to have soup broth and i know i can have zero calorie drinks. Today was day 1 and it was awesome and full of energy and super easy!!

Ok that's a lie it was hell....i was trying to be optimistic. Did it work? It's almost 9pm, and i just finished watching Katie Perry's half time performance (best part? Missy Eliot) I just made my third shake of the day and it took me half an hour to get up and actually make it. It did help with my energy level though. I was fading fast and the Optifast was a good pick me up. Ive tried it both warm and cold and it definitely tastes better if you can throw it in a blender with some ice to make it feel like a smoothie. I'm starting at 196lbs. I'd always been 195 and yes one pound does matter! My all time high was 203 and though i haven't reached it yet, this is close enough for me. I hope you follow me as i purse this new horizon in my life. I don't know what i'll weight in a week but if I'm closer to my goal weight of 140-150 i'll be happy. So there you have it, my first day on Optifast. Please feel free to share your experiences with me! I look forward to seeing what the next days have to give.