The Podcast Interview that is Making me Famous! (or maybe not)

<a href=”http://www.backinskinnyjeans.com”> Well guys, I have something exciting for y’all today…I have been meaning for the last couple of days to let you know that my mate Stephanie over at Back in Skinny Jeans and I had fun the other week doing a couple of podcast interviews together. Part 1 of the interview was published on June 27th and is about my decision to loose weight and how I went about it and Part II, published on the 28th June, is about how humor and blogging has helped me lose 95 pounds. If you can stand my Australian/New Zealand accent, pop on over and check out both podcasts for yourself.

We had alot of fun putting it together…so much fun, actually, that my pal, Stephanie, and I are going to start collaborating on a podcast series on various health and body image issues so ‘watch this space’…hehehe! There are fun and exciting things ahead.

Stephanie’s health & fitness blog Back in Skinny Jeans is absolutely fabulous. I have only recently discovered it but it is well worth signing up for the RSS Feeds. It is a down-to-earth, informative, fun and ‘real’ account of the so called ‘magic’ of getting back into those ‘Skinny Jeans’ that we ALL have lying around at the back of our closet!… ah… I can hear you all rolling your eyes…I know…I know… its all about being ‘REAL’ with me…I am NOT going to be getting off that soap-box anytime soon so you might as well get used to it! LOL! Anyhow, make sure you go and visit her neck of the woods…you won’t be disappointed.

To listen to Part 1 of the Podcast Interview click here.

To listen to Part 2 of the Podcast interview click here.

Inspiration from the most unexpected places

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I was unexpectedly surprised today when I visited my girl, Tam’s blog at

Fitness-Weight-Loss.info

and found this fabulously moving video:

I was breathless when it ended and had tears in my eyes. Now, no one expected him to have THAT voice…but he did and we were all shocked…weren’t we?

This week, if you haven’t noticed already, Finding Flabuless has been all about excepting YOU, just as you are… even your quirky habits–or in the case of this car phone salesman–hidden talents.

This inspirational, soft spoken man…did just that, he accepted himself, and went out with such a quiet confidence–not to caring about the raised eyebrows and sarcastic sighs when he told them he wanted to sing OPERA, of all things–but, when he opened up his mouth and shared himself with us all…an amazing thing happened, everyone around him, Including ME & YOU, accepted him too…

That, my friends, is what it’s all about…no matter what others tell you, the raised eyebrow, the silent mutterings behind your back, you are unique and talented and this is NOT dependent on what the scales say it IS however dependent on what you are telling yourself.

I love Tam’s take on it:

…Nothing to do with fitness or weight loss, per se… but isn’t this journey about having courage, living our dreams, coming into our own? It is for me, and this man was inspiring!

Tam - Fitness-Weight-Loss.info

I couldn’t have said it better.:)

The ‘Just As I AM’-Challenge

…for this week (and the last 4 weeks, actually) my side of the chart has been very bare. In fact, my 3 1/2 year old son is whooping my butt where stars are concerned. HeHe

So that got me thinking…who am I and what is it that I stand for.

Apart from the standard; Age: 28, Gender: Female, Location: Hanmer Springs, New Zealand, which tells you completely nothing about me and who I am.

Literally, my only ‘claim to fame’ is that I am a proud, single mommy to two gorgeous toddlers of 3.5 and 1yrs.

I am a size 20 (Australian sizing) but when telling people my dress size I prefer using your American sizing system cause it means I can actually say I am a size 16, a whole two sizes less…well, it does sound better now doesn’t it?

I own three bra’s that have been fitted especially for my size 20 / 16F feminine beauties.. However, sometimes…when I haven’t done the washing for a week, (Ah…like right now!) I try to, un-flatteringly squeeze my ‘old friends’ back into the maternity bra’s which I wore at my son’s birth almost 4 years ago…Grrr

I own 3 pairs of shoes, all non-name brands, flat heeled and terribly boring and practical and up until a few days ago I didn’t even know who Michael Kors is…I have since learned that he’s an amazing designer (I even found a yummy pair of pumps that I absolutely adore!).

However, I have never owned, nor ever likely to own anything with the brand ‘Gucci’ on it. Actually, I have had the same hand bag for the last 5 years which, incidentally, I purchased at a ’saver’ store and I like the same style, so much, that when the bag breaks or gets a bit threadbare I periodically go back to the same store to buy exactly the same bag cause I am comfortable with it.

As far as dressing goes, I am ashamed to admit (or maybe not so ashamed!…) that I feel more comfortable in my sloppy jo’s (sweat pants) rather than in a halter neck and heels. In fact I hardly ever where makeup unless I am going to some special event or there is a chance I may accidentally ‘bump’ into a particular fellow that I have been ogling…for the better part of the last 18months…but more on that later.

I love sneaking a few moments out of my hectic, diaper filled, days to pick up a good soppy romance preferably by Jane Green or Jennifer Weiner or Jude Deveraux…I think I have an obsession with J authors…but my all time favorite novel, despite the clichés is Pride and Prejudice…I am still waiting for my ‘Mr Darcy’ to sweep me off my feet.

Ok…and then there’s my erratic exercise patterns…although I endeavour to run 7 kilometers, 3 times a week on my parents Elliptical Trainer, it inevitably never eventuates and if, on the extremely rare occasion, it does, I generally work really hard one week and then, after a couple of days rest, don’t get back into it for another 4 weeks (…or more).

I guess you could say I am a bread and butter woman who is fascinated by glitz and glamour of the ‘other side’ but has never had the paycheck to be able to afford it.

You know, its true, I am all that…and more…but more importantly I know that I AM F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S! I am a real woman, with a real body (unfortunately). I have real dreams and desires and I am making a real career for myself…right here, online, writing from a real honest place.

After much soul searching I have discovered a secret…and that is that I am becoming A-O-K with who I am …All of it! Indeed, my favorite quote comes from one of my favorite movie renditions of my all time favorite novels…yea…you probably guessed it…Bridget Jones’ Diary…where Darcy stammers uncomfortably to Bridget, after she has just subjected him to her characteristic verbal diarrhea… “I like you, Just as you are!”

It occurs to me that if women could learn to ‘like themselves, just the way they are’ …despite what the media tells us daily; about what we should look like, what we should be doing, what we should wear and what we should be buying even…then the world would be a better place for us and we would be happier.

The buck stops here…and on this I promise I wont be sitting on the fence…I guess you could say I have found my ’soap box’…here on this blog you wont find a lot of “marketing speak” or a blogger who would write something about a product for the money. Here, the only thing you will read/hear is the voice of the ‘real woman’.

The Just As I Am Challenge….Explained (22 July 2007)

Lets play tag…here’s how it works…Take up the challenge yourself then choose 5 people to tag…list those chosen ones on your blog under your entry and then visit their blog and write them a comment letting them know they have been ‘tagged’ to take part in the challenge…keep track of who participates and record their links on your blog as they post their entries.Eventually we will be able to follow a trail from everyone’s blog linking to other blogs and their tagged blogs etc…it could be huge… Tell your blogging mates…and lets start a craze and grow and learn to love ourselves through doing this.Plus, inspired by 2kbloggers, my dream is to set up a photo montage, of ALL who participate, with links back to their individual blog posts…Now I am getting goose bumps…IMAGINE a photo montage of 2,000 ‘Fatbloggers’ accepting themselves…Just as they are! Ok, Ok so I am thinking Big!!!! I always do…but if you think this is a neat idea then get onboard and lets start making an impact sort of like the ‘pay it forward’ phenomenon. And if you would like to be on the montage…start sending me your photo’s with links to your challenge post…so that I can set it up.

Loving A Larger Woman

Ok for all those that havent already…there is one book you MUST read It is Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner. This book has particular meaning for me as it changed my life…I remember reading it 2.5 years ago when I was at my biggest and I remember laughing and bawling (Sobbing) my way through it till finally I decided enough was enough and it was time for me to start learning to love myself instead of just ’surviving’ my weight. It was at that point I decided that for myself, and my lifestyle and the sake of my child (only 1 at that stage) I was going to loose weight for me!

As I was sick the last couple of days I decided to take a walk down memory lane and read it AGAIN…I tell you… I enjoyed it as much the second time as I had 2.5 years ago.

Basically it is about a plus-sized heroine, Cannie, who comes to a turning point in her life when her ex boyfriend starts writing about her body, weight and their ’sex life’ in a national magazine. The whole book is set in that next year of her life. I have to let you read an excerpt out of it that really touched my heart, I cried and cried:

When I was five I learned to read. Books were a miracle to me–white pages, black ink, and new worlds and different friends in each one. to this day, I relish the feeling of cracking a binding for the first time, the anticipation of where I’ll go and whom I’ll meet inside

.

When I was eight I learned to ride a bike. And this opened my eyes to a new world that I could explore on my own–the brook that burbled through a vacant lot two streets over, the ice-cream store that sold home-made cones for a dollar, the orchard that bordered a golf course and that smelled tangy, like cider, from the apples that rolled to the ground in the fall.

When I was twelve I learned that I was fat. My father told me, pointing at the insides of my thighs and the undersides of my arms with the handle of his tennis racquet. We’d been playing, I remember, and I was flushed and sweaty, glowing with the joy of movement. You’ll need to watch that, he told me, poking me with the handle so that the extra flesh jiggled. Men don’t like fat women.

And even though this would turn out not to be absolutely true–there would be men who would love me, and there would be people who’d respect me–I carried his words into my adulthood like a prophecy, viewing the world through the prism of my body, and my father’s prediction.

I learned how to diet–and, of course, how to cheat on diets. I learned how to feel miserable and ashamed, how to cringe from mirrors and men’s glances, how to tense myself for insults that I always through were coming: the Girl Scout troop leader who’d offer me carrot sticks while the other girls got milk and cookies; the well-meaning teacher who asked if I’d thought about aerobics. I learned a dozen tricks for making myself invisible–how to keep a towel wrapped around my midsection at the beach (but never swim), how to fade to the back row of any group photograph (and never smile), how to dress in shades of gray, black, and brown, how to avoid seeing my own reflection in windows or in mirrors, how to think of myself exclusively as a body–more than that, as a body that had fallen short of the mark, that had become something horrifying, unlovely, unlovable.

There were a thousand words that could have described me–smart, funny, kind, generous. but the word I picked–the word that I believed the world had picked for me–was fat.

When I was twenty-two I went out into the world in a suit of invisible armour, fully expecting to be shot at, but determined taht I wouldn’t get shot down. I got a wonderful job, and eventually fell in love with a man I thought would love me for the rest of my life. He didn’t. and then–by accident–I got pregnant. And when my daughter was born almost two months too soon I learned that there are worst things than not liking your thighs or your butt. there are more terrifying things than trying on bathing suits in front of three-way department store mirrors. there is the fear of watching your child struggling for breath, in the centre of a glass crib where you can’t touch her. There is the terror of imagining a future where she wont be healthy or strong.

And, ultimately, I learned, there is comfort. Comfort in reaching out to the people who love you, comfort in asking for help, and in realising, finally, that I am valued, treasured, loved, even if I am never going to be smaller than a size sixteen, even if my story doesn’t have the Hollywood-perfect happy ending where I lose sixty pounds and Prince Charming decides he loves me after all.

The truth is this–I’m all right the way I am. I was all right, all along. I will never be thin, but I will be happy. I will love myself, and my body, for what it can do–because it is strong enough to lift, to walk, to ride a bicycle up a hill, to embrace the people I love and hold them fully, and to nurture a new life. I will love myself because I am sturdy. Because I did not–will not—break.

I will savor the taste of my food and I will savor my life, and if Prince Charming never shows up–or, worse yet, if he drives by, casts a cool and appraising glance at me, and tells me I’ve got a beautiful face and have I ever considered Optifast?–I will make my peace with that.

And most importantly, I will love my daughter whether she’s big or little. I will tell her that she’s beautiful. I will teach her to swim and read and ride a bike. And I will tell her that whether she’s a size eight or size eighteen, that she can be happy and strong, and secure that she will find friends, and success and even love. I will whisper it in her ear when she’s sleeping. I will say Our lives–your life–will be extraordinary.

An Excerpt from ‘Good In Bed’ by author Jennifer Weiner

Now isn’t that just perfect…we all need reminding of that, we have all been there (or are there at present) but we need to get the point in our weight-loss journey where we can say to ourselves honestly…I am ok…Just as I am…even if I never loose another pound, even if I am always a size 18, I can still be happy, successful, and loved.

This is a journey for me…I have had my own ups and downs but I think I am just beginning to see the light! I am learning what it truly means to be happy…no matter what size I am. Life wont just magically begin for me when I get to my goal weight…Life is what I am living now…and if I cant make myself happy now– how do I EVER hope to be happy when I have lost the 60+ lbs that I aim to. I think I am going to have to read that excerpt every day for the next 12 months…to get it into my thick scull…that I am OK just the way I am…not that I want just to stay this way! hehe!

‘Street Bump’ - From The Lighter Side

I look forward to walking down the street with friends WITHOUT accidentally knocking them into oncoming traffic!

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