I really want to like this show. Even though he's lipless and full of cheese, there's a part of me who just wants to adore Chris Powell for the innocent beefcake that he is tries to portray. But... this show is getting annoying. When I first started watching it, I happily ignored the lies (there's no way in hell that Chris stays with the contestants for 3 months, pft not even three days) after all it was entertaining and it did inspire me to... well, not really do anything in real life, but I thought about... one day... getting off my ass.
You can tell that the contestants never see him. And if you're reading this and overweight, you know that there's no way that these folks are losing 200+ lbs on their own. I'm not saying that it's not possible to do that in a year healthfully, but I'm just not buying that most of them are. I know that one of the early contestants, James Garrison, was talking smack about the show on his blog. He's since had to remove his sass, but excerpts can be seen here.
I think we all know (at least I hope we all know) that these types of shows are... massaged, let's say... to be entertaining. That's coolio, if it gets me to start thinking of my health enough to make a change, you can take me for a ride baby. I just wish that Chris et al. would give the audience some credit and make the show a little less liar-liar-pants-on-fire-y. And tone down the cheese... oh gahd... the cheeeese.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about:
Living with Lupus sucks balls. On top of all of the pain and overall crappy feeling, you have to deal with the social aspect as well. It's an "invisible disease" which means that there's no obvious outward sign that you're sick. The average person just doesn't know how to process the information; especially without a wheelchair, cane, cast, eye patch, sling, mechanical leg, whatever, to draw reference from.
I get it. For the longest time I bought into the "lazy" theory or the "if I just ate better and worked out" b.s. that everybody parrots to you when you mention the word "tired." Right before I turned 30 I remember telling my boss that I was feeling run down recently. His response was that I should hit the gym, implying that my overweight was the cause of my fatigue. I agreed with him until a few weeks later when I had a stroke.
We were able to joke about his advice later, but it dawned on me then that people don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Yes, I choose to believe that, in general, people are coming from a good place, but for the most part they really are just spouting shit they heard from magazines and TV shows.
Sorry if I'm all over the place. I don't feel well and when that happens, my mind doesn't work so well. Right now I'm feeling sad and angry. It's frustrating to have to deal with this shit. Pain. You know when you have the flu and your body is inflamed and you feel like sore all over? It's sorta like that. My hands feel like they're on fire and someone has run them over with a steam roller. I'm fucking tired. Like I haven't slept in weeks.
It's so fucking frustrating. I want to believe that I can control this disease, in tiny ways I can, but really it's got me by the ovaries (well, one ovary now). My life is being held captive by Lupus (I hate that bitch).
As we all know, it's important to see the horror from whenst you came to keep you motivated throughout your weight-loss/ gett'n-healthy journey. I'll try to find some photos from when I was 250, but for now we'll do the starting info for my BL challenge. I took this info right after I bought the Withings scale, so the weight is probably a little high since it was in the afternoon.
It's so crazy the mind works. When I look in the mirror, I don't see the weight; but these pictures, man. What I am thankful for, though, is that even with all of this fluff, I still find myself extremely attractive. THANK MUTHA FUCK'N GAHD FOR HIGH SELF-ESTEEM (or delusions... that's fine, I'll take it).
In the side view, you can see the surgery scar underneath my boob and the bruise from the Lovenox shot (taken in December, mind you). Whenever I see my progress photos I always think, "Goddamn, I need a better bra." Heh. Other than that, I'm just excited to see my future progress.
Okay, so we don't have kids and evidently we don't like contributing to our retirement. That leaves us with a bit of $ to typically spend on fast food. This week, after watching The Biggest Loser reruns on HuluPlus, I've started my own Biggest Loser competition. Right now I'm the only contestant, but I'm pretending there are others. AND I WILL CRUSH THEM!!! *shaking fist into the air*
A few days ago I think I blogged about choosing a fitness monitoring device. I went with the FitBit One because it was cheaper, smaller, and it has a really great free support website. The website applications are cool and easy to use. I swear to god, I'm not a paid endorser, I'm just super pleased with this product. It also works side-by-side with MyFitnessPal. They sync with each other so that everything is nice and purdy.
I also splurged and bought the Withing's Wi-Fi Body Scale which does everything including the laundry. Dude. Duuuuude. This thing zaps all of your info from your bathroom to your computer AS SOON AS YOU STEP OFF OF IT! That's crazy, yo! After I weigh in, I run to the computer to see my progress: weight, body fat %, and BMI.
All of these devices interact with each other. It's like an electronic three-some of fat busting!! I will gadget myself to weight loss. Oh yes, I will.
Did you know that one medium Roma tomato is 35 calories? I put one on my sandwich yesterday and another sliced on the plate. When I entered the info into MyFitnessPal I was shocked, nay stunned, to find that I had spent 70 of my precious 1200 calories on tomatoes. TOMATOES!
Sure it's better that than, say Cheetos but sheesh. Did you also know, tomatoes are part of the (deadly*) nightshade "vegetables". OoooOOooOooo. Some say that we Lupi peeps shouldn't eat nightshade veggies because of their inherent inflammatory properties. If that were the case, then we should stay away from a number of tasty veggies that would honestly make me horribly depressed.
Luckily Lupus.org weighs in on the issue (edited, head over there to see the hole s[ch]piel):
Q: Will eating nightshade vegetables increase my lupus flares or joint pain? It seems that every place I read about this has a different opinion about this.
A: The nightshade vegetables include white potatoes, tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), and eggplant. While there is anecdotal evidence that some of these foods can be related to inflammation, there is no solid scientific evidence to support this concept. My advice would be for people to keep track of when they eat these foods, and to look for a pattern between consumption and a flare. If there does seem to be a connection, ...a person could avoid one/all of the nightshade vegetables without creating any nutrient deficiencies.
Why tomatoes gotta be like that? Always gotta be gett'n all the attention... bring'n all the dramarama. Tomatoes are just another squirrel try'n ta get a nut.
Can I just profess, right now, right here, in front of everyone, that I love Nick Kroll. Frick'n hysterical. Instead of a song playing over and over in my head right now, I have his Liz character (from PubLizity [it's based on our nayams]) saying "Ohmygahg". Oooooh how I love him.
On today's plate, I'm trying to figure out which fitness assessing device to buy. I'm looking at BodyMedia, Fitbit, & bodybugg. Buying one of these will automatically make me lose weight, right? RIGHT?!
I've also opened MyFitnessPal for the first time in months. I can't help but feeling this overall sense of foreshadowed doom. In the back of my mind I'm saying to myself, "Oh jeez, here we go again. Another attempt that I will just give up in a few weeks." How fucked up is that? I recognized the self-deprecating thoughts when I was talking to my husband this morning over a delicious Del Taco egg & cheese burrito (don't judge me).
We had just dropped our pup off at the vet to have hip surgery (which of course made me crave comfort food) and I was telling him of the wonderful plans that I had for my (and the pup's) future. I waxed on about how she'll be recovering at a similar rate that I will be, so she can do the little steadily lengthened walks at the park with me. Our stamina will gradually increase together, culminating in the most amazing mother/pup-daughter healing and healthful experience EVAR OCCURRING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!
All the while thinking that he's thinking, "Oh god, here we go again" *mental rolling of the eyes*. So I said something to the affect of "or whatever" to which he immediately called me out. We talked about my defeatist attitude. It's so crazy because I'm typically a positive person. You know, one of those irritating "you can doooo eeet" types that think everything is possible. But for some reason my self-talk is horribly negative when it comes to weight loss and fitness.
In 2005/6 I lost about 70 lbs. I've done it before, so I know that I'm totally capable of it; however, it's those rumblings that all we fat people have that keep playing in my head like a broken record. "Even if you lose it, you'll gain it back... PLUS MORE!", "Exercise? You hate exercise.", "It's too hard.", "Think of all of the food you won't be able to eat.", "You did it before without very much movement, why do I need to walk this time?", "Tomorrow... tomorrow I'll start. I'm just not feeling up for it today."
So fucking ridiculous. Meanwhile, I'm stuck on medication that's doing who-knows-what to my body. Intellectually I know that I'm killing myself by remaining on this path. Why is this process so fucking hard? Ug, I can't even ask that stupid question, I know all of the reasons. It's just my ego. Stupid ego.
Having a hysterectomy when you're morbidly obese is a fucking big deal. I'm at the end of the 5th week and my gut is still sore. The wobbly fat pulls at the incision making the healing process more difficult. Arg, it's so goddamn frustrating 'cause I just want to get to that point where I can start exercising without feeling like I'm going to hurt myself.
I went out today to visit with some friends. Afterwards we went to the park so that some of them could try their luck with slacklining.
Goddamn hippies. Does this guy look like a young Art Garfunkel to anyone else? It's hard for me not to see Garfunkel slacklining in this act. Hello slackline, my old frieend...
But I digress. Today started Day 1 of the Biggest Loser Fat Brown Chick Special Edition. It was rough, but this is totally doable. About 6/7 years ago I was able to lose 70 lbs, during which most of the time period I was recovering from knee surgery. Did that sentence make sense? I dunno. I'm tired. Whilst I was out with the dirty slackers I was in the sun. Lupus people shouldn't be in the sun, it's against our ways.
