My Former Fat Girl Review

I was finally able to finish my book Secrets of a Former Fat Girl by Lisa Delaney. It was as awesome as my first impression thought it would be!

The book is her personal journey to becoming a Former Fat Girl. It was a journey of discovery and self realization. One that took years to make and started with a simple desire to do something good for herself. Over time it took her to a place she never dreamed she'd end up both physically and emotionally. It was inspiring.

She tells it like it is. Nothing is sugar coated, though she is very candid and totally makes you feel like you can do anything you want to. She gives tips and advice on how to handle certain situations along the way which seem solid. She even coaches you on what to do after you've acheived your "Former Fat Girl" status.

What I liked so much about this book is that it wasn't a diet/exercise plan. We all know the formula to losing weight...eat less calories than you burn. We know what foods are healthy and that exercise does great things for our bodies. She gets that we already know that because she was once the same way. What she addresses is the emotional aspect of the process. And if you think about it, that's what really holds a lot of us back. The belief that we are too weak to make a change, that our bodies were just meant to be fat, that we will eventually fall off the wagon like we always do anyway. Losing weight, at least for me, is more about what's going on in my head than it is about knowing how to eat. She made me feel like I can overcome the years (okay decades) of negative thinking and misuse of food as long as I believed I was worth working for.

So I highly recommend this book to anyone who can use an emotional pep talk! The changes she made not only helped her to lose weight, but also helped her in her career and personal life as well because they enabled her to become the self confident, happy, outgoing girl she always wanted to be. And that's really what I'm after!

Binge Eater vs Compulsive Overeater??

Okay, I've been a little unclear as far as the differences of Binge Eating Disorder verses Compulsive Overeating Disorder. So I started doing some research on the two and came up with this article from Psychology Today.

According to this, Binge eaters and Compulsive Overeaters are one in the same. Here's where my confusion set it. I generally don't have binges as often as they say (1-2 times a week), but I exhibit all of the other things associated with Compulsive Overeaters. Maybe I'm in denial about the amount of food I eat and how often I am eating through out the day?

Throughout my week, I will often eat to deal with stress and avoid emotion. I experience all the guilt and bad feelings that accompany the eating. Even when I'm eating a "healthy" dinner, I will eat past the point of being full. I eat fast. I eat in seclusion and have been know to lie about the amount or type of food I ate. And I rarely ever feel I have control over myself when it comes to eating.

Though a true binge, or what I consider to be one anyway, seems to be reserved for special events where there will be lots of food available, coming off a diet or a period of "being good", or when things get especially stressful and I just can't deal (like I've been doing this week). I suppose it's like an alcoholic saying they just have a drink once in a while. I obviously have problems with my eating. Weather or not I binge as often as the next guy doesn't change the fact that I have a problem.

My New Book

After dropping my oldest off at camp today I scooted over to Barnes and Noble to look for a new book (I was caught waiting a half hour for her to get out last week with no book, it was terrible!). My youngest was napping soundly in her stroller so I was able to peruse the sections I wanted to before having to hit the Thomas the Tank Engine table in the kid's section.

Of course I headed straight to the diet section. I was trying to find anything that promoted a natural, whole food way of eating/detoxing/weight loss. I picked up The Gut Flush and The Fat Flush by Ann Louise Gittleman. Interesting, but I'm not quite there yet. I might need to revisit them in time. Anyone out there try this system at all??? If so any feed back?? I am curious.

Anyway, then I move over to the self help section to look for books on compulsive over eating and binge eating disorder. I am somewhat in denial when it comes to this stuff. As a teen I went through the binge and purge deal. The purging tapered off but I'm not so sure I'd consider myself a true binger these days. I tend to do that mostly after I'm coming off some diet plan that didn't work. The binging kind of morphed into compulsive overeating such as what I did when my in-laws came over. I know that I do this, but never really considered it an "eating disorder" per say. No, I just considered it being fat and lazy. I've read enough books to know that I fit the profile of a food/sugar addict and a compulsive eater and realize it is a real problem, but still I just never classified myself as such. I guess that's what denial is all about. Yet somewhere deep down I continue to arm myself with information in this area in the event that one day I am able to make amends with myself and actually confront my issues.

Anyway, There were all the text book like books, the ones written by doctors and psychiatrists and such. Nothing particularly struck me in this section. Then I came across a narrative type book, Secrets of a Former Fat Girl. How to Drop Two, Four (or More!) Dress Sizes-and Find Yourself Along the Way. BINGO, just what I was looking for.

I'm past the quarter mark and not quite mid-life, but I've been going through some type of life crisis these days. That's a whole other post though. Anyway, losing weight and finding myself in a personal story written by a regular girl who went through this sounded perfect. So I paid my money and off I went to pick up my daughter from camp.

I was a half hour early again, but it was good because I wanted to start on my book and knew I would have no time for it once I got home with the kids. I almost started crying as I read through the Introduction. There were so many eerie parallels, it was as if she was writing this about me. In fact, she has written the book that I always dreamed of writing...a book based on some personal triumph. Even her style of writing is fun and how I'd want it to be. But most of all it spoke to me. My life, my thoughts and fears, my hopes and dreams.

So anyone out there looking for a good book on how one chick overcame her Fat Girl mentality and took control back over her life, I highly recommend this one even though I only read through the introduction! I have that much faith that the rest of it is going to be just as good. I'll let you all know....

My Gestational Diabetes

So I think it's time to give you all a little more insight as to what I'm all about. Yes, I desperately want to get these 50 pounds off my body. However that's not my only focus. I also want to get healthy, maybe more than than I want to be thin. I am a big fan of natural health and a firm believer that we are what we eat.

During both my pregnancies I developed gestational diabetes. That's when my study into health and nutrition began. Diet alone was enough for me to keep my diabetes under control and my babies healthy. That was my first hand experience that our diets and lifestyle (they made me exercise too) have a profound effect on our health.

When I went for my first appointment at the diabetes center, I was told by the nutritionist (who ironically was a lot fatter than me) not to worry as long as I follow the diet. She told me that most people who end up needing insulin do so because they don't want to be bothered to follow the diet correctly. That was kind of alarming, so I made sure to follow the program (and I do admit it got hard at times). I even took it one step further and started doing a lot of research on diabetes and nutrition. The fat lady at the diabetes center told me about eating the right ratio of protien, carbs and fat at each meal and about eating at certain times and such, but she still propagated an unhealthy way of eating. Somehow I just didn't believe that a Sausage McMuffin was a good breakfast for someone who has made themselves sick by eating crap. Oh, they tried to give me the line that it wasn't my fault that I developed diabetes. That somewhere in my family runs this disease and that's why I have it. And so as I ate my first Sausage McMuffin on the way to work I thought, that's a bunch of BS! Even with the predisposition to the disease, I wouldn't have developed it if I had eaten a diet rich in whole natural foods and went for a freaking walk once in a while. It was my diet of refined carbs and junk food and my couch potato lifestyle that made me fat and made my body unable to metabolize the excess amounts of glucose I was pumping into it.

That was just the beginning of my nutritional crusade. After each kid was born I got on my horse to lose weight. Last year I even had a pretty sucessful bout until I fell off the wagon. We'll get to that part of the story in time. I started slacking on all this, so I really let myself slide. I see a difference in my kids too. My youngest (who's now 2) is already developing my bad eating habits and I can't get her to eat any vegetables at all. My mom says paybacks are a bitch...apparantly I was like that as a child.

Anyway, I know that taking in less calories than I burn will yield a net weight loss. That's not enough for me. I am looking for a diet (lifestyle or whatever you want to call it) that will address my body's health concerns and not only allow me to lose weight, but also improve my overall health. So come back and visit if you are at all interested in a natural way of losing weight. I will share not only my personal story, but any valuable information I learn along the way! And of course I would love to hear from anyone else who has information or experiences to share!

My Cake

I succumbed to the cake...and the sausage and peppers and the bread and the chips and dip.

My in-laws came for a visit yesterday. It was a fairly pleasant visit, yet there's always some underlying stress associated with them (could you imagine, stressful in-laws!) And I am a hard core stress eater, so not a good combo.

Looking back on my behavior I could see how I nervously shoved food in my mouth all day long. Some people have a drink to calm the nerves, I just eat. It's really terrible. It's like a compulsion and I am helpless to it.

The very worst part though is that once I get into a mode like that, I go into a tailspin. I just want more even though the stress is gone. Maybe now I'm stressed out because I ate so much and that stress is making me want to reach for more food to comfort myself. Food is my drug.

So I am frustrated today because I don't know how to break this. Maybe I should be focusing on my exercise first and once that falls into place I'll be more inclined to really focus on my diet.

How do normal people deal with stress?

My Turning Point

So why start my battle now you ask?

Well, it started about a month ago. My BIL got married and I was having a hard time finding something to wear. It's not often I get to dress up like a real adult and go out these days, so I wanted to make the most of it. I found the perfect dress. It was stylish, slimming for my shape and they HAD MY SIZE!! Shoe shopping was even easier. There was this sexy pair of hot pink high heels that were a perfect match. I got myself all dressed up and ready to go, and dare I say for once I actually felt pretty again.

We had a great time at the wedding. A friend of ours snapped a bunch of pictures and sent them to us a couple days later. I was HORRIFIED at what I saw. I wanted to curl up into a ball and hide. Embarassment took over me as I thought about what my fat butt must have looked like moving all around that dance floor. People must have been looking at my husband and thinking, "Poor guy to have such a fat wife." Even my feet looked fat in my sexy shoes. UGH, what on Earth would ever make me think that I could pull off any kind of sexy? I must have looked so foolish. I felt so ashamed.

And so...

That wasn't even enough to kick my butt into shape. I ate my way through the next couple of weeks. Irrational I know, but I got caught in the cycle. We went to visit friends for 4th of July weekend. The same girl was snapping pictures of everyone (she's a professional photographer). It was those pictures that really got to me. I didn't even recognize the person in the photographs. My family looked so beautiful and happy, and I was like a big fat blemish in the middle of it. I realized that all our famly photos revolve around the kids. I try not to be in them. How sad. I'm so ashamed of myself that I want to delete myself from our memories. I remembered how embarassed I was of my mom when I was a kid and didn't want my children to feel that way about me. Most of all though, I'm scared of leading them down this road. It would kill me to know that in 30 years from now they are struggling with all this just because I couldn't pull myself together enough to instill good health and nutrition in them while they are young.

It's not enough to teach it though, I have to be a role model. I can't make a run to the fast food drive thru, order something for myself and expect them to snack on carrot sticks. No, I need to live it with them. I need to get myself healthy so I can run around with them and not feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. I want to be part of their memories and enjoy looking at pictures of all of us instead of watching from the sidelines. I want my husband to look at me the way he used to...or maybe more importantly I want to feel the way I used to before I gained the weight.

So here in starts my efforts. I wish I could say I am confident enough in my resolve to make it work this time. I'm scared though, that I am too far gone to get back to what I think I should be.

My Introduction

Where do I even begin???

Well, I'm a short Italian chick in my early 30's with about 50 pounds to lose. A hard task considering I grew up with the mentality that whatever you ate it wasn't enough, and what I did eat was a ton of pasta, cheese and bread. I hated vegetables or anything even remotely considered "diet friendly". My family breaded and fried just about anything they could and to this day I still love fried foods and refined carbs.

I wasn't always this way though. It wasn't until I became an adult that I started packing on the pounds. My activity level became non existent and eating became sport. As life started to get more stressful, food became my comfort. I also inherited those great Italian mother genes which enable me to gain weight just by thinking about or looking at food. Not exactly the super power I dreamed about having as a kid!

And of course it doesn't help that I'm so short. 50 pounds spread across a tall person doesn't look quite as bad, but on a short person it looks more like 100 pounds because it's all condensed. It's like a mean optical illusion!

So anyway, here I am...short, fat and ready to take back my body. I will prevail in "My Big Fat Battle!"