asipasi

[asipasi]

Who cares what other people think of you 🔥🔥🔥

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[asipasi]

🚨This is a Red Alert for net neutrality 🚨

Last December, the FCC voted to to kill net neutrality. If we do not take action, this will kill the free and open internet as we know it. The internet needs you—all of you—to make sure your voices are heard NOW.

We need all hands on deck for this one. It may be our last chance. If you’re feeling under-informed and overwhelmed about why net neutrality is so incredibly important, we have this handy guide just for you.

Here’s what you can do to save the internet:

In mid-May, the Senate will vote on a resolution to overrule the FCC using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). We only need one more vote in the Senate to win. Write or call your Senators or Representatives. You can also text BATTLE to 384-387 to get more information on how to write to your reps. You can do this, Tumblr.

Join us and dozens of your other favorite companies like Etsy, Vimeo, Reddit, and GitHub to raise awareness with the Red Alert campaign being run by Battle for the Net. Just add this small widget to your Tumblr to let your followers know how they can contact their reps. It’s as easy as copying and pasting the small line of code right into the customize theme page on the web.

This is important. This matters. It’s up to you to help. 

[asipasi]

Not really from my childhood. I was already an adult, but still ....

I really owe a lot to these books, from my childhood to now. Every life has darkness, but we’ve been lucky to have this magic as a source of light, even after all these years.

[asipasi]

The awesomeness of horses!

[asipasi]

A New Journey (written January 2018)

I wrote the below during my first Weight Watchers Journey right as I made goal. I thought I knew it all then. I thought I had it figured out. I was going to maintain my goal weight forever and ever. And I did, for a while. I was a WW receptionist, as it afforded me the luxury to “have a job” while we moved, and to get some discounts on the awesome snacks. I try not to be judgemental, but sometimes I judged “my regulars” who gained weight or the lifetimers who were 20 or more pounds over goal. I was never gonna go there again! I gave away all my “fat clothes” so I wouldn’t have an excuse.

It went well for a while even through the long roadtrip from GA to CO when we moved and through a trip to NYC with my friend, I held steadfast. I will always blame my brother-in-law’s return from deployment as the starting point of my decline, as there were a lot of pizza nights, going out to restaurants and such. But really, that is just an excuse. I’m a big girl, I could have made better decisions. It is hard when you live in a family and you don’t buy the groceries and everybody else can eat whatever they want without a problem. But it can be done.

Anyways – the weight kept creeping up and soon I had no choice but to buy bigger clothes again. I told myself it was “just for now”. I will loose this again soon, but I have to have something to wear in between. Another lie. Soon you are in the mindset of “whatever, there is nothing I can do, I’m just meant to be a fat kid.” And you get more depressed, and you eat more, because it doesn’t matter anyway. I had no more room in my closet and was forced to pack up my “thin clothes” and get fat clothes again. But this time I did not give them away. I still have them.

I tried the new WW system and could not get into it. Without meetings (and I was too ashamed to go to meetings as a lifetime member so much over goal, remembering vividly my own judgements), I did not understand the new plan. So I dug out all my old stuff, books and calculators and tried to do it again on my own, but that also didn’t work, because all the support tools were geared for the new plan. I gave up again. I did a short stint on Shakeology, which had worked for my sister, but not for me (and I felt so deprived). I started realizing that once again, I tried to not be in photographs or made funny faces, to hide my weight. I also wanted to get back into horsebackriding and I was horrified having to tell somebody my weight so they can pick a horse for me – would they even have a horse that can carry my weight. I felt so bad for the horse that would have to have me on their back. I finally decided that I can’t let it go on.

One of my best friends had just started again and was raving about the new freestyle and the free foods. I re-signed with WW online. I was skeptical. I loved the strictness of the old plan I was on 10 years ago. Then all you could possibly do is use fitpoints (and I didn’t exercise, so I didn’t use them). And now you have all these free foods, weekly points and fit points? Granted, I have way less daily points to use (then I started out with 35, now I have 24), but I was going to give it a shot. It has worked for me before. As a matter of fact, it’s been the only program that has ever worked for me. So I was willing to trust it. And it is working again! I made it to 5% in three weeks – that’s insane! It’s crazy. I’m not complaining, but it is literally blowing me away. Just this past week I had a couple of days that I had to dip into the weeklies and I went out for dinner. I lost 4.1 lbs. Ten years ago my average weight loss was 2 lbs a week. I know that it may turn out to be the same again. But for now I’m ecstatic. It seems that the difference this past week to the week before (when I lost 2 lbs) was that I ate way more “free foods” – salad and salmon. So there you have it.

I know freestyle doesn’t work for some people. They crave the strictness or “more control” of whatever was before. And I know where they are coming from. See above! Whatever the program was that came before freestyle didn’t work for me. And I know I never gave it a fair shot and I may not have done it right, because I was trying to do it without support. But freestyle seems to work for me. Just because a food is free, doesn’t mean that I will overindulge in that food. But it makes for great snack options. It makes for great options when I have used too many points already. I don’t have to go hungry. I don’t have to deprive myself. And that is what is going to get me to sustain it this time.

I know I was eating crap, I know my portions were creeping up, I know I was eating too much chocolate. Now I have control over this again. I’m accountable. And if I want chocolate, I can have it. And however many points that costs me doesn’t mean I have to go hungry for dinner. I can eat a salad with salmon and still not go over.

I’m not sure why freestyle doesn’t work for everybody. I’m not a nutritionist. It seems to be working for me. I also love the control of tracking. I’m trying not to use my weekly points. I know you’re supposed to, but for me that is creeping into dangerous territory. I am not swapping my fit points. Not yet anyway (all I am doing right now is counting steps). I am swapping weeklies first. Maybe when I start exercising I’ll start using fitpoints. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m going on vacation to Brazil in a week. For 10 days I will be somewhat cut off from WW. I will try to track, but I don’t even know how to find all the foods I am going to try in my app. I know I will be eating a lot of fruit and veggies, but there is other stuff, too. I know there will be a lot of alcohol. But I also know my BFF is going to make me exercise. So hopefully I won’t gain too much back. Or maybe I won’t gain anything and just plateau. I would be ok with that. I don’t want to stress out over it. But for the first time in probably a couple of years I am hopeful that I can get back to goal and that I will be able to maintain it for the rest of my life.

Highest Weight 240lbs

Goal Weight 160 lbs (lifetime April 2009)

Starting weight (1/8/18) 230.3 lbs

Current Weight (1/28/18) 218.1 lbs

Height: 5’8”

February 15, 2009

INSTEAD OF GIVING MYSELF REASONS WHY I CAN'T, I GIVE MYSELF REASONS WHY I CAN!

I think that's a good tagline for my blog today. I wasn't going to write this until I actually achieved goal, but I am 1.8 pounds away and I just blew my mind a couple of days ago, so I decided it was time. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is the story from the beginning:

A little over two years ago my size 20 jeans started to get snug - and really, I needed a 22 but I could never find jeans that I liked on me anyway. I actually had to look into men's jeans. Somehow I had gained 40-some pounds since I moved to the US. Now - I was always the heavy kid, never small by any means. But I thought "well, I'm getting older and I'm likely to gain more weight as the body's metabolism slows down. If I gain at the same rate I'll be close to 300 pounds when I'm 50." That scared me! A LOT! Apart from borderline high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes was another concern for me (runs in the family). At one point my hair actually started falling out like crazy. Then it got greasy so fast and so much that it never looked clean - even right after I washed it. I wore my hair in a ponytail for months, because I didn't know what else to do. I started getting winded just walking up the two flights of stairs to my appartment. I couldn't really blame that on "being out of shape" anymore. I knew I had to do something, but the prospect of having to lose 70 to 80 pounds seemed daunting to me. I have never been able to stay on a diet long enough to lose that kind of weight. And I was afraid that if I didn't lose it fast I wouldn't stick with it.

Then my friend Angie lost a lot of weight on Medifast. I looked into it, but I could not imagine following that strict plan. Nevertheless her weight loss pushed me into more research. Then my sis decided to check out Weight Watchers. I had always thought that all those companies are like little "secret societies" or something. I thought "they are a business and they're only after your money, trying to sell you their high-priced foods." I was reluctant and decided to see if it worked for her. She was successful immediately and was gung-ho about it - she had the best time and loved going to her meetings. So after a couple of weeks I decided to give it a try. I'm not the "rah-rah meeting" type of girl, so I decided to go it on my own and signed up online. I was willing to give it a month or two and see what happens. I couldn't imagine it working without me doing any kind of exercise and because I thought "I'm not really eating that much now - there is no way I can eat less in order to lose any weight"

Well - my eyes were opened. On the program I had to eat sooooo much that I seriously doubted their sanity. Some days I couldn't even get all the points that were alloted to me and I had to drink some extra milk or eat a yogurth at night in order to get them all in. Yet - the first week I lost 3 pounds ... and the second and I kept losing usually at a pace of 2 pounds per week. Turns out I wasn't eating enough and I surely wasn't eating the right kinds of food. Every week, then every month I waited for that point when the shoe would drop and  I wouldn't lose anymore. And I did hit a couple of plateaus - but generally I kept going down. Hallelujah! As I said, my eyes were opened. I learned portion control and better eating choices. I learned to read and pay attention to nutrition labels. I had to restructure my life. But that's what it's all about. It is not a diet. It is a lifestyle change. That is one big realization to make and that thought had always scared me in the past. Why? Maybe because I thought it meant I could never ever have the foods I loved anymore. No more pasta, bread or chocolate..... But now I learned that this wasn't true at all. I could still have all that stuff - just not as much and in different ways. So ... that's what "lifestyle-change" meant.

So here I am a little over two years later and (almost) 75 pounds lighter. Losing is at a much slower pace now and not as easy anymore. However, it is still going down and not back up. I am NEVER going back. I know, I know "never say never" but in this instant I can and I will. I don't EVER want to be where I was anymore. How did I let myself get to that point anyway? I gave away all my big clothes. As soon as they started falling off of me and looked really baggy I gave them away. No more holding on to something "in case" I gain some weight.

So this is where the "mind-blowing" episode comes in. Sis took me to get a new pair of jeans that fits right instead of her hand-me-downs, which are starting to slide down as well. I bought a size 8! ...... I have never in my life been a size 8! I didn't know or think that I could be a size 8. I have wide hip bones, so I thought..... but apparently  I can! It just is mind-boggling to me. I mean - I see my before pictures and I can hardly believe that that is me. And I see myself now in the mirror or in pictures and I can see the difference. But my mindset is still not all caught up. In my mind I'm still the pudgy ugly duckling. And then every once in a while I look at a new picture or I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I go "WOW - is that me?" Like - sometimes I will walk by a picture window and catch a reflection of myself and not recognize myself, I will literally not realize that this is me. It is a very weird and schizophrenic feeling. Don't get me wrong. I am very, very proud of what I have accomplished and I am celebrating. But it is also weird and strange in a way and somehow the brain needs some time to catch up.

For example, the 8 is still snug. There are still some areas on my body that I do not like. There are still a few more fat-pockets than I would like. And I guess that - in my eyes - won't allow myself to measure up to those beautiful Hollywood women with their perfect bodies. (no... no... I know.... ) But if I look at where I have been I am certifiably skinny! That doesn't even sound right - "me" and "skinny" in the same sentence. But I am! And only now do I realize how much I loathed myself, and how much I was in denial then. I still do not "love" my body, but I am definitely proud of what I have accomplished and I do want to show it off. Gone are the days of bulky sweaters and XXL T-shirts to drape over the pants to hide the belly and hips. I will actually buy clothes that are close to my body and that show contours. Who would have thunk it? So what if a little roll still shows above the belt-line? It's there - I'm human. Maybe it'll go away, maybe it won't. I know I have some more work to do. I have to start exercising and try to tone my body, get rid of some of the flab of extra skin and weak muscle tissue.

But for the first time in my life I'm mostly ok with how I look in my body!

Thank you so much to Angie and Sis for inspiring me to start, to Cynde for supporting me and not unintentionally sabotaging me but always being right there with me when I tried to figure out what I can eat - especially in the beginning when I was like a lunatic with my "complete food companion" and my points calculator, and again for Sis for the continuing support and encouragement. We did it SIS!

If I can only inspire one other person to take that step and trust this program to work, then all my hard work has been worth it and it's the best thanks of all!