Clothes, makeup and all the things

Our last podcast explored style- how we found our style, how it has changed, makeup or lack of makeup, why black clothes are really not serving you and many other things.

I listened to this episode and had so many things come up in my mind.  Interesting, or maybe not so interesting, asides and digressions popped up as we were traveling down the diverse roads the three of us are taking.

I discussed my disco days briefly, one of the most trendy and in-style parts of my life, weirdly until recently.  It seems that youth goes hand in hand with trendy, but some of us circle back to a little bit of trendy when we get old and gain all the confidence that we were missing when we were young.  It is an interesting journey, let me tell you. Anyway, I remember LOVING the shiny dark patterned shirts and the pants that went with them and the incredibly high platform shoes from the late 70's.  And to think I danced in those things.  Oh wow I loved those clothes.  They represented freedom to me.  I acquired them when I was in college, when I escaped from my fairly restrictive parents (sorry mom) and seriously cut loose in SO many ways.  I danced, I drank, I did some fairly risky things....  it is a wonder we survived.  But I did and found a husband who is incredibly along the lines of what my family was. Conservative, reserved, funny and lively all at the same time.  So, after moving to the north, I was again landed in a situation that restricted my movement, my freedom and in many ways the pleasures that I had found and reveled in.  Debi was reined in for a while.

I am not saying at all that I regret the life I have- you can't remain 21 forever and your priorities change.  But the fact remains that through geographical reasons, I was trapped in a  very small world.  My parents were 5 hours away, my friends at least as far, then I had kids and as life goes, you have to live with what is given to you.  This particular post has already veered wildly from my original intention, so apparently it needs to be said!

As I implied, I didn't have a lot of style, or even clothes for that matter.  Not compared to what I have now.  I didn't actually need them, I didn't go far and we didn't do a lot.  Mostly we needed WARM clothes because it is damn cold up here.  And the kids and the hubby got the most clothes.  He had a job, the kids grow....  you know the drill.  I didn't have a full time job for a number of years after I got married, so the wardrobe didn't matter in my case.  I remember feeling so excited to pick up some things to wear when I did get my teaching job.  To buy more than 2 or 3 things was just exhilarating.  But I didn't go over board, and I would not call myself stylish at that point.  My "style" was in all the crazy socks I wore- I was strictly utilitarian.  I remember looking at beautiful items of clothing in stores and being so sad that I didn't feel I could wear them.  i told myself it was because I taught art.  Or that they wouldn't fit me....  or that they wouldn't look good.  In reality I didn't think I was good enough to.

Fortunately, as I have mentioned before, when I turned 50 something clicked inside me.  I took back my life.  I had been traveling more by myself, I started doing things I wanted, and generally became more independent.  And during this time I began finding myself - at first by restricting myself until I almost disappeared- and then I found the authentic me somewhere in between.  With a little help from my coach!

In our makeup discussion, Anne-Sophie talked about how no one ever showed her how to put on makeup and so she feels strange when she wears it.  Like it doesn't quite seem right.  My first encounter with makeup was when I was about to enter 6th grade.  My cousin who is a few years older than me had indoctrinated me into the idea that makeup was something that I should have and I should wear.... and when I was up at my Grandma's on vacation ( I think she was there too) I bought some mascara.  It was the old fashioned kind where there was a separate brush thing and the actual product was a cake- sort of like eye shadow.  Anyway- my mom yelled at me and took it away. She and my aunt, and probably my extra conservative Grandma were so disappointed and distraught that I bought that mascara. I guess because I was so young.   I found it a few month later and used it!  Lol.  I wore all sorts of make up in high school, and college, so I am no novice.  I don't usually leave the house with out mascara on (LMAO) but I don't bother with a lot of other stuff.  My skin has changed and I don't want to deal with it.

I use a style service now, I actually began filling out the form for stitch-fix on a whim.  It was almost like my brain had planned it and I was doing it before I even understood what was happening.  And when you fill out the style form, then you have to finish the whole thing because- well, just because.  I have to say that I love the clothes that I have gotten through this company.  I think that they are a little off base on some of their cuts, the arms of their non-stretch clothing is pretty small.  Certainly I am not the only person in the world who has triceps??  I have sent back two kick ass jackets in the last year and a couple other things because of that.  Notice that I don't blame myself??  I happen to know enough about clothing construction to understand that it is the pattern makers fault, not mine.  Just sayin'!!  And you can try it on at home and have a few days to think about your purchase. Stitch fix has been instrumental in figuring out what I look good in now.  Because I have changed, just like we all change all the time. And that is what happens and it is good.  If you don't change, you remain stagnant.

So what is the take away from this podcast episode and I guess from this post....  beyond my usual random neuron firings.....?
Know that you are worthy of attention... you are worthy of spending some money and time to make yourself feel good.  You might be a full makeup face person or not.  You might be a dress and skirt girl, or maybe pants are better.  You might love to wear jewelry of all sorts, or you might break out from it all.  However you are, please don't hide yourself.  You don't have to wear baggy black clothes.  You should be able to feel comfortable and stylish.  Beautiful and at ease.  We have some pretty good choices these days, not perfect but it is getting better.  Don't forget that you are here to live your life, you are not here to please others.  You literally can wear what you like.

Oh yeah, that Karl Lagerfeld thing?  You know that the high fashion houses only make like 2 sizes because the are trying to remain exclusive.  By making themselves seem "ultra special" they are making themselves an ultra amount of money.  It is a way of the wealthy keeping themselves apart from others.  It is exclusion at its worst.  It is oppression in an insidious form.  Don't even get me started.

So start small and try something a little different.  You just never know how something will look unless you try it on.  Leila's advice and discussion about taking it home because dressing rooms are not safe places.  Life is hard enough without dressing room traumas.  You know that saying fake it u until you make it?  For all three of us, the confidence came second.  We basically worked our way to inner confidence by pretending at least some of the time. Because it works.  And we are more than good enough to deserve that confidence in our life.

Transitions

I have not written a lot here lately; I thought it was because I was too busy/not inspired/nothing worth talking about.  Turns out that I was changing.  Turns out that I was stressing out over things that I hadn't identified, actually things that hadn't yet happened and things that happened a lot time ago and affected me in ways that I didn't realize.

I experienced a couple of really intense coaching sessions in the last few weeks that allowed me to understand the transition that I am experiencing.  Without going into it specifically, I needed to talk about something that I absolutely did not want to discuss.  I had to talk about it when I was screaming inside that I want to hide and  not go there and pretend it isn't occurring.  I accidentally blurted it out to a friend of mine while I was doing a heart to heart exchange of crap going on in our lives.  And I felt the lift in my spirits immediately.

I had gone through an experience which prepped me for this, but I identified it as an off limits topic.  I grudgingly answered the questions on my coaching session last week- and it allowed a tiny little leak in my wall that was holding an ocean of troubles in.

The thing is that this experience that I am referring to was a total not fair/blind-side me situation that had me reeling for days.  I mean days and days of feeling in a funk and not feeling worthy and feeling like I must have done something wrong, even though I am only guilty of being an imperfect human who meant no harm.  It was one of those situations that when you tell a couple (2 to be exact) friends about it, they are totally supportive, but somewhere deep inside you don't believe it.  You relive a situation over and over and beat the crap out of yourself for reacting like you instead of like a different person.  You know deep inside that you are not worthy of love and respect and decency.

Anyway, I am one to look for something good to come out of every situation, no matter how unfair and obnoxious, but I can see it today.  Today I can see that I needed to face my fears and worries, that I was no longer the same person I was and I am transitioning.  Not into a new me or anything, just transitioning into a new phase of life.  The situation, as horrible as it was, released those little leaks in the wall and the flow has begun.  I am beginning to flow into another stage of my life.

I realize this moment that I have truly begun to divest myself of the residual effects of a lifetime of dieting.  I have quit using my exercise app, I never count calories or track my food.  I am understanding the lingering thought blockages from restriction and am reliving some of the ways I felt before I lost weight.  I have days when I feel horrible in my body, but I now understand that there is some emotional thing that I need to deal with to make that feeling go away. Though I don't consider dieting- I sometimes feel my brain want to grasp onto the safety of restriction and overexercising. Safety that came from diverting my attention to what was really bothering me to obsessing about how I looked.  And I did that for so many many years.  It is never too late.

After a really brutal coaching session yesterday, Anne-Sophie said to me- do  you realize that you are not dealing with all these feelings with food at all?  I got the biggest smile on my face.  It is true.  I just don't.  Wow, that is huge.  No hiding food from people, no arguing with myself over what and when to eat, no spending massive amounts of money on things to eat or items to use to exercise with. No supplements that seriously do nothing for you anyway.  This was a happy moment.

The flow that began during these latest coaching sessions has continued today.  I have identified two more HUGE memories of people that have abandoned/turned on me for a reason that is still not known.  And I may never know why these things happened, and the thing is that it doesn't matter anymore.  Now that I know that these things drive some very deep seated fears of mine, it is much easier to examine these painful memories.  It also makes it easier to see how I sometimes distance myself from people that young Debi sees as a danger.  A danger that they will leave me somehow and I won't have the pleasure of their friendship anymore.  That I am not worthy of them keeping in touch with me.  That I will be abandoned.

I am saying these things because I know that there are a lot of people who might read this  are at the beginning of their journey and you NEED to know that it is possible to change.  I had completed the first "successful" diet of my life 5 years ago, and felt just as horrible about myself as I had before.  I got to my goal weight and kept lowering it.  I got to my goal weight and all I could think of was I didn't want to do this all my life.  I just didn't want to DO this all the time.  And then I started looking around for some sort of guidance and Isabelle Foxen Duke said on a podcast with Anne-Sophie (first time I ever heard of my sweet coach A-SR) that she didn't want to think about food every god damn minute of her life.....  I grabbed that phrase and have held it tight because it spoke a basic truth that I knew was valid.

It is simple but it is not easy.  It isn't difficult, it is different.  And it is worth every penny, every tear, every page in a journal and meditation time and facing of fears and realizing how you can live an authentic life - a life that is large as you want....  a life where you don't have to shrink to meet the needs of someone else.

And we are all more than good enough for that.

Feeding our real hungers

I have had a really hard few weeks here, and fortunately for me I have tools that I can use to get me through those times.  I have really good friends that I can talk to,  I have self care practices that I know will make me feel better and thank heaven I have coaching that will help me when I know that I need more support than usual.

Self care comes in many forms

Fortunately for me, I am able to "go there"when I am asked to speak- as part of a recovery technique- as a different part of me.  Not from my brain, but from a body part or something that lives inside of me, or the younger me or the scared me, etc.  You get the picture- I am totally able to immerse myself in another reality to get at thoughts or feelings or perceptions that are holding me back or making me, frankly, feel really bad about myself.

Today I had a very effective coaching session- I know they are effective when I feel drained and exhausted, though peaceful afterwards- that helped me identify what my stressors are at this point in time.  Funny thing, when you no longer use food and dieting to sublimate your internal problems, they like to bubble up to the surface like lava from a volcano.  Sometimes maybe not that dramatic, but sometimes it is.

And it really is that way- I have no diet to keep my mind occupied, no calorie counting to be preoccupied with, hours of exercise that would be distracting me from the issues at hand.  I may also be less adept at rolling with the crap that life throws at me (ahem, we will just pretend that age has nothing to do with it) for one reason or another.   It could be I am overwhelmed- see the next post that will be coming out soon- or it could be that I am not honoring my hungers.

I am definitely not talking about my food hunger, because seriously, I don't mess with that anymore.  If I am hungry I figure out what I want and have it.  I am talking about my other hungers....  My needs for creativity, for rest, for purposefully meeting my own needs.  And that has been neglected a bit lately.

I have become overwhelmed with feelings of literally running just ahead of a beast that wants to envelop me in its grasp.  At work I zoom from one task to another, from one student to another, from one building to another- all the while feeling like I am not serving any of them to my ability.  I never feel like I am doing enough. After work I go to the stage and do play things, and again, I never feel like we are getting enough done.   At home, I sit in paralysis.  Literally I, some nights, plop on the couch and barely get up.

I have been really feeling the need to do art- I can picture things that I want to create in my head. I am absolutely itching to oil paint again, I need to get my hands into subject matter and media that I want to do, not what I want my kids at school to do.  When you are an art teacher you rarely do your own work because you just don't have the time when you are teaching and you do not have the will when you are home.  But the feeling is there- I need to honor my need for creativity soon.  I need to purposefully and intentionally walk outside for a little while every day for my own sanity.  I need to let myself rest when I feel I need it.  And I really need to find a way to be in the moment, in my body and not in my head through out the day.

These things are my self care, my genuine modes of providing myself with the things I need to be able to be my best self.  I know I need them to do my best at my life's work.  I have bought myself daffodils, I had a pedicure, I made some brownies- all of which make me happy and brighten my day, but they are not the soul satisfying things that I need to be better.  Creativity energizes me, walking calms me and rest restores my mind.  I will be honoring my true needs- I know that I need to satisfy these hungers as much as I need to satisfy my students', friend's and family's needs. Or more.

Controlling my body's size and shape will not help fill these needs.  Restricting or bingeing on food will not truly make me feel like a whole person again.... Honoring my true needs is the most authentic thing I can do- I am more than worth it.  And so are you.

I didn't recover right....

I just finished recording a magnificent podcast with Anne-Sophie and Leila.  This coming week is National Eating Disorders awareness week, and we all shared our stories.  When the podcast goes live I will try to remember to link it up here.  The podcast is UP!!

Both Leila and Anne-Sophie had diagnosed eating disorders and were in official treatments for them. They had some serious issues and I am one of the most grateful people in the world that their treatment has brought them into my life.  They went through a lot of seriously dangerous - health-wise- times in their lives and fortunately found the places, people and techniques to overcome and continue to recover from these illnesses.

My story is different than theirs, as I had no official diagnosis.  I want it to be known that I neither think this is better or worse- it is just different.  This is a huge moment of self realization #1  for me this week.

When I was at the beginning of my search for another way to live other than dieting, I didn't feel worthy.  Even though I was thin enough to fit into the accepted social standards of "she looks good" I didn't feel that I was thin enough.  Though I had extremely disordered eating- to the point of cutting my calories to the point that my exercise zeroed out my intake for the day and I thought that was  not only ok, but admirable- I didn't think I did it well enough.  When I began to recover from this, through a life coaching program that had me writing my way through the different aspects of my life- I didn't think I was "sick enough" to spend the money to get through it and recover.

And now, even though I don't believe it, there are some who probably believe i didn't recover right.  And maybe juuuuuusssssst a tiny bit of myself may have believed that for a moment, too.  (HMOSR #2)

Since there is still the underlying message in society that being thinner is inherently better than being heavier, it seems to my warped-up mind that ultimately you should be able to eat what you want, not restrict and stay on the lighter side.  That, if you are honoring your body, the least your body can do is pay attention to all the ads and beauty sites and become or stay visually in alignment with what they are showing.  That you need to have visible muscles to be strong. That if you gain weight and no longer look like a 12 year old, and if not,  you have some how failed.  blah blah blah..... bullshit.

This interesting bit of news occurred to me during the podcast and I quickly wanted to call myself out on said bullshit.

I know that I have recovered right.  I recovered right because I can have a half of a pb sandwich and a brownie for breakfast and it was good and I didn't even think about it.  I can choose to skip the gym and a long walk this weekend because I need down time and it is ok.  I can immerse myself in another good book instead of "accomplishing something" because it is what I need to do.  Debi has recovered in her own unique Debi way.

And most important is that I KNOW I needed TO recover.  It doesn't matter if I had a diagnosis, because I was trying to alter my body in unnecessary ways: by restricting my food and viewing myself as good or bad on any given day or in any given moment based on what I have eaten,  to choose forms of movement  **or not moving** that are right and good for me regardless of the should that are swirling in my head, or to participate in activities that have nothing to do with my exterior body.  I am good enough to make my life better by concentrating on friends, family and activities that give me true and honest joy.  Not because they are subtracting something from my body, but because they are adding things to my actual life.

And damn it, I am good enough to do that.  And so are all of us!  You do you- you are entitled- and you are good enough to recover.

Release

I woke up quite innocently today, sort of ready for whatever was going to come.  I had tentative plans to go to the gym, probably walk and putter around and something in the house that wouldn't happen during the work week because of pure exhaustion.  One step outside informed me that I most likely won't walk, as it is ridiculously windy and it just won't be that much fun.

So off I go to the gym, and I start off with a fast bike sprint to warm up my incredibly sore hamstrings from yesterday's session.  I found myself trying to get to a particular time/distance combo for no other reason than competitiveness with myself....  As I was pedaling like a mad woman I started thinking about the post I wrote yesterday and also some other things that had been said in our podcast and another one that I listen to as well.  I know it was Anne-Sophie who said we are  in different places in our recovery all the time.  We are not going to be finished- something to that effect.  And as I am finishing up the first sprint I thought about how I was going to run over to my phone and record the stats before I forget them.  It suddenly seemed so wrong and inauthentic.

I have given up using my diet app for well over 3 years- it took me a long time to delete it from my phone, but I did.  The exercise app I have kept because "I want to keep track of my adventures".  Actually I am going to keep the app for my adventures- mostly to see what I did when and a few accompanying photos, but I realized today that going up to the gym and working out is not an adventure.  Nor do I need to keep track of what I have done when, because I know darn well what I have done.  

Earlier in the morning, I had opened today's journaling prompt from Anne-Sophie: it was titled "Release".  I haven't actually written about anything yet (lol, well I guess I am now!) but I knew I could cobble something together about things I may need to release from the last 3 weeks of journaling---  (If this sounds like something for you--------- go to this link------->  journaling prompts  I get absolutely nothing for this shout out, and I don't need it. It is an amazing program- and definitely will be worth every penny.)  So release was in my mind today.

As I was working out, the idea about not entering my weightlifting into the app came up again and again, and I realize that I finally do NOT NEED TO DO THIS any more.  I have divested myself of another part of my orthorexia, and I can't believe how good it feels, and also slightly scary.  My one thought was- what about all my fitness friends on Runkeeper??  Then I understood- those people aren't my actual friends.  I don't even know them. This is not a valid reason for continuing to passively be aware of the calories that I burn and the amount of exercise that I am getting.  I do not need to quantify it at all.

So, I get home and there on the Escape Diet Prison Page, as most of you know- was "Sensual Sunday" and the message today is to think less about exercise and more about moving.  Seriously I was so uplifted and validated by the universe throwing this at me along with the other things.  I have for the most part dropped the "I have to exercise *insert a number* of minutes or calories each week, but I had a little snippet of an idea because of the app.  I definitely have dropped all mind numbing exercise like the treadmill and the godforsaken elliptical (apologies to fans of these machines, but I just can't with them).  I do hop on the exercise bike because I plan to get on my bike as early in the spring as I can, because I like it! I like to bike, I love to hike and walk, I adore kayaking and weight-lifting.  These are activities I do not have to track, they are things I love to do.  If I go somewhere new- I am talking to you Rocky Mountains- I can use the app for seeing how far we went on what day and take a few photos.  But I am done tracking my walks and my weightlifting.  wow.

This is huge for me.

So back to the original topic- release.  I was primed to release another part of my disordered eating and exercising.  I have been doing this for over 3 years now, and I really did think I was done.  Just a few thoughts to realign-  nothing much.  Nothing to see here any more.  Like usual, I was so wrong. I am releasing the hold that exercise tracking had on me.  I am releasing the idea of needing to burn calories every day.  I am releasing the fact that when I work out, the work out counts in a way that is meaningful for me, even when I don't know how many calories I am in fact burning- what counts is that I am getting my body ready for life's adventures.  My weight doesn't matter, it will not keep me from embracing my life, conquering my fears and finding my joy.

I hope you can find a little thing that needs releasing today too.  We are all more than good enough to live without those things- throw them up to the wind and out of your life.

What this is all about

So I posted the first of this new blog a whole 10 minutes ago, and already there are 4 views??  How does that even work? I have advertised this to no one.  Oh well.  My idea here is that I plan to share this blog only in the bopo groups I belong to, and perhaps twitter/instagram realm.  As we all know there are a lot of folks who are not ready for the message of body positive and inclusiveness and all the things that make haters gonna hate, so to speak.

I have had a few haters that lurk around on the internet- the chicken-livered jerks that they are.  People who actually send unsigned letters with vague threats- seriously this has happened to me, who does nothing but try to find the joy in life.  ugh.  So, seriously, if you have a point of discussion, please be adult.  I deal with children all day long and I just can't with drama and bullshit in my downtime.  Thanks!

So, as I alluded to in my first post, I plan to use this blog as a companion to the podcast that I am part of.  I never in my wildest imagination thought I would ever be on a podcast.  Crazy talk.  First of all, I do not really feel particularly qualified for said podcast, but I have been assured that I have plenty to contribute, and I am getting more comfortable with the whole thing.  I even listened to us whilst driving down to the oldest son's house this past weekend- the weather and driving was pretty miserable and I couldn't deal with my phone to change the broadcast.  yikes!  So I heard the one about about weight stigma and bias- (episode 43)  I sounded kind of awful, I barely had a voice, but I have to say we are pretty entertaining.

We have covered a lot of ground in the last 6 or 7 weeks.  From a solo episode where I talk with Anne-Sophie about how I got to where I am now, to discussing Oprah and her shady weight-watcher involvement.  We are three diverse people coming from very different backgrounds.  I am the person who is not in the business of coaching in one form or another and I did not have an actual eating disorder as they did.  But what I do bring to the table is my age and experience, and the whole decades of thinking that I sucked because of my weight.

After my previously mentioned search for something different than diets, I definitely looked around for help.  I read the blog of Isabelle Foxen Duke (and someone else I can't remember)  and some information on the websites of a couple fitness trainer type people.  I was at that time so far down that fitness rabbit hole, I had no intention of being anything less than buff, even if I gained a little weight....  oy did the universe let me know that I was not in charge eventually, but that is for another time.  The podcasts were helpful, but I felt short changed- I needed more.  I needed something as intensive as the support I got for dieting.  I found  some free short programs and I checked around for prices for this new thing I found called life coaching.  Everything seemed so expensive, or not enough, or just not quite right.

I happened upon (this is sort of a love letter about my coach, she literally helped me regain my sanity and life) Anne-Sophie initially through her previous- Your Life Your Success- podcast.  She has a lovely voice, and I love her accent so so much.  She has always had a very calming effect on me.  I have been known to get a little anxious about things and I am drawn to calming people.  Anyway, I was LUCKY ENOUGH to find her when she was working on one of her certifications and I got some really great sessions from her in her earlyish career.  I began doing occasional private coaching calls and then I entered her 6 month small group writing circles, which was based on journaling, meditation and Skype calls.  This was the life changing time for me.  This is where I discovered the things I needed to about myself and where I made change and accepted myself for who I am.  I have not stepped on a scale in my house in 3 years this month, I do not know my weight and I do not care what it is.  Big changes have happened.

I guess my years of teaching, plus my dedication to wanting to be free of the whole dieting culture and mentality has given me some perspectives and opinions that are worth sharing.  At least I hope that is true!  Like all of us, sometimes I feel insecure.

 BUT we are MORE than good enough to share our opinions.  No matter what we look like, what we weigh, what our size is- we are all worthy.

Another blog?!?

Hello everyone!

I have been writing off and on almost since the inception of my main blog about my personal journey of losing weight, gaining fitness, losing my actual mind, gaining weight, breaking things, and generally noticing what the universe has been telling me- sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes with a nice smack between the eyes with a flyswatter.

After a life of feeling like I need to alter my body, and feeling SO MUCH SHAME about how I look, I have found peace and freedom.  This is the first installment of my journey- and I am definitely not a linear person, so don't expect much of a timeline after these first few paragraphs!

You see, I have spent my life, like many or most women- and some men- imagining that I was not good enough.  I was told over and over through many venues that I did not look like I should.  I did not have the right body, I could not trust myself and I had no idea what I was doing.  Whatever I was doing- it was most certainly wrong.  Now of course, there is a lot more to life than just this- everyone has their crap.  Junk from their childhood, stuff from adolescence, garbage that comes from adulthood, sketchy things gleaned from your family.....  all the imperfect crap that has indeed contributed to making up the unique person that is me/we/us/you.

So about 6 or 7 years ago I found a weight-loss app, and then a running app and a BMI app and 100 pushups app and all the other apps, and apparatus and such, that comes from being sold a program for weight-loss.  I was solidly immersed in this life for 3 years while I lost a lot of weight and attained my "goal weight".....  isn't that lovely?   The ugly side of it was the fact that I was starving myself.  I was tired and hungry and freezing cold---  I, in that whole entire 3 years, never once ate and exercised "perfectly" and so I was never really satisfied.  I was miserable and cranky a lot.  I also over exercised myself into numbness in my hands, wrecked knees and other various injuries that just didn't need to happen.  Now, I can't totally discount those years as I have made some AMAZING friends, people I would never trade for anything, and I did find my voice, my courage and my self-confidence.  All of those experiences have made me uniquely me.

I remember a time when I was eating supper with my hubby at a local restaurant, they specially made me a lovely pasta and veggie plate with marinara.  I planned to eat only half and take the rest home.  I was so close to my goal weight I needed to "watch" every bit.  But my body betrayed me and I ate the whole thing. Because I was freaking starving...... I cried when I got home.  I cried over eating fettuccini.  I remember having people tell me how they wish they could have my willpower and not have bread and the potato when we were out.  I remember standing on the other side of the teachers lounge dying to have a cookie and I had to eventually quit going into that room so I could avoid being tempted.  I remember telling someone that nothing tastes as good as thin feels.....  wow I was full of crap.

When I hit my goal weight, no angels sang and my life did not become better.  I had no idea what to do with myself.  What could I eat- how could I have that many calories and stay the same weight?  How could this work?  It didn't, because diets are not sustainable and they do not work.  They do not. During this period of time, I remember thinking underneath of the calorie obsession that I really wish I didn't have to think about food all the god damn time.  That I could just eat and not think about what  or how much or what time or whatever.  I admitted to myself that I needed to change my life.

So, I was introduced by a well meaning friend to an exercise coach/writer, who had a really good post about smashing your scale- or throwing it away or some such thing.  She is on the right track, but still talks in her blogs about losing fat and gaining muscle.  Which is not a negative thing per se, but she is in the biz of encouraging women to change their bodies.  Well, that led me to another blogger, who I really like- Isabelle Foxen Duke- and I read her blog and found out that she was on this thing called podcasts.  I searched around for more podcasts and found the likes of Summer Innanen and eventually found the work of Anne-Sophie Reinhardt.  And so guess who is podcasting with her now??!!  ME! YAY!  I and a wonderful woman named Leila Hays have teamed up with Anne-Sophie and we have been podcasting for several weeks now.  It is an exciting and amazing thing to do.

I began this blog that is dedicated to body positivity because I am not part of the industry like Anne-Sophie and Leila.  But I have a lot to say and I didn't want to have this all on my other blog.  I have the other one for my personal life and my photography and a bit of art teaching and all, and wanted to have a separate spot for this.  I  have felt over the past few weekends like adding to and responding to the podcast I am on and also to some I listen to.  SO many interesting things.... so much good stuff.  So many ways to say that we are more than good enough.  We don't have to change to suit anyone.