Being fat is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

Crazy as it seems, being fat is not really that fun. You would think by the amount of us who walk around with excess baggage, we really enjoyed it or something. The amount of fast food restaurants, and junk foods in stores, it’s like we’re all begging “PLEASE FOOD INDUSTRY MAKE ME FATTER!’. And for the most part we not only comply to this, we allow ourselves to dive into it and let the waist lines grow, and the flabbiness expand.

I learned a long time ago that if you are serious enough about something it will show in your actions. The truth is that if you are hitting up McDonalds at all, like ever it tells me that you really aren’t that interested in your waist line. I’m not judging you, I’m just saying let’s just be totally honest with the entire thing. If you want to be fat, the food industry has made it so easy, and guess who fuels the food industry? We do. If we stopped wanting to be fat and having diseases the food industry would fail and fail fast. But I don’t know that we care enough about ourselves, or that we (as a society) really want to be healthy or of a decent weight. A diet section in a book store tells me one thing, IT IS TOO DAMN hard to lose weight. There are about 1000 ways to lose weight and to work out, all claiming to be better than the next. And most of these ways still want you to shop the same way, think the same way, eat at the same places, and they lie to us saying we can continue eating all the same things – just less of them. Because that’s worked in the past, maybe on some other planet?

I was recently at the grocery store a normal national chain one, and this is when it all struck me that the food industry really just loves that we apparently all want to be and remain fat. There was an aisle labled “Beer, Cheese, Bacon”. I kid you not. And I realized that that sign was not there because some marketing person just thought what the heck? Those things are all in this aisle. They labled that sign because people, enough people are looking for bacon, cheese and beer.

The irony to all of this? The pharmacy was right behind this section, which really, if you think about it, if you are shopping in that aisle you probably don’t have the energy to make it to another section of the store to get your cholesterol lowering drugs.

I say all of this as a former morbidly obese woman, and as a currently obese woman. At my highest weight I was over 400 pounds. I do not even know how to make that real to anyone else. I hated my life, absolutely and completely hated it. I couldn’t move around, I felt miserable, and I was depressed about the way I looked all the time. I went to diet groups, weight loss support groups, I went to doctors, nutritionisits, and surgeons. And they all told me the same thing “Just eat less and work out more” as if this thought had never occured to me. But they weren’t there when I was going through some really horrible depression, when food was my only comfort, and they could not possibly help in what I really needed help with – thinking that I could actually lose weight and that it was possible, and that I’d have to make a lot of inner changes before that could happen.

So much has changed in the inside of me in order to be where I am, and in order to get where I am going, that I can’t just say change a few things about the way you live, I’m here to tell you that you need to change EVERY THING. Every step you have taken up till this point has lead you to the body and the mindset and the health that you currently have, and something, somewhere along the line needs to be undone. Maybe it’s one thing, maybe it’s a 1000 things, but the best way to get to that point? Clean slate. So right now, if you are reading along and thinking that you are tired of the way you feel, the way you look, you are scared what the future of your health could hold, you feel depressed most of the time, or simply that things are just not the way you want them to be, you should know that you can change all of that, and you can make that choice right now, with out much drama.

okay, maybe a little drama.

Step 1: Change the way you eat.

I know I mentioned that there are a million diet books telling you how to eat. What I’m telling you is not a diet, in fact don’t ever again use the word diet. EVER. My weight loss coach told me that she hates the word because the word “DIE” is in it. If you want to die, go on a diet. That’s what I had been doing for years – dieting, and it was killing me.

Know that what you eat could be controling a lot more than the numbers on your scale. The chemicals, the hormones in the typical American diet, don’t just mess up your physical body it messes up your emotional body as well. All of that extra estrogen that the typical American eats (from things like chicken and eggs) causes our hormones to get way out of balance. Casein in milk causes addictions and effects our central nervous system. Things like fake sugars  cause chemical reactions in our brains which can cause a slew of problems inculding brain fog, depression and anxiety. If you want to change your mind, and change your emotional state, you must first eliminate the outside factors that could be causing it. The more drugs (chemicals) that you are on, the harder it is going to be for you to really make any changes. I’d candy coat it and tell you to do it slowly, but why?  Change what you are eating right now, decide that you are going to start being serious about your health, your life, and do something about it. No food is worth the way you are feeling right now.

If you have been reading my site for any amount of time, I don’t need to tell you what the eating part means. Changing what you eat is not the hard part, changing your mind is.

2. Decide that you are worth it.

You have to know that you are worth making these changes. In order to do this you have to decide that your life is worth living, and not just living, but thriving. And I can say for myself, this was the hardest part for me. While I would have never admitted it  I did not think my life was not worth living, my actions showed something very different. The foods I put into my body contradicted my desire to live. All of the chemicals, hormones, junk foods, animal products I was sending into my system just was me not really caring that much about my own body, again I would have never admitted that.. How many people do you know that eat whole foods, plants, veggies and fruits that are just completely depressed and hate life? I think that a lot of us (at least I know I did) used food to punish myself in horrible ways. even if I did not consciously  realize what I was doing, by putting those kinds of foods into my body I was hurting myself, and I was doing that because I really did not care about myself at all.

3. Find people who will support you:

This might be the hardest part of it for a lot of people.Chances are the people that surround you right now were people you chose to be in your life when you were not healthy, or they are your family members, and they are not used to wanting to do things like live and be content. Understand that it  is not their fault if they don’t take well to your choices and your changes. They might even make fun of you or put you down, and they might start to bring up every single study they have heard about on the Today show. Again, it’s important not to get mad at them (although I can’t say that I was good at this in the beginning). Know that these people probably do love you, but that by you deciding to get healthy, and to really care about your life, you might be saying something about them and the way they eat and the way they live their life. I think for most people, they do not want to know that it can be done, and so you might run up against some nasty backlash from people you currently know. Which is why I think finding support is so importnat.

Get on blogs, twitter, meetup groups, and find some new friends and support. Find people that are equally as happy when you make tofu scramble in the morning as you are to have made it. This does so much to the progress you will make. The more people you meet and find that are passionate about all of this, the more you will understand and know, and not feel so lonely. For me twitter has been a really great support system. I can write that I tried something new, or that I’m struggling and almost right away I get responses from people who are doing or going through the same thing.

4. CHOOSE

I’ve said this before, but I think that ownership of choice is the most important things we can do. Start putting the words “I AM CHOOSING” before every thing that you do. “I am choosing to take a long walk” or ‘I am choosing to eat this cheese”. Every single that we do is a choice (well almost every thing that we do) but our bodies, are just that OUR bodies. What we put into them, what we feed them, are all of our choices. Same goes for emotions and feelings. What we put into our brains are our choice. If we choose to be in a bad relationship, or if we choose to not watch television, those are all choices, that have good or bad consequences on our minds. Know that the way you are right now is because of a lot of choices you have made. I am not saying that this is completely your fault – there are a lot of people who do not want you healthy. But in the end, they are your choices, and in order to change, you must decided to choose things that are for your life, for your health, and for your emotional state of being.

5. Picture yourself there.

I am a big fan of visualization. Before you start down a path of thinking every thing is just too hard, or that you could never get to the place you want to go, picture yourself there. Picture yourself eating a nice satisfying meal of all whole plant foods. Picture yourself enjoying walking into a resturant with some firends and ordering some veggie sushi, or trying a new raw foods place to eat with some new friends. Picture yourself running a few miles, and how great you will feel. Picture yourself walking into a clothing store and picking out something really hot for that date, or concert, or just because you feel like looking hot.

Picture yourself on a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies…(Sorry, I couldn’t resist)

6.  Know that you have all the strength you need to have to do this.

I don’t care if you are 5 pounds overweight or 300 pounds overweight. You have ever bit of strength to do this, right now. You don’t have to wait till tomorrow, or after the weekend, or after a birthday, holiday or some time off from the kids. You can do this now, today, this very moment. Your health and your mind are yours to do with what you want, and all you need is the power of one step to move yourself forward. Do not worry about the months ahead, think about the choices you will make right now, for your next meal, for what you will do with your time later on tonight. If no one has told you this – you are strong. I know this because there was a time in my life when I thought I was powerless and I thought I was not able to do what I am on my way to doing. A few years ago I would have never thought that I would be reaching the goals that I am, nor that I would feel so good about it, or that it would, in the end be so easy. You are strong, you just have to believe it.

And… as they say.. proof is in the non dairy pudding, right? I posted a photo the other day, but thought I’d post an even more current one (like from today!)

This is me now:

And this is me about 100 pounds heavier: