Body Beautiful – Isabella Rossellini
By Samantha Leith | September 2, 2011
Years ago, I fell in love with this song. I managed to get a copy from Amazon of the original from the Too Wong Fu soundtrack……talk about going back in time. Now I listen to it when I need inspiration, or am feeling a little yuck, so I hope you enjoy this clip I found featuring one of the worlds most beautiful women – ever.
Topics: Celebrities, Inspiration | No Comments »
Feeling fat and yuck
By Samantha Leith | August 24, 2011
Ok, so this afternoon I was seriously down. I have a very very sore hip. I did my tbar or tzone – what ever it is called, a few weeks ago. It never really got better, but today it was excruciating.
So I gave up after 600 metres on the treadmill – best time yet too. I will also point out that it was after 10 minutes on the bike and the stepper. So what happened then?
Topics: Exercise / Training | 2 Comments »
Secret Foodie Files
By Samantha Leith | August 24, 2011
I caught up with my gorgeous friend M (forgot to check if I could use her name) the other night and well she said I inspired her, I say she inspired me. We shared Secret Foodie Files. You know the stories that you pretend to yourself and others aren’t true. The stories where you shamefully eat (or drink) something that you know you don’t need and don’t even really want some times. Then you pretend to yourself that it never happened, or you feel so bad about it, that you end up doing something worse on top!!!
I’ve never shared any of these stories, but I feel ok about sharing a couple now. It’s funny – well not really, but as a woman who battles obesity I have often said ‘no I don’t eat anything extra’. Who the hell was I trying to kid, apart from myself? It’s not like anyone was going to believe me. I haven’t done it always, and I am being honest when I say I didn’t do it all the time, and I absolutely don’t do it now.
When I was pregnant I was a saint. I mean I started and ended my pregnancy at the same weight. I put on baby and lost me. You see I had something so very special to work for – the health of my unborn daughter. It had nothing to do with me sadly. Then as a single mum with a baby I had moments of feeling terrible. There was one particular day where I felt not only was I not good enough to have a partner that wanted me in their life but I had this gorgeous daughter. Now if they didn’t want to be around when she was so wonderful, I must be unbelievably awful. Twisted thinking I know. Years down the track it was the best thing that ever happened. My daughter now as an extended family including a great step mum. But hey, that’s reality and on that day reality didn’t get a mention. Only my twisted thinking did. I had never felt so alone, and how could I share with someone what a crap person / mother / lover I must be? So I turned to food. My old friend that would fill me up and comfort me (sad thing is it never did). So that day when I was at the shops (I walked with the pram so I would feel better) I bought a packet of those marshmallow rocky road biscuits. Thinking I love rocky road, so these must be even better. I managed to leave them in the fridge for awhile, and then I started to nibble. They were awful. I can remember even these years later not liking them. The chocolate was like that cheap stuff that leaves a film in your mouth. It didn’t matter, I devoured the packet during the night, then removed the evidence by putting it in the bin down the road. You see I always had this fear when I had one of these moments that someone would find my rubbish and the truth would be out. How I thought people wouldn’t guess just by the size of my arse is beyond me.
Another time I was going to see my then partner and I was so nervous. I felt sick. Did they still like me? Was tonight the night they were going to tell me it was all over? I had nothing to make me feel like this, it was just my deep down lack of self confidence. Stupid thing was I was going to visit them after a gig with a couple of hundred people and was wearing an amazing frock. So how was I going to manage to get there, and think it was al going to be ok? Eat of course. Now I had nothing to warrant feeling like I did, when I look back, things were going fine for us at that point. I stopped and bought an ice-cream sundae. It was Summer, it would cool me down, it’s dairy and dairy is good for me. I’m in the car, in sequins with an ice-cream sundae. I couldn’t possibly let anyone see me eat it – ah what about the person you just saw in drive by Sam?? So I drove around, with a melting sundae trying to find a spot where no one would see me. I ended up near a park, eating this bloody thing and then had to drive again to find a bin. Just stupid. The whole thing was ridiculous.
How do we learn to do this? Well I think I learnt as a child. When I was sailing for a couple of years with my parents, my mum would give me $10 to buy myself some treats for the next leg of the trip. I would squirrel away these chocolates and bring them out one at a time to eat. Never to share. They were for me in the moments of loneliness or sadness or happiness or some other emotion that I hadn’t yet learnt to be able to communicate. Mum didn’t know that this would stay with me as a habit, and for some people it wouldn’t of.
I have never done the bulimic thing of eating lots and then purging. It’s always just been one thing (or a packet over a night or day). These days I won’t let Elodie have food in her bedroom – I’m trying to stick to the habit that food should only be consumed at a table, with conversation or music if you are alone.
Please feel free to share any of your Secret Foodie Files below.
I feel better now, thanx for listening.
Topics: Food Habits (not diets), Mental Health, Sharing your journey, Sometimes Food | 2 Comments »
No Pole Dancing For Me
By Samantha Leith | August 14, 2011
No pole dancing for me this month. Yeah!!!!! I’ve managed to get under the 124kg mark. I’ve lost 7.94% of my body weight…yeah me. 42.62% to go. That doesn’t seem so scary.
And I was scared. I was panic stricken that after working so hard this month the scales would not be my friend and I would have to go pole dancing. Arhgghgg. I would have been a heffalump in a leotard trying (unsuccessfully) to hold her body weight onto a moving pole. There were just so many places it could go wrong and so much embarrassment to be had that I was just not going to go there.
It made me think though….if I had worked hard, and not made my target, I would have had to face the consequence – but it would have felt like I was being cruel to myself as I had tried to hard. The merry-go-round would have continued.
So this month, I’m not making my goal about the kilos, I’m making it exercise focused, and then the kilos will happen. I currently do a km in 10 minutes with a combo of running and walking and by the 13th of September I will be able to do it in 8 minutes.
Now for the consequence of not working hard enough to get there……well, I’m taking the hint from my trainer and putting it out there for my friends to help me with. What do you think I should do / have done etc?
The reward for doing it, is going to be getting my make up freshened up. I think my look belongs somewhere in the early noughties and has got to go.
So what about my head this week? Well I’m still stuck in body delusion I think. I held up a dress today that I wore about 9 years ago. Was I that thin, really? I have always thought of myself as fat, but that dress proves otherwise. Amazing, the tricks our minds play. I mean, I have thought I looked good at points (in a dark room with lots of make up and the lights behind me), but I have never thought I was slim. Not even a size 12 Witchery dress had me convinced. Maybe the pole dancing at 70kgs will.
So I’ve lost just under 10kgs, yet this week I have had one of the fuggliest weeks I can remember. I have felt fat and uncomfortable in everything. Then I caught a glimpse of myself today in Westfield at Centrepoint, and I looked pretty good. Then I looked at the shops surrounding me and realised that even if I had an unlimited clothes expense account, there were not many shops I could buy clothes in. I’m over that. I want to be able to walk into any shop I like, and be able to try and buy. I want to be able to wear all my gorgeous shoes and not feel like hot pokers are being stuck into my calves and the balls of my feet.
I was at the movies on Friday night, saw Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes with my friend Robby. Now with movies, comes habits. Mine being an ice cream. Not tonight Josephine I say to myself. So I sit in a packed theatre with my no sugar, no fat, no carb small packet of lollies (rhubarb flavour supposedly) and my water. I watch as people around me consume chips, ice creams, lollies. I listen as the packets rustle. I smell the twisties on one side and pringles on the other side of me. Then just in time the snack cart comes in. Thanx guys. Wasn’t I strong enough walking past the snack bar? Now you have to put temptation in the theatre!!!! I was strong. Enjoyed the movie, without indulging and lived to have a great day on the scales. Has one visit broken the habit of a lifetime. I hope so. I didn’t really miss the ice cream.
The movie wasn’t much plot wise, unless you count the fact that they have left it wide open for a sequel. What was amazing was the CGI animals. WOW. My brother who unfortunately passed away last year was Down-syndrome, and there is the main chimpanzee in this movie who made me think of him. The way he held out his hand. The way his communication was great, even if some of it was just with eye movements and body gestures. Then he lay down and the way his body moved was just, well, it was Paulie. If there was ever an argument about evolution, that answered it. That has absolutely nothing to do with my battle with the bulge, but I wanted to share. Paulie always called me ‘Big Sam’. Even at my smallest, it was how he saw me. He was pure love. Very cheeky and had the most amazing smile. He died at nearly 59, which was amazing.
We need to take lessons from people like Paulie. That life is great. Even on the crap days with the bills piling up, life is great. We live in an amazing country, we all have incredible opportunities at our doorstep, and we are fortunate enough to be able to live life on our terms (well most of us). I made the decision earlier this year to be grateful. Even if I felt like shit and thought the walls were closing in on me. I am grateful. I take full responsibility for what my life is, where I am and where I want to go. Crap may happen around me, but it’s what I do with that crap that is my doing. I stuck to habits that were going to kill me, I chose to eat an ice cream every time I went to the movies and I chose to read a book not go to the gym.
My body is the metamorphosis of how I saw myself in the past, present and then future. Not anymore. My body is the vessel that will allow me to follow my dreams. Dreams that I will not go for if I continue to live in a body that makes me feel unworthy. A body that gives me an excuse not to try. A body that lets me hide from real relationships, and accept crap relationships (and in the past meaningless sex) because that’s what it felt allowed to have. I have a sign on the back of my front door “I give myself permission and approval to be who I am and who I want to be”. I don’t think I’ve every truly done that in the past, so it’s part of the new Sam. This new Sam (who is really me), may piss some people off, may encourage others and may disappoint a few, but none of that really matters. What matters now to me is that I approve of me, I don’t piss myself off and I encourage myself. What more can I ask of myself?
Oops, another long post. Someone suggested to me the other day, that I write more frequently, so I don’t do these mammoth outpourings….so this week I will try. No promises though.
Here’s to a great week full of healthy life choices and a dash of craziness (it’s good for the soul).
Topics: Appearance, Consequences, Goals, Mental Health, Punishments, Rewards, Sharing your journey | No Comments »
Spatz Band
By Samantha Leith | August 9, 2011
So the nasty Sam popped up in my head and told me I should be disappointed with my weight loss so far. Hang on. Wasn’t that weight ‘loss’ not weight ‘gain’?? Come on brain could we not be happy that the numbers are at least going down.
I was feeling crushed, after 2 weeks of being so good with food choices, no booze and exercise that I had only ‘lost’ a kilo. I’m still not sure where those kilos go by the way. You go to sleep with one number and 24 hours later you have another number. Where did it go? If I lost a bag of flour or a bottle of milk while I was shopping, I would notice that it had gone, yet I can lose a kilo and it just vanishes. I could get all – well that’s just my reality, but the universe is showing a different one etc, but I won’t.
What I did do was look as gastric banding again as an option. I just did a google search to jump in some forums about it, because I was feeling like the next option was to drastically reduce my portion intake. So there’s me searching away and I came to a thing called the ‘Spatz Band’. Now this is a balloon that sits in your tummy rather than surgically changing the size of your stomach. I liked the sound of this as I am a firm believer in not going under the knife if you can avoid it. So I read up and read up – you know me, like to over think things, and decided to go along for a chat.
I met this lovely doctor, who has himself had it put in and lost about 10kgs. He gave me the good and the bad of it. Apparently it’s horrible for the first few days and after that if you overeat your burping will clear the room. Gross!!!! We went over what I have been doing and how much weight I have lost (6.5kgs), and he told me not to waste my money. He said I sounded motivated enough, working on the head stuff, exercising, and watching my food intake. He said that if I hadn’t lost any, or was too unmotivated to exercise then it is a great thing to give me a kick start. So not only did I come out of there, not spending money, but I felt better about what I have achieved. Gotta have that external validation still I see.
I’ve had a pretty good week this week. The gym has opened up next to our place, so I have been doing extra exercise. I’m sickness and injury free – and it’s going to stay that way. I have had a couple of sugar craving madness moments. But I have only caved in twice and not badly. A little bit of red licorice one night and some dark chocolate with hazelnuts another night. The naturopath (Claire at the moment) has changed my tonic and added something to help with sugar cravings so hopefully this will get better.
I haven’t had coffee since Friday – and I’m usually a 2-3 cup a day girl, but after being told I would need to drink an extra litre of water for every shot of coffee, I thought – let’s see if we can give this a miss shall we. I already feel like I slosh when I walk, and I’m drinking about 3 litres. There are arguments for and against coffee and weight loss, but as I like to have a sugar or some stevia in it, I think I’m better off going without in the meantime. I’m drinking Dandelion Root Tea to try and help with my liver, etc etc and it’s ok to drink. I just make it a nice experience with a gorgeous pot, cup and saucer.
We had a kids party on Sunday. Now if you are like me and use a kids party as an excuse to have a cheezel, a cupcake and one of those gorgeous macarons that Kasey gets for her kids parties then this is a confronting event. I did try to bail and do the Bay Run, but after Kasey told me how many kids were going to be there, I thought I couldn’t just leave Elodie there, and I wanted to be there to help in anyway I could – I just needed to be strong!!!! Besides they always have the best kids parties, so I didn’t really want to miss it. Now this was a Masterchef party, so 40+ kids made small pizzas and decorated cup cakes. I ended up having 2 pieces of ham and cheese pizza, lots of strawberries, mineral water and 1 cheezel. When the cake was done my gorgeous daughter was getting some and I said none for me. She politely told me (and anyone standing close by) that I had eaten enough sometimes food with the pizza, so I wasn’t able to eat any cake. See I’m training her well!!! I think / hope / all of the above.
We had lunch at a friend on Saturday and I had some pasta for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I could feel what it did to me. I was hungry later in the afternoon, I felt bloated and sleepy later on also. I love pasta, but I am trying not to eat it. So by the end of the weekend when I had consumed some pasta and the pizza, I felt like crap. I didn’t go over my calorie goals for either day, as I cut back on other things, but I could really feel what it did to my body. WOW. I am starting to listen to my body and it feel enlightening. This has got to then mean it will be ‘lightening’. hahaha.
Topics: Exercise / Training, Food Habits (not diets), Fun Stuff, Naturopaths, Social, Sometimes Food | No Comments »