Continuing the Story

I haven't posted anything here in just over a year - which is when I had my skin removal surgery and posted the night-before video. Rather than apologize or make excuses, I'm just going to start posting again now.

I recently participated in an incredible 14-day mindset/body-love/active acceptance challenge called the Bikini Rebellion. This was conceived and led by the amazing Neghar Fonooni, she of "Eat, Lift and Be Happy". During this challenge, Neghar would email with a topic each day, on which we Bikini Rebels could reflect, and - if we wanted - journal and post about it on Instagram with the hashtag #bikinirebellion.

These 14 days were life-changing for me. I gained so much perspective, and I found an incredible community of supportive and amazing badass women. I also loved the journaling aspect, and wrote some things that I want to post here as well.  One of those posts was around the theme "My body has a story, and that story is mine alone to tell." For that day's post, I wrote the chapter of my body's story that picks up right after my skin removal surgery and goes through to where I am now. I think that's the perfect way to pick up this blog again. So here it is. :)

#bikinirebellion Day 4. First I want to say how incredibly moved, affected, inspired, empowered, overwhelmed-with-gratitude I am for this movement. @negharfonooni – you are a life-changer. THANK YOU.

So, today’s InstaChallenge: “Tell us your body’s story! Your story is yours alone to tell.”

I have to laugh, because I was so on-fire with inspiration from all you awesome #bikinirebels that I posted twice to yesterday’s challenge, and the second post was a photo documenting the first two photos posted here today. However, the “after” photos in yesterday’s post (the middle ones above) were taken just over a year ago, shortly before I had surgery to remove the excess skin around my midsection that came with losing half of my body weight. I haven’t updated my “Then/Now” photo since that surgery. That’s the part of my body’s story that I want to tell for today’s challenge.

A year ago, at the time that middle photo above was taken, I had lost so much weight. So much body fat. I’d been in a caloric deficit for 3 years. Never starving myself – just always in deficit. And consistently training – be it with weights, or for races up to and including a half-marathon – for the entirety of that time in deficit. So I was in pretty much my leanest physical shape ever. And that left an amount of skin around my midsection that was very uncomfortable, and limiting. There was so much skin hanging off the front of my body that for every single workout I did, I had to wear Spanx that covered from just below my bra to my midthigh. I needed that much compression in order to be able to workout. Every time. I wish there’d been a way for me to get rid of that skin through nutrition and exercise, because that’s how I’d lost the weight. But there wasn’t. So I had the skin removal surgery.

I shot a video of all the extra skin the night before my surgery, and went into detail on my thoughts on my body’s changes, and my decision to have surgery. I also talked about how I loved my body right at that moment – extra skin and stretch marks and all. Here's the link to that video, if anyone would like to see it.

So after the surgery, I spent 3 months recovering, with only walking as exercise, and only during the third of those months. I had been careful nutritionally, but I was also eating more calories, because I knew at that time my body needed to be fed well to heal. I lost strength, and muscle, and that was expected and fine. But I didn’t update my “Then/Now” photo. I wanted to wait until I had time to get back to the iron and build some muscles back up.

The program I chose to do that was actually Neghar's amazing kettlebell program, "Lean & Lovely" and it was fantastic. Within a couple of months, #LnL had me back to that level of pre-surgery leanness. And yet I didn’t update the “Then/Now” photo at that time either. I remember thinking that I wanted to be “just a little bit better”. So silly.

After that, I decided to try a bulking program, and I had difficulty adjusting to caloric surplus. In hindsight, I should have spent more time at a maintenance level, and learned what that felt like. I’d spent so long in deficit, and had gotten so good at it, and a gradual approach would have been smarter. But I was hot in pursuit of the next challenge. I love my go-get-it-ness; I am a woman of action. In this particular case, my enthusiasm meant that I put on some bodyfat with the muscle. I’m not upset about that – it’s just this part of my body’s story. I’ll lean out again if and when that’s what I decide to pursue.

And that’s where I am now in the story, and I decided that my Then/Now photo should reflect that – and so I took the photos on the right above. Yes, I have a softness to my body right now. And I also have great posture, and visible musculature and a sweet, sweet booty. :) ***Please*** notice that I said "AND", not "BUT". I'm not quantifying good parts and bad parts because they're ALL good parts. There is no part of me that is bad. I was very, very sad for a very, very long time when I catalogued good and bad parts. I have no "bad" parts. I'm a rockstar. I'm a motherfucking superhero.

Even before my surgery, I already was so happy and in love with what my body can do, so none of that cataloging of parts and pieces has seemed important anymore. I want to spend my time and energy on other things. I want to keep being able to do with this amazing body whatever it is that I feel moved to pursue. I will always have stretch marks. And now I will always have scars. And I give exactly zero fucks about either. Truly. To clarify, I’m not saying that nothing about my body ever causes me to give fucks. But stretch marks and scars are not among those things. They are my badges of honor. They boldly document my journey from self-hate and unhappiness to self-love, and acceptance, and empowerment, and JOY. 

Because that’s what it’s about. I use my body to pursue things that give me joy. That joy sometimes means pursuing feats of strength with determination, sometimes it means pursuing relaxation, and family time, sometimes it means working on personal growth... And lots of other pursuits of joy. During each of those times, I know my body's appearance will reflect each pursuit. Sometimes it will be leaner. Sometimes it will be softer. That fluctuation is barely a footnote in what I want to be the story of my life.

There's so much freedom found in just letting go and enjoying the ride.

#loveyourself #youdeserveit #eatliftandbeHAPPY #becausemuscles #transformation #bikinirebellion

Beginning :)

I have always loved beginnings - they stir feelings of hope and determination and possibilities for greatness. Like I'm *really* excited about starting this site - and I chose today for the first post because it's the 3-year anniversary of another beginning for me.  

March 21, 2011 was my Day 1. (Of course, it wasn't my first Day 1, not by a long shot. Like pretty much every chronically overweight-to-obese person, I started over many times - I'd find a way to lose some weight, and then eventually I'd always fall off the wagon and gain it all back - and then some.) And there I was, on March 21, 2011, after a dangerously unhealthy number of "and-then-some"s, promising myself that this was going to be the time that I was really going to lose the weight - all of it - and lose it for good. That morning, I took these photos:

Even though I never planned to share them, I still couldn't bear to allow my face in the frame. It was so hard to look at myself like that.

I weighed 333 pounds.

*shudder*

That's a really whole lot of pounds. That's a Biggest-Loser/Extreme-Makeover:Weightloss-Edition lot of pounds. 

I was certainly diabetic, but I wasn't treating it, because I was too ashamed to go to the doctor and have a physical. I couldn't face an actual, official diagnosis. But I had started to feel tingling in my toes, and I knew what that meant. And it terrified me.

Because my Dad is a Type 2 diabetic. And right at about the time I started feeling tingling in my toes, he started losing his. Diabetes is a motherfucker, you see, and once it gets bad, it gets *really* bad. My Dad had burned his feet on the hot sand at the beach, and one of them just wouldn't heal. It got infected, and it got worse, and then they started cutting off his toes. Eventually, he lost his leg to the knee, and then they amputated most of the other foot, too. And in the middle of this, his kidneys failed, and he started on dialysis, and to this day, he's still waiting for a kidney transplant.

He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when he was 40 years old. And on March 21, 2011, I was less than a year away from my 40th birthday, I was 333 pounds, and my toes were tingling. I remember thinking that I was running out of time.

Three Years Later - Today: March 21, 2014: The 3-Year Anniversary of Day 1. This morning, I took these pictures:

Here, I'll save you the scrolling:

Over 155 pounds separates the 2 sets of photos, but truthfully, that's the smallest piece that's changed between Day 1 and now. On Day 1, I saw my body as a prison that I would never be able to escape, and I saw myself as weak and gluttonous and undisciplined and lazy. On Day 1, I was overflowing with shame, and regret, and unhappiness, and my weight was a reflection of that.

Today, on the 3-Year Anniversary of Day 1, I'm now the happiest person I know. Healthy and fit, yes, but more than that - I'm *free*. I thought I was on a journey to weight loss through nutrition and exercise, but what I actually found was a roadmap for living a life of power, peace and joy. Turns out I'm not weak - I'm a real-life Superhero. And my body is no prison - it's a motherfucking Rocketship. :)

I did it all through healthy eating and exercise. No weight-loss surgery, no appetite-suppressants, or fat-burners, or any other pill or potion. I lost the first 100 pounds in less than 7 months, and I did it exercising on my own, without joining a gym. By the time I'd been at it a year, I had lost 146 pounds. And in the 2 years since then, I've learned to turn a yo-yo-dieting cycle into a maintainable healthy lifestyle. 

Now I'm on a mission to help others transform, too. I know that I've collected valuable insights and experiences along the way - about nutrition, and cooking, and calories vs. macros; about bodyweight exercises, and cardio, and lifting heavy weights; and most importantly, about recovery from food addiction, and finding lasting motivation, and finally allowing self-forgiveness. This site is for sharing those things that I've learned - the "how-I-did-it"; not just recipes and workouts, but also about how I made all of the physical-emotional-mental changes, and how I made them stick. 

It's an exciting new beginning. 

:)

Amy

Happy Superhero, Fit Rocketship 

     

That Time I Ran a Half-Marathon (October 7, 2012)

*I originally posted this on my Facebook page, the day that I ran the Diva Half-Marathon. I'm posting here, unedited.*

I ran a half marathon today. The whole thing. I've only ever completed a 10K race before, and I only got up to 7 miles in my training for this event before the summer heat and life's happy distractions derailed my training schedule. So I was definitely not conditioned for this, but I decided to participate and do my best, and probably walk a good deal of it.

At the start, I thought I'd run the first 5K or so, and then switch to run/walk intervals. Once I finished that distance, I decided to go a little further and shoot for 5 miles running. Then half the race. Then I thought I'd aim to best my previous longest run of 7 miles. Then I figured it would be awesome if I could run 10 miles. And then... I just decided that I was going for the whole damn thing.

My knee started to ache a bit around mile 5, and by mile 10 it was truly painful. But by then I was too close to give up, so I used the long-sleeved underarmour shirt that was tied around my waist as a knee brace, tied around my leg at the knee for some makeshift Macgyver'd support. And through sheer will and determination, I gritted my teeth and kept going, ignoring the pain as best as I could, and counting off the remaining miles.

When I came around the last curve and saw the finish line, I was surprised by how emotional I became. I started crying, and that's how the photographer snapped my image as I crossed the line - arms raised in triumph, my shirt wrapped around my knee, and tears on my cheeks.

13.1 miles. Wow.

I guess I really *can* do anything I set my mind to.