I mean, I’m sayin’. I’m workin’ on it, but who regularly sticks their head in the lion’s mouth without expecting to be bitten every now and again?

For Mothers’ Day 2010, I rushed out and bought a vase, some red stones, lots of red ribbon and red and pink food coloring. My daughter picked out a bunch of silk flowers (my mother, who loves plants, hates floral arrangements because “They die. I’own need dyin’ stuff around me.”) and together, we made an awesome little floral arrangement.

Hidden inside, were three “cake pops,” made of red velvet cupcake and homemade cream cheese frosting.

Do they take a while? Yep. But when I tell you they were worth every single bite, were filling, and made everyone happy? Believe me.

So… my Mothers’ Day gift to you… is my red velvet cake pop recipe. Enjoy!

1 cup organic flour
1 cup sugar
1tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 & 1/2tsp vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1oz red food coloring
(if you’re cake ballin’, you’ll need some fondant/gum paste… you’ll have to follow the instructions on your package to determine how much you’ll need)

For the cream cheese frosting:

1 8oz pkg of cream cheese
1/3 cup of butter
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Note: If you’re making the cake pops, you’ll need to visit a hobby store and pick up these. If you’re going to do it the way I did, you’ll also need these, this and these.

Pre-heat your oven on 350 degrees. Pull out all of your cream cheese frosting ingredients, and let them sit and warm up a bit. (I put them in a bowl on top of the oven to help melt a little more.)

Spray your cupcake pan with a little non-stick spray or oil.

Blend all of your wet ingredients in one bowl, except for your food coloring.

In a separate bowl, blend your dry ingredients.

Combine both bowls and your food coloring, blending out any lumps or air bubbles.

Pour in your cupcake mix, filling each one only about half way.

Shove it in the oven. Give it about 20 minutes before you check on ‘em – you should be able to stick a toothpick in the center of your cupcake and have no cupcake stick to it when you pull it out.

If you’re only making cupcakes, then you’re done. Those of you out there who are cake ballin’, we’ve got a long way to go.

Pull your cupcakes out of the oven, drop them out of the pan, and let them sit until they’re cool to the touch. You might even put them in the fridge for a while. You’ll be reusing this cupcake pan, so be sure to clean it out.

Take 6 of your cupcakes, and break them into crumbs. (The horror!)

At this time, mix up your cream cheese frosting. Take about a third of your frosting, and dump it into about half of your crumbs. Blend them up together until you have a really thick, but still somewhat smooth mix. Slowly add more crumbs to the mix. You want it to be malleable enough to stick together, but you don’t want it to be all cream cheese, either.

Take your lollipop sticks and your cupcake pan, and get them ready next to your crumb and cream cheese bowl.

Start ballin’! Grab yourself a handful of the mixture, and roll it into a doughy ball with your hands. Stick ‘em on top of your lollipop stick. Hopefully, yours will look a little better than this:

Sit it, stick-side-up, in the cupcake pan.

(This is a lot of work, ain’t it? Sheesh…)

After you make the ones you want, go ahead and sit them in the freezer.

Grab the rest of your cream cheese frosting, and drop a little food coloring in there. Mix in about two tablespoons of gum paste in your frosting, and give it about 10 minutes to sit. The paste will thicken the frosting to the point where it won’t be as runny.

Get your pops out of the freezer, and one by one, start coating ‘em up.

I used a spoon to help coat the very tops of my pops. Once fully coated, put it back in the cupcake pan.

Repeat until your stuff looks like this:

Once coated, stick ‘em back in the freezer, and let ‘em hang out for a few hours. Above, you’ll see my pops post-freezing.

Then, you can get creative with ‘em and use your wrapping, your ribbon, your whatever-you-want.

So… after all that work, you get a very rich, very yummy recipe that will possibly fill your belly and remind you why you shouldn’t eat sweets so often. All that sugar? I mean, of course you’re not going to eat the entire batch (or are you? Ha!) but baking is something you do out of love… not boredom. Love wouldn’t compel me to bake with this much effort that often! Ha! And aside from the fact that there IS a lot of sugar in the entire recipe, there’s a lot of real food – not chemicals – in it, as well. You will be full after one pop. Don’t be compelled to overindulge… or you will feel it later. I promise.

I love baking, but there are maybe four times a year when I do major baking – Homecoming, Mothers’ Day, my daughter’s birthday and the winter holiday season. My mother, who I’ve been putting through the nutritional ringer as of late, has deserved every hour of hard work I put into these and enjoyed every bite. I hope you enjoy, as well.

Many thanks to The Kitchn for the tip! And their pictures are WAY better than mine!

How I “Secretly” Enjoy Red Velvet Cake is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Weekend WTF: The Origin of The Kwanzaa Cake Revealed

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Post tags: desserts, recipe, sweets

How does it feel? (I’d cue D’Angelo here, but I’m gonna respect the fellas who visit the site. For now.)

I’ve got to tell you… the closer to “the source” I eat, the better off I am. The better I feel. The more energetic I feel. I feel like I’m living… as opposed to grabbing a 900 calorie slice of cheesecake and shrugging it off with, “You only live once.” I live through living… not eating.

My first venture off into living cleaner actually started around this time in 2009. Recognizing that limiting the things in my life that seemed to control me, as opposed to me controlling it… it helped me feel free. Like I could live without spending my day floating from vice to vice. I wasn’t making lunch and thinking about dinner. I wasn’t making dinner and scoping out the freezer for dessert.

I spent months – months – trying to scope out a plan that worked best for me. I spent time as a raw vegan which, while I felt wonderful and very well may go back to that lifestyle, I wanted to know if my body was responding poorly to meat altogether or if it was something in the way I was cooking that was causing my body to pack on the pounds. So, I slowly started adding back dairy and meat to my diet. That’s when I realized… I was always stalled when I indulged in foods of the “manufactured” nature.

Running the challenge during this week is not only valuable because the challenge prep ran during Earth Week, but because it signifies the 1 year anniversary of when I learned how to eat like I had some sense. That was also well over 100 pounds ago. I learned that if I couldn’t afford the time needed to cook scalloped potatoes from scratch, I probably shouldn’t have them. If I couldn’t afford the well-kept and healthy beef, I probably shouldn’t have any… which is fine, because the last time I had red meat was a few years ago in high school. Life is simplified. I value and appreciate that, now.

As we make it through day 6, I hope that day 7 is that much easier for you: that your sugar cravings are lessened, your creativity in creating delish dishes has expanded, and your portion sizes reflect what you’re actually wanting to eat… not just what’s in the box or what was in the pan.

So, baby, let’s cruise…  – sorry, can’t help the D’Angelo references – into day 7 and enjoy another day living, loving, and eating clean! Tell me – how does it feel? Struggling? Coasting? Slippin’ up? Let’s hear it!

Day 6: Coasting Into Day 7 is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, motivation

…the scale.

Oh, the horror.

As I’ve said… I’m a proponent of “fit,” not thin. So… I make a big deal about lifting weights. I mean.. a big… big deal.

I get e-mails asking me if I’ve mourned my lost curves, and the reality is that no, I didn’t have to hold a funeral survice for my curves. I’ve still got great ones. I work hard for ‘em, and I love what my hard work has produced.

Truthfully… the scale feels like a car crash in slow motion every time a weight lifting woman steps on the scale. The pressure to continually see the numbers decrease coupled with the desire to actually build muscle in a respectable fashion is… difficult to handle, to say the least.

That being said… let me offer up Exhibit A:

You'll just have to deal with my 'fro... long time readers already know how I am with my hair. LOL

I weigh more in the picture on the right… than I do in the picture on the left. Why?

Muscle!!!

Listen…. if you are a weight lifting woman, let me tell you something. A cube of muscle that is an inch tall, an inch long and an inch wide…. weighs almost twice as much as a cube of FAT that is an inch tall, an inch long and an inch wide. If you don’t believe me? Visit a butcher at a grocery store and ask them. Think of the last time you chopped a chunk of fat off of a piece of meat, and think of the last time you chopped a chunk of muscle off of a hunk of meat. You and I both know which weighs more.

So, as a weight-training woman, why would you torture yourself with the scale?

In the comparison photos above, there’s almost a 15% difference in my body fat. Yes: My body fat, on the left, is approximately 38% on the left; on the right, it’s approximately 22%. That means that approximately 22% of my weight is comprised of fat. I’m okay with that progress, because I’m still progressing.

And speaking of progress, just because I know some will want to see a real comparison…

No, I don’t mourn the curves I had… ’cause I’m still perfecting the curves I’ve got!

As someone who is serious about her weights, I’m abstaining from the darn scale. Who’s with me?

Photo Proof: The Stupid Scale Doesn’t Matter is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Refuse To Be A Slave To The Scale
2. Q&A Wednesday: Why Does Body Mass Index (BMI) Matter?
3. Rapper, Fat Joe, Loses 100lbs: “Scale Couldn’t Even Measure My Weight”

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 60 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: body fat percentage, fat loss, scale, weight lifting, weight loss, weight training

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of someone sending me this blog post regarding sexual harassment (or catcalling, as it is so lovingly called) on the street. It uses some extremely adult (and, in some cases, offensive) language, but I don’t believe that this means her point is any less valid. Go read it.

No, really. I’ll wait.

I want to highlight one passage from the post in particular:

Often times, the response is simply ‘oh, well’, the woman shouldn’t be walking down the street ‘like that’. Or she should expect to be harassed based on the way her body is built. Or that a woman should ‘appreciate’ the attention, as if a blatant sexual comment from a stranger is something to be desired. There are the occasional few who are capable of empathy and do go on to recognize how their behavior may be undesirable. Some simply say they are mocking what they see other men do. I ask do the women respond favorably and I know they don’t. So I wonder what makes Black men think this behavior should be perpetuated.

I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being considered community property just because some men think my skin color makes me a member of a secret harem and I owe them the time of day and some pussy and a blow job.

I want to be invisible. My daughter now dresses in boy clothes. Her sexuality has been a topic people feel they have the right to speak on ever since she was 5 years old and learned to dress herself.

No one asks why my daughter dresses to hide her gender; why she wears layers upon layers of clothes; why she wants to be invisible. She’s had to see me be harassed in the street her entire life. Why would she want to be seen?

Since we’re all coming out of hiding and keeping it real… I’ll go ahead and do the same. I am a victim of sexual harassment.

As a young girl in Cleveland, our childhood environment was full of kids going out of their way to be little adults. I can’t tell you the number of kids joining gangs, carrying knives and guns, cursing, making their dolls have sex, playing hide-and-go-get-it (please, don’t ask), and goodness knows what else I knew. There were some girls who loved that kind of attention (those girls also, by and large, became Mothers at an early age), but it made me uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable, simply because it was always taken too far… and it’s not a far leap from harassment to assault in a heightened situation. Gaining weight felt like solace to me… the more weight I gained, the less attractive I would be, the less likely I’d be to be harassed on the street.

It was strange because, by a stroke of luck, my parents decided to pack up and move us to Indiana. Actually, the best high school in the state… devoid of diversity yet full of girls who were thin, blonde and nothing like me. I didn’t feel like I was in competition with them for boy attention, not because none of them liked Black girls – that wasn’t true – but because I was too busy trying to be invisible to the attention I expected to get. They were competing with one another for the same group of boys.. meanwhile I was on my own just trying to hide.

Once I left for college, I was in a much more diverse environment. I wasn’t really ready for dating, didn’t know much about men, so I experienced my fair share of “college dating woes.” However, I had developed this unhealthy ability to hide who I was within what I ate. I had already learned how to not pay attention to my body or what I was doing to it. I had already gotten used to not being paid attention to – it was what I wanted. I learned a cycle of dysfunction that centered around not wanting attention… and had become so used to it that I couldn’t see what was wrong with it.

Obviously, since I have a child, I was able to (hopefully) date and procreate with someone, right? Of course, I eventually found a man who “loved me for who I was, not my outside appearance.” Keep that in mind. The relationship lasted a few years, but has since dissolved. I dated once more after that, but that was it. Right before that ended, I began to focus on my mental and physical health… and while I get that together, I’ve made the decision to remain celibate.

Now, as a single parent tasked with teaching my child all the things I was unable to learn about myself and my health and my body , I’m left with questions and assumptions that may not be easy to discuss… but I can assure you that they’re not easy to write.

First, I cannot help but wonder if this explains the disconnect between Black women and our bodies – the fact that a large number of us went out of our way to stop paying attention to our bodies because we were too busy trying to make ourselves less appealing to harassers. Furthermore, I notice that there’s a lot of discouragement during the ages where young girls are supposed to be learning about and understanding their bodies… to do exactly that. I wonder if we are, in a roundabout way, encouraging harmful behavior in our daughters because we are trying to discourage male attention… and beyond that, sexual harassment and assault?

I’ve been raped and assaulted; because I refused to acknowledge and accept a Black man’s advances. There are women who have been gunned down in the street because they refused to play along with a Black man’s attempt at flirting.

I’ve been called every combination of whores, bitches, cunts and skank.

I’ve been accused of, asked and requested to do any of a number of things with my body.

I’ve been threatened with sexual assault repeatedly by people I don’t know and who may or may not have been capable or willing to go through with their threat.

I’ve been spat on.

I’ve been hit.

I’ve been groped.

All after declining the verbal advances of a random Black man on a corner/block/street/ in a town that doesn’t much matter.

Think about that. How well can you relate to that? How prevalent do you think this is? How prevalent do you think this is where the majority of our young girls are being raised?

Secondly, if we spend so much time trying to discourage male attention, when are we teaching our daughters how to handle any male attention? I mean, I’m in the business of raising healthy young women. I want her to know how to, in one hand, appreciate a compliment while, in the other hand, being able to acknowledge unwanted attention. I want her to know that one has absolutely nothing to do with her, while the other has everything to do with someone acknowledging the beautiful person she is.

Really, I want to get into some good ol’ feminist theory and ask why it is easier for us as women to put ourselves through this than it is to correct the behavior of the men… or perhaps ask why no one sees this as another devaluation of Black girls and women (saying that it’s easier for a Black woman to just not “look that way” – you know, the way that we are genetically inclined to look -  than it is to just raise our boys better)… or maybe even ask how it became a mainstream principle that women were objectified and their respect came secondary to a man’s gratification… but I recognize that this post didn’t set out with that in mind.

I also want to know why we seek out men who will “love us for who we are,” as if we, in a way, are afraid of a man actually appreciating how we look. Or are we unable to understand that a man can healthily appreciate a woman’s appearance without objectifying her? Orrrrr do we simply not want to be held accountable for our appearance, so we want a man who won’t hold us accountable for it? I mean, let’s keep it real – any person who stays with us stays with the desire to love us for who we are… that’s a default. Why don’t we want more than that? Why is it so wrong to ask for more? Ingrained devaluation?

Can I also see if anyone else sees this as blaming the “victim?” If we’re allowing ourselves to “hide” the beautiful people we are because we’re afraid of something we shouldn’t have to endure in the first place? We’re blaming ourselves for the crap happening in the first place… instead of placing the blame on the perpetrators of the harassment. And if we’re trying to keep our daughter from “being fass,” then aren’t we blaming them in advance? Don’t we, really, just perpetuate this idea that women control everything… and men should be held responsible for nothing? Ladies, I know it’s flattering to think that your cupcakes and your ho-ho are that “powerful,” but as you can see… it’s not.

Someday, we’ll have to learn that sexual harassment, much like sexual assault and rape, are about the perpetrator trying to flex their power on the victim. It isn’t about how you look… it’s about the perpetrator going out of their way to reinforce the idea that they have some kind of power over you. What power, you ask? The power that society bestows men by default… but again, that’s feminist theory for you. Again, I know we like to think that we are the center of everything, but really.. this is one of those times where we need to let that go. Taking blame for a man’s bad behavior to the point where we harm ourselves to “avoid it?” As if fat women are never victims of sexual harassment or assault or, dare I say… rape?

Don’t worry – in this post, I am largely speaking of myself. And in my heart of hearts, I believe that I was able to move beyond this mentality because I was forced to – my health was on the line. I had a child to raise alone, and feared not being around to do it. But now that so many of us are succumbing to the disease chain of poor health… will we finally do what we need to do?

Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, & Weight Gain: Facing Facts is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. A Follow Up To Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault & Weight Gain: Facing Insensitivity
2. A Follow Up To Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault & Weight Gain: Outside Perspective
3. My Struggle With Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain

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Post tags: assault, emotional eating, harassment, sexual assault, sexual harassment

This year, that was different. Seeing as how I now live in a new city with my fiance’, and his mother is literally a sneeze away, this became “the opportunity for us to come together as a family.”

Let me translate that for you – that means “you get to cook for my mom.” Yay, I think?

So, it is written. I will be transporting my kit, my groceries, and my skills so that I can throw down that low down self-taught-know-how in NYC. Okay… let’s do this.

Aside from all the fun talk, when I asked what a “Clean Thanksgiving” looks like, I got a few people who made comments similar to “that doesn’t exist.” You sure about that? All it takes is avoiding processed foods and letting nature take care of you as it should. No stress… perhaps a lot of time, but easy on the struggle-life powdered mashed potatoes, though.

I was able to snap a few photos of the day with the new, official BGG2WL camera that will be taking all of our photos from here on out. Trust me… considering what I’ve got in store for the blog, you’ll be glad I’ve got it.

Anyway, once the tea started flowin’…

…it was time to get choppin’…

…and spicin’…

(the prelude to an amazing macaroni and cheese, yes indeed...)

…and dicin’…

…and before you know it, the kitchen starts smelling like a holiday. Cranberry sauce…

…macaroni and cheese…

…collard greens still cooking in the pot…

…and the chicken – not a single solitary person desired turkey on Thanksgiving, and thank goodness – complete with a pot full of dressing…

Let’s just say that there was plenty of food. I’m still getting used to keeping a camera on deck in the kitchen, so I didn’t get to photograph a couple of the dishes – namely my deep dish cinnamon apple pie – before they were ravaged. Either way, everyone was happy and I made a great impression on the future Mama-in-law. Those of you who’ve had to cook for your significant other’s family already know what kind of pressure that can be. One false move, and you’re getting invites to eat dinner at their house. Every. Night. Either that, or Mama’s showing up in your kitchen trying to “show you something.” Naw, I had to let her know that we’re good over here. (Kidding! Sorta. Ha!)

Everything that was in that kitchen was local and made from scratch, except the whole wheat macaroni noodles. Kept it pretty simple, kept it clean, kept it local and it worked out well.

Yes, clean Thanksgivings exist.

Now let me go put together these recipes before y’all beat me up!

Quick Thanksgiving Recap: What We Ate In The BGG2WL House is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. On Enabling Myself: Hiding Junk Food Around The House
2. Erika’s Thanksgiving Swindle
3. Surviving Thanksgiving 2011

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Post tags:

"Sex In Progress?" Nope.. not over here.

If I can talk about stretch marks, cellulite, emotional eating and poop… surely, I can talk about this.

Besides, it’s my blog. C’mon. C’mooooooooon.

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I’m abstinent. That’s right. I’m not having sex. Last time I had sex? Let’s just say the President in office used words like “strategery.”

And in any other context, it’d totally make sense for you to ask me why, on Earth, I’d bring this up on a blog for weight loss and wellness. But today, it’s important.

Why? Because my experience with losing weight has caused my sex drive to increase to such a monumental degree… that if I didn’t put a [chastity] ring on it, I might’ve lost my mind.

Mind you, my decision to remain abstinent had more to do with my desire to spend this time focusing on myself. I’d broken up with the boyfriend I had when I first began, realized that I needed to spend some time being selfish and made my decision to keep my body to myself – literally – for as long as I needed. Undergoing the changes that I’ve endured throughout this time period left me vulnerable emotionally (abandoning emotional eating and trying to find ways to cope with stress that weren’t addictive in nature? very vulnerable) and I think I would’ve either been extremely paranoid of anyone around me romantically, or become emotionally dependent upon them. That’s not fair to anyone. I’ll keep me to myself for the time being.

I first noticed it after about the 50lb mark. I mean, I’ll be honest – part of me was just excited to be able to possibly “do my Beyonce thing someday,” and I figured that I was just feelin’ myself a little bit. No biggie, right? I mean, it’s exciting to recognize that the effort you’re putting through is causing such major changes in your body, and even if you don’t feel physically sexier just yet… you certainly feel empowered. And power is always sexy, right?

At the 100lb mark? It wasn’t just “Oh, I’m empowered! I’m Super Woman! This is sexy!” It wasn’t even “Oh, I’m abstinent so that I can be selfish and focus on myself right now.” It was “Oh my gosh, why am I always horny?! I can’t take this! This can’t be life!” It was obnoxious. Couple that with the fact that at events, men (women?) who haven’t seen you in a while are so in awe of your changes that they want to touch you… and keep touching you? I’ll be honest. It made life rough. Men, who I’ve known for years, would stand near me and insisted on touching me more suggestively than they ever had before… wrapping their hand around me and resting it on my hip – my hip that no longer had a spare tire resting on it and was a nicely-shaped curve – and it took a lot of blinking, deep breathing and thinking-before-I-spoke to keep me from throwing abstinence out the window and ducking away in a damn linen closet somewhere. And did I mentioned the heightened sensitivity you feel in places where you’ve lost weight? Good grief.

I didn’t say I was proud of it. I’m just tellin’ the truth.

At the 150lb mark? I straight up gave up and became a hermit.

I’m kidding… sorta.

I feel like it came in waves. Just when I was getting used to it, another wave would come over me and I’d have to reacclimate to what I was dealing with all over again. It’s not that it got increasingly worse, but if I hadn’t struggled to become accustomed to what my body was feeling? It might’ve felt that way.

Of course there’s a scientific explanation for all this, right? Right.

Let’s talk about sex drive for a minute. Your libido is the thing that makes you want sex. It’s what compels you to want to get down to business. Primarily controlled by testosterone levels in the body, its what gives you the ability to put forth the energy necessary to develop and satisfy a sexual appetite. Men might make way more testosterone, but women are more sensitive to it.

What role does weight play in sex drive?

Men aren’t alone with sex problems caused by poor blood flow. Research shows overweight women’s sex drive and desire are affected by the same problem.

“We are beginning to see that the width of the blood vessels leading to the clitoris [the area of the vagina most closely related to sexual response] in women are affected by the same kind of blockages that impact blood flow to the penis,” says Susan Kellogg, PhD, director of sexual medicine at the Pelvic and Sexual Health Institute of Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia.

When this happens, says Kellogg, a woman’s body is far less responsive, and a drop in desire is not far behind.

Complicating matters further for both sexes: The more body fat you have, the higher your levels of a natural chemical known as SHBG (short for sex hormone binding globulin). It’s aptly named because it binds to the sex hormone testosterone. Doctors theorize that the more testosterone that is bound to SHBG, the less there is available to stimulate desire. [source]

If you listen to Dr. Oz (my personal crush – or is that just my libido talking?) tell it, he’ll say the following:

“The big issue on weight loss, for me, is that it allows your hormones to work the way they’re supposed to. When you have that belly fat that I was showing you earlier, it becomes metabolically alive. It begins to convert hormones. It’ll convert your estrogen levels in the wrong way – which is why it’s associated with different cancers… breast cancer, uterine cancer and the like – but it also does bad things to your testosterone. And women have testosterone, too. Any guy who’s got a big waist, I can guarantee you, begins to have problems with testosterone levels. ‘Cause if your testicles are a normal size, and the testosterone that’s being made by the testicles is being converted by your big belly into estrogen or other things, you don’t have any left. The same goes for women. So one of the surefire ways to re-light the sexual adventures in your life, is to get rid of that belly fat.” [source]

The increase in my sexual appetite was noticeable to me because my entire journey has been about learning, listening to and answering to my body. It was ever-present to me because I noticed that certain things I would do would either remind me of sex or would make me think something sex-related. While I think that can be super duper fun in the right contexts… I certainly think it can also be dangerous, especially for those of us who might be feeling a little insecure with our bodies. Insecurity + an increasingly growing sexual appetite = recipe for disaster: how many times do women do things they eventually regret because someone told them “what they wanted to hear?” Especially when all you want to hear is that you’re “beautiful” and “sexy” and “amazing” and all those other vague words that really excite us for some weird reason? Yeah… no. Nothing worse than having that void to fill, letting empty compliments from strangers fill that void and then being left empty when your stranger decides they can no longer benefit from what you have to offer.

In all seriousness… losing any weight is going to be an awesome experience, but for those of you in committed relationships? Just… tell your mate to get ready. And for people like me, who will be single when they experience those waves of libidoey goodness? Especially those of you who may have a lot to lose as well? Consider taking some time out to learn how to understand and appreciate your new sexual appetite. You’d hate to have someone around who’d simply appreciate how voracious you’ve become, only to decide there’s nothing else to enjoy about you once you’ve “normalized.” Besides, considering how much you’ll be learning about yourself and your body? You might be far too excited by yourself to want to be bothered with anyone else.

No pun intended. I promise. (Sort of.)

Weight Loss… and Your Libido is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story
2. The Math Behind Weight Loss Plateaus
3. Stop Defeating Your Weight Loss Efforts Before You Begin

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Post tags: abstinence, hormones, libido, relationships, sexual appetite, testosterone, the body, weight loss and sex drive, your body

I think people who really have your best intentions at heart are allowed to express their concerns to you about becoming healthier; however, there is a thing called tact! – Chanel

i’d rather not have anyone call me fat except for me. I decide when I need to hit the gym and i decide when and if i am happy with how I look. – Elledub

Honestly, though I may dislike hearing it, I think my family and friends should be allowed to call me fat. I’ll tell you why. As I’ve stated before (maybe not here, but on my blog or Twitter), I didn’t really notice the weight gain. I knew it was creeping up, but I still looked (in my mind) pretty good. When people started making comments, inclusive of a student that had absolutely NO tact whatsoever, I took stock in what they were saying and decided that I needed to do something about it. – Tracy

Honestly, anyone who loves me had better tell me if I’m picking up weight. – Winnie

I wish to God one of my friends or family members had had the courage to tell me I needed to do something about my weight a few years ago. [...] Now that most of the excess weight is gone, everyone is all “OMG, you look great”, but I can’t help but to wish someone had remarked on my weight before. But that’s easy to say on the other side of the fence… – Sister Toldja

I think that “other side of the fence” is a big part of this. As I wrote about the conversation between my Mother and my sister, it’s hard for me to think about what my response would’ve been to someone telling me I was gaining too much weight. I mean, I was a snappy chick… quick to rain jokes down upon the head of anyone who was willing to step to me about my weight. I could only imagine what kind of torrential terrible twenties tantrum fit I might’ve thrown had someone told me that I was any less sexy, dope, amazingly gorgeous, downright stunning and perfect than I believed I was in my own head.

And that’s not to say that being overweight means that I couldn’t be sexy, dope, amazingly gorgeous, downright stunning and perfect. It means that since I saw “fat” as a flaw (and let’s face it, most of us do), having someone remind me of a flaw I was diligently ignoring felt like the chink in my armor turning into a hole. And that’s, well… unacceptable.

I think of the countless times my girls tried to get me to hit the gym with them. My best friend, an avid runner, actually offered to walk with me one day. (Do you know how hard it is to get a runner to slow down for your slow behind?) My mother made side salads for dinner, while making sure that the more calorie-heavy parts of the meal were “all gone” by the time I’d go to fix my plate. Apparently, everyone had something to say… but no one was saying it. Meanwhile, I was gaining weight at a rate of about 20lbs a year.

Am I making that gain everyone else’s fault? Nope. It’s my body, my responsibility to learn how to care for it, and care for it properly. However, what kind of climate was I creating where the people around me couldn’t even tell me – in love and in kindness – that something was going on with me? Couldn’t express their concern for me?

Frankly, I ain’t the one. I can’t afford to be the one.

Let’s say that you and your girls are getting ready to hit a major event. Before you all walk out the door, you check each other out to make sure you’re all looking good. Isn’t the expectation that one of them will tell you if you’re the one looking a mess? We expect our friends to tell us if we’re looking a fool before we walk out of our houses, but they can’t tell us we’ve put on too much weight?

Is it the fact that we, as women, tend to be so objectified – everything has to do with sexuality and sexual appeal – that we’ve equated “you’re gaining weight” with “you’re unattractive?” Are we so used to everything being about attraction, that being told we’re packin’ on the pounds must also be about being attractive (or, in this case, less than attractive?) It couldn’t simply be a “Hey… check on your health.” type situation? It has to be about “cute?”

Or is it the fact that everyone’s threshold is different? Southerners have a different definition of “putting on weight” than Northerners. Miami’s definition is different from Houston. Mississippi wouldn’t understand California. An extra ten pounds vs an extra hundred or so. For someone to acknowledge that I’ve put on the pounds, when “put on the pounds” means “ten pounds” to them? I won’t even lie. They just might get the finger.

I think about myself now. I get at least one comment/email/tweet/anonymous whatever a week calling me a “fat bitch.” I usually laugh, but every now and again I raise my eyebrow and wonder… “Once upon a time, I couldn’t get people I love to tell me I was too big. Now, I’ve got strangers telling me I’m fat? What part of the game is that?” 330lb Erika might not’ve had that reaction. 180lb Erika, however… is tickled.

It goes back to that “other side of the fence” note I made earlier. Looking at the person I am today, I can acknowledge that this is the person I needed to be to get to where I am. Allowing the people I love to feel comfortable addressing my flaws might’ve helped me become this person much earlier on in my life. If I keep them close to me because I trust their influence to make me “better,” why exclude health? Why exclude weight? If the people who love me want to offer me solutions, why not be open to them? What do I have to lose?

And let me clarify.. I’m talking about people who love you. The ones invested in you as a person. The ones who are there for you at your worst. They deserve to be able to help make you better, and enjoy you at your best. We can talk about “haters,” but I fully believe they’re not worth talking about. Nor are they worth thinking about. People who mean you no positivity aren’t worth time or brainspace.

No, really. I mean that. So those family members who insist on spitefully bringing up your weight – the ones you know mean you no earthly good, and usually never have any support to offer you beyond “Yo booty gettin’ kinda big” – you can give them a polite “I’ll take that under consideration,” and change the subject… while mentally giving them the finger.

My plea is just that we not shut out the people who we trust to see the worst of us. Don’t prevent them from helping to develop the best in you: the healthy you! I’m talkin’ about those people who – like my friends (who, I’ll have you know, are still my tried and true friends fat or skinny) – are willing to walk through the fire with you, support you and offer you solutions to help you get to where you want to go. Where you need to go.

This journey isn’t one that we can go on alone. You will always need a support system that will giggle with you at your failures, cheer you on through your successes, and help you learn from both. You trust them to have your back, so trust them to tell you about something you might be overlooking… like your weight. If you love them and they love you (and you know it), give them a chance. They very well may have the answers, resources and support you need.

Be happy, but most importantly… be healthy.

Who Should I Allow To Call Me Fat? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Who’s Allowed To Call You Fat?

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Post tags: blackness, fat, mentality, social eating, stigmas

Why? “The Housewives of Dr. Phil.”

I don’t know how I managed to catch it the first time, but I’ve been hooked ever since… for one particular reason.

The entire episode is nothing more than Dr. Phil himself, in a room with six women: a woman who was cheated on by her husband and has thoughts of killing him; a woman who was so depressed about her weight gain that she spent her entire day in bed beckoning her maid to do everything for her while having an emotional affair with another man; a woman who has a history of verbal abuse (be it from her mother, Mom’s significant others or her own significant others); a woman who could not date to save her life; a fifth woman who is incredibly attractive (at least, to me she is) and, apparently, flaunts it inappropriately; and a sixth woman.

That sixth woman is why I’ve been so interested in this show.

Meet Alana. (Uh-lah-nuh – she’ll feel some kinda way about you saying “Uh-lay-nuh.”) Alana has been overweight her entire life. Alana used to weigh well over three hundred pounds. Alana had gastric bypass surgery, followed up by a few corrective surgeries for clean-up work. I… it’s hard to explain Alana, because in a lot of ways.. she is me. Without question.

She used to be the charming funny girl, feeling like she had to accept everyone because she didn’t want anyone refusing to accept her. Less judgmental because she felt like she didn’t want anyone judging her. There’s also an element of “if I cast my net wide enough, the more people there are that I can claim as friends… I can still be popular even if it’s not because I’m ‘hot’” at play here, as well.

She was traumatized by her peers because of her size. She has a sister close-in-age who was slim at the time, and always felt like she was compared to her in a negative way. I feel like, by watching Alana, you could tell that she always felt some form of pressure to look more like her sister. It’s as if the heat was always on her from family even if they didn’t beat her over the head with it.

Alana and I both share that. I’ve always had jokes (I admit they weren’t always funny, but I sure did always crack ‘em anyway), and I’ve always been non-judgmental. I never considered whether or not it was because I was trying to encourage non-judgmental attitudes around me, though I could see myself fearing someone snapping back at me with “What do you know? You’re fat.”

When I started to gain weight – somewhere around elementary school – I was picked on by my peers, but when I moved… it rarely came up. I was the charming funny girl.

I’m not vocally judgmental like Alana, though – never have been, never will be. I certainly make judgments – we all do – but I avoid verbalizing ‘em. I’m not mean unnecessarily – I do bust out attack mode to protect myself and my daughter, but who else would? – and the phrase “skinny bitch” isn’t in my vocabulary. I never felt threatened by other women, just because I’d always felt like I was in another realm. Attractiveness is a competition – the competition is what encourages you to look better – but I simply never chose to compete.

But damn all that, though. We both lost weight and have new figures to praise. It should be that easy, right?

No. Absolutely not.

I think we take for granted, sometimes, the things we leave tied up in our appearance. As I was telling a friend last night, things change when you lose weight. Whether you want to admit it or not, a lot of our sense of self-value can get tied up in whether or not we look like “the ideal,” and this is especially different for Black girls. Even when we’re built like “the ideal,” we certainly still don’t look like her. Going from being unnoticeable and practically getting away with murder to being much more attractive to many more people and being an attention-getter is difficult. It messes with your sense of self.If you’re not careful, the fact that others value you more because of your appearance will cause you to value yourself differently because of your appearance.

When I look in the mirror, I don’t feel like I’m looking at a different person. In fact, I know I’m not. I’m still active in my community, I’m still Mommy, I’m still giving, loving and accepting. I’m still empathetic. Like, I’m really not that different. But everyone around me changes in ways that I haven’t. It makes it hard to understand who you truly are and whether or not you value the right things about yourself when the people around you insist on acting like you’re someone different because you look different.

Me and my old face

When Alana talks about modeling, I cringe because that’s what I’m dealing with mentally right now. The idea of looking at yourself in the mirror or in a photo and saying “Wow, that’s me?” and being amazed is… it’s something I can’t put into words. Even now, it’s hard for me to embrace and accept that I’ll be standing in front of an audience in a neon pink bikini for a figure competition next year. It’s hard for me to look in the mirror and see such a different face than what I’m used to. It’s hard to understand that these [much, much smaller] breasts, this [much, much smaller] tummy and these [much, much smaller] hips belong to me.

The strange thing about looking in the mirror and “not feeling like I’m looking at a different person” is that I still don’t expect to see a different person. If I’m not careful, I still feel like I’m staring at a stranger in the mirror. It’s hard to not look in the mirror and see the old me… still happy, still overweight. It’s hard for me to understand the life that I have, even though I love it and I live it happily. The connection I have to the old, overweight me and my fear of changing into someone even more different from who I am now (and who I was at 328lbs) makes it difficult for me to see myself at competition level. It’s almost frightening to me.

Me and my "new face" ...because I refuse to take a serious picture.

I think the theme, here, is acknowledging how much of ourselves and our identity is wrapped up in our appearance. How much of who we are is tied up in what we present to our peers? I mean, Alana admits that she was the “jolly fat girl” because her appearance called for it – she didn’t place judgment because she didn’t want to be judged. I can even understand her belief that it’s now her time to judge others and demand that they vy for her attention. (If you are drawing more attention, it only makes sense that you’d use more discernment in who you allow to get close to you. That’s just life.) But all of that was based on her appearance… so perhaps it is inevitable? Perhaps as your appearance changes, so goes your personality?

I reject that. Alana says, “Looking in the mirror, I’m lost.” I think that’s key. If you are lost as a person – unable to recognize your strengths, unable to identify your weaknesses – I do believe it’s easy to adopt society’s principles about what makes a person worthy. (Worthy of what? Who knows.) I think when you feel like you have no idea who you are, you let your peers tell you and it becomes too easy to get sucked into that.

I cling to the things that I’ve always loved and adored, because the person I’ve always been fits into it all seamlessly. Things that are new – like a figure competition, for crying out loud – that could potentially change my sense of identity… scare the hell out of me.

What this is teaching me, really, is to be open to changing. Be open to seeing what I grow into. Be less stubborn about clinging to who I used to be, and be more excited about the possibilities that come from what I will be tomorrow. Even though it’s hard to look in the mirror and see that this is me, I still look in the mirror and say “Wow, that is me,” and I smile at what my hard work has brought me. Each day is an opportunity to embrace the fact that everything about me – including my appearance – is always evolving, always changing and always deserving of my love and praise… or my reflection and effort to change.

So… in support of Alana and her continued growth, I’ll still try to watch every Tuesday. I’ll still root for her because I feel like so much of where I came from (and still am overpowering) is where she is and has been. I suspect the same is for a lot of women out there. Here’s to hoping she — really, here’s to hoping we all heal happily and healthily.

Losing Weight and Losing Identity is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. How Losing Weight Made Me A Feminist
2. Not-So-Big Love: When Losing Weight Turns Into A Marriage Proposal
3. Did I Just Plateau? Why Am I Not Losing Weight?

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Post tags: attitude, mentality

Gooey, chocolatey, rich, deep dark brownies. I’d even make a cream cheese center for them. It was written. Consider it already decided.

I scoured the Internet looking for an adequate recipe that I could manipulate, and eventually found one that I’d stored away for the future. I wrote down the ingredients, and took off jogging toward the grocery store to snatch up what I’d need.

Never mind the fact that I was hitting the grocery store on Christmas Eve, and never mind the fact that I spent at least half of my time preparing to elbow little old angry ornery people who didn’t believe that common courtesy includes not blocking the entire center aisleway because they want to decide on whether or not to buy some darn maraschino cherries. Never mind that. Christmas was coming, and I was baking brownies.

I got home, put away the groceries, and went on about my day… until, oh, somewhere around 7PM. Figuring I’d get a head start on the Christmas cooking, I got on with the dicing, chopping, marinating… and then, I saw it. The dark chocolate I’d purchased for the brownie recipe. I let out a long, deep sigh… grabbed my mixing bowl… and got to work.

At first, the entire experience was exciting! Melt the dark chocolate in with the butter. I love to bake, so this was heavenly for me. Who wouldn’t enjoy making something awesome with real ingredients?

But then… it started to become a little suspect. The amount of butter was… troubling. Then… we got to the kicker: two cups of sugar?! Two cups of sugar? Suppose I’d actually baked a recipe with that much sugar in it. Who, in this household, was going to eat it? Me?!

Then I got to the cream cheese center… and I couldn’t even bear it at this point. Another half-cup of sugar. What on Earth? Is this what it takes to make a delicious batch of brownies? They have to be full of that sugar, fat and salt trio? For real?

At this point… I was just curious. I layered the brownies and the creamy cheese center in the baking pan. After staring at the pan for a while, I slid it into the oven and waited… patiently.

Too patiently, almost.

I considered what I’d find once the brownies were finished. Would I go flying back into my sugar addiction? Would they taste disgusting to me? Would I wind up trying to swallow the pan whole like we see in all those teenage girl movies? I just wanted to know… how would this play out?

The brownies finished, and I grabbed the pan out. They looked… like brownies. Nothing magical about ‘em at all. I grabbed the spatula, chopped a chunk out of the corner, and lifted it out. I blew on it, slid it into my mouth and… nothing.

That’s right. Nothing.

Don’t get me wrong. They were absolutely delicious… but I think the thing that made “brownies” such a “golden standard” for deliciousness and amazement and “Mmmmmmm” for me was gone. The emotional attachment to food, the ability to crave those brownies and that feeling they gave me, was gone. The kind of euphoria that comes from a well-made dessert was no longer attainable. It just wasn’t happening for me.

For years, I used to overindulge on cheaply made brownies. I used to act a complete and utter fool with a good box of individually-wrapped brownies in private. Now? Nothing.

I thought long and hard about this, as I stared at the pan of brownies… with no desire to dig in the way I used to. Did that mean that the problem was how I used to eat them? My response to baked goods was that unnatural?

Or was it the fact that I took great pains to make sure that my ingredients had limited additives and preservatives? Limited unnatural interference? You know, the stuff that food manufacturers do to their food to make it “irresistable?” I had made a delicious brownie… and it was, in fact, resistable. This was new… it was also frightening.

So… in making the brownies, was I expecting the unnatural reaction that I’d get from, say, a brownie filled with high fructose corn syrup? A brownie mixed in a giant robot machine with someone flipping the dials to get the chemical combinations just right so that I’d never be able to put it down?

And what did my reaction mean for my sugar addiction? I’ll never proclaim that I’ve completely beaten it – I question whether or not that’s possible – but the fact that I wasn’t experiencing that euphoric feeling in response to that bite? How I just bit into it… appreciated the taste… and was over it? Was I on my way back to a balanced appreciation of sugar?

I can do that? I guess so. What a Christmas gift to myself – knowing that I had, in fact, come farther in my journey than I thought. Knowing that I was one step closer to just feeling completely free. And by “free,” I mean “not pacing and worrying about the potential for my falling back into my bad habits every time I taste something with even a hint of sugar in it.”

I wound up putting the brownies in the fridge, and leaving them there. The next day, after Christmas dinner, I offered my daughter one… but she was actually uninterested. Instead, she reached for a mango and asked me to cut it. I peeled the skin, sliced thin strips off of it and handed them to her on a saucer. The rest, I killed it myself.

No more brownies… but mangoes? I think I could get addicted to those.

The Day I Gave Up The Brownies is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags: sugar addiction

June 9, 2009

I’m almost tickled to tell this story. Partly because it’s lightweight embarrassing, but what the hey – it can’t hurt, right?

Right?

In 2007, I ordered a dress-I-had-no-business-buying-and-never-would-wear-in-public from Fredericks of Hollywood. Well, I purchased three of ‘em but this one… this one was different. I knew it would be my “Awww, snap!” dress.

That is, until.. I couldn’t even get this mug over my head.

I mean, it wouldn’t even touch my shoulders – I was so wide up top that I couldn’t get my arms in it to try to slide the dress down. I was pissed! How dare this dress not conform to the awesomeness that is… me!? How dare this dress offend my delicate sensibilities! I even got a little gangsta with it – how you gon’ just… do me like this!

July 3, 2009 - with the illest 'fro ev-er. Notice that I'm actually holding the dress in the back.

I didn’t throw the dress away, though. I didn’t even have the sense to return it. Returning the dress would’ve been a blow to my ego – admitting that I couldn’t fit something, admitting that I was too large for something (an extra large, at that – as if to say, “The dress is an extra large, I’m extra large.. this should work. Right? Right?”), or that my size was getting in the way of something. I quietly tucked the dress in the back of my closet, occasionally seeing the sleeve poking out and glaring longingly at the front of the dress, fantasizing about rocking it red-carpet style.

I left the dress in the closet for two years.

In 2009, long after I had seriously started gaining traction on my journey, I started feeling a little ballsy. I started going through my closet, reclaiming the bajillion pieces of clothing I’d collected – mindlessly buying the size I thought I was, only to come home and find out how sorely mistaken I was – and trying them on… one by one. After several skirts (one skirt – seriously – was so seriously TOO small for me, it would’ve taken an extra six inches of fabric to make those clasps meet) and pairs of pants… I finally got to the dress.

July 3, 2009 - Still Rough-n-tuff wit' my afro puff!

It didn’t fall on like I hoped it would – in fact, there was some pulling and tugging goin’ on. But… I got it on. And thus.. the challenge began.

All I wanted was to be able to rock this dress like the girl in the picture. I wanted to look sexy – to feel sexy. I wanted to stop taking pictures of only a part of me in the dress. I wanted to no longer hide me – and hiding the fact that I was hiding me – like there was some logical reason I shouldn’t be seen. True, my own personal sense of self-worth wasn’t linked to any perception of beauty but I also wasn’t going to let my own perception of my beauty begin to affect my sense of self-worth… hence why the dress hid in the back of the closet in the first place.

The dress hung in my bathroom, right on the closet door. It served as my polite reminder. “You’ve got a long way to go, baby… so never give up!” And every two weeks, I tried on that dress and pulled, tugged, and squealed at my progress.

And one day, that dress fell on so fast, it almost fell off. It was then that I’d realized a few things: 1) that just because they make it in your size, it certainly doesn’t mean you’ll look like the girl in the photos when you rock it. Mind you, that’d never applied to me before, because I was always extra careful with my clothing.. trying to not be the “sloppy big girl.” 2) just because you can fit it without wrinkles and rolls, doesn’t mean you look like the girl in the advertisement. It doesn’t even mean you look good in it. It means… you can fit in it without wrinkles and rolls.

August 8, 2009

Lastly, 3) although I’d reached my goal of being able to wear the dress – and that was an awesome goal to accomplish – I needed to be realistic with myself about what I wanted out of my body and what my “wants” would really bring me. Sure, I could fit into an XL dress with no problems, but did I want to rock an XL, or a medium? Did I want to look good in a tight dress (which you can do with a good corset), or did I want to look hot naked?

Hey, I’m just keeping it real.

So… I’m an advocate of the progress dress. A dress that you can use to show yourself how far you’ve come, and how far you’d like to go. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that there’d be months where I’d lost pounds by the tens, and couldn’t see where the pounds went when naked, but it’d be that much clearer when I threw on the dress. Shoot, if it weren’t for the dress, I wouldn’t have known I’d lost all my boobs!

August 8, 2009

My progress dress helped me to actually see what the changes to my body meant for my wardrobe possibilities. I mean, be honest – we look at ourselves naked every day. Especially for those of us who might criticize ourselves [unnecessarily] every day, it may be hard to see our progress because we expect to wake up one morning and see [insert "problem" area] gone away. Having one dress to turn to every couple of weeks makes a great deal of difference in appreciating our progress.

Eventually, I out-shrunk the dress (wow, it even feels strange to say that), and donated it – along with the rest of my wardrobe – to charity. It’s certified hoochiewear, as you can see, so I can only help but to wonder what the charity thought of receiving that. I have a new progress dress now, but since my perception of my body has caught up with the actual progress of my body, it serves a new purpose for me.

So… I said all that to say… what’s your progress dress look like?

Motivation and Measuring Weight Loss Progress: The Progress Dress is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story
2. 8 Amazing Blogger Weight Loss Transformations Featuring… Me!
3. Weight Loss… and Your Libido

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Post tags: motivation

The bouquet I put together for my Mother, complete with a surprise inside!

You know, mommyhood rocks.

I get to be jostled out of my bed every morning by a very moody little girl demanding cheerios with blueberries. I get to be awaken from my naps by sloppy kiddie kisses and hot toddler breath. I even get to watch as she runs across the house, completely pantsless.. and before I can question where the pants went, I see our puppy running behind her… pants in mouth.

I get crayons on my wall. I get food on the ceiling (don’t ask – I sure didn’t.) I even get big spongy alphabet tub toys in my toilet. I get all that… and she’s only 3, for crying out loud.

Alas… I get the most important thing of all. I get life.

My daughter has given me this sense of vibrancy that I don’t think I would’ve had otherwise. I value watching her drink down her milk with one hand, because I remember when she first reached for her bottle as an infant. I love watching her read, because I remember how frustrated I was trying to teach her the alphabet. As mad as I was watching the puppy chase my pantsless daughter across the house, I still laugh a little because I remember the first time she started walking, and I actually cried. Like a total punk. I mean boo hoo, no-kleenex-can-save-my-face-so-get-me-a-washcloth tears. She teaches me just how growth can change a person for the better, forever. She’s an everyday reminder.. right there in my face. Begging for goldfish crackers.

She’s fearless, too. Fearless like nosedive from the bed; jumping up from four feet in the air (and staying there); putting up her dukes and scrapping with the equally fearless puppy; climbing the jungle gym, sitting all the way up, and screaming “This is my world!” I mean, she’s a super hero.

Before her, I was just content. My daughter taught me how to live. That I could run, jump, play, become excited by something other than food and geek stuff and just overall be the person I was born to be.. the person I accidentally raised in her.

The person who, as I type this, just demanded that I play that darn “I’mma Be” song on my iPhone. ‘Cause that’s what I really need in the morning… the Black Eyed Peas. (I won’t lie.. her dancing is downright hilarious.)

So today, on Mothers’ Day, I’m celebrating what being a Mommy has given to me. The photos, the memories, the crayon-covered walls… but most importantly, the motivation to live. Because now, I have many many many more years to spend with her… repaying the favor with my own brand of hilariously embarrassing dancing. I’m saving that for her teenage years.

What are you doing to celebrate Mothers’ Day?

Celebrating Motherhood is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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Post tags:

Um, I took that as a sign. “Put the damn cigarette down.”

However, as my teen years faded, so did the swoop bang… and I picked up my boyfriend’s nasty habit. It wasn’t even regular cigarettes. It was cloves, for crying out loud. Easily, the most expensive habit an early 20-something could develop. I’d eventually leave that boyfriend behind, but his nasty habit remained.

The cloves, at about $9 per pack, were a struggle. The smell, the taste…. the way I could inhale smoke and exhale stress… it was seriously my habit. I’d smoke 5 a day – breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner… and sometimes a last one for a snack before bed. It was how I dealt with life. Work stress? Grab a smoke. Home stress? Grab a smoke. Not because the answer to my stress was somehow laced within my cigarette… but because I felt like I couldn’t access the answer unless it was through a cloud of clove smoke.

Obviously, considering the dire straits I was in at that time regarding my weight, the smoking wasn’t doing anything for my weight… or was it? I was still as overweight as I’d always been, clove or no clove. It didn’t protect me from myself, yet I do wonder… would I have weighed even more if I didn’t smoke? I mean, if the “logic,” so to speak, said that I was using smoking the same way I used food… then if the smokes weren’t there, would I have binged?

Then, there’s the issue of this, which appeared on NPR earlier last week:

Scientists say they have finally figured out how smoking helps people keep off extra pounds.

It turns out that nicotine activates a pathway in the brain that suppresses appetite, according to a study in the journal Science. This discovery should lead to better diet drugs, the researchers say.

The finding comes after decades of research showing that smokers tend to be a bit thinner than nonsmokers, and that smokers who quit tend to put on weight.

Researchers made the discovery after stumbling onto a major clue recently, says Marina Picciotto, a professor of psychiatry at Yale and one of the study’s authors.

The clue turned up during experiments looking for chemicals to treat depression, Picciotto says. A scientist at Yale named Yann Mineur was giving mice a chemical that’s a lot like nicotine, she says.

“He was watching these mice and he said, ‘You know what, they don’t eat as much as the mice that didn’t get this medication,’ ” she says. “And so he decided to follow that up. It was a window into how nicotine might be decreasing appetite.”

The scientists knew that nicotine must be triggering a response in certain brain cells. So they started looking at cells in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain known to regulate appetite. And they focused on a type of nerve cell, called POMC cells, known to be involved in eating behavior.

Sure enough, nicotine made these POMC cells more active. But the researchers still needed to figure out how nicotine was communicating with these cells.

To find out, the team took a closer look at the different types of receptors on the surface of the cells, Picciotto says.

“And we actually thought that maybe the same nicotine receptors that make you want to smoke, that make you rewarded when you smoke, would be the ones that also control appetite,” she says. “But we were wrong.”

So the team looked at another type of receptor. These receptors don’t make you feel good — they’re involved in the so-called fight-or-flight response that occurs when animals or people encounter a threat.

It turned out these fight-or-flight receptors responded to nicotine in a way that reduced hunger. That would make sense from an evolutionary perspective, Picciotto says.

“The fight-or-flight response is one where you actually want to preserve your energy to do something very important,” she says. “So maybe you don’t want to be out there eating while you’re supposed to be running away from a tiger.”

Strangely enough, when I gave up smoking, it was the same time that I gave up processed foods.. and that was two years ago on this very day, June 13th. It was the day that I decided to stop using outside resources to relieve stress in my life, be it sugary and salty foods or cigarettes. When this article refers to “fight-or-flight” response and energy preservation, to me that’s talking about stress reduction – an overstressed person releases a lot of energy being anxious, and we all should “preserve our energy to do something very important.”

What’s interesting, to me, is that this information is going to be used to “create better diet drugs.” What I’d really like this information to be used for, is for us to realize that smoking – much like food – alleviates stress in the same way that adequate coping skills would, as well… and that the answer to this is, quite frankly, to develop those coping skills. It makes the smoking and the food seem that much more useless.

As I’ve said before, developing stronger coping mechanisms has made me a much more capable person. I don’t need to rely on an outside chemical or resource to stabilize my emotions or regain my ability to be a problem solver anymore. I allow myself the space and time to assess whatever is causing my emotional reaction, and I trust my instincts in regards to creating my solution. I no longer need a breakfast, lunch and dinner smoke.

The rest of the NPR article above mentions using “the patch” as an adequate means of helping one quit smoking, as well as nicotine gum. I know that there’s also prescription medication – my Mother used it when she quit a few years back – that works very well but I, true to form, went very cold turkey. What can I say? I’m young, cheap, with limited resources and didn’t want to be a clove addict for the rest of my life. Besides, the state of Florida was adding almost $2 worth of taxes to my habit, bringing each pack to an astonishing $11. No thanks. In the interest of cheapness, it had to go.

When I quit, I kept myself busy to the point where I wouldn’t need to smoke. I had at-home workouts. I had jogging to do. I had yoga. I had bellydancing. I was in hyperdrive and loving it. When problems arose, I was quick to solve them simply because I wanted to get back to the other fun stuff I had to do. For anyone embarking on that struggle, might I suggest assessing the situations that compel you to feel as though you need to smoke, and doing what you can to alleviate that stress… and experience your “reward” from being a problem solver, not a chemical reaction in the brain? Arm yourself with stress relievers – anything from nightly boxing classes to jogging to meditation (!) to stressballs – and give yourself time to think, and the space to be vulnerable so that you can acknowledge your stressors. No matter how strong we may think we are, we are not impervious to stress. Not now, not ever.

How do you deal with stress? Do you struggle with quitting smoking? Did you struggle? How’d you get beyond the habit?

My Struggle With Quitting Smoking And Weight Gain is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Skipping Breakfast: A Surefire Way To Gain Weight
2. Q&A Wednesday: A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight GAIN?
3. Vanity Sizing: Accidentally Masking Weight Gain?

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Post tags: emotional eating, stress, stress reduction, stress relief, stressors, vulnerability

I ran ten miles.

Before you call me crazy – and before I agree with you – I have to tell you. It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done in my life. As someone who is literally traumatized by my experiences with the Presidential Fitness Test in high school, I’ve got to admit that the thought of me making it across the city on the two feet I was born with… is powerful stuff.

My running experiences began last year, after I’d lost a little bit of the weight, first. I used to take my then-two year old daughter walking with me every day and, while we enjoyed ourselves and had a wonderful time… there was a point in time where it felt like I should be trying to do something more. I mean, surely I could manage to squeak in a teeensy bit more activity into this hour-long time frame, right?

So, from walking… came dancing. And we’d dance together pacing around our daily path. It was too much fun. Have you ever seen a two-year old try to dance and walk at the same time? She attracted kids everywhere she went, and before too long, there would be all kinds of kids trying to tag along on our walk.

I love kids… but not that much.

So… I needed to figure out a way to keep our daily hour of fun an actual fun thing for me as well as her, while still being able to get in the activity level. One night, it hit me. I asked her if she wanted a piggy-back ride, and once she hopped up… I took off running. I’d run one lap, put her down, and walk one lap. Pick her up again, run another lap, drop her and walk again. I did this for 45 minutes. I’d come home sweating, angry, gross… but satisfied.

My daughter loved the piggy-back runs. I was losing weight, gaining strength, feeling far more powerful… and Mini-me was beyond excited to experience the joys of treating Mommy like a life-sized horsie. “Go, Mommom! You can do it!” It became our little fun time. It rocked.

From there, I learned how to run intervals. Learning how to run for 30 seconds, then walk for 4 minutes. Then run for 1 minute, walk for 4 minutes. Run for 2 minutes, walk for 3 minutes. Run for 3 minutes, walk for 2. Run for 4, walk for 1. Run for 5, walk for 1. Then…. just run. I played that game at my own leisure, and I didn’t progress to the next level until I got bored with the current level. I didn’t upgrade to running for 1 full minute and walking for 4 until I felt like I had mastered the art of running for 30 full seconds, no problem.

Once I was able to run for a full five minutes, I started trying to run a full mile on my own. With the help and support of a wonderful person (or a few of ‘em, really), I was convinced that I could do it. Before long, I was not only running a full mile… but I was running several at a time. For someone who took almost 20 minutes to walk a mile and had no idea that I could “walk faster,” let alone “run”… that’s kind of unbelievable to me.

The day that I decided I was going to run ten miles… was the day before I had to return my moving truck. I’d ran four, five… even six miles before and though it was rough, I still managed to make it. No big deal. Right?

Eh… right. It was only almost twice what I was used to running.

Why ten miles, though? I have fantasies of running a marathon. Judge me if you want. I think there’s something sexy and awe-inspiring about being tired as sin, struggling, and pushing your body to its limits… only to see the finish line and perk up a little… just enough to help you find the last bit of energy you’ve got to cross the finish line. A marathon is 26.2 miles, a half-marathon is 13.1… and I would be running 10.

I drove the truck across town to Downtown Miami in the early afternoon. I figured if I set myself up this way, instead of starting at home with the option of always being able to turn around and go back home, I’d be forced to test my body against this distance. I could always call a cab to take me home. I could’ve always caught the bus and said “screw it.” Hell, I could’ve hitchhiked if it was that deep. I just… I knew I wouldn’t.

Once I dropped off the truck and received my confirmation, I headed out of the parking lot, looked around… and exhaled. I was seriously about to do this. Seriously? Seriously.

Let’s talk about the five things I learned – the hard way – about my running adventure, though.

First… go potty first. Don’t ask me why I know how important that is… just know that I know.

Second, there is no other instance where you learn how important food is for fuel… than a situation where you are constantly burning fuel. Like running. If you are constantly hitting the pavement and burning fuel, you have to eat. Because my “Oh! I have to eat first!” epiphany came late, I grabbed a fruit smoothie from a nearby smoothie shop (mango, banana, apple and coconut shavings) and did what I could to tear that whole thing up as fast as I could before I reached my destination. The smoothie, as large as it was, could only carry me through the first 7 miles – I had to stop and get food in order to keep going. That’s how serious this fueling thing is. Your body uses food for fuel. If you’re going to be burning fuel that hard, that highly for that long, give it what it needs to carry you through the activity.

Third. To be a runner, one must “move swiftly on foot so that both feet leave the ground during each stride.” It says nothing of how fast you must move. It also doesn’t say you have to look a certain way, either. You don’t have to be Speedy Gonzales (or look like an olympic hurdler) on the sidewalk in order to qualify yourself as a runner. Own it, regardless of how long it takes you to finish or what size you are when you begin.

Fourth. Runners stop sometimes. You might not notice it because they no longer look like runners when they’re not running – they look like walkers, or loiterers, even – but.. when they become overwhelmed, they stop. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make you a “less than” because you stop. You’re training to be a better runner, not training to win a million dollars.You gain nothing from wearing yourself down to nothingness.

Lastly. stretch. Stretch before. Stretch after… after a very long warm soak. If you don’t… you’ll hate life. I did this run Wednesday. It is now Tuesday, and I’m just now feeling back at 100%. Running long distances is something your body has to get used to doing. I needed to know just how far I could push myself, and what the results would be. I now know, and that’ll help me prepare for my super duper goal.

I’m not gonna lie. I’m mad at myself for being able to complete the entire thing in less than 3 hours… because now it means that I can, without question, take on the Miami Beach Half Marathon in a few months. And though I really don’t want to do it… I reeeeeeeeeeally want to do it.

So… I say, for anyone out there afraid to jump into running… take your time. It took me a year to get down to where I am now. It took time for me to learn to value running enough to invest time and money into it – I saved up to purchase a jogging stroller for Mini-me, a good pair of comfy running shoes and a nice set of headphones. Taking that time to appreciate running actually allowed me to develop a need for it, learn to value it and what it can do for me, and list it high enough on my list of priorities that I could save up money on the things I needed.

Now, after that ten mile run…. I have to start budgeting for marathon registration fees. Y’all know I’m cheap, man.

5 Things I Learned While Running 10 Miles is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Friday 5: 5 Things I Learned From A Grade School Cafeteria
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Post tags: half marathon, marathon, running

So, today…was pretty amazing.

As you may know by now, I did a segment with The Dr. Oz Show about healthy quick fixes for weight loss. This was a long time coming for me, because it signified a lot. I mean, a lot.

The screenshot of the video before pressing play on the Dr. Oz website. See how they did me? I look like I'm swooning here!

I said, in early 2010, that I wanted to be a part of this show. I think that it’s incredible what he and other shows like his are doing by educating the public, because I feel like I’m a prime example of what can be done with a little educating. Not only that, but because Dr. Oz reinforces everything I’ve already said to my mom, I feel like he’s pretty much helping me get and keep her healthy. Being on his show is a minor – and I do mean minor – way to say “thank you.”

The day was pretty busy. Usually, every morning I get up, get the baby ready, throw on my sweats and my kicks, and I’m out the door. Walk her to the bus stop, walk the dogs, and I’m headed for the gym. Today, not so much. After waking up at o’dark-thirty (that’s country talk for FAR too early) to get Mini-me and the puppies all situated for the day, I had to get fancy. Hair, makeup, pack my bags and workout clothes. Yes, workout clothes. Some things never change.

With a bag full of clothes, lip glass, high heels and my collection of electronics, I hopped in the car the show sent for me and off we went… into Brooklyn’s notorious traffic. I mention this because the longer it took to get to Manhattan (which, in theory, shouldn’t take that long…but it’s still NYC traffic), the more anxiety I felt. It was approaching levels of anxiety I hadn’t felt since I’d first defeated my food addiction, and I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t think I was prepared for that feeling. Nothing had tested me since then…until today.

In the back seat, I tried to focus my mind on something pleasant, and breathe. Looooooots of breathing… and thinking about the sand and ocean that I gave up for… honking horns and rude cabbies in my way. I grabbed my phone and called my Mom, who loves to crack jokes on me when I’m in this state. Why? Because she’s a Scorpio…er, because she’s Mom, and she knows what makes me feel better.

“Did you call me for your daily dose of courage?”

“Ugh. Bye, Mom.”

All it took was one joke, and I instantly felt better. And, just like that, I was at Rockefeller Center.

Yes. That Rockefeller Center. And it is as epic as it looks on TV. I was escorted from the car to the lobby, from the lobby to guest services, from guest services to my dressing room and… from my dressing room to the set. Yes. In my workout clothes, and my ‘fro potentially lopsided. That is how I met Dr. Oz for the first time.

This is also the first time Hair and Makeup saw me for the first time.. and immediately snatched me up once I was done on set.

“We love your hair, but it’s too large for the camera. We’ve got to shrink it down.”

And, when I tell you, this resulted in six hands (and forearms) resting on top of my ‘fro in order to get it to come down… if you thought it was big on-screen, y’een seen nothin’ yet. You might’ve noticed that it was still lopsided on screen? Yeah, that’s because when I tried to fix it right before I went on, the hairstylist – who was probably 5′ tall with a footstool – came rushing in and pressing back down on it. It took everything in me to not give her the “I need to pick my afro, mama, because it’s flat on one side” face.

It was nice to be pampered, yes, but it was also making my anxiety levels rise. Every time I touched my hands and felt how cold and clammy they were, I was being reminded of the fact that I was scared and had good reason to be. Dr. Oz’s show reaches millions of people, and I could potentially be making a total fool of myself in front of all of them. I could be poorly representing the community we’ve built here. I mean, it’s national TV. It’s time to get live. It’s time to represent!

By the time I got back to my dressing room, my clothes were gone. “Wardrobe’s got ‘em. Once they’re done steaming, they’ll return them.” For me, that was a sign that I clearly had time. They hadn’t even brought my clothes in? Please, I’m going to be here for a while.

On the countertop of my dressing room, laid two chocolate cupcakes, a skewer of fruit, and a small dish of cashews.

Let me type that again. Two chocolate. Cupcakes. A skewer. Of fruit. And a small dish of cashews. Sure, there were a few bottles of water there as well, but who’s worried about water when you’ve got cupcakes to concern yourself with?

I briefly thought to myself – “Why would I eat a cupcake when I’ve got fruit and nuts? What happens if I get that old sensation from eating those cupcakes? What happens if I eat those cupcakes and my emotional eating flares-up? Who would I have to blame for a choice that I know is wrong?” and all I could think about was my cold, clammy hands and my struggle to make sense of anything around me.

And then, it hit me. Immediately, I dropped to the floor, folded my legs in lotus pose, and put my hands in the “gesture of no fear.” In the middle of my tiny dressing room. Didn’t even think to close the door. I just needed to sort out my thoughts.

One palm facing forward, the other facing up. “This is the gesture of no fear. I practice this gesture because I am fearless. I am strong, I am powerful, I am calm, I am unshaken.” Over and over, I repeated it to myself. The executive producer came and ran through the segment with me, and after I typed out my notes for what I wanted to say during my time, I put my hands back in my “gesture,” stared at my notes and said to myself a bit more. “I give away my anxiety, I take in my environment’s cool, calm, collected and efficient vibe. I am unshaken.”

After I was dressed and mic’d for my segment, I was (unfortunately) told to stand for the rest of the time period because I wouldn’t want to wrinkle my dress… which meant no more meditation.

At least, not sitting down.

Don’t get me wrong – I was well aware of the fact that it is more than a little heinous to be in a recording studio and sitting on the dressing room floor meditating, but for me, it was all I knew to calm myself down and avoid eating those freaking cupcakes. Even though I’ve written about throwing away food, I felt like I should be beyond that. There was no reason I couldn’t get beyond this, by any organic means necessary.

So here I am: standing in my high heels, pretty blue dress, and no sitting. And cupcakes staring me in the face. How powerful was my head, here? “I am fearless, I am unshaken. Fearless. Unshaken.” I was realizing that I had experience telling myself no. I’d had experience saying no, accepting my fate as a former emotional eater and now making decisions that help me maintain that status as a former emotional eater. I didn’t need to drop to the floor, I just needed to remain conscious of myself and my progress. And, just as I realized that…

“Erika, come with me.”

“Alrighty then.”

Went out on stage to tape, and the audience was a bit overwhelming. I’m not particularly sure if it was because it was so many of them, or if it was because I could visibly read the reactions on their faces to my “transformation,” but I briefly remembered the executive producer’s advice “It’s just a conversation between you and Dr. Oz; the audience isn’t there.” Once I stopped looking at the audience, the entire thing felt much smoother. I’m sure people will have their own ideas on how the segment went.

While on stage, as we wrapped up the segment, Dr. Oz asked about my blog (!) and I told him that it’s simply a chronicle of everything I’ve learned on my journey.  I always downplay what we do here (for modesty’s sake), but even then I felt bad because this site has become a telling of so many stories that simply aren’t just me anymore. It’s about so much more than weight loss, or body image, or booty paint now, and I carry the burden of representing that. “Burden” isn’t even the right word – perhaps I should say “challenge.”

After the segment wrapped (and a little dancing with the Doc… they were playing “Soul Man” after we finished. I couldn’t help myself!), I snuck off to my dressing room to get right back into my sweats and kicks, and right before I headed off, two of the show’s producers praised me for the segment and told me they thought it went well. Before I knew it, in came Dr. Oz, too! (And, I’ll be typical for a minute. He is a very handsome man. All those women love him for the right reasons!) I felt good and, with any luck, I’ll be asked back. I did a few more things at NBC Studios and, as they roll out, I’ll share them here as well.

After the convo ended, I snatched up my badge, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. Cupcakes? Untouched. Fruit? Untouched, again.

I tell this story this way because there are a handful of small victories that I experienced that day. In fact, it’s difficult to type this without getting teary-eyed. As someone who’d always had “stage fright,” for me to be able to get on stage for a show that is broadcast to millions without shaking or stuttering? For me to finally be able to serve as a representative of my blog on The Dr. Oz Show? For me to have learned how to successfully calm myself down from the highest anxiety levels I’ve ever experienced in my life WITHOUT food? For me to leave chocolate cupcakes untouched? Listen. You’ll never know what those little victories feel like to someone who used to swallow a bag of Verona cookies whole in one evening.

After the segment ended and I was finally in my car heading home, phone calls went to both The Future Mr. BGG2WL (can’t give away my last name yet!) and Mama BGG2WL, because both had been trying to keep tabs on me allllllllll day long, but to no avail thanks to the poor reception. Both proud, both supportive, both happy for me. They knew I’d finally cleared a hurdle I’d had my eye on for almost a year, but there was so much more to it than that for me. To be a part of a show that talks about turning quick tips into small victories and small victories into much larger ones, all while experiencing one of the greatest victories that a former emotional eater could experience? Knowing that power, that sense of pride… I’m never giving that up. Ever.

I hope you enjoyed the segment, y’all, and I hope you think I represented you well.  In the end, that’s what matters most.

PS: To those of you who keep asking about the dual-pocketed blue dress I wore… $34.99 at H&M. I had it on a few sizes too big (to accommodate all the contraptions they strapped to my back/around my waist) but I still think it looked awesome.

Life In The Land Of Oz is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Black Women, Body Image And Our Relationship To The Life-Sized Barbie

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Shape Magazine hosted a call-out for favorite weight loss bloggers out there, and enough of y’all were kind enough to mention ME! (And thank you for that – as always, I’m eternally humbled that y’all think enough of what we do here to have me recognized for it!)

From what I gather, there are six categories of awards – my category is Best Weight Loss Blogger – and the winner from each will be considered a finalist. From there, SHAPE will pick one to host a video series as well as receive a feature in their magazine!

That being said, now I need even more of you to help me out here. Click this link to check out my profile on SHAPE and from there, you can vote for A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss! Vote. Vote often (from different computers, even.) And for goodness sakes, let’s win this thing together!

Vote For BGG2WL: SHAPE Mag’s Best Weight Loss Blogger Award is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Vote For Me! And Other Awesome BGG2WL News
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She always had on workout clothes… whatever those were. She just always looked like she was headed to orrrr just leaving a rough and rugged workout session. I hated that. She couldn’t ever just have on a cute outfit, some heels and have freshly ran a comb through her head. No. Just workout clothes.

She was always talking about how she “eats whatever she wants,” but when I look at her plate… there was no pie. There was no ice cream. There was no snacks. There was no big hunk of meat in the center of the vegetables. There was no fried anything. Who WANTS food like that?

She was always walking somewhere. I mean… always. Her gas bill must’ve been crazy low, because the chick was always walking. Da hell? How do you walk everywhere? Everywhere? Really?

And grocery shopping with her… awww, good grief. Grocery shopping with her was beyond annoying. She’s always turning her nose up at things she sees in the aisles, and reaching for staples. Stuff that had to actually be cooked. WTF? All these glorious foods in boxes that only require a little microwaving… and you want to cook? How stupid is that?

She was always saying “no” to things, too. “No cookies, no cupcakes… I’m not in the mood.” How is someone “not in the mood” for cupcakes? CUPCAKES? Hell, the PRESENCE of cupcakes gets me in the mood for cupcakes! How can you say no to that? The possibility OF cupcakes in and of itself is serious business… it is not to be turned away. Ever!

Her little frame… it was hard for me to not hide my scowl, wondering how on Earth she pulls it off. I mean, I’m comfortable in my own skin an’ whatever… but her? I bet she sticks her finger down her throat. There’s no way a woman can look like that without going to extreme and drastic measures.

She’s so obnoxious… with her glowing skin, ponytail swooshing back and forth as she walked somewhere…ugh. If I could be me, but look like her… I’d be happy. No one wants to be that damned obnoxious about looking good, anyway.

I swear I used to think these things about that fit bitch.

Well, until I became… that fit bitch.

It’s actually kind of interesting. The position I’m in, because I write for this blog, makes it especially ironic because when people DO ask me how I became “that fit bitch,” I can just point them to this blog. What answer do I get?

“I don’t wanna read all that shit. I just wanna look like that… and eat what I eat.”

It’s so funny… because I used to swear that I could accomplish that, too – eating what I eat and looking the way she looked. It never dawned on me that her benefits were the result of her lifestyle, much like my consequences were the result of mine. And until I changed that, I had no choice but to live out the consequences of my lifestyle. My lifestyle – the combination of choices that I make each day.

I didn’t want to be obnoxious. How bizarre is that? I didn’t want to learn how to live and be healthier because I perceived it as being obnoxious. I never actually questioned what I found to be so obnoxious about it in the first place… I never questioned whether or not it was fear that kept me from pursuing living like her. I just wrote it off as being obnoxious, and went on about my merry little way.

And, isn’t it funny how that works? I decided that it was obnoxious because it wasn’t common place. She was “being different for different’s sake.” She was “being uppity… turning down cupcakes.” She was “being stuck up – bourgeois, even – by turning her nose up at the stuff in the grocery store aisles.” Not once did I ever ask why… because I felt indicted by her choices. Her visible decision to not live like me felt like a judgment on MY lifestyle choices, and instead of opting to learn and understand why she does what she does, I wrote it off. Even though I knew that how I was living wasn’t working for me, I wasn’t ready to be humbled and receptive to learning how the way SHE lives was working for her. Funny how that works.

Don’t get me wrong – I know there are lots of people who find me obnoxious right now… with all my proselytizing about sugar and processed foods and being active and no quick fixes and no excuses, blahhh, blah blahhh, blah blahhh… all that bouncy mess. I’m also acutely aware of the fact that that’s the reason why many people “cling” to me. There’s literally NO representation of that kind of woman in our day-to-day lives (at least, that’s the truth for many of us) and while I might annoy the hell out of the people I deal with on a daily basis… they still have an outlet to satisfy their curiosities regarding how I live the way I live and why I make the choices I do.

I’m also aware that lots of people feel like the choices I make are a judgment of them personally. They’re not. Lots of wonderful people make – what I’d consider – misguided decisions every day. The choices I make for me are what works for me… and while I certainly don’t judge another person, I definitely make a judgment regarding any decision – if I like it, I adopt it for myself. If I don’t, I let it fall by the wayside. That’s how life works. It’s not meant to be personal, it’s not meant to be taken personally.

I’m always amazed by how we allow ourselves to be ruled by the perception that others hold of ourselves. I mean, I’m more amazed by it NOW because I’m more conscious of it now.. but even still, do we fear being “the obnoxiously fit bitch?” Do we hold ourselves back because we fear offending the people we love the most? Or do we write off the opportunity to learn a little something from someone we think may have the answers because we fear feeling told “you’re doing it wrong?”

In the grand scheme of things, how much weight do their thoughts truly hold with us? Enough to prevent us from achieving our own goals? Really? The same America that scowls at the presence of “the obnoxiously fit bitch” could also use a lesson or two in how to be fit… what, with the 60%+ of Americans being overweight, at at least half of that number being obese.

So… I’m sayin’. Stop looking at your neighborhood “obnoxiously fit bitch” as if something is wrong with her just because she’s different. Ask her why she makes the choices she makes. Accept that her answers might make you uncomfortable, and embrace that discomfort as an opportunity to grow. And for goodness sakes, adopt her cupcake philosophy. Just say no!

On Becoming “That Fit Bitch” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. On Being and Leaving Behind “The Fat Bitch”

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Post tags: culture, perceptions, society

I mean, let’s be real, here. Few issues are as thorny, on this blog, as ones involving dating and relationships. Let’s just say that y’all are very protective of your dating prospects and the ability to pursue them. I ain’t mad at it… I am confused by it.

I wrote the following:

How do you handle dating while losing weight? I’ve already admitted that after a break-up in the early part of my journey, I became abstinent and didn’t date. I was not only vulnerable, but working through insecurities that would’ve only made dating an embarrassing experience for myself. I valued having time that was mine and mine alone because, quite frankly, I’m dope and interesting when I actually pay attention to myself and learn about me.I mean, I can understand a desire to date – if for no other reason but the sake of company and being sociable – but I wonder if there’s a part of a woman’s journey (and I specify gender there for a reason) where, if it’s extensive enough, she’d benefit from not dating. My journey was like literally demolishing a building and rebuilding it from scratch. Would you let anyone set up their home in your building, knowing that it wasn’t completely solid, sturdy or even able to provide adequate shelter? If a house is still being actively rebuilt, I wouldn’t rest my head in it.

Excerpted from Big Love: Dating While Losing Weight | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

People kept assuming that by referring to “rebuilding,” I was referring to their bodies… but I wasn’t. I was referring to their minds. I was referring to the reality that in order to live a more fit lifestyle, you have to demolish everything that gets in the way of developing that in order to do what you have to do. And really, no shade, but I’m generally of the mind frame that most people need to take some time off to reassess themselves and what they want before they go out and date. Most people need to know what it feels like to put themselves first and treat themselves right before they dive head first into treating someone else “right.” Most people need to know what it means to love themselves before they commit to loving someone else.

When I write, I write with myself in mind. Everything I’ve ever written on this blog, I’ve written for myself. Writing in my moment of clarity gives me something to look back to and read when I may be struggling. I write a lot about compassion, because I find myself involved in an environment where there isn’t much compassion, and my writing serves as a reminder. I wrote a lot about getting over sabotage because I found myself encountering people who didn’t have my goals and best interests at heart. I write a lot about body image and learning to love myself because I struggled with the idea that I could simultaneously love myself while wanting to change myself.

That last sentence is important. I learned that a huge component of loving myself is accepting that I am not perfect, I am worthy of love even in spite of this nonperfection, and that I’m even worthy of love during this process of change because I’ll always be changing. I stopped chasing perfection, and instead decided to strive for excellence. At least with excellence, there’s an implied understanding that the goal isn’t “working so that I never have to work anymore.” There’s not some finite point that I should feel guilty about not reaching. The goal post is always moving when one strives for excellence, as you are constantly learning what’s possible as you progress forward.

Why am I saying all this? Because these are the things that I addressed that made me a different person. Addressing these things changed how I approach life. How I approach relationships. And while I understand that for the woman who only wants to lose 20-30lbs, the issue may be far more topical like food changes, a godawful soda habit, or learning to cook a little more… for the woman who’s in a strange place, like I was, who needed to lose upwards of 75lbs altogether? You might have a challenge that is as much emotional as it is physical.

For me, I dated during my weight loss journey. I dated a couple of men – some who’s intentions were more noble than others – but there were lots of time between them, because there were specific parts of my journey that all out demanded time for self-reflection. I advocate for that approach because as I reached new hurdles, I needed to allow myself to be vulnerable enough to jump over them… and that’s not something that can be done with everyone. However… there was one man who not only supported my self-reflection as a friend, but encouraged it. When I admitted my experiences with sexual assault and binge eating… when I snotted up his shirt sobbing about things that I was thinking and feeling… he was there, wanting to be trusted, wanting to be caring and wanting to help me grow. He saw how I was learning to love myself, and he contributed to that love by adding some of his own. He was just… always there, and always enjoying it. He wanted to be there.

And then, when he came to my house a week or so ago… when he knocked on the door… when I opened it, holding back two huskies who obviously smelled him on the other side of the door and were excited to see him… he was there. On one knee. With The Ring in his hand.

So, yeah. I’m currently engaged. Squeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Back to seriousness, though.

Suffice it to say, I think that there’s a genuine connection between where my head and heart were, how I treated the relationships I was in and how I understood care and love. And once I changed how I approached those, it became easier for me to find what I was looking for… or, rather, for it to find me.

It is not my intention to talk about this as if it is “the ultimate fairy tale.” It is my intention to talk about this wonderful addition to my life that I wouldn’t have been able to experience without reassessing my headspace. I know myself. The old Erika would’ve made a man like my current fiancé take off running in the opposite direction. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate him for who he is if I were the old me.

I bring this up in conjunction with the Big Love post because so many women claimed that it was unnecessary to “assess their headspace” during their journey because that wasn’t a legitimate reason to not date. If anything, it made it easier for me. It made dating easier, for starters, because some men simply weren’t on my level. It made it more enjoyable, because I was more able to speak up for myself, felt less desperate and felt more capable. I didn’t have to struggle so much with being a people pleaser, and believing my desire to be a people pleaser would be the most important thing (or the only thing, for that matter) to make a man stay with me.

This won’t be the situation for every woman who embarks upon a weight loss journey, but this is how it was for me. And though every woman isn’t on a weight loss journey, I think that it should be a goal for everyone to be, at least, emotionally solvent… to be able to give as much as they get. My journey not only granted me that peace… it’s brought lots of joys along the way, one of those being the man I’m going to marry. If all it takes to bring a little light into your life, is to reassess oneself emotionally… there’s absolutely nothing to lose, and a lot [of love] to gain. The changes I’ve embraced along the way have changed my life for the better, now, in more ways than one. And I couldn’t be happier.

Squeeeeeee!!!!!

Not-So-Big Love: When Losing Weight Turns Into A Marriage Proposal is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Big Love: Dating While Losing Weight
2. Losing Weight and Losing Identity
3. How Losing Weight Made Me A Feminist

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 75 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dating, relationships

I worked out in a gym for six months, and didn’t have much to show for it. I mean, yes – some weight loss took place, lots of muscle development took place, but I still felt so defeated. I wanted to lose inches!! I wanted to be smaller! Why was I not progressing!

This was the start of a 3 month break from fitness. I just… I had other priorities. I had other focuses. I had other places my energy needed to be directed toward. I didn’t need the constant disappointment of trying to be healthier and failing. Repeatedly. Miserably. I just didn’t want to be bothered.

Well, in 3 months, I gained 10lbs.Yeah, it was a stressful 3 months and I was running to food to try to give me temporary release and relief… but 10lbs? Ten pounds? By March, I realized… “Well, if I’m going to have the gauntlet thrown at me, I might as well prepare my body for it.”

I started thinking about how I can properly tackle my health without cheating, being lazy, getting in my own way. A lifestyle change that would become second nature. I thought about this… over a bowl of queso. That I ate… for breakfast.

By late April (the picture above is from April), I got into the habit of cooking everything I ate. I realized that perhaps if it were more difficult for me to indulge in the foods I liked, I wouldn’t indulge so much. If I wanted cookies, I had to bake them myself. If I wanted queso, I had to make it myself. Want a quesadilla? Do it yourself. This helped with my blood pressure. Why? Because processed foods overdo it on the salt. It helped with my risk for overeating. Why? Because I was eating whole nutrients… my body was getting the nutrition it was looking for, so I wasn’t continually compelled to keep eating while my body sought out nutrition.

As soon as I got my eating habits together, I dropped 17lbs. That was when I realized what kept me from losing the inches I wanted – I was still filling my body with crap! I finally figured out how I could get a lock on this thing… and just like that, I started working out again.

Just going for a walk every day and eating better, I lost another 15lbs. I was doing so much more than my body was used to… that it was burning all kinds of energy to keep up. It wasn’t used to this kind or amount of effort! I had properly shocked my body, revved up my engine, and was on my way.

6 months later, another 50lbs was gone. I’m not as concerned with the pounds as much as I am concerned with the inches. Why? Because I’ve developed ab, leg, and thigh muscles that weigh just as much as – if not more than – the fat I once carried… and although it might cause me to put on more weight on the scale, my figure has still become much more lean.

I’ve probably lost about 20lbs in the past 3 months, but I’ve lost about 21″ total – 2″ from each thigh, 4″ from my low-rise waist, 4″ from my normal waist, 2″ from each arm, 2″ from the band in my bust, and 3″ from my hips. I can see cuts in my arms, and lines in my abs. My face is way more defined… I feel like a different woman. When I do my Yoga poses, I can see development in my thighs. When I stand in my high heels, I can see lines in my calves from my knee to my ankle. So my scale might be slow, but my tape measure is movin’!

How am I developing nutritionally? There is one processed item in my pantry that is not organic: goldfish crackers. Dreaded things. (I know I’ve written about how my love of these things plagues me.) If my daughter didn’t love them, I might throw them away. Hey, she’s young – I might throw them away, anyway. Besides… it’s my house.

I still cook everything I eat. I get a little more jazzy and bake things that I shouldn’t be eating – home made or not – but at least I’m not gaining weight at the speed I was before. I’m way more mindful of what I’m putting in my body. Thinking about this makes me more emotional than you think… because it passes on to my daughter. If given a choice between those goldfish crackers and a handful of blueberries, she’s going to choose the blueberries. I didn’t have that foresight as a child. If I had, I might not’ve spent middle school as a size 15.

I’m more comfortable working out in front of others, now. Which translates into my being more comfortable with myself as a whole. It’s easier for me to accept my shortcomings because I know the greatest of my troubles – my health – were able to be tamed… there’s nothing I can’t do at this point. My struggle with my weight has taught me the value of facing my shortcomings head on. If I don’t be honest and real with myself about the source of a problem, how could I ever possibly and effectively find a solution? Ever since I’ve had this epiphany – this newfound value in self-transparency – my life is so much less stressful. There’s less satisfaction found in dramatizing the problem, and the peace found in having obtained the solution is way more valuable.

All things I didn’t have a year ago. I didn’t weigh 185 a year ago. I also didn’t have a size 8 shape a year ago. Yay me.

Looking at everything I’ve left in 2008, I am excited to see what I leave behind in 2009. How I learn, how I grow, how I use what I’ve learned to help others. Hopefully, I’ll leave those stupid goldfish crackers behind. That’s first on the list.

A Year Ago Today is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. A Year Of Progress In Photos
2. Guess Who Was On NPR Today?
3. Psychology Today Apologizes For Racist “Study”

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 39 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: weight loss inspiration

Taken: February 26th, 2009

I like writing about the things I’ve learned and struggled with along my way. The things that I’ve used this site to reinforce for myself, the things I’ve used this site to remind myself of along the way and the things I’ve used this site to rant about. This site has served as my backbone in a way, because I’ve certainly had to remind myself of a few things in my own moment of weakness.

But without writing about myself… I suppose I’d be doing the very thing that I’ve always claimed is so harmful, and that’s pushing myself to the back burner instead of keeping myself and my own betterment in the forefront. So.. let’s talk about me, where I’ve been and where I’m going.

My tummy trying to tighten back up!

Mentally, I had began to settle a little too much into the idea that I was happy with where I’d gone with my figure. I’d gotten so close to my goals, perhaps I’d felt like I was going to just slide right on through. It didn’t help that so many people were so surprised with all the weight I’d lost, that I kept getting the compliments. It starts to seep in, so to speak. I was dangerously close to believing my own hype. If you know that you have so far to go, give yourself credit for your journey thus far but you shouldn’t be impressed with yourself until you get there.

Then.. I decided that maybe… juuuuuuuust maybe… I’d want to compete in a figure competition. For no other reason than to be “The Formerly 330lb Girl Who Now Can Compete In A Figure Competition.” It was the awakening and goal shift that I’d needed.

So… I’ve spent the past few months shifting my energy toward muscle building. I need my skin to conform to an actual figure once it finally does what it’s supposed to do. I’ve spent time trying to step my game up in the cardio level, because my last major challenge is defeating this fear I’ve had of getting my heart rate too high. An awful experience with a prescription medication left me with a fearful response to my heart rate creeping a little too high. Learning how my heart behaves and training it to endure a little more will help me be a better marathon runner. I’m embracing that challenge head on.

My goals have shifted, and though I am happy with what I have now and am thankful, I look forward to the challenges that my new goals present. What’s more, is that I am thankful that I have this site and posts like this to remind me to always take steps to reclaim my humility – to never get so high off your own hype that you forget how hard you worked and how much harder you will have to work to get there. To act with my goals ever present in my mind, and formulate each step so that it always brings me closer to where I’m going. Not just walking to watch myself… though I do look good walking. (#justsayin’)

We all have different goals, no doubt, but I think that’s an important point: to not get so high off of our own hype, or so comfortable that we fail to realize how hard we need to work to achieve our goals. So no matter how crazysexycool we may think we are now, we have realistic goals worth our realistic effort. What are your goals? Just a little belly pouch? More toned thighs? Let’s hear ‘em!

So.. Where Am I Now? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 71 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: weight loss inspiration

Maybe it’s just her arms.

I’m not playing either. She looks like she puts effort – actual effort – into those bad boys!

I know that the media had a field day with her figure. She was too toned. Women are supposed to be soft, curvaceous [but not too curvy, lawdy lawdy heaven forbid we see too much of a curve], and reflect no form of masculinity. Like muscles.

Forget all that. I am soft. I am feminine. But if I leave these arms the way that my weight loss left them, I’m going to look like an old beat up pillow. Unacceptable. I want arms like hers… not cotton-stuffed appendages like what I’d been stuck with.

For me, I know that in order for me to get my arms looking normal again after this weight loss, I’m going to have to build some serious muscle. There was never any bulk there before – only fat. Honestly, it used to make me uncomfortable – if I really took a good look at myself before I left the house some days, I’d stop and turn sideways… try to flex my arm in hopes that some shape would appear… sigh and shrug it off… then go on about my partying. Not like I could build muscle in ten minutes before doing what I had to do, right?

I must admit, the past 8 months have been exciting for my upper body. I can finally see my collarbone. My spare tire is fading away, and an actual slope is appearing in my backside. My back fat is shrinking, and my breasts have shrunk (from a 42DD to a 34C.) How am I doing on my journey?

I’m sure the next question is, “HOW?” The answer, really, is not a silly shake weight or a “perfect push up” machine.

Between yoga and push ups, I’ve been able to tone up my arms, my back, and even keep the skin of my breasts taut. Why? If you take a look at one of the yoga episodes I’ve posted on the site, you’ll be able to identify how much you have to lift, stretch, pull and tug those arms. The plank position – a common yoga pose that looks a lot like a push up without the drop down – works not only your back, but the ligaments in your chest that tighten and lift your breasts. Add to that the fact that it works both your biceps and your triceps (your outer and inner upper arm area?) You’re in there like swimwear.

For me, these are the best options. These are things that I can do at home without purchasing any equipment and without needing to be at a gym. I just click “play” on a yoga video on this site, and I go for it. I’m still a little flabbier than I’d like for myself, but I’m pretty proud of how far I’ve come.

So, in the meantime… I’m going to continue to stare lovingly at these photos of a sleeveless First Lady Obama (not in a creepy way, though) and keep on with my push-ups and my yoga routine.. and hope that you’ll join me!

Got tips? Questions? Ideas? Share ‘em!

My Quest For Michelle Obama Arms is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. What Rush Limbaugh Has To Say About Michelle Obama, And Why I Don’t Care
2. Walmart, Michelle Obama and The Halo Effect
3. Beyonce Teams Up With Michelle Obama For Workout Video

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Arms, exercises, workout at home, Yoga