1. Defy convention Do the healthy thing, even when it’s challenging, inconvenient or considered weird. Take pride in that.
2. Buck trends Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s smart or good for you. Enlist fellow trend buckers and create a trend of your own.
3. Rage against the machine Use your healthy frustration about the unhealthy status quo to spark creativity and determination.
4. Celebrate what’s good Look for signs of progress (beyond pounds lost) and rejoice when you find them. Give yourself a pat on the back every time you make your health a priority.
5. Repossess your health Reclaim responsibility for your well-being; own your daily choices; minimize your reliance on the broken sick-care system.
6. Redefine your role You are not a “healthcare consumer.” You are a human being. You may be experiencing an illness or other health challenge right now, but remember that good health is your body’s natural state.
7. Practice medicine without a license Research your own conditions and treatment alternatives, ask questions, and seek second opinions with impunity. Leverage the expertise of trained pros, but don’t allow it to eclipse your own informed instincts about what’s best for you.
8. Minimize symptom suppression Make whole-person vitality, well-being and resilience your goal. Partner with healthcare pros who understand and support your desire to be fully healthy with a minimum of medical intervention.
9. Safeguard your juju Don’t let yourself get run down, depressed, negative or reactive. That’s when immunity drops, inflammation rages, and unhealthy tendencies strike.
10. See the bigger picture Yes, this is about you, but your well-being also affects everyone and everything around you. When you get healthier, everybody benefits.
11. Be part of the solution It’s going to take a lot of strong, clear-headed, high-vitality people to solve the world’s problems. Be one of them.
12. Go at your own pace A healthy life is more a marathon than a sprint. So start where you are. Choose sensible, sustainable shifts over instant cures and quick fixes.
13. Be proactiveIf you feel a cold, flu or nasty headache coming on, take evasive maneuvers. Rest. Refuel. Reconnect. Rebuild your immunity and vitality. There’s no heroism in ignoring your body’s needs.
14. Leverage your big “whys” Know the specific reasons your health matters to you. Write them down where you’ll see them daily.
15. Raise your sights Don’t get sucked in by obsessions with six-pack abs and buns of steel. Don’t play “compare the bodies.” Fulfill your best-self vision.
16. Learn the skills Healthy, fit people have learned how to be healthy. Learn those skills, practice them, and you’ll be healthy, too.
17. Reap the rewards Look and feel better, sure. But also think better, smell better, give better, love better, live better, be better.
18. Focus on the fundamentals Drink water, eat good food, move, rest, relax, connect. Don’t sweat the more complex stuff until you’ve got a grip on the basics.
19. Fake it till you make it Don’t yet see yourself as a super-healthy person? Experiment with doing a little of what you’d do if you were already supremely healthy and fit. As often as you can, act as if your commitment were unwavering.
20. Aim for 85% You don’t have to make 100% healthy choices all the time. It’s what you do most of the time — day in, day out — that counts. The healthier you get, the easier and more automatic healthy choices will become.
21. Keep your body clean, inside and out Toxins, poisons and other gunk have no place in the temple. Avoid artificial flavors, preservatives, colors, fragrances, petrochemicals and other toxic ingredients whenever possible.
22. Brush and floss Your teeth and gums are a huge determining factor in your whole-body well-being. They’re also an easy place to start demonstrating your commitment to whole-person health on a daily basis.
23. Eat fresh Trade dead, packaged goods for foods that are fresh, alive and full of high-vibe goodness. Figure out where to find them, learn to juice/slice/dice them, and eat them with great pleasure.
24. Eat more plants There’s a long list of phytonutrients and other good stuff in vegetables, fruits and legumes that you can’t get any other way. Put plants at the center of your plate for as many meals and snacks as you can.
25. Don’t fall for fakery Processed, fake, diet and imitation ingredients burden and inflame your body, contributing to chronic disease. And there’s no clinical proof that artificial sweeteners and fat-free products support weight loss or do any part of you any good.
26. Learn to cook Get a dozen healthy, whole-food recipes under your belt, and your life will be forever changed. Start by mastering one.
27. Have breakfast Let there be protein, produce, healthy fats and fiber in it. A good breakfast wards off energy dips, brain fog and afternoon cravings.
28. Watch your reactions 40% of U.S. adults have an intolerance to gluten; 70% to dairy. Know if you’re one of them. Digestive, skin, joint, energy and mood problems may be your first clue.
29. Beware the USDA Food Pyramid It is a whole lot healthier for Big Ag and Big Business than for humans. Fill two-thirds of your plate with an array of vegetables, add in some other whole foods you enjoy, and don’t let the rest of the Pyramid’s propaganda confuse you.
30. Approach ADA guidelines with a healthy dose of doubt The American Dietetic Association is sponsored by processed-food corporations and staffed by former food-company execs. Their pro-processed-food advice is often colored by that, and their calorie-counting obsessions are profoundly counterproductive.
31. Go easy on the sugar and flour These two ingredients (combined with unhealthy industrial vegetable oils) have a starring role in most packaged foods we eat. More than any other culprit, they fuel inflammation, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol and cancer.
32. Savor what you eat The foods you rush into your body tend to create more problems than they solve. Take your time and consciously enjoy every single bite. Notice as your hunger diminishes.
33. Care where food comes from Know your food’s history, and you’ll want to consume more selectively. Most factory-farmed and industrially produced foods aren’t all that appetizing once you know their origins.
34. Go for quality, not quantity An ounce of wonderful is far better than a whole mess of mediocrity. Most beige, starchy and supersized foods are not worth eating.
35. Move it out A healthy person poops every day. Twice a day, maybe more. How’s your fiber and water intake? (Also, see #28.) A clogged up colon wreaks havoc on your whole body.
36. Read labels Don’t worry so much about the calories, grams and RDAs. Read the ingredients. Most ingredient lists begin with some combination of enriched wheat flour, sugar and oil. Avoid foods like that. Also avoid foods with long lists of ingredients you don’t recognize.
37. Ignore labels Most of the marketing claims are meaningless, and a lot of the data is confusing. Most of the very best foods (in the produce department) have precisely one ingredient and, often, no labels at all.
38. Say no to soda Both regular and diet soft drinks stimulate a pro-inflammatory insulin response, trigger cravings, acidify the body, decay your teeth and leach minerals out of your bones.
39. Ask for what you want If you want extra this, none of that, something on the side, X in place of Y, broiled instead of fried, and everything prepared just so — say so. Being picky about what you put in your body is nothing to be ashamed of. Picky eaters unite!
40. Drink a lot of water The health of every cell and synapse depends on it. And when you’re dehydrated on a regular basis —Êeven a little — your metabolism, energy and immunity all suffer mightily.
41. Filter your water You’ll drink more when it tastes pure and you know it’s clean. If plain water doesn’t turn your crank, enjoy water with a slice of lemon, orange, cucumber, or a splash of juice. Or try herbal tea instead.
42. Love what you’ve got Treat your body with respect and appreciation. Focus on what it can do, not what it can’t. Find something to celebrate, not something to criticize.
43. Redefine your goals If you’ve been trying to lose weight and struggling, make it your goal to get superbly healthy and fit instead. And then don’t be surprised when the excess weight starts melting off.
44. Beware artificial hungers Notice what triggers your sudden desires and uncontrollable appetites. Stress and anxiety both masquerade as hunger. Find better ways of dealing with them or warding them off.
45. Identify real hungers You can’t eat or spend your way out of loneliness, fear, boredom or lack of meaning. Find healthy ways to honor and shift them, instead.
46. Be human Cut yourself a little slack now and then, and forgive yourself your unhealthy trespasses. Learn what you can from them, and then move on.
47. Make being healthy easier Self-restraint is a limited resource. Do everything in your power to make healthy choices automatic choices and to keep unhealthy temptations out of range.
48. Don’t believe the hype Give up on gimmicks, fads and instant fixes. Most miraculous weight-loss schemes do more harm than good, and yo-yo dieting is a recipe for weight gain.
49. Look beyond unrealistic role models Find your inspiration in people whose lives and goals have some relevance to your own. Also remember that most of the pictures you see of celebrities and fitness models have been extensively retouched.
50. Question authority Big organizations like the FDA, USDA, AHA, AMA and ADA all struggle under real limitations and conflicts of interest. Know and understand them.
51. Face the facts Your body is a mirror: It reflects your choices, your priorities, your habits, your attitudes and your quality of life. If you don’t like your body, be willing to change the way you are living.
52. Maintain a morning practice Take a few minutes each sunup to set your intentions, take a few breaths, read an inspiring passage and start the day on your own terms. You may be shocked at the difference it makes.
53. Move your body Every day, every which-way you can, in as many ways as you enjoy. Movement nourishes your body, clears toxins, and reduces the inflammation that breeds illness and irritation.
54. Reframe exercise as a privilege You don’t have to exercise. You get to exercise. Visit a person whose mobility is severely limited, and you’ll appreciate the distinction. Do what you can, and count yourself lucky.
55. Break a sweat The more often, the better. Sweat is a signal that your metabolism is switching into a higher gear. Sweat is weakness, complacency and toxicity leaving the body.
56. Stay strong More muscle and sinew means more capacity to do anything. Don’t let age, aches and pains, or lack of time be your excuses for abandoning your strength.
57. Maximize your mitochondria Every time you exercise, you upgrade your body’s energy-and-vitality factories and build your metabolism.
58. Find your fitness edge Flirt with it in ways that feel good and exhilarating. Bursts of high-intensity exercise trigger positive, dramatic changes and help catalyze the body’s healing response.
59. Get past body envy Release supermodel and celebrity obsessions. Translate your desire for a fitter, more beautiful body into positive, self-respecting daily action that nourishes you and makes you stronger.
60. Embrace meditation There are few life skills that will pay of as handsomely or give you as much peace and healthy perspective. Even a few minutes of meditation a day can trigger positive transformations in your biochemistry, neurology — even your DNA.
61. Study your systems Learn how your body works, and respect its genius. The unfortunate fact that most of us aren’t formally educated in how to properly care for our bodies doesn’t mean you can’t learn.
62. Get to the bottom of your symptoms Body trouble? Find the source. Root out the cause. Don’t settle for a drug that forces your symptoms to go underground only to pop up somewhere else with a vengeance.
63. Self-medicate with caution Get honest about how you’re using alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, pain killers and other drugs to simulate well-being or cover discomfort.
64. Abandon victim thinking “Poor me” doesn’t get you anywhere you want to go. Instead, dust yourself off, see the choices that got you here, then reclaim your prerogative to choose your own better way forward.
65. Sleep well Rest = recovery, repair and resilience. Exhaustion = illness and messed-up metabolism. Prioritize ample sleep time as the health essential it is.
66. Breathe deep In for four, out for five. Oxygen’s good; breathing keeps you alive.
67. Get off your butt Sitting for more than an hour or so at a stretch is deadly. Get up, stretch, walk around. Do some deep knee bends or go climb a couple flights of stairs.
68. Slow down Perennial rushing is toxic to the body and mind. Find moments of silence and contemplation where you can just be. Create margins of sanity. Practice the defensive art of scheduling breaks and vacations.
69. Connect with community Find ways of being active and involved in some kind of group activity. Joining a group, if you haven’t already, can reduce your risk of dying this year by half.
70. Heal your relationships Mend fences, build bridges, forgive trespasses, grieve losses and let toxic grudges go. Then move on. Get help with this if you need to.
71. Get outside You need sunshine, fresh air and time in nature. Daily. Grab five minutes in the morning, five on the way home from work.
72. Respect your environment Keep in mind that human health depends upon the health of a lot of interconnected ecosystems and the planet as a whole. Make choices that respect that reality.
73. Embrace play Fun, novelty, humor and joy are key sources of energy, strength and inspiration. If you’re suffering from a case of fun-deficit disorder, remedy that situation ASAP.
74. Consume media wisely Seek out entertainment and information that makes your life better. Choose not to watch, read or listen to stuff that demoralizes or immobilizes you, incites craziness, or insults your intelligence.
75. Be your own biggest fan Refuse to bad-talk your body, nitpick your appearance or kvetch about your weight. Find something to dig/love/ appreciate about yourself — just the way you are.
76. Turn off the TV Opiate of the masses. Fritterer of time. Fryer of focus. The average American watches several hours of TV a day. How much of your life are you willing to hand over to a box?
77. Eliminate tolerations If something’s driving you crazy, deal with it. Noticing and resolving daily annoyances, messes and downers helps free up energy and increases your pleasure in living.
78. Follow the money Look at your checkbook register and credit-card statements for clues about where your spending is inconsistent with your healthy goals and values.
79. Redirect your resources Take some of the money you’re spending on unhealthy distraction, consolations and indulgences, and re-route it toward your healthy-living priorities instead.
80. Ditch debt The stress of being stretched too thin financially is at the root of a great many health ills. Develop the skills you need to master your money and live within your means.
81. Invest in your health Money spent proactively on your health delivers far better returns than money spent reactively on treating illness and disease. When healthy choices seem “too expensive,” consider the long-term costs of health-sapping alternatives.
82. Wise up Keep seeking new wisdom and mastering new skills that help you take better care of your body and live a more satisfying life. Continual learning and discovery support both health and happiness.
83. Build on your successes Look at what has worked well for you in the past, and do more of that. Identify and leverage your strengths. Be willing to learn from your “failures,” too — but refuse to wallow in them.
84. Surprise yourself Don’t be boring. Every once in a while, do something unexpected or out of character and see what happens.
85. Find your tribe Surround yourself with other healthy, positive, active people who share your passions. It’s a lot easier to thrive around people who are thriving.
86. Laugh it up Seek out mirth, glee and merriment at every opportunity. Laughter triggers a cascade of healing, energizing chemicals.
87. Get a buddy Do your healthy thing with a pal or partner. Camaraderie and accountability go a long way toward creating success.
88. Give your best gifts Developing and sharing them endows you with enthusiasm and energy. Neglecting or squandering them slowly kills you.
89. Pace yourself When working hard, take brief rest breaks every 90 to 120 minutes so your cells can recharge. Be kind to yourself, and be honest about how much you can take on at any given time.
90. Vote your values Take your healthy convictions to the polls. Share them with your elected representatives. Vote with your dollars, too, to support healthy products, companies and communities.
91. Visualize the possibilities What if we lived in a world where the majority of people were healthy and happy most of the time? Imagine that future — then start creating it in your own life, one step at a time.
92. Follow your bliss The more positivity and enthusiasm you can build into your life, the healthier, happier and more satisfied you’ll be. Happiness breeds healthiness.
93. Be responsible for yourself Own your decisions and actions, no matter what the circumstances. Refuse to abuse or be abused on any level. See challenges and setbacks as learning opportunities.
94. Take the high road If you feel yourself getting dragged down or losing traction in your healthy commitments, ask: What’s my highest choice right now? What can I do to make this situation better?
95. Make time The hour you give yourself for self-care pays you back three. Think you’re too busy? The busier you are, the more effective and energetic you need to be, and the less time you have to get sick.
96. Make space Declutter your house, your office, your car, your desk, your mind. Create room for your chosen future; create space that reflects the way you want to feel.
97. Focus on action, not outcomes Live the life of a healthy person, and the results will take care of themselves. Every healthy step is a victory. Every day is an opportunity to feel, live and be better than the day before.
98. Make it a party Discover new healthy passions. Revel in new healthy pleasures. Have so much fun getting and being healthy that everyone around you wants to do it, too!
99. Let go of excuses Yes, you’re busy. You probably have a lot of priorities competing for your time, energy and resources. But wouldn’t all those priorities be better served by a healthier, more dynamic you?
100. Show up No one is going to do this for you. You can’t fake it, and you can’t phone it in. Your body is where you’re going to spend the rest of your life. So make it a great place to live.
101. Pass it on Pssst! Being healthy is a revolutionary act. The more of us who stand up for our health and happiness, the more power we have to change the world — one person, one life, one revolutionary act at a time.

Which ones stand out the most to you?

101 Revolutionary Ways To Be Healthy is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways to Identify and Reject Sabotage
2. Three Great Ways To Exercise At Home
3. In Praise of Greek Yogurt: 5 Different Ways To Dive In

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality

This year, they’re going to lose weight.

That’s right – they’re going to hit the gym seven days a week. They’re going to turn vegetarian (or vegan) and eat better. They’re going to lick this thing.

And it usually lasts, what? Two months tops? Three if they’re lucky?

The reality is this – some people like start dates. Nothing is wrong with using the start of a new year to signify the start of a major change in one’s life. However, we can’t treat those changes the same way we treat the holiday – once the novelty of the day wears off, so does the resolutions. We can’t do that to ourselves.

What we also cannot do is spend a short amount of time going hard in the gym, or wildin’ out on a crazy diet hoping to get rid of that last little bit of weight. We can’t adopt something only to quit in a few months because we’ve burned out, or because we made changes that were too drastic and were unbearable.

You have to realize that there’s something in your lifestyle that allows that weight to stay on. The issue isn’t the fact that you need to burn off this little bit of weight super fast – the issue is that you need to take a long, hard look at your lifestyle and start making changes that will lead you in the direction of not only achieving your goals, but maintaining them. Make sense?

So instead of making a resolution that involves a gym membership that you’ll only use for ten weeks, what kind of resolutions are much healthier?

Ones that can last. Baby steps. Resolve to hit the gym at least three times a week, if you’re opting to make use of a membership. If not, resolve to go walking for a half an hour a day. Resolve to avoid junk food one day a week. Gradually move up to 2 days, then 3, then allow yourself only a couple of days a week when you eat fast food or junk food. I promise you – you’ll feel so good after accomplishing those simple tasks that they will not only become a part of your regular routine, but natural progression on it’s own will lead you to increasing your own intensity.

Resolve to think before you put food in your mouth. Resolve to drink an extra glass or two of water each day. Resolve to eat breakfast every morning. Promise to get a healthy night’s rest. Try to take the kids to the park at least once a week, and while they’re playing? Walk laps around the playground (this one is mine!) Don’t just burn yourself out in the gym. Don’t just jump on the grapefruit diet. Definitely don’t expect a quick fix to change what a lifetime created.

Approach the new year with a positive attitude. Trust in the fact that this is the year you will treat the one body you have for a lifetime… as if it is, in fact, the one body that you will have for a lifetime. You want it to be (and look) healthy forever, so take the time to develop habits that you can maintain forever!

Making Foolproof Weight Loss Resolutions For The New Year is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. One Foot In Front Of The Other: Mentally Preparing For Weight Loss
2. Stop Defeating Your Weight Loss Efforts Before You Begin
3. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality

Why do I believe that? Because weight loss is complex, overwhelming, and difficult. It’s hard to dive in head first if you don’t necessarily know what’s happening or why it’s happening to you. There’s no shame in that, when there are industries who put forth lots of money to keep you confused. We all know that money outweighs and outdoes everything nowadays. This is no different.

I am an advocate of putting one foot in front of the other… in the direction in which you want to go. As long as you do that, you will always be moving toward your goals.

“Okay, it’s easy to talk the talk, but do you have any suggestions on how to actually do it?”

I hear you thinking it. Of course I do!

First, accept that failure is a part of your growth. Remember that you’re changing a lifetime of bad habits. You’re adding things to your daily routine that will change your life. It doesn’t happen overnight, and you WILL fall down. Even after well over a year at it, I STILL occasionally fall down. I don’t give up, I don’t tell myself that I can’t do it, and I certainly don’t retreat into food – the thing that got me to obesity in the first place – when I feel bad about falling short.

What I do try to do is remind myself of my goals, take a hard look at why I fell short, and try my best to address that “why.” For example. If I promised myself no cakes or candies, and I have a slice of cake at a restaurant, the question becomes, “If I promised that I wouldn’t, why did I do it anyway?” If the answer becomes, “I just couldn’t resist that picture of that cake staring at me throughout dinner!” then I have to rationalize with myself a way to avoid the temptation. For those of you wondering, yes, this was a real issue for me. How did I overcome? I stopped going out to restaurants until I could build up the ability to overlook the pictures, and learn how to say no quickly, and mean it.

Next, accept that you have to make some hard decisions. Not hitting the restaurants? That’s a HARD decision! Please believe I love my On The Border taco salad (1,700 calories, 124g fat, 2,620mg sodium), my Cheesecake Factory Vanilla Bean Cheesecake (870cals, 558cals from fat, 62g fat), and, well… some other stuff we don’t have to talk about here. However, my decision not only saved me money, but saved myself calories, as well. Hard decision accepted, reward gained.

Thirdly, resolve within yourself that the follow-through won’t be easy. If you can’t stop going to McDonalds after work; and you realize that it’s because since you take the shortest route home, you can’t help but stop in to help you suffer through traffic… what options do you have? Better yet, what options do you allow yourself? Sure, you can buy healthy snacks and keep them in the car, but what if that doesn’t work? Are you willing to take the extra 5 minutes in your ride to avoid the McDonalds? Can you do that for yourself, even though it’s hard? It might not be easy to see in the beginning, but you’re teaching yourself a plethora of lessons with that one action:

1. It’s ok to make difficult decisions for ME.
2. It’s ok to suffer for my own greater good.
3. It’s ok to push myself, because I am changing ME for the better.
4. It’s ok to take the harder route, because I will be stronger in the end because of it.
5. I am able to do this.

Remember that every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow, no matter how successful the endeavor is or is not. As long as you take something away from the situation, it was not in vain. As long as you take away something from the situation and grow from it, you are putting one foot in front of the other. As long as you’ve learned one more way to get closer to your goal of a healthier lifestyle, you’re well on your way.

Be happy, be healthy!

One Foot In Front Of The Other: Mentally Preparing For Weight Loss is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Self-Compassion: A Key Factor In Weight Loss
2. How Much Is The Weight Loss Industry Worth?
3. A Very Big Piece of My Weight Loss Story

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality, overeating, weight loss

But every now and again, I read something that makes me want to toss my head against my desk – not too hard, but hard enough – because they’re either mistakes I’ve made before… or mistakes I make now (and realize it while reading someone else’s words)… or mistakes I haven’t made and probably would’ve made in the future if I weren’t thinking consciously.

So.. having said that… consider this my collective screaming, shouting, and fussing from a year’s worth of e-mails and comments where y’all just know you are wrong. You know you are. Hopefully you’ll giggle with me a little, and come on out of the woodwork admitting how you know you’re wrong.

1) You put off an activity today, for whatever reason, because you can “just do it tomorrow.”

Say it with me. This… is BS. Let me tell you what happens. You get home. You’re tired. You’re worn out. You’re angry. Whatever. Instead of using your pending workout at something to energize you and destress you, you put it off by saying “Oh, I’ll just tack it on to tomorrow’s workout.” You know what happens now: either you skip tomorrow’s workout as well, or you do finish tomorrow’s workout, forgetting the part you were supposed to tack on.

The problem with this is that it’s an excuse. It’s allowing you to excuse very big parts of your routine – your entire routine for a day – and its a bad habit that you don’t want to develop. Do yourself a favor. If you get the feeling that you want to “put it off until tomorrow,” go anyway… but do at least 1/3 of your workout. Why 1/3? For one, you’re still going. That prevents you from getting into the habit of not going. For two, once you get into the swing of your routine, its highly unlikely that you’ll literally stop at 1/3. You’ll probably keep going… and you’ll probably feel glad that you did.

2) You’re still freaking dieting: you diet, you lose a little weight, you go back to life before the diet, you put the weight back on. Woe is me.

I don’t believe in dieting (or “cheating“). I refuse to live on mashed potatoes for a week straight, grapefruit for a week straight, spongebob squarepants fruit snacks for a week straight.. whatever voodoo mumbo jumbo looney tunes diet is going on out there right now just to lose a measly five pounds. I don’t believe in being miserable.

Dieting is moronic. Yes. I said it. Dieting says that it makes sense to “take a break from your regular bad habits” to go on a temporary severely restricted regimen, lose weight, then go right back to the habits that caused you to gain weight in the first place. How does that make sense?

If your goal is temporary weight loss, then yes, a temporary change makes sense. But last time I checked, no one puts themselves through a ton of dietary trauma just to lose five pounds for five days, right? Right.

I believe in making changes to the habits I created, be they questionable or downright deplorable. If I want to go in on some ice cream? I’ma do it, but there’s a consequence I have to suffer through, and that consequence teaches me the lesson: lay off the ice cream. That lesson is far more powerful than anything a darn diet could teach me. Ever.

3) You think the latest weight loss gadget is your ticket: you’ve got a closet full of ab pulsing belts, shake weights and thigh masters…

…and, for some reason, your abs aren’t ripped, your arms aren’t cut, and your thighs don’t look like Suzanne Somers. This is not coincidence.

Did you know that you can do the same exercise the thigh master shows you how to do… without the thigh master? That’s right. You don’t need the thighmaster to do leg lifts. You don’t need some pedals on a spring board to do sit ups… you can just do sit ups at home. You don’t need to shake an overweight rattle – one that, I presume, was created as an inside joke among perverts – to tone your arms the same way regular ol’ push ups or a one liter of water as a dumbell could.

Stop thinking that you need to spend – or waste, however you see it – money on the latest fad product to help you get it in. You don’t. You can do this with no products, or you can have all the products in the world. If you don’t have the work ethic needed to make this thing happen for you, then you can kiss your goal  – and your money – goodbye. You won’t be seeing it.

4) You’re impatient.

This ain’t The Biggest Loser. (Hell, The Biggest Loser ain’t The Biggest Loser.) But for some reason, you want to lose 30lbs in a week, too. Crappy supermarket checkout line magazines don’t really help with this, but you swear up and down that you’re supposed to “lose 7lbs in 7 days with nooooo effort!!!” and after that first week, when you don’t “lose 7lbs in 7 days with nooooo effort!!!” you want to walk around the house with your lip poked out all mad and angry, ready to give up on weight loss and, ultimately, wellness.

Did you put the weight on in 7 days? Why think that you can lose it that fast? Are you running at cheetah speed for two hours a day? Then no, you’re not going to lose 7lbs in a week. Let that go. There is nothing wrong with 1-2lbs in a week. There is nothing wrong with finding that you’ve lost 5-8lbs in a week, either: if you’ve upped the fiber in your diet and are going potty more, that’ll reflect on the scale… if you made drastic changes to your caloric intake, that’ll reflect as well. But by and large, the average woman worried about a “final 10-15lbs” (she is usually the target of this “lose 30lbs in 10 minutes!” schtick) is not going to actually do it.

This takes patience. It takes learning and relearning your body… which really takes patience. Don’t shortchange yourself by trying to rush through it for a bikini or a little black dress. Not worth it.

5) After reading this, you’re gonna laugh, nod your head and say “Yep,” and not change a single thing.

I’m serious – how many people do you estimate will read this, giggle a little, and then go right back to their Doritos and crystal light? C’mon, man, either you’re in or you’re out. Either you want it, or you don’t. Every decision you make, you need to make with your ultimate wellness in mind. Every step you take needs to be one where you are conscious of you and your needs. It requires that much effort.. and either you’re willing to put in that effort or you’re not. Waddling in the middle isn’t going to get you anywhere, that’s for sure.

So really, prove me wrong – stop buying every silly product that comes out. Stop putting off workouts. Stop with the impatience (and, consequently, undue stress and pressure that comes with it.) Stop with the freaking diets. Just live… healthier. It’s that easy.

5 Reasons Why You Won’t Lose Weight is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. “Don’t Lose Any Weight.. I Love A Big Fine Woman!”
2. Admitting The Desire To Lose Weight: Does It Affect Self-Esteem?
3. Why Aren’t Feminists Allowed To Lose Weight?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 58 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dieting, Fad Diets, Healthy Eating, mentality, motivation, shake weight, skipping workouts, thigh master, weight loss scams

I used to do some hilarious stuff, man. Seriously. I used to go out to eat, get something to take home, eat it right before bed, wake up, pull out last night’s to-go and get to munching. I specifically remember this 7-layer nacho dip that I used to tear up… and be proud of it, too! I mean, it was good! I was slaughtering that dip at 8 in the morning. Never mind the fact that I’d be sluggish for the rest of the day.. that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was feeding that craving, and that food fulfillment was making me happy.

Then, I evolved a little. I wasn’t creeping out to that restaurant and getting that dip… I’d just buy some “guacamole” from the grocery…and eat that for breakfast. At least I wasn’t eating 7-layer nacho dip anymore, right? I actually remember talking to one of my fit guy friends one morning, and he heard me banging around in the kitchen.

“What are you doing over there?”

“Looking for the rest of my chips!”

“Chips? At 9 in the morning?”

“Yeah! I’ve got to finish up my breakfast?”

“Wait — what are you eating?”

“Guacamole! It’s goooooood, too!”

My lovely-giant-sunset-pepper omelette! Looks awful, tasted delicious! LOL

Dead silence. I’m not sure if he knew what to say, but I do remember finding my chips and not being able to bite into any of them. I thought I was doing good! I was eating stuff at home instead of ordering out! This made sense! But his silence left me with another confusing proposition.. actually thinking about what I was eating at home.

I won’t lie… I was kinda pissed. I have to think about that too? I was still looking for a shortcut. Some kind of default understanding that would give me some kind of foundation… so that I wouldn’t have to think so much. I eventually found it, but I had to struggle a bit to get it. You might be wondering why I didn’t just ask him for what he does and eats, and I don’t mind telling you – I didn’t want to just copy what someone else was doing. I needed to find what worked for me, so that I’d know for a fact that I’d actually enjoy myself.

So, I created a list of things that I knew I couldn’t have anymore. Soft drinks? No. Bright, eerily colorful cereals? No. Chemical-laden foods? No. I knew what I needed to avoid and I knew why I needed to avoid it. And, I was off.

So… I had my boundaries that I couldn’t break. But dang, that felt like my everything! It felt like everything was off limits! It felt as if everything I was into, I had to let go. I was really distraught! The more I learned about eating and how food was meant for my body, the more I realized: I wasn’t limiting myself… I was freeing myself.

I get it – that sounds corny – but let me explain. My options were only as limited as my access, my cooking ability and my creativity. I’m no longer limited to horrible sugary crap in a box for breakfast. I can buy a pound of oatmeal for $1.30, buy my own maple syrup and my own brown sugar (both of which I keep on hand for baking, anyway) and make my own maple and cinnamon oatmeal. And because my ingredients are so much more flavorful, I use less of them – a flavorful enough maple syrup and the right cinnamon? I’m set.

I don’t even have to eat grains for breakfast if I don’t want them. I can eat – get this – fruit. Or vegetables. I don’t even have to drink milk if I choose. I can have an omelette. I can have biscuits and apple butter. I don’t have to short change myself and limit myself to what’s in a box… or feel like I should skip breakfast altogether just because I can’t sit down and cook something. Cooking “from the aisles” (which, really, isn’t cooking at all) was far more limiting than anything else I could come up with on my own.

Having said that… it’s obviously about being a half-full or half-empty type. My experience with food turned me into a half-full type.. because for my health, I couldn’t afford to see my kitchen as “half-empty.” Looking at the situation from a negative standpoint pretty much ensured that I’d spend the rest of my life unhealthy and overweight… and that simply was not an option. Was it difficult to give up what I loved? You’re damn right it was, but was my desires and cravings more important to me than my own person? My desire to drink a soft drink outweighed my desire to be healthy? Um, no. Never that. Especially when I can eat natural foods, eat less and enjoy them just-as-much-if-not-more? C’mon, there’s no contest, here.

Sure, you might see “Oh, so I can have an omelette or some oatmeal for breakfast.. but that’s only two options.” Not if you’re creative with your ingredients. I can add peppers, chili powder, coriander and a sausage and pow. Mexican omelette. Cheese, mushroom, tomato.. boom. French omelette. Chilies, onion, sausage? Pow.

Want me to keep going? I won’t. Team BGG2WL loves to talk about oatmeal, too.

Easing into clean eating is first and foremost about reframing the situation – you are not limiting yourself… you are giving yourself more options than you’ve ever had before. You are not depriving yourself, you are using your time to explore other possibilities. You aren’t unhappy about giving up your old favorites… you are nervous about finding new ones, but still willing to try. Willing to try because, well, our health depends on it.

Do you have any tips for someone who needs help easing into clean eating?

Easing Into Eating Clean is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: Is Clean Eating An Eating Disorder?
2. Why I Don’t Believe In “Cheating” On Your Clean Eating
3. Welcome To Clean Eating Boot Camp!

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality, reframing

I mean, I swear (every blue moon) but there’s a time and a place for everything… and considering the overwhelming response to my post regarding “Becoming ‘The Fit Bitch,’” I think many people get where I’m coming from, here.

However… there’s another element to this that appeared unexpectedly: the women who said “I’m not ‘The Fit Bitch’ yet, I’m still ‘The Fat Bitch.” And I won’t even lie… that never once crossed my mind to mention. Why? Because the opposite of “fit” is not “fat” to me. The anti-thesis of “fit” is merely “unfit.” And both fat and skinny chicks fall into line with that one.

Take a look at these two comments that were left for that post:

Well, I’m still a fat bitch, LOL! I kid, but seriously I’m soooo not there yet. I could totally relate to many of the thoughts you shared before. I’m trying my best to do better and make better decisions. I have nothing against the “fit bitch” and actually admire her now. I strive to be like her. Am I striving hard enough? Not yet, but I’m trying everyday. I’m still being looked at like “the fat bitch”, you know when you try to make healthier decisions but everyone looking at you like “you know your fat a$$ want them cupcakes!” I don’t necessarily care what other people think about my decisions but I can admit fighting the temptation is extremely hard when everyone around you is waiting for you to fail! I don’t think many people actually want me to succeed at weight loss. They say they do but deep down I think they like me as “the fat bitch”. Well I don’t. So what would you say to that? I’m sure you have blogged about it before but I’m fairly new to your site. I read your blog because when I don’t feel like eating right or doing the right things to lose weight, your blog reminds me that I have to if I really want it. That there is no quick fix, just healthier eating and exercise. – Jeannine

Excerpted from On Becoming “That Fit Bitch” | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

And…

well i am in the fat girl category and i understand what Jeannine is talking about. I am trying to take positive step to better my health but as soon as someone see me eating a salad, they ask “why you not having a hamburger, You on a diet or something?” and they say it as if i owe them an answer. and you don’t want to say yes cause as soon as you do, everyone want to tell you what you should and should not be doing, or what you should and should not be eating and take in mind that some of them have never had a weight problem in the whole life or can even imagine what it is like to be 325lbs, then you have the ones that say dumb shit like “Only eat 3 apples a day and a diet Coke at night” and right then i start thinking how did this person get hired? But the worse ones of all is the people that watch every thing eat and every thing you do so the first time you even look at the cupcakes they want to say some sh-t like “So i see you quit your diet” and if you do manage to keep it to your self and the weight do start to come off, now you starting hearing thing like “Oh that bitch smoking CRACK” so from now on, i have decided TO HELL WITH ALL OF THEM and if someone ask me what i am doing i just tell them i doing me!! – Wyzetta

Excerpted from On Becoming “That Fit Bitch” | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

Okay… so, let’s talk about “fit” for a second.

I look at the concept of “fit” the same way that I look at the concept of “goal setting.” I don’t strive for one goal because goals have a finite point. There’s a point where you “reach” the “end” and you level off.

“Fit” doesn’t work that way. There’s no “finite point” you reach where you can finally wear the “fit” label. Actually, let me clarify that – there’s a point where society wants to define what “fit” looks like… but we’ve already talked about the problem with that:

My thoughts were, of course you can be fit and “fat.” And considering how “fat” in America is anything over a size 4 – depending upon who you talk to – MANY of us are “fat” in someone else’s eyes… clearly that doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as the stuff that keeps us alive. That stuff is filed under that “fit” label.

Those who I’ve dialogued with outside of the site know how I feel about this “fat” thing. As I’ve said before, my primary goal was just being a healthy weight. The vanity aspect of it came when I could afford to be vain and think about looks.. which, basically, was when I had my health situated.

There’s a point in that clip that disturbed me, though – the thinner woman said, “Because I am thin, because I’ve never been sick,” she never thought that her system could be in such bad shape because her body wasn’t in bad shape. I think that the American understanding that our “outer” is a direct reflection of our “inner” is what’s making it so hard for us to have these conversations about health.

What do I mean? I mean that we keep connecting a person’s size to their ability to be healthy. It shortchanges the people on both ends of the spectrum. If being obese is the epitome of poor health, then if I’m superskinny I should be good, right? I should be able to avoid all of that, right?

Excerpted from Can You Be Fit AND “Fat?” | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

I look at the comments left on the “Fit Bitch” post and I wonder to myself.. at what point do we allow ourselves to claim our status as being “That Fit Bitch?” When do we stop claiming “fat?” Surely, it can’t be when we “look it,” right? Because we can “look fit” (read: be skinny) without actually living or being it… but that’s not what we want. (I mean, if it is… then do you.. I won’t be co-signing that mentality here, though.)

There’s another element to this that I think should be addressed, as well:

Trust me when I say this: people who don’t know you from Annie… they don’t really care if you’re ok. These people just prefer to listen to themselves talk. They like how authoritative they sound. It’s like lording over someone to let them know that you’ve got the goods they want. “I got what you want, and you have to listen to me to get it.” People like feeling wanted and needed, and will go out of their way to create the kind of situation that allows them to feel that way.

Child, bye.

Look, all advice is not good advice… regardless of where it comes from. A doctor with a preconceived notion about a patient they may never see again (no really, read that), or a broad you’ve never seen before telling you a colonic is why you’re 60lbs overweight, or someone incorrectly telling you that limiting meat intake is “going vegan” and how silly it is…. sometimes, you just have to take it with a grain of salt when it comes. Feel comfortable enough to squash the convo when it does come… just expect this moment to come, though.

Obesity is an interesting problem because it’s a visible flaw. If you’re a sociopath, a liar, or an axe murderer… we can’t always identify that problem visually. But ohhh lordy, I can see that something must be wrong with you because you’re fat. Let me make this clear: being overweight is not an open invitation for people to force their ignorant and idiotic “advice” on you, and it certainly is not a reason for you to feel compelled to explain why you are overweight to anyone you don’t care about and doesn’t care about you. Your weight is not a call-to-arms for people who are not overweight to use you to make themselves feel better by pummeling you with horrid advice, further snitching on themselves and the unhealthy measures they take to remain skinny.

I refer to it as “big girl guilt” – that feeling inside that says maybe I should listen to this seemingly healthy person to see if they have the answers that I don’t. I mean, of course I don’t have any answers. I’m still fat. Um, naw. This doesn’t work like that.

That kind of “big girl guilt” implies that we don’t have a reason to stand up for ourselves because we “obviously don’t have ‘the answers.’” It also lends into that notion that says “only people who are cute by society’s standards have the right to have any pride or self-esteem orr self respect.” Well, considering how almost 70% of society is overweight and apparently clinging to standards of beauty that don’t represent them in the slightest… why would I cling to any notion that society brings me? I’m cool on that.

Excerpted from Handling Unsolicited Advice and “Big Girl Guilt” | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

The underlying point of both yesterday’s post and today’s is to understand why it’s important to give up on caring what other people think of us. Give up believing that these people’s thoughts matter. Give up on this idea that the way that “society” has defined fit is so important… because I can assure you they have it wrong. While they’re always looking at the thin model on the photoshop diet as someone who’s body should be praised, they’re ignoring the women who are well-built with great physiques who live healthy and happy lives. They’re ignoring the women who live fit lives, and their bodies have yet to catch up with them.

So… all that is to say… the minute you start making changes is the minute you begin to become “the fit bitch,” and you leave everything else behind. Stop claiming anything else. Start speaking and working things into existence… and that includes no longer accepting the former label for yourself. I don’t think I’ve ever said “I’m still a fat bitch” even when I was one.

There’s no simple way to do it, either. You literally look at your shoulder, lift your hand, and use that hand to dust that label right off.

The labels that people want to give you to make themselves comfortable… they have nothing to do with you. (Sounds a lot like how we used to label “The Fit Bitch” until we accepted that the label had more to do with making US comfortable than anything else, right?) Let all of that go. There’s a point where you’re above it all.. and that point is when you start to experience the benefits of your lifestyle change.

Really, it’s that simple.

On Being and Leaving Behind “The Fat Bitch” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. On Becoming “That Fit Bitch”

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: labels, mentality, society

Portion control is an important part of converting to clean eating, because if you’ve lived a processed food diet, chances are your perceptions of appropriate portion sizes are skewed.We create a system for ourselves that translates into simplifying everyday processes. We’re humans. We like easy… and that’s okay, but we have to know when “easy” isn’t doing us any favors. “Ease” and “portion control” don’t go together very well.

You have to think about it in terms of how one idea leads to another. You might be used to “requiring more food” to be full. You might automatically put a certain amount of food on your plate because you know it requires approximately this much to fill you up. Because you know you put enough food on the plate to fill you up, you might not even think about being full while you eat. You eat to clean your plate… only to groan loudly after it’s all clean and say “Wow, I’m really stuffed.”

Don’t do that.

The reality is, the “stuffed” feeling is not ideal. We got that from commercials (of course they want us to eat up ALL of their product… because that means we have to go back and buy more) and marketing that glamorizes that belly-filled feeling. It’s smart… just not smart for us. We have to be way more clever than that.

When you are first converting to clean eating, every decision you make involving food has to be conscious. You have to be aware. So everything from the piece of peppermint you had after breakfast to the taste-testing you did while cooking dinner, they all have to conscious. You have to know that food is going into your mouth. You also have to know how much you’re giving yourself.

Having said that… let’s talk about the best way to game the system: Your plate.

I’m willing to bet it’s huge. You know how I know this? Because mine are huge. Massive, even. My plates were a gift to me from a dear friend, and though they’re a gorgeous set – complete with tea cups, saucers, bowls and ginormous plates – they’re killin’ me.

When we make our plates, we literally work to fill the plate. Show me someone who is comfortable with making their plate and having only half of it filled, and I’ll show you someone who either (a) is using plates that they didn’t buy or (b) is extremely conscious of their portion sizes (even though they may not admit that part to you.) It’s just a fact of life.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s a point where you no longer have to worry about portion sizes because this, like the old habits, does start to solidify itself as a new habit. But you still have to go through the growing pains. For now, that includes the basics.

One of the best ways to address this is by starting with the very things you use every day in your kitchen… and that’s your silverware, your glasses, your plates and your bowls.

Remember this quote:

Once [a processed food] meets your saliva and enters your body, it breaks right back down to the goo… with no fiber inside to help push it out. It essentially deflates inside of your system, making it easier to consume more calories because you’re “not full yet.” Couple all of this with the fact that it takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal from your digestive system that you’re “full,” and you start to see why a food that breaks down this quickly is a recipe for disaster – a breaded chicken breast on wheat bread breaks down much more slowly than a chicken patty sandwich on white bread, takes longer to chew (buying you time until that 20 minute mark… see why that 30 bites was important?), takes longer to digest (thus leaving you feeling fulfilled longer), and keeps you from overindulging.

Excerpted from: Avoiding That Starving Feeling | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

If it takes 20 minutes to feel filled, then why not use things to slow down the process?

Do you use gigantic spoons whenever you get ready to eat? If so, you’re only speeding up the eating process. Take your time – that includes using a smaller spoon, taking smaller bites and chewing and enjoying the flavor. (Of course, this means getting food that actually has flavor worth savoring, not something that merely has “sweet” or “creamy” going for it. I don’t know about you, but I swallowed those cereals down fast… partly because they had no flavor. Just a lot of “sweet” that fueled my sugar addiction.)

Do you have huge glasses? Are you drinking tons of milk or juices? Those glasses are easily two to three servings a piece. Seriously. I know that, for a long time, I used to use one of those thermal “big gulp” cups that I got from a gas station (this is its own problem, I’m aware) and fill it up with coke. That’d be my dinner drink. Large scale fail. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I do have a 50oz container sitting on ym desk as I type, but it’s full of water. Be conscious of what you’re drinking and how much you’re drinking of it at all times. Save the big cups for water, and set aside your smaller cups for meal time… unless, that is, you’re drinking water.

What about your bowls? I always think of that clip from Friday when Craig goes to make the bowl of cereal, and he grabs the world’s largest bowl and pours in half the box of cereal? Yeah… don’t do that.

(Did I just reference Friday on my blog? Help me.)

Cereal is a big culprit when it comes to overeating. It just never seems to be enough. If you’re eating something and it feels like it can never fill you up without several servings, then it’s not working for you. Stop eating it. Using a moderate sized bowl to eat whole foods will help you learn to pay attention to your body’s signals as well as avoid over eating.

Plates are the most ginormous culprit in making it easy to overeat, because they’re literally the size of hubcaps, now. I mean, the last time I ordered a dish at The Cheesecake Factory, I specifically remember the plate being as wide as I am! I don’t think that’s much different from my plates at home, and that’s the sad part! The reality is, we could get away with a decent ten inch-sized plate, but we don’t. That “feels weird.” But if you’re someone who has a hard time with seeing a half-empty plate, then going smaller may be the better move.

For me, right now, this is a big deal because my goals require me to really focus more on what my meals consist of, and shrinking my portion sizes. Since I know that I’ve become accustomed to how I’ve been living my life in regards to food, its time to start paring down a little more and making my meals even more meaningful. I may write about that another day. The reality is… new plates and bowls are high on the list.

Lots of grocery stores sell individual plates and bowls, so even if I don’t want to buy an entire kit, I can still slowly build up a collection for me, at first. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The reality is… no matter how much we calorie count, people don’t eat for calorie values. We eat for volume. (Though I know there are lots of people who weigh each portion they eat, I have never been that person and can’t speak on that.) Not only do we eat for volume, but we gauge how effective a certain amont will be by how it appears on the plate. “If it can fill up the plate, then surely, it’ll fill me up.” In a lot of instances, we’ve made that decision before we’ve even stuck our forks into our plates.

See why you can’t auto-pilot this? Auto-pilot might convince you that you need a second plate before you’ve even started on the first!

I say all of this to say, consider using smaller serving dishes, smaller spoons, smaller bowls, smaller glasses and smaller plates… and your tendency to overeat will slowly decrease. I promise.

Portion Control: Gaming The System is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. This Week’s Clean Eating Boot Camp Assignment: Portion Control
2. The Importance Of A Strong Support System
3. Portion Distortion: Stop Eating Out Of The Bag

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

Get BGG2WL delivered wirelessly to your Kindle! Click here for more info!

© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality, portion control

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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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 54 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: attitude, mentality

An OBVIOUS product of the photoshop diet. Do not be fooled!

I keep on looking at the fitness-related commercials, and I pay close attention to the “before” and “after” shots. Those are usually the most telling in regards to who they’re trying to target as well as what they want their target market to believe their product can create.

For example – the “before” and “after” shots for “a successful nutrition program that you have to purchase over the phone” might look like “a frumpy middle-aged woman” as the before, and a bikini competition model as the after. Like, it’s clearly a body that I can personally see came from extremely hard work. Do they really expect me to believe that all those muscles came from “a properly balanced diet” that, more often than not, consists of extremely processed foods? Please.

Or… let’s talk about the time frames on those photos. “I lost 20lbs in 6 weeks!” which, to me, more often looks like “I lost 50lbs on The Photoshop Diet!” because those photos were a product of some very creative airbrushing, not very hard work. And sure, they’ll have the disclaimer of “Results were a product of proper exercise and nutrition… plus our product!” Well, get outta town. Really?! I wouldn’t have guessed.

…and about those disclaimers. Regardless of whether or not they say “results may vary” or “results created with proper exercise and diet” or even “results are a product of fat-sucking aliens and drinking cyanide,” it doesn’t ever matter.. does it? All we see is “OMG LOOK AT WHAT SHE DID AND SHE USED THIS PRODUCT? OMG MUST HAVE!”

My questions, really, are about how we perceive the marketing meant to show us what “successful weight loss” looks like. I have my theories, but I’m much more interested in what you have to say. Is a successful weight loss story a matter of “appearance?” Does a success story have a certain look? Is it a mental thing that can’t be seen (and if so, why is that never in the marketing?) Is there a time frame applied – as in, they have to have kept the weight off for x amount of days/weeks/months/years – before we can consider someone a success story? Do we only consider it a success story if they achieved the weight loss through certain means (or rather, do we adequately consider how they might’ve truly lost the weight?)

P.S.: I’m talking about the success stories that we see on TV – commercials, infomercials, and even weight loss TV shows. Not blogs or bloggers – that means not me, either!

What Does A Success Story Look Like To You? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Story Of Bottled Water
2. Understanding Calorie Counting: Preparing Yourself For Success
3. The Anatomy of A Diet: Why They Work, and Why The Success Never Lasts

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mentality, success story

My thoughts were, of course you can be fit and “fat.” And considering how “fat” in America is anything over a size 4 – depending upon who you talk to – MANY of us are “fat” in someone else’s eyes… clearly that doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as the stuff that keeps us alive. That stuff is filed under that “fit” label.

Those who I’ve dialogued with outside of the site know how I feel about this “fat” thing. As I’ve said before, my primary goal was just being a healthy weight. The vanity aspect of it came when I could afford to be vain and think about looks.. which, basically, was when I had my health situated.

There’s a point in that clip that disturbed me, though – the thinner woman said, “Because I am thin, because I’ve never been sick,” she never thought that her system could be in such bad shape because her body wasn’t in bad shape. I think that the American understanding that our “outer” is a direct reflection of our “inner” is what’s making it so hard for us to have these conversations about health.

What do I mean? I mean that we keep connecting a person’s size to their ability to be healthy. It shortchanges the people on both ends of the spectrum. If being obese is the epitome of poor health, then if I’m superskinny I should be good, right? I should be able to avoid all of that, right? Ever heard of metabolic syndrome?

Metabolic syndrome is a series of diseases that appear in the body in conjunction with one another as a result of a poor diet yet doesn’t always result in obesity. It creeps up on people because, since they believe their small frames alleviate them of the responsibility of caring for their systems, they tend to not only ignore any warning signs that their habits might be unhealthy but this also results in them continuing in said damaging behavior!

I guess I wanted to share this because I want us to stop thinking this skinny/fat thing is so linear. Good health manifests itself within ourselves mentally as well as physically. It extends itself far beyond a nice body. Taking care of ourselves means inside as WELL as outside. Don’t let yourselves get caught up in BEING skinny or shooting for skinny. Aim for better health first and foremost, and I can assure you everything else will become MUCH simpler!

Can You Be Fit AND “Fat?” is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 25 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: health, mentality, myths

If I buy it, I WILL eat it... so the trick is to... not buy it?

Here’s something that might come as a “duh,” but I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it within this context before:

The easier it is to acquire something, the more likely I am to eat it… and eat a lot of it.

When my house was full of quick heat-n-eats, it was beyond easy for me to eat whenever I thought about food. All it took was a passing thought about something in the fridge, and before I knew it – it was in the microwave. It was in the oven. I was eating… until I felt stuffed.

It was quick. It was easy. It was overwhelming. And it all happened in under 20 minutes.

That’s why it’s so advantageous for companies to make food even quicker and even easier to cook… you get little time during the process to second-guess your decision to eat. Very little time to ask yourself, “Am I really hungry? Do I really want this? Should I wait?” And if it’s in your house already… you’re pretty much setting yourself up to lose.

For someone like me, who spends a large amount of time in an area with a kitchen and a refridgerator… I had to realize that the easier I made it to eat, the more likely it is that I would, in fact, eat. And because those “easier-to-eat foods” aren’t – by any stretch of the imagination – healthy for us, the more that I ate… the more that I was harming myself. The more of these foods that I ate, the more likely it was that I wasn’t actually filling myself at all… compelling myself to eat more:

Our processed foods are broken down to their most basic parts, mixed in with preservatives (which help, you know, preserve the final product), flavor additives, water, flour, various forms of salt, then manipulated to be whatever they want to sell us. The same ground up chicken carcass (which is what is in that photo) can be chicken patties, chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, “diced chicken,” the chicken in your chicken pot pie, the chicken in your soup… whatever. Just look for “mechanically separated [animal] parts.” You won’t have to look too hard.

Once it’s broken down to create this… goo… chemicals are used to hold it in place to form whatever shape it’s going to take. Once it meets your saliva and enters your body, it breaks right back down to the goo… with no fiber inside to help push it out. It essentially deflates inside of your system, making it easier to consume more calories because you’re “not full yet.” Couple all of this with the fact that it takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal from your digestive system that you’re “full,” and you start to see why a food that breaks down this quickly is a recipe for disaster – a breaded chicken breast on wheat bread breaks down much more slowly than a chicken patty sandwich on white bread, takes longer to chew (buying you time until that 20 minute mark… see what that 30 bites was important?), takes longer to digest (thus leaving you feeling fulfilled longer), and keeps you from overindulging. [source]

We are creatures of habit. We also are hard-wired to want to make things easier for ourselves. (I imagine this is also why so many of us dread the idea of working out – who wants to struggle and work hard and sweat all day every day?) There’s nothing wrong with innovating to make things easier for ourselves. The problem comes when that “easy way out” actually creates more problems than it solves. The problem comes when “easy” morphs into “damaging.”

I’ve written about how I make clean eating easier in my day to day life. I would pre-cook things. I’d pre-prep things. I spend a half hour each week chopping, grating, organizing, rinsing, freezing and soaking. In a sense, I’ve already bypassed most of the cooking process at this point – I’ve made my own processed foods, so to speak. I’ve made it easier for me to make healthier choices, if I’m going to be overtaken by the quick “Hmmm, I want some food because I’m bored” feeling. Now, I’m eating a cucumber dill sandwich (maybe 220 calries) instead of a handful of taquitos and sour cream (approximately 627 calories).

Luckily, for me, because I eat so often… I don’t really think about food because I know it’s coming. It’s to the point for me that now, I’m not overtaken by that eating-out-of-boredom or eating-because-I’m-starving thing. I eat when it’s time… because it’s time. For me, because I’ve learned how to make quick and easy full-bodied veggie snacks – even spent a while eating giant heads (and stalks) of broccoli to snack on – I don’t even bother pre-cooking or pre-prepping things anymore. I enjoy the process and, because it is now a priority to me, I don’t mind making time for it each day. I know dishes that take ten minutes to throw together, and I know dishes that take an hour to put together. I just make sure that I pick appropriately.

There’s a psychological aspect to this, too – from the moment we put an item in our cart, we’ve triggered a chain of events. If the food has adequate amounts of sugar, fat and salt… it has triggered that chain in our system that becomes excited (because the brain knows what’s coming), followed by sitting at home and staring at it all in your face every time you enter the kitchen/open the fridge/peek in the freezer, followed by the repeated effort you have to put forth to say “Nooooooooooooo you will not win this time!!” and lastly followed up by you diving in head first… and the longer the process takes to complete itself, the more you are likely to eat. That kind of pre-meditation (the process of thinking about the food, then saying no to it) creates an expectation… and you’ll eat and eat and eat the food until it has lived up to the expectation you had of it. (This seems to be especially true of ice cream… at least, in my experience. Just sayin’.)

This is why, for me, it is especially important for me to be careful of what I keep within my reach and what I allow myself to access. Like, sure… I may pick up something I know I have noooooo business having, and I’ll stare at it for a minute and try to justify buying it… but the end of the process isn’t me buying it and agonizing over it at home. The end of the process is me – literally – putting it back on its shelf, doing a little dance, and walking away. (This, again, seems to be especially true of ice cream. Needless to say, I don’t go in the ice cream aisle anymore.)

All of this is to say… convenience makes it easier for us to do things we know we shouldn’t, so even when we’re buying with the best of intentions in mind, sometimes we’re still setting ourselves up. There’s nothing wrong with saying “I can’t do it.. so I won’t.” and putting it back where it belongs. To me, there’s nothing wrong with stopping this cycle dead in its tracks and throwing away something we know we shouldn’t have purchased in the first place. I seek to be aware of my limitations and respect them, or use them to my advantage. Except for the ice cream… y’all better hope I never figure out how to make mint chocolate chip ice cream from scratch. Good grief.

The Trouble With Convenience is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. The Trouble With Genetically Engineered Foods, Revisited

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Post tags: mentality, processed foods

I'd rather see a positive photo of Black women, as opposed to a Black man in a fat suit being used to represent me.

To make a long story short, a blog post appeared asking why Black women are, well, so fat. The post came attached with a photo of – get this – Eddie Murphy in a fat suit as an illustration of what the target of this post, “fat Black women” (as they were called repeatedly in the comments,) really look like. Like men in fat suits.

The post included the following:

To you unhealthy size 16 women who write all these “We aren’t all a size two posts”. Please sit down and just accept that you are overweight and stop glorifying it. If you are heavier than your man (unless you just like your men bony) then you should be ashamed of yourself.

My goal here is to get you to accept that most of you don’t really have a handle on your health and that you were NOT born to look like a hippo. [..]

Stop trying to justify your fatness.

So… let’s talk. Aside from the fact that the post was written by the same person who wrote something titled, “Hood Chicks Are People Too;” aside from the fact that the post was written as if the author got picked on by a group of “fat Black chicks” and then ran home to pen her rant; aside from the fact that the entire thing is so juvenile, I probably shouldn’t even address it here… there are two important things to witness, here.

Firstly, this was written on a site that, from what I’ve seen, aims for a comedic approach to semi-sensitive issues. I get that. I suppose it was “gun for overweight Black women” day. I guess I get that, too. The interesting thing, though, is that while the post tried to say “concern,” the comments left you to find these treasures:

You don’t need to be a medical professional to see that some people too damn big

…and…

Obese people resemble Hippos…*shrugs*…if they like looking that way..then they dont have to read any further..I will not apologize for stating my opinion..no matter how mean it may seem.

…and…

This post isn’t about being skinny..it’s about being healthy..you must be overweight and unhealthy…keep on being that way if that’s what you want…I dont want that for you..but I can’t stop you from enjoying another 3000 calorie dinner tonite

…and…

If an obese woman believes she looks good that size then she won’t do anything about her health..she looks like a hippo and has 20 s rolls on her body. She is not THICK..she is LUMPY…and there is NOTHING RIGHT with that..nothing AT ALL. Sure it’s insulting to say hippo…but maybe ..just MAYBE if I didn’t say say “big is beautiful” less of you would be inclined to keep slowing killing yourselfs [sic] and jacking up your insides…

…last one, I swear…

morbid obese people look worse than hippos

So on a site that tries to bring humor to serious situations decides to let one of its contributors tackle the issue of overweight Black women with a “serious tone,” underestimates the amount of women it would piss off because they are the target of the article (and ceremoniously represented by a picture of a Black man in a fat suit) and THEN goes on to just straight up fling hate? Because saying a group of people who are, by appearance, morbidly obese (a clinical term related specifically to the correlation of height and weight, NOT appearance.. so that’s a fail on its face) look worse than hippos is not even insulting. Those kinds of generalizations are hateful.

To imply that a woman should feel shame because of her body is astounding to me. That a woman who has pride in who she is should not simply because she is overweight? Isn’t this the same notion that American society slams us with every single day? “You don’t look like me, so be ashamed of that.” It appears in various forms and is echoed from various mouths, but society is full of people who use appearance to give off that “I’m better than you, get on my level, and until you do get on my level you are a ‘less than’.” vibe. It’s meant to fill a void – there’s nothing internal to make them feel good about themselves… so they grab for external reasons to feel good. Meh.

I’m pretty much over the author. There is one last piece of business I’d like to tend to, though.

I happened to see this comment:

curious, don’t take this the wrong way, on average, what do you eat everyday? Give me a breakdown, How many meals and what is it and how many snacks. I may be able to help you. But you gotta commit. I have a lot of overweight friends that “claim” they want positive advice but when you give it to them, they never follow through and make excuses as to why they ate something bad, or ate excessively. I’m 32, I weigh 98 pounds and I look like I work out, but I don’t. [...]

I want to put you on to an easy way to drop at least 20 pounds without even really doing much. So if you are open to suggestions, holla back.

…it received this response:

1.Eggs, soy milk, turkey sausage (breakfast)
2. apple (snack)
3. chicken breast w/ salad (lunch)
4. banana or cherries (snack)
5. Turkey w/ broccoli & mushrooms (dinner)
*nothing but water w/ meals*

…the 98lb nutritionist (who later clarified that she is 4’11″) then told her the following:

First mistake, that Breakfast is no good. LOL!! You need to minimize that, that’s the easiest meal to minimize.

Eggs AND sausage is two fatty items. What about Sausage, 2 links, French toast, and a grapefruit. If you do eggs, do them boiled, eat the white part only. Or just a bowl of cereal by itself. No Oatmeal or anything with a lot of grain.

The apple is good, Green ones are the best.

Lunch. How about a Chicken Cesar from Panera or something. Not a whole breast AND a salad, combine the two. Rotate every other day, do a Plain Cesar at least twice out the week. I do Plain Cesars.

Soda, one a day if you must.

Since you are tying to lose weight, the banana is no good. Eat another green apple, or watermelon. Or Fruit Snacks or a smoothie. Don’t know if ya’ll got Smoothie King, but the mango one is the bomb!!!

Dinner can be the same, cut out the mushrooms though, you don’t need those and the Turkey, that two proteins at once. No bread, if so wheat only.

Or, if you eat a big Breakfast, eat a light dinner. [...] Don’t eat after 8:30pm.

I cannot say this any louder, and I cannot stress this enough. Just because someone is proportionate… doesn’t mean they have the market cornered on how to get proportionate or how to stay there. Someone who is 4’11″ and 98lbs is not running into the same problems as someone who is 6′ and 300lbs with weight maintenance. Not only is this piss poor advice (don’t eat eggs for breakfast, but eat French toast? allowing soda? Skip the fruit, but have some fruit? No oatmeal? Oh lawdy, the BGG2WL girls would have a field day with that.) but it is misguided – are we talking health or “getting skinny?” Are we even encouraging a healthy perception of self? Or are we shaming women into feeling horrible about not being skinny and “looking healthy,” then giving them bad advice without helping patch them up after the emotional breakdown we try to cause? Or do these people even give enough of a damn to bother?

I know my questions will go unanswered, and that’s okay. I also know that I’m not even included in the demographic this original article targeted, and that’s okay too. The fact remains that I am always going to be the same person I was at 328lbs, and that person is still sympathetic to the struggle of losing weight and becoming healthy, no matter how far I’ve “made it.”

The fact also remains that the focus on “looking healthy” as opposed to “being healthy” is the same misinformation that compels women to remain unhealthy. Think about it – telling me that I need to be skinny to be healthy, and I never reach my region’s definition of skinny (I doubt Los Angeles and Atlanta have the same definition of skinny)… I’m gonna give up and go back to what I’m doing. “Screw healthy. These pringles are callin’ me.”

All I’m sayin’ is I like my fatophobes the same way I like my anecdotal nutritionists – silent. I know that an article about the perils of “being fat” tends to make the “not fat” crew feel a little better about themselves… but for the love of everything healthy, don’t cloak your insults in faux concern and please don’t make the problem worse by offering your pseudo-advice that works for you to people you don’t really give a damn about. Neither of you are helping.

The Fat-O-Phobes Are Showing Their Behinds Again is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Shoutout To The Fat-O-Phobes: Marie Claire vs Fat TV Characters

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 57 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-fat society, bad advice, epic ranting, fatophobia, faux concern, mentality, society, stupid

I’ve never read Push. (I know someone’s gonna get on me for that. I spent more time in music books than I did anything else. My bad.) I haven’t seen the movie Precious and probably never will, simply because I’m not a movie person. However, you cannot ignore the fact that something awesome happened last year, and that awesomeness manifested itself into Oscars, Golden Globes, Solar Systems, and whatever else Hollywood uses to pat itself on the back.

I’m inspired by the roller coaster ride that the Precious team has enjoyed. From thinking that the story could never be done justice on the screen, to winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. From thinking that plus-sized women – especially women of color… especially Mo’Nique  – could never be recognized playing “these kinds of roles,” to watching a very gracious and charismatic 26 year old be nominated alongside the Meryl Streep and the Helen Mirren… and watching Mo’Nique win that Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Really, do I need to go on?

There is something really powerful and refreshing here. While there are people who have their concerns about details within the movie (which don’t mean much to me, since I won’t be seeing it), I can only give credit to one thing. The fact that this climate, in this day and age, allowed for a movie like Precious to be funded, screened, lauded, awarded and successful. Forget what you think about “fat Black chicks.” That movie made $47 million dollars in only 200 theatres (if you take a peek at this chart, you’ll see movies who made $70mil but were shown in thousands of theatres) – there was clearly success to be had regardless of how few people were willing to give it a chance.

That’s not enough, though. Collectively as a nation, we need to be able to tear you down and rebuild you. So… let the attempts to tear down Miss Sidibe commence.

Howard Stern and that genius sidekick of his, Robin, lose their freaking marbles calling Gabby “the size of a planet,” and loudly proclaiming that she could never get another part because Hollywood simply doesn’t write for fat Black broads. I mean, that’s putting it bluntly, but it’s still a hell of a lot more polite than Stern’s original words. I’m not really sweating Howard Stern.. no one should. People who like him tune in to hear him say “what everyone is thinking” in the most crass and disrespectful way possible. It’s how he gets down. Big whoop.

This, for some reason, was the straw that broke my back. Some scammy acai berry magic elixir sellin’ company (y’all know how I feel about anything “magic“) tries to capitalize off of Sidibe’s attention by “leaking” a letter supposedly sent to her representatives about their fake-concern for her health. For the purposes of my rant, the letter is typed out for you below:

Dear Ms. Sidibe,

After viewing the recent pictures taken of you strolling around Santa Monica earlier this week, we at [website redacted] have decided we can no longer sit back and keep our mouth’s [sic] shut! Obesity is a major epidemic in the United States, and we would like to help you rid yourself of this terrible affliction. Life doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s time to prove Howard Stern and all of your naysayers wrong! We, along with Oprah agree that you DO have a bright future ahead of you in the entertainment business, and the only way you can reach your goal of someday winning that Oscar is by being active, fit, and most of all, healthy!

Thousands of people around the world say that [company name redacted]‘s Acai berry products help them live a healthier life that is full of energy and vitality. [redacted] has taken Acai Berry one step further by combining Acai extract with a combination of nutrients that help with weight-loss, increasing energy levels, and antioxidants that help promote healthier looking skin.

[redacted] would like to offer Ms. Sibide [sic] a ONE YEAR FREE SUPPLY of [redacted] in return for her glowing testimonial after she sheds her unwanted pounds.

Please get back to me at your earliest convenience with your or your representative’s shipping address so that we may ship out your first month’s supply.

Best Regards,
Total Jerk
CEO scammycompany

That last part might be my addition, but the rest of the letter is real. This is where I blew my lid.

First of all, I’m not gonna lie. I can hear it now. “Create a letter offering Si-bi-de – oh, it’s Si-di-be? Who cares! You know who I mean – some of our product for free, and send copies of the letter to the major gossip outlets. Tell her all she has to do is agree to promote for us, and she can have the supply for free. At best, she says yes. At worst, she says no and we still have all the publicity. Can’t fail!” That’s smart marketing… even though it’s rather vulture-like.

However… telling her that losing weight is the ONLY way she’d ever win an Oscar? Is that what this country is coming to now? That we believe that someone with stellar, outstanding, amazing talent would get passed over for recognition simply because they’re “fat?” That’s what we support and perpetuate? Is our collective self-esteem and respect for our peers that poor? Even more so, is that what we want to perpetuate? We don’t want to change that? Can’t change that?

Sigh.

Do I think Gabby is overweight? Yes. Do I think she’s unhealthy? Of course I do. Do I think that my opinion is important enough for her to care what I think? Not at all. Does any of this have anything to do with the amazing talent this woman has? Absolutely not. It makes her human. And I’d stand to believe that her “visible imperfection” made her that much more real in her portrayal of an… imperfect person. A real person playing a real role. How… unique.

I’m not even going to get on the fact that the letter repeats that motto that the fitness and weight loss industry LOVES to beat into our heads… that a magic little product will magically make us healthy. ‘Cause health is as easy as being skinny. ‘Cause being healthy is the same as being skinny. I mean, I don’t need to go there on this site, do I?

Nah.

My eyes kind of just glaze over when I have to face people’s need to talk about Gabby’s weight. Do we… need someone to know that we feel some kind of way about someone’s body? Are we getting some kind of satisfaction from highlighting someone else’s flaws? Is it just open season on people, nowadays? Or do we feel that we are so above criticism that we can say whatever we want about others… since, clearly, the same couldn’t be said about ourselves?

Like I said in the beginning… I don’t care, and I wish more of you felt the same way, too. I support Gabourey as a very incredible and witty personality, and I wish her the best (apparently.. thanks to Showtime, she’s already on her way). My time is better invested in me and making myself a better person, than expelling energy on people that don’t know me or give a damn what I think.

Update: Robin Quivers, the aforementioned sidekick on The Howard Stern Show, wrote for The Huffington Post just so that she could honestly “explain” her and Stern’s comments… without all the snark and crudeness required while on air. Maybe I’m just too much of a cynic to give it any weight, no pun intended.

In an effort to end this rant on an uplifting note, I present you with the best thing to come out of a celebrity’s mouth in a long time:

“I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don’t like myself, there’s no reason to even live the life [...] They try to paint the picture that I was this downtrodden, ugly girl who was unpopular in school and in life and then I got this role and now I’m awesome, but the truth is that I’ve been awesome, and then I got this role.” – Gabourey Sidibe

Amen.

My Thoughts on Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. My Thoughts On Dr. Oz’s 6 Meal Plan
2. Q&A Wednesday: My Thoughts On The Master Cleanse
3. A Few Thoughts on Cravings, Deprivation and Indulging

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anti-fat society, blackness, celebrities, fatophobia, media, mentality, weight loss

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!

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1. Who’s Allowed To Call You Fat?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blackness, fat, mentality, social eating, stigmas

The last indulgence I had... fresh homemade biscuits with homemade strawberry jam.

If there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s this: the more I try to deny myself access to something, the more desirable that something becomes. Be it cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, brussel sprouts… whatever. If I deny myself access to it for long enough, the more desirable it becomes.

I’m willing to bet I’m not the only person wired that way.

Depriving myself of something, in a sense, means that even though I “reeeeeeeeeally want” something, I’m still saying “no.” This isn’t just a simple “I’d like to have it.” This is an “OMG I WANT IT AND THIS ISNT FAIR DAMN IT!” craving. That kind of compulsion is strange and it means that something else may very well be behind the craving – like a sugar addiction, perhaps? – that needs to be addressed.

Isn’t this part of what makes dieting so silly, though? Not only do you not address the real issue (why the craving exists), and not only do you deprive yourself of something you want, in most cases you’re depriving yourself of lots of the things you need. Like, well, food. C’mon – grapefruit is awesome and all… but I couldn’t imagine eating only grapefruit for breakfast and lunch and then having “a sensible dinner.” Substitute grapefruit for an [insert brand name] shake and, well… the same thing applies.

Deprivation – and by default, dieting – simply don’t work for me. I also have to admit that I, personally, don’t crave things like cookies, cupcakes, pies, donuts… really, I don’t have cravings at all anymore.

I wasn’t always this way, though. I used to be ruled by my cravings. Back when I found myself craving things like the entire bag of goldfish, I never considered why I would have such a ridiculous craving. I mean, really. An entire bag of goldfish?

That’s not a craving. That’s a catastrophe.

But there, I’d stand – I didn’t even sit down for ‘em – with the bag in one hand and a ton of goldfish in the other, pouring them down my throat. It was an overall lose-lose situation for me.

For me, my cravings were borne of my emotional eating. I craved something that would “make me feel better” because there were things that I couldn’t/wouldn’t control in my life that were making me feel worse. Mind you, we all have things in our lives that we cannot control that make us feel bad – say, a tough situation at work – but using food to self-medicate has much more harmful side-effects besides “oh, I’m gaining weight.”

As someone who’s still learning about her relationship with food, if I find myself craving something then I have a personal dialogue with myself before and while I’m eating. I think to myself, “Do I really want this?” followed by “Why do I want this?” and if my answer isn’t sufficient or if it’s clearly just a case of me trying to talk myself into doing something I don’t want to do, I notice that.

I mean, even at my most manipulative, I’m still aware of when I’m trying to manipulate myself into doing something when I’m not sure it’s the best decision. It usually sounds something like a commercial for whatever product I’m craving at that time. “C’mon… you deserve…” or “It’s been a long time since you’ve enjoyed…” are two phrases that come to mind, here.

When I catch myself being manipulative, I ask myself… do I really want this? And I won’t lie. Sometimes, the answer is an emphatic “YES!” and I’ll indulge. But knowing that I’m eating because of a craving – no matter the size – and not for something that I’d personally consider to be a legitimate reason…. knowing that? It ruins the indulgence for me. I’m serious.

If I decide that I’m craving a croissant from the bakery around the corner, and I’ve set my mind on it… it does me no personal or mental good to tell myself “no.” I know myself. But knowing that this is simply a craving and not anything substantial makes it hard for me to enjoy the croissant… and it makes it hard to ever crave it again.

But what happens when, after all of that, I still indulge anyway? What happens when I decide to bite into that croissant? I think long and hard about whether or not I’m fueling an addiction. I think – for even longer – about whether or not I’m doing myself a favor by eating this. I think about whether or not, after I’ve thoroughly dissected my logic behind biting into it in the first place, I even really wanted it. Usually, the answers fall in line with the “I should’ve never done this” camp.

Am I shaming myself a bit, here? Of course. But, as I’ve written before:

To me, shame is inevitable. If you’re in a position of learning, you will feel like that same learning – that position of being the student instead of the teacher in regards to something “that should be common sense” – is highlighting a shortcoming.. and you may feel ashamed of that. I know I did. Shame brought on by someone guilting you – and trust me, you know it’s malicious because you can’t identify the person as someone coming from a place of love – is unacceptable.

Excerpted from Food Guilt and Food Shaming Are Not Your Friend | A Black Girl’s Guide To Weight Loss

If I’m in the position of learning about myself and my cravings, I’ll inevitably feel some kind of way about learning when and where I fall short. But since “knowing is half the battle,” this is the best path for me. It’s a path I could never embark upon if I lived a life of continual deprivation.

My cravings for croissants? Gone. Cupcakes? Gone. Cookies? Gone. Realizing the “why” behind my cravings, learning the reasons behind those cravings, addressing those “issues” and accepting the consequences of those indulgences has taught me far more than struggling for years with trying to develop some sense of “will power.”

And that’s another story entirely.

What about you? How do you deal with “deprivation?” How do you handle cravings?

A Few Thoughts on Cravings, Deprivation and Indulging is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Joy Bauer: Eat To Beat Your Food Cravings
2. Q&A Wednesday: Menstrual Cravings & Defeating The Sugar Demon
3. Q&A Thursday: Aunt Flo’ And The Cravings

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cravings, deprivation, depriving myself, indulging, mentality

Until…

I just so happened to read Naked & Unashamed, and catch this quote at the end:

“People have to be comfortable in their own skin before they can be comfortable with someone else’s.”

Since this is a website about embracing oneself, being aware of one’s shortcomings and loving oneself enough to put in the effort to make ourselves better, I had to take a stab at it.

In all honesty, I’m beyond the video. I do enough analyzing all day… I’m not really moved by a music video, no matter how compelling it may be. I’m way more interested in the reactions to the video than I am the video itself.

Among one of my favorites, we have this:

“Typical…black women stripping nude in a video and debasing themselves. And you wonder why you are the least respected and sought after.”

Obviously, I don’t agree with that, but there’s a larger issue at play, here.

Sports Illustrated can have an entire magazine devoted to white women in swimsuits – suits, mind you, made of much less fabric than what Badu was wearing before the blurring began. SpikeTV can host some of the most misogynistic garbage I’ve ever seen (though, full disclosure, I do my fair share of laughing at it, too… What? They show CSI repeats.) Playboy has women showing their cookies, their cupcakes, their twinkies and their muffins. That’s just what they do. They model... They act – it’s a job… It’s Playboy – what do you expect?

A Black woman appears in a music video – saying nothing about whether or not she’s fully clothed – and she’s “just a video ho.” A Black woman poses in a bikini in a magazine, and it’s “She couldn’t wear more clothing than that?” A Black woman working on her flexibility must be doing it for sexual reasons. Don’t let her admit she takes a pole dancing fitness class.

Hell, Badu even tweeted the link to the video that inspired hers – a white male/female duo running Buck. E. Naked through Times Square, NYC. They’re just lovable, playful scamps running ’round an already sinful city, though. No big deal there. Erykah, however, is showcasing why no one loves Black women… by doing what the hell she wants to do in her music video.

There’s “debasing” going on, alright. It’s not self-imposed, though.

“People have to be comfortable in their own skin before they can be comfortable with someone else’s.”

Either we’re apologists for the sexuality of our non-Black counterparts, or we have set standards so high for Black women that exploring ourselves is no longer acceptable. We’re doomed to be one monolithic mass, regardless of our individuality… because someone we don’t know – someone who, essentially, doesn’t really give a damn about us – insists on trying to save us from ourselves. Since, y’know, we’re turning ourselves into whores. We’re always seeking to make a Black woman somebody’s Jezebel, in dire need of our “help.”

Not familiar with Jezebel?

The portrayal of Black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, White women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty – even sexual purity, but Black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory. This depiction of Black women is signified by the name Jezebel.

There’s also this one, that I love:

Next, there is Jezebel, the bad-black-girl, who is depicted as alluring and seductive as she either indiscriminately mesmerizes men and lures them into her bed, or very deliberately lures into her snares those who have something of value to offer her.

I can’t help but wonder if our need to make a Black woman into a Jezebel comes from our failure to understand ourselves: what parts of us are sexual in nature, what is not; what should be seen as sexual, what should not; what should be considered hazardous, and what is harmless exploration – the kind from which lessons are learned.

Am I an advocate for sexual irresponsibility? No. Am I saying it’s ok to “be a slut?” If we share the same definition of “slut” (see: sexual irresponsibility), then I’ma go on and say “no.” Make no mistake, I don’t give passes for behavior that is not my own. However, I am a hippie at heart, and while I have my own standards for how I behave and interact with others in public, I can’t force those standards on others. I’ve never turned down the opportunity to offer up my opinion when asked for it, but making judgments and imposing those judgments on others as guidelines by which they must abide… are two different things entirely.

And while there are many who might not see – nor care about – what I’m saying here (and that’s okay), it’s worth pointing out – when we, as Black women, insist on reducing even the most innocent of our actions to Jezebelism, we perpetuate the notion that that’s all Black women are. That’s all you can expect of them. Being the Jezebel. Being the sirene.

Having said that, all I have from here are questions. Are so many of us so uncomfortable with the concept of sexuality – our own sexuality – that we can’t even identify when something is sexual or not? Has it stifled our intellectual understanding of sexuality? If we have “passes” to dole out, why are we not doling them out for ourselves? Do we often see inherently sexual messages in inherently non-sexual situations? Collectively, are we so repressed and limited in our self-comfort, that we can’t help but to project this repression onto others? Why care so much?

Must we make everything a Black woman does publicly be about her “whoring?” Or, are we really just projecting our own discomfort on other women who look like us? Like I said: from here, all I’ve got is questions. Well, questions… and this:

“People have to be comfortable in their own skin before they can be comfortable with someone else’s.”

On Badu and Our Bodies: Are We Comfortable In Our Own Skin? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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2. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: The Booty
3. Black Women, Our Bodies & Perceptions of Beauty: Straight Hair

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black women, blackness, celebrities, mentality, sex, sexuality

It’s that deep.

So for me, the supermarket checkout lanes were more fun than the actual grocery store. Why? Because the game was “avoid swiping the entire chocolate rack into your cart with one hand.” I’m ashamed to tell you that, some days, I lost. [insert big frown here]

During the down time when I started to let go of processed foods, I had a period where I was looking up everything, much to my detriment. The more I learned, the angrier I became and the more I wound up giving up.

Unfortunately… one day, I just so happened to turn over a chocolate bar… and much to my disappointment, I saw the same science lab I’d been seeing on the rest of my food.

Imagine the look of shock and horror across my face. I don’t even think I remember what was more frustrating – the fact that my chocolate wasn’t, in fact, chocolate… or the fact that I couldn’t just allow myself to remain in blissful ignorance. I just had to turn over that darn wrapper and see what the hell I was eating. It wasn’t pretty.

It was also enough for me to give up chocolate completely. It was like nothing was safe! If I couldn’t understand the label, I couldn’t do it. It had to go.

So… fast forward. I happen across a young woman at the farmer’s market, who appears to be a chocolatier. She’s nice, she’s sweet, she’s… selling organic dark chocolate?! Say what? Not only does she have organic dark chocolate truffles, but she has vegan organic dark chocolate truffles? Oh, help me.

At this point, it’s been almost a year since I’ve last had chocolate. (I wasn’t playing when I said I’d given up.) I bit into her truffle, and it was like the clouds opened up… a choir appeared behind me singing the Hallelujah chorus… and a ray of sunlight began to beam on me alone. I could’ve floated! Immediately, I asked her what comes in one package.

The inside of my tiny box of vegan organic dark chocolate truffles... dusted with Dutch cocoa powder. Yummy.

“In each individually wrapped package, you get two truffles.”

“Okay,” as a grab my wallet, reaching for a couple singles. “How much?”

“Five dollars.”

In my mind, the record skipped. Y’all know I’m cheap, right? TWO truffles for five dollars? I tried to not have a visible reaction on my face to her price, but I don’t think I was successful, because she laughed pretty loudly at me. It’s ok.. I laughed back.

“Don’t worry, you’re not the first to have that reaction!” she told me. I felt trapped – I wanted the chocolate, but dang – I couldn’t justify paying that much for it, when I know that my former favorites are in the checkout lane for three for a dollar right now!

“I like to think of my chocolates as an indulgence — something you definitely don’t do every day, but when you do do them, they’re definitely worth the wait.”

At this time, my daughter started asking for a piece of chocolate to taste, too, and the lady – charming as she was – went ahead and gave her a tiny piece. Since I’m a sucker for people who engage my little one, I went ahead and decided to purchase from her. But as I reached for my five, I told her, “I could see that… because I spent way more on chocolate before. If I just bought a really nice piece of chocolate every now and again instead of crap every other day, I’d still be happy… and not be broke!” and we both laughed as she handed me my purchase.

And trust me, my chcolates were undoubtedly worth it.

But that experience taught me a valuable lesson – a few valuable lessons, to be honest. First, an indulgence is an opportunity to enjoy something… not hide from the world in it. I had to realize that in my effort to abstain from the chemicals and the foods engineered to “make me enjoy, love, and want to buy more of them,” I was forcing myself to stop eating my emotions. I was forcing myself to cope with my realities outside of food… because food was no longer sooooooooo satisfying to me anymore. So, even though I was afraid of what chemicals might’ve been in those dark chocolate truffles (she has four ingredients in her truffles and even shared the recipe with me!), it didn’t matter because it had been so long since I’d tried to use food as an emtional shield.. the attempt didn’t even make sense to my body anymore. Besides… the chemicals weren’t there anymore. It wouldn’t have worked, anyway.

Secondly, I was spending a lot of money on chocolate. A lot. Chocolate cookies, chocolate pies, chocolate bars… but the reality is, the amount of actual chocolate in them is negligible. Most of the “chocolate” that I was eating might contain just enough chocolate for the manufacturer to put “chocolate” or “cocoa powder” on the label.. but the majority of it was some strange flour/oil/”natural flavors”/corn syrup combination. So my “indulgence” was, really, just me binging on fake chocolate flavored flour paste. My indulgence wasn’t even worth the time it took to eat it.

If I spent $3 each day on chocolate – a giant chocolate bar or a big bag of little chocolate bars that couldn’t even remotely compare to the two bites of chocolate I paid $5 for? Then guess what. Not only did my delicious chocolate ensure that I’d never go back to the crap chocolate, but it saved me money. Spending $5 every couple of weeks as opposed to $15 each week? C’mon. I might experience a little sticker shock, but I’m still saving lots of dough.

Lastly, it’s okay to indulge. The idea is not to put myself in nutritional prison. The idea is to learn how to curb my habits and guarantee my health. So yes, that means that I have to occasionally tell myself “No, you don’t need any chocolate today” or even “No, you don’t need chocolate this week.” If I truly think about why I “need” an indulgence, the answer (if my conscience isn’t cluttered by hunger) is usually that I don’t need to indulge. I don’t need to indulge. I need to make sure that when I want to indulge, it’s not for the wrong reasons. I need to make sure that both my indulgence and how often I indulge are both in check – make sure they won’t prevent me from reaching or maintaining my goals.

I always knew chocolate would do me some good… I just never thought it’d be this much.

What are your indulgences? What tips do you have to share?

Forget all that… any good recommendations on how to enjoy chocolate? I’m kidding! (Sort of.)

How To Indulge Like A Grown Up: What Chocolate Taught Me is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

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1. Q&A Wednesday: Do You EVER Indulge?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chocolate, Healthy Eating, indulge, mentality, overeating, processed foods

Q:I have a problem with belly fat – after I had my son in ’07, people keep asking me how many months I am… it looks like I’m about 6mos pregnant, and I hate it! Can you please help me?

Hmmm.. If your tummy is sticking out like it was when you were pregnant, it sounds like – for starters – you might want to try to add WAY more fiber to your diet. It will help rid you of some of that excess waste (which means you’ll be spending lots of time on the potty), but it will help you figure out where your tummy really is.

Secondly, here’s the short version of dealing with fat: you can’t control where it burns. Sure, you might be able to do crunches to tone it up, but if you have lots of fat covering it up, you’ll need to tend to that first. Aerobic exercise (also known as cardio) is your best bet. Give yourself a slow start – walking each day. Walk for weeks until you feel like running, then run. Take your little one for a walk in the stroller. Walk until you feel like running (I put my daughter in an umbrella stroller and pushed her while running). If you can hit a gym, hit the treadmill. You’re going to have to move something to get it down.

You’ll also have to ease up on the processed foods. Go light on the breads, fries, and excess sugars. That alone will get you down to looking more like 3mos than 6, at least! Couple it with the walking, and you’re on your way.

Q: Is losing inches a prerequisite to losing pounds?

If you’re losing pounds, you’re definitely losing inches, but if you’re losing inches, it doesn’t always mean you’re losing pounds. Here’s why:

Losing inches can mean that you’re either losing fat, or becoming leaner by developing muscle. Since a cube of muscle weighs just as much as fat, if not more, you can lose inches and not see any change on the scale (unfortunately.)

Losing pounds means that you’re losing mass. So theoretically, this means that the tape measure has to move. Just don’t always expect it to move in the exact same place each time.

Q: How many times did you quit exercising/eating right before you started toughing it out?

Honestly… I went back and forth countless times. I’d actually give up out of embarrassment. I’d be ashamed of being at the gym and seeing all these fit people struggling to not snicker at the fat girl who couldn’t survive an incline on the treadmill. I’d be embarrassed and frustrated by eating a salad around my skinny friends who OD’d on pizza and crap when we dined out. I’d be mad that I couldn’t figure out the formula…

…until I figured out the formula. I stopped giving a damn what the people around me thought/were doing, and started focusing on me and what I needed. I realized just how WRONG the people around me get it, so I figured I couldn’t trust anyone else’s understanding of what was best for me BUT me. From there, I sought out my own answers, and I was straight. It took one final time of quitting the gym, frustrated that I hustled for 6 months only to lose 20lbs and then gain 10 back in 90 days (that’s one pound every nine days…sigh) for me to realize I didn’t have my head together. Once I got my eating habits right? I was straight. I’ve been smooth sailing ever since.

Q: How important is it to actually eat three meals per day? If you don’t, how does it affect your metabolism?

I have a post coming up on this, but you absolutely must nourish yourself regularly throughout the day. Without it, you become sluggish, and your body – now feeling like food may not come for a while – starts to hold onto the energy it has stored within (read: the fat you have on your body) and makes it harder to burn. This is why you become sluggish. It’s also worth noting, that not eating affects your ability to control yourself and prevent overeating.

Keep those questions coming, and I’ll have ‘em ready for next week! Have thoughts? Let me hear ‘em in the comments!

Q&A Wednesday: Inches, Belly Fat and The Quitter’s Disease is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Q&A Wednesday: My Belly Won’t Shrink!
2. What Causes Heart Disease?
3. Battling Belly Fat

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: belly fat, exercise, fat, fat loss, mentality, metabolism

My arch nemesis...goldfish crackers! Credit: Lin Pernille

Regardless of what might’ve introduced you to this rule, I’m sure you’re familiar with it in either of its two forms.

In the first form, it says that you will always see 80% of your results from 20% of your work. While that definitely applies in fitness – specifically since eating properly is easily the most important of developing a fit life – this isn’t the version I’m addressing today.

What I’m embracing today, is the version of the 80/20 rule that says you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Look at it this way. During the Clean Eating challenge, I had a lot of people send me e-mails about how they were doing soooooooo well with the challenge until they encountered the [insert processed food] or until they drove past the [insert fast food joint.] At that point, they realized that they had failed, and gave up on the challenge.

What?

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I don’t believe in the concept of “cheating” on your clean eating, and I meant that. Let me quote something I said there:

People who take on temporary diets to lose a few pounds, only to revert right back to the habits that caused them to pack on the pounds in the first place… they “cheat” their diets every now and again. They “cheat” and eat the way they used to, because they’ve realized that they took on a diet that was far too restrictive for their natural liking – in a cold turkey kind of way, at that – and regress… without really learning anything from the situation altogether.

I can’t support that for a ton of reasons.

Firstly, it implies – like I mentioned – that you took on something too restrictive and too soon. Why? Are you trying to fit in a dress before the weekend, or are you trying to change things up so that you never have a problem getting in that dress again? Why did you go cold turkey? Don’t we know a gazillion people who’ve tried to cut things (namely smoking) cold turkey, only to regress because it was too much to bear?

Secondly, it implies that we don’t recognize that the habits/food items we used to “cheat” are the ones that got us in this mess in the first place! If I have committed to clean eating, decide to have a “cheat day” when I come home from work and have a TV dinner… y’know, because I’m sooooo tired and need to relax after a long day? C’mon, man! That ain’t gon’ cut it! The TV dinner might not even be that terrible – it’s not the food that’s the problem! It’s the habit. Coming home and not having anything healthy prepped for you to take? Coming home and having the TV dinner in the house in the first place? That’s the kind of stuff that results in you hitting up a fast food joint.

So, having re-stated that… let me explain the 80/20 rule as it applies to fitness. You don’t give up 80% of all of what you’ve earned for the 20% that you don’t have! You don’t give up on what you’ve taught yourself simply because you haven’t learned to resist a few things, or because you haven’t learned to get up from the bed and hit the gym early or even because you can’t seem to put down the ice cream after a few scoops!

You’ve worked hard. You’ve read all my posts about processed food, and you know that some foods that you’ve lived for and grown to love are the foods that are getting in your way. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect to wake up one morning with all of those cravings to just go away! This isn’t a temporary deal – this is a lifestyle that you must embrace, and quitting on the whole thing simply because you can’t give up the scalloped potatoes (yes, I go hard on the scalloped potatoes!) is the most absurd thing you could do.

I used to have an addiction. I used to slaughter giant boxes of goldfish crackers. I mean, I could kill an entire small pack in one day’s time.

I can assure you I didn’t just wake up one morning with the ability to resist them. I’d buy them for my little one, and I’d spend an entire day creeping back and forth getting small handfuls of them. I’d spend all day going back and forth just getting one. Then, I only bought the small packages that came pre-wrapped (and subsequently felt bad about all the trash they created.) I eventually realized that I simply couldn’t come in contact with them, and stopped buying them. It literally took me a year to resolve my goldfish craving.

Let me put it into perspective: it took me a year to resolve my goldfish craving. It took me approximately 8mos to lose 100lbs. Had I taken that mentality of “Aw, I can’t give up my goldfish cravings, I might as well quit.. this is hopeless,” I’d still be 300some odd pounds. I would’ve given up 80% of my successes because of the 20% that I struggled with.

This is not about dieting. It’s about changing the lifestyle that allowed you to put on (and KEEP ON) the weight that you shouldn’t have on in the first place. So no, the concept of “cheating” is ludicrous… as is the thought that you should quit after completing 80% of the race because the 20% gets too tough. Don’t get hung up on the simple stuff. Not only is it a small hurdle in a long race, but it’s a hurdle that – with enough momentum – you can easily hop right over.

The 80/20 Rule… Fitness Style is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Rule: If It Makes A Health Claim… It’s Probably Lying
2. Putting All Your Faith In Fitness
3. Beyoncé’s Personal Fitness Mantra: Do You Have One?

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: clean eating, mentality

Conversations about weight are always brought to me in terms of numbers.

“How much have you lost? Oh, my gosh! What’s your goal weight? Are you there yet? Are you still losing? How much more do you want to lose?”

Numbers, numbers, numbers. It’s so bizarre.

I can tell someone I weigh 110, and that person has no idea whether or not that weight is “sensible” for me or my daily functions. Why? Because “sensible” includes my height (110 looks very different on six feet tall and five feet tall), my body composition, and everything in between. It’s just not that simple.

We grind things down into bare bones numbers because it simplifies the conversation – I get that. And there’s nothing wrong with having even a passing interest in what’s going on with me and asking “typical small talk weight questions” – particularly if you’re someone I care about. Those aren’t what my problem is, though. My problem is, really, something that’s my own fault… and really isn’t even a problem at all, if you ask me.

My problem is that I don’t have a weight loss goal. All this weight gone, and I still don’t have a weight loss goal. That’s right. I said it.I have no “once I reach this number, I’ll be happy” weight. And I don’t think I ever will.

My experience with numbers is that they don’t quantify much. They just… don’t. The scale (and, subsequently, losing weight) don’t quantify how healthy you’ll be or how able you are to handle your daily business.

Here’s an example: I’m a lover of pole fitness. I had to learn how to use my muscles in conjunction with one another in order to accomplish the moves I wanted to do. No matter how thin you are, if you don’t have the upper body strength to lift yourself up off the floor… if you don’t have the leg strength to keep them in the air as you spin… if you don’t have the abs to be able to flip yourself over… you will be limited in what you can do. No scale could quantify that ability.

Here’s another example: I, a former asthmatic, am a runner. I run. I run to become faster. I run because I have nightmares of outrunning zombie– errr, let’s just say I’d like to be able to protect Mini-me and myself if need be. The first time I ran my first full mile, I cried. Like a total wuss. No scale could predict when I’d be able to accomplish that. Hell, I couldn’t even predict when I’d be able to accomplish that… and I’m the one doing the running.

One last example: I want to look svelte and sleek and sexy in my progress bikini. I want well-built thighs, tight arms, a six pack and a toned neck and shoulders. I lift weights because I want to achieve that. I spent 6 months lifting weights like nobody’s business, and lost maybe 7lbs on the scale. I also lost almost 30lbs of fat. I lost, but what I gained was so much more valuable and important. If my focus was purely on “reaching my goal number,” I might be silly enough to stop weight lifting just to reach that goal number. (Calm down, I said I might be.)

I accepted a long time ago that numbers won’t decide whether or not I look how I want at a certain weight. And even though I get the general gist of the questions.. I do wonder what people think a “goal weight” quantifies other than “a loss of mass.”

I don’t think I ever had a goal. I changed my habits and kind of just enjoyed the weight loss and increased activity levels as they came.

That does make me wonder, though. Do we see goals as something to politely and calmly reach, and then relax upon reaching there? Or do we see them as “mile markers” in a marathon – “Yeah, I reached this marker, but I think I’ll still keep going?”

And do we see goals as public property and “small talk?” As complicated as my current goals are, I certainly don’t think I can talk about them in a conversation with people who are only slightly interested in me. I don’t say that to imply that people shouldn’t ask – I don’t mind that – but I do mean that perhaps we should be careful regarding how we discuss our goals and who we share them with.

Enter the video above, sent to me by @quiethaylestorm. I actually think it’s cute that he references fitness in his slideshow. I also think that’s appropriate.

When I first started, two people knew. My then-boyfriend, and my Mother. He knew because he’d have to deal with my changing body and lifestyle, and Mom because she was watching my Mini-me while I worked it out at the gym at night. When I first began working on my eating habits, another two people knew… and again, only because I needed their guidance and support. The only people who were aware of my goals were the people directly related to me achieving them.

I kept my goals to myself because I knew that I was unsure of myself – unsure of the mechanics behind why I was successful – and I didn’t want to leave myself open to bad advice and negativity. I knew that I was insecure about it, and the only way to change that was to spend time educating myself before I thrust myself into the open about it. Not only that, but I tend to be really dismissive of unwanted advice and unnecessary criticism. I don’t care to hear about how someone thinks women who lift weights are manly. I just.. I’d rather bypass the entire situation and choose my words more carefully.

The only reason I started publicly talking about my weight loss was because, after a certain point, I couldn’t really hide it anymore. Otherwise, I’d still be hiding away from everyone but my “investors”… and just bust out with my phenomenal physique like “Ta-dow! How ya like me now?!”

I agree with him, though. I believe that using your time to reflect on your goals (instead of allowing yourself to be patted on the back for actually having the goal) is much more effective in helping you get there. I understand why people tell me their goals – especially considering the position I’m in with having this blog – but in general conversation? Some things, to me, should be better protected.

While being able to see a specific number on the scale might be exciting, it’s not as long-lasting as the abilities you might develop on your journey or the knowledge you’d acquire along the way. Maybe I’m silly for thinking it’s more valuable to set a more meaningful goal than “losing a few pounds,” but for someone like me… that was the best thing I could do for myself. The abilities I’ve developed on my path have changed my quality of life forever. I’ve developed new habits that have changed my life. They ensure that I’ll never have to worry about putting on those “few pounds” ever again.

To wrap this up… I love my goals because they’re meaningful, and what’s more – they’re going to prevent me from backsliding. I love my trusted support system, because they’ve stood beside me as I’ve gotten this far… through the entire thing. I love myself enough to recognize that I don’t need anyone else’s validation of my goals. They’re good enough for me, and as long as I keep striving towards them… the important stuff is all under control. Everything else, to me, is unnecessary.

What about you? Do you prefer to set number goals over anything else? Do you keep your goals to yourself, or do you share? What are your thoughts on the video?

Setting Goals: How, Why & Who Do You Tell? is a post from: A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss. Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. My Re-Dedication And My Goal Tree: How Do You Manage Your Goals?
2. Self-Sabotage, Internal Dialogue, Motivation And Focusing On Your Goals
3. Q&A Wednesday: Hey Erika, What Are Your Goals?

The FULL list of meal plans is currently available. Check it out and get your copy today!

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© Erika for A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss, 2012. | Permalink | 43 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conversation, goal setting, goals, mentality, society