I’m not fat, I’m Italian!

I get it. I have to go on a diet. I have to eat cold salads and chicken everyday. I recognize and understand this idea. And I promise I will start my diet right after the Holidays. I know it seems like an excuse, but if you knew what the holidays were like in my family you would understand why I cannot say no to eating everything in sight on these particular occasions.

Let’s take the Vigil (La Vigilia) for example. The Vigil is a feast that consists of seven different seafood dishes to represent the seven sacraments. It’s a celebration of the wait (Vigilia di Natale) for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus, but more truthfully it’s a celebration of food. Allow me to show you:

Haddock with Tomatoes.

Cioppino.

Aioli.Spaghetti with Tuna & Olives.

Fettuccine with Muscles, Scallops & Shrimp in a Cream Sauce.

Calamari.

Smelts.

Stuffed Clams.

Scallops with Farfalle.

Bruschetta with Anchovies.

Buccala.

Bread & Olive Oil.

Navals.

If you ask me to be on a diet, especially a low-carb diet, on the night of the vigil I will slap you. If you are a true Italian you will understand the fervor I have for this night; the passion for this food. Those who aren’t Italian simply don’t understand. Until you’ve wiped homemade tomato sauce off the side of your face with a fat slice of Italian bread you’ll never understand.

I'll start my diet after the holidays, til then buon appetito!

The Plan.

My friend asked me the other day, “So, What’s the plan?” meaning, how the hell do you plan on tackling this weight loss journey you keep babbling on about. I guess I should stop dickin’ around and tackle that issue; that’s what this whole mess of a blog is about anyway.

My plan of action has two fundamental parts: Diet and Exercise. Big surprise, I know. But really, what did you think I was going to say? That there was some magical pill or deceptive trick I was going to attempt to employ? I wish. That being said, I do have a few minor tricks up my sleeve. But, before I get ahead of myself and start telling on my secrets allow me to start from the beginning.

Like I said in my first blog post, about two years ago I lost 30lbs and then preceded to gain it all back as quickly as it went. As I look back now I remember when it all started to go down hill. I had just got Abby and being a new puppy in a new place she shit. A lot. One day I stepped in a steaming pile of her shit and it got all over my running sneakers. I should have cleaned them as soon as it happened, but I didn’t; I let them sit outside for three days in the rain. Finally, when I went to salvage my running shoes they were soggy and smelling of decomposing, mold filled dog shit. Needless to say, I threw them away. Sneaker-less, I had the best excuse in the world not to hit the gym. “I’ll go when I get new sneakers.” I kept trying to convince everyone, mostly myself. Eventually I got new sneakers, but it was too late. I had been sucked into a black hole of sloth and gluttony. A vortex of sleeping in, napping after work and eating whatever I could get my now sausage like fingers on. I was drowning in a sea of old, bad habits.
The day I stepped on the scale and saw two zeros after a number that wasn’t a 1 I knew I had to do something drastic. Panicked and lost, I did what any woman of the 21st century would do: I Googled. I Googled gyms in the surrounding area. I Googled health gurus. I Googled wellness spas, fat camps and personal trainers. I Googled until my fat sausage links could Google no more. My search ended when I came upon a website for a personal trainer/nutritional educator named Kim Audette.

That's Kim.

I called Kim immediately and set up our first training session.
So that's trick number one, I hired a personal trainer.
I also dropped the old ladies and ease of my old gym and joined the big boys over at Gold’s. I have been quoted in the past saying that I wouldn’t be caught dead working out in that meat head paradise, but come to find out it’s not all that bad. The male muscle heads are too busy grunting in the corner and flexing for their friends to notice you’re alive and the female attendees are too absorbed with sucking in their stomachs and looking at themselves in the mirror to notice me gathering my fat rolls before smashing myself on the stationary bike. But I digress...
Besides helping me to work out three times a week, Kim has introduced me to CLA, an antioxidant that is supposed to help promote lean muscle mass and reduces stubborn body fat, multivitamins and protein shakes.

It seems like I have all the tricks I could possibly need to be on my game. I have a trainer, a great gym, fat burning supplements, vitamins and low-fat protein shakes. What's missing in this equation is the proper food choices.
I'm supposed to be following a very low-carb diet filled with lean meats, egg whites and TONS of salad; unfortunately, that hasn't been the case at all. I've yet to break my atrocious eating habits and fully embrace this new style of healthy eating. So even though I’ve been doing some good things for my body in the past month, I haven’t lost a pound. Go me.
Like Kim always says, it doesn’t matter how much you work out if you don’t eat right. If I continue to eat shit, no matter how much help I have, I’m going to continue to get shitty results.

This is where my writing comes into play. I'm writing for support to eat better. I'm writing to figure out why I eat as crappy as I do. I'm writing my way to healthier eating habits. I'm hopefully writing my way to thin.

Kim's Website: http://getfitwithkimaudette.com/about/ Check it out!

How to Eat Like a Jerk.

Here is my own personal foolproof method on how to eat like a complete and utter jerk. This method will certainly mess up your diet for the entire day and quite possible the week. Enjoy!

1. Skip Breakfast
If you skip breakfast, I’m talkin’ not even a lousy piece of fruit on the go, by 10:15am those jelly donuts a co-worker brought in are gonna start looking pretty damn good! You will easily be able to devour the quantity of three breakfasts in half the time since you will be "starving.”

2. Forget Your Lunch
Leave your carrot sticks and hummus on the counter and your salad mix untouched in the fridge at home. This way when the girls at work start taking names for take-out orders you have absolutely no reason not to participate in that disaster. Also, since you’ve got no healthy snacks on you, that Peanut Butter Twix at the drugstore counter seems like a great way to tide you over for the afternoon; I mean, it’s got protein right?

3. Order a Sheet Pizza
On the way to a family party order a sheet pizza and ask for it to be cut into forty slices. The pieces are cut smaller to get the forty slices, which makes it super easy to rationalize that you actually only crushed four normal size pieces instead of eight tiny pieces.

4. Remember, You Can Always Start Over Tomorrow
Build up the mindset that once you fuck up, you should continue to fuck up. Why try and eat healthy now? Your day is sufficiently destroyed. Eat those cookies! Eat four! Have some Hershey Kisses-might as well at this point. You can simply start dieting tomorrow, right?

5. Hit up the Drive-thru
Is Wendy’s open at 1:00am? Sure is! What a perfect end to a horrible day.

Happy tuesday.

Day one of my diet and this is what I walk into at work:





Happy friggin' Tuesday.

This, my friends, is called a cookie swap. Everyone makes cookies, and/or some other kind of sweet treat, and then swaps them for more cookies. Loads of Holiday fun for the normal person, the equivalent of a loaded heroin needle to a junk food junkie like me.

Somehow I made it through the entire eight hour work day without even a nibble of a cookie. I know what you're thinking "Oh, Gina! good job! You have such will power." But my not caving in and smashing 28 cookies in my face has nothing to do with willpower (well, maybe a teeny-weeny bit) and everything to do with the time of day. I'm not a morning or afternoon eater, I'm a night eater. The fact that I was busy at work sipping my beloved iced coffee saved my diet today.(Day one and I'm already having to be saved.)

But, it's not just annual cookie swaps that I have to deal with here at Satan's Vagina (aka my place of employment). No, cookie swaps don't even begin to graze the tip of the enticement iceberg. In the field of education/child care, food temptation take on many attractive forms,such as:
Morning snack.
Afternoon snack.
Greasy, fatty oh-so-forbidden, mouth watering school lunches. (Shout out to Pizza Wednesday and Mac & Cheese Monday.)
Staff Pot Luck dinners.
Staff meetings endowed with free pizza for all and build your own sundaes.
Children's birthday celebrations in the form of Hoodsie Cups and whipped cream.
Parent breakfasts.
And so on…

Working in a school setting is risky on one’s willpower. Everyday is a struggle to not gorge-especially when everyone around you is gorging in their skinny jeans.
Since I'm being 100% honest in this blog no matter what, I have to admit that today when I was sure that no one was looking, I stole two bites of a piece of pizza and then just as quickly dumped the remaining evidence in the trash. I don’t know why I did it. The want for that cheesy, doughy, saucy smorgasbord of goodness overcame my better judgment. I wasn’t thinking about the ramifications of eating it like how guilty I would feel afterward or the five days of constipation that are sure to follow. All I could feel at that moment was desire.

I can't be the only person with massive food temptation at work; so, my question is, what are your work temptations and how do you overcome them? I'm dying to know.

And so it begins...

About two years ago I lost 30 pounds. I wish my story ended there. I wish I could say that I stayed dedicated to my diet and regimented in my workout routine, but I can’t say that because unfortunately, somewhere between the Velveeta and Double Stuffed Oreos, those 30 pounds found me again. Yep, I’m just another statistic. I’m just one of the millions of Americans who have lost weight only to gain it all back (and then some.)

Fuck.

How could this have happened?! I mean, after you lose all the weight you can eat whatever you want right? I earned the right to eat crap because I lost weight? Right? RIGHT? Wrong.
Apparently becoming thin and staying thin requires “life changes.” Apparently you have to stick to a regular diet and exercise program. FOREVER. The thought of draggin’ my ass to the gym at least three times a week for at least a half hour every week for the rest of my life is scary enough, but the thought of giving up late night McDonalds runs for 50 cent apple pies and eating an entire bag of peanut butter filled pretzels while watching Bridezillas is fucking terrifying. It’s more than terrifying, it’s overwhelming; it’s daunting; it’s something I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for. Hence the regaining of the weight.
You see food is my crutch. Much like people drink, smoke or do drugs to relieve stress, loosen up or just kill time, I eat. I eat really bad food and a lot of it. I eat bagels smothered in full fat cream cheese; I eat hamburgers, French fries, glazed donuts, processed turkey sandwiches, mac and cheese, PB&J’s, overflowing bowls of sugar coated cereals, bags of caramel coated rice cakes, pancakes with maple syrup (OK, we get it you eat everything.)Basically, I love sugar, flour, trans fats and artificial flavors. These foods make me forget my problems, they ease my mind while the melt in my mouth. Food is my drug.

I’m really not sure how my addiction to food started. My therapist (yes I see a therapist about food) believes that it stems from my childhood or some Freudian bullcrap like that.

The immediate joy and comfort that my love of food brings is short lived. A binge is usually followed by intense feelings of guilt and, of course, the imminent weight gain. As the scale goes up my self esteem goes down; as I get bigger I feel so much smaller. At 26 years old I’ve never confidently strutted down the beach in a two piece. I've never been in a size that didn’t incorporate two numbers. I've never felt good about my body.

I’ve tried and failed at this weigh loss shit before and I’m terrified to try only to fail again. SO, this blog is my last ditch effort at the journey to become who I want to be; not just physically, but emotionally as well. I imagine if I publicly put myself out there I will feel more accountable for my actions. Perhaps my writing will bring out some answers inside myself as to why I am the way I am and how I can change it. I want to help myself and maybe help others along the way.

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.” So let’s get goin’.