Tag Archives: Exercising

Don’t help me. Help the bear.

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“In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.” –Flora Edwards

I'm not listening!

I love to help people. I go beyond and out of my way to help when I think someone needs it. But early on, my mother tried to get me to understand that I shouldn’t help when I’m not needed. I would always insist on “helping” her and it ended up causing her more trouble, haha. She’d sigh, roll her eyes and say, “Cherie, don’t help me. Help the bear.” To this day, I’m still not sure what that phrase means other than I shouldn’t help someone that doesn’t need or ask for it.

But what do you do when someone has specifically asked for your help, you give it, and he or she doesn’t listen? Here, I’m particularly speaking about weight loss, healthy eating and maintaining a fit lifestyle. As I say in my disclaimer, I’m not a doctor, life coach or dietician. But I have made a significant, HUGE, 180 degree change in my life concerning my health. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I eat healthy, I work out and I’ve lost 60 pounds and am on a journey to lose the last 30. And, I have absolutely never felt better in my life. So, I fully understand why someone would look to me for advice. It’s humbling and an honor that someone would inquire, seeing as how only 18 months ago, I was in sad shape and health.

Now, as I said, I do love to help. It’s rewarding and it just plain feels good. But nothing burns me up faster, then when I spend time helping, explaining and coaching someone to her healthy path, only to find it littered with fast food wrappers, empty pizza boxes, and pure laziness. Seriously, how can someone beg for my help to get her where she needs to be on her weight loss journey, and after I spend precious time doing so, she blows it? It’s oh-so-frustrating. And sad. Is there a proper way to do it? And again, I’m not a coach, so maybe that’s why it’s not working? But should I just sit there and be reticent when they ask for my help?

The saying goes that you can only help those who help themselves, but when it is time to stop helping? Should you ever give up? Or just keep standing by them while the only exercise they’re getting is leaping off the wagon to go chase a food truck?

Fit happens.

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Dumbbells are a smart idea!

When I returned the other day from my year and a half non-blogging hiatus, I mentioned that I kept up with my goal of going from Fat to Phat. As of today, I’ve recorded a 57 pound weight loss!!  But when I got the news last week that my love of running would have to go on its own hiatus due to my tibia stress fracture and big black boot wearing for 8-12 weeks, I thought this was the end. I envisioned every last one of those 57 pounds creeping back on and smirking in my face and they leached on to my body. But no—not after 17 months of hard labor working out, watching my calories, eating clean, keeping a food journal and saying goodbye to booze—I was not going out like that.

And as you can see from my pictures, I went to the gym (my lovely home gym, that is) and did what I could based on this current leg situation. I did drop sets with my 15lb, 12lb, and 8lb weights, used my blue stability ball and did some crunches and modified pushups while working out with Mike The Situation in the background. He was my inspiration today and may I be yours.

Notice the lovely shins wrapped in ice packs & bandages. Sexy. Don't hate.

Listen here everyone. When something happens that leaves you feeling like you’re down for count, take a moment, sit there and get it out of your system. Cry, shout, whine, punch a pillow, but then GET BACK UP. Get on your game, get your mind right, devise a plan and keep moving forward. Chase down that passion of yours like it’s the last bus of the night and don’t let a setback get in your way. That’s my free pep-talk of the day to you. Yes, sh*t happens, and when it does, with some work fit happens, too.

getting phatter and phatter every day.

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yes. yes, i am.

yes. yes, i am.

oh yeah, where was i? that’s right, my doctor called me fat.

i went for a gyno appointment the other day, as the mister and i want to start family planning because my biological clock is ticking like this!! (picture me channeling marisa tomei and stomping my foot). as soon as the nurse called me to come behind the magical doorway, “sherrrry stevens?? sheeeerrrry?,” and i hopped on the scale i knew this was not going to be the best doctor’s visit ever. OH. MY. GOSH. i saw the number on the scale and i was taken aback. waaaaay back–back to december of  ’08 before my hubby plopped down $400 to whittle me into shape.

i had lost a good bit of weight sometime between january ’09 and may ’09. but then it happened. the season-ending back injury, the herniated lumbar disc that sidelined me on june 18, ’09, a mere EIGHT DAYS after my beloved mommy passed away from cancer.  hadn’t i had enough?? apparently not, because while i was mourning in mental pain, i then joined up with physical pain from my back. i checked out emotionally and stopped caring about how i looked. i couldn’t work out because most days i could barely move, and while sinking into a depression and self-pity, i befriended food. all kinds of food and super sized quantities of it.  and in the course of two to three months, i put back on all of the weight that it took me a half of a year to lose. had my mother been alive, she would have had no reservations in telling me that i “blew up”.  without her, i have no such person to make me wake up and see that i’ve put on the pounds. i didn’t until in walked my doctor.

“you can’t even think about having a baby until you get this weight off. you’re fat. you need to lose a good 25-30 pounds right now. i suggest weight watchers. you’re not healthy and your baby isn’t go to be healthy until you get rid of this fat.”  wow–she was totally telling me like it was. no sugar coating. no bedside manner. and worse, while she’s poking and prodding me, she says, “yeah, your uterus is a bit retroverted, but so what. lots of people’s are. i can feel it now, but of course it’s  more difficult to feel all around because this belly is in the way. get rid of this fat belly.” WOW. really?? what an awkward time and situation. i’m lying on my back, she’s digging all around and insults me again! way to kick a girl when she’s down!! but i needed it. i really did.

i went home and worked out that very day. i think i’d been scared i was going to reinjure my back, but i was more scared that i would never be able to have a baby, that i would forever be the “fat friend”, that i’d go home to a high school reunion and make jaws drop in all the wrong ways. the next day, i read up on weight watchers and got great tips. i also went and purchased alli, and made the tweaks in my diet that i should’ve a long time ago. it’s been a week, and i’ve increased my workouts from 30 minutes to a hour everyday. i’m getting myself back to pre-injury form, but even better.

the next time that doc sees me, she’s going to say that i’m PHAT. i may ask her to write it down just to be sure, though.

a boy in 7th grade once told me i had chicken drumsticks for legs…wow.

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 (August 7, 2009–Moved over from my previous blogger.com blog)

why am i suddenly reminded to buy toothpicks the next time i go shopping?

why am i suddenly reminded to buy toothpicks the next time i go shopping?

 it’s 2am and here i am surfing on facebook. i was a good little girl and did a lot of creative writing today, so i figured i earned the opportunity to do some mindless perusing. i clicked on one picture to look at an old grade school classmate and decided to go through the entire album. so no, i’m not “friends” with the girl, but if she didn’t have the intel to make her album viewable by “friends” only, that’s not my fault for taking a peek! anyhoo, there i am looking at the gazillion picks of her and her buddies posing at random bars, having the time of their twenties.

suddenly two things dawned on me. one, this chick knows how to work the camera. true, she’s already one pound and several shades away from looking like a starving ethiopian, but she does know how to rock the “skinny pose”. in pretty much every picture, she’s got that one leg crossed in front of the other, toes pointed toward the camera, ensuring that she looks model-thin. i’ve tried this before, yet the outcome looked like a big ‘ol chicken drumstick was stuffed inside of some jeans and crossed over another, smaller sized chicken drumstick. definitely not as attractive. so my question is, should this model industry tip work on everyone to slim them down, or does it only work on the chicks that are already skinny, therefore, they don’t need to do the pose in the first place?

the second dawning was the answer to the question. no. it’s really not going to work on you if you’re too fat to begin with , as there’s no angle from which you will not look chunkified. you just need to lose the weight. ahhhhhhh, i need to lose the weight again. crap. i was whittling down quite nicely thank you, and then my mom died. crunch, crunch, crunch i went… then my back injury happened. munch, munch, munch i went… thanks to these two events this past summer, combined with a bout of depression, combined with not be able to exercise, combined with just being in a pouty, i-don’t-give-a-shit-and-i’m-mad-at-the-world mentality, i gained all of the weight back that it took me six months to lose and lost all of the self-esteem that it took me six months to gain.

so tomorrow, actually later today, as it is the wee hours o’the morning, i will get on the treadmill and i’ll eat the right foods. AGAIN. and, although a chicken drumstick will be on my mind, it will not be of the poultry variety.

i think that 7th grader was only speaking the truth...

i think that 7th grader was only speaking the truth...