What do you think...........?

I've stepped up my exercise again.............

I have been a bit lax with exercising since the summer. I can really feel the impact of that on my muscle tone and my general fitness. I am committing myself to doing more exercise this year. Primarily I intend to use my vibration platform on a regular basis. I will also endeavour to use the physical fitness games on x-box kinect.  I don't know why I haven't used it much in he past - whenever I do I enjoy myself and I definitely feel that I have engaged in a serious workout!

In order to make myself more accountable I intend to update the post with many dedicated exercise I engage in over the next few weeks.

Exercise log:

13/01/13:  30mins vibration plate; 90mins kinect.
15/01/13:  30mins vibration plate; 60mins kinect.
19/01/13:  60mins vibration plate.

Another non-scale victory: I gave blood today :)............

Today I gave blood for the first time .  I have wanted to do it for years; somehow, however, I never got around to it. 

The real reason I never went was to do with my weight. Part of me was afraid they would reject me for being unfit/overweight - I had no evidence they would but that was my irrational fear. I also knew finding a vein would be difficult when I was bigger.  I tended to avoid medics when I was obese, somehow I felt more 'visible' when in a medical setting (infact one of my motivations for doing the Cambridge Diet in late 2008 was because I knew my mirena coil was due to be changed and I couldn't bring myself to go to my doctor as big as I was!)

Just home from donating blood for the first time :)

Giving blood was fine. The challenge was refusing the carbs they try to insist you eat afterwards.  The lovely refreshments lady was like a "pusher" with her biscuits and bags of crisps.  I was a little surprised that the NHS was trying to insist doners ate such unhealthy rubbish after their donation.  I understand their wanting to ensure people don't become weak or faint and the general consensus is that carbs are the best way to provide quick energy (what happens after the sugar spike has abated is another matter of course) but why not offer fruit?  Fruit is packed with fructose (if sugar is what they want to get into folk) and generally accepted to be much more healthy than crisps or biscuits (the crisps were Seebrooks - totally yummy but - very, very high in calories, fat and salt when compared to most other brands). 

I managed to politely refuse the numerous offers of biscuits, crisps and sugary squash.  Yes I was sure that water and sugarless tea was sufficient thank-you.  The woman sitting next to me ate her way through 4 packets of biscuits (with 3 biscuits in each pack) saying she felt so weak she couldn't open the packets (I did that for her!)

Bx

Laparoscopic surgery scars one year on......

Scars 12 months post-op

Looking through old photos last night - warning bells.........

I was looking at old photos last night, searching for pictures of me when I was bigger; they are few and far between because I was adept at hiding from cameras and I deleted most photos that were taken.  The photos that survived my "culling" I have included in the "before and after" section of this blog.

It was a bitter-sweet experience looking through the snaps and especially poignant after writing the post below.  As I searched through the pictures I recognised the fact that part of my ongoing difficulty with perceiving myself as a slimmer person is that part of me feels like this is a dream.  It was a dream for so long after-all.

The trouble with dreams (good dreams I mean) is that when you wake up from them everything is as it was before the dream occurred.  The photo of myself after I lost weight in 2009 is especially upsetting for me to look at.  I lost a lot of weight but, I now realise, my brain never perceived my new size and shape accurately.  I still felt fat and it is therefore no surprise that I ate my way back to meet that perception.

Anyone who has ever read anything about weight loss, listened to an "I can make you slim" type hypnotism CD, or been to a fat fighters club (and if you are reading my blog I imagine you have) knows that it is important to focus on imagery of yourself as slim and healthy if that is how you want to be.

In short, unless I get it sorted, my messed up self perception could be the undoing of me - AGAIN!!

Okay, so that is where I need to place my energy.  2013 is the year that I intend to become better at perceiving myself accurately in terms of size and shape.  Exercise will form part of that (to get me into my body and out of my head) and I need to indulge in the vanity stuff of looking in mirrors even more than I am already!!!!

Just to get me started, here is a pic I took of myself this morning in the dress I bought from Mistral yesterday.

Dobby says he likes my new dress :)

Self concept catching up with body size/shape......

A thread on the Gastric Surgery Friends Forum this evening has got me thinking about my perception of myself and the fact that I really struggled with my head recognising my new body size/shape as I was losing weight (and to some extent now I am at target). 

I was shrinking but my perception of my size, the amount of space I took up and my body shape remained that of a much larger woman. 

My Ah-ha moment came when I saw myself on video (working out on my vibration plate). I was genuinely of the opinion that my thighs were huge (and I mean truly enormous). Looking at the video I was totally stunned - I could see on the video what I couldn't see in still photos and/or in the mirror - my thighs were entirely in proportion to the rest of me. 

I very much recommend anyone who is struggling with seeing themselves as they actually are to video themselves moving around and to watch it back. 

Since my bedroom revamp one wall is now almost entirely mirror. I spend a lot of time looking at myself in those mirrors (so vain) and moving around infront of them. Partly it is vanity (I worked hard to shed that weight) but largely it is about identity and giving myself visual feedback to 'update' my self-concept.  The mirrored area is so large it allows me a similar perspective to watching myself on video.

Moving images seem to translate so much better into updated self concept.

I can only relate the delay in my self-concept catching up with my body shape/size to occasions when I've had a drastic new hair-cut or colour. I know I have had it done but for weeks it is a bit of a surprise when I have looked in a mirror or caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in some reflective surface.

---------------

I went into Chichester today to return a FatFace gilet that I'd ordered online but which turned out to be too large (it was size 12). Whilst I was there I popped into a lovely clothes shop (Mistral) as they were having a sale (and everybody knows it is the height of bad manners to walk past a favoured clothes boutique when they have a sale on). 

It is only as I sit typing this post that I realise my behaviour in the changing room must mean my self-perception is getting better. I, for the first time since I was a teen, did not screw my eyes shut and mumble "please, please, please" as I pulled the dress over my head. It is something I've always done when trying on clothes. So familiar had I become with clothes being tight, looking awful and/or the claustrophobic terror that I might get stuck half in/half out of a garment that I have spent my life offering up a kind of silent prayer from various stiflingly-tiny changing rooms.. 

Today, as I was browsing, an assistant approached me and asked if she could put the things I had already selected into the changing cubical for me to try on when I was ready (oh how clothes shop assistants treat me differently now I am slimmer - or maybe I give off a more approachable vibe now I am actually enjoying the experience of clothes shopping).  

I went into the cubicle and (I didn't realise this at the time) I kept my eyes open and did not offer up the "please, please, please" prayer.  Then instead of surveying myself in the mirror and finding myself wanting, I looked at the clothes I was trying on and I assessed the quality, style, value and likability of each garment.  Wow - that is quite a revelation. YAY ME!!!!!!!!!

BeBea xxx

Happy New Year

Hello :)

I hope you all had a good New Years' Eve?  Mine was fab'.  I had a dinner party and indulged in one of my passions: cooking and entertaining.  I resisted the carbs though; with some difficulty as the roast potatoes looked scrummy, and I made a syrup sponge and some custard for desert and they smelt and looked delicious. 

Today in have been pottering around my home doing odd jobs and enjoying one of my other passions: fish keeping (today was water change day - no easy task on my 600 litre planted aquarium).  I've just realised, until now, I have not mentioned my geeky hobby on my blog.

My planted aquarium

I have kept this planted aquarium for years. It is 6' x 2' x 2'.  Here's a couple of close-ups:

Fishes enjoying the fresh water

Tiger Barbs shoaling

Happy New Year :).

BeBea xxxx