Ok, usually I’m posting about other’s lives… I want to talk about myself for a moment. My life. My struggles. This is good therapy for anyone that may have a hurdle to jump. I want to run the race beside you. Some of my photography friends have started a site called fit photographer. It is a relatively new development and I don’t have the exact url, but will update you when I know.
Lives of Photographers: 5% shooting and 95% editing. (Sitting on the computer for HOURS and HOURS at a time). I’m sure the levels of this process vary upon individual photographers and how much editing they put into their finalized images. I tend to be one of the ones that do a lot of editing. It can be a lengthy, tedious process but it’s just what I choose to do. Which in turn causes us to have more weight than i ever hoped for. Anyone who knows me, knows I got into wedding photography because I am CRAZY for cake. Laughing, well that isn’t completely true but that is a perk. Well, had been.
Well, cupcakes are just as good.
And this is now my struggle. Unless you have really great metabolism (I want to choke you) OR you have a grape all day long and starve this can be a real issue for many of us. We get older, become more sedentary and then it just snowballs.
Now, my fit photographer buddies are just starting their program… but I got a jump start the second to last week in October. I started getting serious. When we went to San Francisco, the pictures I saw were GASP! +++ too large for my liking+++. Gaining weight comes easy for me…. genes are definitely not on my side. It seems if I have one cupcake I seem to wear it for five years. Oh yeah, it’s definitely a struggle. I’m not picky. I love all things sweet. Bring on the sugar!
This is a really hard thing for me to do but I know it will keep me motivated to post my progress and have accountability for my actions. Either you can think I’m a disgusting fat body or you can personally understand a struggle in your life of sorts. It may not be weight but it may be something you are tackling. We are all people. With fears and struggles and for me, this is hard and it’s something I want to conquer. I know I will never be a supermodel nor do i want to.. but I will feel good in my jeans. I will have more energy. I will make better dietary choices. I will be healthier. I will take my Vitamin C and hopefully get an immunity boost, suck down my fish oil tablets (eeww, puke!). And tackle my biggest obstacle. Exercise daily.
Now, I’ve always hated exercise. From the second I step into the gym, I’m looking at my watch to see if I’ve covered my obligatory 30 minutes for the cost of my membership. So I decided I needed to do something I can attain for the rest of my life w/o hating. So if you see some girl on the side of the road with a funky hat on (to keep my earphones in my ears) and fingerless gloves (my hands are always FREEZING!) walking like there’s cupcakes in someone’s refrigerator..then that’s probably me. I plug in my phone’s ear phones (yeah, I’ve heard of blue tooth but sometimes there is just too much technology i can keep up with at a time!) and talk to someone I haven’t talked to in a while. I walk for an hour each day. And I don’t even realize it. So, it works for me. May not work for you, but I’ve kept it up and lost 15 lbs since my start date. Even through the Thanksgiving feasts. So, I’m happy with the progress.
Someone said to me…..’The easy part is getting it off!’ Really? Only a skinny person can say that.. and of course she was very thin. Grr. This wasn’t remotely easy. I won’t even begin to try to charm you with how I can eat whatever whenever and barely exercise, and the weight just falls off. It’s not easy at all. It’s an everyday conscious decision. When you deprive yourself of sugar… things you never knew could be, become sweet– Banana peppers are like eclairs (almost). Splenda makes a great coffee sweetener and diet pepsi is definitely better than diet coke. I would have never known this in my previous state as I would NEVER touch diet anything. When I want to cheat (sometimes I just HAVE to have something sweet) I eat a few chocolate chips instead of something really decadent like I want. It works. I drink a lot of tea and broth because having something warm in my stomach makes me think it’s full. I really do eat slower. I get a salad each day from Publix with oven roasted chicken breast on it. I stop after about halfway and go do something else…distract myself. If I sit there and look at the salad the whole time, I will devour it, I mean it’s lettuce and rabbit food right?….. although i realize if i do this I’m actually fuller than I figured. But if I were to sit there the whole time w/o thinking about it I would eat it all….that’s just what I’m programmed to do. Not to waste. To finish. So, I just make a point to stop midway and do something else. Then I will have to make a conscious decision whether or not I’m still hungry enough to go back and finish the rest. Usually I’m not.
So… along with the photo that I think is HORRIFIC I will tell you that I got up to 173 lbs at my heaviest. Ugh. I said it. Breathe. My jeans were so tight I could barely bend over… Oh how I hated when they got washed and spent so much time in that locked squat position bouncing all over my bedroom to kick in that 5% spandex the tag had promised. I am now 158 and have even weighed 156 depending on what time of day I weigh, oh yeah..and if I pee first. I never went as far as taking my measurements b/c I’ve always advocated just feeling good in your clothes as a goal point instead. I’m doing it. Day by day and bite by bite.
The site is: www.fitphotographers.com . You can click on my name to check my progress and the progress of the others. Root me on. Root them on. We can use some cheerleaders! Come leave us a message or tell us about your own story. Even if it’s not weight, Just let it out and don’t take the baggage with you into the next year!
Until next post
xoxoxoxo
Tomme
by Tomme
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