Topics included in this video…

• Overcoming a negative spouse
• Starting to run
• Finding the motivation again
• Blogging help

• Note sure how useful but I found this article… What to Do When Your Spouse or Your Friends are Negative?
• The Advantages of Slow Weight Loss
• My other video Post with the other running question
• The Couch-to-5K Running Plan
• My weight progress

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Topics included in this video…

• Best time to eat and workout?
• Do VitaTops actually taste good?
• I don’t have kids, where should I look for inspiration?
• Running Progress
• Lack of exercising hurt weight loss?

Links mentioned or that you may find interesting…

• My Day in the Life Video Session
• 100 push ups
• How I enjoy my Vita Tops!
• My Vitalicious Store – Remember to use the Code RonisWeigh for 10% off.
• The Matter Motivation
• Do you apologize for your weight? Question of the Week
• Couch-to-k5 start running!
• The Mayo Clinic discusses Alli

Notice: Comments will not turn on for this post and I DON’T KNOW WHY! I can’t figure it out. Maybe it’s a good thing since I don’t have time to reply anyway! ;~P

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Her question stayed with me all day today. I found myself contemplating it while driving. Every time I had a free moment it seemed to pop in my head.

Roni,

I have been fat for a long time, and I am also kind of rebellious by nature. I made a decision about a year ago that I would not beat myself up about my weight and wouldn’t try to lose weight again until I could do it out of love and care for myself rather than out of self-hatred. Recently I have started working out and paying better attention to what I eat and I have lost almost 20 lbs so far. Ultimately I would like to lose about 110 lbs. Despite this progress toward taking better care of myself, I am still stuck in the mentality that I will do this or that after I have gotten rid of the weight. I remember you mentioning that it’s important to go out and live life before you lose weight, just the way you are now. I completely agree, I have tried to do this as best as I can, and my question relates to this: How did you get yourself out into the dating world even with your extra weight to meet new people, date, and ultimately meet your husband? I know that fat women everywhere put themselves out into the dating world, but I have been unable to do this, AT ALL. Thus I am 26 years old and have never had a situation where I was interested in someone who was also interested in me, and I haven’t even kissed anyone, ever. I’m not looking to be married anytime soon, but I am falling well behind my peers with my lack of experience, and I want those experiences too! I know this is outside of the realm of the questions you usually receive, but I’m sure I’m not the only fat girl out there who has trouble with dating. So, how did you do it?!

Jennie

First let me say, Jennie, GOOD FOR YOU! You are taking the first steps in the right direction. I love that you said "I made a decision about a year ago that I would not beat myself up about my weight and wouldn’t try to lose weight again until I could do it out of love and care for myself rather than out of self-hatred." What a great attitude! One that is VERY hard for some of us to get a handle on.

Ignoring the dating aspect for a minute I think you are doing the right thing by "trying". You say you are "doing this the best you can" that is, to live life before you lose the weight. Well, I’m here to tell ya, that’s all you can do, the best you can.

The funny thing is, the more you do it. The more you live life. The more you accept yourself, step out of your comfort zone and do all the things you’ve been avoiding because of your weight, the easier and easier it gets. I hate to use the word contagious but it’s the only word I can think of. You build confidence just like you lose weight, by taking baby steps. It’s better to do it slowly. Just as you can’t expect to drop all the weight overnight, you can’t expect to have a change in attitude and self-confidence overnight either.

I found this quote today and I think it’s genius…

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”
Win Burden

It made me think of you and your question when I saw it. Even though I think you are already coming to this conclusion all on your own I think it’s important to be reminded that things will never be "right", We will never be thin enough, pretty enough or perfect enough to do whatever it is we want to do.

Take me for instance. On more then just the body image front, I have always been super self-conscious of my writing. It’s not my strong suite, I realize this. My grammar sucks, I mix up then and than, I can’t spell and no matter how many times I proof read I miss major mistakes. I’m very aware of my lack of editing skills but if I waited to be a "perfect writer" I would have never started this blog. I decided to throw myself out there, bite the bullet and accept the fact that I can’t wait to share my ideas. People will have to accept me for what I am and more importantly, I will have to accept myself. I have things I want to accomplish, people I want to help. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. I cringe knowing my posts aren’t perfect. I find mistakes in old writings and realize that they have been seen thousands of times (yikes… getting self conscious again… don’t think about Roni, don’t think about it.) But I still do it and I’m so glad I do or I would never meet awesome people like you! :)

Ok, back to this dating thing. This part of your question is so hard for me to answer as I’ve been out of the dating world for 14 years. FOURTEEN YEARS! Boy I’m getting old, that’s how long I’ve been with the husband, we met freshman year of college and I haven’t dated since. Back then I never cared much for dating, if I met someone great, if not, I was happy alone. Then again I was 18 and in no rush to meet anyone for a long term relationship. Little did I know… fast forward 14 years and look at me now.

It would be really easy for me to say, just wait. To tell you that if you live your life as an independent, happy, confident women that everything else will fall into place as it did for me. But I realize I’m lucky in this department and I also realize I’m not alone. I have someone. That’s why I say I understand what you are asking but I really don’t know how to answer it. So I’m going to relay on some of my friends to chime in. I think you’re right when you say there are others out there that will relate to you. I hope by sharing your question some of them will speak up and share their insights and perspectives.

Thank you Jennie for your question. I hope we get some comments and start a good discussion to help inspire you.

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The opportunity came out of no where when Lori sent the casting call notice for a new show coming to the states called Cook Yourself Thin. I read it and thought, Oh My Gosh! That’s perfect. I literally did Cook Myself Thin! LOL

So I threw an application together and sent it in. Surprising I heard from them right away asking if I’d come in from an audition. Of course I said yes! But then nothing. No return email, no call. Nothing. Weeks went by, I even sent a follow up and received no response.

I all but gave up on it.

Then I figured, what the heck, You only live once, right?!? So I shot them my latest GreenLiteBites Video. Low and behold! They emailed back and set up an audition time for me!

Perseverance people, p-e-r-s-e-v-e-r-a-n-c-e! :~P

So cross your fingers. I’m super excited to get the opportunity to try out. Right now I’m living for the experience of it.

So before I embark on my few days of hectic fun I want to leave you with an email correspondence I had today. I’m keeping names anonymous here as it wasn’t an official "Ask Roni" just an email asking for help. The writer really struck a cord with me as I truly feel her pain. I’ve been there. I had those same feelings. Please, if you have any advice for her as well, share it in the comments.

Roni, I have 60 lbs. to lose. Where do I even start?? I am realizing my joints hurt from the extra weight. I don’t like what I see in the mirror. I really need some sort of inspiration, some focus, starting point. Can you offer me any words of wisdom? I am at rock bottom without a clue.

I know how you feel and I know my advice will seem cheesy and unhelpful but it’s SO true.

You have to take baby steps. You have to stop focusing on the long term goal and focus on daily ones. When you do that, day by day you’ll get closer to that big goal and time will go by. Then you realize that all those daily goals are starting to build up and you are getting closer to closer to your goal!

I tell people ALL the time.. Give yourself ONE day. Don’t worry about tomorrow, or the fact you have plans on the weekends, that a holiday is creeping up on you. Do what you can today. Stay on plan right NOW. Live in THIS moment. Make the best choice you can.

Once you start doing that you’ll realize you make more good decisions then bad. That the days you veer off plan, are OK. They don’t affect your next decision, they don’t snowball into days, weeks or months like they used to for me.

That really is the key. Once you get that down you have to find what works for you in the eating/exercise front. For me it was Flex and doing something active every day (walk, dancing, etc.). I did my best to stay on plan and I set a goal of something active every day. You can do that! You can TOTALLY do that. Right?!? :~)

I can try. I feel like I’ve been on WW so many times, that one more won’t make the difference, you know? I start off well, but then something in me just gives up and I go bananas one day and eat a whole bag of Hershey Kisses and I figure what the hell, I quit. I work three 11-hour days and on those days I can go to the gym at work (it’s free) but I find it hard to get motivated in the mdidle of the workday. By the time I get home I am done for the day, so exhausted. My days off I could work it in. But my thinking is – what’s two days?? It’s not going to make a difference. I think I am so down on myself right now that I can’t give myself any credit.

I am going to try TODAY to make good choices. I"m not going to worry about the fact that I will be baking Christmas cookies later today, or that my husband and I will be going out to dinner this weekend. I’m just going to try to get through breakfast. Then lunch. I guess I"ll see how it goes. I could try to get on the treadmill today, I know I would feel better if I did – it really is a mental boost when I DO exercise, I don’t know why I don’t do it more often. Both my children (7 and 11) are in school and I have off work today. I have so much to do today (wrapping presents, baking cookies, etc.) that it’s hard to work that exercise in – and by the time I decide to do it, I am exhausted. Jeez, now I just remembered I left my tennis shoes at work!! Joy.

Thank you Roni for taking the time to respond to me. I just feel like I’m starting at the bottom, and there is a large rock tied to my ankle.

You aren’t alone in your feelings. You NEED to know that. I went through and go throw these cycles STILL. Though they are getting less frequent after 3 years, it’s been a journey.

You have to realize (and you aren’t going to want to hear this) it took you a long time to get where you are now. Your eating habits, the lack of motivation to work out. Your decisions not to do what you know will make you really happy. You formed those habits over years. You aren’t going to change overnight. You aren’t going to wake up 60lbs lighter.

You have to accept that.

It’s hard. It will take a lot of mental exercises to do. You’ll have to leave your comfort zone. You’ll have to do things you aren’t motivated to do. You may have to force yourself at first. You can’t expect to do everything overnight. It will take as long as it took you to get where you are to get you where you want to go.

That’s why you start small. You take babysteps. You can’t do it all at once. Pick something. Make it a habit. Make it a non-negotiable thing you do for yourself.

Start to accept that you are never off plan. There is no "quitting". If you eat a bag of Hershey kisses. Accept it and move on. Once you accept it you CAN move in. If you use it as an excuse to quit you’ll never succeed because it’s GOING to happen. I almost ate a whole batch of cookies the other day. The only reason I didn’t was because other people helped! The more you accept it the less you will do it because you’ll start to realize there is no off plan. I ate the cookies. That didn’t give me permission to not go to the gym and to order a pizza for dinner. That decision to eat those cookies was isolated only to the cookies. You can’t let it snowball.

I can’t lie, it hard. It’s much easier to keep doing what you’re doing. Change is difficult. HOWEVER, when you make the effort. You’ll start to notice the hard choices don’t only get easier but they become habits. They become ingrained in the way to live your life.

I hope I didn’t insult you. That wasn’t my intention.
I know you can do this you just need that "a haaa" moment. The more you try, the closer you’ll get to it!

-Roni

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Topics in this video include…

• How to Find a Plastic Surgeon and Breast Lift Questions
• Alcohol and Weight Loss
• How do I keep my produce fresh?

Links mentioned in the video or that you may be interested in…

• TuckThatTummy Forums
• My older video talking about Breast Lift
• Points for Alcohol
• Myabe I’m wrong, Alcohol may play a part.
• How I organize my fridge

Unless you are reading this on Roni's Weigh or your RSS reader, it is stolen content!

Topics covered in this video…

• Breast Lift
• Time to exercise
• Why isn’t unhappiness motivation enogh (this is the tear jerker)
• Long days
• Jealousy

Links mentioned in the video or that you may be interested in…

• The Matter of Motivation
• I Knew You Could!: Celebrate All the Stops in Your Life (Little Engine That Could)
• Click here to read the Follow up on unhappiness question from Barbara

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