Category Archives: Weight

The Scale

By Posted in Reads, Weight Tagged , , 78 Comments

A while ago (probably my first week of blogging), I wrote a post about the scale and my relationship with it.  Three years ago, I decided that weighing myself was not really jive.  I decided I didn’t need justification from a big piece of plastic (or metal if you are fancy) to define my mood or decide how I would feel for the day.  So I threw my scale away…that isn’t too say I haven’t weighed myself a few times in the last few years (doctors’ visits, just plain curiosity…but I don’t weigh myself very often…probably about 5 times since then).

 Though I’ve never had an eating disorder, I can relate with both males and females everywhere that constantly see adds for being “healthy”, that you can never lose enough weight and that being skinny is the key. 

It’s no secret that America (not to exclude other countries) is facing problems with weight.  We are an overweight country…but this post doesn’t go out to people for health reasons that need to lose weight.  This post goes out to people who want to lose weight because it will cure their life and they believe they will be 100% happy.

Let’s take this step by step in a typical day of weighing yourself with no particular goal or need to lose.  Perhaps you weigh yourself every day to make sure that one pound steak you had or delicious ice cream didn’t do any “harm”.

You wake up for the morning…go to the restroom…brush your teeth and weigh yourself.  You stand on a piece of plastic and allow it to tell you a magic three digit number. Now a days, most scales go to the decimal place so you have a few extra digits.  Before you weigh yourself, ask what are you are you hoping by this process?  Are you hoping that you’ll weigh the exact same to the fraction of the decimal?  Are you hoping that you’ll be down .01?  Whatever it is…if you are up anything, the scale has betrayed you.

So then you weigh yourself and let’s think of the two options.

You weigh in less than yesterday.  Instantly your day is good.  You weighed .01 less than yesterday.  It’s a great day, people will be complementing you because they can notice the .01 difference.  I mean, I personally can’t tell even tell whether someone has gained or lost 10 pounds let alone .01…think about that.  .01…incase you wondered, that is 1/100 of a paper clip.  Cut a paper clip into 100 pieces and that is how much weight you have lost since yesterday.

Or you weigh in .01 more.  Everyone will notice and your day is automatically ruined.  It’s currently 6:30 in the morning and you just weighed .01 more, so nevermind the rest of the day…your day is officially ruined and you have been up all of 5 minutes…maybe.

My point is this.  You are letting a giant piece of plastic control your everyday life.  No one can tell if today you weighed in 5 pounds more than yesterday.  No one can tell if today you weighed in 5 pounds less.  Your attitude is how they perceive you…I can tell someone having a rough day.  Someone who weighed themselves at 6:30 am, decided it was a bad weight and is now going to let it ruin their day and mood.

Don’t let that person be you.  Don’t let a piece of plastic and the first 2 minutes of your morning control your life.  

Question for you: What is your relationship with the scale? 

Monday Real Talk

By Posted in Personal, Weight Tagged , , 22 Comments

I’m gong to post a blog that will probably make some people get their panties in a bunch.  I don’t really care.  I’ll probably get a few emails about it (per normal) so you can just either leave me an anonymous message on my blog or email me.  

First, I’m not underweight.  I’m not close to being underweight.  If you want to really get into it I weigh 130 pounds and I’m 5’7.  You can calculate my BMI if you really want…

Moving on to the meat of the topic. 

Being busy with my internship, my food intake has really taken a turn for the worst.  I’m not really cooking my own food and though I haven’t gained weight-I feel like crap 99.9% of the time.  I’ve chosen ice cream over yogurt plenty of times, I’ve eaten at the dining hall quite a few times…my skin is breaking out because of it and I just feel sluggish.

After all that work I did running and fueling my body well this summer…I’m just letting it all go through the wayside. 

I couldn’t really tell you why, just the fact that I’m busy and somewhat frustrated with being so busy, being injured..whatever.  I don’t handle pressure that well.  Then when I’m not busy (like weekends) I literally do nothing.   Living in a town where you are basically leaving town every weekend, it’s very hard to make friends and make concrete plans on the weekend.

Part of being an athlete is knowing how to fuel your body appropriately.  In the blogging world, there is a big push about how people who exercise a lot don’t fuel enough.  No one ever talks about overfueling or not fueling the right way.  It’s not like I’m stuffing thousands of oreos instead of salads, but I’m not making choices that are appropriate.

I’ll eat out two hours before a long run when the food isn’t settled.  I’ll eat huge protein sources the night before a race.  I’m just not really making proper food choices for what I need to be doing.  I chose to be an athlete and I chose this lifestyle.  I have accepted things like binge drinking and going out to college parties don’t happen before races (though they aren’t my scene anyways).

In my mind, I suppose, I was thinking if I put this in writing I would realize how I was going down the wrong path and that I should probably work on fixing that.  I’m not going to make any goals or if I do this for X amount of days then I can buy this because that doesn’t work for me.

I am, however, going to recommit myself to fueling myself for running and getting my calories more the right way.

Question for you: 

How do you fuel yourself? 

How do you balance working an 8-4 job among life endeavors? 

Eating Disorders Documentary

By Posted in Reads, Weight Tagged , 12 Comments

**Warning: This is a documentary about eating disorders.  Sorry if my post title is a bit point blank-but I don’t want anyone who this would make uncomfortable to read/watch ot.  

After opening my blog reader sometime last week and opening Health Craved blog post link to this video…I thought…well I think I’ll watch it.

As some of you know, I’m doing my senior project on anorexia nervosa.  I’ve been watching vdeos, doing extensive research, and writing a 50 page paper.  It isn’t the most glamorous topic (as some of my classmates are doing theirs on gum disease or heart disease…) but it is a topic that interests me.

*I have never been diagnosed with an eating disorder.  It is a topic that interests me because 80% (and this is estimated low) of females show a determinant of disordered eating as a means to control their weight.  

Interesting points that came from this video.  It followed several females who suffered from eating disorders from bulimia to anorexia to eating disorders with athletics (What I found the most interesting).  If you have a few minutes (or 50) and this is something that interests you-I’d watch it.  It is by far one of the most interesting videos I’ve watched on eating disorders, especially since the focus is with athletics.

Athletics and Weight

By Posted in Running, Weight Tagged , , 47 Comments

This is a very heavy post.  So I’m not sure if you suffer from any sort of eating disorder or any sort of problem of that nature if you want to read it.  I promised I would be realistic with my blogging besties and here I am.  Being realistic. Sometimes I have to write a couple of serious posts to counteract my other shenanigans but really I have a lot more to say about my 5k race than what met the eye.  No pictures today but I’ll make up for it on my long car ride tomorrow.  :)

As many of you know I raced a 5k on July 4th.  I ended up finishing in 20:32 which is an okay time for me.  Not the greatest at all but not the worst I could do by far.

During the 20 minutes that I as actually racing though a lot of factors laced into my mind.  I think I did more thinking during those 20 minutes than the entire week combined and I’m taking an online class.

Anywho, I’ll preface this because I don’t know how many people read from my DM, regular subscribers or have read my blog for the last year. (I love you all by the way) Basically I’ll catch you all up to speed so it will make more sense.

Being a two sport college athlete, it is extremely mentally tough.  It’s tough because I’m not doing indoor and outdoor track, I’m not doing two sports that generally work the same muscles or are the same thing.  No offense-but if you do indoor, outdoor, and cross country while yes you are a 3 sport athlete but you are generally doing about the same thing all year round.  Swimming is about a 10 month single sport just as running kind of is.  Swimming and running, however, are 100% complete different.  I mean sure they are both cardio based but that is about it.

With that-there are two completely different body types that excel in both sports.  With running, the smaller you are the general faster you go.  Not all the time and there are plenty of exceptions.  But it is a general case.  With swimming, it is more important to have meat on your bones so that you will be more boyant and generally do better.  When I swam my best times in high school, I was never a rail.  In fact, I was about the highest healthy weight for a 5’7 female.  As I grew older, my body changed (like antipuberty or something).

But long story short-My swim coach and cross country coach have both brought up the topic of weight and how it affects sports with me.  My swim coach, point blank told me I would not do well in swim season if I didn’t gain 10 pounds after cross country last November.  I was not underweight during cross country (and never have been).  We just had a long talk that gaining about ten pounds (healthily) would be best for my swimming.

So I did.

Now-my cross country coach has mentioned a few times that maybe it would help my running to go back to where I was preswimming and preNovember.  No-he is not forcing me to lose weight.  No-he is not telling me to be under weight.  No-he is not pressuring me or telling me I should losing weight is the only option and blah blah blah.  He is merely telling me facts.

 People that are not athletes often forget that your body is what gets you through your sport.  Not everyone loses weight for a body image.  I have been obnoxious and confident in every stage and body proportion of my life and that isn’t a problem. 

The reason I was hesitant to put this on the blog was because I don’t want people to think that anyone is forcing me to do anything, making me feel uncomfortable or triggering any sort of eating disorder. 

Because quite frankly-I’m at a point in my life that I can talk about weight rationally to my coach, to my friends, to my parents, to my blogging besties, DMers whatever without feeling like it is triggering something in me.

Anyways, that race just made me think long and a hard about swimming, running and weight.  All in 20 minutes.  I really don’t need anyone to tell me I need to lose or gain weight because that isn’t what I was getting at.

What do you think about athletics and weight? 

Eyebrows.

By Posted in Breakfast, Food, Weight Tagged , , , , 21 Comments

Forgive me for not having enlightening posts lately, I have been going through a few personal problems lately and had to divert my attention to that. But the weekend brings me a decent amount of dedication to you guys, my blogging babes.

Another issue that I seem to be facing lately, is that I’m in a blogging rut. I don’t feel I have anything new to share with you. I wake up, I have a waffle/pancake, go to class, go workout then slave away at calculus. I know you are all highly interested in calculus but typing up math is incredibly difficult…I have to type mine up and turn it in via blackboard.

Sophia @ Raven Waves, reminded me that I Hadn’t made Greek yogurt pancakes in a while. I was craving them all night and decided that I would make them in the morning. I like to make them with lemon zest because I think the tartness of Greek yogurt really compliments the tart lemon.

———————
What better way to spend a day not running then to watch my favorite TV show (I mean all my bffs decided to skip town this weekend…). America’s Next Top Model! My favorite season was on Bravo today and you better believe I watched from the very first episode to the last with Raina. She was my favorite of any contestant because she was an athlete as well. Many of the girls on that show are just skinny and not athletic. She was a volleyball powerhouse.

A fun story of my life. I was at the gym watching the season finale literally shouting and hollering my home girl better win. I won’t spoil the surprise incase you haven’t seen the season, but needless to say I was Ms. Grumpy girl for the remaining 10 minutes of my elliptical time. Did I mention I make lots of friends at the gym?
What baffles me is that Raina is gorgeous and not stick thin, she is obviously thin but not let me show you ribs thin. Some of the foreign modeling agencies said she was “too heavy.” She had the perfect athletic body that helped her do so well in volleyball.

I thought I would share some fun facts about my life relating to Raina. A while back, when I was interested in getting my foot through the door of modeling, I was told I was too big. I am between 5’7 and 5’8 and weigh about 120 pounds. Needless to say I was tinkering on healthy and underweight category. Oh yes and I was an athlete which means I had even less fat and more muscle then an average girl of my size.

Here are a few photos around that general time.

Don't mind the life jacket. This was a few days after.

Lifeguarding also made me extremely tan.

But I was told, and I’ll never forget it, that I would need to lose between 5-10 pounds for me to even be looked at. That I had lovely “bone structure” but I would be even “better” if I lost a few pounds. More toned perhaps? Um, this girl cannot live without pancakes. I was told, however, (and this may be where my obsession started) that I had great and fierce eyebrows. Needless to say, I will superficially judge your eyebrows and if you ever need a sister to pluck them I got your back.

But anyways she is fabulous and I love you girl! Speaking of ANTM model, the new season comes on Wednesday at 8pm so please don’t post any blogs between the hour of 8 and 9.

Since I didn’t have a photoshoot with myself today, I’ll leave you with this picture that I found from a couple years ago. I’m obviously always hungry for apples.

Question for you:
Comments and opinions of the modeling world are welcome. Lets discuss our lives and Tyra.