Imagine if you will...

Me and my gorgeous mother xox

...my shock and horror when I found out that my mother had been right all along.  Mama Spitfyre always told me that the secret to losing weight was eating right and exercise. 

Well, it's true.  And I'm going to let you in on another secret...

It's about 80% food and 20% exercise, Heather (my dietitian) told me that...but if Jonathan asks, I did NOT repeat it.  Haha...he did, however, say something to the extent of:  what's the point of working out if you're not eating properly?  That I get.

And here's the deal...I haven't been eating enough. 

If you've been reading my blog, you'll already know that I am a bit of a control freak.  This results in an all or nothing perfectionist mentality that gets me into trouble frequently, but I deal.  It's been 5 weeks of eating "right" so far, and my challenge currently (or in reality for the last 5 weeks) is eating the right things, in the right proportions, at the right times.  I am not cheating, I am not giving into temptation, but I am restricting.

The problem is, I'm not hungry.  I am not.  I am making good food, as you'll know from EAT ME.  But, it's more about...working out makes me feel nauseous.  A fact that made Jonathan show me all the exit signs when we first started training, and say...at the end of those stairwells, there is a door to outside should you feel the need to vom.  I have not thrown up yet, but after I work out, I don't want to eat...and that's exactly when I should eat.  Heather suggests some yogourt or a carb of some sort...especially if I am going to work out again later.  Enter, my food issues.  But, if I don't eat, I'll lose weight, right?  Wrong.

Ate whatever I wanted when I wanted and still lost 7 pounds in Paris!

The deal is, and this is hard for me, if I eat more....my metabolism speeds up to metabolise (go figure) the calories that I have taken in.  This means that ever time I take food in at the right times...my metabolism kicks in and thinks, use this don't store it.  Even when I'm not working out...I need to space my meals throughout the day and eat every few hours.  Why is this so hard for me?  Sounds like an amazing thing EAT MORE FOOD...but, alas, control freak.  I have jumped back into the mindset of my teenage self - restrict calories and I lose weight, right?  Nope.  Not necessarily.

Heather came by my house after my 1st week on a diet and I gave her my food diary.  She said things looked pretty good, besides the couple bottles of wine that were had....and told me I needed to consume more calories.  Especially when I told her my future work out schedule (we both had a laugh at how much I was going to be working out), she said I was definitely going to need to eat more.  But it's so weird to have someone tell me, of all people, "you need to eat more food" when that's exactly what strarted my weight gain in the first place!  Yes, yes I need food because my body uses a lot of calories just being.  And if I work out?  Well, I'll need to eat more of it, but I want to pull big numbers...I want to be the biggest loser.  However, I also want this to be sustainable.  I want to keep this going...so I'll eat more.  I promise.

Texts from my Croatian Conscience:

My conscience as a 1950s okā-san of the okiya.

Okay, it's time for numbers.  How much did you lose?

Well...a month ago I was at 292.1 and tomorrow is my weigh-in day...but I stepped on the scale this morning and I was at 273.6.

You know how much I hate being nice to you and saying good things...but that's amazing.

You are less fet lady.

I have to start coming up with new material because I won't be able to make fun of your weight.

Times Colonist Health Challenge: Beautician on a Mission...

That's me punching Jonathan!

Beautician Suzie Spitfyre finds her own beauty

Sandra McCulloch / Times Colonist
February 6, 2013

Suzie Spitfyre loves everything in life to excess.

After loving food a little too much for 13 years, and topping the scales at 292 pounds, she’s now learning to love a tough workout plan and regime of healthy eating.

The Times Colonist Health Challenge is just another hilarious adventure for Spitfyre, a five-foot, two-inch archaeologist, make-up artist and party girl.

One day, her bangs and short braids frame dramatic eye makeup. Another day, when she needs a boost, she’ll break out the war paint and do her face like a warrior.
She’s feeling pretty good right now, having lost 12 pounds just two weeks into the 12-week program.

“I’m probably more comfortable now in my skin the way I am — as unhappy as it makes me every now and then — because I know who I am,” Spitfyre said.

“When I was 109 pounds in high school, I was just terrified that I was fat.”

She got a bachelor of arts degree in classical archaeology from Simon Fraser University and has worked at excavations in Malta and Ireland.

She left Europe for Montreal in 1999 and blames seven years immersed in the city’s food and party scene for most of her weight gain.

“Montreal is a pretty awesome party city,” she said.

She revelled in the attention of promoting musicians and, with it, enjoying lots of food and drink.
“Poutine is the best thing ever,” she said. “I loved everything to excess.”

Her mother, a dietitian, expressed concern for her daughter’s health. Spitfyre said she’s the only overweight member of her family.

“It’s like, ‘How can I be different? I know, I’ll gain 200 pounds!’ ” she said.

“I had everything going for me and it was my choice to be terrible with food. I’m the star pupil of whatever this is I’ve created.”

She’s far from self-pitying, saying, “What’s really important for me is I don’t regret things. It’s all a learning experience for me.”

She gained the excess pounds and says she intends to lose it again. Her enthusiasm for the task at hand saturates her environment, and it’s getting a strong response from her friends.

“What really has affected me through this whole process are all the people I didn’t know who were already in my corner — they’ve come out and said, ‘You go, girl!’ ”

Her twice-daily workouts are even inspiring her already-active friends to step up their game.
“My cousin’s husband sent me this beautiful note saying, ‘Some of the guys at my fire hall are kind of big so we’ve got together and we’re doing [workouts],’ ” she said.

She’s been working out at the Crystal Pool, where strangers recognise her from Times Colonist articles.

“People keep grabbing me and saying, ‘Are you the lady from the newspaper?’ I go, ‘Yes I am — form a line, autographs at 11.’ It’s hilarious.”

The exercise is already showing benefits. She can climb the stairs to her apartment without getting winded, and her body is changing.

“Look! I’ve got a dent here,” Spitfyre said, pointing with glee to what appears to be a waistline.

“And I think that my boobs are actually bigger than my stomach.”

Aside from the physical changes, her energy has increased and she feels “amaze-balls. I’m pretty chuffed.”

Her husband, Stéphane, is supporting Spitfyre as she tackles this big life change.

“He has a bit of a beer gut but he’s got really nice legs,” she laughs.

Her goal is to lose 30 pounds over a month, 50 pounds over the 12-week program, and eventually drop 150 pounds.

She’s on leave from her work selling and applying cosmetics and hopes the Times Colonist Health Challenge will get her back on track.

She loves applying makeup, saying, “I change people when they come in to see me. When I’m at work, I empower people to feel beautiful and to know that they are beautiful.”

She has to learn to discover the beauty in herself, she said.

“I’m not doing myself justice. I have a style now that’s dictated by the blobbularness of my body.

“Every day now is an opportunity to have fun and just go out there and get what I want. I want to be an active person and feel awesome in my clothes.”

smcculloch@timescolonist.com
© Copyright 2013

Weigh-In Wednesday #3

Oh, Wednesday.

Again I am excited to see the numbers drop on the scale...and I'm not sure what to expect this week, because I haven't been hopping up on the scale EVERY morning.  This is intended to be better for me so that I don't get discouraged if I see the numbers go up or if they stay the same.  This is what JC recommends, and what I'm used to doing..for the most part...but it kills me just a little.  I am a perfectionist, and he's given me a huge goal for this month...so to relinquish some control was not easy.

Starting weight:  292.1

1st weigh-in:  286.8

2nd weigh-in:  280.1

3rd weigh-in:  276.4

That's a drop of 3.7 pounds this week.  Not bad, not bad...why am I so disappointed?  Total loss in 3 weeks = 15.7 pounds...and I should be rejoicing as that's an average loss of over 5 pounds per week.  All I need to do now is drop 14.3 pounds next week to attain a 30 pound drop this month.  Gaaaahhhh...sometimes this is so frustrating.

So, what happens now?  How do I pick myself up after not losing an astounding amount of weight?  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with a loss...but as always, I have high and somewhat unrealistic expectations and that sets me up for failure sometimes.  However, I have a perfect way to counteract this...no, not by trying on clothing that I don't think I can fit into in my closet (that'll come later).  For now...I need some perspective.

This is a pound of butter:

I have lost almost 16 of these.

This is a five pound bunch of carrots:

 

I have lost over 3 times this much!

And this is a 15 pound cat:

 

I have lost a rather large feline...and at least 3 mice on top of that.

Attitude adjusted.  I'm ready for my day.

"All right, I’m ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille."

Before workout.

Wake up, get out of bed, go in shower, shave legs, wash hair, towel off, dry hair, straighten hair, ponytail hair, trim bangs with sideburns clipper, cream, wipe excess moisturiser on visible tattoos, smudgy black eyeliner, mascara wand pointillism, waterproof extra black lashes, squish face up, squish face up, squish face up, appropriately messy. 

Brow gel, lip stain, foundation for cheeks and random zits, body suit contortion session, stretchy Capri pants, shirt…what shirt?  Try on Hello Kitty, no, try on Cobra Kai, no, try on Fangtasia, no, try on EVERY DAY IS WORLD AIDS DAY @ MAC…holey moley…this fits!?!?!?!?!??  Good, raise social consciousness & a MAC plug.  Done.  Obligatory stretch the t-shirt interpretive dance, socks, sneakers, breakfast, nausea, butterflies, hoodie.  Don’t throw up all over yourself.  Ride.  Crystal.

I remember this anxiousness…butterflies and that I may barf all over myself at any given minute, no wait, I can keep it together feeling.  The last time I felt this way was at the in-gate of a horse show.  So why do I feel such nerves today?  Well, because it’s ninja time and there will be a photog from the Times Colonist there to document my session – I hope he wears skinny jeans, a tuque, and a granddad sweater and takes my picture with a Holga..oh, the light leaks!  Maybe if I’m lucky he’ll post my picture on his Instagram.  If only I weighed an Instagram.

That’s why I’m here...on the elliptical, sweating.  Enter Jonathan, lemme just flick up that tension. 

“You’re going to hate me today.”

            “Uh-huh.”

And gone.

He comes back a few minutes later.

            “You’re going to hate me today.”

            “You said that.”

            “Yes, but you didn’t really react.”

So here’s the deal…I don’t hate him, I hate stairs.  And apparently, I’m running them, and then I’m doing squats with weights up over my head, and then I rest for 30 seconds…and then I do it again…4 more times.  I don’t love much about this exercise because it’s really hard, but what I do love is that I’m getting ‘er done, and I’m improving.  The more difficult it is, the better it is for me - that’s the sort of attitude I adopt in order to get through all this. 

Photographer?  Where is the photographer?  Oh wait, he’s here…and I have unintentional sweaty separated Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice bangs, but my smoky eyes have not budged…they are still rock solid.  Ha!  I can’t believe Jonathan even questioned the longevity of my maquillage.  Make-up artist vs. personal trainer.  Suzie for the win!      

What is a little girl to do?

And now we’re what?  Or, I should rephrase that, and now I’m doing what exactly?  Then hold on to the railing and do the gorilla-stance-20-pound-dumbbell-lifting-with-your-elbows-in things, awesome, and then something with a ladder (Fire drills?  Search & rescue?  Painting?)...oh, a Jacob’s ladder...I have no idea what that means.  And now I do.  And I firmly believe that it’s against the rules of the Crystal Pool.  It clearly states on a little sign on the wall:  NO SKIPPING IN HALLWAYS.  In-in-out-out is a kind of skipping, no?  Or is it more hopscotch?  Whatever it was, I wasn’t so bad at it.  Yay.  And then push-ups.  Click, CLICK, click.  FYI…it wasn’t a Holga...and he wasn't in a cardigan, much to my disappointment. 

Now on to boxing.  Yayayayyayayaya!  Amazeballs!  I love boxing...my arms turn to jelly and my body takes a beating (not literally) after a while, but it feels really great to punch things.  As my friend Jen would say, "Punching things is rad."  Insert obvious allusion to pent up aggression and/or frustration here.  But, who cares?  It'll look cool in photos...and that's what's important, right Jonathan?

"A successful workout is what I'm focused on.  Don't worry, you'll get good shots."

The man NEVER loses focus.  

So boxing commences on the heavy bag...and then we go on to some hand to hand shots on the mitts.  This feels amazing.  Muscles that I didn't even know I had are being worked.  Then I learn "hooking."  No, wait, that doesn't sound so good.  Then I lean how to do "hooks."  Wow.  Sweat is running down my face and getting sniffed up into my nose and I can't adjust my shirt because of the giant gloves on my hands...but I don't care.  The photographer is on the ground and the shutter clicks over and over and over.  At this point, I don't even care what I look like...my job is to hit things.  I'm afraid that I am going to look super intense, but I guess that's the point.  This is hard work, and even at my weight, I'm gettin' 'er done!  And, I can't stress this enough...if I can do this, so can you.

After workout.

Then it's over.  

We review a few piccies on the camera briefly...I hop on a machine (elliptical|) to cool down.  The photog talks to Jonathan for a bit, and it's out of our hands.  Hope I look okay in the photographs, and I don't come off as a total idiot in the article.  

Jonathan, sensei, you were right.  It wasn't about putting on a show, it was about being real, working hard, and showing everyone that it's not going to be easy, and that's okay.  If you stay focused and work hard, you'll reach your goal eventually.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Super awesomesauce workout this morning, then I head to my "office" in the lobby of the Crystal Pool & Fitness Centre to do a little blogging...and I am thwarted.

It's like red threw up all over the place...red lanterns, red table cloths, red decorations, red writing on the windows, and little Chinese ladies wearing red Mandarin collared jackets and cheongsams.  There is quite the impressive spread of home-made food that has been brought in by all these fabulous, rowdy women.  The sign outside reads:  The ladies invite you to our Chinese New Year Luncheon, Feb 4, 11 30 AM.

It should have read:  Suzie, run.  Run for your life...好吃 chow mein has appeared in the most unlikely of places.  Confucius say, caution: egg rolls and sticky rice ahead!

Much as I would have liked to have had a little taste of the year of the snake...I honoured the lunar new year by briskly walking home with the music cranked, dancing a little lion dance at each red light.  Rawr!  Or "slither"..as the case may be.

Don't let the bastards grind you down.

I’ve been blogging backwards…a bit…trying to get everything sorted in the right order.  It’s a bit weird, because just when something amazing happens that I want to write about, I think…”Oh, I should really write about last Monday when I met with my dietitian.”  But what I have to say right now cannot wait…this is important.

I got a message from a high school friend the other night, he’s a personal trainer, and it simply said:  “Sneak a bit of brown rice into ya.”  Now, I have really, really changed the way that I’ve been eating, and I may have been bragging via a certain social media site that I had “skipped carbs with dinner” and then mentioned that I was going out after that for another workout.  He just reminded me that I needed fuel for said workout…and it reminded me of my power struggle…this is harder than I thought.

Food is power to me.  If I control food, I am in control…and that goes both ways, overeating AND under eating.

Here’s an interesting side note…excuse me while I go on a tangent…my spell check thinks that overeating is spelled correctly, but that undereating is not a word.  Now what does that say about the evolution of the English language?

This is not the racehorse, this is Tulsa..crazy jumper pony.

When I was super fit in high school I restricted calories and dropped down to 109 pounds or so, but I never thought that was good enough.  I was a serious and dedicated equestrian training a young racehorse to compete over fences, a half-back with a killer drive storming the field with the first 11, I helped start the first women’s soccer team my school had seen, I was the spirit-filled Caister-Mackenzie house captain, and if I wasn’t doing something sporty, I was singing and dancing with the drama troop.  I had a rockin’ bod…and you know what?  I thought I was fat.  I would look into the mirror and turn to the side and grab my stomach and pull it flat.  I would look down at my muscular thighs and curse them for being so “big.”

This is not a pity party.  I hostess a lot of parties, but I will never throw one of those!  This is a full-on rant.  

If you are reading this and you happen to know a teenager who’s into all the right things, tell them how amazing they are every day.  Encourage them to keep it up, and talk, talk, talk, talk to them about everything.  Tell them they’re beautiful and that you love them for being exactly who they are.  My parents and friends did all of that, and it only took a couple of stupid boys to tear my self esteem to shreds.

And teenage boys, if you’re reading this, man up and tell those gorgeous girls just how wonderful they are...I don’t care if you’re scared.  Tell them.  Tell them, and you’ll be a hero...not only mine, but theirs...for life.  Who says nice guys finish last?  It simply will not do to tell that girl 20 years later after she's lost the thing that she never knew she had.

It's so cliché, but if I could have a conversation with my teenage self I would tell her keep on keeping on.  Eat healthy, stay active, think positively, go for it, trust in yourself, and don't let the bastards grind you down. 

Eoin, thanks for telling me 20 years later...you'll never know how good that made me feel.

"Get it back girl!"

I will.