[canmarielan]

Originally Posted by Miss Scarlett

You're welcome PinkieLee. i like your chicken salad recipe too. i'll have to try it but with fat-free Greek yogurt or sour cream instead of mayonnaise.

One thing about my doc. He created these recipes and has actually eaten this stuff himself. He has his own weight struggles and practices what he preaches. Following the plan he developed (primarily diet and exercise) he lost weight and kept it off. He's constantly researching and studying.

i love this man. He saved my life.

This made me cry a little. I understand so deeply the "He saved my life" bit. My trainer has no idea about this, but he saved my life. YES i did the work. YES I am eating the right things. YES it is me who sweats and grunts and works until I'm dying. But, HE SHOWED ME THAT I COULD! He brought it out...and I'm forever indebted to this man. For the rest of my life I will be grateful.

Originally Posted by Medusa

I am trying to do some time-saving stuff for my food this week so this weekend I baked up 4 HUGE sweet potatoes and dug out the innards and slapped them in a huge bowl.
I have enough mashed sweet potatoes for all week and can use them a 1/2 cup or a cup at a time for side dishes on meals.

Sweet potatoes are one of the healthiest veggies you can eat from what I've read. They are packed with fiber and tons of vitamins and have the lowest glycemic index of all of the root vegetables.

I like mine mashed or baked with a sprinkle of cinammon (no sugar or honey necessary since these are naturally sweet). If you are on WW, an entire cup of mashed sweet potato (with no sugar, butter, or other stuff) has only 5 points. That's a LOt of potato so I usually do 1/2 cup with dinner or lunch.

I've even had a 1/2c with cinammon for breakfast with a piece of turkey bacon. YUMMY.

[COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]
YAY!!! I prep ahead of time with my starches as well. I do 2-3 sweet potatoes and a bunch of rice so that I have plenty to split up into my little individual meals. When the hard stuff is already ready, it's much easier to convince yourself to cook that meal instead of going off plan. [/COLOR]

Originally Posted by June

I'm kind of fired up this morning.

You know I love it when you get fired up!!! hahaa..

[COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]Thank you for your support, June. It means the world to me. [/COLOR]

Originally Posted by princessbelle

I agree to the size thing so much!!!!

My goal for loosing weight is of course to live longer. My mother is a diabetic. So, i know i can get it easily.

And more than that, being a nurse, i have to maneuver patients constantly. I have to bend and lift and get in the floor. It would be nice, again, to be able to hop up without embarrassing myself and get up slowly due to this extra weight. I want to be able to hop up steps carting all the medical bags and supplies i have to carry and not stop because i'm out of breath or tired.

Like many of you, my weight loss goals are not about how i will look. It is about how i will feel and move.

A way better reason.

People out there can be jerks no matter what you try and do. Especially if you are trying to make yourself a stronger person. Just shows their jealousy coming through. Sad really.

[COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]Hey Belle, congrats on your GREAT weight loss this week!! WHoooott!!

Additionally, I am a nurse as well. I have to say last week I did a dressing change on a diabetic stasis ulcer on someone's lower leg. I had to sit on the floor to do so and when I hopped back up without problem, it was one of the proudest moments of my life. KEEP GOING SISTER! THIS is yours to be had!!!![/COLOR]

Originally Posted by Medusa

That is incredibly fucked up.

Let me say this, I think it is incredibly brave of Superwoman (I'm calling her that until she decides to out herself) to do her journey in a visible, authentic way with unabashed resolve. It's brave not because there are vile haters out there in the world who let their own self esteem issues keep them from celebrating someone's health success, but because she is brave enough to do it with an audience. That, my dear friends, takes giant ovaries and that, to me, makes her a fucking BAD ASS. [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]Your'e a bad ass, too sister!! Your belief in me keeps me motivated! [/COLOR]

On another note:

This is something that June and I have talked about at length. Back on the Dash site, when I was first figuring out I was a Femme at the age of 22, I felt such an enormous sense of affiliation and love with all ofthe fat people there who loved their bodies in ways I had never been witness to before. I was able to shed much of my insecurity about my own size by witnessing a few people I deeply cared about at the time own their size and space and demand the kind of respect for it that I had always been afraid to ask for.
It was and is amazing.
I am a firm believer that sexy comes and any size. I am also a firm believer that love should come at any size (both self-love and love directed). I do not, however, believe that any of us should be fetishizing size in a way that supports food addiction or destructive eating habits. That may look like many different things to all of us but for me, it means that I don't keep telling myself I'm fine the way I am while I shove Twinkies in my face and can't walk up a flight of stairs or am having a stroke due to high blood pressure while still shoveling over 6000 calories a day into my body.[COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"] You and I have talked in length about this as well. I think our community is beautiful with ALL of it's variations. Gender, weight, appearance. SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! Healthy? Another question.[/COLOR]

It's hard for me to even type this because it feels like such a betrayal of my fat politics. The politics I have put a LOT of effort into over the years. Don't get me wrong, I am not ever going to dismantle my fat politics or start being negative about fat bodies but this re-examination has definitely churned some muddy waters for me.[COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]This is so difficult for me as well. I have tried to be so fat positive for so long. But, how do I mingle the two????[/COLOR]

There's another thing that I am remiss to talk about but I think it's important. I think that some of the fat politics that were happening in other spaces made a nice soft bed for willing food addicts to become even more unhealthy under the guise of....fuck, I've written and rewritten this sentence 10 times and am trying to say it in a way that won't sound like an attack. Let me just say that I gained a significant amount of weight when I felt that my fat body was more accepted/desired/fetishized/celebritized/etc. That's what happened for me and I own it and it wasn't because anyone else made it happen. I still hear the echos of fatphobia in "I'm not usually attracted to big girls but I'd date Medusa in a heartbeat" or "Medusa dresses so well for someone her size!" or "I wish I had Medusa's confidence!" (as if a confident fat woman was such an anomaly..and maybe it is but it felt like a headpat more often than not like "Oh look at you, with all of your ADORABLE little self-esteem!") [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"] I get this. To the core.[/COLOR]

Sometimes I still feel like a traitor for even daring to make my body smaller, for having a goal of a healthier body, for being so self-involved that I'd want to focus on me. I know some of that is just the old stuff talking. But I also know that some of it is because I am coming from a history and a specific Butch-femme culture where there were some people who I idolized who were severely overweight and who helped me to find the love within myself after a lifetime of hating, both by watching and witnessing them and by creating an atmosphere of acceptance and love. That's a hard thing to examine if it means I have to let go of my safety zone, and for me that's exactly what it means. [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]You don't need me to tell you that you are not a traitor. If I am not than you are not. We are doing what is best to get our bodies healthy. We only have one body ya know? [/COLOR]

Sorry for the gush.

<3

I was going to chop your post as well, but then decided to use it to make my point as well.

Also, in case any of you hadn't figured it out, it was me who has been receiving hate mail. I haven't quite figured out who it was that sent it. Frankly, that doesn't even matter. I deleted that email out of anger, I wish I hadn't. Anyway, thank you all for your kind words of support! If you'd like to read my response, I posted it in a blog post.

Click here to read the rant!...