Thinspo

 

Thinspiration. I guess Thinspir or Thinspi would be more accurate. Thinspo is a component to a pro-Ana lifestyle. It is when you look at photos of beautiful skinny people to garner inspiration and stick to your diet. Except an Ana diet is something rather silly, like the 2,4,6,8 diet.

 

What is Ana you say? Its anorexia. Pro-Ana is a movement for a pro-anorexia lifestyle. Who is Ana you ask? She is your friend (according to pro-anas, not me) who starves when you eat and eats when you starve. You need to find the happy medium.  Thinspo is part of that lifestyle.

 

Pictures like this and this are used:

 

 

I say we take back the night. I think Thinspo is a powerful weight loss tool, but rather than look at these bony skeleton’s for inspiration, why not look at real beautiful women whom we would want to look like. Even celebrities who have a beautiful but normal look to them.

 

I say we take it back. Why let it only be part of a pro-ana lifestyle.

 

If you or someone you know suffers from anorexia or bulimia, help is available.  

149.6

 

It was to be expected. I fell off the wagon*, hell, I fell under it. Father’s Day weekend is a family oriented weekend, and family oriented weekends need food. How else does one survive so much family without copious amounts of alcohol and food?

 

If I had to grade my performance over the weekend I think I get a c-. MY eating habits were terrible but a) I joined a gym, b) I went to the gym, c) I persevered through “the wall”, and d) I went grocery shopping for the week and only both low fat weight watcher foods.

 

My South Beach days are over, for now. Good riddens is how I feel in that respect. I know that many many people have lost a lot of weight on the South Beach Diet, and I guess if you are willing to put in a lifetime of non-simple carbs (which is better for you) it is a good diet. But 2 phases limit your fruit and carrot intake. Ok, as far as I am concerned a diet with no to little fruit (even for weight loss purposes only) is not a healthy one. The contrary, it is a specifically unhealthy diet. Yes, you are allowed to have all the veggies you want, and you are supposed to have 4-5 servings of fruit and/or veggies but you get different nutrients for vegetables and fruit. It seems counterintuitive to purge your diet of fruit and replace cravings of sweet with nonfat, sugar free cool-whip, or ricotta with splenda. Beyond that, yes white pasta and rice are simply empty calories. I agree, they are like drinking or eating cupcakes on a diet, also counterintuitive, but potatoes and corn? Those aren’t empty calories. I would be hard pressed to qualify a potato as a vegetable, and unlike carrots people have gotten fat because of them, but potatoes are full of nutrients and are filling. Corn and potatoes should not be purged from a diet like white rice.

 

Facts about potatoes:

However, the fact is, I like white rice. I like it and I hate brown rice. Yes I know I am simply eating inches onto my hips, but I don’t want to  live a lifestyle that forces me to eat stir-fry with brown rice. I need a lifestyle where when I want a snack, I can pick up an apple or some berries. I want watermelon, or salad, chicken and corn for dinner. As much as I love a good steaktip salad, I love berries, fruit, corn, potatoes, white rice, and low fat frozen yogurt more. I simply don’t under stand how a lifetime on the 3 phases of south beach can be healthy.

• 45% of the daily value for vitamin C
• 620 mg potassium, comparable to bananas, spinach and broccoli
• trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, folate, magnesium, phosphorous, iron and zinc
• all for only 100 calories and no fat.

 

 

 

So welcome to my day 1 of weight watchers. I won’t be going to my fabulous new gym today, but you bet I’ll be there tomorrow. Today I have been munching on watermelon and strawberries with laughing cow cheese and to top it off? Pasta salad (Kraft Zest Italian free dressing, of  course). Everything I have eaten today may have been the anti-South beach but all of it has been healthy (even the pasta, white – eh- tomato and spinach pasta with low fat dressing).

 

Frankly at the two weeks I did South Beach, I may have been so so so excited to lose the weight but I felt terrible. Physically I felt gross and the excitement over weightloss was able to cover that up, until I took a good look at what I was doing. For now my weightloss will have to be the old fashioned way, healthy eating, being hungry, and exercising a lot. Boo, painful and slow, but at least I am not dreaming about watermelon and corn on the cob. At least I can have carrots for dinner again. CARROTS NEVER MADE ANYONE FAT, orange maybe, but not fat.

 

* “Fell of the wagon” comes from Ireland. In Dublin before a prisoner was executed he was paraded through the city on the back of a wagon. It was customary to stop at every tavern on the way to the gallows and give the many a free pint.  Occasionally after a bit to much to drink he would fall off the wagon.

 I bought a new scale… it says I’m 146. This scale is better so Ill take the plus 5 pounds and use it. Bummer though.

I got something else too. The Hungry Girl Diet Book and the New Weight Watcher’s cook book. I will be making some of the recipes over the next few weeks. I’ll take my 4 pounds and call it an night. Time for weight watchers. I’ve already told you I feel about the carrots.

Now I am looking for weight watcher widgets.

 

Why am I writing this?

 

This is mostly for me, but if you have found it, I hope it gives you inspiration.

 

In 2006, a mere 2 years a go, I was 5’1 (actually 5 feet, I lie about the inch), a smoker, 110 pounds on a good day, 115 if I had consumed an entire pizza and box of krispy crèmes and a size 2. Two years prior to that, as a sophomore in college I was 100 and a seize 0.

 

Two years later, one week ago today, I was still 5’1, had been a non-smoker for 2 years, weighed 150 pounds exactly, and was quite snug in my size 10 pants. I had had it. I graduated fro college, quit smoking and got into law school, all while gaining 20 pounds a year, A YEAR!!!!!!!!

 

Time to change. Enter South beach.

 

This will chronicle my journey through weight-loss with stories, tips, goals and yes… pictures.

 

As a rule I think any diet that makes you restrict fruit is B-A-D, bad for you, but I certainly cant a afford new clothes again, HELLO poor law student. Drastic times my friends, drastic times. After 2 or 3 or 4 weeks of NO carbs I intend to forego phase 2, (“BUT WAIT!!!!” you scream. I know I’ll gain it all back. No no no, I have a plan) and I will go to weight watcher’s core because weight watchers seems like the smarter way to lose weight, but again drastic times.