Of weight loss and objectives

So I have been trying to lose weight for quite a while now. It worked really well last time. Within about half a year I had lost enough weight to go from an obese BMI to an overweight BMI and I was still on track towards normal weight when I moved back to Ireland.
Well what can I say. I love the food here and the fact that the supermarket is pretty much in front of my door adds to the fact that if I have a craving, I just have to fall out of my house and into the supermarket. In addition, I get free food and snacks and drinks at work. And that stuff is super tasty. They have a lot of very nice healthy options but I love carbs so since I started working there I gained all the weight back and let’s just add 2 kilos, why don’t you.

I still wanted to lose weight and I did make a few attempts but not a lot of success. I didn’t really have an objective, no purpose, nothing. I saw my body getting fatter, falling back into obese BMI and I wasn’t happy with that BUT my husband loves me and my body and although he doesn’t protest my weight loss goals, he isn’t bothered by my wobbly parts at all. I personally thought, “Hey, as long as I find clothes, things are fine!” and I didn’t want to have to resist all the nice things that I love so much. Little treats, all the fruit, a slice of pizza, some juice, etc. It’s too nice to say “No” to all of it.

Something changed now though.

I am 30.
Losing weight will only get more and more difficult the older I get. That’s just a fact.
I do want to get my happy weight back. That’s just a fact.
I don’t want to always check the biggest size in the shop. That’s just a fact.

These things were not enough for me to do it and stay on track with a weightloss regime.

This year in August, I will be at Gamescom again. I want to meet some people and I want to cosplay. I would like to make clear that no one has ever fat-shamed me. But I do want to be fit to walk around and party and just enjoy Gamescom to the fullest. I want to have enough energy left to go and explore Cologne in the evenings as well. I want to cosplay a character that shows some body and therefore my body really needs to shrink a bit.
Another thing is, completely away from Gamescom, I don’t enjoy sex anymore. My husband and I used to be very active in bed but the more weight I gained the less I wanted to. I don’t feel sexy at all. The nice lingerie that I have, right now looks ridiculous on me. I wanna fit in it again, feeling good in my body and in bed with my man.

So what now?

Last night I found myself checking out the ana diet plans that are out there. Yes, that is how desperate I was. And my mind was almost convinced to just do one of those to lose a lot of weight fast.
But there are lots of health issues with this and I don’t want to risk my health just to get thin.

Instead of an ana dietplan I decided to just eat less today and see if I am hungry. I wanted to see how much food I really need. I wanted to feel when my body said “give me more food” and then I wanted to list it all.
My initial idea was a food diary to just put in my head how much I actually eat in order to ask myself if I need all of it and to maybe identify faults. Faults like unhealthy snacks, too many carbs, etc.

So I sat down and listed all the food I ate today. I did this about two hours ago:

• Joghurt
• 1 bread roll
• 1 slice ham
• 1 medium salad
• 1 treat
• 2 coffee
• 1 tea
• 3 7up free
• 1 Noodle pot
• 2 mandarines

I saw my list and got curious how many calories that might be because I didn’t feel hungry and it didn’t look like a lot of calories. So I roughly added the calories. Not exact but rounding numbers from memory etc.

• Joghurt – 100
• 1 bread roll – 80
• 1 slice ham – 20
• 1 medium salad – 150
• 1 treat – 60
• 2 coffee – 100 (sugar and syrup and milk)
• 1 tea – 20 (honey)
• 3 7up free – 0
• 1 Noodle pot – 440
• 2 mandarines – 80

Now I was at 1050 consumed calories in a day not feeling hungry. I had fruits and vegetables and proteins and carbs. I had my very sweet coffee and even a treat.

So I started researching. I have a weight goal to lose 25 kilos by August and I wanted to see how many calories I can eat if I want to accomplish that.
I had a rough 1000 – 1500 a day in my mind because I know I lose weight when I do 1500 and even more when I do 1000.
I googled around a little and had found one calorie calculator that wouldn’t spit out the numbers I wanted to check. It had me on 1200 a day but losing 25 kilos would have taken me until October or so.
So I checked more detailed one where I could play around with the numbers a little.
This calculator listed my daily calorie allowance week by week. It told me my target weight per week (roughly -1 kg per week) and it also told me how many calories I should eat to keep the weight of that week. So basically, if I am happy with my weight before I am done, I will still know how much I can have to stay on that weight.

So when I was done, I copied that down because the numbers all look doable to me.
Now I checked back on the number I had written down earlier. 1050 ish calories. Sweet! I actually ate next week’s allowance today.

I decided I will try this plan that I just made for myself and see how far I get with it. If I lose weight with it and keep my goals and objectives in front of my eyes every day, I will totally do it.

Wish me luck!

 

New Year’s Resolutions

As every January, right now the horrible news from all over the world are just piling up on each other.
From hacker attacks to Suicides, from scam to terrorism, there are just no good news out there. Or if there are any good news out there, it is sure difficult to find them.

I don’t want to get on that wave right now. The bad news fill my day because of the job I do, so at least after work I am trying to get away from those things.

Instead, this post is going to be about New Year’s Resolutions. And if you are smiling or giggling right now, you have every right.

You know how everybody has all those completely unrealistic resolutions?
Loosing a ton of weight for example.
So for 3 weeks the gyms are packed and then people stop going for the goals they set.
I was told of a gym that actually has the “New year’s offer” where they sell you a 3 month membership for the same prize that a normal year would usually cost. Smart business move if you ask me.

The things that might be New Year’s Resolutions for other people, for me they are reminders of goals I want to reach anyway. Stuff I’ve been working on and I remind myself to keep working on those things.

This year I have a to do list though:

• Finally do my taxes
• Get my broken tooth fixed
• Find a permanent job as opposed to the temp jobs I have done for a while now
• Finish one of the books I started writing
• Finish writing the RPG (pen&paper) before February
• Run the RPG successfully at Leprecon
• Get back in touch with my good friends and stay in touch
• Help my husband to learn another language and find a job (he finally is in a language course. so much better chances to find a job if you know languages)

Wish me luck 😀

 

Leelah is dead!

A lot of you might have heard about the transgender girl Leelah who recently commited suicide.

Well, as you might have guessed, this did hit me quite hard. And because I felt, and still feel, so strongly, I didn’t just want to jump in and make an angry post about injustice and how bad religion is.

In my own way, I want to say a few words. After all, it is not only the name, that Leelah and I shared.
Although I never met her, and of course I don’t know her, I can understand quite well why she did what she did. I have been at that point myself and ultimately I am happy that I am still alive. I feel for her and am very sorry that she had to choose this road.

But looking at the one positive in this tragedy is the fact that FINALLY people are opening their eyes and there is no way to ignore this problem anymore.
“Helping” a transgender person by telling them that something is wrong with them and trying to pray it away is the worst thing you could do! And because Leelah was so clear in the final things that she had to tell the world, it cannot be ignored any longer. This is a great accomplishment.
As I said, I am very sorry that she had to die in order to open people’s eyes because sadly, before this, her voice was not loud enough.

It is a sad sad thing, and shows how broken our society is, when someone has to kill themselves to be listened to!

Things are confusing enough as a teenager. Add to that, that your gender does not match your sex, and not having anybody to talk to about it. It is a torture, it hurts, and when your own parents add to the bad feelings you have about yourself by making you go to a RELIGIOUS therapy where you are told that something is wrong with you and that you can pray it all away… I can’t even begin to imagine the pain. It had to be unbearably.

I was not a very fortunate child but in this matter, at least nobody told me that something was wrong with the very core of who I am.

I am lighting a candle for Leelah and hope that society will wake up – finally.

For the (religious) parents out there, that have transgender children:
You do love your child, don’t you?
Please try, for just a moment, concentrate on the pain and suffering your child is experiencing.
Please try to imagine yourself having a problem and instead of being told that your are being loved no matter what, you are being told that something is wrong with you.
And now imagine that you are being sent to a person you don’t know, whose world view you do not share, and who also tells you that something is wrong with you. This person now says that they will help you and starts playing the piccolo flute right next to your ear, the highest tunes you can imagine. You are not allowed to leave the room before the person is satisfied and things that they helped you.
Can you imagine how much more pain you are causing with what you do? “pray it away” and such things are not the right way to address your teenage child that is telling you something very personal and looking for comfort.

You are the parents! You have one job and one job only: Love your child unconditionally!

In the case of transgender people, it is not a problem they have.
You perceive it as a problem but in fact, the person was born that way.
They didn’t have a choice or do you think that people like to chose a life that causes them pain and trouble?
If you are religious, you should know that your deity made your child the way it is.
Your deity had a reason to do that so don’t you dare and question that choice.
If you think that your deity made a mistake, making your child the way it is, you might wanna reconsider your position on religion.
If your deity wanted to have your child suffer through life, it must be a horrible persona and is probably not worth being followed.

Please be good to your children, they are the future of humanity!

Hope and love,
Leela (without an h)

 

Dear God

This is an open letter to the Facebook God in reaction to a recent post of his:

Dear God,

I am writing this open letter to you here on my blog because I have more to say than what I feel fitting for a facebook comment.

Although most of the time I agree with your posts, this time I had a deep reaction.

This has many layers so I am trying to organize the points I want to address (I did not bother to read through the 1.3k comments on your post):

• Comparing the Holocaust with what is happening now is not ok.
  Nobody is killing or hurting or hunting down anybody. In these marches, although done by absolute right and left wing extremists, they are what is considered free speech. They wand Muslims out. In Germany you can march for whatever you want to. As long as things aren’t getting violent and they “just” shout and march, things are ok.
• “Dear Germany” is also not ok.
  It is not Germany that does the marches. There are two movements that do them: HoGeSa (Hooligans against Salafists) and PeGiDa (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West). Those two and noone else is making A LOT of noise and sadly, because media is pushing and hyping it a lot, this is the only thing that is coming through to other countries right now.
• The marches have been happening for at least a year in the UK already.
  I know that people may thing that the UK has more of a right to those marches because they have “valid concerns” but in reality, due to Germany’s history, people from muslim countries have been brought into the country for the past 30-ish years. And as welcoming as Germany has been, those people that were brought in, did not leave when they were supposed to and have been trying to push their belief systems into public life just as much as they are doing it now in the UK.

Apart from the points above, looking at reality a bit more:

• In Germany Muslims have succeeded in taking part of German culture away. By now, christmas markets may not be called Christmas markets in many cities any longer because Muslims where the ones complaining that this cultural thing is disturbing their freedom of religion. Christmas markets have nothing to do with religion but now they have to be called “Holiday Markets”.
• Muslims have been making a fuss about food for many years. The stuff you heard last year in the UK about subway not selling pork because of the pressing Muslim demand, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Go into Kindergartens and schools and you will find that the food, ordered for children, has been pork-less for a long time, because the Islamic belief system doesn’t allow to eat that.
• Islam in general is behaving childish and people have to be allowed to state their opinion about it. Yes, in a civilized manner, so the marches are maybe a bit overkill, but they have to be allowed to say what they think about it. Otherwise we can go back in history and do the crusades but this time they will be muslimic crusades. Why? Because people will turn a blind eye and be nice and mature until it is too late. Every form of extremism should be stopped dead in it’s tracks.
• Muslims have been welcomed with open arms in Germany for many years and because Germany learnt from history, they have been accommodated. Their believes have been respected from the beginning. But guess what happens if you are too welcoming? Look at the UK. Muslim nurses and Doctors being allowed to not wash their hands, Subway stopping to sell pork, Islamic “police” on the streets, Public beheadings in the UK. People in Germany see all this and they panic because they don’t see politicians reacting to what happens in the world and to prevent these things in Germany. Quite the contrary, in Germany, because politicians are so afraid to give the wrong impression (WW2 anyone?) to the world, they keep bending German culture to accommodate

I know, God, this is a very long letter, and you probably didn’t even click the link to it, when I sent it to you. I just feel this is something you should know.
In your post on facebook, you were generalizing and probably ignorant to a lot of facts, so I felt the need to address how deep the issue in Germany actually is.
I am sure that a lot of Germans don’t only agree with this, but they would probably add a few more things that I just left out in order to keep this post on track and relevant.
The “muslim issue” in Germany has a long history and a lot of different layers. Summarized you can say that everybody is scared right now. Those two groups are as scared as a whole lot more people but rather than talking it out, they decide to do marches and as long as they don’t get violent, I personally do not see why they should stop because all they do is express an opinion (yes, a radical one) and underline how scary Muslims actually are, even though they say it is a religion of peace.
Please, don’t tell a whole country to stop a behaviour that only two extremist groups are doing.

Thanks for reading.

Your follower,
Leela