GIRLY GIRL - Photo Shoot

I have been wanting to do a photo shoot for quite sometime. I love being in front of the camera almost as much as I love being behind the camera. These are the results of my photo shoot with professional photographer Jolene Kanahele. She was so much fun to work with and she surely knows the right poses for a plus-size woman like me. My sister-in-law did her magic with the makeup. She is a MAC girl when it comes to makeup. Can I blame her? The makeup feels good on the skin. It absolutely DOES NOT feel too thick or caked on.

I have been wanting to cut my hair for quite some time. I would have preferred to go to a professional to get it done but I opted to do it in the comfort of my bathroom. What a risk. I cut off about six inches and this was the result. I love the length. Husband likes the longer length. Either way, I love who I am both inside and out. The blue sequin top was a steal at Macy's Ala Moana @ $4.00 on clearance, I couldn't pass it up. The black top was a nice and simple long sleeve, v-neck from Jeans Warehouse @ $10.00. Perfect selections for a photo shoot.

The premise for the shoot is for plus-size beauty's to embrace their body shape now and celebrate it rather than waiting to be at your goal weight. When do we really reach our goal weight? Since my late 20's (I'm 37 now) I have fallen in love with who I am and my own body image. I prefer to be naked rather than plastered with clothing. My husband can attest to me prancing around the house totally uninhibited.

I love to play dress-up on occasion. I'm sure every girly girl does. I grew up more as a tomboy because ultra-femininity didn't appeal to me but it does now. When I do get the opportunity, I love to do myself up. It transforms my day-to-day look for a little while. My true, authentic self though loves to be all natural. Husband loves to see my hair all natural, blowing in the wind and definitely NO MAKE UP. I just laugh at how he sees me and I love that my natural-ness is his pleasure.

These pictures are my favorites... they are closest to my personality. What can I say? I LOVE me!

As I age, I hope that I may keep up with my beautiful husband. He is the inspiration behind my secret love stories and the reason I believe in love all over again. We have our hard times, our not-so-good times but we also have the fabulous, extraordinary, ride-or-die times. He truly is my best friend and we are in it for longer than forever. I can't imagine sharing my time with anyone else. You can catch him on his youtube channel as "painless risen". Both of us are quite vocal, in different ways. Me with the pen/keyboard and he... he loves the spoken word and moving pictures. Our ideas are beyond what many can stomach and we go in two opposite directions sometimes but the fact that our conversations are so stimulating still blows my mind.

Staying Motivated to Lose....

A couple of posts ago I reported that I was sick of being large and totally ready to let go of this excess weight FOREVER. Well, I'm super serious. This picture is one of my motivations. I just posted it on Facebook as my profile picture also for the same reasons I'm posting it here -- motivation! This was me at my goal weight. The picture was taken back in 2004 right before the first wedding anniversary. **sigh**

Here I am 7 and a half years from that picture, about 50 pounds heavier, and just realllllly ready to let go of the weight -- fo realz!!!

Some of the observations I make as I look at this picture is that I actually have a neck in it. LOL. My face is well defined. Lipstick--flawless. **big frown face** because AVON discontinued that particular lip gloss. The color was TEDDY BEAR. In fact, I still carry that same lip gloss from that era just hoping that I will run into a matching shade. I've gone to Sephora, Mac Makeup, Bobbi Brown to try and match and have just run out of ideas on where to get it. I should have bought a dozen of that lip gloss. **sigh** I also see a hoop earring peeking out from behind my hair. I have not worn hoop earrings since that era. I've been doing dangly earrings.

I've employed several different approaches to my weight loss journey.

#1 : LOSE IT!
This has got to be my favorite tool. It is the Lose It! website with companion LoseIt! App on Android and Mac. There's a bunch of us using it. It logs exercise and food intake/calories consumed. It tracks your weight, gives you an amount of calories you can take in and tells you what your balance is on. For instance, today, based on what I ate and how much activity I was involved I had 500 calories left on the day. That is amazing to me! I had a super difficult time a couple years ago trying to calculate "points" on Weight Watchers. This app makes it super duper simple. I find myself strategically estimating what I'm going to eat for the next meal or snack. I just love it! It also tracks your weight. I just started this and it's at the tail end of my period so all the bloating and water weight is gone. So since my starting weight of 265, I'm down 6 pounds. I'm so encouraged!

#2 : MEDITATION
Most people are unconvinced that meditation is a useful tool but it is PRICELESS. I use Kelly Howell's guided meditations found on her website BrainSync. Things that I experienced as a child that I thought were long gone emotions are actually preventing me from progressing because I've held onto it for so long. Emotions like fear, helplessness, shame, etc. are explored in depth. It can get pretty intense but the exercises are PRICELESS and very "free-ing". I use several of her meditations. This time I have actually listened to the weight-loss one several times in month.

#3 : PLAIN OLD EXERCISE
I have changed up my exercise regime to include so many different types of calorie-burns. I have acquired BIGGEST LOSER YOGA. A friend of mine has the zumba dvd's, Biggest Loser dvd's, Jillian Michaels Ripped in thirty days. The family has just been mixing it up.

To each his own. I need to stay motivated so that I can increase the quality of life as I age. My father is turning 70 this year. He still looks sooooo YOUNG. Not a wrinkle on his face. His hair just turning gray here and there. He is as healthy as an ox. Anyway -- I want that for me! It starts with taking off this excess weight.

A Healthy Me!

There's a scene on Waiting to Exhale, where Gloria (Loretta Devine) introduces herself to her new neighbor, Marvin (Gregory Hines).

She walks across the street and assumes that Marvin, the guy unloading the truck is just the moving guy. She makes small talk and asks questions about the family moving in and happily discovers that Marvin, the man she's talking to, is moving in alone and is single after the untimely death of his wife. After they exchange a few more pleasantries, she invites him over for a meal. He declines. She concedes to send over a plate.

In the dialogue she points out, "I don't need to be eating all that much, BIG AS I AM."

He replies, "I like that. I like a woman with meat on her bones."

She giggles and turns to walk back across the street. Midway through the street she turns back to see if he's watching her walk away. He is. She waves and giggles again at the attention from Marvin.

I remember being very conscious of my size when I was younger. It could have been because my family's constant attention was on how fast I was growing and how much larger I was than my cousins on my fathers side. They being mostly Asian with a sprinkling of Hawaiian. Me, being fully POLYNESIAN with the bone structure to match.

My mother was a very petite woman. She being all of 5'1" and tipping the scales at 120 pounds on her wedding day. She would often comment about my size and my need to lose weight. I don't hold any anger or resentment toward her for it, the way I did several years ago. However, I'm stuck in the thought process that I need to lose weight. Therefore creating the conditions to ALWAYS make that statement true, meaning I must stay BIG to always keep me in the lose weight mindset.

That last paragraph might be a little hard for people to read or understand. It may seem confusing. You probably have to read it over and over to get 'it'. Or you may not get it today but one day you will. What I've been finding, as I peel apart the psychological and emotional layers that keep me in a body shape that NO LONGER serves me, is that at the heart of the issue is my mindset.

I don't think I would have ever thought I was fat, if my family didn't remind me as often as they did. I'm sure that most of them didn't mean it in a hurtful way, nevertheless, that is how I received their words. Throughout my teenage years, I battled the "fat self-image" that was imposed on me even though I was popular, had a lot of friends, and dated often. The insecurities that come with teenage-hood, coupled with a fat-self-image, made for a very confused young adult.

After getting through the emotional junk, I fell in love with me. I mean I really love ME. I look in the mirror and LOVE everything about ME. But now, with my age creeping up on me and my desire to bear a child, I want to be in love with a HEALTHY ME!

Here I am 33 years and 5 months old and I have not yet mastered my body. One of this years goals, as it has been for the past 3 years, is to RELEASE 50 pounds from my body FOREVER! I fluctuate losing and gaining ten pounds. I want that to stop right now. I want to maintain a healthy body weight so that as I age I am able to have an excellent quality of life. **sigh**

Even though my husband likes the "extra meat on my bones"; even if I love the reflection in the mirror; even if I am comfortable in the skin I'm in; I need to realize a HEALTHY ME. Any ideas?