I have all my lingerie, which btw I’m a huge fan, and I spend the day shopping and finding things that might make me get off my butt. Today started like any other. I bounced around different shops, web sites and such. Spent a few hours looking at other fat people trying to getting skinny on The Biggest Loser pictures page. Spent even more hours on Victoria’s Secret website. And for some reason as I was on the VS website, thoughts about costumes came in my head and from there it was searches in Google (gawd they are the best btw) and then I scrolled a while.. just hopping from link to link when I came across a site that is about sexy adult costumes. I think what shocked me most is there was this list of clothes available at Amazon.com and I had spent all morning there with zero idea they sold anything like that (and much to my husband’s chagrin, I book marked both that site and the Amazon costume area la~). So now I have a new inspiration for weight loss and tomorrow I’ll need another.

Any ideas =D?

I have to admit that I’ve bought Weight Watchers food though, but quite frankly its freakin tastes awesome. They have these two frozen dinners, which I never saw in the USA, called Green Thai Curry and Chicken Verona.. Gawd they’re good. I sometimes have two at a time. That works for me because I count my calories and I work out a lot.

Try it my way, counting calories, keeping a journal and getting exercise daily and see if that’s much easier than buying special food or paying for clubs.

What helps? Food scales, a calorie counting book and some walking shoes. Everything else you can get for free on the internet.

When I was living in the States 24 Hour Fitness was the best place to go. At 3am I would be able to use any machine I wanted for as long as I wanted. It gets a little more hectic during 6-8am and ofc 11-1 and 4-7 but if you go during odd hours you can have a really good workout without worrying about the machine time limits. They usually have so many machines from elliptical machines to spinning bikes. Weight loss and exercise are really easy when you have the choices and time to make them.

The best part about 24 hour Fitness is the TV/radio station box at each machine. You plug your headphones in and you can watch the TVs on the wall, whichever channel you want. It makes exercising so easy and you hardly notice you’re working out.

24 Hour Fitness is one of my few exceptions to the “free” rule, but I will give tips on cheaper gyms. You can exercise for free, and those will be towards my best recommendations, which of course will be towards the end of the month =D!

I just don’t understand why people keep believing this bull****, but I’m gonna stop you if I can.

I’m gonna be honest here. Weight gain didn’t happen overnight for me. I sat my butt down in a chair and for years and I basically didn’t move out of it. I stuffed my face with crap and now my butt looks like two pigs curled up beside each other.

I also won’t lie and tell you that I didn’t enjoy those years of homemade pizzas, powdered doughnuts, Taco Bell and Chili Cheese Fritos. Its easy to enjoy those when you don’t look in the mirror.

Everyone wants a magic bullet, especially me. There isn’t a soul on earth that I wouldn’t sacrifice to have the genetics of some 18 year old skinny blond Swedish model. I know that’s not gonna happen.. so I’m gonna take my warped genetics and lose weight the way my warped genetics allows. It sucks but that’s life.

Its not just me that agrees there’s no magic pill for weight loss:
Fast Track to Weight Loss
By EatingWell on Apr 15, 2009 12:00 PM in Healthy Eating
By Rachel Johnson, PH.D., M.P.H., R.D., EatingWell.com

As I expected, none of the quick fixes had strong scientific backing. So I turned to my friend Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., chair of the University of Vermont’s Nutrition & Food Sciences Department and author of The EatingWell Diet (The Countryman Press, 2007). “The best way to give yourself a jump-start,” she said, “is to create rules that add structure to your diet.”

You can read more on this article by clicking here

So while magic pills, dvds, powders, trainers, shoes and assortment of diet wonders sound really great, I didn’t make my ass into a condo unit by magic, so I’m not going to demolish it by magic either. And neither are you.

Read his book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle and check out his blog at www.Burnthefatblog.com. His blog and books are very honest about how to lose weight and build muscle. They are about eating properly, counting calories, exercising and strength training. While these are the same ways your doctors and dietitians have been touting, he also does a great job of explaining why weight loss works best this way.

Tom Venuto is the reason I have never looked for another quick weight loss solution and why I continue to manage my weight loss by calorie counting, exercise and strength training. Let him motivate you!!

When I had finally reached my breaking point in weight gain, I sat down and began browsing websites to learn about losing weight. At first, I’ll admit, I was trying to find information on bypass surgery or pills.

Luckily the first website I found, which taught me the correct way to lose weight, was Caloriesperhour.com. While this site is very professional now, when I first started reading, it I think sometime back in 2004, it was just some calculators, forums and very interesting articles by a guy that ran the site. I wish I could remember his name because he taught me so much.

This site is important because of, not only its vast amount of material, but information and tools which don’t advocate ridiculous pills, powders, money or other ridiculous claims. It gives you the tools to work out for yourself exactly how to lose a pound per week and exactly how many calories you are burning now per week. The calculators are an invaluable tool that every person who wishes to lose or gain weight using healthy methods.

This site is completely free and I recommend their calculators highly.
Warning: You can get lost in this site because it has an amazing amount of articles and calculators and you may never leave their forums.

Calorie counter, calorie calculators, exercise advice and more.

Now, two years later, my husband and I find ourselves living on a very limited budget, and I find myself fat, depressed, unemployable and poor. This puts me in the unique category of semi-computer literate and semi-poor. Its in this situation I decided to do two things. Lose weight and write about losing weight .. on budget. I began this blog with that precise intention. During the umpteenth debate with my husband regarding politics or religion or fashion, TV shows, etc etc , I realized I had too much to say to limit myself to just weight. But I will start with that particular discussion

I’m a fat girl. Not chubby or big, just plain fat. Being fat has made me depressed. Depressed and fat made me want to stay indoors. Staying indoors made me get fatter and thereby more depressed. Round and round we go until it came to the point that I left my house maybe three – four times in 9 months.

So here I was fat, depressed and basically home-bound, when my husband and I decide to have a baby. I quit smoking, so I wouldn’t be crazy when I was pregnant, and I proceeded to gain 40 pounds and we proceeded to try.. and try.. and try to get pregnant. Failure caused more depression and another 20 pounds. Now, at 38 years old, I figured my age was a factor and wanted to see how my fertility was doing. I contacted the fertility doctors. The first thing they tell me is that they will not even consider me for invitro or any other kind of reproductive assistance because, while my age is a small factor, the fact that I out-weighed Orca was probably the reason we weren’t getting pregnant.

So now I’m fat, depressed, not-smoking, unemployed, freezing (its Sweden after all), poor, sterile and to top it all off I’m diagnosed with a spinal problem which makes any exercise almost impossible.

While most weight loss sites will tell you that losing weight will not magically make everything else fall into place, I, fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your view), am not subscribing to that theory. Apparently, according to doctors, when I lose weight I will be fertile, backproblem-less (I reserve the right to make up words in my blog) and happier. More importantly, I believe I will be able buy cheaper clothes, fit into that size 4 Anne Klein blazer in my closet, and thus be less poor. It is simple deduction really. If I am able to buy cheaper clothes and fit into my smaller clothes, hanging useless in my closet, that equals more money in budget! Please note, men, this is how a woman’s mind works.

Stick around and I promise you a happy ending! Not that kind, you dirty boys!

Losing weight is metaphorically like starting a long marathon race when you have never ran a day in your life. Getting to the race is the 1st part of the battle. Moving past the start line is the 2nd and staying in the race to the finish is the last.

For me getting to the race was essentially, pun intended, like getting a beached whale back into the ocean. Now I’m in the ocean and I am fighting to stay off the shore, screw getting to the marathon.

Now everyone is asking themselves “What the hell does this have to do with being poor?”. Well lets stick with my beached whale metaphor. So I’m the whale and here is who is trying to unbeach me (remember the made up words clause earlier) : husband, family, friends etc etc.. Now while all of them are quite helpful, you ain’t gonna move a whale back into the ocean without some significant cost and major help.

Here is the happy ending I promised.

My major organizational help was http://www.sparkpeople.com. “Here we go”, you’re thinking this is a sales pitch. Yeah, I am making a sales pitch. For a completely free site! Yup its free. This was the major help pushing me in the water. Supplying the crane, metaphorically speaking, for free. Like the Greenpeace of Fat people!

This is my first recommendation to starting weight loss for the budget challenged (geez can I just say poor, like me?). Go to your local library if you don’t have internet or a computer. But once a day log in and stay there until you’re motivated to DO something about your weight. They have all kinds of motivational stories and articles.

On that site you’ll find tips on every single weight loss issue. You won’t need to buy drugs, equipment, advice, personal trainers. Everything you need is there. You can, of course, find information on equipment and personal trainers. They even have free fitness videos you can use at your computer area. For free you get:

* Personalized diet & fitness plan – check
* Calorie counter & exercise tracker – check
* Fitness demonstrations & videos – check
* Over 100,000 articles, recipes, & tips -check
* Blogs – check
* personal pages – check
* teams – check
* free- check

So if you want to lose weight and have a fitness plan just click on the link and get to the starting line. Believe me once you’re on the site, the starting pistol will go off and you’ll be on your way to the finish line, with a cheering squad besides you every step of the way.

Http://www.sparkpeople.com

I’ve lost 10 pounds so far in 3 weeks . And before my back injury I had lost 34 pounds in 4 months.. No magic pills, no gym membership, no costly foods. Free! Free! Free! Cool!