Ready For Week 1?

Me either. I will be weighing in weekly on Thursdays. That’ll be the day that I don’t want to but feel that I must share with you my weight. I’d like to tell you that I’m full of excitement and energy going into this first week of my blog and weigh in but I’m not.

Yesterday I went to Sonic for breakfast/lunch and had a few drinks with friends last night. Today I stuffed my face with everything Zorbaz but you know, balanced it out with a few hours of swimming. Basic math right? I had planned on going grocery shopping today to kickstart my week on a positive note but I didn’t get around to it. Too busy swimming remember. That’s okay. I’m not perfect. This isn’t going to be a perfect journey.

I plan to have oatmeal and a slice of peanut butter toast for breakfast tomorrow for “day 1.” I’ll have a shake around 10:00 and then I have nothing planned beyond that point. If I can push through the McDonalds craving I’m sure I’ll have, I hope to go down to the mez at work and grab a salad. I’ll be going to the store tomorrow right after work so I’ll probably be updating you with my progress on day 1 tomorrow.

Remember DRINK YOUR WATER! Let’s do this!

By the way, I went swimming today in public and didn’t bother caring what other people thought. Take that fat-shamers.

What To Expect.

I haven’t quite ironed that out yet. If you’re still with me, congratulations. I’m a rambler of words. Being the perfectionist that I am, I didn’t want to share this out with my family and friends until the site was “ready” by my standards. Guess what? With perfectionism comes procrastination.

SO…no the site isn’t 100% ready to rumble yet but it’s a start. If I didn’t share out what I’ve put together so far, it’d probably be another two weeks before I introduced this to you and two weeks before I began a healthier and happier lifestyle.

By the end of this month, I plan to have my Motivation and Progress pages updated which is the last step in the set up process. The progress page is going to be the most difficult. You may notice that I’ve only shared a few “selfies” to this point. And if you follow me on any social media site, it’s the same. If you’ve ever tagged me in a photo, you’ll soon see that I usually untag myself within seconds. There’s a reason I’m always the one taking the photos. The progress page is going to be what the world already sees, not what my creatively angled phone will show you. I’m not emotionally or mentally ready to share with my family, let alone the potential world, what my weight is, but I’m going to. I’m not ready to consciously allow my most embarrassing photos be published on this blog, but I have to.

I going to do it for myself. Not to prove anything to my readers, not to try and one-up the last weight-loss blogger but I need to look at myself in the mirror of the world. In the mirror at home I suck in and brainwash myself to only see my face tilted slightly down as to not see the double or triple chin of the day. I need to look at and share what I actually look like because avoiding it obviously hasn’t gotten me anywhere.

Starting Over. Again.

In June of 2014, my mom and I signed up for Jenny Craig. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Following the program off and on and often to the beat of my own drum, I lost 41 pounds between …. [checking myfitnesspal] … June 4^th and October 18^th. Roughly 4 ½ months. Although it wasn’t even a fraction of what I needed to lose, it’s totally worth a “fuck yes.”

For personal and career reasons, I moved to Bemidji mid-October and guess what? They didn’t have a JC. Without feeding you full of excuses that you don’t want to hear, I gained most of that weight back. I recently moved “back” to my adopted homeland of North Dakota and just this week re-joined Jenny Craig.

This time I’m going to do this different. To go along with being honest with myself and with the encouragement of my mom, I was also honest with the Jenny Craig consultant. What helped me lose the 41 pounds mid-last year wasn’t the program or the food; it was the accountability. My main reason for going to JC week after week is for the weigh-ins and pep talks; not the food.

I’ll still purchase a few of my favorite Jenny foods because well, I like some of them, but I’m not going to ever claim that Jenny Craig’s food program helped me lose weight. I’m a picky eater [go figure] so I don’t really find most of their menu very “delicious” anyways. However, I have learned from both Jenny and life that there are a few key things to be successful and stay successful when it comes to getting healthy:

• Drink water and lots of it. The best advice I’ve gotten so far is to drink half your body weight in ounces of water EACH DAY. So if you weigh 300 pounds, you’ll be drinking 150 ounces of water today. Better start early.
• You’ll hear me say this 70 times over but accountability is key. Regularly weighing in and reporting to someone is the single most thing that kept me trying last year.
• Eat breakfast and fruits and veggies. Drink all that water! Consciously add in protein-rich and fiber-full foods.
• Be as active as your body and motivation level will allow.

Losing 41 pounds last summer was in no way “easy.” Look at me, I gained it back because slowly but surely, I let all of those tips slide with time. I dived back into Mountain Dew and Snicker bar induced comas with the snap of a finger.  I can binge eat at almost any fast food restaurant you mention. It’s a disease. But I’m worth it and I can’t stop fighting.

I’m Morbidly Obese.

I hate that phrase. To me, it’s just as derogatory as n**** or cunt. Morbidly obese is the asshole way of saying “you’re disgusting and probably going to die soon.” Thanks for the death sentence Webster’s.

With my first few posts here, I just want to introduce you to who I am and as you can see; my humor (if you want to call it that) is probably a little dryer than usual. Throughout the duration of this blog, you’ll learn about “my weight loss story” so I’m not going to dive into all of those topics right now.  Feel free to navigate throughout the blog and tabs for more information about myself, my progress, motivation, and much more.

To sum myself up in a few short sentences: My name is Orianah but everyone calls me Ori. I’m a 25 year old dreamer that wants to travel the world, get married, buy a house, and have children – in that order. My mom is my biggest fan and my best friend. I love to write (blog), take photographs, and create art in multiple mediums. I’m fat, overweight, obese, whatever you want to call it. I hate the words bigger, plump, and husky because they’re insulting and you’re not “being nice” by saying it. This is my story and I hope you read every post.