The Main Event – My battle with Weight and Finding My Inner Goddess!

Round Four: Freeing You!

Well, I want to apologize to my readers for posting this nearly two months after I said I would. As some of you already know I was in Memphis for about a month and it is hard to stick to your normal routine while on vacation.

I will make this short and to the point. As woman we typically are our biggest critics and no one can punish us more than we punish ourselves. We berate ourselves for every imperfection when in fact we should be celebrating them. It is what makes us unique and if we can learn to appreciate and even love our bodies we might find that it is the best relationship we have ever had.

I have a wonderful relationship with food –we laugh, we cry, and we sometimes over indulge. I have learned a few tricks along the way, some healthy and some not. The best advice I can give is don’t starve yourself and don’t deny yourself anything, but do watch how much you eat. I read a book called Naturally Thin written by my favorite NYC Housewife, Bethenny Frankel. In her words, “treat your diet like a bank account”. If you overindulge at one meal then balance that out with the next meal or two. And as they do in the old country, taste everything and eat nothing. Meaning, you have little bites of everything instead of gorging yourself on one meal, that way you feel as though you have had a wonderful meal, you have tasted everything, and you can still fit into you cloths. You can also keep yourself from overeating by remembering this one very simple fact; the food isn’t going to get any better than it was during the first few bites… You don’t have to force yourself to finish everything on your plate as if you were a 4 year old all over again. Your mother isn’t going to scold you and you’re not getting grounded, so stop eating so much. Remember 7^th grade science, it takes about 10 minutes for satiation to begin. Why do think in other countries, like France for instance, a meal is more of an event rather than the instant gratification we indulge in as busy and overworked American’s. Every bite of French food is decadent, buttery, creamy, and typically all the things we are told to stay away from, but the difference is the French know how to eat to enjoy and not eat to the point of a food coma. There is also something to be said about the people of the Mediterranean and the fact that they have a longer life expectancy than we do. They drink wine with every meal and everything is fresh, nothing processed, and they eat a ton of fresh fish.

To conclude this chapter, food is a form of art in many cultures; ergo people tend to have a healthier relationship with food. You can be healthy and thin and yet still enjoy all the wonderful things food has to offer. Remember these few simple tricks and you can enjoy yourself without all the guilt associated with too much of a good thing… Moderation is the key to happiness or at least that is what I believe.

Hope this helps and thanks for taking the time to read my posts!

Works’ Cited: Frankel, Bethenny, and Eve Adamson. Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print

The Main Event – My battle with Weight and Finding My Inner Goddess!

Round Two: Negative Self-image

My tween/teenage years were a nightmare, I was already developed in certain areas (wink-wink) and I still had my supermodel strut which made me a huge target for other kids to constantly pick on me. Being beat up and called names everyday takes a toll on a girl. I was back to my ways of being self-conscious and hating my body and the way I looked. I had curves and was tall and I thought I was fat and ugly because I let all those people get inside my head. I remained reclusive and didn't talk to people much because I was afraid of what they thought about me.

It wasn't until I turned 18 that I decided I was going to get in the best shape I could and I couldn't give a damn what others thought of me. I had a whole new set of friends and I was finally coming in to my own. I started to embrace what I had, but it wasn't long before I tried to convince myself that I needed to change my body to conform to what the magazines and mainstream media deemed the “norm” of what a woman looks like. I was kidding myself, I have never been nor will I ever be a size zero. I am just not built that way, but I thought I had to look that way to be accepted. I tried everything short of bulimia to look the way I perceived as being beautiful. This was all enough to send me into a terrible downward spiral of depression and horrible negative self-image issues. And even though I was in the best shape of my life I hated my body……

The Main Event – My battle with Weight and Finding My Inner Goddess!

Round One: Self-confidence Learned at an Early Age

As requested, this is my confession of being totally obsessed with my weight! It’s true and if you know me then I am sure I have asked you at some point “Does this make me look fat?” I can’t help myself and I have no one to blame but me, but the good news is that I made it to a point in my life where I can finally embrace my curves and say with conviction that I am sexy as heck….!

I guess the best place to start is from the beginning.... So here it is!

It all started one perfect January afternoon back in 1990 in California at a brunch for my grandmothers birthday. I was discovered by the man who, at the time was the head of the Miss California Pageant Organization. Jeep Jones (head honcho), was staring at me from another table and my grandmother, who (if you know her then you this about her) is a spitfire that ya just don’t want to mess with, stood up and walked over to his table demanding an explanation as to why he had his “creepy little eyes all over her granddaughter”. He stood up and extended his hand with a look of horror in his eyes and introduced himself. Needless to say she was bright red in the face. She took his card and returned to the table too embarrassed to finish her meal.

After several months of preparation I entered the first of many pageants. It started with Miss San Bernardino County where I took 3^rd princes and Miss Photogenic. That was enough to qualify me for the next round which was Miss Inland Empire where I took 2^nd princes, Miss Photogenic, and Most Potential. Not to mention several hundreds of dollars in scholarship money. I qualified for the nationals held in Anaheim which was the beginning of the road to Miss California and eventually Miss America. I did not place in the Nationals, but I did receive Girl of the Year, Miss Photogenic, and Miss Congeniality. And I won several divisions including western wear, prettiest eyes, smile, and face. That was enough to send my self-confidence through the moon and as a tall lanky child who was constantly teased, it was much needed.

My family was transferred to Waycross, GA several months later where I entered one pageant and actually won the title. It was America’s Cover Miss USA and it came with some great prizes and more money. My southern beauty pageant career was short-lived as we eventually moved back home to the great state of Colorado.

A few months in to being back home (where I was born) my mother received a call out of the blue. It was one of the judges from the nationals in Cali. She was also a talent agent for the children’s division of Elite Modeling Agency. She wanted to sign me but I had to go to a modeling school where they could help me lose my pageant ways and become more marketable for print and runway work. I did just that and it started out great until they started hounding me about my weight and nitpicking about everything else. My mother saw the effect this was having on me and so being the wise woman that she is, she yanked me out and that was the end of my life as supermodel.

I was devastated and my family and friends spent the better part of a year trying to convince me that I was beautiful both inside and out. My mother always taught me that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that being a good person was far more important than being “ Really, really, ridiculously good looking” LOL! How true those words are but it took me 15 years to really embrace it.