Do you have an Extra Large in this?

Linkage: A Merry Life

2012-02-21T21:30:00.004+13:00

One thing that is pretty empowering as an instructor is when you have a new person come into your class and really enjoy the workout, then seeing them back in the classes to come.

It's one of the most rewarding things about teaching, starting someone up, and seeing them continue to come back. What's also rewarding is when you take over a class and the regulars follow you, connect with you outside of class, request songs, etc. There's so many things I can go on with about how much I find instructing rewarding.

But... it can also be pretty intimidating. Especially as it is an industry where quality of instruction varies quite a lot - especially when you have gyms which have classes from different group fitness organisations (as each one has their own certification/quality control process).

When it comes to delivering a class, there are a few things that make me nervous. The first is when I have someone I know come and do my class. To watch all of my stuff ups, and just a natural desire to impress those that know me.

Another thing that makes me nervous is knowing that there are people who have had a bad experience with group fitness who are giving it another go, and coming into MY class to do it.

Think of a restaurant who has had a food critic come in, hate the food, hate the place, tell ALL their friends that they hated it, who finally comes back, even though you weren't the chef at the time and you had no idea what the hell those poor people got served and how what you've got compares.

Now combine those two.

Kepa from Fit Lively Guy and Mary from A Merry Life both came into my class last night.

A year ago, Mary wrote an honest post about how she didn't enjoy the experience during the last spin/RPM class she did. What she wrote in the post itself was very honest and diplomatic, but for me, the rawness of her responses in the comments actually demonstrated how badly she'd been short changed.

I was surprised the instructor didn’t talk to us. It was a really small class and we were obviously there for the first time – everyone else looked like they knew what they were doing. I wish she had talked to us first so we knew what to do! Maybe it would have been better with another instructor.

...

She didn’t acknowledge us at all. We were on the back bikes in the class but she could clearly see us – there were only 9 people total.

Instructors have a big part of it. True. I’ve been lucky to always have awesome Zumba instructors which is partly why I love it so much

It wasn't so much the program that had let Mary down here, it was the instructor.

Now I don't know if Kepa and Mary realised it at the time, but I was incredibly nervous in the lead up to teaching to them. I normally set my playlist a week beforehand, and on Monday I teach two classes at two different gyms - I teach the same playlist at both gyms so that it's a less of a choreography overload. This time I was so nervous that my playlist changed about several times, as I was quite stricken as to

Would they like that song?
Is that song too difficult in intensity?
Is that choreography too all over the place to coach without getting them confused?

Even on the drive from the office to the gym I was listening to my playlist and contemplating changing the playlist.

Some of the words were coming out of my mouth in a jumble, and I even scared the hell out of them where I was torn between saying 'the goal is to keep pedalling for 45 minutes' and 'the goal is to keep pedalling for your first class' and then what came out was the goal is to keep pedalling for the first 45 minutes. They both stared at me, bug eyed, and said "FIRST 45 minutes!?!?!!"

You can read Mary's retelling of the experience here - I'd have to say it actually was very overwhelming, as Mary was someone who was as against RPM/Spin as you could possibly be.

One of the comments on the original post, now reading back through it, was quite telling.

Maybe someday you’ll post “My second spin class” and you’ll have better things to report.

I know I'm not the best instructor in the world, but it is a MASSIVE relief to have fallen into the category of 'better things to report'.

2012: Run For It - C25K W2R1

2012-02-19T19:15:00.002+13:00

So I've been for a few runs since the last time I did a run report - they mainly have been runs on the treadmill, after teaching classes. I haven't gotten out on the track again because I've been doing other training in the weekends.

Today it's an absolute stunner in Auckland, absolutely beautiful - blue sky, sunshine. Which means it's absolutely cooking outside, and running outside in that heat is incredibly undesirable. I prefer to run in more overcast weather, even in the rain (only thing that gets in the way there is my glasses), so I opted for a run inside.

The last few times I've run, I used this playlist.

Today, I set a different playlist, but it didn't actually occur to me that today, the run format changed.

Week 1's runs followed this description.

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

Week 2's runs then became the following.

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and 2 minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

I didn't realise it until the voiceover in the app said "Our first run will be 90 seconds, and we will be running 6 times." I thought "... Hang on a minute...? Isn't it 60 seconds for 8 times?"

I would actually say that I found this run easier than the first weeks ones. It felt less stop-start-ish, and mentally it felt easier because the number of runs was less, even though the distance had increased.

What I was actually worried about was "OMG do I have enough music in my playlist to cover the run time???" I hadn't had an opportunity to sit down and calculate everything to make sure that I had enough music on my playlist for it.

Thankfully, it actually worked out perfectly. The only thing I need to do for future playlists is to add two more tracks onto the end to encourage me to stretch.

Today someone who smelled really bad actually got on the treadmill next to me so with 2 minutes left of the cooldown I bolted off the treadmill and went into the womens area in my gym to do some stretching. My quads in particular really need to be stretched out after each run - they're getting really tight, to the point where when I teach the final stretch track RPM, it takes me a couple of attempts to bring my heel up to my glute to stretch it out.

I can honestly say that I really enjoyed today's run. I taught a class in the morning, so it would have been easy to chill out at home for the rest of the day, writing, planning etc. I'm not sure at this stage whether I'll run again tomorrow or Tuesday morning. Either way, I know I'm already enjoying the extra running distance.

Speaking up and saying 'STOP THAT'

2012-02-18T19:15:00.000+13:00

A few weeks ago, I was chatting to two of my BODYJAM instructor friends. One of them I hadn't seen in a while, and I was keen to hear how things had been with her.

The other friend bounded on up to her, having seen us chatting, and joined in.

She said, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!! Oh my god it's been SO LONG, how are you? You're looking good!"

The other one scoffed and said, "Are you kidding me? YOU are the one that's looking skinny?! Check out this big belly of mine."

Then she grabbed at her stomach and tried to jiggle it.

This kinda thing happens all the time, and at first, hearing people who were lean and fit society's definition of 'attractive' denigrate themselves as such, wore me down.

Then I began rolling my eyes and thinking "Oh here we go again..." I would just tune out.

Now, I'm a bit more outspoken. Moreso because I recall the person I used to be, and I know there is a large population of the wider community that still have that fear that I used to have. Fear that gym staff were making fun of them behind their back, fear that they were in general, making fun of people and looking down on anyone who didn't look a certain way. I want to stand up for people who have that fear where it's worth it.

Before I began my journey to being fitter, I constantly be exposed to conversations like this. My heart would sink and I'd think quietly to myself, "If they think that *they* look terrible... what must they think of me?"

The reality is, they're not thinking of you most of the time. They're so self absorbed that the only little bubble they live in is their own. They're oblivious to the consequences of their words outside this bubble, and if you dare point it out to them, you're the one who's the moron.

There have been a few people that have responded positively though - realising that "HECK, my words COULD be interpreted like that... that's not what I want!" and have adjusted their behaviour accordingly.

To the friends that day that were looking at their stomachs and comparing how terrible they looked to each other, I said, "Will you two STOP IT. If I combined the pair of you, you'd still be half my size. When you insult yourselves like that, you're insulting me tenfold, and any other member who happens to be in the vicinity. For goodness sake."

They were startled. Then they began apologising, as they genuinely had no idea.

They are the good ones. There are other ones who turn around and go "Stop being so sensitive.", and then there are the true arseholes that say to me "You shouldn't even be here, you fat disgusting pig. Who are you motivating when you look the way that you do anyway?"

But if the ones who can turn around, do, then that's already a better place than where the industry currently stands.

Keep that fork, it's important

2012-02-14T21:30:00.001+13:00

Every three months, as a Les Mills group fitness instructor we are required to attend training. This training composes of three parts.

Masterclasses of the new music & choreography for each program that we teach. This gets updated every quarter, so every quarter we need to learn the new music and the moves that go with it. I have to attend RPM and BODYJAM, though I also try to go to BODYCOMBAT, BODYPUMP and SH'BAM as well.
Intensive sessions for a selected number of the programs. Each quarter, Les Mills select a couple of programs and deliver some more in-depth education on how instructors can teach that program more effectively. The training that is delivered is specific to that program. It would be absolutely useless for me to say, go and attend a BODYATTACK Intensive Session.
A generic training session which often consists of a seminar, though can include actual training/drills, which apply to all Les Mills group fitness instructors. This is heavily researched material which is put together by top professionals in the industry, and I find it very interesting and inspiring.

This weekend just gone, there were two sections to the generic training session. The first was about nutrition and general health to optimise energy, and the second half was about developing an 'ultimate version of yourself' which then becomes your persona when you go onstage to instruct a class. That training was very useful.

I'd like to mention the first half of this training though. What was covered was about the distribution of our intake, hydration (*real* good piece there, will be writing about hydration in a later blog post), sleep, and other things.

The group fitness industry is incredibly vain and appearance based. I know I'm only one person breaking the mould. From the outside we fear that vanity and that judgement, and like to think that "Maybe it's not that way." From the inside, the vulgarity with which I hear instructors talking about people makes me sick inside. There have been times I have fought back, but the fact remains is that the majority of the community have this narrow perception of what the results of a fitness regime are.

When the trainer delivered the nutrition segment of his training, he said, "So here is my one simple tip for top nutrition...", and then a slide appeared with the following.

I straight away thought "Oh gawd... here we go..."

What I expected was raucous laughter from the large instructor gathering. After all, so many of them appear to think that the idea of fat people having to eat is pretty amusing, right?

What actually happened surprised me.

Instead of agreeing laughter, there was some awkward silence, then a few people in the crowd laughed nervously. The trainer delivering tried to push the issue, and even said, "Put down the fork fatty? ... No? That normally works really well...".

I think what happened was the instructors in the room were genuinely interested in knowing a top, simple tip for nutrition. 'Put down the fork, fatty'... yeah, not really what they would have been expecting.

Normally in a situation like this, I admit that I would keep quiet. Not because I'm afraid to speak up, but because I know it's a massive uphill battle and my energies are better spent elsewhere - like making sure my classes aren't delivered from a point of vanity. If members come in for vain reasons I can't stop them, but that's not the angle that I want to push.

However, for these training sessions, I know that Les Mills are constantly asking for our feedback, and I know that the feedback is read and taken on board. As these training sessions are taken around the country, they take the feedback from the earlier sessions to improve them when they get re-delivered in the different locations.

So I took it as an opportunity to at least express how I felt.

I will express concern, disappointment, and sadness over the use of the graphic 'Put down the fork, fatty.' I know that [the trainer] was looking for a reaction, though pushing that as his 'top tip for nutrition' I felt was out of line. I recognise that I'm a minority and that the majority of people will find the idea of a fat person eating humorous and will not be bothered by it.

I got a response immediately that read.

You’ll be pleased to know that the fork slide has already been removed

As an industry as a whole, we are a long way from getting rid of the judgemental attitude.

But *this* is a pretty decent step in the right direction, and I for one, did not expect it, and am very happy that they are removing that slide for future presentations.

Maybe one day we will get there.

2012: Run For It - C25K W1R1, again

2012-02-05T18:45:00.002+13:00

Finally we've hit a long weekend here in Auckland - one where I'm not working - so I spent my entire Saturday in bed asleep. Which meant today, I really wanted to get some training under my belt.

One of my friends is currently training for the police so she goes for runs regularly, and I know that she tends to go for a run on a Sunday afternoon. I texted her to ask if she wanted to run together, and she said Yes, she was going for a run at The Trusts Stadium which has a full athletic race track.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I was really impressed by the venue. I knew it had been there but was surprised to see that the place was really quite well kept.

The track was great to run on, but the only thing that annoyed me was that the other people on the track were a little less considerate. There was a group of kids doing some discus training so every now and then I'd have to navigate flying discs through the air - never mind dogs running around (not so big a deal) and kids zooming around on their bikes (bigger deal, there is a bike track right around the outside of the track that they should be on instead) etc.

I'm glad that it was overcast when we went, but man, I forgot how much different it is running outside compared to running on a treadmill. For parts of my run I was running into a headwind (or a 'headbreeze' to be more accurate) and the extra resistance consumed much more energy than I had to deal with on the treadmill.

I don't recall exactly how many laps of the track I did - I wish I had because it would be nice to know the distance I covered.

Today's workout description was this:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

Today's playlist looked like this:

I just downloaded the Singles 2004-2010 album from Manian, so I reckon there'll be more tracks from them appearing in the playlists hereafter.

One thing I definitely did notice was that my ankles hurt a *lot* more during this run than they did the last time I ran. I had to pay extra attention to stretching out my achilles and calf muscles immediately afterwards. I didn't have to do that last time - it could be one of two things.

I was well and truly warmed up after the first run as I had just taught a class, whereas this time I just had the 5 minute walk included in the program.
The difference between pounding the pavement and pounding the... belt (o_0) meant different impact absorption. Basically, I 'felt' the impact more on the track than I did on the treadmill.

It's been a couple of hours since the run and my ankles feel fine now, so I think it might be more of the second option - and that I'm not used to it.

I'm going to aim to do 1 track run per week at the same time (Sunday afternoon) and then two other runs during the remainder of the week. Hopefully I won't get sick/tired again, as that was incredibly annoying.

While C25K encourages a rest in between each run, that doesn't really fit into my schedule, so it means I'll be doing Sunday/Monday runs back to back and then again on Wednesday. I won't be doing these catchup posts every time I run (unless you want me to...), though I will be checking in occasionally on how I'm doing.

I'm off to design my playlist for tomorrow.

Orewa Beach 10.5km run/walk

2012-02-04T22:00:00.000+13:00

When those '1 day deal' sites started popping up I created several accounts in a hurry. A few bad experiences and a few expired deals meant that I tried (note, I said tried) to avoid purchases on them thereafter.

One of the sites gave me a $10 credit which I never used, and I received an email from them saying that the last day I could use this is the 4th of February.

I monitored the deals for the site over the week and there wasn't anything in particular that took my fancy. Then today (being the 4th of February), this appeared.

Ah! Something worth using the $10 credit for. So I entered the 10.5km run/walk event, which means I only paid $2 for it. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

It's been a long time since I've done an event like this. I don't think I'll put pressure on myself to run the whole thing since I'll have two classes to teach the following day, but it will be nice.

As for how my running training has been going? After that first run I haven't run since. I don't feel bad about it because I've been sick, and exhausted this past week.

Reason being? The air conditioning at our work is b0rked, and getting through the day is a struggle. It's gotten to the point where I will go and sit in my car during my lunchbreak with the air conditoning on. Auckland isn't particularly hot, but the humidity gets to me big time. What's annoying also is that I'm the only one in my portion of the office that is affected since the others are new immigrants from warmer countries and to them it Ain't No Thang.

How about you guys? How you all doing?

Do More Cardio

2012-02-01T06:00:00.003+13:00

Two members of my close family recently have had coronary artery stent placement surgery.

For those of you who are not familiar with the procedure, here is a brief definition.

A coronary stent is a tube placed in the coronary arteries that supply the heart, to keep the arteries open in the treatment of coronary heart disease. It is used in a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Stents reduce chest pain and have been shown to improve survivability in the event of an acute myocardial infarction.

And, for an animation of how it looks, check this out:

The members of my family who have recently gotten this procedure done are in their mid fifties - my aunt and uncle, so my Mum's sister and her husband.

This of course, sends my Mum into a complete freakout, as her and her sister are only a few years apart in age.

She suddenly is all anxious about everything she eats, wondering whether it will lead her too to having the same procedure. It's different it is the wake up call that you require to open your eyes to your current unhealthy lifestyle and make modifications to it.

This is not what my mother is about though - she'll talk the talk and try to make everyone around her feel guilty without really making any changes herself. This is par for the course though, and while it used to bother me when I was younger, now I don't actually have the time to care.

That being said, I found one conversation with her on this matter incredibly amusing.

I came home from teaching one day and as soon as I was in through the door my Mum was talking to me about my Aunt's stent procedure and how We Were All Next If We Didn't Do Anything About It. She started commenting about how she was going to get rid of all of the unhealthy food in the house and eat clean (noble, but she's never going to do that as my brother eats a large quantity of junk food and she'll never let him go without anything).

I kinda roll my eyes and go "Oh that's great..." since it was the same old song that I'm used to hearing.

My mum then comes up with pearl of wisdom.

"You don't do enough exercise. You need to do some more cardio."

The last two weeks, I have been resting because I've been recovering from a cold. This is the level of training that I have done in that time.

Monday	Teaching RPM x 1, Teaching RPM x 2
Tuesday	Rest
Wednesday	RPM, Teaching RPM
Thursday	Teaching RPM, BODYJAM
Friday	Rest
Saturday	Teaching BODYJAM, BODYJAM
Sunday	Rest

So this was a *rest* week, and I'd done 8 hours of cardio.

This is my mother's training schedule, on a normal week.

Monday	Rest
Tuesday	Rest
Wednesday	Rest
Thursday	Rest
Friday	Rest
Saturday	30mins of Water Walking, maybe.
Sunday	Rest

And *I* am the one who needs to do more cardio??

It's one of those situations that are so ridiculous that I laugh at it because if I don't, I'd cry.

New Years Ridiculousness

2012-01-24T21:15:00.001+13:00

So it's January, and everyone is feeling sluggish and run down from the excess eating and drinking that they have done over the Christmas and New Year.

And so, it's January, and talk is full of how everyone is feeling so fat and how they want to get their weight down as fast as they possibly can.

The first day with everyone back at work, everyone stood around, clutching their stomachs, all talking about how repulsive they all are. They described how they felt their weight and how it was affecting them on a daily basis. They would discuss at length how terrible they felt, how disgusting they all looked, and how they badly wanted to lose weight.

At our work, we have a routine called 'Biscuit Monday' (American Readers - biscuits here are what you call cookies), so everyone takes a turn at bringing in their favourite biscuits to share with everyone in the office. The reason for introducing this is because everyone is in a sour mood on a Monday morning at having to come in and go to work after the weekend ending.

The first Biscuit Monday of 2012 was my opportunity to bring in biscuits for the office people.

This, was my offering.

To everyone who had professed dieting glory, this was a nightmare.

'OH NO!', they exclaimed. 'WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US?!'

But wait! All is not lost.

One of them said, 'I know! I'll have a Tim Tam now, and NOT EAT ANYTHING FOR DINNER.'

One of them said, 'Oh it's okay because I haven't eaten anything for breakfast.'

One of them said, 'Arrrrgggggh, I can't eat these! I'll just smell them. *picks them up* Ohhhh they smell so good. BUT NO! I will smell them.'

I'm sitting there, absolutely slackjawed, looking at them all. Most of these people were my seniors, and most of them had children of their own. I thought about whether they behaved this way in front of their kids, and if their kids thought that they had to skip a meal was the only way they could ever justify being able to eat a Tim Tam.

Several of them are also on cleanses, eating almost nothing, and all of them either bragging about how much running they are doing before work, after work, or proudly strutting off in the middle of the day.

Then we take it out of the office and into every other place I go to on a daily basis.

In the gyms, people are making ridiculous promises to themselves. "I'm going to come into the gym 5 times per week." My class numbers are higher, and I should appreciate that, though I can't help but think 'You are doing activities you hate for too long, too frequently, with too much resistance, on not enough fuel, and you are not giving yourself enough time to recover. You are going to burn yourself out, feel exhausted, and resent yourself in a manner of weeks.'

Then there's the flourish of Nothing But Updates About My Weight Loss on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. There is one girl on my feed (who is now removed because it did drive me nuts) who every day was whining and crying about how no matter how much work she did in the gym, she wasn't losing any weight and how the scales were her enemy. She would post pictures of celebrities with rippling abdominals and cry as to why she didn't look that way and how it was Oh So Unfair that she didn't look the same way.

I know that I'm not going to achieve anything by pushing my view or preaching to anyone. When my colleagues brag about their lack of eating and put themselves through ridiculous training regimes which they clearly do not enjoy - there's nothing I can tell them to sway them from that train of thought. When my participants excitedly tell me about how many training sessions they've done and how they haven't eaten xyz for however many days, I know there's nothing that I can say to them to tell them that they will burn out and focusing on developing a balanced routine that is sustainable is better off.

There's enough diet talk in the world at the best of times - though this period after Christmas combined with the bombardment of weight loss advertising brings out even more ridiculousness than normal.

I will be so incredibly relieved when excessive ridiculousness calms down to just regular ridiculousness.

Bless You.

2012-01-23T21:00:00.001+13:00

After my grand old declaration of running last week, the following day I was saddled with a cold. As much as I want to run, it's not wise until I'm 100% better. I'm already exhausted enough as it is if I take everything out of my training and just leave the classes that I'm teaching.

So once I'm better, I'll start C25K again. No biggie. After all, I've got the whole year to achieve this.

How are my other goals doing?

Eat Something - Need to really get some routine with this. I'm starting to eat a banana before my morning classes, but still am not doing well after classes. Can do better here.

Pump It Up - This went well on the first week of training, but after getting sick, hasn't managed to become routine. Like with the running, this is going to be put on hold until I get better.

Stretch It Out - ... Let's move along ...

Teaching Focused Goals - This hit a setback early on with me losing one of my classes, though thankfully the timing was right and I picked up another class. I'm now up to 4 x RPM classes per week across two different gyms. That's pretty good so far.

I've got a few things I'll blog about in due course - with it being January I am surrounded by so much diet talk and odd behaviour that I wonder how I haven't gone bald with all of the hair pulling.

Until then, I'm catching some Zzz's.

[image credit: Milk Group]

(There may or may not be flamingos involved in said Zzz-catching.)

That'd be why the petrol was so cheap...

2012-01-20T21:15:00.000+13:00

I had this brief encounter at a service station before I was heading off to teach my RPM class for the evening.

* Marshmallow walks into service station to pay for petrol
Service Station Guy	Hi there.
Marshmallow	Hi there, the petrol on pump 3 thanks.
Service Station Guy	How was your day?
Marshmallow	Yeah it was pretty good thanks. How about yourself?
Service Station Guy	Good, yes. Would you like a carwash?
Marshmallow	No, just the petrol thanks
Service Station Guy	Okay. How was your day?
Marshmallow	... uh... it was good.
Service Station Guy	You going home from work now?
Marshmallow	No, I'm going to the gym first.
Service Station Guy	I see, you want to reduce your weight?
Marshmallow	No, I'm just going to improve my fitness.
* Service Station guy starts to laugh
Service Station Guy	You don't want to reduce your weight? You should!!!
Marshmallow	...
* Service Station guy stops laughing
Service Station Guy	So did you have a good day?

2012: Run For It - C25K W1R1

2012-01-16T22:15:00.002+13:00

Well well well.

I've just come out of the end of my very first run on the C25K program.

I was kinda dreading it, not so much that I would find it hard in its own right, but moreso that I would find it hard on the back of teaching two RPM classes for the day.

I got up at 4:45am to teach my 6am class (it's a 30min drive to that gym), and was pretty smashed from just that class on its own. I always say to myself "Hooooooooow on earth am I going to get through ANOTHER class tonight?!" Then at 5:30pm, I drive 30mins away from where I work to another gym and teach there.

From even one class, my legs are wobbly, and I have a temporary State Of Uselessness as I am absolutely spent. Today was no different, and I picked a particularly challenging final track of the class to make things even more ridiculous for myself.

So, I published a status on Facebook from my phone.

*Immediately* someone replied, and that was enough to get my A into G. Haters be damned, I love the internet.

But I'm a blogger, you already knew that.

In the smartphone era, the common catchphrase for all things is "There's an App for that." And of course, there's an App for the Couch to 5K program. In fact, there are plethora of apps around.

The one I am using is this one; while it is not free, from what I researched, it looked really good. I downloaded a few other free ones, but once I trialled this one I thought, "I don't think it really can get much better than that for me."

Get Running is the only Couch to 5K App that:

Coaches like a human – with hundreds of studio-recorded progress and encouragement prompts.
Supports and encourages you – talk with fellow running rookies on the Get Running forum.
Lets you share (NEW!) – share Get Running with up to three other runners: you all get your own log and settings!
Helps you plan – rest days help you recover, and Get Running knows the best day for your next run.
Displays your next move – the unique Run Clock, customised for each workout, gives complete visibility and understanding.

In addition, Get Running:

Publishes your success – send updates to Twitter or Facebook, and have your friends remind you when the next run is due!
Works with or without music – To adjust your music during a run, double press the Home button.
Fits your schedule – just three workouts a week of 20 to 30 minutes.
Logs your achievements – with an illuminating visual record of your progress.

Thousands of people have changed their lives with Get Running and you will too! Whether you’re running for your health, training for a 5K, or building to conquer a marathon — Get Running!

I was running it off my iPod touch, so while I normally would thrive off the publishing features to Facebook, I didn't do that today. The reason is simple. The armband I have fits my iPod Touch perfectly, but not my iPhone. I can't be bothered buying another armband, so hey, I have an iPod Touch, so I might as well use it.

I have to say I was really impressed with the app. I developed a music playlist, started it, and then started the app over the top. It dimmed the music whenever it had an instruction for me. It gave me loads of timing cues, and even had some motivation incorporated in. Plus, the motivation that was in there was only subtle, it wasn't overbearing or too much to handle for someone who didn't require it.

But the most important thing... how did I feel?

First thing, my ankle felt fine!

Second thing... my new running shoes are pretty!

BUT. I need to tie them up a bit tighter next time. I felt my feet sliding around in them a little bit... although... that could be because they were still sweaty from RPM, hehe.

Third difference, and this was massive. I found while my heartrate still lifted like it used to, my *breathing* was so much different to when I used to run. I felt like I was in control, and like I could actually look around and pay attention to what was going on around me while I was running. In the past I was like "OMG I RUN I RUN I RUN I RUN *INHALE* I RUN I RUN I RUN I RUN *INHALE* I RUN I RUN I RUN" so I wasn't really getting to take in anything that was going on around me because I was so consumed by the act of running. I guess kind of like when you're focusing so much on learning how to drive a car that you forget to appreciate the journey of the drive itself. I was just way more relaxed and more calm inside my own head.

What was interesting was that the 1 minute runs felt way too short, and the 1 minute 30 second walks in between felt far too long. I guess that's a good sign, but I need to be careful not to do too much too quickly. That's what's been my downfall in the past.

Oh, and because blogdom seems to like these sorts of things, my playlist for today.

Good times.

It would actually be interesting to see how I would handle the run if I did it without being prefatigued, but that's not particularly practical at the moment - I'm always going to be fatigued in some way or another (and my classes come first, always).

Looking forward to Run 2, though I have a few classes to get through first!

The Magical Burger

2012-01-13T23:15:00.002+13:00

Happy weekend, people...

2012: Eat Something

2012-01-10T09:00:00.000+13:00

One of my goals for 2012 was 'Eat Something', which I felt I had to delve into a little deeper as it's something that has changed dramatically over the last couple of years.

It was shortly after I threw in the towel with dieting that I began to pursue group fitness instructing. I'm so glad that I did it that way, and not before, as trying to follow a diet, or trying to calorie count while learning how to instruct would have been seriously detrimental.

Firstly, it would have been far too much for me to take on mentally. When I was dieting, consumption and/or non-consumption of food was constantly on my mind. When I first began instructing, choreography and all of the other components that make up the Les Mills assessment criteria was constantly on my mind. There just would simply have not been enough room in my head for both.

Secondly, you might recall in my dieting days, my training schedule would look something like this.

Monday	BODYPUMP Lunchtime Run/Swim RPM
Tuesday	RPM x 1 RPM x 2 RPM x 3 BODYJAM
Wednesday	BODYPUMP Lunchtime Run/Swim RPM Enduro
Thursday	PT Session Evening Run Weights program
Friday	BODYPUMP RPM BODYBALANCE
Saturday	RPM BODYJAM Long Swim
Sunday	BODYCOMBAT BODYPUMP Long Swim RPM Enduro

It would leave me feeling a bit tired, especially as I considered Friday to be my 'rest' day simply because it had BODYBALANCE in there.

However! Even that amount of training would not have me prepared for how much teaching exhausted me.

The first time I taught one track.... ONE track, I was truly smashed. I staggered home to bed and did not wake up till the next morning. I didn't ever think that 4 minutes of training would cause that much exhaustion. I can't begin to explain how much teaching takes out of me - there is a period of time where I am pretty much useless after teaching because I've given so much in my class.

Now, my week typically looks like this:

Monday	Teaching RPM x 1 Teaching RPM x 2
Tuesday	BODYJAM or Teaching BODYJAM
Wednesday	RPM Teaching RPM
Thursday	BODYATTACK BODYJAM
Friday	RPM
Saturday	Teaching RPM Teaching BODYJAM
Sunday	Teaching BODYJAM

So on the face of it, it looks way less than what I was doing previously. I cannot begin to tell you how much more tired, and hungry, and useless I get with the latest training. My weekends in particular, rolling through to Monday, are particularly draining. There are sometimes when I'm also teaching RPM on Sunday morning and on Tuesday morning.

Before I was instructing, I would do all of my training on 1,200 calories or less per day.

Now I have a confession to make. When I first signed up for SparkPeople, I entered in the amount of activity I did every day - so the schedule you see above. The recommended calorie count was well over 2,000 - I think it might have been the 2,500-2,800 range. However, I tried to eat that many calories and struggled with it and subsequently, I manually set my calorie limit to 1,200. Coming off Herbalife and Weight Watchers and Whatever The Hell Diet I Was On, consuming 2,500 - 2,800 calories simply sounded like a recipe for weight gain. It was twice, maybe even thrice the amount of calories I had just been consuming.

To think, if I'd started instructing whilst I was still eating that little, I probably would be fainting and passing out on a regular basis.

As it is, I'm eating more because I'm hungrier. But, I'm still not eating enough. I'm unproductive at work for a good half hour to an hour because my I'm taking too long to feed myself.

I went through a period of time where I was teaching on Monday mornings, Monday nights, Tuesday mornings, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, Thursday mornings, Saturday mornings, Saturday mid-morning, Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon. Some of these classes were RPM, some of them were BODYJAM. I need more practice for the Jam classes than I do the RPM ones, so add a few hours on top of that for the Jam practice.

Most of the time, I ate enough to ensure that I got through the classes. I struggled through the times in between classes, but I got through the classes.

During 2011, something happened. I've always hung around with people I know in the gym, and a lot of them are instructors themselves. I didn't feel they judged me or looked down on me for being a participant. Yet, now that I'm instructing, I *do* feel that judgement and I *do* feel them looking down on me. There has been heated discussion in the community in general about how someone who looks like me shouldn't be teaching at all as there's no way I could possibly inspire anyone in a results based program.

95% of the time, it doesn't bother me. However, there is about 5% of the time when it does bother me. All in all, I don't think that's a big deal. How *often* it affects me is not the problem. How *much* it affects me is.

When I found out that people I am quite good friends with were analysing what I was eating behind my back and discussing my eating habits and making assumptions about my daily nutrition based on the infrequent moments I spent with them, it was a shock to me. Getting judged by strangers? No big deal. Getting judged by your friends? A deal.

I reacted the wrong way. The wrong was was trying to train more, and trying to eat less. The results were disastrous as after about a week of this, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and collapsed. I had a class to teach and had to call the gym manager in the middle of the night to tell him about what had happened. I was incredibly embarrassed, and also angry with myself for listening to these so called friends of mine.

I thought about cutting them out of my life. But you know what? I'm now working in an incredibly superficial industry. The majority of people that come to my classes are trying to lose weight moreso for how they look than how they feel. I was talking to someone who is paying for a gym membership but hasn't been once and I tried to convince her to come and try a workout with me. Another person in the conversation interrupts me and says, "She doesn't need to workout, just look at her!" My response was "Everyone has a heart, and it craps out if you don't look after it, what about your cardiovascular health?" They said, "Who the hell cares about cardiovascular whatever?!"

The reality is that the industry is vain, and I'm going to be surrounded by vain people. I simply can't hate them all. But I *can* choose not to follow their same vain tendencies.

So for the sake of NOT being vain, I need to eat. I do not want to be fainting again, and I do not want to be in the position of calling the manager again to cancel a class. I also want to be more productive in my job, and minimise the time in between classes where I am in a state of 'uselessness'.

That my friends, is why I am going to be making an effort to eat something. If someone wants to analyse my eating habits? This is my response to them.

Bon apetit.

2012: The Year Of The Marshmallow

2012-01-03T21:30:00.003+13:00

I know I made my big blogging declaration last month with the promise of more blogging, and well, there has been blogging but not on this blog! Never mind. The general busy-ness of December descended upon me.

But that's behind me now.

Now I'm looking forward. I haven't been one for making resolutions, but I will admit, the calendar year is great for tracking progress.

2012 EXERCISE FOCUSED GOALS

Run For It

What I'm excited about 2012 is that it's been 2 years since I last did any real running of any way shape or form. For those of you that don't know, I have had problems with my left ankle and a reoccurring sprain. I basically continued to exercise on it (and we're talking 5 hours per day) despite it being in pain and very CLEARLY being injured. It took a physio to say to me "Are you *trying* to lose your left ankle altogether?!" to make me realise I needed to pull back.

For the last 2 years I have stopped running altogether, and began to integrate the impact exercise back.

Of course that doesn't mean I've been sitting around doing nothing for the past 2 years, oh hell no. I've been teaching between 4 and 9 classes a week, and that has been so demanding.

It will actually be really interesting to see how my first run back goes. I've ordered a new pair of running shoes, but my current pair have enough in them to last me until they arrive.

I know that I will seriously have to resist the temptation to go OMMA GAAAAAAAAAWED!!!

For that reason, I'm going to be following the Couch to 5K program. In the past I haven't followed it because I've been too impatient with the slowness of getting the running in there (which... probably explains why I kept getting injured), but this time, I think I could really use that form of control and restraint.

I've got a few apps on my iPhone which I'm going to try out and help me track everything - I've become a bit dependent on my iPhone since I'm always using it for my classes (to track when I'm teaching, where I'm teaching, and what I'm teaching), so it makes sense to find a way to use it for my running.

The other thing I'm going to try and do is avoid running during my lunch break. The reason being is this is the sure fire way to overtrain (and I know I'm probably overtraining as it is). So I need to *cut* some of my current training to make it work.

Because I've got to cope with both reduced gym hours and a more abundant teaching schedule than normal, my first week of Couch to 5k will be the week beginning Monday 16th January 2012.

Pump It Up

I do a large amount of cardio, so fitting weights in is a problem for me. I need to find a way to make this work. This may happen after or during the Couch to 5k, and can include BODYPUMP.

I'm aiming for once per week. At the moment I can go for weeks, even a couple of months without strength training, though at the same time I'm doing 10+ hours of cardio per week. In theory, I should be able to trade at least 1 of those hours to work strength.

Stretch it Out

Not only do I do a lot of cardio, but the amount of cardio that I do do tends to completely overload my quads to the point where it compromises my range of movement. This means I need to do more stretching, not less, yet that's exactly what I'm doing.

I tell the members in my class "If you have a moment, take the time to stretch out your legs", though have I ever done that myself? Nope. So much for practising what I preach, huh?

2012 NUTRITION FOCUSED GOALS

Eat Something

Yep, I'm deadly serious. This is probably one of the most important goals.

I have been so guilty of not eating properly in 2011, especially towards the end of the year when I started picking up classes.

Quite often when I teach a morning class I'll be getting up before 5am, driving 30-40minutes to the gym, teaching the class, then driving 30-40 minutes to work, then getting in the shower, which means that it's about 8:30am that I sit down to have breakfast. That's too long without food. By that time, I'm barely functioning. I need to at least remind myself to have a banana or a protein shake in the car to have both before and after class.

2012 TEACHING FOCUSED GOALS

Most of these goals I'll be writing about on my other blog as the year goes on, though let it be said I continue to want to be the best instructor I can be and try to reach as many people as I can through group fitness.

Currently I face a few challenges in that one of the gyms I teach at is one where group fitness is quite a low priority, and in the past they have hired instructors that have been... well... awful. That leaves a bad taste in the members mouths, and leaves them walking away with a bad impression of group fitness in general.

I'm not claiming to be the best instructor in the world. But at that particular gym, hearing from the members, I *know* I can deliver a better experience than the past instructors did. Now it's just encouraging members who have 1) not tried group fitness to give it a go (difficult), and 2) members who have tried it and had a bad experience (incredibly challenging) to come in and give my classes a go.

IN SUMMARY

Run
Lift Weights
Stretch
Eat
Teach

Yeah. I think I can do that.

It's been a while...

2011-12-02T18:36:00.001+13:00

Hello everyone ;)

Yep, I know it's been a while. Blogging mojo hasn't really been on, and I've been quite flat out and all over the place lately.

However! Would you believe it, I got an iPhone - and it surprisingly has freed up a lot of time at the beginning and ends of my day which I used to spend sitting and going through emails and Facebook updates. (and I don't have Twitter, can you imagine if I had that how much more time I'd be chewing?!)

Blogging was pretty easy to drop off the radar.

When I'm not teaching all over the place, I could easily see myself wasting time and catching up on episodes of Come Dine With Me which have been piling up in my MySky... though really I could be using this to resume blogging!

So hey... why not :D

I've also had a conversation with someone earlier today which has reinvigorated my desire to write, so maybe you'll be seeing some more posts from me. I've also downloaded the Blogger app onto my phone so that I can work on posts when I'm out and about.

Fingers crossed. :)

Living ~400lbs: The Fitness Question

2011-09-11T14:01:00.000+12:00

I highly encourage if you haven't seen this post, and haven't submitted a response in the comments to at least think of your answer to this question.

Suppose you exercised three times a week. Suppose you got stronger. Suppose your body were stronger and happier, you could lift more, walk further & faster, swim more. Suppose you had less back or shoulder or knee pain. Suppose you were more relaxed, slept better, and got sick less. Suppose all those things…but suppose you didn’t lose weight.

Would it be worth it to you to exercise if you didn’t lose weight? If the only benefits you reaped would be the benefits of physical activity?

Your initial response might immediately be 'of course, you dumbass!', though if you *have* been on a roller coaster relationship with exercise, what were the reasons that drove you away from exercise? Was it lack of time? Lack of enjoyment? Difficulty? Frustration with lack of results?

If it was frustration out of a lack of results, which 'results' were you measuring your exercise efforts against?

Number of minutes run? Resting heart rate? Number of kilograms bench pressed? Or was it how much weight you lost?

Have a think about it...

Calling out for your feedback

2011-08-05T20:00:00.000+12:00

Now that I essentially work in the fitness industry (even though teaching group fitness doesn't feel like work to me, it's amazing fun and I love what I do), I'm interested in hearing from you guys and about your perceptions of the industry.

Here is basically what I'm interested in knowing:

How do you feel about fitness personnel? Personal Trainers, Group Fitness Instructors, Team Training Leaders, and general staff/management are all included here. Do you feel comfortable or uncomfortable around them? Why? Is this based on a fear, or is this based on a past experience (either of yours or someone else)?
How do you feel fitness personnel should treat their clients? Should they be aggressive and direct with them, or should they be kind and encouraging? Or a combination of both?
Have you ever experienced, witnessed, or heard about prejudice directed from an employee of the fitness industry to a client of the fitness industry? Has that impacted your desire/willingness to subscribe to a fitness service or attempt a new activity? Has it affected a current workout regime or ended all possibility of a future workout regime?

I am keen to hear your thoughts.

Anonymous commenting has been enabled, but if you would prefer to email me instead of sharing your stories publicly, you are more than welcome to contact me at mmmarshmallow@gmail.com

And fellow bloggers - share the blog love and link this around. I'd love to hear from as many people as possible on this, from all walks of life, all shapes and sizes, all over the world. If you want to ramble about your experience, ramble to your hearts content.

I am all ears.

Looked like a Cyclist

2011-06-24T19:30:00.000+12:00

A while back, I was called up by a gym and asked to cover an RPM class where the instructor had gotten sick. I'd taught at that gym before as my friend has a regular class there, so I was more than happy to oblige.

I like to turn up early before class and talk to the members, see if there's anyone who's new to RPM who needs help with getting their bike set up, and giving them an explanation of what to expect from the class. Typically I can tell when a new member walks in, just by their body language and nervous expression. I won't point them out in front of everyone, but I'll go up to them and chat to them in person on the quiet.

I saw this woman come in, displaying some of the nervous mannerisms that new people to RPM displayed, but when she set up her bike, she set it up perfectly and seemed perfectly comfortable with the equipment. Even from the way she positioned herself on the bike, she looked confident and sure of herself. I approached her and said, "You're... new to RPM? But not new to cycling, yes?" She then told me she'd been road riding for years but no, she'd never done an indoor cycling class before. I said, "Ohhhh that explains it! See, to me you just looked like a cyclist." I gave her a brief overview of what the format of the class was so she had some idea what she was for, though didn't pay as much attention to her bike setup as she already was looking like a pro.

I didn't get to talk to her again when she left as she immediately headed out the door once the class was over, but I kept an eye on her throughout the class and given by the big smile she had on her face, she seemed to be enjoying it.

Several months later, I was called by the same gym and asked to cover the class again. I headed into the gym and the same woman was doing weights and saw me. She stopped me and said, "Heeey! I'm not doing the class tonight, I didn't know you were going to be teaching it, but I just wanted to say that the last time you were here you *really* made my day."

I hadn't quite clicked as to what she was referring to, so I replied, "Oh yeah? How so?"

Here's what she said.

Because you said I looked like a cyclist. I've been riding for years, and noone has ever told me I look like a cyclist before.

You want to know the reason why?

It's because she was obese. Similar body type to mine. She had what would be traditionally described as a flabby gut, jelly arms, large thighs, double chin, whatever.

Though I genuinely didn't see that. I saw a strong core that held her in the right riding position, good pedal stroke technique, strong legs, and good movement on the bike for both speed work in the saddle and strength work out of the saddle.

I understood what she meant. I can imagine how many people would have looked at her and automatically judged her, despite her being a clearly competent rider. They would've written her off straight away. Of course, in a race situation this can be an advantage, when you're looked at and not taken seriously.

All the same, it does wear you down and I'll honestly say it is just *nice* when your skills, not your body size/shape are noticed straight away without having to prove it to someone. I have to do it every time I get up in front of a class and teach. I love it, but it is an extra burden that I have to take on that the majority of other instructors don't even think about.

I know that I've wished that I'd be seen for what I can do rather than what I look like, yet it's a surprise to me to find that I have been viewing other people through that same looking glass.

While although a surprise, it was not an unpleasant one in the slightest.

Mad Marshy: 74kg

2011-04-10T10:00:00.002+12:00

Back when weight loss was my primary goal, I published progress photos of when I had gotten down to 74kg.

Every now and then I get a few people stumble upon the old posts and comment on them.

This morning, this happened. Someone came across the 74kg progress photo page, and felt the need to leave me a comment.

Kitty: thats really weird. I'm 73kgs, and a hell of a lot thinner than you are...

*sigh*

Firstly - How ignorant can you be to not know that the same weight can look very different on different bodies?

Secondly - What on earth was this person trying to achieve by saying that? Some sort of sick twisted ego boost?

I'm now at about 94kg (not really sure, I only stood on a scale out of curiosity about a month ago) - and I remember when I was in the weight loss phase that I swore "I'll never weigh that much again". But heck, when I think of the difference in the level of fitness between then and now, I am in *such* a better place at 94kg now than I was at 74kg back then. I was also mentally and emotionally unwell, and my happiness depended *solely* on whether I had lost any weight that week. I had to surround myself with numbers constantly and calculate averages and rates of change - which was fun, interesting, but time consuming and completely cut me off from having any sort of inter-personal relationship with anyone; be it Friends or More Than Friends.

Never mind that week after week I get up in front of a class of 35-45 people and put them through an intense RPM workout. Could I have done that back then? No. I not only didn't have the fitness, I didn't have the belief and I didn't have the confidence. I thought those would only become when I was Finally Thin.

In that regard, I love every single one of those 20kg that I have put on since that post. It doesn't matter what the composition of those 20kgs are. If it is 20kg of muscle, 20kg of fat, whatever combination of both.

To the person that wrote that comment...

That is all.

Out of proportion

2011-03-31T22:00:00.001+13:00

The other night I took out my dinner after coming home from teaching an RPM class. Normally I'd have dinner closer to the gym where I taught, but I had to be back home earlier on this particular night, so I instead made the drive home hungry as hell and came home scrounging around for food.

My Mum had cooked plenty of food and invited me to load up. She'd cooked some chicken, sliced some cucumber and tomatoes, and was toasting some bread sprinkled with garlic granules to dunk in some veggie soup. It all sounds pretty good, yes? I took one chicken drumstick, the cucmber & tomato, and a small bowl of soup and one piece of bread - because it smelt so damn good - to dunk therein.

In my home, it is an insult to not eat much. Whenever I've gone through insanely depressing patches where eating has been a struggle, I've loaded up my plate, said 'I'm going to eat in my bedroom', and then just found a way to throw the food out. It's like you're saying to your family, 'I don't think your food is good enough to eat a large portion of it.' So she *immediately* picked up on the fact that I wasn't eating much.

She said, in a very sour tone, "You sick?"

I replied no, that I was trying something new and cutting back my portion size.

I've been doing it for a couple of weeks because for months I've been completely exhausted and *something* had to change for me to function at a basic level.

Here are the measures that I've taken:

Increasing protein intake immediately after cardiovascular and strength training
Use of muscle recovery amino-acids such as L-Glutamine, Taurine, etc.
Halving portion sizes
Increasing hydration levels
Increasing flexibility training
Decreasing evening carbohydrate intake (unless I am teaching the following morning, then carbohydrate intake is increased)
Increasing duration of sleep

The other problem is my quads are *incredibly* tight. About a month ago it got to the point where they were so tight that it was painful. One week, I even struggled to walk because of how tight they were.

My personal trainer gave me the hard word that I had to take some drastic action otherwise I was going to seriously injure myself. My immediate term action was to remove all weighted lower body strength training, then add back in squats, then weighted squats. I've yet to add lunges back in though - that is the next step. Where I would ordinarily do lunges in my training, I instead do stretching (and believe me... stretching is harder!)

Cutting back the food was an interesting one. I feel like I get more out of my training and am sharper and less sluggish. It's like my body knows how to utilise what I put into it - rather than giving it too much and it thinking "... well... what do you want me to do with all of this?" Performance wise, I'm feeling great.

So when I told my Mum I was cutting back my portion size, she said, "Oh good, that way you can finally lose some weight."

*facepalm*

Oh well. I just know that I'm feeling great, and continuing to deliver an epic workout to the participants who come to my class. Any changes I am making to my lifestyle are solely so that I can continue to do that, and be more of a role model to them - to show them that it doesn't matter what your size, you can be fit and strong.

This is something that my mother will never understand. Neither will the majority of my family - both immediate and extended. In fact, this is a point of ridicule.

I've realised something though. While I've improved my physical strength, my emotional strength has also had a working over too. A year ago, it really was hard for me to deal with the fact that being a group fitness instructor was such a shameful thing for my family. Now, I don't care what they think. It amazes me that week after week, people get out of their beds early on a Saturday morning and line up outside the gym before it is open to have me yell at them for an hour.

If having that impact on people requires me to deal with a bit of snark from my family? I'd say that's a fair price to pay.

Microaggresions: You don't need any dessert

2011-03-25T02:45:00.001+13:00

I'm subscribed to the site Microaggressions.com which is a website of examples of where prejudice is shoved in peoples faces guised in a wrapper of 'it's no big deal'. It's pretty powerful reading, especially as most of the entries are only a sentence long. It shows that while we have come a long way as a society, there is still a lot more space for us to grow.

A recent fat-based microaggression particularly hit my nerve:

“You don’t need any dessert. You could live off your body fat for three months.”

My grandma after dinner. My parents just sat there silently. Made me feel like crying.

I wonder if this person has the same grandmother as me.

Hope you are all doing well, I miss you guys - apologies for the lack of blogging as always, though you are constantly in my thoughts and in my heart.

Wait... You mean that was Christmas?

2011-01-03T14:52:00.004+13:00

Sweet zombie hitler it's 2011. Christmas for the most part of it was dull, New Years was dull, but the days in between and thereafter have been amazing. Simply because I've amped up my weight training and already in just a couple of weeks am finding strength that I only had before my car accident in 2007 (neck and upper back), and my lower back injury in 2008. My ankle is getting there slowly too, though given that I had almost abandoned the hope of squatting the same weight that I did 3-4 years ago, there's still a chance that I can work on my ankle strength and stability too. Maybe by then end of 2011 I'll be able to do weighted lunges while carrying the weight I used to prior to the ankle injury.

I'm already feeling good about this year. Teaching RPM has done wonders for me, and I love it when the members tell me at the end of class "Phew, that was hard!" or "Awesome class!" and my favourite... "When you said 'halfway' I was about to get off the bike and smack you." Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Blogging will be sporadic. But just know that I hold you guys dearly in my heart and it's undoubtedly because of your support that I have found my happy place.

Love you guys!!

Well... it had to happen...

2010-12-05T14:30:00.002+13:00

I've now been instructing for about 6-7 months, and last week was the second class I taught where I wasn't covering for someone else; it was actually *my* spot on the timetable. It's a little frustrating that I only teach my own class once every two weeks, but that's a decision that the management has made about the timetable and I have to roll with it.

After my class, one of the members started chatting to me when I was making my way from the RPM room to my car, and she asked me advice about weight loss. She'd been going to the gym for quite some time and hadn't been able to lose weight, while others had been going to the gym for a much shorter period of time, doing less working out, and had dropped 3 dress sizes.

Of course, I am the least qualified person on the planet to give any advice about weight loss. I've spent the best part of 2 decades trying to lose weight and failing, so how am I supposed to give advice to a member trying to lose weight when it's something that I've never been able to do myself?

Here's what I told her:

My personal story with weight loss is this. I tried for the majority of my life to lose weight - my parents began monitoring my food intake when I was 5 and I started dieting and training when I was 7. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, it never was enough and my body just didn't change the way I was expecting it to. I was getting fitter, but I still looked the way I did while people around me were putting less than half the effort in and dropping the weight.

The body is a complicated thing and too often we're bombarded with messages saying that it's 'simple' to lose weight, which it's not. What is simple, is being healthy, and after failing at weight loss for so long, I finally went, "Sod it." and focused on something I *could* do, which is be healthy. Whether that leads to weight loss or not is something that I won't hang myself up on.

She went on to say that since she'd been doing RPM in mine and the other instructors classes, she found that she was able to do more high impact work in the other classes - in particular, BODYATTACK which is predominantly high impact. I said that that's the evidence that what she's been doing is having a positive impact on her body and that is something she should be proud of.

I was a bit wrecked about the conversation for a few days... sometimes when you've shifted from weight loss to size acceptance, when you talk about it from people whose goal it is to lose weight, it's at the back of my mind whether they'll interpret the message as, "Just give up, there's no point", when that's not what I'm trying to say at all. I'm trying to say, "Don't give yourself a hard time if it doesn't happen for you, and don't lose sight of the positive changes that you are making and the impact they are having."

Thankfully, I spoke to a friend of the member about the conversation and she said that the impact of it was that she was *buzzing* afterwards, and the reason why she'd spoken to me is because she felt I could empathise with her and that the other instructors may not.

Phew!

AFK, Living my Dream

2010-11-27T19:15:00.004+13:00

It's ridiculous how little time I have to blog now - but I want to make it clear that it's because I'm having the time of my life.

A year ago I could not have imagined that I would've taken the plunge and be where I am now, experiencing happiness the way I am now. I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever been this happy.

It's exhausting, it's overwhelming at times, and it's hard work. Though I catch myself looking back and thinking, "WTF happened?!"

I didn't think that I would enjoy group fitness instructing this much. I'm a fully certified RPM instructor now, and have a regular class which I teach once every two weeks at a gym in West Auckland. I also cover other instructors classes when they can't teach their regular ones for whatever reason (holiday, illness, etc), and have three weeks of covering at a gym in Howick (East Auckland) up ahead, and have taught a couple of times in a gym an hours drive outside of Auckland in Pukekohe. I'm also beginning my training in BODYJAM and starting to teach a couple of tracks here and there at a couple of gyms.

When I talk to family friends and acquaintances, one thing they constantly ask me is "WHY?!", exasperated that I would put myself through what seems like hours of physical training and hard work for seemingly very little monetary payoff.

To give you an idea... for the regular classes I teach, I get $40NZ for it before tax. Given how much time I spend listening and rehearsing choreography (and we have to purchase the choreography), and driving around to classes, that monetary gain gets chewed up pretty quickly. And in the case of BODYJAM where I haven't actually passed the Les Mills Initial Training module, when I teach it, it's for free.

So why? Why does this make me so happy?

Yesterday, myself and a certified Jam instructor friend of mine drove down to Pukekohe to teach a BODYJAM class. The traffic was horrendous, and what ordinarily takes 45 minutes took us 2 hours. We arrived, thankfully, with 10 minutes before class started.

I'm very new in the Jam scene so I know that I could've done better and know what I need to work on - I taught two tracks and like I said, I could've done better, but I think I am pleased with how it went. Me and my friend were covering what is ordinarily a Zumba class, but because they couldn't find another Zumba instructor to cover, it was turned into a Jam class.

While we did have a few confused looks from a few of the members for the class (understandably, the complexity of BODYJAM and Zumba are very different), 99% of them stayed for the whole class.

One girl came up to us afterwards and said, "Thank you so much, you guys made my day. See you next week?" She was a bit heartbroken when we told her it wasn't our class, and that the regular instructor would be back next week. The fact that for one hour, through BODYJAM, she was able to put everything aside and enjoy herself, *that* is what keeps me training for Jam.

On the RPM scene, I covered at a gym at the last minute, and was completely unfamiliar with the sound system, cooling system, and had to rush home from work early to get my cycling gear and hurriedly review some tracks to teach. Whenever I called out for a response from the members, they responded with energy, and when I asked them to turn it up, they did not hold back. It's always challenging being in front of a group of people that don't know you and aren't used to your teaching style, so when the class was finished, I was overwhelmed when first one woman said, "That was *really* good, thank you so much"... and then even more so when another guy said, "Thank you, that was really good! I hope you get to come down and cover again soon."

This is why I do what I do. It's made every other 'issue' that I've got to deal with feel insignificant, because the high of knowing that I can make peoples days, and give them a tough workout can have me floating for days.

It's hard to believe that I'm doing what I'm doing. A couple of years ago, I dreamt about teaching but thought I would never be good enough. This week alone, I taught 4 times, and I'm teaching again in 2 days. That just blows my mind.

I am sorry about the lack of blogging, but just know that it's because I am putting myself out there, and giving myself something I thought I wasn't worthy of... happiness.

Yeah... I'm still here

2010-10-22T09:55:00.000+13:00

Far out, mad mad world in Marshyland!

I've been covering lots of RPM classes lately, so have enjoyed being able to teach regularly and I feel like I'm getting better and more comfortable every class I teach.

In fact, last night I taught a class and I had a couple of members come up to me afterwards and say that not only did they think it was an awesome class, but that they'd never worked so hard in RPM before. Wow! Given that about 4 months ago I covered the same class and got a load of complaints that my classes were too easy, that's a *huge* compliment. I guess knowing how to be tough with the members without compromising my individual personality is something that I've developed over time.

I'm just loving teaching RPM - love the high I get from it and I love seeing the members come in and give their all.

I still don't know how to fit in blogging regularly, especially since after 3 weeks of travelling, ever since I came back to Auckland I've been in a different place every single weekend so I have no idea where I am most of the time, but I miss writing here and how to fit it in is constantly on my mind.

I'm off for a conference for the weekend. I bid you adieu for now.

Kek: Through the eyes of others

2010-07-10T22:30:00.000+12:00

Again, blogging is very active over on C&E, so this poor blog is getting a wee bit neglected (I haz a sorry!)

Some recommended reading for you coming over from the Kekster; this freaking brilliant post.

Think about the people who love you, like you, value your skills and opinions, respect you. ...

Take some time, find somewhere quiet, close your eyes and pick one of them. Imagine they're standing in front of you, looking at you, and think about what they see. They don't see you as stupid, lazy, incompetent or hopeless. They see a person with a kind heart, or the ability to make people smile, or an incredible intelligence. They see someone worth loving.

This is something I constantly struggle with - so a post like this definitely speaks to me.

Highly recommended, go check it out!

What does a fat BODYJAMMER look like?

2010-06-11T18:30:00.001+12:00

I'll be writing about my journey to becoming an RPM instructor on here in the near future; although I'm currently writing about it in great detail over on C&E, so if you want to find out what's happening as far as my RPM teaching goes, head on over! The only thing is if you're unfamiliar with Les Mills, you might get a bit lost reading the posts - which is why I'll eventually rewrite what I've done there in a more Non-LesMills-Lingo dependent manner.

But for now, here's a little something to pass the time.

It's no secret that BODYJAM and RPM are my two favourite Les Mills programmes. It's rare to find someone who likes both of these programmes, because they are at opposite ends of the spectrum as far as complexity goes. BODYJAMmers typically find RPM boring, and RPMmers typically find BODYJAM far too complicated. So I'm an odd breed!

With this, you get exposed to a bit of friendly rivalry between the programmes.

So, here is me, with part 1 of how the two can actually exist together.

I present to you, me, in my living room, doing BODYJAM choreography to RPM music.

[DISCLAIMER: The above is not what the ordinary experience of either a BODYJAM or RPM class would be like. This is not an advertisement for a Les Mills program, nor is it a demonstration of what a Les Mills program would be like. This content is not supplied by Les Mills, and is completely unofficial and not associated with LMI, LMNZ or any other gym/fitness club. It is just some chick faffing around.]

Just so you know, this is NOT what you would do in an BODYJAM class. In that routine there are about 20 BODYJAM routines mushed together - in an actual class, you would have about 4 routines and have a full 55 minutes to learn them, broken down and layered in. (As opposed to the above where I did it all top to bottom in 6 and a half minutes.) So if you see this and get freaked that this is what BODYJAM is like, it isn't!

Enjoy!

On Your Bike: Spot The Difference

2010-05-08T23:45:00.003+12:00

I started going to the gym in October of 2006, after reading about BODYPUMP - the Les Mills weights program - on Dietgirl's blog and how insanely insane it was.

Blogging is the internet form of Word Of Mouth, and I cannot imagine how my life would have turned out had I not read Shauna's blog, and had I not tried BODYPUMP that day back in October 2006. It was a couple of weeks later that I tried BODYJAM for the first time, and now in May of 2010, I'm continuing to do that same BODYJAM class with the same instructor.

Through that instructor, I discovered the Les Mills Filming experience, which takes place on a quarterly basis. It was through experiencing the Filmings that I began to develop an understanding of how big the Les Mills phenomena is. Instructors all over the world go on the training for the Les Mills programs, then purchase the rights to teach the choreography that Les Mills develop. New choreography is developed every three months, filmed, and put onto DVD which become instructor resources.

I started blogging over on C&E about these filmings, and instructors across the world began reading the posts. I didn't realise how widespread Les Mills was, and how much of an impact the programs had until I started getting emails and messages from instructors saying "I saw you on the BODYJAM DVD!" I started communicating with these instructors regularly, and some of them now have become my best friends. The instructors were incredibly passionate about the programs - much moreso than I was initially, and it their passion was infectious. Subsequently, my passion - particularly for BODYJAM - grew, and grew.

However, in March of 2007, my Mum agreed to meet with my personal trainer Adam to talk about a possible training program for her. She was nervous to meet with a trainer, and I told her that I would do something equally as nerve-wracking to make her feel less alone.

At the time, I was participating in three programs - BODYPUMP, BODYCOMBAT, and BODYJAM. There was one other one that I was completely fascinated by, but was also very intimidated to try - RPM.

When I first joined the Les Mills New Zealand (LMNZ) gyms, I did so with a single club membership which gave me the use of one gym. There are currently 10 Les Mills clubs in New Zealand, with at least another 1 planned for Auckland, possibly 2. When I was training with Adam, I had to walk past the RPM studio to get into the women's training area of that gym, and when the RPM class was going on, it looked terrifying.

Unlike most of the other group fitness classes where it looked like an empowering, fun experience... RPM looked like a torture chamber. A bunch of people stuffed into a small room, crouching over bikes, while someone up the front barked orders at them. It looked like the most unappealing form of group fitness ever. Yet, I was so fascinated by it. While it seemed so unappealing, the classes were full, and regularly full. Why? What was it that these people saw in it that had them going back into that torture chamber week after week?

I tried my first class as my 'something nerve-wracking' to support my Mum, and by god, I had never sweated so much before in my life. And while I felt like an absolute muppet the entire time - completely out of sorts and I didn't have a clue what was going on... never mind that because I was shy, I didn't ask the instructor to help me set up my bike so I probably rode with the worst bike set up as possible. Yet I had never felt so exhausted from a cardio class before. BODYPUMP had me shattered and sore for weeks, and this was after I'd invested in a bunch of weight training DVDs which I'd been doing on a regular basis - and I thought my cardio was fine because I did hours of Cardio DVDs on a regular basis... and even with BODYCOMBAT and BODYJAM notching things up, I thought I was sorted as far as cardio went. Until that first RPM class.

My RPM experience hasn't been as stable as my BODYJAM one. I did three classes a week religiously for a couple of years until my international BODYJAM friends started coming down to New Zealand for filmings. Wanting to spend as much time as I possibly could with them, RPM would drop off my training altogether, and I'd cringe at the thought of starting again... ow, my nether regions.

I've mentioned Carla Fitzsimons, the incredible BODYJAM instructor who fuelled my passion for BODYJAM. Now it's time to mention Mid Thomas, the incredible RPM instructor who fuelled my passion for RPM. I knew Mid through her covering Carla's Jam classes, and team teaching with her - and because I was fairly noisy... well, I was noticed. I saw Mid's name on the timetable for RPM, and thought "Wow...! Maybe I should try her RPM class!" She one day covered a class at New Lynn, and nearly fell off the bike when I walked in and surprised her. I enjoyed her class so much, that I began attending her classes regularly. Then after that, I started attending the classes of the now Assistant Program Director for RPM - Sarah Ostergaard.

These names might not mean much now, but as this series of posts takes hold, they'll be mentioned quite a bit.

Before I knew it, my RPM attendance was exceeding my BODYJAM attendance, even though in my mind I thought BODYJAM was the program I did the most. If I actually looked at how many classes I was doing, I was only doing 2 BODYJAM a week and about 4-6 of RPM.

The quarterly filming classes for Les Mills, if you're a member, are open for any to attend - with the exception of RPM. I never seemed to know when the RPM filming classes were, since the time was never published on the timetable like the rest of the filming masterclasses was. It was only when I started attending Sarah Ostergaard's classes that I was able to ask her directly "What do I have to do to get into an RPM filming?" She gave me a contact email address and after a lot of luck, I got into my first RPM filming and had a WICKED time.

From then onwards, the passion I had for RPM continued to soar. While this was happening, I attended a BODYJAM filming and was asked to move so I wouldn't be in camera shot, and received a wave of abuse from people when I blogged about it. There were moments that I couldn't handle it and I would disappear from BODYJAM altogether, disappearing into the comfort that was the RPM studio, where I was still in a group environment, yet could go inside my own mind and shut myself in - away from the gaze of the world.

I was somehow still telling myself that BODYJAM was my passion.

Since so many of my friends now were instructors - particularly BODYJAM instructors, they were very vocal about me getting the training to become an instructor myself and become part of their family. Most of the time our passion levels were the same that they forgot I was a particpant, and whenever Les Mills International held instructor only events, they would say to me, "Are you coming?", and they were stunned whenever I reminded them "Its only for instructors, and I'm not one." I didn't know any RPM instructors, and so didn't have the validation from them that I was any good. Through interacting with my friends, I seriously began thinking about doing the training for both BODYJAM and RPM; however, BODYJAM was always going to be first, since that was the program I'd been doing for longer, and I had more people telling me that I had what it took to instruct.

Finally, I registered for the BODYJAM module training, which was scheduled for the 19th to the 21st of March.

In the group fitness instructing arena, to go onstage with another instructor and do the choreography whilst not saying anything is called 'shadowing'. I was given the opportunity to do this the week before the module.

The way the Les Mills instructor certification process works is that you register for the initial training - module - and do either a two or three day intensive on that program. You have to present a track, and you are awarded with either a PASS, WITHHELD or RESIT. This does not mean that you are a certified instructor, it just means that you're of adequate ability to continue to train in the program. You then work hard and work alongside gyms and other instructors to get more experience - and then go from teaching one track to a whole class. You then either film a whole class and send the recording to Les Mills for them to assess it, or you can get an assessor to come onsite and watch you teach a full class. From that, they decide whether you PASS or have to RESUBMIT your assessment class. If you pass, you can then call yourself a Les Mills Certified instructor, and can start getting paid for teaching.

So I was registered for the BODYJAM initial training, and managed to get that one class shadowing for a bit of stage experience. While I was up there, I absolutely loved it - I loved seeing the smiling faces of everyone on the floor; seeing them working hard whilst having a good time was truly awesome.

But, then the BODYJAM module training got cancelled. I was the only person who registered for it, so it was not economical for LMNZ to hold it. I was quite upset, but recognised that was the way things go.

However. Only five minutes passed before I contacted LMNZ and asked them "Is the RPM module going ahead?"

They said yes, it was.

Check out the change in the sidebar of the blog - can you spot the difference?

I did the RPM module training on the 27th and 28th of March, and passed. I received the module certificate a couple of days ago.

There's a reason why I didn't blog about this straight away, and there will be several posts coming explaining the reasons why.

Here's the short of it.

My name is Raina.

I am fat.

And I am well on my way to becoming an RPM instructor.

I will not be stopped.

Secrets

2010-04-30T20:00:00.001+12:00

I've been living a bit of a double life recently.

There's been things going on that you don't know about. I've been wanting to share them with you, but I've been needing something before I can come clean, and it hasn't arrived yet. Every day I've been walking around with this, hiding it from many people, concealing my activities, my thoughts.

Just know, very soon, I'm going to give all of my secrets away.

In that honour, I present to you... myself, doing a bad rendition of OneRepublic's 'Secrets'.

The truth is coming.

Mad Marshy: Wife burnt alive for being obese

2010-04-25T00:00:00.000+12:00

This article was published a few days ago, though since I've been ridiculously ridiculous, I've only been looking through my Google Reader now.

I saw this article published via Living 400lbs (love that blog), which broke my heart.

Naveen Kumar, a 29 year old trader burnt his wife alive because she was too fat and for months he used to squeeze dowry out of wife’s father, giving an excuse of her obesity. Since three years of their marriage, Naveen took many things from his father-in-law like air conditioner, motorbike, and all furniture at his home by giving the excuse of his wife’s obesity.

The man’s family and he himself continuously abused her wife (Maheshwari, 26) because she had grown to 140kg, when she was murdered.

The family took the matter of Maheshwari as a deep shame and in fact forced her to do an abortion, fearing that she might deliver an overweight baby. She was almost house arrest and not allowed to meet neighbors and relatives, or even step outside the

Human Rights has always been a concern in India, and I for one am forever thankful that our 'poor' ancestors were shipped away from India by the British to Fiji to work in the sugar cane plantations and grow into a more equal society... though it always upsets me when I hear about what happens in 'the mother land'.

I'm just deeply saddened whenever I hear about things like this happening.

Must Be Getting Older...

2010-04-20T21:30:00.001+12:00

A few days ago...

Mum	So what are we doing on Tuesday?
Marshmallow	Oh I'm busy on Tuesday, got RPM in the morning, then Balance and some core training before Jam
Mum	So when will we go to dinner?
Marshmallow	...
Marshmallow	...dinner? What dinner?
Mum	Your birthday dinner...
Marshmallow	Oh! That...
Marshmallow	Hah...
Marshmallow	I forgot about that
Mum	You forgot about your birthday?
Marshmallow	Must be the age thing.

It depends on which numbers you look at

2010-04-14T21:30:00.000+12:00

Not so long ago, I got my class times confused and ended up turning up to the gym at 8am for a 9am Pump class. The short of it is that I turned up an hour early.

I decided to use the time to do something I haven't done for a while - go on the treadmill. The last time I did this was in Colorado, when I went into the gym and got a little carried away before a Pump class there and did some running intervals (yeeeeah... so much for No Running Till 2011). The reason why I haven't been on a treadmill for so long is because, like I indicated in my previous sentence, that I get carried away and start running, which in turn, reinjures my ankle.

So I hopped on there to warm up before doing some high weight - low rep weights. I started walking, and I placed my hands on the heart rate sensors to make sure I was getting warmed up properly. My heart rate didn't seem to be reacting much, so I increased the speed. My heart rate increased a little, but not by much, so I increased the speed again, and again, until finally it began to rise a bit more to a safe point to begin a proper work out.

I looked at the speed at which I was walking. I was quite stunned by what I saw.

I recall the first interval training program that Adam drew up for me, and he specified which speed to walk at for my cardio intervals, and which speed to walk at for my warm up. He even specified target heart rate zones each of the intervals of training.

So I was flabbergasted that the speed I was walking at was exactly the speed that was stipulated in my first program as a cardio interval.

I was now using the same speed to warm up, and needing an even higher intensity workout to elevate the heart rate further.

People look at me and think that of all of these years of working out that I haven't changed at all.

Guess they just need to look at the right numbers to see where the changes really are.

As if pancakes weren't awesome enough...

2010-04-10T21:45:00.004+12:00

...they then come up with THESE.

HOLY MOTHER...!!!

Undoing the work of thousands...

2010-04-06T17:30:00.002+12:00

...begins with one sentence.

I've agonised over the writing of this post for several weeks now. Some of you have sensed that something's not right in The Land Of Marshmallow, and you'd be correct.

[Disclaimer: This post was written to be published on C&E, the blog that focuses on my fitness doings and is primarily based around Les Mills group fitness. So if some of the stuffs doesn't make sense... it's okay.]

The short story of it is that something did happen, I escalated it through official channels and I didn't get much of a reaction. The time differential between this action happening and this blog post being published represents the time I both tried other avenues, held my breath that my faith in an organisation I love would be rewarded.

That didn't happen, and finally, I'm sharing this with you now.

Les Mills International and Les Mills New Zealand are two incredible, amazing organisations that do great, amazing work. I know and get along with people who work in both organisations and feel very blessed to have been connected with such an amazing company.

When I joined Les Mills, one of the main reasons why was because it was the one place where I wasn't being judged because of the way I looked. Everywhere else - even in my own home by my own family - I was being judged, and always felt like I was never good enough and didn't deserve to experience any happiness or success. I'd joined other gyms before, but felt so uncomfortable that despite them being a fraction of the price of the Les Mills New Zealand membership, it was completely wasted. I wanted as much of the Les Mills environment as possible, and began going in and out of the gym multiple times per day to experience it, because I just thrived, knowing I was somewhere safe from prejudice and judgement - somewhere where I could just be me.

So imagine the conflict that one would experience if they found out that there was someone in that organisation who outwardly, publicly made prejudicial, judgemental comments about people. Not only was that 'someone' working for the organisation, but they were in a highly visible position; a position that has them regularly representing the organisation and constantly in the public eye.

Les Mills International is an organisation where they have amazing, incredible, inspirational people at the forefront of their programmes:

BODYSTEP
BODYPUMP
BODYATTACK
BODYJAM
BODYBALANCE
RPM
BODYCOMBAT
BODYVIVE

I don't participate in all of the programmes, and don't have the privilege of knowing all of the program directors, though all of them are leaders in their respective programmes. They are inspirational, they are role models, and are adored the world over. When one of them buys a pair of shoes, fans everywhere scramble to find the same pair of shoes as them. I know this because... uh... I recently bought a pair of Nike Dunks that both Gandalf Archer (choreographer and programme director for BODYJAM) and Chris Richardson (presenter and trainer for BODYJAM and RPM) own... in fact, once I was tempted to steal Chris Richardson's shoes... they were literally just sitting in his bag on the floor one day looking awesome and he wasn't paying attention. O_O Chris, if you're reading, be thankful you have your shoes and I didn't thieve them off you. I was tempted.

Anyway - the whole point is that the program directors and presenters that appear on the DVDs presenting the choreographed releases are looked up to by people across the world. It is them that inspire instructors to go to their clubs and teach these programmes and impact thousands of people positively through the Les Mills programmes.

Below is The Les Mills Philosophy, what is held up with pride as pretty much 'the blueprint' for any Les Mills instructor.

The Les Mills Philosophy

We are here for the people in our classes, and not vice versa.

We keep ourselves in peak physical condition.

Our body is our temple.

We graciously accept constructive criticism and peer review.

We are loyal to our program, our fellow instructors and our club.

We are warriors in the battle against sedentary lifestyle.

We will make a positive contribution to the life of every individual in our class.

We will champion perfect exercise technique.

We live for Les Mills music and choreography.

While we strive to be star performers, we remain team players.

We believe kicking butt is an essential part of any workout scheme.

By creating change in our own backyard, we can change the world.

In the above, there is nothing prejudicial. While there is a sentence in there about 'peak physical condition', this refers to 'condition', rather than 'appearance'.

Below is another example of the type of marketing that Les Mills pushes out through its instructors to members in the gyms in countries all over the world.

When it comes to hard work, there are three kinds of people.

Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and there's some that don't even turn up at all. We back the sleeve-turners. The ones that 'dig it in', scream 'hell yeah' when the instructor barks 'ten more'. Our lot view sweat on their brows like a crown of achievement. They're the ones we applaud. They're the heroes that box on, leave nothing in the tank, and are slaves to the deep burn. To be one, you can't just step up, you've got to TURN IT UP!

Again, there is nothing prejudicial here. It focuses on those who want to be in the environment, and doesn't mention *anything* about race, gender, or body shape or size. It focuses on mentality, mindset, drive and ambition.

It was exactly the environment that had been notably absent from my life until that first day that I walked through the doors of Les Mills New Lynn. The instructors, the members, all of them played a part in helping me feel happy and comfortable within my own skin. So much that I upgraded my membership from single club to multi club so that I could stalk my favourite instructor and be in my happy place as often as possible.

So what happened?

Recently, it has come to light that someone who is in a leadership role at Les Mills International has been making prejudicial, judgemental comments about people with a particular physique. I found out about this after receiving feedback directly from instructors from varying locations. It puzzled me, and I responded to these instructors expressing that the stance they were taking on people who looked a certain way was against the Les Mills philosophy - was against the statement of 'making a positive contribution to the life of every individual in our class'.

Imagine my shock and astonishment when they claimed that a program director was the one who had been expressing the prejudice. That someone who was highly visible, highly respected, and yes, highly inspirational to people all over the world was making prejudicial statements about the overweight and obese.

I didn't believe it initially, and had to investigate this myself. I didn't want to believe it, and even right now as I write this, I still don't want to believe it. The comments were made on an internet platform, and were there in black and white, published without any form of privacy protection, there for the world to see. And I sat there, looking at it, speechless.

The program directors should be the biggest champions of The Les Mills Philosophy. They, after all, are the face of the programmes and the role models that instructors look up to. Whatever they do, they then spread out to their clubs and members. By in large, the program directors are amazing, and follow The Les Mills Philosophy to the letter... even going beyond the call of duty to make individuals feel good about themselves.

This paragraph from my post about my favourite instructor is an example of this, and continues to remain true as far as her teaching and contribution to Les Mills International and Les Mills New Zealand are concerned.

When no one was in the habit of complimenting me for anything, she would have no struggle in finding the good in everyone. From those two little statements, I walked around with my chin higher, my chest more proud, and a spring in my step. Too often we don’t compliment each other – we see something good about them and we’re either jealous (something I’m still very much guilty of), or we just think it and don’t say anything.

Doing her classes – seeing her smile and watching her laugh – continues to lift me and feel like a million bucks. Even when things get tough and work gets hectic, she is constantly vibrant and always finds a way to spread that incredible energy.

That's a much bigger impact than just getting a sweat up and burning calories.

So if one person says something in a public arena that undoes all of the hard work of the rest of the Les Mills International and Les Mills New Zealand team, it's unfair on them and it could lead to their point of view and their thought processes being questioned. If one person expresses prejudice, then you could be forgiven for thinking, "Well... if *they* think that... then the others probably do too..."

So what sort of prejudicial remarks are we talking about her?

Firstly, I'm not going to disclose the person who made the remarks, nor am I going to copy their exact words and publish them here. This is not a personal vendetta against anyone in particular at Les Mills International or Les Mills New Zealand. In fact, I love both companies. If I hated them, I would've simply cancelled my membership and stopped wasting my time and energy on them. It's the opposite - I love them that much, that I'm terrified of the impact that letting these statements stand will have on them. I'm only on person, but I know that there are many people who was in the same boat as me that were scared to join the gym because they were worried that they were going to be judged.

What I'm going to write below is a paraphrase of what was said. It's been written with different words and in a different tone, but the message is the same.

I don't understand people who go to fast food outlets and order a lot of food. I don't understand people who complain that they don't know why they're fat. They all consume so much food even though they know it's wrong, it's very greedy of them. I also don't believe it when people claim that they eat healthily - how can they be healthy if they are 28kg overweight at 5ft 6?

To be clear, no matter how many times you ask or in which medium you use to ask me, I will NOT be disclosing the name of the person who said this. Also, comment moderation will stay on and if you think you know the person who said this and choose to put their name in your comment, your comment will be rejected for publication. The purpose of publishing this post is not a personal vendetta against anyone, it is highlighting the significance of what power a single statement can have when published on a public platform.

I am certain that there are people who agree with these sentiments and they are entitled to. However, if I was a participant who was contemplating trying out a new fitness class for the first time, if I knew that a) the instructor teaching the class thought like this about people, or b) that the person who choreographed the class thought like this about people, would I want to try the class? No.

Which is an impact on the number of people who get to experience the enjoyment of the Les Mills programmes.

Like I've mentioned, I raised my concern through official channels, and the reaction I got was that "If you knew the program director in question, you would know that they don't have any prejudice at all. They're just concerned about people who live a certain way and they are frustrated that they can't help them."

Which brings me to my point.

An existing member does not know the program director in question. A potential member does not know the program director in question.

And even if they were frustrated about not being able to help people living an unhealthy lifestyle, does it not occur to them that expressing that sort of viewpoint - calling them greedy, expressing lack of understanding of them, even being disbelieving of them - will not *attract* people to a healthy lifestyle, but will drive them away from it; drive them to hide, where they cannot be seen. How can any fitness program impact the individuals lives positively if they drive away the people they intend to help?

The other thing to mention is... instructors who teach the program do not know the program director in question. They see them on their instructor training material constantly, but they do not know them on a personal level. So if they see any statements made by a program director, they *will* take them at face value, and they *will* spread those statements. In fact, this is the key reason that the Les Mills culture can be experienced across the world, because the statements that are spread for most of the time are positive, and the positivity then gets spread.

Yet when one negative statement gets said, that statement too gets spread the same way, even if there is personal underlying reasoning for those statements. Because they do not know the program director, they do not know the personal underlying reasoning. The only way to resolve this is for whomever is making the statements to understand the position they are in - that what they say gets spread throughout the world - and to a) be careful with what they decide to publish and think about how it reflects on themselves, the company, and the instructors, and b) should an occasion arise where something slips through the cracks, that steps are taken quickly to clarify the situation.

Within hours of the statements being made, I already was receiving feedback from instructors, using the program director’s words to justify their hatred and prejudice of the overweight and obese… *including* those who were currently in their classes and currently participating in Les Mills group fitness. It’s been weeks since those statements were made, and I’m still receiving hateful comments linking back to the original statement. I’m thankful that I have the strength to deal with it, but if I was the person I was a few years ago, I would’ve gone back into my shell, closing all of my curtains during the day out of fear that someone on the street could see me inside and pass judgement. There are still people out there in that boat, and if you think that insulting them and being hateful towards them will encourage them to want to participate in group fitness, think again.

If these statements continue to stand without a form of clarification from those who said it, then those who idolise and look up to the program directors will continue to spread that prejudice, and alienate both existing and potential participants of the program concerned.

And as someone who loves Les Mills, this really, really, *really*, scares me.

Finally, some good news

2010-04-04T19:00:00.000+12:00

There's been a lot of negativity in Marshyland - it seems like every other day I'm experiencing some forms of discrimination due to body size. Which probably explains all of the Mad Marshy posts. Believe it or not, they are a *fraction* of what I have been experiencing recently.

But, finally something happy.

EDEN - The Eating Difficulties Education Network - do great work in promoting body satisfaction and assisting with eating issues. I've been enjoying looking at the work that the organisation does, and have enjoyed looking at the material they promote and the message they convey.

So imagine my delight when I saw this in their current newsletter.

Now how awesome is THAT. :-D

As an aside, I promised that I would publish a post relating to the documentary that EDEN arranged to have screened earlier in the year called No Numbers: Identity Beyond Measure - I was a bad blogger and didn't get that done, though I'll be working on it soon. I also have three copies of the documentary to give away, so keep your eyes peeled.

Mad Marshy: Stop Eating Protein Bars

2010-03-25T07:15:00.001+13:00

There's been a bit of crap happening lately - I'm not able to (yet) write about the initial spark that fuelled the crappiness, though the crappiness has been ongoing and it's been exhausting.

My friend Patrick in Melbourne, whom I met through the Les Mills forums and the C&E blog, and I've been babbling to him as a means of coping.

He updated his Facebook status to say:

Patrick wonders why it is that some people who are overweight are automatically assumed to be unhealthy, despite the fact that they have a healthy diet and have typically healthy vital signs... I am honestly disappointed at those health and fitness professionals who make it so much harder for healthy, overweight people to feel good about themselves :/

He's not judgemental about my body size at all, and him along with my other friend Glen have been two of the biggest champions of talking me into doing the instructor training, so, in short, he's an awesome friend and I'm very lucky to have met him through Les Mills.

He's a group fitness instructor himself, teaching BODYJAM, BODYVIVE and recently certified in BODYSTEP. I got the awesome opportunity to do his Jam class in Melbourne once and I had a blast.

Because he's a group fitness instructor, this status resulted in a lot of different opinions about whether or not an overweight individual can be overweight. Different, reasonable, balanced (some which I disagree with) opinions and a good discussion.

I added my piece to the discussion, trying to stop myself from ranting:

People look at me and automatically assume I'm not doing any exercise. I got told by a doctor that there was no way that I could be doing the amount of exercise I was doing while looking the way I was. I did a fun run a couple of days ago and got told I shouldn't be eating brownies after a 12km walk, when it wasn't even a brownie to begin with, but a protein bar.

I eat much healthier than anyone in my household; and in fact, my Dad is thinner than the rest of us but has poor diet, no energy, and insane cholesterol problems.

I've personally left nutritionists offices feeling frustrated, because none of them couldn't tell me anything new that I wasn't already doing in my daily life. Some of them even thought I was lying to them when I showed them my food logs; I had to submit photos and videos to be believed. Yet by merely 'existing', I'm made to feel by people around me like I'm 'wrong' for being the way I am, and I'm 'failing' somewhere, while people like my Dad sit and smirk, like they've 'got it right' because they have a thin physique but are rusting on the inside.... See more

And then when people in the industry who are supposed to help you feel better and make progress instead judge you? It's very disappointing.

Not long after, I got a reply from a personal trainer on Patrick's friends list.

raina, I am an exercise and lifestyle coach and my advice to you is to stop eating protien bars if you're trying to drop weight. Stick to whole foods, and, if i'm right in assuming from your name you have an Indian [or somewhere near there] background try a diet higher in nartualy occuring carbohydrates, both simple and starchy, avoiding proccessed sugars

I had to take a moment to look at what I was reading.

I'd just gone on about how much I'd been judged, and this guy sees me mentioning a protein bar, automatically assumes a) am eating them all the time, b) am constantly eating processed sugars, and c) that I wanted his advice to begin with.

I had to take in deep breaths and and step away from the keyboard for a moment before I could reply.

Here's what my reply was.

Hi [...] - thanks for your advice, but I am not trying to drop weight. I was eating the protein bar because I had done the Round The Bays walk and needed something quick and convenient to eat since I had to turn around and do the rest of the walk back into the city.

And I don't think you quite understood the point what I was saying. I was eating 'a brown looking thing' and immediately got judged by someone who doesn't know a thing about me, all they saw was what I looked like.

In reality, I could've gone on a rant. And had it been my page, I would've. But it wasn't, it was Patrick's so I kept my reply as brief as I could.

He replied with the following:

my apologies raina, however you sound like an interesting case [...] I would very much like to assess [...] you, perhaps I have answers others dont, my methods are not always conventional, but neither are poeple. Private message me if you're interested

I didn't reply to him, because again, I would've gone on a rant. I didn't want to do that on Patrick's Facebook profile.

However, THIS is my blog. I can do whatever which ranting I damn well please.

So here we go

How. Fucking. Dare. You. One. I write several paragraphs about my frustration about being judged by professionals in the health and wellness industry, and you pounce on one sentence and do EXACTLY the very thing that I'm expressing frustration about! You work in the health and wellness industry and made a snap judgement about me in a statement that wasn't even directed at you. You didn't care to think about what the circumstances might have been in that I would be eating a protein bar. You immediately thought that I was eating protein bars constantly and not eating whole foods at all. The only way to know that is to be around me 24-7, you absolutely cannot determine that by reading one fucking sentence.

Do you know what the reason why I was eating a protein bar was? I'd done a fucking 12km walk and wanted something to quickly refuel myself for the walk back. Having sandwiches or some other whole food in my bag would've gotten squished, possibly gotten leaked on, gotten wet from the rain, and a multitude of other reasons which make it more sensible to bring something easier to store and easier to eat.

Two. You assumed that I WANTED your advice. I didn't want your advice! NEWS: NOT EVERYONE WANTS YOUR ADVICE. Did you see me *ANYWHERE* asking for advice?? What made you feel like you had to chime in with your 'diagnosis'? I was minding my own business and then you waltz on in with your list of recommendations. AND you assumed that I wanted to lose weight. Did I say anywhere that I was trying to achieve this? Some of us would rather be fit, strong and healthy and put less priority on what our body looks like. I have shifted to 'what can my body do' rather than 'what does my body look like' and I am quite happy there, thank you very much. I didn't ask for, nor want, nor need your advice, now please to shut it kthx.

Three. After firstly judging me, then smothering me with your advice, you have the gall to try and offer me your 'services'. WHY would I be interested in hiring you when I already know that you're judgemental and intrusive? I know of many other personal trainers that I would hire over you in a heartbeat - and now I know how truly blessed I am to have had Adam as my personal trainer. He was not judgemental, not oppressive, and helped you to bring out the desire within yourself to fuel your own drive to your own goals. Through him, I found healthier fitness goals than weight loss - fitness goals that didn't drive me mad, or to tears, or to the edge of a nervous breakdown.

There is not a single thing that I can't do now that would change if I lost weight. Not. A. Single. Thing. So I am happy and content with being who I am and do not need nor want any of your 'unconventional' methods for a purely cosmetic process. I feel good in my clothes, I like to style it up with accessories and makeup, and even if I didn't have all of that crap, all it takes to look really, authentically beautiful is a smile on your face and a sparkle in your eye. I do not need your 'services' to achieve that.

In short.

I am not broken. Do not offer to fix me, because there is nothing that needs to be fixed.

Mad Marshy: Taking P to lose weight

2010-03-21T09:30:00.000+13:00

For those of you who are naive to the extreme measures people go to to lose weight, check out this article.

Mahauraki's usage of P, having found it helped with issues associated with his weight problems, had ultimately lead him into the other perils of drug possession and put him in this predicament, he said.

So many people think that you should be doing whatever you can to lose weight, because the end product is both healthier and more attractive than whatever it is they are currently.

Though the judge slightly annoyed me with the ruling.

Judge ... said while he accepted Mahauraki's reasons for using the drug and that it may have been beneficial to him, it was still an illegal drug.

I'm beyond words.

I seem to be coming across a lot of things that are weight related that irk me lately.

I feel like I have this massive list of stuff to go through, yet more and more things keep popping up.

This blog has been super duper neglected of late, and right now, I need it more than ever. So I hope you don't mind, there's going to be a *lot* of posts coming up. It's not going to be the most happiest content, but there'll be content, and plenty of it.

Hold on tight.

Mad Marshy: Quest to become the world's fattest woman

2010-03-19T18:30:00.000+13:00

I read this post by Sara over at Sanafit (wicked awesome blog, if you don't read it, DO! Consider that an order!) who alerted me about this woman's quest to eat and eat until she became The World's Fattest Woman.

An American woman who already weighs 273 kilos is on a mission to become the fattest woman in the world.

The Daily Mail reported that Donna Simpson, who already weighs 273 kilograms, wants to reach 450kg in just two years.

While the average woman should consume only 2,000 calories a day, the 42-year-old will need to eat up to 12,000 calories to reach her goal weight.

You must be thinking... "But Marshy! You're the one who's always blathering on about size acceptance! Shouldn't you be cheering this woman on?"

Let's flip the coin. If it were a woman whose quest it was to starve and starve until she became The World's Thinnest Woman, I'd be uncomfortable with it, right? Same deal here. See, I'm really not a Thin Hating Person, no freaking way. This woman has openly declared that she's going to eat unhealthily as possible to attain a certain weight to get her into the Guinness Book of Records. Like I mentioned before, if she was doing to eat as little as possible to attain a certain weight to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the lowest weight ever, I'd be equally uncomfortable about it.

I know that this has been tagged 'Mad Marshy', but I'm not angry... I just feel a bit uncomfortable.

Mad Marshy: Reality TV 'good' for kids?

2010-03-18T07:00:00.002+13:00

Before I get going, some of you have noticed that I've removed the Les Mills post. I had a discussion with a couple of people who work for LMNZ, and came to the agreement that the post was misleading - it gave the impression that my concerns are to do with the gyms in New Zealand, when this isn't case. In fact, the gyms are the same as they ever were. Only thing is I am *still* not comfortable with some things that have been said that influence the LMI (Les Mills International) community. I'm dealing with that in private, and have been asked to not write about it publicly for now.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, on with the post.

I came across this article in the NZHerald which left my jaw on the floor.

It states that not all reality TV is bad for children, and in fact, weight loss based shows like The Biggest Loser, Downsize Me, You Are What You Eat, Fat Chance and so on are beneficial for children.

Now... while I will forever have issues with The Biggest Loser, Downsize me actually does a really good job of educating individuals who have poor eating and activity habits as to what they should be doing to have increased health and energy levels.

My only problem is that you only ever see fat people on there. You never see a thin person with those same habits being corrected [UPDATE: Downsize Me featured a thin family in one episode, thanks Lee for pointing this out!], which indicates to me that it's not about educating people about healthy habits, but more perpetuating the stereotype that says, "All Fat People Eat Crap, So All Of Them Need To Eat Healthy To Be Skinny". Yeah... if it were only that easy, especially for those of us who have emotional and self esteem issues that relate to our body image and where we look to to our sources of comfort in tough times... and for those of us who have, to be blunt, royally fucked our bodies with crash diets, pills, and a yo-yoing body weight over several years. I went on my first diet when I was 7.

So, back to this reality TV thing.

What does the article say?

Massey University PhD student Jacinta Hawkins looked at the influence of TV programmes on children's health knowledge, attitudes and behaviour.

Hmmm, that sounds pretty good, yes?

From there, it goes downhill.

She said programmes which featured obese people, such as The Biggest Loser, seem to be putting children off eating junk food.

"The grotesque appearance of overweight people on television is making children say 'I don't want to grow up like that'. What they see on screen is a potentially powerful influence."

She even says it, 'the grotesque appearance of overweight people'. Because overweight people are 'grotesque' and are never something that you want to aspire to be. Meanwhile, I'm in admiration of amazing people like Beth Ditto, Dawn French, and Queen Latifah because they're quite simply, awesome. Would the same PhD student say the same thing to those three vibrant, energetic personalities?

"Children model off the behaviour they see from adults in real life and in the media," he said.

"They say 'Okay, if I eat a certain type of food, I will end up being a certain weight'."

It seems to me as though in addition to showing kids that Junk Food Is Bad, it encourages negative self image. What if a kid happens to look a bit like one of the 'grotesque' overweight people on TV? A snide remark from someone close by made to the person on TV - "Oh look at that fatty, they're disgusting, I'd hate to look like that", can be taken by a child as a sideways way of saying "Oh look at the fatty, they look just like you, they're disgusting, you're disgusting, I'd hate to look like that, you look terrible and should be ashamed of yourself."

Heck, I know this from experience!

That's my take on it. Have a read yourself and let me know what your thoughts are.

Round The Bays 2010

2010-03-14T23:00:00.002+13:00

This is the third year in a row that I've done the Auckland Round The Bays fun run. I did it in 2008 and 2009, and add to that this year.

It's also the first out of the three that I didn't really want to be there. If I hadn't registered beforehand, I would've stayed home.

But, since I'd registered and paid for the t-shirt (which always looks awesome), I figured I'd head along.

I went into the reception area of the gym, after very little sleep after Lady Gaga and an aching body after some insane Body Jamming the day before. I know who the events coordinator/manager/... 'guy' is for Les Mills New Zealand (LMNZ), so I saw him and went up to him to tell him I was doing the event.

He asked me what my first name was, I told him, and he went "Oh yes! That's right! I remember now."

...

Uh... I don't know why he'd 'remember' my name, unless he's read some of the blog articles or heard things via Facebook or Through The Grapevine. But anyways, he's a lovely, friendly bloke, so I guess there's worse people who can remember what your name is.

He directed me over to the girl who had the list of names, and she gave me my race card to pin on. She said to the girl with the t-shirts, "Can we get a size 12 for Raina here?"

...

Uh... No.

No size 12 for Raina here. "I don't think a size 12 is going to fit... what's your largest size, give me that.", I said. I know full well that those shirts run really small and a size 12 would NOT have fitted. I got give the shirt in an 18 - a 16 would've fitted, but by the time I'd changed into it, I was too lazy to go and change it for a smaller size.

Normally, the team assembles for a group photo before walking down to the start line together. Here's the one from 2009.

This year, I didn't hang around for it. I quickly slunk out without saying anything to anyone and walked down to the start line myself. I just wanted to be alone. I had so many thoughts going through my head, repeating a lot of negative energy that I've been exposed to recently, that I just put on my iPod and cranked it up, instead filling my head with Let's Play A Love Game Play A Love Game Ga Ga Oo La La Want Your Bad Romance. (Yes, I went to a Lady Gaga concert the night before.)

I actually don't remember any detail about the race. I just remember shutting out the fact that there were 70,000 people around me and thinking through a plan of action for the next week. The things I need to do, the results I want to achieve, the actions I have to take, the words I have to say. It became an allocated slot of time to concentrate and remove myself from everything that's been happening recently and focus on how I should be handling myself.

I finished in just over 100 minutes - I was actually at the finish line at 99-ish minutes but because there was a stampeded of people who wanted to get within 100 minutes, there was a mass of people waiting to get their bib barcodes scanned, and I got stuck waiting behind them.

I pulled a protein bar out of my bag to refuel for the walk back. Suddenly there was this guy next to me who touched me gently on my shoulder and said, "Heeeeeeey, how are you doing?", in a softspoken, but slightly patronising manner. I was totally weirded out by this, but thought it could be a blog reader or someone who's seen me on the Les Mills DVDs. "Hi...?" I respond, a bit anxious.

He says,

"You might want to consider eating something healthy after a walk. Eating a chocolate brownie isn't good for you... it's full of fat and sugar and you especially don't need that."

He caught me on a bad day.

I said, "Um... It's not a brownie. It's a protein bar. A FUCKING PROTEIN BAR."

His expression changed to surprise, and then he skulked away looking a bit sheepish. As I looked over my shoulder, fuming as to what had just happened, I saw him go up to someone else who was eating an ice-cream.

Give me strength, people. Round The Bays is supposed to be a fun run.

Guess some people have a very warped idea of what 'fun' is.

Oh my god people...

2010-01-31T11:15:00.001+13:00

...how on earth do I get my hands on marshmallows shaped like clouds?

I think I just found my life's purpose.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-02T16:15:00.001+13:00

Boy... I have been wanting 2009 to end.

It's been a tough, tough year, and while it doesn't feel like it now, it is probably one of the years that will add value to the remaining years to come because of how much strength it took to get through it.

All the same, I'm glad it's over.

And, I'm glad that I brought in the New Year with my beautiful friend Christie, whom I met on my last trip here earlier in the year (which... I still haven't blogged properly about). Yes, I did say 'here', meaning I am currently in Denver, after spending just over a week with my family going to Los Angeles, Anaheim, Oakland, San Mateo, Oakland Again, San Mateo Again, San Francisco, Vegas, Arizona (for the Canyon) before finally splitting from them and coming to Denver while they go to Texas. Phew! I'm glad that I'm here and I'm enjoying the calmer pace to bring in 2010.

I have a lot of changes I want to make in 2010. I've always begun each New Year with a bit of a roar, thinking OMMA GAWD THIS YEAR IS GONNA RAWK, and I did the same thing going into 2009. I don't feel the way this year.

I feel like I'm on a mission, that I have a list of things I need to get through this year, and that getting through them will open more doors to my own happiness and peace of mind.

I know I haven't adjusted well to the changes in my work situation which has impacted how I do my blogging, and for those of you who have stuck around, I'm thankful and humbled that you have. If I were a reader of this blog, I would've lost my patience a long time ago.

I want to be back, and I still am constantly thinking like a blogger. I want to be blogging and miss blogging. I'm thinking of ways to make that happen, as well as other things I need, and THIS is what is going to be my driving force in 2010. Not just a General State of Awesomeness like past years, but more of an Awesomeness Because sort of feeling.

While I would understand if the gaps between posts would drive you away, I do hope that you stay around with me as I go through this new chapter. I know what I need to do, but I'm also nervous, as these are bigger steps than I ever would have taken before, and I need as many friends around me as possible.

Happy 2010. Let's get to work.

Wake me up when Christmas Ends

2009-12-26T19:30:00.002+13:00

I was in the bathroom having a shower after slogging it out on a spin bike at my Aunt's house - the first bit of exercise I'd managed to get in in over a week of being in the USA.

We'd had our Christmas 'lunch' at 5pm (I should really call it a Christmas 'meal' since I'm not sure what it was supposed to be), and I grumbled a bit to my Aunt about missing my Christmas morning at the gym. She told me that she had a spin bike upstairs, and of course, I was thrilled to bits. I queued up a bunch of RPM tracks on the iPod and pedalled it out, and felt great afterwards.

While I was in the shower, some guests arrived, some of whom I'd met the night before but didn't really speak to too much. I was going through my skin regime when I heard my Mum conversing with these people. I wasn't really paying much attention until I heard my name come up.

Some Auntie	Raina isn't married, is she?
Mum	Married? I wish! She doesn't even have a boyfriend.
Some Auntie	I thought so... always is the case when you're... 'bigger'

I know I very much carry a torch for fat acceptance and being comfortable in your body. But I'll admit it, my heart sank when I heard that.

And that was only the beginning.

Mum	I really wish she'd lose weight, but she doesn't care about her weight anymore.
Some Auntie	She should be. If you're fat and have a pretty face, then at least you have a chance but if you don't... well...!

Why should I care about what Some Auntie I Don't Know says about the way I look?

I don't really. What upsets me is that my Mum sat there, and didn't defend me. She sat there and AGREED with her.

I hoped that this year would be different with us being in a different environment, but fuck me, same shit, different country.

Merry Christmas.

A Towel by any other Colour

2009-12-24T08:35:00.001+13:00

Mum	Raina, do you want some towels?
Marshmallow	Oooooo... I really like those black ones
Mum	I'll buy them for you. I'll buy you the blue ones
Marshmallow	But I don't want the blue ones, I want the black ones
Mum	But I'm going to buy you the blue ones
Marshmallow	Never mind, don't buy me any, I'll buy the black ones myself
Mum	Save your money, don't buy them, I'll buy them for you
Marshmallow	The black ones?
Mum	The blue ones
Marshmallow	facepalm

This scene took place in JCPenney in Brentwood in California.

Yes, I am in California right now. At the moment I'm waiting to be picked up by my Mum's cousin so that we can go to San Francisco, and then come back here two days later, and then go back to San Francisco two days after that. (Yeah... I don't know what the point of that is either.)

If you're in California, I'd love to meet you, though alas, it's not going to happen. I have no idea what I'm doing and where I'm going from one day to the next. At the moment, I haven't seen any of the real USA, it's just been theme parks, airports, and the insides of cars.

I sound grumpy, don't I?

I'm just hanging out for Colorado on New Years Eve.

And I'll admit it, I'm missing the gym.

If I don't get the chance to get on the computer, I'll wish everyone a Merry Christmas now.

...

Merry Christmas.

Uh...

2009-12-12T21:50:00.002+13:00

...I did a race this morning.

I'll try and write a race report... somehow. :-/

Because I feel guilty about the lack of blog action...

2009-11-30T18:15:00.001+13:00

Here you go.

Sucking it Up

2009-11-22T08:00:00.001+13:00

Some of you who know me in real life know that apart from blogging and Les Mills, I'm a big cricket fan. I even tried writing a cricket blog for a while, but was spectacularly bad at it. I don't have that much of a cricketing brain, but when I watch it and read about it, I enjoy soaking up as much of it as I can. I played social women's cricket for one season a few years ago when I was studying, and again, was spectacularly bad at it - never mind I was reminded of how bitchy women can be when it comes to competitive situations. I was a social player in a social team, though due to the drought of women's teams, we were placed in a competitive tournament. The only games we ever won were by default, and whenever we won the toss, we would always bat first so that we could lose faster and be home by 2pm.

It's very rare that cricket and body image concerns interlink, and the last time I wrote about it, it was regarding New Zealand cricketer Jesse Ryder, and ridicules about his weight. He's still having issues discipline wise, but he's been delivering when it comes to on field performance.

Now, some other cricket related news caught my interest.

I saw this headline in a cricket news feed in my feed reader which had me thinking, "Seriously?"

Liposuction rules out controversial cricketer

HUH?!

I ain't kidding, that's a real article there. And here, and here.

In summary, for those of you who don't know/don't care about cricket, the cricketer in question - Shoaib Akhtar - used to play for Pakistan as a fast bowler. (bowler = the one that sends the ball down to the guy with the bat). He hasn't been selected to play for Pakistan for quite some time, due to several reasons - injuries, discipline, poor form, etc.

So what is the reason behind the liposuction?

This paragraph from the article describes his motives pretty accurately.

Previously one of the world's most feared fast bowlers, Akhtar had grown so out of shape in recent months that he decided to have fat sucked from his midriff in a bid to return to the game slimmer and faster.

It seems as though he was tapping into the perception of thinner = fitter. If he appeared to be thinner, then maybe the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would consider him for selection, thinking that he was back to prime fitness. Because, after all [sarcasm] thinness is the one and only indication of fitness [/sarcasm].

What I was pleasantly surprised to find was how the deputy director general of the Pakistan Sports Board - Dr Waqar Ahmad - saw right through the cunning plan.

''The liposuction is a kind of cosmetic procedure and has nothing to do with the fitness of a player,'' Ahmad said.

''Mostly it is done for improving the figure and other cosmetic reasons whereas the shedding of weight of more than 12 kilograms might help him only when he will improve his muscle strength and stamina.

And I absolutely adore this last paragraph.

''Liposuction is not a kind of procedure which makes cricketers stronger,'' he said. ''The main factor in performance is agility, strength and stamina along with skill; therefore, I don't think that this procedure will get any popularity among the other cricketers.''

Good to see that fitness is still valued as fitness, rather than thinness being masqueraded as fitness.

When you can't beat 'em... Kill 'em with kindness?

2009-11-20T22:15:00.001+13:00

It is rather strange how wit seems to be embarrassingly absent in some situations, and other times, it appears out of nowhere and you go, "Bloody hell, was that me?"

Case in point below.

* Marshmallow enters the sauna at the gym. There's already a lady in there, lying down. She sits upright, startled at the sound of me walking in, and sits up, and proceeds to stare at me for a good 5 minutes.
Random Lady in the Sauna	You know...
Random Lady in the Sauna	You've got such a pretty face. And you would have a beautiful body if you just lost a bit of weight, yeah?
Marshmallow	...
Marshmallow	Hah. Funny you say that.
Marshmallow	I was just about to tell you that you have such a pretty face, and you have a beautiful body.
Random Lady in the Sauna	...?
* Random Lady in the Sauna is puzzled, looks down for a while, then gets up and walks off.
Marshmallow	Have a good evening!

Funny, after all of that, I still feel like *I* was the one who was being a smart arse.

Thunderpants Competition Winner

2009-10-31T14:00:00.002+13:00

Howdy everyone, sorry that I've taken a bit of time in getting this up!

Anyways, all of the entrants names were loaded in the competition software, and I am proud to announce that the winner iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis...

Miss L!

Congratulations! Can you please email me as soon as possible so that I can order the Thunderpants in your size (if you could check out this out REAL quick since I don't think they're going to be around for much longer so I need to order them really quickly, ack!)

And I really want to thank everyone who entered - it was really moving seeing what you guys came up with.

Only a few hours to go!

2009-10-28T17:45:00.001+13:00

The 'I love my body because...' competition closes in just around 3 hours, so if you want to get your entries in, get them in quick!

Always a Bridesmaid: I'm Not a Puppet, I'm a Real Blogger

2009-10-23T22:15:00.006+13:00

Previously...

If you're wondering, "Hmmm... the title of this post sounds familiar...", let me point you in the direction of Shrek.

Remember now? Make sure you keep that in the back of your mind for now. It'll come up later in this post and round it all up in a nice, semi-intelligent, semi-witty manner.

The last time I had to do two flights back-to-back was when I was on a family trip to The Gold Coast and our flight from Auckland to Brisbane was cancelled. We did a flight from Auckland to Sydney and then had to grab a connecting flight to Brisbane. We were so tired by the end of the first flight, that when the second flight came about, we were so tired that we pretty much slept the entire time.

I felt a similar way getting on the second flight, only unlike the flight to Brisbane, I was weirded out that it was the middle of the day and there was sun streaming in through the windows. It was easy to pass out on the Brisbane flight since it was at some ridiculous hour, but this time, it was a little bit more difficult. Only a little, though.

As the plane was about to take off, the stewardess made an announcement over the in-flight PA system.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome onboard this afternoon. In a few moments, we will be dimming the cabin lights in order to make our attending staff more attractive. In the event that this is not successful, we will be serving alcohol to further facilitate this."

Everyone on the plane burst out laughing; noone saw it coming, and I loved how the airline staff were able to crack a joke, and make an otherwise routine shuffle between two cities amusing and entertaining.

I zoned in and out throughout the flight, though at one point, I needed to go to the bathroom. A few of us were clustered around the toilet door waiting, and at one point, an air hostess wanted to go past us to get to the drinks trolley at the back of the plane. She said in a loud, authoritative folks, "Could'ya folks move outta th'way so I'z can git through?" I felt a little bit jilted... did I just get told off? Apparently not, since as soon as I moved out of the way to let her pass, she - again, rather loudly - "Thank y'all!"

I had a lot of subtle differences to get used to, and the loud, boisterous mannerisms were very different to what I'd experienced in Australia and New Zealand. Before you think I'm saying it's rude, that's not what I'm saying - it's different. In fact, a loud air hostess is nothing compared to some of the experiences I had in Asia. But I'm digressing.

The end of the flight drew remarkably close remarkably quickly. A girl sitting next to me asked me if I knew where to get gift cards for Costco. Heck, like I'd know where on earth you'd get those from! I explained to her that I wasn't from the USA and had just landed in the country a few hours ago, and she seemed a bit miffed that I couldn't help her. The guy sitting on the other side of me found this whole exchange rather amusing, and gave me a chuckle at my exasperated expression. She definitely had places to be and a strict timeline to be on.

As it turned out, our flight was denied access to landing for about half an hour, since there were thunderstorms at the airport. Ground control instructed the plane to circle in the air until clearance was given to land. I looked down and saw the 'thunderstorms' and thought, "Flipping heck, we would've been on the ground by now if we were in Wellington!" Time went on, and the girl next to me got more and more irritated. She had booked to get on a connecting flight to another city half an hour after this flight landed.

Uh... not the smartest move! I wouldn't do that in New Zealand where there's zero security to get through in domestic airports (Seriously, check in your bags and just walk onto the plane. Freaking awesome. Not sure how long it'll stay that way, but freaking awesome for the now.), so I have no idea how on earth that girl thought she was going to get onto her next plane. She was swearing and hissing and spitting next to me, and as soon as the plane touched down, she was up out of her seat and tearing out of the aircraft.

As the plane landed and I turned on my cellphone to text The One Whom I Was In The Country For, there were several messages from her, mainly instructions on how to get onto the arrival hall - very clear instructions, good for a northern hemisphere noob like me where left is right and right is left and everything feels different. One of the messages said, "We're in the arrival hall, how far away are you?" I had to say to her, "Still on the plane!"

Whoops! I hate having people wait for me, I really do.

What was this destination, this destination that I was at?

It was Denver International Airport, in Colorado. And from the very beginning, I was pretty damn impressed with it. It's a pretty airport, and was several levels up from what it was like at LAX.

I made my way to the arrivals hall, easily following The One Whom I Was In The Country For's instructions - the arrivals hall is landmarked by a massive fountain that greets the arriving passengers.

The fountain wasn't turned on when I arrived, so it wasn't as spectacular as it could have been, but honestly, fountain or no fountain, I was excited.

I had been incredibly close friends with this blogger for years - the sort of friend I never thought I'd deserve to have. Both her and her best friend were standing near the 'fountain', waiting for me, and I saw them through a wall of glass as I came up the escalators into the arrival hall.

Had I the ability to leap over the escalator railing, defy gravity, and smash through glass without being cut to get over to them both faster, I would've. That's how excited I was to see them.

I tore through the masses of people towards them - quite possibly knocking over several small children and grandmothers in the process. Civilian casualties, I'm afraid; absolutely unavoidable. They were in the way of an unstoppable force!

Goodness knows what Christie and her best friend Triple S were thinking as this big, jetlagged beast steamrolled towards them!

As soon as I was in striking distance, I gave Christie the biggest of biggest hugs that you can imagine.

And then she said to me with sheer delight and excitement...

"You're real!!!"

She took the words right out of my mouth. I'm not a puppet, I'm real.

To be continued...

Mary: Why I Love My Body

2009-10-23T18:00:00.001+13:00

On the same level as the competition I'm running (get your entries in!), is this fantastic post from Mary over at A Merry Life.

I could write a post about all the things I still want to change, to make look better, but I won’t. Instead, I’m going to honor the body that I have right now, in the stage that it is currently in. I am going to love it now, accept it, and still look forward to more positive changes
So my answer to the “Why do you love your body?” is this:
[click through for image]

My body is not perfect. In fact, it is probably farther from “perfect” than anyone who has done this yet, but I’m comfortable in it. And I love it… because it’s mine. No one else’s. So if I think it is beautiful, then it is.

Mary is INCREDIBLY brave, and I take my hat off to her. An amazing, beautiful, inspirational person - whom we need more of in this world.

The post is well worth a look at.

No Numbers Trailer

2009-10-19T18:45:00.000+13:00

I'm loving the entries that have been coming in for the Thunderpants competition - keep them coming! If you don't feel comfortable putting them up as a comment on the blog, you are more than welcome to email them through to me or send me a private message on Facebook.

You might recall that the reason why I'm running this competition is because of the documentary premier that I had the privilege of attending last week; called 'No Numbers: Identity Beyond Measure.', which is the story of three women who have suffered from eating disorders.

Check out the trailer:

You can also check out the Facebook group that has been set up - and there's even a mention of this blog from the owner (whom I had the pleasure of meeting briefly today)

In the days that have followed the screening, I received a few other emails I’d like to share. The first was from Raina:

"I attended the premier of No Numbers at the event that EDEN put on and was absolutely blown away by how powerful, beautiful and moving the film was. I want to thank you for the amount of work and time you have put into the film; it is incredible and I know I will be doing my best to make sure that the word gets out and that as many people watch it as possible.

Part of my endeavour to do this is related to a blog that I have ... where I blog about body image, self- esteem and self acceptance.

...

I’m currently running one competition at the moment that is more EDEN specific that you might be interested in checking out – I’m giving away a pair of Thunderpants and getting readers to enter by completing this sentence, “I love my body because...”

...

Again, thank you for the wonderful, amazing effort that you have put into this film. You are inspirational."

I think what Raina is doing is inspirational. Please check out her blog and enter her competition. The Thunderpants she refers to are undies that EDEN especially designed for The Love Your Body Campaign and that help raise money for the organization. EDEN receives no government funding whatsoever and relies entirely on donations, so go to www.eden.org.nz to buy your own pair. I’ve got mine, which has earned me the nickname, Thunderpantress, thanks to my new friend Peter!

Great stuff all around.

Something is Wrong...

2009-10-18T11:45:00.000+13:00

Competition: I Love My Body Because...

2009-10-16T08:45:00.005+13:00

Last night I attended the world premiere of the documentary 'No Numbers: Identity Beyond Measure', which was a film about three women's struggles with eating disorders. It was a powerful, moving piece, which has deeply affected me - and I will be writing about it in more detail soon.

The event was put on by EDEN - The Eating Difficulties Education Network - and I am highly impressed by the organisation and the work they do.

I *was* going to purchase a pair of their Love Your Body Thunderpants (about the coolest pair of underwear you can get!), though I did a quiz on Facebook and was the winner, so I got a pair of Thunderpants for free (whoop whoop!)

SO, that means the money that I had put aside for the Thunderpants is now available to purchase another pair which I'm going to use as a giveaway.

They're a great product, for a great cause, for a great organisation. (And just to be clear, I am doing this not because they asked me to, and not because they're giving me a pair to flog off; I'm doing this because I want to.)

To enter this competition, here's what you do:

Complete this sentence.

"I Love My Body Because..."

The answer can be as long or short as you like, and you can enter as many times as you like. You can either leave me a comment on this post, or email me at mmmarshmallow@gmail.com - if you have me as a friend on Facebook, you can send me a message on there, leave a message on my wall if you like, it's up to you. I don't have Twitter or MySpace, so I won't be able to accept entries there.

Entries are open to everyone, anywhere on the globe. I will pay for the cost of any shipping. The winner will be selected by randomised draw. (I'll be modifying the competition software that I used for the last giveaway for this one).

Get in your entries before Wednesday the 28th of October: 9pm New Zealand Time. This is the equivalent of:

Los Angeles, USA - 1am
Denver, USA - 2am
New York, USA - 4am
London, UK - 8am
Amsterdam, Netherlands - 9am
Cape Town, South Africa - 10am
Singapore - 4pm

To find out what time this is in your part of the world (if not listed above), you can find out by visiting The World Clock - Time Zone Converter.

Always a Bridesmaid - My way or The Our way

2009-10-15T21:30:00.000+13:00

Previously...

Before I continue with this series, let me just clarify something that I didn't make very well in the last post.

Firstly, the guy who approached me was dressed in official looking clothing. I'm not familiar with how the police dress in the USA (and I'm not going to automatically assume that everything I see on TV is true), and given that I saw another policeman not so long afterwards, their getup was pretty similar. Also, he gave me a receipt for the LAPD. It's still highly likely that he was just a really intelligent con artist who had just researched what the Los Angeles Police Department wear, and faked some receipts, but even so, it was a pretty convincing act - and I guess I was sucked in. Just as well all I lost was $10NZ.

But anyways, that's all done.

During my time in line through security, baggage claim and customs, I had been updating my beautiful friend Kada on my progress. She was completely astonished when I called her to tell her that Well Whaddya Know I Cleared Through LAX In Less Than Half The Expected Time. She was fully intending on having a shower and a nap while waiting for me to get through the airport bureaucracy, though my Speedy Gonzalez impersonation managed to thwart that plan (whoops!)

In New Zealand, it is currently not illegal to use cellphones while driving. It will be from the 1st of November, but currently, it isn't. In California, this is not the case - you cannot use a cellphone while driving unless you use a hands-free kit. Kada had only very recently bought a cellphone on my pending arrival to the country so that we could keep in touch in real time, so she was only just figuring it out. She called me while she was coming into the terminal where I was located to collect me, getting me to describe my surroundings and from that, trying to figure out where the hell I was.

She was in the outer lane, though needed to be in the inner lane, the one closest to the terminal. She managed to spot me, and very quickly switched lanes. Unfortunately, the person she happened to cut in front of was a cop, who as you can imagine, was none too impressed that not only he had been cut in front of , but the person who had done so, was talking on a cellphone while driving. Oh my!

So would you believe it, the first time that I saw Kada, she was exasperated at having being pulled over by a policeman - heck, I was standing there thinking, "Man... not even an hour in LA and there seems to be a LOT of interaction with the police!" Thankfully, the policeman gave her a warning, so she didn't have to pay a fine. It certainly would've been a quite awful start to my visit to the country if it'd resulted in handing money over to the police twice. And somehow, I don't think Kada would've been able to walk away with just $10NZD out of pocket had the cop handed out a fine. O_O

The drive from the airport to Kada's house was full of novelties. Firstly, I was stunned by the number of streets that were Boulevards. Yes, I am being serious. Back home, the only Boulevard I was familiar with was Green Day's one Of Broken Dreams. Other things that blew my mind was seeing fractions on distance signs... exits on the freeway being 3 and a quarter miles away, as opposed to 3.25 miles away. OMG HUGE DIFFERENCES, PEOPLE!!! *faint*

I must say this... Americans, while I love you, I was quite thankful and fortunate that my first adventures in the U S Of A were alongside an Australian. Kada was understanding at my OMG YOU'RE ABOUT TO TURN INTO THE PATH OF THAT ONCOMING CAR IN THE LEFT LANE hyperventilalicious panic attacks at every right turn that she made in her car. She giggled knowingly every time I cringed and braced myself and squealed like a 6 year old. Oh man!

Kada took me to her humble abode, a quaint apartment, with a courtyard which reminded me a lot of crime movies I'd seen on TV (oh man Kada I'm so sorry, it really DID remind me of crime movies I'd seen on TV where the bad guys have their hideouts and then make a hasty getaway!), and when we were in her apartment, I handed to her a gift which I'd brought from Kiwiland. When I had bought the items for Kiddlywink's virtual baby shower, I had fully intended to post it and for it to be truly virtual. In fact, that was what I had expected. It was so hard to believe that I was actually sitting in Kada's living room while she unwrapped the goodies that I had sent her. So. Very Awesome. I also had the chance to open the incredibly delectable bunch of goodies that she had bought me for my birthday; which was bottle upon bottle of Oh So Delicious spices - a gift which of course sends a foodie like me absolutely through the roof with delight. And the tub of mint hot chocolate, o.m.f.g. I wubs.

A quick shower... I spent less under running water than I did figuring out which tap was which and why there were so many knobs and levers and what on earth did they do, etc. If there's three things you want to do as soon as you're done with a long haul flight - it's shower, eat, and sleep. I was able to tick two off that list thanks to Kada; whereas if I didn't have her, it would've been a boring layover at Los Angeles Airport, oy vey.

Kada rustled up a fantabulicious salad and some spaghetti which I gobbled with gusto. I loved that salad so much that I wished I could've emptied out my suitcases and taken on 50 lbs of Kada Salad to my next destination. Or rather, I wish I could've folded up in a strategic manner and taken HER on to my next destination; but given that she was pregnant with Kiddlywink at the time, such great feats of magicianry (What? You don't think I'm capable of this?) were *probably* not the best idea.

We made a mad rush back to the airport, trying to find the terminal that I was departing from. Kada had suggested that the e-ticket I had should have the departing domestic terminal printed on it - it had the terminal printed for my return flight to Los Angeles, but not for my outgoing one, so it was a case of driving around the departure lane of the airport to try and find which terminal we were leaving from.

In Auckland, there are two terminals. The domestic, and international. They're two separate buildings, and are right next to each other. If you're being taken To The Airport, you drive in the same direction, and then 2 minutes before you drive up to the entrance, you're asked, "Domestic or International?" The fact that there was at least 6 terminals and they were airline related rather than destination related (and as I would find out later, even this wasn't particularly reliable) had me scratching my head a bit.

We were running quite close to the end of my check in time, so Kada and I saw an airport staff member sitting outside... probably on his break. We decided to ask him. Kada wound down the window and I leaned out. The man, sensing that I was going to ask him a question, got up and came towards us. I said, "Excuse me, do you know which terminal Frontier airlines is?" He said, "Huh?" and leaned in closer. Slightly louder, I said "Do you know which terminal Frontier airlines is?" And he directed us to Terminal 6. I thanked him and we drove off. Kada said, "You asked him the 'our' way."

The 'our' way? What is this 'our' way, you speak of? I didn't realise this, but in New Zealand and Australia, when we ask people for help, we are soft spoken, discrete, and only ask if we've been unable to Do It Ourselves. This way, is 'our' way. It wouldn't be long before I began experiencing the differences on a frequent basis. That man was wondering why the hell I was talking so damn quietly!

After a quick goodbye to Kada, knowing that we'd see each other again soon, I went to check in at the Frontier desk. Not knowing the protocol, I rocked on up to the counter and said, "Hi!" Without saying anything - and looking rather grumpy, I might add - the woman pointed to a cluster of kiosks that I'd walked past.

Now I know that I work in IT and am a computer geek and love it when The Hyooman Factor is taken out of a lot of daily interactions (a new supermarket has just opened near my gym and I love it how it has self-service check outs) I was scratching my head over the kiosks. Maybe it was interchangable terminology that was throwing me off, or the fact that I was just nervous that I wasn't going to get to the gate in time. The Grumpy Lady at the desk saw that I was struggling, and while she didn't say anything at all, she came over to help me. I was relieved and said, "I'm sorry! I'm from ~~Noo Zeelind~~ New Zealand and this is all new to me!"

I got checked in (though was a bit taken aback by the check in fee for luggage - that wasn't something I was expecting!), and headed over for my first encounter with American Departure Security.

Firstly, I had to strip naked.

...

Okay no I didn't have to strip naked. But heck, with the several layers I had on, certainly had my share of things to take off. And my shoes as well (omg serz?). I was nervous about the cellphones, the iPod, the camera, the keys and all other things I had with me that might set off the alarms. I was also nervous about the small bag of moisturisers and eucalyptus oil that Mummy Dearest had packed (in the small 50mL bottles that comply with airline regulations.

But no, none of those caused a problem.

Instead, it was the nummeriffic gifties that Kada gave me that was raising the eyebrows of the Los Angeles ground security crew. The woman looked at the container of Mint Hot Chocolate and said, "Is this liquid?"

I'm like, "Uh... no, it's powder. It's hot chocolate."

She looked at me skeptically and said, "Are you sure?"

I started feeling nervous. "Well... my friend bought it for me, I only got it 20 minutes ago. It looks like a normal tub of hot chocolate to me...?"

She still looked at me with a raised eyebrow, completely disbelieving. She took the jar, and began swabbing it. I thought OH HELLZ NO SHE CANNOT BE SERIOUS. Why would anyone POISON perfectly good hot chocolate with ZE DRUGZ?!

She put the swab into the drug detection machine, and it returned no trace of drugs, as expected. You know what I reckon? She was trying to find a way to steal my hot chocolate. Well Airport Lady, it's mine, you can't have any. *hiss*

Despite being rushed and concerned about not making the check in time for the flight, I did enough waiting around to board the plane - and I must admit, through the crackly microphones, I found it really difficult to understand what the announcers were saying with regards to Which Rows Are Now Currently Boarding. I would ask other passengers "Which rows are boarding now?", and firstly, they had trouble understanding me, and once they finally understood me, I had trouble understanding them. Should've just spoken French and be done with it! Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? (Uh... maybe not such a good idea.)

Phase 1 of my inbound journey was complete. Phase 2 was about to begin, and in grand style...!

To be continued...

Blogging? What is this you speak of?

2009-10-06T18:45:00.000+13:00

I hate that I haven't updated this blog in so long.

I hate that I have so much in my head that I want to write about but I seem to find it impossible to sit down and write it out.

I don't think I've been myself for quite sometime now. I don't like it one bit.

I want to be myself again, though with the way things are at the moment, I have no idea how.

Does it make any sense when I say, "I feel like I've lost myself?"

Because that is the way I feel right now.

Forgive me, but I feel the need to vent.

2009-08-28T21:25:00.000+12:00

I was in the gym today, and my regular Friday routine is to set up my RPM bike and have a sauna before the class starts. This might sound odd, but firstly, it warms up the muscles a bit, and secondly, the shower refreshes me and I feel like I've washed off all of the 'bleh'ness of the day.

When I was going into the showers, I ended up slipping over and despite my best efforts to clutch onto cubicle doors and whatnot in an attempt to steady myself, I instead went crashing to the floor, my right elbow taking most of the impact, and my right side taking the rest. It was embarrassing, though several people came to my aide and asked me if I was okay.

That's not the issue, I'm fine with that. I'm very sore right now, but I'm fine with that.

Because my right side (particularly right butt cheek, hamstring, and the right side of my lower back) are sore, walking around is a bit uncomfortable. As I got up from watching a bit of cricket, my Mum guffawed at my inability to walk properly. I said, "Very funny, huh? I'd like to see YOU in that gym!"

To which she responded, "Yeah, and I'd do a better job than you."

I'll always be a failure in her eyes, no matter how much I am working out. If I am not thin, which I am not, and have given up any thought of ever being, then I will be a disappointment.

I am working on finding a way to move out of home, though it's not an immediate possibility.

Statements like that make me wish it was.

Ello...?

2009-08-26T06:45:00.000+12:00

Yes, I am still here.

If you follow C&E as well as this blog, you'll know that my focus has been there getting the posts from the recent Les Mills filmings up. That information is more time critical, so I need to get it written first.

Once I'm done with that, hopefully regular blogging service should resume.

Miss you all.

Get your Vote on

2009-08-05T08:45:00.000+12:00

Right people, I'm still as flat out as a pancake and have had ZERO time in front of my computer to do any noteworthy blogging... and in fact, the only reason why I'm able to write this today is because I'm on annual leave so I can attend the Les Mills Quarterly filmings that are taking place today. I still have no idea how to work blogging back into my regular rotation of Things To Do, though I'll get there once things have calmed down.

But! If any of you are still around, I'm giving you a call to action to vote for my girl Gaayathri Nair for the 2009 CLEO Young Achiever award.

Here's the blurb from the voting page:

22-year-old Gaayathri Nair is an Honours student, an activist and the Youth Worker for EDEN (eden.org.nz).

"Through EDEN (Eating Difficulties Education Network) I’m working with high school kids to promote wellbeing and body satisfaction, which is affecting more and more people these days. I visit four schools once a fortnight and also do presentations at other schools. I also do workshops on the effects dieting has on the body, looking at the media from a critical perspective, and helping people realise that what you see isn’t real – people just need to learn how to look at things. My goal is also to go overseas and be an activist for women’s health in the developing world – that’s one of the areas that gets jipped in terms of money and resources."

[bold emphasis mine]

She's a reader of this blog and through EDEN, is doing fabulous work.

Get your vote on, people - you don't need to register or nothing, it's just a simple clickity click! :-D

And we're good to go!

2009-07-25T20:30:00.000+12:00

Right! I'm all domain-ed up now, and these are the new links to the blogs:

AYGTET - http://hungry.mmmarshmallow.com
C&E - http://sweaty.mmmarshmallow.com
DYHAXLIT - http://large.mmmarshmallow.com
LP&BM - http://random.mmmarshmallow.com

I haven't thoroughly tested this in feed readers, though for those of you who have the blogspot address still in your blogrolls/links/whatever, that address will autodirect to the new one, so if you are anything like me and take forever to get around to updating things, you don't need to be in any hurry to do so :-)

So if we look at a summarised list of what I've got to do, I can already cross one off.

~~Moving the blogs over to my domain~~.
Write a couple of book reviews that are long overdue.
Completing the Always a Bridesmaid series.
Write some To Do Lists
Have a good old fashioned vent about how I'm feeling

The rest of them, I imagine, will take some time - especially since I'm caught up with Les Mills filming madness and overseas people being here for the next three weeks. Never mind that The Ashes are on, and I want to watch as much of it as I can. I be a busy busy bee.

The book reviews are next on the list, since those are much more overdue than Always a Bridesmaid, though that involves me re-reading some books, gah. Hopefully I'll get the time in to do those soon.

Hope you all are doing well!

Any minute now...

2009-07-25T19:00:00.000+12:00

Right, I'll be transferring this blog over to my custom domain soon.

You might not be able to access the blog for a few hours. I'm sure you can be without me for that long :-P

AYGTET has been moved

2009-07-19T19:15:00.004+12:00

Well, that was fast.

AYGTET is the first of the four blogs that is going to be shifted, and has been moved from hungrymarshmallow.blogspot.com to

hungry.mmmarshmallow.com

Anyone who goes to the old blogspot address should be automatically redirected to the new one, though I'm not sure what the effect it'll have on RSS feeds. Lemme know if you see anything quirky.

With that in respect, I will be moving over the rest of the blogs (C&E, LP&BM, and DYHAXLIT) in 5 days time. I'll put up an announcement just before I've done the move and then again when it's all done.

The things you find yourself doing when you write them down...

[EDIT]: Also! I've finally utilised the Embedded Comment Form functionality on this blog. I've been trying to style it so that it looked like it actually fitted in with the theme of the blog, and I think I've gotten close enough. A couple of minor tweaks I'd like to make, but I'll take it for now

Nonsensical Fluff: I pity the fail

2009-07-19T12:30:00.003+12:00

Laughing twice in two days?

Must be some kind of record.

Ahhhh, them young folks these days and their witty sentiments. It all gets a bit much sometimes, I can't keep up.

As an aside, here's what I'm working on in terms of what's blog related.

First and foremost, moving the blogs over to my domain. I haven't even looked at what's required here, though it's the first thing I want to get sorted. Not least at all it means that I can access the blog at work, ahahha! ... No, that's a lie, I still won't be able to access the blog at work (in fact, I will probably be asking The Boss to block the site to prevent me from accessing it).
Work on writing a couple of book reviews that are long overdue. I've been lucky enough to be exposed to some great fat acceptance literature, and I've been meaning to work on the reviews for a VERY long time, and for those who have put their faith in me, I'm sorry that I've been so damn disappointing. I will get there. I must admit, all of the changes to my life at the moment has kinda thrown me out of sorts, and it's going to take a bit of adjusting.
Get a move on completing the Always a Bridesmaid series. Oh boy, there is a LOT of work to be done here, the thought of it is quite daunting. I've uploaded a bunch of photos, but there are many more that I want to use that are on various discs that I need to rummage up. Never mind the ones that I want to modify and Lolercise^[1] by being all captiontastic. Because there's so much content here (I honestly imagine like, 15 posts or something ridiculous as such), I'll probably be putting regular content in between each post.
Write some To Do Lists associated with other areas of my life. Not least of all is the health and fitness front, among other things. One of the hard things I've had accepting this year is that I cannot run. If my ankle is uncomfortable in a zero impact spinning class, how on earth can I run 10km? I entered five RunAuckland races, and how many did I do? One. That's a rather depressing thought for me. Most of the races I consciously assessed my body's strength and decided I was not up to it - though one course I thought I could handle the 5km walk, yet I slept in and missed the race. In years gone by, that would've been a nightmare, but I woke up, looked at the time and went "Ah well...". That ain't a Marshmallow reaction! If I can't channel the passion into running, I need to channel it somewhere else. I've made the switch from training to exercise and I'm not sure I enjoy the lack of purpose very much. Some serious thinking is to be done here.
Have a good old fashioned vent about what's been happening. I can't publish details about a lot of what's been happening and why I've been so down (and for those of you whom I've confided in, I'd appreciate it if you'd be discrete and not leave any comments that could be taken and extrapolated), but I *can* publish about how I've been feeling. Despite having so many good things happening both now, and the future, the thought of all of them does not excite me at all - it makes me feel tired. I've got a busy busy busy time ahead with some good friends who read C&E coming from The Netherlands and Melbourne for a few weeks, and I plan to show them a hell of a good time while they're here - though once they've gone back home, I'd like to be a boring fuddy duddy for a while and have NOTHING happen to me, kthx. I need to vent about that, my soul needs a good cleanse.

So while I'm down, I'm definitely not out. There is stuff to be done, and goddammit, it will get done, and I will get back into it. The nonsensical fluff posts will keep me connected in the meantime, though I will be back good and proper. Just you wait.

[1] - And omfg, 'lolercise' has got to be the best damn word ever.

Nonsensical Fluff: One of them Human Peoples

2009-07-18T19:00:00.000+12:00

I'm slightly obsessed with Not Always Right, tales of customer interactions, most of them painting the customer in a OMFG YOU CANNOT BE THAT DUMB kinda light. When you deal with rough characters it's a relief to go and read and develop a superiority complex by going "At least our customers aren't THAT dumb."

I happened to get the first true, authentic laugh I've had in a long time from this wee sucker.

Me: “Thank you for calling tech support. How can I help you?”

Customer: “Hello?”

Me: “Hello?”

Customer: “Hello?”

Me: “Hello?”

Customer: “Hey Jon, check this out! The machine says hello back when I say hello!”

Me: “I’m not a machine, sir.”

Customer: “OH MY GOD, IT’S ADDRESSING ME!”

Me: “No, sir, I’m not a machine!”

Customer: “Oh… so you’re one of them human peoples?”

Me: “Yes, sir, I am a human peoples.”

All together now.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!

Mad Marshy: Anaesthesiology? Too Risky if You're Fat.

2009-07-14T18:45:00.001+12:00

I saw this post over at First, Do No Harm. I'm going to quote the post in its entirety because a) it's short, and b) it had me so angry that I was almost in tears.

Even though my experience with my doctor when I originally injured my ankle was bad, thank goodness it didn't have the impact on my self esteem and respect for doctors that it has on this person.

I’ve had an ankle condition for the last ten years that doctors have been ignoring because of my weight. It finally looked as though I might be able to have surgery to ameliorate the problem. And then I met the anaesthetist.

“Hello, my name is Dr X. We have a big problem; your weight.”

“Yes, I’m aware it’s a problem.”

“Well, you know what the cause of that is, don’t you? It’s eating too much.”

The consultation went downhill from there. He told me I was at a higher risk for problems from the general anaesthetic (which I knew) but couldn’t or wouldn’t give me any idea of the scale of the risk, despite repeated asking.

He insisted that I cut my food intake in half and lose weight quickly for the operation, and told me to my face that I was lying about my dieting history (all twenty unsuccessful years of it), and that he ‘didn’t believe’ the results of obesity studies. He also informed me that it was healthier to regularly lose and regain weight than it is to keep a stable weight. In short, he gave me inaccurate and actively dangerous advice, and left me in tears with no way of making an informed decision.

At the moment I’m strongly considering giving up all idea of correcting my ankle condition, and just resigning myself to being unable to walk. And when I get fatter and less healthy from lack of exercise, I’m sure that’ll be my fault for eating too much as well.

I’m so angry about this. But what’s the point in complaining?

[formatting and emphasis mine]

I feel the need to punch something.

Nearly there...

2009-07-12T17:00:00.000+12:00

Things have gone from bad to worse as far as my life is concerned - I'm very close to being at that rock bottom point where there is nowhere to go but up.

I've started work on compressing the 500+ photos from the trip to the USA, only to find that some of the photos I want are on separate discs, so I'll need to find those and compress them also. Once I've got those uploaded, I'll be able to work properly on the posts again.

My computer time is seriously compromised, so while I hope it's not too long before you start seeing some posts, it'll be longer than I would've liked.

For those of you who are still there, thank you. Knowing that you are out there definitely makes going through all of this easier. I miss you.

Question: What does a Lazy Blogger do?

2009-06-28T10:45:00.002+12:00

Answer: They sing a song, upload it to YouTube, and call it blog content.

I'm still on hiatus - I've got even more emotional crap to deal with now. But I will be back.

Extended Hiatus

2009-06-21T23:59:00.000+12:00

I'm afraid that I have bigger problems than computer issues now.

This morning my cousin whom I am very close to was caught in the midst of a suicide attempt. My aunt and uncle entered the shed at the back of their property to find him tying ropes to the rafters from which he was going to hang himself.

We've already had two suicides over Christmas of another family member and his partner - and that affected us very much and we weren't particularly close to them.

This cousin know well, though not well enough to see or know how much pain he was in.

I'll be back, when I've recovered from the shock.

Oh I give up

2009-06-21T10:30:00.000+12:00

SERIOUS computer issues, folks.

Haven't been able to get onto a working machine at home, and at work blogger is blocked. And don't tell me to use proxies, several of those have been blocked as well, so it's a strong signal to tell us to STOP EET with the non-work activity. (even though I was *actually* reading some software development blogs that have now been blocked, which is kinda a bummer).

I don't know when I'll be up and running again, but I hope it is soon. I miss youz all.

Always a Bridesmaid - You're just an L.A. Girl

2009-06-14T15:15:00.008+12:00

Previously...

So it Begins

I spent the majority of the flight into Los Angeles writing in my journal, completely oblivious to the fact that the cabin lights had been turned off around me. At one point I looked around and went, "Holy crap, I should probably go to sleep!", given that the flight left Auckland after 9pm. Though I fell into the writers trap of "After I've finished this paragraph..." It's like the opposite of Writer's Block. Writer's Open Floodgates, maybe. If that's even a condition.

Anyway!

I'd heard in full excruciating detail how notoriously awful Los Angeles security clearance, baggage claim and customs processing is. One hour at least to clear security, and one hour at least to clear customs.

I somehow had managed to score a seat on the plane that was only a couple of rows behind business class, and since I strategically had no carry on luggage apart from my handbag, I was able to zoom up the aisles of the plane and into the terminal incredibly quickly. The majority of business class and first class travellers were American Citizens, so they went to a different security queue to me. Even with ducking off to the side to grab a thick wad of Visa Waiver Program forms (I'd been given so many conflicting information as to whether I needed to apply electronically etc, that in the end I went with what the Qantas guys told me), strategically picking the version that was less confusing (WHY would you need to fill in a Visa Application number on a Visa Waiver form? Isn't the whole point of filling in a Visa Waiver form because you DON'T HAVE a Visa? *headdesk*), I somehow only ended up 4th in line.

After only a couple of minutes, I was called over by one of the guys. I had taken my glasses off, since on my passport photo I'm not wearing them, so not only was I in a jetlagged, 12-hour flight without decent sleep stupor, I was also blurralicious.

My Mum had been panicking about people telling her that you had to submit fingerprints on arrival to the USA. It's not something I've ever had to do on any of my travels to Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, Singapore and Malaysia - though I think my Mum's mind was still back in the 1980's and she was freaked out about walking around with black ink all over her hands. Infa-red, people - we be livin' in the 21st century, yo.

The African American guy who was the security officer asked me how long I was staying in the USA for.

This question took a good 10 seconds to register in my brain before I finally managed to blurt out "9 days!"

As he noted this down, I began to think "Oh gawd... that took too long, didn't it? He's going to think I'm a terrorist!" I quickly blabbered, "Uh... sorry, my brain tends to be quite slow after a long flight."

The officer threw his head back and let out a huge laugh. I looked around, a bit nervously. Sure I have the tendency to be funny... but... really?

After he stopped laughing, he said, "Oh aight, I'm there wi'choo on 'dat."

I had to do a double take. WHAT had he just said? It was like an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air had just occurred in front of me, right there at the airport.

He waved me on through and wished me all the best with the rest of my trip - knowing I had more travelling to do since the address I had given was not a Californian one.

As I walked away from security clearance to the baggage carousel, I turned to look behind me, and nearly fell over when I saw how big the line had gotten. My security clearance took a matter of minutes to get through, and from all accounts, I had heard that it was on average, an hour long wait. From what I saw behind me, it was no wonder. Very few people working at the desks, and a massive line of tired, grumpy passengers. And if the slightest thing was wrong with your form, you get sent to the back of the queue. Which is fair enough, I suppose, but given how confusing I found the forms AND that there are different versions of the same ones, I can see that happening quite often.

I walked over to the carousel where I was to collect my luggage from my flight. I had cleared through security so quickly that none of the bags had come onto the belt yet. I grabbed a trolley and waited. After a few minutes, the bags started to come down onto the belt, and holy crap, the first one was mine. The FIRST one was mine! It caught me off guard so much that I started running around the carousel after it to catch up; I didn't expect it to be the first one and it literally passed me by.

Being the first to collect my bag meant I was the first to go to Customs. The customs officer looked at my arrival documentation, and sent me over to the X-Ray machine. When I handed the woman my arrival documentation, she asked me what food I had brought into the United States. Given a severe lack of Tim Tams, Mint Slices, Toffee Pops, Cadbury and Whittakers in the United States, I felt I should grace my hosts with a significant amount of the aforementioned. Also, I'd brought packet upon packet of things from The Natural Confectionery Company.

So when she asked me what foods I'd brought into the country, here's what happened.

Marshmallow	Just some chocolates, biscuits, and lollies.
L.A. Customs Lady	blank stare
Marshmallow	Uh... chocolates, biscuits and lollies?
L.A. Customs Lady	blank stare
Marshmallow	I... err... oh hang on, chocolates, cookies and candy?
L.A. Customs Lady	Ohhhhhh well why didn't you say so!

To think, we were both speaking English.

She promptly put my suitcase on the belt after I'd said I only had chocolates, ~~biscuits and lollies~~ cookies and candy, and sent it through the X-Ray machine. After collecting the bag off the belt and walking down the corridor for a bit, I suddenly was in the arrivals hall.

That whole process was supposed to have taken me two hours. It didn't even take me half of that.

As I stood there in the arrivals hall, straight away people started coming up to me, saying "Do you need any help?" I would reply, "No thanks, I'm good." About four or five airport staff came up to me, asking me if I needed help, and I was wondering what the crap it would do to take them to go away.

I phoned the blogger who I was supposed to meet, and she was flabbergasted at how quickly I'd cleared security and customs. Since I now had more than enough time, she suggested that she come and pick me up, and that we go back to her place for a shower and a feed. Ahhhh, this girl knows what it's like to be a long haul traveller - there's nothing like a shower after a long flight, so the suggestion was incredibly appealling.

I passed through the doors of the arrivals hall and out onto the road to get my first glimpse of Los Angeles. I stood there and looked to my right. And then realised all of the cars were coming in the other direction, ahhhhh what the hell.

I was only out there for a few minutes when I felt someone beside me, I turned and it looked like another airport official. He said, "Can I help you with anything?" Not interested in his help, I yet again, replied, No Thanks I'm All Good. Then he said, "Where are you from?"

Marshmallow	I uh...
Official Looking Guy	Are you from England?
Marshmallow	No, I'm from New Zealand
Official Looking Guy	Ohhhhhhhhh you're from Noo Zeelind
Marshmallow	Yeah, it's a pretty long flight to get here
Official Looking Guy	I just wanted to talk to you so that I could hear your accent :-D
Marshmallow	... right...

After this, I was hoping that the guy would leave me alone. But no, he was still standing there.

Official Looking Guy	So have you come here especially for Memorial Weekend?
Marshmallow	... Memorial... Weekend...?
Official Looking Guy	You don't know what Memorial Weekend is?
Marshmallow	We don't have Memorial Weekend in New Zealand
Official Looking Guy	Ohhhhhhhhh you don't have Memorial Weekend in Noo Zeelind.
Official Looking Guy	Let me tell you all about it then...

Given that I was tired, dirty, and hungry, and in all honesty, didn't give a crap about Memorial Weekend since we don't have it in ~~Noo Zeelind~~ New Zealand, I was on the verge of saying something terse to him so that he could Just Leave Me Alone.

It was just as well that I didn't.

Official Looking Guy	It's a day that we use to ~~honour~~ honor all of the men and women who put their lives on the line and fought for our country
Official Looking Guy	And I'm an officer for the Los Angeles Police Department...

You're a what for the WHAT!?!?!? Before, I was frustrated that this guy wouldn't leave me alone, but now I was like "What have I done? Please don't arrest me! It was him, over there! I'M INNOCENT!"

The Cop	...collecting donations for all of the children whose lives have been affected by the war
Marshmallow	Uh... okay
The Cop	Now even a small donation of twenty dollars would make a massive contribution...

Twenty Dollars?! I had paid significant fees on purchasing my American Dollars and I certainly was not liking the idea of handing a portion of my very limited American Currency... at the same time, I did not want to say "No thanks, I'm a stingy bitch, go away", to a COP.

The Cop

And we accept donations in all currencies...

What's that you say? All currencies? I wasn't happy about giving away any of my American Dollars... but my New Zealand dollars? To get the cop to leave me alone and stop making me feel so nervous?

Marshmallow	I think I've got some New Zealand currency with me... rummages through bag
The Cop	Any amount would be of great help to us, thirty-five, forty... fifty... seventy-five...
* Marshmallow looks at the two notes in her wallet... one $5NZD, one $10NZD. Picks up the $10NZD, after hearing the cop just say 'seventy-five'
* Marshmallow hands the ten dollar note to The Cop
* The Cop looks down at the ten dollars, thoroughly unimpressed
* The Cop begrudgingly takes the note

After he wrote a receipt and finally wandered off, saying a loud, "Happy Holiday!" as he left (which had me thinking in response, "Happy what holiday?" Downunder we still very much call Christmas 'Christmas', Easter 'Easter', and Ramadan 'Ramadan'. (and I'm going to offend people with that sentence aren't I? Oh dear...)), as I left contemplating the encounter I'd just had.

A few minutes, I felt peeved off. That cop just talked me out of ten bucks! There was OH SO MUCH I could've bought with that ten bucks. I haz a grumpeh.

I must say though, it's absolute genius to have cops going around collectiong donations. Everyone is far too freaked out by the presence of a police officer to say Nah Piss Off so they donate. I watched The Cop go and pull the same routine on several other unsuspecting tourists waiting for their hotel transfers.

As if one police encounter within the first hour of landing in Los Angeles wasn't enough... I was going to witness another one a very short time later.

To be continued...

Always a Bridesmaid - So it begins...

2009-06-09T21:00:00.001+12:00

After a week of being knocked out with the flu, and then having to get through a full work week thereafter, I was damn near exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was get on a plane and fly 12+ hours across the world. I just wanted to go to bed!

The flu not only drew me out of the Les Mills GFX Carnival Party which I'd been Oh So looking forward to going to (and even bought a knee-length red dress for, argh!), it left me with very little energy to prepare for the upcoming trip.

While the thought of the travel exhausted me, the actual destinations were beginning to excite me. Bloggers that I'd been talking to for years - assuming that I might never ever meet them in person - I'd be seeing them, sitting down with them, having a drink with them, an actual conversation.

Sure, I've met bloggers before. My trip to Melbourne was full of bloggers - and given how many bloggers seem to live in Melbourne, I'm nowhere near done with meeting them all :-D BUT, when I went on that trip, the trip was to Melbourne, not to the bloggers. The bloggers happened to be in Melbourne. THIS trip was because of the blogger.

The fact that this blogger was in the USA was incidental.

They could have been anywhere. They could've been in London, South Africa, Australia, Singapore - but the particular blogger that was the objective of this trip was in the USA. Instead of seeing Melbourne and happening to meet a blogger while I was there, I was going to be meeting a blogger and happening to see the USA while I was there.

It's a very different sort of feeling. In Melbourne, if something fell through with someone I was meeting, it wasn't that big a deal. I could go back to my hotel room and have a nap, or go and do something else. In theory, if something went wrong on this trip, I was screwed.

This was pointed out to me several times by people I associated with. They were completely disbelieving that I was traveling across the world to see someone that I'd been incredibly close friends with and that I wasn't worried about it. If anything, while being friends with her, the only irritating thing was that we HADN'T met. We would scratch our heads thinking "HOW can we be this close and not have met each other?! It's a travesty!"

In the lead up to the event, another USA blogger that I am close to happened to come online. She had been dealing with other things while flights were being booked, so it didn't quite occur to me that I could've killed two birds with one stone and met both of them, since I would be flying into Los Angeles, where this blogger is primarily based. She asked me what my layover was between my flights into Los Angeles, and out to my final destination - both on my incoming and outgoing trips. When I found myself saying the number of hours between the flights, it began to sink in that I wouldn't just be meeting one close blogging friend, I'd be meeting TWO. It didn't matter that it wasn't going to be for a very long time - even a soft drink in a McDonalds would've well exceeded any form of real life interaction I had imagined.

It really only occurred to me when I was sitting at the gate waiting to board that Oh My God, this is actually happening.

You can imagine the excitement I felt as I handed my boarding pass to the woman at the gate and I made my way to my seat on the plane.

That, was only the beginning.

To be continued...

Errrr...

2009-06-07T16:30:00.000+12:00

Yeah sorry about that, I haven't really done any blogging like I said I would, have I?

The main reason is because they've finally blocked Blogger at work - I used to be able to chip in a paragraph here and there during the day when I needed a break from workstuff, though now no more. I tried writing it up in a text file or in an email but goddamm, eet jus wazzna the saaaaaaaaame.

I'm housesitting for a friend at the moment, so in between watching the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup, doing my washing and cooking and all that jazz and hopefully getting back into the swing of things with exercise - I should be able to sit and blog.

I guess the other thing is that there's SO much to write about that it's like a huge mountain of content sitting in front of me, and I look at it and am all like "*gulp*... uh... maybe later..."

I know that once I start, it'll be awesome. There's also the mammoth task of processing the photos so that I can use them in the blog post, but once I do it all, it'll be awesome. I hope. I know that I'll continue to look back over the posts and relive the whole experience and go "Yeeeeeah. Those were some damn good times."

In the meantime, I will continue to apologise profusely in the hope that some of you are still out there!

Return of The Marshmallow

2009-05-30T08:35:00.003+12:00

I'm back from my overseas adventures - with a WHOLE lot of stuff I want to write but seemingly without a spare moment to do it! I'm going to try and carry on with a few teaser posts like the last three that you've read whilst I work on the several monstrosities I have planned in the background, so bear with me, to plz?

Was it a good trip? Absolutely.

Detailed accounts are yet to come, as well as photos.

Always a Bridesmaid - Part 3

2009-05-24T08:00:00.000+12:00

Marshmallow	No no no, you don't GET IT
Marshmallow	The dress HAS to be middle-of-the-knee length!
Marshmallow	I have no say in the matter!
Mum	But it looks so much better at the longer length...
Mum	Are you sure you can't convince her that it'd look better this way?
Marshmallow	You're just trying to cover me up, it'll look good when it's shorter.
Mum	But I think it looks better with your legs covered up
Marshmallow	It doesn't matter what you think, it's HER wedding, she decides the length of the dress!
Marshmallow	She wants us to show off our hot legs!
The Tailor	And so you should!
* Mum stares daggers at The Tailor

Always a Bridesmaid - Part 2

2009-05-22T08:00:00.000+12:00

Part 1: This takes place around mid-March, and is a conversation between me and my Mum.

Marshmallow	You know how I told you about [my friend] who's getting married in May?
Mum	Yeeees...
Marshmallow	Before she just wanted me to attend, but now she wants me to be involved, and she's even willing to cover the cost of my airfare out to the USA
Marshmallow	Do you think I should do it?
Mum	OF COURSE!
Mum	You'd be STUPID to turn down an opportunity like that!
Marshmallow	:-D
Mum	Pity she didn't ask you sooner though
Mum	Then you could've lost weight for it
Marshmallow	headdesk

Part 2: This takes place at the end of March, and is a conversation between me and my personal trainer.

Marshmallow	And she said "Pity she didn't ask you sooner though, then you could've lost weight for it!"
Marshmallow	What a thing to say!
Adam	I know, I don't understand what she was trying to achieve
Adam	Because what are you supposed to do
Adam	Start going to the gym?

Always a Bridesmaid - Part 1

2009-05-20T08:00:00.000+12:00

Tamara's Husband	This wedding that you're going to, it's in the USA, yeah?
Marshmallow	Yep.
Tamara's Husband	How do you know your friend?
Marshmallow	Through blogging.
* Tamara's Husband pauses
Tamara's Husband	Have you MET her before?
Marshmallow	Nope.
Tamara's Husband	That's AWESOME!

Aaaaaaaaand we're outta here

2009-05-18T08:00:00.000+12:00

I'm off for a couple of weeks - though I have some scheduled posts that will publish while I'm away. In fact, they will be teaser posts to the big monstrosity that I'll be publishing when I get back; and will give a bit of insight on what I'm going to be up to for the next wee while.

Doesn't make sense? Don't worry, it will :-)

That flu looks fantastic on you!

2009-05-12T08:00:00.005+12:00

Someone	WOW!
Someone	You've lost so much weight since I saw you last week!
Someone	What have you been doing? I need to do the same thing.
Marshmallow	Well...
Marshmallow	All I did was catch this godawful flu that made me want to pass out every time I stood up. My entire body was aching and I was constantly feverish, sweating and shivering at the same time. I was sleeping on average 20 hours a day, my longest stretch of sleep was 26 hours. I spent so much time sleeping that I didn't eat, it was terrible.
Someone	Woooooooow!
Someone	See, there's a good side to everything, keep it up!
Marshmallow	facepalm

I'm here...

2009-05-04T09:00:00.002+12:00

...just kinda half dead.

Awfully sick. Haven't been this sick for a long long time.

Your Comments: Daddy's Metabolism

2009-04-29T12:30:00.002+12:00

Question for y'all.

Should I, as someone who is practising health at every size be pissed off by hearing this on the plane from the row of seats behind me:

Someone's Mummy	You're just a cutie wutie little bubby aren't you?
Someone's Mummy	You're a cutie wutie chubby wubby boy!
Someone's Mummy	Let's hope chubby wubby boy's got his Daddy's metabolism
Someone's Mummy	Then chubby wubby can eat whatever he likes!

Your options are as follows.
a) - Pissed off at the Mum for making fun of her kid's baby fat
b) - Pissed off at the Mum for the 'cutie wutie' crap
c) - a & b
d) - No reason to get pissed off at all

What do you reckon?

[Edit] - Adding in another option as The Better Idiot's comment was so awesome.

e) - Pissed off that the Mum is imprinting a negativity about weight from such an early age

Your Comments: Imminent Domain

2009-04-24T08:30:00.001+12:00

Things have been manic, I have SO many things to blog about but not enough time to do it! In fact, I took a look at my calendar and the next free day I have is on the 1st of June(?!) RIDICULOUS!

Expect posting to be sparse, though I'll try to be working on several drafts so that you get a whole lot of content in the future. I might come and post a couple of fluff posts just so you can be assured that I'm still alive :-)

But firstly! Big news for the blog :-D

My incredible friend Amal got me the most amazing birthday present...

...my very own domain!

I am now the proud owner of www.mmmarshmallow.com

I was literally SPEECHLESS when Amal gave me this incredible present, I couldn't form any words to adequately describe how blown away I was.

So there will be changes when I shift everything over to the new domain, AHHH!

Here's your chance to have a say - currently all four of my blogs (two of which I don't really post on regularly anymore, unfortunately) have been a variation of [something]marshmallow.blogspot.com. LP&BM, the oldest blog, had the url of my username for pretty much everything, mmmarshmallow, and thereafter, the other ones were 'themed' with sweatymarshmallow for the exercise blog, hungrymarshmallow for the food blog, and largemarshmallow for the weightloss blog.

The URLs might get a bit long if I were to keep them the way they are - and originally the 'hungry', 'sweaty' and 'large' were so that I had reserved the blog name but could change the blog title as often as I liked without confusing people too much.

The names are very stable now, so here's where I'd like your feedback. Do you guys have any suggestions on how the new addresses should be? Is it too much to type in hungrymarshmallow.mmmarshmallow.com, or shall I start utilising the acronyms and have something like mmmarshmallow.com/dyhaxlit and mmmarshmallow.com/cande etc.?

What do you reckon? Your thoughts on this would be AWESOME.

Hey Shorty, it's ya Birthday

2009-04-20T23:59:00.002+12:00

Mum	24, eh?
Mum	Man you're getting old
Marshmallow	...
Marshmallow	Admit it.
Marshmallow	You're wishing you were my age right this second.
Mum	...
Mum	sadly ...yes.

A Tale of Two Races

2009-04-19T20:00:00.001+12:00

PART 1: Capital Classic - 24th January

I haven't blogged much about my saga with The Protea, probably because it only seems dramatic to me since I have little-to-no experience in that arena. That, and one of the first things I did when I started talking to him was give him the links to both C&E and DYHAXLIT, and he occasionally reads (which honestly, I didn't expect him to do, since he spends hours reading cricket articles, I didn't think he had the time. And hey, don't be judging, y'all. I be spending hours reading all you peoples blogs!). I respect that he is a private person - unlike me who is all OMG HERE IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE AND THEN SOME, however, this little tidbit is slightly relevant to the event that I'm writing about. I didn't have the strength to write about it at the time, but now, I do.

In the very beginning, I was biting my fingernails, wondering whether he was interested in me or not. He went on holiday for a week, then came back and wasn't talking to me much at all, and I began preparing myself for one of two possibilities based on my conversations with him. a) Him moving overseas (which he eventually did do), and b) Him realising he wasn't ready and was still hurting from his previous relationship.

The day before I flew down to Wellington for the Capital Classic, he told me he had started dating someone else, which was a massive shock to me. I doubled back through everything, wondering what 'He's Just Not That Into You' signs I'd missed. That night, I couldn't sleep. I was just so completely stunned, and it hit me so hard - I didn't want to be hit that hard, but there was no denying how horrible I felt when he gave me that news.

I didn't want my first swim to be in Auckland. I wanted it to be somewhere else, away from my parents. My Mum openly said that she would never support me in an ocean swim, and I didn't want to be around people who didn't support me - I wanted to be away from them. Now, I wanted to be away from them for a different reason.

I asked Sarah-I to come down to Wellington with me for the first swim with a 750m Ocean Swim event - the Capital Classic on the 24th of January. I've been to Wellington before and loved the city, so it made sense for me to go down there.

Given that I'd been swimming upwards of 3km in the pool, I rather arrogantly thought that 750m in the ocean would be easily doable. And here's the kicker, I arrogantly thought I would be able to do it in any conditions. Hah. We'll get back to that point later.

The day that I flew down to Wellington, I turned up to work, pale and exhausted, and completely numb from what The Protea had told me. I could barely speak to anyone, I didn't have any appetite, and eventually my boss told me to go home because he thought I was sick (and didn't want anyone else in the office to catch whatever the hell kinda illness it was that I got.)

When I met Sarah-I at the airport, I could barely speak to her. She jabbered a bit and did her very best to keep me distracted, but I was too numb and shellshocked. The previous races I'd done, I was nervous, anxious, shitting myself, doubting myself. This time, I couldn't feel anything. I wasn't a living being that day, the only energy I had, I devoted to existing. Feeling, experiencing, that was too hard.

I badly, SO badly needed the euphoric feeling of completing a race to lift me up.

And eveywhere in Wellington, there were reminders of the purpose of being there.

Sarah-I's friend kindly had picked us up from the airport and taken us firstly to the registration site where I picked up my registration pack and got my number written on my hand.

The course in Wellington for both the 750m event and the 2.8km event took you around particular highlights of the Wellington Harbour - the 750m swim around the Fountain, and the 2.8km around the Lighthouse.

These, the fact that I love Wellington, and that it was away from my family who did not support me, made the Capital Classic look like a perfect event.

However, it was not to be.

Sarah-I and I woke up to a sunny day, and after a nutritious breakfast and half an hour trying to wriggle into my wetsuit - this after a relapse of my ankle injury putting me out of my regular gym routine for a wee while - I waddled down the road to the start line.

What you can't see was how choppy the water was. It was quite rough, though the announcer was talking about how the wind had dropped considerably overnight and it was much calmer than it had been in the past few days.

Given how ridiculous the wind was in the triathlon a year ago (heck, was it that long ago?!), I again, arrogantly thought I was going to be fine. I really needed the race to lift my spirits. I wanted SOMETHING to feel good about. The ankle injury had kept me out of the gym, and I was still only just dealing with the deaths close to the family and the legal squabbling that had ensued thereafter.

My arrogance was even more inflated after taking a quick dip to... 'warm up'. I say that in inverted commas because of how cold the water was! It was freezing, and I was very thankful for my wetsuit purchase.

Sarah-I and the lovely Charmaine were on the beach in support, and it was overwhelming. I really felt that I had more support in Wellington than I did in Auckland - sad in a way, but the fact that two beautiful people were there only for ME was incredible.

I pulled off a quick wave before the hooter went off.

That was probably my last genuine smile for my entire weekend in Wellington.

I walked into the water, not rushing, but definitely with some urgency. My last training swim before the race, I had done in 15 minutes. I was eager to be done with it and have it out of the way, to cross that finish line and feel that euphoria.

In fact, look at the post I wrote the very next day that said this (emphasis not from original post):

Unfortunately like everything else in my life at the moment, I failed to complete the Capital Classic.

You don't know how much I needed SOMETHING to go right, to feel one piece of euphoria and joy.

No. It didn't happen.

In the warm up dip I took, I swam in two directions - into the waves, and with the waves. When you swim into the waves, you can see the waves in front of you and moderate your stroke in time or duck your head under. Negative of this is that you tend to get a lot of salt water in your mouth. When you swim with the waves, you travel a bit faster as the waves carry you forward, but because you can't see them, you're not prepared for them, and the vertical drop that can occur catches you off guard.

By far the hardest was the one that I hadn't tried before. Swimming perpendicular to the waves. Trying to travel forward when the waves are pushing you sideways.

This was how we were travelling for the beginning stretch of the course. I felt the wind had picked up considerably from when the race briefing to when we hit the water, and because of the wave direction, I felt like I was getting no traction through the water at all. I tried as hard as I possibly could, taking mouthful after mouthful of salt water as the waves kept working against me, and the vertical drop from the height of the wave to the depth of it was huge - it quite possibly match the sinking feeling in my stomach that I had when I had that previous conversation with The Protea.

I glanced to my right, where I saw a lifeguard on a surfboard, watching the swimmers go past him. I know that I wouldn't have noticed him there if I wasn't struggling. I tried to ignore him, though as irritated swimmers swam over the top of me and collided with me as they tried to get past, I was exhausted, almost crying in the water, still feeling like I hadn't travelled anywhere, like I hadn't gotten any further from the start line. I felt like if the tide had gone out right at that moment, my chest would've been on the beach, my arms and legs flailing - like a bug who has been picked up yet still thrashes their legs about trying to run away.

I again look to the right at the lifeguard. Hating myself as I did so, I found myself raising my hand in the air. A couple of seconds later, the guy saw me and moved in my direction. He politely asked me how I was doing, and all I could splutter was "I can't... I just can't...". He signalled for the IRB (Inflatable Rescue Boat) and said to me gently, "You've done really well, you wouldn't catch me in that water!" It was lovely that he spoke so kindly, but it didn't help me with how much of a failure I felt, clinging to that surfboard. Not a moment later, the IRB arrived and the two lifeguards within it hauled me into the boat. It was a struggle and I was embarassed because I felt stiff, heavy, and my muscles wouldn't cooperate with me, so I couldn't help get myself into the boat as much as I wanted to.

The IRB dropped me back off to the beach - not without more embarassment since I went to climb out of the boat, though when I tried to, I ended up rolling back in (whoops!) since again, my legs didn't cooperate with me. In the end, I rolled off the side of the boat without trying land properly, falling down in a mangled heap. An official cut my timing chip off my ankle and Sarah-I and Charmaine came to my side straight away as I burst into tears.

For days later, I tried to blame The Protea. Like I blamed The Jerk for my back injury - and rightfully so, he begged me to come meet him when I'd been ordered to stay in bed, and my minor back niggle became aggravated to a serious back injury.

The fact of the matter was, even if I had been happy and well rested, I still wouldn't have been able to complete that swim. I hadn't trained in anywhere near as rough conditions as what I faced that day. The whole thing had been so perfect in my mind - yet I somehow amongst all of it managed to forget that Wellington? It's dang windy down there. I couldn't blame The Protea, no matter how hard I tried.

PART 2: King of the Bays - 19th April

I know Wellington and Auckland most intimately out of all of the cities in New Zealand, which is why when it came to deciding which swims to enter, I entered the Capital Classic in Wellington, and King of the Bays in Auckland. When I 'Not Finished' the Capital Classic, I was wondering what the hell I was thinking having entered a second race.

In theory, I had a lot of time to train. Though with some travel overseas, Les Mills filmings, the first Run Auckland race for the year (which I still haven't written about), and getting closer to The Protea only to have to have the fool leave the country on me (if you're wondering about the Him Dating Someone Else, we had a phone call that thrashed that out, which had me bursting into tears and sounding like a big sook when really I was trying to yell at him), the training got shelved. I was still exercising, but not training. While events are great, when I love group fitness so much, the training can get exhausting. I can rock up to any old Jam class without any mental preparation - same with doing RPM or Combat. Training for a race, however, is a different kettle of fish.

I used to scratch my head at why Worker Emm regularly went for 10km runs didn't enter any races. He ran for the enjoyment of it, and didn't need any races to tell himself of his achievements. Because he didn't see them as achievements. He saw them as fun. If he entered a race, suddenly all of those enjoyable runs would become training runs. Yes, it is possible that the two can overlap, but it may not for everyone. There have been times where I absolutely hated the training for Run Auckland.

I had been mentally weakened by the events of the last few months. Starting right from Christmas where my friend went into hospital and that week on call was ridiculously ridiculous - this year has been... ridiculous. I have things to look forward to in the near future, though all of them seem incredibly exhausting at the same time. All I want is a weekend of doing nothing, is that so much to ask?!

King of the Bays literally snuck up on me. One week before the race I thought, "Heck... I haven't been in the water since Wellington! I need to do a swim..." With the race on the Sunday, Thursday was the day I managed to get in the water. I was sore from doing Body Combat and a session with Adam in the morning the previous day, as well as having weak feeling ankles, so I was a bit worried when I got out of the pool at 750m in 25 minutes, knowing full well that I had completed my last 750m pool swim in 15 minutes, and that I would probably be slower in the ocean. The time limit on the 750m event was 30 minutes - so being 25 minutes in a more comfortable environment made me be vewwy vewwy ~~quiet~~ nervous.

It was a different feeling to previous races. I'd been achieving something new, something different each time. This time? It felt like I was out to get... well... revenge. To vanquish the demons of January the 24th, and to round up my last day of being 23 by polishing off an ocean swim - one of the goals I'd been wanting to achieve for quite some time. I've always felt like more of a swimmer than a runner, which is probably another reason why I felt so devastated by failing to complete the swim in Wellington.

Knowing that I had failed before, I kept it quiet. However, I didn't count on my friends Amal and Tamara remembering how I had asked them to come and support me for the swim. I also didn't count on Sarah-I remembering too. Sarah-I had a late night out and wasn't able to get up in time to come to the beach, but I was shocked when both Tamara and her husband were at the beach waiting for me when I got out of the car.

She must've been equally shocked when she saw my parents behind me. My parents, in particular, my Mum, who had said that she would never support me in an ocean swim. Both her and my Dad had gotten out of bed and driven me across Auckland to be on Takapuna beach that day (and oh my god, Takapuna reminds me so much of the surfy towns in Queensland that it's freakalicious.)

While not as sunny and bright as the day that greeted me when I woke up in Wellington, the first thing I noticed was that the sea was much calmer. I knew it wouldn't feel that way when I was in the water, but seeing the difference in calmness from the shoreline was already a good sign.

I headed down to the beach for the race briefing, and for a moment, Amal and Tamara came off the grass and onto the sand to stand and chat to me before the Announcer Guy started Announcing. It transformed to what would have been a very lonely moment to something quite lovely.

(and Rangitoto Island looks rather impressive in the background there!)

As soon as the race briefing was over, we began heading off down the beach in a big mob to the start line.

I was a bit behind the group since I grabbed a nervous swimmers cap - which is a different colour to the event cap. For the Wellington Capital Classic event, the event caps were green, and for the North Shore King of the Bays event, the event caps were red. The nervous swimmers caps were blue, and I put this on over the top of my red one so that the lifeguards out on the water would be able to spot me easier.

I didn't mind being behind the group. I learned from Wellington that I wanted to be behind everyone - to have pretty much as many people ahead of me as possible. I didn't want to have people swimming over the top of me again.

I wasn't ready for it when the hooter went off, but it was okay since I slowly took my time getting into the water. I saw people in front of me shouting and exclaiming "OMG THE WATER'S FREEZING!", but I was surprised when my feet touched the water that it wasn't as cold as I expected. It was several degrees warmer than Wellington, which I didn't expect, given that while Wellington is further south, the Capital Classic took place in the height of summer, and at the height of the day. King of the Bays was in Autumn, early in the morning.

The cold caught some people off guard, and very early into the course, kids who were wearing nothing but their speedos were hauled out of the water, shivering like mad.

Very early into the race, despite it being calmer, I felt the same feeling that I did in Wellington. I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, no matter how hard I was pushing myself. However, I was swimming into the waves this time, not across them, and while I didn't realise it at the time, I *was* making distance.

With the waves coming at you, even though I wanted to put my head down, I couldn't. I remembered Andrew sending me a message on MSN Messenger when I posted a video on my first training swim in the ocean, saying "Head down while swimming!" I tried putting my head down as this memory surfaced. When I would lift my head to breathe, I'd get a wave in my mouth and my gob full of saltwater, and the other thing was I would have absolutely no concept of where the hell I was and which direction I was going. Never mind having to avoid the other swimmers who seemed to be coming out of everywhere. I looked at all of the other swimmers and saw that none of them had their heads down. I knew I would get better propulsion through the water with my head down, though I also would get no oxygen at all... hmmmm... I took my heed from the other swimmers and decided to swim with my head up.

My thought of my head position had distracted me, and I looked ahead, and suddenly was shocked. The first orange buoy which had seemed so far from the start line was now MUCH closer.

I was ACTUALLY making progress! Progress I could SEE! I urged myself to get around that buoy, and it was an awesome feeling when I did. I never made it to the first marker in Wellington, so already, I had gotten much further.

The second stretch of the course was the hardest one, and it had me thinking about Wellington all over again. I was swimming across the waves, with them pushing me towards the shore while I was travelling forwards. The big difference now was that I had very few people around me. I, on one level, knew that it was because they had all finished already (grrr), but I liked having more space to work with.

There were lifeguards on the surfboards in the water, and one of them politely said to me, "How you doing, you doing okay?" and I gave her a thumbs up from in the water. She said, "You're over half way now, you're doing great."

Over half way? When did that happen? HOW did that happen?

Before I carry on, I will say that the hardest part of the swim, which is true for both Auckland and Wellington is the first part. It's where the waves are the most variable, and thus, where most people pull out. I came so close to pulling out again, despite knowing that there were FOUR people on the beach who would see my failure, again. And that I would have to report to you all about not completing it, again.

As I approached the second buoy, I found I had angled myself a bit too much (or... the waves had pushed me a bit too much... you take your pick), and turned inside the buoy, rather than outside it. Whoops. I hope they don't mind!

When I made that turn, I was facing the beach, staring right at the markers, knowing that it was the home stretch. Now that I was swimming with the waves, I found I was able to keep my head down and get some power in the water like I used to get in the pool. My arms had gotten pretty tired throughout the course, and there were moments when I briefly switched strokes to give them a break. I had more than enough strength in them to get through and back to the beach.

When the water was shallow enough to put my feet on the sand, I stood up and saw two figures on the beach. One of them was wearing a bright purple top, which was Amal. The other one, next to her, threw her arms up in the air, cheering - which was Tamara.

I can tell you, it was all worth it just for that.

The Announcer Guy at the race briefing said to be careful once you'd gotten onto the beach, and not to begin running to the finish line straight away. I walked for a bit, not running straight away, and when my feet had left the water, I whipped my cap and goggles off and made a run for it.

As I crossed the line, I heard the Announcer Guy say "Raina Singh from Auckland, crossing in at...", and I didn't hear the time because that didn't matter. Well, at that moment it didn't matter. Hearing him say my name as I ran across the line made me feel like the most important person on the whole damn planet.

Thankfully, this following photo was taken one second after I crossed the line.

My official time being 20 minutes and 37 seconds.

Well clear of having my ass hauled in by the Too Slow boat.

The demons of Wellington were well and truly gone, and when my Mum wrapped her arms around me and told me how proud of me she was, it was such a polar opposite of January the 24th.

I don't like myself in photos, and even I can see the genuineness of that smile.

I could also see that I'm damn tired too, but I didn't need to look in a photo for that. After the day I've had, I'm knackered and ready to hit the sack. Heck, after the YEAR I've had, I'm ready to hit the sack.

It was the best way to wind up my last day of being 23, and being 23 has been incredible. When I wake up tomorrow as a 24 year old, I know one thing for certain.

There is more to come.

I can't quite believe...

2009-04-13T15:15:00.001+12:00

...that by this time next week, the King Of The Bays ocean swim will be behind me. I've done fuckall training and am SHITTING myself.

Oh. Hah. Actually, I just remembered that by this time next week, it'll be my birthday.

Nice to see I have my priorities around the right way :-D

I've aged 3 years in these last 3 years

2009-04-10T10:15:00.002+12:00

Can you believe it, this blog turns 3 today.

Out of the three years that I've been blogging, this past year has been the most rewarding. It was the year that I let go of the notion of being a goal weight and getting thinner and switched to being happier. Accepting myself, recognising that there are wounds there that continue to hurt and need some attention.

I've learnt a lot, and I know that there is a lot more to learn. As time goes on, this sort of healing doesn't get easier, it gets harder. You deal with the easier things first. You don't realise that they're easy at the time, they feel like the hardest things you could ever deal with. And then you deal with something else, which cuts even deeper, and is relatively harder than what you've just dealt with.

Sometimes, it feels never ending. When you're overwhelmed with how much you're hurting, you feel like throwing your hands up and going "ENOUGH!!! Can't I just deal with the weight and forget all of this emotional shit?!"

There are days when the scale in the bathroom looks at me, and I think about returning to weight loss. Because I know what it's like. The objective is simple - the numbers go down. You do what it takes to get those numbers down. The only problem is that sort of simplicity in a goal is why so many people out there do drastic and dangerous things to themselves, and frustrate the hell out of themselves to do so.

The hardest thing about fat acceptance is being in an environment which is so NOT fat accepting. Now I have nothing against people who want to lose weight and do so by being healthy. What I mean by this is interacting with people who try to interfere with my acceptance of myself and question and puzzle over why I'm not doing anything about my weight.

A few people recently said to me that I've lost weight. I looked at them and said, "It's grief weight. It'll come back on when I'm happy again." I know I've gotten smaller, because today I put on the pants that I wore for my graduation. Which... I haven't been able to wear since my graduation. In September 2007. Since then, I've had several shouting matches with my mother - where she's called me The Meanest And Most Vindictive And Ungrateful Person On The Planet among other things; the one in particular that stays in my head was when she said, "Now maybe you've gotten fitter. I don't know." I shrieked at her, "HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW?!!?! I RAN A FUCKING 5KM RACE!!!"

The fact that I am even able to turn around and say this to my mother is a tribute to how much strength I've gained over the past year. That's strength that I wouldn't have built up if it weren't for this blog.

And for you guys.

When I switched from weight loss to fat acceptance, I worried considerably whether many of you would be able to relate to what I had to say anymore. I still sometimes feel a pang of jealousy whenever I read a weigh in post on another blog and see all of the congratulatory messages, remembering how good it felt when I received comments in the same vein.

But the feedback and the comments I get NOW are so much more meaningful to me. I definitely have felt the readership change. Instead of a train of "whoop, great loss!" comments, I have felt care and affection from so many of you. A few of you I have then met in real life thereafter, and the openness of the conversation almost startled me - with how easy conversation flowed and how much we have been able to share.

Back when I started this blog, I would have never been able to reveal that I have a bladder problem. I went to a specialist when I was in high school for months on end to try to sort it out, but we continued to throw money at her without result. My Mum planted the seed and said to the specialist on our first visit to her, "Does she need to lose weight? Could that be causing it?" The specialist said "Possibly." From there on, there was certainty on the part of my Mum and the specialist that losing weight would help the bladder problem.

But it didn't. When I became healthier, I was drinking more water, so my bladder became MORE of an issue as it was being used more. I went back to another specialist and he said that there were probably two options - 1., go on unsubsidised medication that would manage it, but never cure it, or 2., try to manage it on my own. Given that the medication would've cost me $50 every 5 days, I went with the latter option. It still troubles me to this day, but I'm getting better.

It's been troubling me for the three years I've been blogging, absolutely. With some of the events I've done, one of the things that have held me back have been wondering whether I would make it through the event without needing to go to the bathroom. Could I run 5km without going to the bathroom? And if that was a struggle, how on earth would I ever be able to do 10km? The thought of going to a movie makes me nervous because I wonder if I'll be able to watch the whole thing without getting up to go to the bathroom. If I ever passed my RPM and Body Jam module, would I be able to teach a class without having to take a toilet break?

This past year in the blog's life has been about acceptance. Accepting yourself for who you are now, and taking enjoyment in today with that. There's nothing wrong with looking to the future, but there's no need to ignore today.

There are still many more weight related struggles ahead. There are much more painful memories beginning to surface - previously repressed memories, and I know they are surfacing because in some way, my subconscious knows that I have the strength to deal with them now, while in the past I may not have.

One particularly painful memory was when I had a long stretch on bed rest after an operation. I had to have the curtains drawn all the time, couldn't go to school, couldn't watch TV, read books, draw, play with toys, or go outside. All I had was me and my thoughts, and my thoughts were not happy. I craved attention so much, but when my family came home from work, they were distracted with their activities, and only came in to help me put eye drops in and whinge about what an inconvenience I was.

A year before this, my Mum had flippantly said, "It's a shame we can't get a knife and cut all of your fat off."

I haven't ever mentioned this to anyone before, but as an 8 year old, at home, alone with my thoughts, I attempted this. After all, I'd just been through some pretty invasive surgery, this would be a piece of cake. God knows if cutting yourself didn't hurt so bloody much, who knows what kind of damage I would've inflicted. I could've cut through a major organ or something like that - but being so young, I didn't have any comprehension of the danger. I didn't cut very deep, and the scar has very much faded, but the thought of hating myself that much and following what my Mum had said THAT much is terrifying.

Even though the weight loss journey is over, there is still a lot of healing to do. I will continue to get fitter and healthier, and this extends to both mental and physical aspects of my being.

Happy Birthday, blog. I look forward to many more years with you.

I'll have your halter neck for this...!

2009-04-05T20:15:00.003+12:00

I once published a list of Things I'd like to do once I'm smaller. I later realised that some of these things I don't actually want to do, and the rest, I don't need to wait until I'm a size 8 to do.

I first wrote that post back in June of 2006, and then revisited through the call for Ask The Marshmallow topics in July of 2008 (man, what the hell, where does the time go?).

Some of the items I struck off the list altogether by having attempted them.

~~Run around the block~~
~~Buy some sexy lingerie~~
Wear stiletto heels (or any type of heels that don't resemble a chimney)
Wear a halterneck dress
~~Swim at the beach~~
Wear a strappy singlet in the hotter months
Learn to ride a bike
~~Join a social netball team~~ [technically achieved by joining a cricket team]
Sign up for dancing lessons
Go to a night club

Other items I struck off because I realised I was more comfortable with who I am, and the items were on the list in some hope that I would magically become someone else the moment I lost the weight.

~~Run around the block~~
~~Buy some sexy lingerie~~
~~Wear stiletto heels (or any type of heels that don't resemble a chimney)~~
Wear a halterneck dress
~~Swim at the beach~~
~~Wear a strappy singlet in the hotter months~~
Learn to ride a bike
~~Join a social netball team~~
Sign up for dancing lessons
~~Go to a night club~~

Which means that three items are left.

~~Run around the block~~
~~Buy some sexy lingerie~~
~~Wear stiletto heels (or any type of heels that don't resemble a chimney)~~
Wear a halterneck dress
~~Swim at the beach~~
~~Wear a strappy singlet in the hotter months~~
Learn to ride a bike
~~Join a social netball team~~
Sign up for dancing lessons
~~Go to a night club~~

Or, in reality, two. Because I achieved one of them on the 14th of March.

Run around the block
Buy some sexy lingerie
Wear stiletto heels
Wear a halterneck dress
Swim at the beach
Wear a strappy singlet in the hotter months
Learn to ride a bike
Join a social netball team
Sign up for dancing lessons
Go to a night club

I bought a black halterneck dress from Ezibuy. In a way, it was a copout, because I didn't got into a store to physically try on one. I ordered it online and tried it in the privacy of my home.

It was the black version of this.

I hadn't planned on ordering the black one because the blue one shown in the picture was so beautiful... however, nearly all of Ezibuy's customers thought the same thing, and when I went to buy the blue dress, it was all sold out. The black was the next best colour, so I put my order in, and was excited, but nervous and freaked out when it arrived.

Some of you may have seen the photos on Facebook of me trying it on. It was my way of saying, "Look everyone, I did it!"

The whole idea was that I was going to wear it for my friend Tamara's wedding. I needed to have a reason, otherwise I wouldn't have had the bollocks to go for it. Tamara was one of the friends on Facebook who saw the photos, and I told her I planned on wearing it to her wedding.

Her response, however, caught me off guard.

I thought, "WHAT?!" It didn't occur to me the cultural aspects of her wedding that would prevent guests from wearing black.

At this point, I didn't want a reason NOT to wear the dress. I even deliberately told my Mum I was wearing what I wore to Sarah-I's wedding so that she wouldn't get the chance to talk me out of wearing the halter dress. I felt a knot in my stomach and I knew that any little reason would have me back in my comfort zone, wearing the same old styles that I would always wear.

I reacted badly to this.

This is definitely not the way to talk to the bride! If she doesn't want people wearing black at her wedding, I should've respected that - it's her day, after all. (What groom? Noone cares about the groom, I mean come ON people.)

Her response?

I met her in person not too long after and explained why I had reacted the way I did. She told me to make it work, to add some splash of colour so that it wouldn't be so completely black.

Given I had a pair of red shoes, I knew what I needed to do to make it work.

And I'd like to think I worked it.

Behold!

I did some last minute accessory shopping - buying a red shawl, red necklace, a red bag, and my favourite; the red belt. I was a bit deflated when I put it on and asked my Mum "How do I look?" and she said, "I thought you were wearing the other dress? I LOVE that dress..." She then took the shawl and draped it around my shoulders, covering up all of my skin and said, "That's better."

I guess there's no changing some people.

However! When I walked into the hall and sat down at the table, I looked at all of the girls seated there and realised something... EVERY single one of them was wearing a halter dress. None of us were wearing the same style, but for the first time, I felt like I fitted in. It was bizarre. Even though I had 'More On Show', I was much more relaxed and comfortable than I was if I'd worn something in my regular style.

As much as I'm babbling on about my clothes, this night wasn't about me. It was about my lovely friend Tamara, huzzah! Much love to you honey - and thank you so much for letting me wear black on your wedding day. It was your day, but you gave me something incredible.

And oh yeah, I'm back.

Kek: The fruitcake phenomenon

2009-03-27T10:45:00.001+13:00

I'm not quite done with my hiatus, but there will be a race report to come on the weekend, so there's some cameo blogging to come. In the meantime, the Kekster has written a bloody AWESOME post that you should all check out. ALL of you. Yes, even you in the corner with the shifty eyes.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly should be in no doubt about my philosophy on healthy eating. I believe that eating well and enjoying what you eat are not mutually exclusive. That any nutrition plan you adopt should be sustainable as a lifelong thing. And that achieving a top-notch physique doesn't require 100% adherence to any “clean” eating plan.

...

Imagine never tasting a piece of chocolate again. No Baskin-Robbins choc-peanut butter ice cream. No pizza. No brie accompanied by those funny, pointy lavash crackers. No birthday cake. I’m almost hyperventilating at the thought.

My point is: WHY do it, when it isn’t necessary? Why spend your life feeling deprived and miserable, when you can eat well without being a total freak about it? Me, I’m continuing to dirty up my meals with chocolate, peanut butter, ice cream, jam, cheese and whatever else I fancy. I know that as long as I keep the amounts small and obtain 90% or so of my nutrition from the good stuff, I’ll get to where I’m going.

I had the pleasure of hanging out with Kek recently, and even though she's a wicked awesome personal trainer and recently participated in a body building competition, we both got one like a house on fire and it was clear that we both appreciate and enjoy good food and exercise.

Get on over and read it NOW.

You Spin Me Right Round The Bays

2009-03-15T19:00:00.010+13:00

First of all, I'm not back yet. But, there was an event, and I'm all about the event reports, so here you go :-D

It's been just under a year since I first did Round The Bays, a fun run that starts off in Auckland's Central Business District and winds around some delicious coastline.

There wasn't the pre-race nervousness of past races. I really took this as an opportunity to chill out, not do anything too serious, and have a good time.

I'd done NO training for it whatsoever. Not even a 20 minute walk - even though I had told myself I should, would, and even wrote it into my training program, I never took it as seriously and decided, "Well, it is a FUN run after all, why not just have a good time with it?"

Unlike last year, I seemed to know a whole host of people doing the race. A group of people I know through Body Jam at Les Mills were entering, I knew Andrew was going to be doing it, Amal was doing it through her work, and The Fat Lazy Guy was having his first attempt.

It's hella hard trying to meet up with people during the race - I knew that from last year, where I was texting Worker Jay something ridiculous trying to find a way to meet up - so even if you do know someone, unless you start the race with them, it's very VERY difficult to find them later.

Which is why I was relieved to know people through Les Mills this time.

However, it wasn't to be. Out of the 5-6 people that I thought were going to do Round the Bays, only 1 of them entered. And, they were running the thing, so they had to be on the other side of the road.

Which left me on my own.

I tried to take a photo of myself walking up to the startline, though a kind gentleman stopped and offered to take this wee snap of me.

Yet in some weird way, I felt like I wasn't alone. Check out the badge I'm sporting.

It says, "Somebody in Colorado loves Me". My beautiful friend Christie sent me this, and I thought it was very appropriate to wear it today. In a way, it made me feel like she was with me, so I wasn't really alone at all.

I made my way up to the start line, eager to get going. However, as the start time approached, it was announced that a bus had lost a wheel and was blocking the race course, delaying the start time for another 15 minutes! None of us were impressed, but what can you do? It's just one of those weird crazy flukes where you go, "Of ALL days?!?!"

I tried to take a few photos of myself amongst the mob to pass the time.

Hhaha, I look like I'm crying, but really, I'm not! I'm happy as hell to be there amongst the thick of it all :-D

After the delayed start, we were off and I began my walk. I wasn't sure about what sort of pace I was going at, what pace I should be going at... all those normal things that fill my head whenever I go for a race. In a way, it was kind of liberating to be doing a fun run and really not care about trying to set personal bests, etc. My goal was to get through the race without doing any extra damage to the ankle. I had it strapped up, just to be sure. (I admit it, I haven't been very good at doing that since the physio sent me on my merry way.)

Because this year I wasn't nattering to anyone, I went into a weird zone, and observed the atmosphere around me.

This ridiculous mob of people down Tamaki Drive seemed to go on forever. I would've loved to have seen a satellite image of the walk, it must've been quite something to behold.

It was an absolutely stunning day. I thought the conditions were perfect last year.

Oh hellz no.

They were perfect this year.

Not a cloud in the sky.

No, seriously, take a look for yourself.

And those little white puffy bits in the bottom left corner are not clouds, they're sun distortion through the camera lens thingeymawhatsits.

Normally, this sort of day in March would piss me off - it would be second only to a muggy, sticky hot day. However, there was a cool breeze whipping through the whole of Auckland, and it did wonders to prevent anyone from overheating.

Picture says a thousand words? Maybe I should just stop typing for a bit and let you soak it up.

The grass LITERALLY looks greener on that side.

I was quite nervous about what was going to happen to my poor legs, given the calf agony that ensued after my first attempt last year. They were in agony I guesstimate about 6km in, and given that I had done NO training, I was worried that the fall out would be even worse this time.

However, I kept on going, and there was no calf acheyness. There wasn't even any ANKLE acheyness. I continued to think to myself, "This is too good to be true, they're going to get sore any second now. Right..... now. ... Now? ... Nnnnnnnnow? How about now?"

The only soreness that did eventuate was a bit of blistering on sole of my left foot from the strapping that was supporting my ankle (ahhh so THAT's why I don't like wearing it), but that was manageable.

This meant I was able to continue walking and not be distracted by the pain, acting less like a kid in the backseat on a family road trip all ARE WE THERE YET ARE WE THERE YET ARE WE THERE YET and more like an intrepid traveller.

...

As intrepid as you can be walking down a well known road that you've been down many times before, but what the hell, if you open your eyes, you see new things every day, no matter where you are :-)

Like so!

This bloke was leaning over the balcony of this 4th storey apartment with the hose out, spraying everyone that walked past - showering them with cool watery goodness. I think it was a really lovely thing to do, and having moments like that unfold in front of me continue to make me smile when I think about them years later.

I'm quite proud of this photo. I was moving at the time, so that's why I'm concentrating so hard. Check out the hair. Oh yeah, it be blowin' in the wind. How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man and all that jazz.

By this stage we weren't too far from the finish line, though ordinarily there is a signboard saying where the halfway point was. I already knew the course so I wasn't too fussed - and just enjoying the fact that my feet weren't in complete agony.

There was a promotion being run by Moro, and this meant that throughout the course, there were several guys stationed with megaphones trying to promote it. Many of the participants thought that they were official race marshals and asked them questions, many along the lines of, "How many kilometres is it to go?"

As we went around to the last stretch of the course, there was a Moro Man with the Megaphone there, and he said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you're all doing very well, you have now passed the halfway point..." Everyone around him absolutely cracked up laughing since they knew very well that he was being naughty and winding people up. Some poor wee kids around me got a bit terrified though, thinking they still had half of the course to walk, poor things.

I crossed the finish line at 1 hour ~37 minutes. I was pretty close to the start line, so that's probably an accurate reflection of the time it took me to walk the 8.4km - I wasn't going nearly as hard as I could've been, which is why my calf and achilles were all still intact by the end.

Here's a map of the course:

I must say... I liked the change. It was refreshing instead of being all OMG HARDCAWW RAWR to just take it easy.

I rushed over to the barbecue site, gobbled a sausage and burger and got on the bus to get back to town.

I laughed myself silly when I saw the bus that Les Mills had selected to send us back to town.

It gets better!

Given the objective and outcome of the day, I'd say that sums it up quite nicely.

Ugh...

2009-03-06T13:20:00.000+13:00

...and so it seems I have begun to completey 'lose it' as a blogger, one thing I thought I could count on.

I'm taking a break, guys. Not sure when I'll be back.

There are Fat Jokes and then there are...

2009-03-02T23:45:00.002+13:00

I've been a bit tired for the last few days, and it came to a head when it came to a head when I was organising my gym gear and then collapsed.

A combination of both low blood pressure and low blood sugar is what caused it; and combine with several weeks in a row of irregular sleep patterns (read: late nights out on the town with friends, etc.) and yeah, I am a bit tired.

My Mum rushed to help me when I went down - it's not the first time it's happened, and every time, it's been the same cause; my low blood pressure and not getting enough sodium, and in general, not eating enough. So while I have most definitely lost grief weight recently, I certainly am not as healthy as I was say 3-5kgs heavier ago.

I was talking to my Dad and telling him how grateful I was to have them around. If I'd been living on my own, noone would have known that I had gone down in a heap, and noone could have given me the electrolyte drink that eventually stabilised myself enough to get to my feet.

My Mum, however, decided to ruin the warm fuzzy moment.

Mum	You wouldn't have needed someone in the house to know that you had gone down, you should've heard the big THUD!

*sigh* Some things never change.

Laws of Attraction

2009-02-26T08:00:00.003+13:00

So I'd say, it's about fucking time I gave you guys an explanation for my aloof antics of late.

I haven't been completely disconnected from the blogging community, but let's face it, I've been nowhere near as active as I ordinarily am. Which means something out of my bland, ordinary existence has been happening.

There was a guy - whom I am going to refer to as The Protea. [sidenote] And don't worry, this post has been run past him and he is fine with having it published [/sidenote]

I met him for the first time on New Years (that's AFTER this occurred), we'd been talking online for about a month before that. It was also about a month until the next time I saw him, and thereafter, we talked a bit more, tried to understand where the other one was at, and moved from there.

Hah, I make it sound so simple, but really, it was confusing and frustrating. I was a blubbering mess and at this moment I scratch my head as to why he didn't disappear right then.

It wasn't ever going to turn into a lasting relationship, that's something that was made very clear from the beginning, and while I foolishly clung onto a bit of self manufactured hope that it might, it can't, and won't turn into something lasting. That's okay, though. That honesty was there from the beginning, and it's not something that either of us could help, and neither of us have done anything wrong. When one of you is packing up everything and moving to another country to start a new life, you can't be pitching anchor in the country you're supposed to be leaving - it just doesn't work that way.

I'll say this one thing about him - he never, EVER, made me feel inadequate about my weight, my appearance, my body. I could be completely naive and *maybe* I was being conned, but I got the impression that he was quite genuine in thinking that I was an attractive person. Most of the time I didn't even know how to receive his compliments, I just kinda stared, a bit boggled, thinking, "Are you SERIOUS?"

I never did anything to impress him - I never dressed up for him, put on make up or did my hair or anything like that. Most of the time I saw him it was in ratty t-shirts and board shorts, and yet he still found ways to tell me that I was beautiful. I'm pretty sure the first time I met him I was in a right state, having downed a meeeeellion cocktails (don't worry, I had sobered up plenty by then), a bit worse for wear, and sweating profusely. Yeah, REAL attractive like. Way to make a first impression. *multiple headdesk*

Everything that I thought was unattractive about myself, every little insecurity I had was a non-issue for him. (I think.) When you're told for all your life that people like that don't exist, you feel like spinning them around and finding out where the batteries go. Or you start looking for the hidden cameras and Ashton Kutcher, thinking you're about to be Punk'd.

If anyone was causing body anxiety, it was me bringing it onto myself by being paranoid. I mean, look at the way that I've written this post, it's *still* filled with scepticism, like I expect him to turn around and go "LOL, PSYCHE, U UGGLEH LOLOLOLOL KTHXBYE", which isn't fair, since he hasn't ever done anything to suggest that.

In fact, in the beginning when we initially started talking, the second photo I sent of him was the Oh So Attractive wetsuit photos, to try and convince him 'See, I ain't attractive. So move along, beeyatch.' And yet, he didn't budge on that point.

In that regard, I thank him for helping me break down that wall - the wall that has kept everyone out.

With that, I wish him all the best for his new life, following his dreams. He's got exciting times ahead, and I hope he seizes every opportunity he gets.

And hey, I can never have too many overseas friends. :-)

(Helps to save on travel accommodation).

Lyn on Blood Sucking Marshmallow

2009-02-22T11:50:00.003+13:00

I didn't have any regrets after donating blood for the first time, despite the horrible memory from when I was 14 which I wrote about in my last post.

Though Lyn posted a comment which was so hauntingly beautiful that it made me even more certain that I did a good thing by looking my fears head on and doing it anyway.

Thank you. I never thought a whole lot about blood donation. I knew people got in car wrecks and needed blood or whatever but I didn't think about it much. Then when my baby girl was born, she was very sick. She was so sick they didn't know if she would make it. She spent a month and a half in the hospital. At one point she needed a blood transfusion, and they wouldn't allow me or my husband to give. It had to be specially screened blood from a donor because she had no immune system functioning.

When they gave her that blood from a stranger, I wept and whispered, "thank you, thank you to whoever gave this blood." I am forever grateful to them. Because I have my daughter. So thank you Raina, for whoever you may have saved.

Lyn, I am so thankful that you have your daughter. Whoever gets the blood, for whatever reason, I'm thankful. And thank you, Lyn for being the beautiful person that you are. {{HUGS}}

Blood Sucking Marshmallow

2009-02-20T08:00:00.004+13:00

When I was 14, I was avoiding a school athletics day by pretending to be sick in the morning. Well, I had been putting on an act that I was sick for the three days leading into the athletics day - so much that I even managed to convince myself that I was sick.

My parents agreed it was best that I stay at home, and I gleefully put on the DVDs and proceeded to chill out.

I was sitting at the dining table, when suddenly I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my gut. I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I got up and staggered into the kitchen, and grabbed some cheese and crackers.

15 minutes later, yet again I was doubled over, this time I collapsed onto the sofa and phoned my Dad, sobbing in agony. To think, I had faked being sick all week, and then suddenly, something was actually wrong.

Both my Mum and Dad rushed home from school and were on the phone to doctors, getting me appointments and so forth. My Dad returned to school, and my Mum whisked me to the doctors office.

The doctor poked and prodded and came up with a couple of theories, to confirm these, he said I'd need to give a urine sample, a blood sample, and have an ultrasound done.

My Mum had to be back at work soon, so she asked whether there was an in-house nurse who could take the blood sample onsite without us having to go to a separate lab. The doctor assured us that yes, their nurses were able to take blood there and then.

We were escorted into the area where all the lab equipment was, and a nurse came in, fluffed about, and then grabbed my arm. My Mum and I exchanged a puzzled look - the nurse didn't even say hello, or even make eye contact with me.

Seconds later, she had swabbed my arm and plunged a needle into my arm.

I looked away, telling myself it would be over soon. It felt horrible, but I continued to tell myself; it was only a small sample.

10 seconds past, then 30, and I looked over at the nurse.

I was stunned to see that the needle had not withdrawn any blood at all, and the nurse was moving the needle around like it was a joystick - like she was rummaging about through my arm trying to find my vein.

The more she moved the needle, the more it hurt, and finally after another minute I burst into tears and exclaimed "ENOUGH!!!"

The nurse, irritated, withdrew the needle and stood around, impatient. I don't remember what my Mum said since I was far too busy blubbering, but I do remember her shouting at the nurse, and the nurse shouting back. My Mum something along the lines of "What the hell do you think you're playing at?!", the nurse something along the lines of "Don't you tell me how to do my job, I've been doing this for 20 years!"

That afternoon, we went to a separate lab to have the blood withdrawn, and my Mum told the staff there about what had just happened. They were shocked and horrified - some of them even said they were ashamed - and treated me very well, with much kindness. They withdrew blood from my right arm with ease, despite the fact that my veins are quite deep.

My right arm only had minor bruising about the area of the needle entry point which went away within days. My left arm, on the other hand (pun completely intended), took about a week to heal. The bruising was widespread, and very deep. It was also my writing hand, so it completely stuffed up my schoolwork for that week.

We made a complaint against the nurse. We never saw her there again, but we don't know whether it's a result of our complaint or whether she just moved on with her life.

Even though I have given blood samples since that incident, I'm still terrified and haunted by how upsetting and painful it was. I go cold when I think about having to give a blood sample and the nurse putting a needle in my arm. I could never be a heroin addict.

I'm completely fine with vaccinations and the like, so it's not needles that freak me out - just that act of having to find a vein to draw blood from.

That memory and that one bad experience was the single thing that stopped me year in year out from donating blood.

To VOLUNTARILY submit yourself to have someone stick a needle in your vein?

Whenever people told me about donating blood, I would always say that whenever I thought about it I would always get a cold - one of the conditions of donating blood is that you can't have a cold or flu at the time. Which is fair enough. But that's not true, it's because I was so spooked by that experience as a 14 year old.

Two weeks ago, I made the appointment. I gave myself a bit of time to psyche myself up for it.

Quite like the memories and incidents as a child that have related to my body image and perception of myself, this memory has held me back when it doesn't have to. I knew I could conquer it, and in the case of donating blood, it wasn't something as superficial as wearing a nice dress - it was genuinely providing something that would help someone when they need it.

I arrived at the blood donation clinic far too early, sat in the car and listened to the radio before finally getting out.

The lady at the front desk who looked after me gave me some pamphlets to read and some questions to answer. I had already been exposed to all of the information by my reading on the NZBlood website, so it didn't take long for me to fill everything in.

I was given a sticker that said, "Be nice to me, it's my first time donating!", which was quite cute. I was told to sit down in the waiting area and have a drink and some chocolate biscuits. The biscuits were in plentiful supply, as were the drinks - juice, coffee, water, hot chocolate, tea... they really wanted to encourage you to keep your fluid intake up and had enough biscuits around for sustenance.

After a short wait, I was called into a small room by one of the assistants. I sat down, and she got me to sign the form with all of the questions I answered.

'Right, no turning back now.', I thought.

I signed and then the woman said, "Give me your hand."

I gave her my hand, and the next thing she grabs something and pricks the top of my finger with it.

She didn't tell me that she was pricking my finger, so it was a bit of a shock, and instantly I thought, "Oh no, NOT AGAIN!" My finger started to throb and bleed as she collected a couple of droplets and handed me some bandage to apply pressure to the pricked area.

I began to panic, that memory coming back into my head. Just like The Joystick Nurse, she just shoved the needle in there. But I managed to calm myself down - she did say 'Give me your hand' instead of just grabbing it forcefully, and well, when I lifted the bandage and looked at the 'wound', I felt like a right idiot for being such a drama queen. It was nothing! In fact, as I type this, I can't even see where the hell she pricked me.

She then ushered me into the donation area, where there were beds set up around the room, TVs hoisted from the ceiling in several positions to ensure that everyone could distract themselves from all of the blood sucking that was going on.

When I sat down, there were no beds free, and I sat in the 'queue' waiting to donate. There were five chairs and I sat down in the first one. About 10 minutes later, all five chairs were full. There were a *lot* of people waiting to donate that day, and even the staff were surprised by the line that had formed.

It must've been about a 10 minute wait, but it felt much longer until a bed was free and finally I got up and hoisted myself onto it.

The nurse came up to me and said, "First time?" I confirmed this, and she asked me which arm I would prefer to use. I indicated my right arm, and she put the blood pressure cuff around my bicep and got me to squeeze a little blood droplet shaped soft toy. She frowned as she tried to find my vein. She released the pressure from the cuff and tried again, again, not able to find the vein.

She then said, "Let's try the other arm." She put the pressure cuff around my left bicep, and again, she struggled to find my vein. For a moment, again, panic set in as I remembered that nurse and how she used the Joystick Technique to try to find my vein.

The nurse disappeared for a moment, and came back with a scissor-like tool. Once she had icnreased the pressure on the cuff, she clamped the pressure hose with the scissors. That kept the pressure high, and from there, she was able to find the vein.

She swabbed the area and as she pulled the needle out, I looked away. I felt a prick and a bit of a sting, and I heard her say, "Right. We're go."

I looked over and saw the tube from my arm flowing with deep maroon blood. The tube fed from my arm to a pack that was connected to a machine - the machine would beep if blood transfer stopped, or if the pack was full. The machine started beeping pretty soon after the needle had been placed inside my arm, and the nurse said, "That's your machine beeping there, we're not getting any blood. Gimme a sec." She adjusted the position of the needle, making sure that the blood was flowing fine. I didn't look away - I watched her gently move the needle so that it was flush up against the vein. She got it without much hassle at all, and then left me to it for a while.

I don't have any concept of how much time passed. I tuned out for a while, and then next thing I hear another nurse say to me, "You're finished!"

I thought... "REALLY???" It didn't seem like I'd been in the chair for long at all.

They removed the needle from my arm, and gave me some bandage to press against it. As I was pressing against it, I knew that this was going to hurt. Probably not as bad as the week of pain after my experience with The Joystick Nurse, but I knew it was going to be sore.

After a couple of minutes, they took the bandage away from me and applied a plaster to my arm. I was just about ready to spring out right there and then, though the nurse told me to stay put for another minute to settle myself.

As I sat there, I saw a family walk in and sit down in the seats. There were the parents, and two young children - about 10-12ish. The two children had the same stickers on that I had, "Be nice to me, it's my first time donating!". I began to think of how many years I hadn't been donating that I could have been - how much blood I could have given, and what a difference it could have made.

But what matters now is that I've overcome the hurdle that was stopping me.

I was gently assisted out of the bed and encouraged to go and have a drink and some biscuits before leaving. When I sat down, a lady came up to me and asked me what drink I wanted. Not wanting to trouble her I said, "I'm fine, thanks." She insisted, saying that I needed to have my fluids replaced, so I accepted a bottle of cold water.

I had a superficial moment where I thought, "Chocolate biscuits? Free bottled water? Donating blood is teh FREAKING WIN!" Though when it came to opening the bottle of water, I remembered, 'Oh That's Right, Your Arm Is Actually Quite Sore.'

I downed a bottle of water and several biscuits before collecting myself up to leave. The nurses waved goodbye to me and thanked me for coming in.

I could barely take the handbrake off and put the car into gear when I was driving home. Even having the hand on the steering wheel was hurting, and I made sure I chose a route home that had quiet roads so I could drive with one hand.

Rather coincidentally, this route took me past my high school. I drove past the field and remembered the athletics day that I had skipped out on, and the incident at the doctors with The Joystick Nurse.

I drove through the familiar streets and had flashbacks of all of the 'traumatic' incidents that had happened when I was at school. Given all that's happened recently, they seem so insignificant now. They don't have the right to hold me back in any way. I shouldn't be letting them.

This doesn't just apply to facets of my life surrounding body image and weight, as you can see. These memories hold me back from doing other things, and if I want to grow and become a stronger person, these memories need to be looked at head on.

I am Raina, and I have donated blood.

I have managed to replace an old, upsetting memory with a new, empowering one. Sure it was a bit of a struggle, but worth it in the end.

And the bonus is that I'm giving something which is desperately needed by others.

I also know for certain that I'll be giving it again to those who need it. I am worth it. And so are they.

Change the Labels

2009-02-13T11:45:00.000+13:00

There's been a lot of cricket watching for me recently - especially since of late I've managed to SOMEHOW find a friend that's ACTUALLY into cricket, omgwtfbbq!!1!eleventyone.

In between overs, there is actually some non-cricket related conversation (only about 1% of the time, though, and that's being insanely generous with the percentages), and they asked me about the topics of my blogs. Even though I have four, let's face it, AYGTET and LP&BM (I STILL haven't written the final day of my Melbourne posts, all of How Many?!?!!? months later on LP&BM) are on the verge of being defunct (and my cricket blog was a bit of a joke, so we won't go there), even though I continue to cling onto thoughts that I might somehow be able to clone myself and have one instance constantly blogging and the other one in the gym.

So I told them that C&E was a fitness blog, and that DYHAXLIT was once a weight loss blog, but is now a body image and fat acceptance blog.

They said, obviously puzzled, "Why would you have a fat acceptance blog if you're not fat?"

I couldn't think of a response.

Firstly, I always seem to find it hard to process when someone says I'm Not Fat. That's a label I've lived with for as long as I've been alive, and quite honestly, the first thing that comes into my mind when thinking of how to describe myself is Fat. Job interviews have always been hard, since you're not exactly selling yourself as a suitable employee if the first thing you start describing is your physical appearance as opposed to your personality traits and ability to do the job.

If any response would have come out of my mouth to that question, it would've been "What do you MEAN I'm NOT fat???", incredulous, almost pissed off.

There are two things that I've constantly labelled myself as which I use as my sure fire excuses to prevent me from doing things I want to do.

One, is the fat label. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, it's the label I apply. Even when I'm feeling good about myself, I STILL apply the label. Other people may judge me based on that label, and in most cases, I'd say To Hell With Them - the only place where I think the label really is holding me back is my desire to change careers and try to find a job in group fitness. I love Body Jam and RPM and it would be incredible if I could make a living out of teaching those classes.

The second is the thoughts of my parents. They were the first ones to apply the fat label to me, and I've been trying to please them in other ways ever since. As a result, I'm far too conservative - I don't do things spontaneously, even if it's something as small as going to a friend's place after work for a drink and a yarn, and it's not because I don't want to, it's because they worry and I let that hold me back. It's also another reason why I'm afraid that I'll never leave software development and shift to group fitness - I'd be too terrified of what they'd think of me, how I would have failed them. I'm already a disappointment - taking up software development instead of their expected professions of law or medicine.

I've sacrificed already because I've been too worried about their opinion and their thoughts - I used to be a HELL of a Netballer, and I gave it up when I went to High School because firstly, they were complaining about how much they hated picking me up and dropping me off to training and games, and secondly, they told me that I was too fat to play well. I mean, what on earth?! I WAS a fat player, and I was playing more than just 'well' - in the words of Kung Fu Panda, I've Done AWESOME! In fact, our team did not do Player Of The Day awards because without bias, every single game I played, I would've won it. How did I let that talent go to waste because of a stupid label?!

Even though the movement is named the 'fat acceptance' movement, do I need to apply these labels to myself to participate?

I certainly think that I am good at blogging about my beliefs that people should feel good in their own skin, and that people are beautiful at all shapes and sizes. If that's what I'm blogging about, then more than ever it shouldn't matter what my appearance is.

Even if I happen to, somehow, become thinner, I believe I have a lot to write about on the topic given my experience with fat prejudice and so on and so forth. Can I continue to write about fat acceptance even if I may not, in some people's eyes believe that the 'fat' label that is placed on me is unwarranted?

I would think YES.

It doesn't matter what other labels there are - fat, thin, strong, weak, green, pink, purple, whatever. What matters is my mindset and what I can offer and articulate to the blogging world.

So, I'm changing the label to be all inclusive of every characteristic of me - my desires, my thoughts, my opinions, my emotions, my insecurities, my irrationalness (I don't care if that's not a real word).

I will not say "Hi, I am: Fat" or "Hi, I am: Worried About My Parents" or "Hi, I am: A Failure", or "Hi, I am: A Body Jam Freak".

Instead, I will say one thing.

Hi, I am: Raina

And that really is all that needs to be said when it comes to who I am and what I do.

Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder: Weight Bias

2009-02-10T10:33:00.002+13:00

There are two beautiful video clips that have been posted on Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder on Weight Bias.

I may be more emotional than normal, but I got quite upset watching most of these because of how close it hit to home.

Painful, but honest viewing.

Uh...

2009-02-09T09:30:00.000+13:00

Yeah I am still here, sorry!

Working very hard over at C&E at the moment. Will be back soon!

Kada: Wii're not a good fit

2009-02-05T15:00:00.001+13:00

I'm still working on hugealicious posts over on C&E and am hoping to get back to blogging here as soon as possible, though in the meantime there's a great post over at Kada's blog about the shortcomings of Wii Fit.

...the longer I watched, and the few times I participated, its shortcomings became very apparent. The two major strikes against it were how much talking the machine did in between spurts of the activities(the recommended 30 mins of activity took nearly an hour to perform!) and its obsession with weight and the BMI. Not to mention there was no option to let it know you're pregnant.

Now, I'm pretty secure within myself and about my weight, but what about those people that aren't? What about those that have no idea that you can gain muscle weight from the exercises this thing is bullying you into doing. And bully and denigrate it does, and not very subtly either.

While I do think the idea of a 'Wii Fit' is a good idea, I feel like Nintendo have instead created 'Wii Weight' with so much focus being on weight, and Kada has a fantastic job of articulating this.

Great reading, my pretties.

Psst...

2009-02-02T10:15:00.000+13:00

I *am* actually here. I've just been VERY active with my blogging over on C&E.

There will be more posts soon, I promise!