This morning I saw the most glorious, ravishing, rosy, glowing sunrise you can imagine.  For just a moment, I wasn’t worried about the giant, stressful, insane trade show I have to do in Vegas this week.  I wasn’t worried about laundry, clients or getting my blog entry written.  I took a moment and just appreciated and breathed.  How often do we not take even a moment for a deep breath?  How many awe-inspiring sunrises, sunsets, blue moons, falling stars, comets and total eclipses go right by without our even noticing? These moments, these micro-vacations can make us feel connected to the world.  They allow us to breathe thankfulness.  They assure us we are loved by the world and we are deserving.

For just a minute this morning, the world was putting on a one-morning-only, exclusive, command performance just for me.  Boy, am I glad I didn’t miss it.

Wishing you time and space for just a minute to take a breath and take in the scenery.

Love,
The Fat Chick

Object: Sub Zero Side By Side Refrigerator
Dimensions: 36 inches wide, by 7 ft. tall by 27 inches deep
Weight: 492 pounds
Conclusion: Even empty, a Sub Zero Fridge weighs more than me.

You could spend a lifetime moaning and complaining that nobody buys you flowers.  Or you could simply go to the local Trader Joes or farmers market or grocery store and buy yourself some.  When we stop looking outside and start looking inside of ourselves for validation, we regain our power.  Why should you give a co-worker or the lady at church or a complete stranger the power to make you feel bad about yourself or ruin your day?  YOU decide that you’re awesome.  Anybody who says anything or even thinks to the contrary is just lacking information critical to the decision making process.

As with all things, self-validation is much easier to say than to do.  And as with all things, success comes first with small things and then bigger ones.  But a quick and simple way to start is to do something nice for yourself–maybe something as simple as buying yourself a single flower.  This little beauty has been opening gently on my desk for a week now.  And aside from just sitting there looking gorgeous, it reminds me that I am deserving of goodness  and wonder and beauty.  And it reminds me that I am not finished, but in the process of becoming.

Have a beautiful day.

Love,
The Fat Chick

 
The African Elephant 

–African elephants weigh 198-264 pounds (90 to 120 kilograms) at BIRTH.
–African elephants can reach over 15,000  pounds in weight.

Conclusion: The African Elephant weighs more than me.

This week we’re going to talk a lot about nourishment.  Many of us have been starving ourselves for years.  Starving for good food.  Starving for spiritual enrichment.  Starving for beauty.  Starving for love and starving for acceptance.  Part of the journey towards self-love and acceptance is making sure you have enough nourishment.  And for today, we’re going to talk about food.

As you may have guessed I’m not a big believer in diets.  They tend to be short-term.  They don’t last.  And in the long run, they don’t work.  So I don’t think you should go on a diet.  But I do think you should focus on nourishing your body with good food that has a lot of healthy stuff in it.  And when it comes to good food with healthy stuff, I have to recommend one of my favorite Thai soups called Tom Yum Goong.  Honestly, the fact that this soup is good for me, is just a side benefit in my world.  I eat it because I love it.  The fact that it’s healthy, well that’s just a bonus.  By the way, in learning to pronounce this soup, I always remember that all 3 syllables rhyme with “boom” because that’s the effect it will have on your mouth.  After one taste, your mouth will go “boom”!  This soup is SPICY.  If you ordered this in Thailand and ate it the way the Thai people do, it would probably blow your head right off.  Some of that red stuff floating on the top of the bowl in the picture is pepper.  But it is also healthy and flavorful.  And there is simply no better remedy in the world for a stuffed up nose.  When I get a cold, I head right to my favorite Thai restaurant and I’m sure to carry a whole package of tissues, because all of that capsaicin in all of those hot peppers will get your nose a runnin!  It’s also great when it’s cold outside as it will warm you up from the INSIDE.

I’ll include my favorite recipe below.  But you may want to try it at a local Thai restaurant first to get an idea of how it should taste.  Note: the first time you order it, let the waitress know that you are new to the experience and ask her to have them make it mild or not too spicy.  Most restaurants are happy to adjust.  If you love it, you can ask them to make it spicier next time.

Recipe:  Tom Yum Goong (Spicy Thai Shrimp and Lime soup)

20 prawns (shell and head on if you can find it at your local fish market or Asian grocery)
1-2 Tablespoons Instant Tom Yum Paste (find at the local Asian grocery or order it HERE)
4 cups water
1.5 teaspoons of salt
1 to 2 Tablespoons FRESH lime juice
1-inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and sliced into thin coins
1 cup sliced fresh white or button mushrooms
1 whole ripe tomato roughly chopped
Fish sauce to taste
Cilantro and/or Kaffir Lime Leaves for garnish

Bring 4 cups of water to a rolling boil.  Peel the shrimp, leaving tails intact and reserving heads and shells.  If you have heads and shells, add them (but NOT the peeled shrimp themselves) to the boiling water and let it simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes.  (Don’t say ewwww.  It will make your soup taste a lot more awesome!)  After 20 minutes carefully strain out solid ingredients and put liquid into a clean, non-reactive pan.

Bring liquid back to a boil and add 1-2 tablespoons of the tom yum paste.  Try 1 tablespoon at first.  You can always add more later.  Be CAREFUL with this stuff, it’s like molten lava.  Be careful not to touch your eyes or your face until you’ve had a chance to carefully wash your hands.  A gentleman friend of mine didn’t heed this advice and stopped to, um, go pee halfway through the cooking process and had a VERY uncomfortable half-hour after that.

Okay, hands washed?  Now add the salt, lime juice and ginger pieces.  Simmer for about 10 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and simmer for about 2 more minutes.  Taste it.  Add more lime juice (sour), fish sauce (salty) and tom yum paste (heat) until you’re happy.  Now bring the liquid to a rolling boil and then shut off the heat.  Add the shrimp and mushrooms and stir until shrimp are pink and opaque.  This ensures the shrimp are not overcooked (and rubbery–yuck!).  Pour into a bowl, sprinkle some cilantro and or kaffir lime leaves on the top and chow down.  I like to serve this with plain jasmine rice.  Some folks like to alternate between bites of soup and bites of rice.  I usually just dump some of the rice right into my soup bowl.

One more note, it’s helpful to serve this soup with a little empty soup bowl or plate on the side.  The ginger coins, shrimp tails and kaffir lime leaves (if you actually found them you little foodie you) are for flavor and are NOT MEANT TO BE EATEN.  Just delicately spoon these out as you eat and put them on the side.

Don’t let all the warnings freak you out.  This soup is awesome and you’ll get the hang of it in no time.  Enjoy and allow it to nourish your body and your soul.

Love,
The Fat Chick

I remember the day quite clearly. I was in the kitchen with my husband and I was crying inconsolably. I was crying because I was fat and I believed being fat was cause to be miserable. My husband told me that I looked great. He assured me that he loved me just the way I was. The sad thing was, I would not and could not believe him. I tried to diet, but found I couldn’t stick with it. I tried to exercise, but I really struggled. I hired a personal trainer, but grew tired of the badgering and emotional abuse, and I quit. I tried a step aerobics class, but was tired of struggling at the back of the class to lift my aching knees as fast as the other students. I tried to train for a marathon, but wound up with a stress fracture in my foot by the third week. I felt like a failure, and I was miserable.

Now, fast forward to another day, much later, in Springfield Missouri, as I’m about to cross the finish line of my first marathon. It was very quiet. There was no “finish line” to speak of (they had taken it down hours earlier). But I limped across the sidewalk where the finish line had been, raised my exhausted arms in victory and sobbed like a baby. But this time, they were tears of joy. My friend Mary Ann and I cried together as we celebrated my first ever marathon finish.

Comes another day, later still. It was at least 95 degrees in our makeshift video studio. My friends Nora, Mary Ellen, Mary Ann and I had been doing aerobics in that heat for over four hours, shooting footage for my new exercise video, The Fat Chick Works Out!

So how did it happen? How did I motivate myself to evolve from that pathetic, sobbing creature in the kitchen to a triathlete, marathon runner, licensed aerobics instructor and personal trainer and fitness celebrity who proudly calls herself “The Fat Chick”?

Actually a lot happened during that time of conversion. But it started with one little idea that changed everything. It was a simple idea, and in retrospect, an obvious one. It was very simply, “what if I stopped obsessing about my weight, and started living my life as if I already had lost weight?”

It was a revolutionary concept. I stopped weighing and measuring every morsel of food that went into my mouth. No more food exchanges. No more points. No more food journal. No weighing myself. And no more measuring my self worth based on the numbers on a scale.

I began living my life as if I were already thin. There were so many things I wanted to do after I lost weight. I wanted new clothes. I wanted a new hairdo. I wanted to teach aerobics classes. I wanted to be on TV. I wanted to be a Hollywood producer. And one day, I decided to stop wasting my life while minding my waist and to start living the life of my dreams, right now.

So one day, I went to the local YWCA and told them that I wanted to become an aerobics instructor so I could help other beginning exercisers. Frankly, some people looked at me funny. Several said that it wasn’t a good idea. I almost gave up. Then I met Ahmena, a loving, beautiful, joyful woman who taught aerobics at the Y. She also happened to be fat. I am so grateful to her. She taught me the mechanics of teaching a successful aerobics class. What’s more, she never doubted for one second that I could do it. Before long, I was teaching a class of my own.

I learned an awful lot from teaching aerobics. I learned that with ANY type of exercise, you need to start from wherever you are. If you can only do five minutes of the class, then do five minutes. Then the next week, do six minutes. Do only what you can and don’t be embarrassed by it. Another thing I learned, was that when you separate fitness training from the expectation of weight loss, it is really fun! I discovered that I loved it! And for the first time in my life, I really appreciated what exercise could do for me. I slept well. I felt great. Stress just melted away. I also saw what exercise did for my students. Some lost weight. Some didn’t. Some got off diabetes or blood pressure medications. Some found that they could now run up to our second-story dance studio without huffing and puffing. Some found a new, bolder and braver sense of self. Some simply found a way to spend an hour away from family and work obligations to take care of themselves. There was something for everybody. Ultimately, I became a certified aerobics instructor and personal trainer.

But I didn’t stop there. On New Year’s Eve my husband and I went to dinner with our good friends Jeff and Mary Ann. It was an eight-course dinner with a very nice wine. We drank a lot of wine. Mary Ann mentioned that she always wanted to do a marathon. “Me too!” I cried. (Did I mention there was a lot of wine?) By the time the fruit and cheese and midnight champagne arrived, Mary Ann and I had made a pact to do a marathon together. She was with my every step for 26.2 miles. The training was hard. Finishing was grueling. But it was one of the most spectacular moments of my life. I am so grateful to Mary Ann for helping me get there.

Over the years, I have had a lot of time to reflect about what it took to get me across that finish line. I had to accurately assess, without shame or embarrassment, exactly what my level of fitness was and devise a plan to gradually and safely ramp my exercise abilities to meet my goal. I had to learn to redefine success to something that was reasonable and achievable for me. I had to make sure that I wouldn’t walk and run 26.2 miles just to feel like a failure. And I had to learn to rely on the kindness of others. Without my husband, my parents, Mary Ann, Ahmena and many others, I never would have made it.

I learned to have confidence and I learned to have faith. I learned to find help and accept help. I learned that by making one small step and then another, I could conquer marathons and climb mountains. And I most of all, I learned not to waste any more of my life worrying about my waist. When I think back of all the lost years–the years I could have been happy and the years I could have been moving forward, it makes me sad and angry. But mostly it makes me determined. Not just to live every day of my life as fully and deeply as I can, but also, to help others learn what I have learned. It’s a tough life sometimes, being The Fat Chick. I’ve been yelled at and bullied on television and national radio shows. I’ve been spat at by complete strangers in the course of sharing my story. But you know what? If I can help you reclaim one year, one week or even one day of your life, it will be worth it. I am committed to helping you stop weighting around for your life to start.

Join me.