There comes a time in everyone's life, where you feel like you
have to make some changes. Where the monotone daily routine that snuck its
way into your life and the repeating actions and habits that we undertake, need
to go through a serious makeover.
I moved to Los Angeles
a few years ago and until then, I believe I was a healthy 20 something young
German girl, that never really had to watch her weight and never interpreted
too much into the whole diet craze and skinny=beautiful idealism of this world.
Moving to LA has certainly changed that over time. Settling in and becoming
comfortable with the American ways of eating and enjoying life at first was
awesome! I wasn't a big burger & fries fan back in Germany, but moving here
and being exposed to the wide variety of all these new yummy dishes, really
changed that. I discovered my love for this amazing thing they call Lumberjack
Breakfast with all that delicious Bacon!! (In Germany, we have rye bread with a
thin spread of jam or Nutella and maybe a hard-boiled egg for breakfast)
Burritos from Del Taco, BBQ Chicken Pizza from Dominos and Chicken Fettuccine
Alfredo (and of course - more BACON), became my new favorite foods to eat.
Salads, Fruit and vegetarian dishes slowly started disappearing from my plate.
Being from one of the biggest beer countries in the world, I was already used
to consuming a fair amount of beer, but nothing like the beer here. German beer
is much thicker and higher in its alcohol content. You could pretty much say
for one bottle of German beer, you'd have to have 3 Bud light to get the same
kind of buzz. Having to admit, I don't even see Bud light as a real
"beer", since its so thin. But anyway, since it seems to be one of
the #1 beers being consumed by the people around me, I didn't want to be the
odd woman out and developed a fairly fast gulp of this beverage. And as we all
know - beer goes straight on your belly (or hips)! Along with all the mentioned
above delights, I slowly started gaining weight. At first not noticeable and I
was still wearing my size 6-8 clothes, dancing on stage and feeling/looking
good the way I did. But over the course of the next 1.5 years, the jeans
started getting tighter, the lack of exercise started showing and (as
a positive side effect of all this) my bras started getting too small. Before I
knew it, I was a size 12 and inwardly changed my usual sexy tight and revealing
Gogo Dancing wardrobe to PinUp style clothing, which enhances the
womanly curves, but hides the problematic zones. The bikinis gave way to the once
piece bathing suits and booty shorts were replaced by long skirts and pants.
Being 5'9" did help a lot to hide the extra pounds and no one really
noticed my weight gain as much. To be honest, I never found myself to be
disgustingly "fat", except for that awful feeling of your thighs
rubbing together when walking. That was something I've never experienced before
and it freaked me out. But after visiting my doctor’s office a few weeks ago
and being diagnosed with high cholesterol at age 29, it was kind of a wake-up call.
I have always been a healthy person, active and exercising. But something
happened along the way that turned me into a rather lazy, chubby couch potato.
High cholesterol does run in my family and my dad had to have 2 stents
implanted after his heart attack in 2012. After a long conversation with my
mom, I knew I had to do something to prevent the same thing happening to me in
15 or 20 years.
I looked in the
mirror and didn't like what I saw. I was just about to turn 30 and
for a woman, that is bad enough. Every girl over 30 reading this, knows what I
mean and how she felt when she was just about to enter her 30s. I was just
about to reach a certain milestone in my life... Do I really want to be a fat
30 year old, if I keep going like this? A size 12? Unable to wear all the nice
clothes that pile up in my closets? Ending up like my mom who was the same size
as me when she was young, but after having my brother and me, piling on the lbs.
and fighting for every inch ever since? She told me that once you turn 30, it
gets harder to lose weight...
Talking numbers, I
gained about 35lbs. I was 132lbs during the tour in the summer of 2010 and a
few weeks ago I couldn't believe my eyes when that damn scale dared to show
169lbs. Yes I am tall, but still. I was always skinny and fit, but this was
gone too far!
That's when I made
the decision that it’s time for some changes. Time to throw the old
habits overboard, time to pull myself together and do something about this. And all that without resorting to sticking my finger down my throat or snorting coke to suppress hunger. I
decided that after my birthday had passed, I'm going to drop the weight again.
Screw the work as a plus size model, if the price I'm having to pay is health
issues and feeling unhappy with myself.
I spent a while
trying to figure out what the right diet is. I knew from past diets that just a
crash diet won’t do - I need to change my eating habits, increase
my exercise level and need a lifestyle makeover. But of course all
that needs to be underlined with a strict diet program to lose the extra lbs I
gained in 2 years. I researched and talked to certain people until one day I
saw our friend who lost an incredible amount of weight over the past few
months. After more research and talk, I decided to go with the HCG Diet, the
same diet as my friend successfully accomplished.
This blog is going
to record my progress, my ups and downs, my thoughts and feelings over the next
2 months. I've never written a blog before and have no plan on how to go about
this. You are all welcome to follow along with my story and feel free to leave
your comments. I know many will be "oh but you are not fat Steffi, you
look amazing!" - But that's not really what this blog should be about and
not really what’s going to help me in accomplishing this goal I have set for
myself.
Enjoy.
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