Descisions

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.