Weight Loss & I

We are not two peas in a pod, we are not like-minded, we don’t even eat at the same restaurants. However, if weight loss & I were to have a relationship status on Facebook it’d be “It’s complicated.” I’ve always been the “big” girl in my family and among my friends. I lost weight once, 35 pounds totally gone I looked awesome but I gained it all back so now I’m on the road again.  

In January of this year, looking in the mirror I would comment Wow, look at that Buddha belly or Holy moon face, Batman! I also noticed I was rundown, burned out, tired and a glutton. I ate everything and anything because “why not?” That is the lamest excuse ever. That’s like saying well, all my friends jumped off the bridge “why not?” I was fed up with myself, my image, my lameness. All of it. All of it had to go.

Initially weight loss was the goal, the one and only goal and apparently there could only be one. As I started changing my diet and exercising more I kept having these little personal victories pop up like ethereal text messages. You just ran 3 miles. You have been able to sustain a nutritious 1,200 calorie-day and still be full. None of it was overnight it took me 3 months to watch what I put in my mouth and bring my calories down to 1,200. It took me the same amount of time to get up to a 3-mile continuous run. 

Healthy eating quickly became another goal. Making better food choices, paying attention to what I put in my mouth were very important. I wanted this because I figured out my body responds better when it’s got good food in it. Lean meats, veggies and a truckload of fruit make me smile physically and mentally way more than Jack-in-the-Box. Then came exercise. I got addicted to the rush. I love my runners high. I love feeling my strength grow. Now, weight loss is kind of in the backseat. It’s still trying to be a backseat driver but I’m more focused on how great eating and exercising makes me feel and I believe weight loss will come eventually and if it doesn’t hey, that’s okay.

However, that desire, that want to lose weight never fully goes away. I could be blissfully entertaining “eating healthy” and “exercising more” in my home when the doorbell rings and who’s there? Weight Loss with a box, trying to sell me stuff I don’t need. Trying to get me to pay more attention, to eat more or eat less, to do math equations, eat less carbs, bring in science, make a spreadsheet, measure things. It’s trying all the schemes. It’s bringing in all my friends. So-and-so lost weight this way however this person did it this way. Weight loss comes to your door backed with endorsements. It’s a pyramid scheme. Once you buy into it you’ll start enlisting your friends to how THEY should be losing weight. The next thing you know you’re the one with a box, knocking on your friend’s door, interrupting their healthy dinners telling them about all the fine things they should be doing to lose weight.

I’ve decided to put a stop to that for myself. I’ve lost 20 pounds. Would I like to lose more? Sure. It wasn’t easy to lose the 20 pounds I lost but in losing that weight it opened me up to much better things. Exercise and healthy eating those are things I will maintain for the rest of my life, not because I want to lose weight but because I WANT to feel good, I want to feel confident; I want to live a long life. Losing weight is not a forever mission. You can’t spend your entire life losing weight. What you can do is spend your life maintaining a healthy and exuberant lifestyle.

What works for you might not work for me and vice versa if your main mission is to lose weight like mine was, then good luck but know that once you lose the weight it will come down to maintenance so you don’t gain it back. Are you going to measure out your foods for the rest of your life? Are you going to reject your child’s birthday cake in front of their smiling faces because it’s too many carbs? Are you going to abstain from enjoying in eating? If yes, then I wish you the best. If you envision a lifetime of limiting yourself or using math and science as your tools, good for you, go for what makes you happy and what gives you the results you want.

Personally, I’ve found my tastes have simply changed. Instead of chips I crave baby carrots, I turned my breads and pasta to whole grain and they’re so much more filling. My meats are lean, like my muscles. I understand my change will not be the same change for anyone else who started on a weight loss mission and found themselves smack dab in the middle of fitness-burbia or a nutrition wasteland. I will no longer start a sentence with “What I did to lose weight was …” or “what worked for me was…” instead unless you want my honest advice, I’ll just LISTEN. That’s what people who are struggling need. Someone to JUST listen.

There are a lot of paths, a lot of routes and A LOT of unsolicited advice (knock, knock) from EVERYONE you know. Here’s what you do – put on your headphones, tune everyone out and do what works best for you in regards to losing weight, eating better and exercising more. Find your own groove and revel in the fact that once you find it you’ll never have to worry about getting your groove back.

Home is Where You Retreat To?

Since moving to the mainland all anyone has ever asked me is "why?"

Why leave Hawaii?
Why did you more HERE??!!
Why don't you move back?

I was born and raised in Hawaii and I was raised very traditionally. I was in a hula halau, I learned to surf and swim at a young age, I have a tendency to speak pidgin especially while drunk. Hawaii will always be my home. In fact, it's more than my home, it's my heritage.

Even at a young age, I turned the "mainland" into something exotic. Hawaii was not "exotic" to me it was just where I lived everyday. That's not to say it's not beautiful, it is gorgeous and I have never been able to live inland because of my connection to the ocean.

I craved seasons. As a child, I wanted the colorful leaves of the fall racked into a pile so I could play in them. I wanted to see snow and the way it turns a landscape pure and white. I wanted to see flowers bloom and the bright burst of green that came in the spring. I was raised in perpetual summer.


It was always my intention to explore and discover a place other than the tropical shores of my homeland. North Carolina was never comfortable but my experience there I wouldn't trade for anything. But here in Washington, I feel good. The mountains are everywhere you turn and the water is clear and full of life.

The question "Why don't you move back?" always fills me with a little bit of rage. Why should I move back? Because it's your idea of paradise? Maybe this is my idea of paradise. I love Hawaii. It is and will always be my home, I cannot stress that enough. For whatever reason, I fight moving back home I feel like it is a retreat, like my white flag is going up. Like I can't make it with the new and the brave and I have to fall back on comfort and familiarity. While I miss my family horribly and toy with the notion of moving back home to be with them. I am too stubborn to see a move to Hawaii as anything but throwing in the towel.

The traffic, the heat, the overpopulation, the high cost of living, the tourists and the living tourists. These are all factors I use to back up my decision. Sure, I could live on another island, one that more happily reflects people's notion of Hawaii - Maui, the "new" Waikiki or my favorite island Kauai.  But given the lethargic nature of the islands, the spell the islands cast that seeps into your soul through your pores, that hangs in the humidity, I would slack and not see my family nearly as much as I'd like. Also outside of Oahu the islands offer limited jobs, actives and sometimes an even higher cost of living. Call me crazy but $8 for a gallon of milk does not fill me with joy despite how bright the sun is shinning.

Every time I go home, I want to stay. I want to burrow myself deep in the green bosom of the tropical isles that are my home. Something in me is resilient, resisting the urge to cave and retreat home. And I love bringing people home with me. I love playing tour guide and showing people my home. But if i never left the islands I wouldn't have these friends to show the islands to. I am a new strain of Hawaiian one resistant to the homelands of my birth. It's a little saddening but I feel like a Hawaiian on a new frontier, I'm onto something big.