Concepts

So my trainer has asked me to write an article on binging and I obviously said yes, who is more of an expert than I am?  Honestly though, I don't even know where to start.  As I was talking to my fit sister Ami last night, there is so much to it, so many emotions that are involved, so much going on inside our heads that it's hard to explain to someone especially when we really don't understand it ourselves.  It's a very difficult struggle to have and I would NEVER wish it upon anyone, letting food rule your life sounds so pathetic but it's a reality for many of us and many more who refuse to admit it.


I will more than likely have to put all of my ideas and thoughts down on paper about it, how it starts, the feelings, the guilt, mid binge, pre binge, post binge, and ways to cope that have worked or more often in my case, have not.  Those of us that compete or even fitness models, although it doesn't seem like it from the amount of support we have found via Facebook, are a very small percentage of the world among us.  I think that for most of us it's about recognizing our desire to be different, unique, to push ourselves but also to realize our OWN inner struggles and deal with ourselves emotionally just as much as we deal with ourselves ohysically in the gym.  If we devoted as much time as we did into our training, food prep, cardio, etc as we did into mindfulness exercises, relaxation and self care could we reduce the amount of stress we placed on ourselves?  Should all of these things be apart of this journey? Yes.  Do we have the time to incorporate them? No.  So how then can this be possible?  What can we do to help ourselves mentally through this process besides talking it out with other people?  I know for me that only gets me so far because in the end, talk is cheap, it's our behaviors that are expensive!


Just something to think about, the balance between spending time doing all of these physical things and comparing it to what you do mentally to help yourself get through the inner struggles. 

It all started with a key

Good lord look at that ASS!!  I just can't help but blog right now, I should be going to bed but there are just some things I need to get off of my mind today.  I want to go back to yesterday because I had an amazing experience with my field educator and supervision.  We haven't been able to meet because of schedules but this one had of been the best one yet.  I feel comfortable talking to her, she is a remarkable woman with a lot on her plate, much like me.  I know I have been told in the past that I may have too much on and sometimes I take the time to recognize it and remove some things but somehow whether I could handle it or not I would challenge myself again and pile it on.  I am relatively sure I will never stop being like this but one thing she did make me realize was that I need to recognize what I want, what I need, what will make me happy and that I should have full confidence in knowing that I have the potential for really great things.  I self-disclosed about my recent decision not to compete, she is well aware of my healthy eating/exercise habits and talking it out with her made me realize how much better I felt just from stopping the extreme behaviors I was engaging in.  I understand that it was for a prep but I was not Talia, as much as I was enjoying my workouts they were torture, as much as I enjoyed eating I was tired.  

We talked about my passion for fitness, how my goal is to help people who struggle with eating disorders, exercise disorders and the like but she also made me open up my mind to other possibilities as well.  I know I can be successful in this are of expertise because not only do I know so much but I am experiencing it.  I sort of think of it as an ex-addict that has decided to become a counselor, I feel like the connection can be made on such a different level.  Working with the children in the Sloan School District this year has also sparked my interest in this population.  It is a challenge everyday with these children but just seeing slight changes in them is very rewarding.  What I got most out of this was her ability to portray what she saw me as and it was nothing like I saw myself.  She gave me a lot of positive attributes in regards to my profession and she made me recognize that I need not focus myself to one thing especially this health and fitness stuff that I can and SHOULD expand on it.  I can think of so many ways that I can make a place for myself in this industry and I plan on doing just THAT!

Today was our field liason visit which also went very well.  The day was perfectly fine, I got to sleep in, I was excited to hit the gym later and do some food prepping.  It wasn't until after my 10 minute warm up that for one of the very first times it was the gym that actually irritated the fuck out of me.  How?  Simply by human beings.  They were all using the BB racks, one was free and some dumb ass chic stole it so I got fuckin pissed bc I had to use the smith machine.  I got super ticked off at all the people walking around with their dumb cards and every single noise from the machines was driving me INSANE.  I don't know what it was but the smalling of the stacks, the squeeks, the murmors.  I actually couldn't wait to be done, get out and vow to never go at night if I could prevent it!  I am a morning lifter/exerciser, I can't do it at night and that clearly and rudely showed me why.

I say rudely because that bad attitude carried over into the conversation of my significant other which it does more often than it should.  I must be vulnerable right now and say I am not used to this relationship stuff, like this serious stuff, I have been so used to doing so many things on my own with no interruptions that I am still trying to adjust to this addition to my life.  By no means I am saying he is inconvenient because so far he has been THE MOST understanding, caring, patient, honest and open boyfriend I have ever had.  I have never in my life wanted something to work so bad, taken time out to try and sort things out and although it's hard for me to understand I have to make certain sacrifices I WANT to do that because I know he is worth it.  How do I know?  I know because he is willing to talk to me instead of walking away, because instead of making things worse he tries to find ways to make me laugh, because instead of getting angry and saying mean things he stays as calm as he can and explains things the best he can.  I just feel so incredibly lucky to have someone who actually wants to put up with my shit.  I mean I am a true P.I.T.A a real piece of work, a hot tamale! So thank you Andrew for being there for me! =]  Let me know when you see this...are you still reading?? =]

I think I am going to..no I KNOW I have already and will continue to make huge strides in my journey.  I have my first photo shoot on Sunday and I plan on killin it!  I plan on rockin my outfits, throwing in my Talia sass and making this shoot as fun as I can!  If I want to make it, I'm not going to fake it, I want to be real, I want to be unique and I want to make my dreams come true!!

Peanut butter jelly time!

The above has been selected and bought as one of my photo shoot outfits.  I walked past Spencer's and saw a big sign for these bikini's 25% off and a light bulb immediately turned on in my head!  I invisioned this as being a FANTASTIC idea with my over the knee boots.  I then wandered over to Deb with the intention of buying hot pink heels exactly like the ones pictures above but when I couldn't squeeze my foot into a 7.5 and the girls that worked there told me that was their last pair I had another vision ::pictured above::

Yesterday my day started off with 11 hours of sleep, I felt refreshed, and lean, FINALLY.  It's amazing what clean/healthy eating can do!  I had to visit the local grovery store to purchase some green peppers, bulk almonds [way cheaper than buying the 100 calorie portions-I can do this! I c an buy them without eating them] and some Tupperware for the almonds.  I realized that if I portion them out as soon as I can I am WAY LESS likely to eat them because then I get mad there isn't enough.  As I was walking out of the store, sun is shining, birds are chirping, no jacket necessary on that Buffalo spring day I thought to myself "this is the way I want to feel all the time"  I felt healthy, and not worried about anything, when I thought back to when I was stuffing my face three days ago, I didn't like that girl, that self conscious, unconfident person.  That is not me, I even said to myself out loud "if you were 20 pounds heavier, would you be happy?"  The answer was HELL NO.  Being fit and healthy and working out will ALWAYS be a passion of mine, how could it not?  My dream is to become a fitness model people!  So on my merry way I went to my internswhip interview.  As I was driving there I thought to myself, wow,I was totally supposed to print paper work, I started to have a mini panic attack but then Mimi came into my head and said BREATHE! Honestly, all of these fit groups and this support from my facebook friends and my new boyfriend, Andrew <3, I have never felt so happy with where I am and I have never been so positive in my life.  You know what too?  It works, the more positive you are the better your life WILL go, being negative only brings on more negativity, so I told myself to remain calm and that I would figure something out.  I called my dad whom works at the school I was inbterviewing at and he told me to go to his office.  Keep in mind I have NEVER been on this campus, and after I parked and walked to the building I had no clue where I was.  I went in the wrong door, tried going up to the third floor via stairs and once I got there the door had a sign that said closed for reconstruction; FUCK. I scurried back to the main floor, stopped and asked this kid whom was sitting at a computer if he could print something, no printer, FUCK.  Time is ticking and I have no friggin clue what to do, I go down to the basement and the first lady I see at her desk I ask if I can print something bc I am from another school, I have an interview and I need paperwork.  She let me do it and in the end I didn't even need the damn paperwork.  Sunny side up though?  After all of this I was still 2 minutes early, hopefully impressed her enough to make an impression and I find out next week.  When I left it was time to eat and so this was me in the parking lot of the University...

Yup, in my trunk, weighing some green peppers, you know, no big deal #motivated

After that I FINALLY got to hit the weights and it felt soooooo good!!!!!! My home, is my gym =]

Today is going to be a long ass day.  I am getting supervised by my field educator at 730, immediately to my internship after until 315, then work right after that until midnight!  It's all good though, I can handle this!  I will handle this!!! Feelin good!

Refreshed

My first thoughts are to comment on how REMARKABLE this ass is.  I mean come on, do you think this girl ate a shit load of cereal, ice cream and pizza to get this ass? Probably not.  Do you think she partied every weekend sippin alcohol while doing bicep curls? Nope.  This people is a combination of hard work, determination, clean eating, persistence, strength, motivation and a nice smart pants brain.  Don't get me wrong, if I had one wish, one wish that could be granted and stick with me for the rest of my little life I would wish to eat whatever I wanted and still look like a fitness model 24/7.  Isn't that EVERY girls dream? Maybe not but it's mine and this is my blog so I don't care =]

I am sitting here, it's 12:30, already ate breakfast, and I have nothing to do until about 230 when I have to leave for my interview for my next internship.  This is one of the serious joys of being a college student, being able to sleep for 10 hours and then facebook stalking and writing blogs all day.  Honestly, since I have decided to post pone competing I have gained myself back, ok, ok I stuffed my face with as much food as I possibly could and although I hate how I feel after it's always great while doing it until you realize that this is not the person you want to be.  I have been a binge eater (for those of you that know me, follow my blogs and converse with me on the regular) for a long time and it has been really tough to break these habits.  My trainer had me take a week of from lifting, doing cardio or stepping food into the gym.  This was EXTREMELY tough for me but honestly, I needed it.  After months of strenuous exercise, and dieting I realized today that all of that more than likely contrivbuted to why I was binging in the first place, too much exercise, not enough food.  I mean DUH!  It makes perfect sense and I guess I always subconsciously knew that but didn't care.  I wanted to compete, I wanted to bring my best forward when in actuality that is not how Talia should be doing it.

I have been able to sleep in, give my muscles a rest, eat the things I have been craving for months, and open up my mind to my thoughts and feelings.  Being in the MSW program at UB has taught me a lot and a speaker we had yesterday reminded me how important it is to FEEL your feelings and understand WHY we have them and their purpose.  I tend to try and ignore them or change them and in the long run it hurt me more than ever.  I am more than happy with the decison that I made, I needed to reflect, to get my mind right, and my body right and I honestly feel that I will make more gains during this time than I would if I was in "prep" mode.

My goals are to kill my first photo shoot this Sunday, give it my all in my workouts, comply 100% to my trainer (yes, I have a contract, yes I printed like 1237894 copies and they are everywhere-signed and dated for today).  I will learn how to understand and react to my emotions and not eat them, hide them or try to change them.  I will work through them and make better coping choices instead of reaching for food.  I will stay bikini ready as it is almost bikini season here in Buffalo!  I will put my best food forward and get on the good foot! Ok cya cat bitches!

Choices

I would like to take a fresh moment to look at this amazing body above.  In all honesty, this COULD be me, she seems to have the same body type as I, and as I get leaner my midsection looks similiar to her.  This makes me happy!

So the month of March was a bit of a struggle for myself.  I debated back and forth on whether or not I was ready for this show in April.  I kept telling people that maybe I shouldn't do it, that I wasn't going to feel confident, that maybe I should post pone and with my best interests in mind they would tell me to keep pushing forward, drink water and drive on, and never give up.  I am not saying I gave up but what I am saying is that I finally decided to un-cloud my brain with everyone else's suggestions and go with my heart and my gut. My gut was telling me to pick another show.  It was one of the hardest decisions I EVER had to make.  It felt like I was quitting, it felt like I was going through a panic attack at work while I was on the phone with my trainer balling my eyes out.  My dream is to be a winning competitor and bikini model and I felt like turning away from this show would be turning away from my dreams.  I realize now that this isn't true.  Although this was the toughest decision I ever had to make I know it was the smartest.  

What wasn't the smartest thing was the foods I choose to eat after I made that concrete decision, let;s just say dressing up to go downtown led me to throwing on some jeans, over the knee boots and a Sabres jersey (which by the way got more attention than some of the chics that were half naked).  What can I say, I come from a city where we love our sports teams regardless of how we know they will never win any major titles.  ANYWAYS...I got a big slap in the face of what it feels like to be a glutton.  I do not like this Talia.  This is not the Talia I want to carry around, she sucks.  So I am going to make her better damn it and I am going to come out of this even better!

I need to get myself mentally and physically ready.  I need to learn the importance of eating healthy and choosing healthy foods and the reasons why.  Things I already know but never really think about...

HAPPY APRIL FIRST! Love the fact that it's a new month!!

Anxiety anyone?

25 days until my second competition and I am starting to feel the anxiety and the pressures of life an all of the things I need to do.  I am not sure if my heart is racing because of this coffee, honestly, it.....

Never finished that entry..now it's 24 days out and those anxieties are still here...I am not sure if I could ever explain what it's like to have a "binge eater" mindset.  Honestly, as nasty as it sounds, you will never have a clue what it's like unless you actually live it and those who have or are know exactly what I mean.  For those of you whom are TRYING so hard to understand it, please know how difficult it is to describe something that even the person going through it doesn't know how to describe.

In talking with someone, shout out to SARAH, I have realized that my sub conscious feelings are failure and then the feelings of failure ultimately lead me to some sort of failure, like eating something I shouldn't be (ok this is what the majority of my failures consist of).  Competing is NOT easy and I know know know that, I never said it would be cake, my first show I thought I could come up with my own rules, find the loop holes, jumping through them gleefully and happy only to realize I fell flat on my face most of the time.  The second time around I have done much better but still seem to have all the same feelings. 

My main issues are the many roles I take on; I am an employee x's 2, I am a student, I am an intern, I am a girlfriend, I am a competitor, I am a sister, I am a daughter, I have class every monday night, I intern 16 hours a week, I work 2 jobs, I train twice a day, I food prep, cook, weigh and bag, I have homework, papers and research and yeah, I need to sleep too.  I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and unable to change anything other than my job situation.  I have been working at restaurants since I was able to legally work.  Being born into the family business I was always surrounded by food, good food, we were never deprived, seconds were always available, food portions/control was never learned.  Right now I am in the process of recognizing that working as a server in two places is doing me more damage than good.  I am constantly being surrounded by temptations and temptations that to a binge eater could be lethal just like a drop of alcohol could be lethal for a recovering addict.  Maybe I need to be hypnotized, maybe I need to starve myself, maybe I need to go on a liquid diet or maybe I just need to get out of my comfort zone and made a change!  

I think we all know and are familiar with what it's like to be in a comfort zone.  It sucks having that feeling of being out of it, being out of your element, of what you have known for so long but sometimes it's for the better and taking that chance could be worth it!  Hell I took a chance on loving again and so far I have realized it was the best decision I have made in a long time.  I will not give up, I will not give in, I will not throw the white flag at my goals!  I CAN do this!!!

Motha-fuckin-early

I have about 15 minutes to write the most amazing blog ever, probably not likely but ok fine, I have 15 minutes to blog, bitch, complain, rant, rave and say whatever else I need to say before I really get my day statrted.  Yesterday began with a 3 pound loss on the scale and I nearly had a block party before noon.  It was a gorgeous day out and so I did girlie girl things for once.  You know, like get my eye brows threaded, went tanning and bought some allergy medicine because apparantly I have obtained allergies?? wtf.  I honestly thought I was sick, AGAIN and I couldn't even believe it.  Glad to know it's just allergies but then again it really sucks, I always remember feelings sorry for those people.

Any which way..yesterday was also a big day for many people competing such as Kerry, Robin, Lindsey and Shelly.  HUGE HUGE HUGE shout out to you girls!  You are an inspiration!  I am motivated by you girls everyday!!

The end of the night didn't turn out too well.  I ended up staying home because I had this ridiculous paper to write that, yes, of course I procrastinated on and well, one things leads to another, I responded to something I shouldn't have via text message and it got me into a really big hole that I wasn't able to fuck.  I disappointed myself and now I am here at 630am discussing it in my head, trying to figure out how to fix it but yet I'm still in the damn ditch!  Is anyone going to find me?

Crap..I gotta get ready..time's up...