I found It! - IChair Workout - Overweight & Obese Fitness

At last!  A fitness programme I feel I could follow.  I have searched a long time and tried many workouts.  A lot of them I could do surprisingly but would give up after a day or two because of pain and the length of time they took.  



A few months back the doctor advised e it was his recommendation I go for gastric bypass surgery to help me lose enough weight to relieve my painful back issues.  I was not comfortable with this.  This was not the first doctor to recommend it to me and I had even gone through the whole process before right up to the point of surgery when I decided no the first time.  This time though I felt uncomfortable I realised if another doctor was recommending it and I was struggling to walk from the pain in my back maybe this was meant to be.



Well the last few days my prayer intensified about this.  I know some of my readers are not Christian and that is absolutely okay however I hope that it is also okay that I am and that I share some of my relationship with God with you.  If you truly want to know me this is who I am.  I have not been comfortable with this decision to have the gastric surgery but then again I realised who really is?  If we didn't take this risky surgery seriously that wouldn't be right.  I had been saying to my doctor/s that I would prefer to lose the weight myself.  The thing is I wasn't and I was in fact gaining and that is why they were pushing for it.  But I didn't know how to lose the weight.  Every diet I tried failed.  But I knew it was my desire to try once more.  My consultation with the surgeon which had been postponed from July but was now looking close to when it was due to happen early October.  My sister had said to me my family would pray with me.  They and I would ask God to either remove the possibility of surgery if it wasn't for me or to let it happen.  I did fear.  I don't like the idea of being on a cocktail of drugs and vitamins the rest of my life.  I feared the complications that sometimes come with surgeries like this.  And worst of all if I went through all of this I could still gain the weight back!  



So I started to pray.  Just short prayers here and there when I thought of it.  I found myself becoming interested in a new eating programme.  That's what I'll call it because I don't want to make this post about dieting.  It's radical.  It's the Raw till 4 programme.  The girl who promotes this 'diet' on youtube is a friendly sort of girl but I have to say I don't prescribe to all of her ideals but found strangely the 'diet' did work for me.  I tweaked it a little bit but I found and felt when I trialed it that I could possibly maintain this for a while and as I needed to lose weight fairly quickly that was my main concern.  I think this 'diet'will work for me along with the vitamin supplements I'll need.  It's a type of vegan doctrine.  I'm definitely not vegan.  But I will do anything to lose weight initially.  So I'll try it.  I like the idea that there isn't a restriction only an omission of certain foods.  But the idea is you eat till you are satisfied.  I won't stop eating meat forever but I'll do what it takes to get me to where I need to be.  It's not the same spiritual move for me as it is for some because I already have my Christian faith to fill me there.  



Of course no 'diet' is complete without exercise.  My achilles heel.  I hate exercise because I can never find the motivation and usually it's too hard and too long.  I hate to leave the house to do it and especially in the winter which we are now approaching.  So this morning I prayed again.  I asked God to show me which it was to be.  The surgery or to try to lose the weight myself.  I spent all morning on youtube watching Raw Till 4 clips to learn more about this.  Then I searched fitness for the obese.  I came across this amazing clip.  And I know what you're thinking.  You probably think it's because the fitness instructor is Christian and that's why I love it.  I won't lie to you for me that was an added bonus.  The way she speaks of God in her clip encourages me all the more.  But it was not just that.  The fact that I could do just 10 minutes of real exercise from my chair was the greatest feeling.  I felt even in moments when I didn't feel like doing this (and I know there'll be a few) I could still push myself for 10 minutes and get it done and over with.  I haven't been this inspired in a long time.  This is the one for me to start with. 



But before I did that I also received a letter in the post earlier today to say my appointment had been postponed again until the end of November.  Some might have been disappointed to receive such news and I do understand that.  When you're ready for surgery like that you're ready and the waiting is hard.  But for me.  I took it as the most amazing answer from God. I believe He responded to me through these 'signs'.  What else do I call them?  I felt that this was the opportunity I needed with God's help to show the doctors and everyone around me that I was capable of doing this myself.  I have some time to prove this now.  I'm not looking to be a size 0.  I'm just trying to get the pressure off my back and make it to a weight that feels comfortable to me.   I'm not going to have lost that kind of weight by my appointment end of November of course but I am sure hoping I'll have lost enough to make them stop and think I really can do this.  With God's, my family's, my friends and your help! 



Yes!  I will need your help.  I don't think many ready this blog but for those of you who do.  I hope you will join me in my 30 day challenge starting next week or at least drop me a note of encouragement in my journey along the way.  I will post (no matter how embarrassed I feel about it) my numbers and details and photos from next week so you can track this journey with me.  I hope you will.  I hope you'll at least try this awesome workout too.  Read the youtube comments.  Both Christian and non-Christians have tried it and really benefited from it. Let me know how you get on if you do. 



Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!



RayRay



PS - Thank you Alisa Keeton!

Ebook Now Available on Amazon Kindle!

Hey all!

Finally!  It's here.  Long awaited non-fiction semi-bio ebook on plus size living by Alexandra Grace.  Check it out and get yourself a copy.  Spread the word in the plus size community if you will and please do leave a review on Amazon if you can.  

A Personal Guide To Living Plus Size by Alexandra Grace (Sep 4, 2014) - Kindle eBook

• $5.11 Kindle Purchase
• Auto-delivered wirelessly

• Prime members read for free Join Amazon Prime

Hope you like it!

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

I Have Nothing To Say

I usually always have something to say!  To comment on etc.  And it's usually because some I've come across some article, witness some event or that I've been motivated to by some experience.  In trying to come up with my next blog post I found myself with a touch of 'writer's block'.  There is plenty to blog about but I can't think where to begin.  Because you see everything  I usually share here is something that has 'stirred' me both in my heart and my mind. While there are number of helpful topics I could write about in this post none 'grab' me just now.  My mother and other adults I ever came across in my life have always taught me if you haven't anything good to say about anything or anyone it is better to keep quiet.  I think it is good advice and I have followed it my whole life.  However, it isn't the situation that I only write about something or someone when I want to say something 'bad' or negative about them.  I just haven't anything to blog about  right now that's all.  So with that said I thought it would be nice to share with you this poem by Shalom Freedman:

When there is nothing to say
Try to say something, 
For Nothing is only Nothing 
And saying it will not help- 

Saying something may give meaning to life
Even if what one says is not of great significance-
Saying nothing gives nothing

Saying this little something then
Is another small attempt at giving life meaning-

It may be nothing really and nothing in the end and after all
But for now it is a little something
And a little something is better than nothing 
Sometimes maybe even now- 

And so by sharing the above I share my something which is really nothing and probably not very useful to you at all today.  Except to say if I am going to say something I will also add that it's never useless to say to you today, I hope you're well.  That today you have had a reason to smile.  To wish you well and say most importantly.....

Stay beyoutiful   bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

Positivitty

Hi all, I'm feeling loads better now.  Turned out to be a rather nasty long lingering cold I had in the end.  My sinuses still aren't quite right into the second week.  Unusual for me.  My colds usually last about 4 days max.  And last week it felt like a big dark grey cloud had parked itself permanently over my head.  I felt everything was gloom and doom and didn't feel as though I'd got much hope about anything.  I was behind on my writing, I seem to have fallen out with someone and I can't think why and just generally I felt like life was giving me a ticking off!  I hate being at odds with life or friends and family.  

But while doing some research for my next book (I know I'm slightly behind on the other one thanks to the cold but launching on Amazon real soon) I came across a page of quotes and memes.  I can't tell you what that did for me.  My bible is my go to place as well but these memes and quotes just seemed to lift my spirits up as well.  Really.  And then the 'cloud' lifted, my friend wasn't mad with me after all and life is back to being just hard and happy and not difficult and dreary.   I want to share with you some of my favorite ones which I think are apt for me in my plus size journey of health and happiness and I hope they inspire you in some way too.

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

I Am Not My Weight!

I don't know.  At the end of a week of feeling poorly I just wanted to reach out and say that!  There's no time like when you're sick to start to wish your body was well. You don't think to yourself when you're sick "I wish I was thin", no, you just want to be well.  You just want a body that works.  Wishing your body well again has nothing to do with whether you're fat or thin has it?  Wishing it 'well' is a sizeless need. Do you get what I'm saying?  If 'well' can mean just working properly then why do we say when dieting and trying to be thin that we want our body to be 'well' as well?  Doesn't make sense but it's just been accepted as something people say in relation to health.  You know, we really need to start actually listening to people who want to give health advice and watch what we are listening to.  A lot of the times people repeat something they've read somewhere, unsubstantiated stuff, but because its in print it's repeated as the truth but if your really listen to it it doesn't make any sense at all.

This is how we have the kind of hang ups about our weight and our body that we do.  Really, start to make your own health discoveries.  Learn the science of your own body.  Don't just rely on other people's thoughts on such an important issue to you.  And if people want to be helpful then let them, listen politely but do check your 'sense-o-metre'.  Work out what they are saying and if doesn't make a whole lot of sense challenge it.  If it stands true under your scrutiny then it's worth you doing the extra research yourself after that before you follow advice or commit to something like that. Time for us to educate ourselves coz guess what? Sometimes the experts get it wrong!  

I realised this week while I was ill that I really haven't been kind to my body.  Not in the way you imagine which is by not feeding my body good food and giving it enough exercise but something more terrible than that.  I have criticised and abused my own body with my words and the way I feel about it.  Am I sounding just a little silly to you right now?  Well, I'm not being.  What we say is powerful.  Even to ourselves.  If we speak negativity we inject negativity into ourselves and what is good will 'die' in such an environment.  But if we speak positively then positivity flows through us breathing life throughout our hearts, minds and also our bodies.

I need to start to respect this body.  Irrespective of who else might like to have an opinion about it.  My body is mine.  Like having a child.  Others might think my 'child' if I had one was unattractive but I would only see the beauty in that child like a the mother and I would love it unconditionally.  In a similar way (although not quite the same) I need to embrace, see the beauty in and love my body.  It's mine and no else will love it the same as me.  So I need to learn to love my body.  Unconditionally.  It's weight is irrelevant!  

Bottom line.  I am a plus size person with a bigger body which I need to appreciate and love whatever the size.  This along with my mind and my heart make up who I am and I just wanted everyone to know that there's one thing for sure....

I am not my weight!  I wish people would stop making it about that. I am fat but my life is not centred around just how much fat I have.  What a thing to focus on.  Stop.  Everybody please stop.  Love your body or start to learn too.

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

PS - A happy happy happy birthday to my one and only niecey.  Mwah! xx

Poorly Me!

Yes, I have been poorly with a long lingering cold it seems.  I've had it a few days and I thought it would be over by now but I've woken up today to find I am still in the grips of it! 

Of course I am feeling pretty sorry for myself and hating the feeling of runny eyes and blocked nose.  I was very lucky that my mum decided to visit just as it started so I was well cared for at the start.  She's gone now and I'm missing her and her wonderful 'pampering' of her 42 year old daughter!  Lol.  What a baby I am!  

Anyway, I hope you are all well and having a great start to this week.  The cold has delayed the work but the Alexandra Grace book on Plus Size Living will launch this week.  I'll post the links on here to Amazon, Twitter and Facebook etc.  Do check it out when it arrives and pass it around the plus size community.  The more reviews the better.  Would love to hear your thoughts on it.  It will be priced reasonably don't worry and if you like it you might enjoy the next book which is half written!  There will also be a separate blog for Alexandra Grace books as well so make sure to look out for that and join up.  Will post links.   

But for now....I'm drinking my soup, taking my meds, wiping my runny eyes, blowing my blocked nose and retreating back under the covers. 

Speak soon!

Stay beyoutiful   bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

Celebrity SOS!

   

Around the world these last two days the world has been mourning the loss of two of its brightest stars.  Lauren Bacall, one of my favourite past time actresses and Robin Williams.  Lauren was almost 90 and Robin just 63.  Lauren's family will mourn as deeply as anyone's family who lose a loved one no matter the age.  I lost my own father last year and though he'd lived a 'good age' and was suffering towards the end I did not want to lose him.  Losing him was hard and I felt it deeply.  So my thoughts are with Lauren's family as they go through this.  

Robin's family will suffer all the more if it is possible to grieve that much deeper when a love one is lost because he chose to go.  I can't know how that must feel.  I will not try.  He felt so sad and so moved within his spirit to end his life on earth and I do not judge.  I only mourn for him along with many other fans across the globe.  

I thought I knew this funny man.  How much laughter did he bring to me in my childhood.  I will never forget "Nanu Nanu".  My childhood was made just a little happier from watching him on the TV.  When I think of him I think happy.  So now I have to think he made me happy but I didn't care to know whether this person was happy.  It never occurred to me.  After all, we reason with ourselves, what has he or stars and celebrities like him have to complain about?  They make so much money.  As if they don't deserve a right to feelings or happiness because they make money.  What's wrong with us?  I have come to understand that celebrities are now such 'prisoners' of their celebrity status that they are never allowed to stop performing.  Even when they are in the privacy of their own homes.  The world says "personal lives? what personal lives? they belong to us! (Errr.....no they don't!  But let' continue I'll tell you why).

Some people blame the media, the PR gurus, the entertainment business etc.  And they are.  They are all to blame.  In part.  Of course lots of celebrities throughout time have struggled with their personal issues.  In my generation the one most notable episode was Britney Spears:  The Cray Cray years.  Anyone remember that? I hadn't seen anything like it.  She seemed to be going mental before our very eyes.  I did not think that girl would recover.  I really thought she was going to stay mad.  And even while she was disintegrating into her own personal hell the PR people around her just exploited her.  She was news.  But she must have had a strong family behind her.  They bulledd her back from the brink.  Thank God! Then it was Amanda Bynes, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown etc.  These young stars were rebelling against the pressure stardom had brought them.   The older stars wouldn't dream of making such a spectacle of themselves but they must suffer the same issues.  

  

I can't speak about Robin's reasons for taking his own life.  Of course not.  Not my business and I don't know and unless his family decide on their own to say why I don't need to know.  I only express my sadness for him and his family and will leave them alone.  Because I feel that in part it is because of our interest in stars and celebrities which has got so unhealthy, we, their fans, the public, the audience, we, have become their nightmare!  We are their puppet masters and they are the marionettes who must dance to our tune or we will not pay.  But perhaps it's time to realise we are asking too much.  Celebrities are still people.  They feel and hurt just like we do.  We should give them the space to express themselves in private when they are 'off duty'.  Instead we follow them around, spy on them, trash them because we want to know what they do in their personal lives.  We need to get a grip!  Leave them alone!  You watched your movie.  Got what you paid for.  Their personal lives are not yours to watch.  That's not what they are selling to you.  You are asking for more than you have paid for.  What do you call that if not slavery?  You have made them slaves to you.  I'm not saying all celebrities are innocent beings beyond reproach.  What I'm saying is they do the job they are paid for.  Asking for more is wrong.  We need to examine ourselves.  When we buy celebrity magazines etc we are perpetuating this wrongdoing.  It's okay to keep slaves is it?

I'm not about to make this a plus size issue but I will say that as a plus size person in a non-forgiving slim world I too am slave to the world.  I should understand even more the pressures celebrities go through because we plus size are the other group the world has decided to 'own'.  Telling us how to eat, to dress and to act etc.  I started this blog to speak out against fatism and fat shaming and to start to embrace the person I am and begin a journey to health my own way and not the world's.  It's not easy.  Maybe celebrities acting out is their way of saying they're not taking it anymore.  They want to find their own personal journeys to who they are and not be 'made' and owned according to how the world would like to see them.  If the road to their happiness and well being is blocked we risk losing them.  They are people too and every life is precious.  

We have lost Robin.  We have lost Lauren.  I hope some part of their lives, if not at the end, was lived happy and free.  Away from our prying eyes!

Rest In Peace.

RayRay xx

PS -  Just read this below.  He told us he got 'bummed' sometimes.  Nobody thought to say Robin, whats going on, how can we help?  We didn't because we were too busy laughing!  We were too busy filling up on the good he made us feel and forgot to give back in turn.  Lets pay more attention people. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/11/robin-williams-mental-illness_n_5670367.html?utm_hp_ref=celebrity&ir=Celebrity