So I've mentioned before that eating seems to be getting in the way of my weight loss.
My cousin, and lifelong best friend, is getting married this summer. Actually both my cousins, sisters, are having a double wedding together on their parents' wedding anniversary which also happens to be their grandparents' wedding anniversary as well. If their kids get married on the same day in the future it will be four generations with the same anniversary. A pretty cool tradition, I say.
Anyways, last night the brides, bridesmaids, and the mother of the brides got together to look for dresses at David's Bridal.
It was painful. I mean, I love getting new clothes, especially pretty dresses, but trying stuff on is demoralizing.
And I realize, now, that a true diet is in order. I had been eating more sensibly, trying to stay away from fast food- which really isn't my favorite anyways- and half-heartedly counting calories. But, well, yeah.
There seems to be an issue with eating food, it gets in the way of losing weight. I also want to go to the gym, however doing that is tricky with hijab. I don't want to work out with it on, but my only choice would be Curves. Which its not a bad gym I guess, I just would like all the bells and whistles too you know: a sauna and hot tub, a pool to swim laps in, and I'd rather not work out in a cramped closet.
I used to work out at Lifetime, before I was Muslim, and I loved it. I loved working out and I enjoyed the time I spent there. The lockers were well-lit, clean, and big, all of the machines were new and shiny and worked well, and the entire place didn't reek of BO because they have a good air exchange system.
Is that too much to ask of a gym?
Maybe I should work out in hijab just for the luxury of having those things.
I don't know.
But I want to work out, I want to lose weight, I want to feel better about myself and how I look in absolutely God-awful fru-fru dresses.
But first, I need to learn how to survive by not eating. Because apparently thinking about food causes me to gain weight.
*sigh*
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22 comments:
awww trying to loose weight sucks thats for sure! The cookie diet really worked well for me. I think E might go on it.
what about finding a thin turtle neck and knotting the hijab in the back. You see ppl w/ bandannas on working out...
lifetime in roseville is a women only location.
Actually, take it from me since I was part of Curves (and still am, but am on "leave" cuz I was in Egypt and now prego high risk)...
Curves isn't too bad. But the bad thing about it is you won't be losing weight. You'll be losing fat and inches, but you will be toning muscle, which will weigh more. And they don't have too much of a selection, just the "2 laps around the machines, 30 minute a day, 3 days a week" routine. To honestly get anywhere, you'll need Curves, PLUS calorie counting, PLUS something like pilates or yoga or aerobics. I was doing pilates and aerobics while on Curves too at a free YMCA program.
If you count the calories while toning though, you'll actually need to cut down 500 calories from the normal. Honestly, it's not what you eat, it's how much you eat and how frequently. I still had my dose of cheesecake while "dieting" but took it in smaller quantities. A slice a week - meaning a bite a day. It tricked my brain into thinking I was eating cheesecake everyday. Lol. Most places will give you wheat instead of white bread, low fat milkshakes instead of whole, low fat mayo deli salads rather than sour cream, or no fat yogurt on your baked potato rather than sour cream... get the slow churned 1/2 fat ice cream, it's good. Don't go diet soda or splenda. It's useless and tastes bad, and has health effects later on.
While on Curves and before my wedding, I lost only 13 lbs (but not counting the lbs I put on from muscle gain, I lost 22lbs). It's the body fat you'll need to focus on and look at. You can weigh 200 and look plump, and can weigh 250 and look toned. After marriage, without Curves but still on pilates and yoga in Egypt (I had taken my stretch bands and exercise ball with me), and with a 500 calorie less meal/more activity in the house as a housewife, and eating salad with my dinner every day, I lost a good 25 lbs! Which alhamdulilah helped, now that I'm prego and putting on that weight again, I'm back to the weight I was at before losing. lol
For the hijab, I would say get a pair of loose sweat pants, a big baggy tshirt with sleeves, and wear the hijab like a bandana. :)
Willpower habibty!! You can do it!!
www.splashgearusa.com is the place I got my swimsuit that I loooooove. If you check my blog category under "sports" i have some suggestions for workout hijab. But heck, since you live so close, you might as well just stopy in and see them yourself, lol.
ummabdurrahman, is it a true women only location, or one where men frequently wander on through to fix things or teach classes? Lifetime is a wee bit more expensive than the Y, but if it's truly women only, I'm there!
I feel your pain, seriously! Just wait, when you see me this March I'll be even fatter than before! I don't know what happened but right before I moved out here to Cali I gained like 20 pounds and had to buy new pants and everything! That was also the time when I was going to the gym with Yasir like 3-4 times a week. He lost weight but I GAINED. Lol. life as a woman, huh?
I'm vegetarian now though, and I never ever ever eat fast food anymore and I spend extra money on organic or vegan foods but I still haven't lost any weight. I think I just need to work out more again. Part of me would just love to have gastric bypass and get it over with :(
As far as working out with hijab, do it! I used to do it at LA Fitness in Glendale and nobody gave me dirty looks or anything (I was also w/ my hubby which may have helped) but actually I met a few Muslims there (non-hijabis as well as some brothers) so that was beneficial. They would have never known I was Muslim if it weren't for my scarf, subhanAllah. You do get kinda sweaty though with it but I always wore the 2 piece cotton ones with sweat pants and a long-sleeves men's tshirt.
The hardest part for me was not feeling modest on the machines...like I would hate being on a bike or something when there were people behind me...or running on the treadmill..you feel me? Lol. I think after the first few times wearing hijab there you'll just be like "whatever".
Oh and also...I took a nutrition course at school and it REALLY helped. Not so much in the category of losing weight but now I am way more conscious of what I put in my body and I learned about all kinds of "secret ingredients" that companies fill supposedly healthy foods with. It helped me to really understand what I should avoid. I also learned that drinking water a lot throughout the day helps curb your hunger cause the water fills ya up..not to mention water is just downright good for you. :D
rahma i've actually never gone because it's far away from my home. ive known sisters who go there with no issues. one goes in the morning when they first open because her husband would be home when the kids were sleeping. the other went during the day. i would call to inquire about if men are allowed inside at all if you are interested
Salaams Sis:
Consider walking as exercise. It's free and you can do it in hijab :) It's also very effective along with a sensible diet (like Weight Watchers for example)
besides your going to get skinny when you go to egypt! hehe
Molly please check out this website:
http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/index.php
It is an excellent resource for women about exercise, eating and weight training. It's got so much useful information, I'm sure you will like it.
UmmAbdurRahman, thanks, I've emailed with a whole gamet of questions. inshaAllah it will be good. It's a bit of a drive from where I am, but it just may be worth the drive.
For any and all muslimahs looking to loose weight/get healthy, do check out sparkpeople.com. We have a muslimah sparkgroup that's always looking for active members. When I actually followed their eating/exercise suggestions, I lost 15 pounds. Unfortunately, I fell off the wagon during ramadan (lost my exercise momentum) and haven't quite gotten my groove back. blah.
I thought that was funny, eating is getting in the way of loosing weight.
I know I put on weight when we had the two boys and three years on I havent taken it off.
As a man I dont have an excuse, not to mention there is an awesome gym at my work that costs just $20 a month and I can work at at work. It is hard to get back into the habit.
BTW, I lived in AZ for some 10 years.
Hey guys sorry I wasn't keeping up with the comments.
Thank you so much for your support guys! I know a lot of sisters (and one brother too ;~p now) who deal with weight as much as me and understand the frustration.
Blah.
as for the lifetime in roseville, I've seen it but I've never been in. But I'm fairly certain that its limited in space and probably does not have a pool. However since I've recently found out that Curves is a production line-style workout that doesn't allow one to make their workout as they go, I might be checking lifetime out more thoroughly.
I always liked lifetime, so maybe it would be worth it. :)
Saaso- I've been dreaming about the weight I will lose in Egypt inshAllah.
Being there combined with the diet I want to put myself on while their might be the miracle cure. lol. Considering I didn't like Egyptian food very much and was able to restrict how much I ate, unless someone else was hand-feeding me like that one time.
I soooo don't want to work out in hijab though, I really don't... *sigh*
Manda- I know I remember you telling me about working out at the gym and then gaining, thats gotta be so frustrating.
Don't get the bypass though, my mom got it and yea she's super skinny, but she also can't really eat any of the foods she loved, and all joy associated with eating is gone. Thats why in the first years of the bypass, before they realized they needed to put people through heavy counceling prior, they had a lot of people commit suicide because they got the surgery but never got over their pychological addiction to food.
Its not worth it I don't think. And I love my mom a lot, but I don't feel any sense of accomplishment that she lost the weight, because she never really worked for it. And she has to hide the fact that she did it in that manner from anyone to avoid the stigma.
I just don't think its worth it.
But yea, the vegetarian thing, you were pretty much there before. Cuz I knew you'd never eat meat ouside the home. Did Yassir go vegetarian as well? I'm sure your bunnies appreciate it ;)
carrie- mmmm cookies! I think if I ever did the workout in hijab it would be something like what you wrote. But the cotton two-pieces are a good idea as well.
I just don't want to go there. :(
Safiyyah- I do walk, but without someone to walk with, and no really good places to walk. And minnesota being dangerously cold most days, I just can't get motivated. I have this mental block to walking unless I have a destination. If I go just to walk I find myself wandering aimlessly and strolling. lol.
gulnari- thanks I will check the sight out, I wonder if its like sparkpeople.
rahma- I think I told you at jummah that my coworker mariah started that sparkpeople like a month or so ago and has lost 11 pounds already. So thats pretty cool, I just need to get motivated. So I think I will be signing in soon inshAllah. And I DEF want to check out the muslimah group. :D
abu sinan- aha! baby weight? I love it. Thats cool that you're that in tune with your wife.
I totally think men deal with weight issues as much as women. Its just that society puts more pressure on us to be skinny, and our bodies really like to hold on to fat more than mens' do. But men really do deal with it as much as we do. Thanks for stopping by from Nzinghas. :D Welcome.
hey salaam molly,
i gain weight really easily, am not overweight now, but I go up and down :-( I have PCOS which makes me gain from just looking at food.
one thing which is a total lifesaver for me in terms of fat busting is that I own a treadmill. You could look into getting a used one, and it is well worth the expense as long as you actually use it! I use it at home and I am a seriously lazy person. I walk fast, never run. I only run if a wild animal is chasing me, which is like NEVER!
Anywayz, I hope you found your path to a healthy weight!
How are you planning to merge the bridesmaid garb with the hijab?
Life is too short to think about losing weight. It is always a good idea to be healthy, and I think being healthy should supersede losing weight. A better measure of health is having your body fat ratio analyzed because scales say absolutely nothing about whether or not you are over or underweight. An excellent book to read it "Body Wars: Making Peace with Women's Bodies" by Margo Maine or "The Body Project" by Joan Jacobs Brumberg.
I'm not saying that this is going to happen to you, but usually eating disorders start really innocently. For me I just wanted to be healthy and lose weight, but it ended up spinning out of control into an all out eating disorder that I had been struggling with for the past 6 years. Thank God that I am finally getting out of it.
Please sister stop worrying about your weight, Allah does not care about your weight, He cares about character and good deeds. We are always trying to fit our bodies into manufactured clothes instead of having the clothes fit us!
Please continue to eat! There are plenty of people in the world that don't eat because they have no food and we should be grateful to Allah for having the luxury to feed ourselves.
LF- I'm going to wear whats called a "body" underneath. Its like this long-sleeved, high necked, spandex like shirt. It covers to the wrists and to high up on the neck.
I'll be bending the rules of what I consider to be hijab, but only for the wedding. I'll wrap the hijab into a bun on the back of my head and the body should cover up ony neck.
I have to make some compromises to keep my family happy while still keeping the hijab on.
I think it will look fine. :) inshAllah.
Kay- thank you for your kind words, and you're absolutely right. I'm more concerned about being healthy than skinny cuz I don't think I will ever be skinny. But I want to be healthy.
And I was being sarcastic about not eating, maybe it was a little un-pc. But I'm definitely not an advocate for eating disorders.
I'm glad to know you're getting through your own. Allah be with you and welcome to my blog. :)
I go between wanting to diet, lose weight, and be all I can be, and just accepting it.
Loosing weight!!! Ah… everyone’s issue. I don't really care about loosing weight. I care about staying fit and staying healthy as Kay mentioned. I love to stay active and well maybe that’s what keeps me going. when most individuals think about exercise; boring, frustrating and exhausting pops in their head. you should make it fun. For instance when I go running sometimes I'll run backwards, sideways and even skip and on some occassions take my doggy. Biking is fun too but there is nowhere to do it unless you live by some awesome terrain. Dancing is another option. You can do it for a minimum of 30 minutes every other day and girl you will look sexy.. I assure you. Ooops almost forgot don’t focus on weight focus on your size and tone. it’s a very good idea if you start doing weights (not hard core weight or bench pressing he he he) building muscle is the only way to loose fat and weight successfully and fast.
Mona- I hear ya. I go through cycles of losing weight and feeling good and letting my diet slip, to feeling morose and gaining weight again.
Yasmine- It sounds like you love exercising. You know, I love working out and I REALLY miss it. I don't think running is my forte, I will run to save my life and thats about it. Or to catch a bus. But I love to lift weights and walk on the treadmill. I also love the elipses machine, if I ever got anything for my house it would be an elipses machine because that thing kicks your butt.
I miss working out. :(
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