There's so much more to me than Weight issues

You know what, this blog started out being about weightloss and keeping track of my scale reading. But lately I have been feeling there is so much more to me than my body and what size I am. Not only have I accepted that I am a big woman, I have also started to embrace me entirely.

By accepting I am a big girl I don’t mean I will munch muffins like they are running out of fashion or disregard all the good nutritional lessons I have learnt over the past few years. I mean, I am loving myself perfectly the way I am. I will love myself perfectly when I get to be a smaller size. In fact I don’t even know what size that will be. My body will tell me. I will still walk (as soon as I can without limping-cause after taking off the cast, my foot is not back to top condition like I thought it would be), I will still go to gym. I have made a promise to myself to find ways of moving that I enjoy so I will start swimming lessons again, so that I can swim at an aerobic pace. I will see what else to add.
It could be fracturing my fibula, it could be reading positive books like the Science of being well and four commitments that made me really want to embrace other areas of my life in this way.
Financial health- getting out of debt and staying out of debt
Further education- I was learning Shangaan, I’m not perfect but I want to continue learning. Community development, what works best etc
Leadership career- Running my own company even or NGO
Parenting- doing single parenting the best way I know how. My parents are looking after my daughter till I get settled but I want to do the best I can to provide the type of education I want her to have, just to make conscious decisions regarding her life.
I think it was a personal branding site that prompted me to ask myself what is my definition of success and it definately is not fitting into a certain size. It is rather:

1. Doing what I want for a living-lately my mind has been occupied by rural development. Seeing when I went back to my home town how different a rural child's life is to everyone else's. I dont mean materially but education, libraries etc. The growth of Africa, resolution of conflict.
2. Providing the best for my child-that is love, care, education, shelter and food. What we assume as basics but i see so many children going without.
3. Seeing the world- My goodness I am surrounded by beauty. My own country, Zimbabwe(was breathtaking), Mozambique I hear is heavenly. I would love to see more of Europe,be in the buzz of India and flipping see these "9 million bicycles in beijing".
4. Writing-blogging(believe it or not is important to me), motivational stories and even that novel I have been writing for years(on and off that is)

That was a mouthful. Now let me go and have my health bread with tuna....yum.

Magazines are so last year

OMG I cannot believe that I have found a replacement for magazines.

Last year I subscribed to three magazines to help achieve my goals for the year. I took out a year’s subscription to O magazine-they changed editors halfway and it has just turned into another female magazine, Runner’s world- I really did believe it would help me prepare if not motivate me to run 5km race- and Shape. When I did not renew the latter at their discounted price they called to ask why. Well, I told them; because I find myself reading the same article every three months- basically it’s not exciting enough. I don't know what they do with that information!!

Magazines have moved over to make space for blogs.

BLOGS are in baby, I have found so many weight loss blogs that I am really interested to read

• Pasta queen
• Live well 360
  
• Elastic waist
  
• Perfect in our impefections
• Dietgirl
  

Even the body appreciation musings of The sumo mixed with some commentary on South African life.

So many motivational get your life in order blogs:

• PulginId -this one is written by a young man from England who is based in Cape Town. He speaks to me and often times I find myself wondering if this person is 18 really but yep.
  
• Life made great- cannot believe this lady started blogging 4 months ago
• Penelope Trunk -career meets life advice, just love it.

The nice thing about blogs though (which magazines don’t have) is reader feedback. A blogger can tell immediately how appreciated what she wrote is almost immediately. Readers comment, subscribe to feeds or emails/newsletter giving the writer an idea of who reads her staff. Also how effective are the adverts on her site by clicks and so on.

I have my nicely packed magazine on my Google reader which I can connect to anywhere and get a peck-me-up immediately. Inspiration at my fingertips.

I, unfortunately am still working on the readership, I know friends stumble-upon my blog when they see “Wow she has gained weight hasn’t she?” then I guess they would come to get an update of my emotional state and why I am not losing.

But this is the year I become an expert of my field my friends.

The post I lost

The other day I wrote this great post which I did not save and Lost. Basically I was questioning if having a blog and having it discovered by my employer or prospective employer would dis-favour me in a job. See I have been looking for work(half the time I am convinced I should get the chief in my village to give me a piece of land where I can build a house and farm- that's another story I guess). I went to an interview which has led to an offer pending security clearance and health checks. So in preparation for the interview I did some research on the company, found some stuff on my "to-be colleagues". Some are on facebook, others on linked-in etc. My prospective boss is on linked-in and i sort of knew her before i met her and this got me wondering if she had/did do the same what would she find on me. That I am some girl who has a weight problem and has been hacking at conquering it for the past 3 years. She could read my posts, decides if she likes me or not and possibly be influenced when hiring.
Some people on the net have lost their jobs I found out. There was a flight attendant who was fired for posting "some" pictures. A teacher somewhere and I remember a story that made it to SA about a woman who blogged about her employer, Heather B Armstrong.
So I took some advice and cleaned up my internet/social network trail. Archived some poems i wrote and posted under my name which incidentally led back to this blog and others. Made sure my profiles on facebook and whereever are by invitation/request only. Even cleared up more while writing this post. Basically:
-never mention your employer
-don't link your name to your blog
-limit work related stuff to jusy you and
-never add contact details

Anyway I doubt my prospective employer would be interested in goog-ling me, but better safe than sorry.

A constant challenge

Eating healthy and exercising is a constant challenge for me. I am feeling particularly down today, so i am more prone to over-eating. This whole week actually has been a challenge. On monday I had sweets, tuesday i had a box of eetsummor biscuits, yesterday i had a pie. That's just a list of the things i shouldnt be overdoing it on.
I am starting this blog as a way to keep myself motivated