Corset Ramblings

While recoeving from surgery I've been enjoying reading Corset Magic which happily arrived the day before surgery. My favorite part of the entire book is when proper corset wearing is describe as being like getting a hug from an old friend. 

This is the corset I currently have, and have had for a while.  It's from Empire Intimates, http://www.empireintimates.net. We have a love hate relationship.  

The good:  it's reversible to all black, the hip flutes.  

The bad:  it's overbust and my cups overflow (for lack of better word), the boning is not top quality.

I am eagerly awaiting my first custom corset from Romantays, http://romantasyweb.com.  This corset is going to be a Victorian underbust.  My plan is for my new corset to be foundation wear, assist with my back pain and posture, and perhaps even assist in my healthy weight loss goals.

Now I know corsets have gotten a bad rep in some feminist circles, but I feel that corsets can be used to enhance femininity without restricting me to someone else's ideals.  It's like how feminist are taking back "bitch" and "cunt".  Now those are not words that I having taken back at as feminine empowered words.  And I know this brings up the what is feminism discussion, as has been discussed over at Five Seed.  Which brings me to my self-image.

In the past I have had problem with my self-image.  But through a lot of hard work, emotional and spiritual, I've much improved how I see myself.  Surprisingly, I see myself much different than I appear in pictures, even resent pictures.  I've somehow learned to look beyond the outside package of my physical body.  When I look at myself, I see so much more than what's physically on the outside I know see what's on the inside too.  Ok, that's gone off on a tangent that I wasn't planning to so I'll stop here for today.

The One Time I Plan to Talk About My Diet and Eating Disorder

With the new leaf that Ducktales is taking, there are some things that I want to address in this blog and others that I will focus on in other outlets.  

Part of living smaller and greener is eating a better diet and generally living a healthier lifestyle.  Like many people I have tried an array of diets over the years in hopes of battling the bulge that seems to be inevitable in America.  However dieting lead me down a dangerous road in the past and I have much anxiety around diets these days (which leads to me self sabotaging the diet).


As a child I struggled with my body-image (and truthfully still struggle with it to this day), which concluded in me making several bad decisions as an elementary school student that make eating a balanced diet to this day difficult.  (Why I decided to eliminate vegetables from my diet in third grade is beyond me now, but the mental impact of this decision makes eating vegetables difficult to this day).


Something changed when I entered high school and I begin being less restrictive in what I ate, but some habits like not eating vegetables remained.


I did really good on my own and never received an treatment as a child/adolescent.  I managed to keep things going well thru college, then after college I decided to try Jenny Craig and things quickly spiraled out of control and I began using laxatives in addition to restricting.  This time, thanks to people who took notice, I received some out patient treatment and tried to come to terms with what and why I was doing things.


Needless to say, since the Jenny Craig incident I have been loathsome to try any other commercialized diets.  Now I'm not trying to endorse or warn against any particular diet, but am simply recapping my story.  

About a month again I decided to call Ravel Medspa to inquire about how their laser lipo worked, not that I could afford it, but to see what it was all about since I had heard it all over the radio.  After talking with the rep, she suggested that I look at their weight loss program, WeightNot.  What intrigued me about this program was that not only was calorie intake reduced, but that it was supervised by a medical doctor and was assisted with supplements meant to address the chemical level of weight loss.


The biggest different to me between this program and Jenny Craig was that when I told them I was going to have surgery, they recommend I stop taking the supplements and increase my good fat intake in preparation for surgery and during recovery.  While on Jenny Craig I had a number of surgeries and each time they advised me to keep the lower calorie intake of the diet.  The WeightNot approach was so radically different and really focused on being healthy.


So after completing the JumpStart portion of the WeightNot program I lost seven pounds.  Prior to increasing my diet in preparation for surgery I had lost 19 pounds, but prior to surgery had put back on about three-four pounds.  I do have to admit that I haven't been strictly sticking to the diet, but am slowly seeing that my tastes preferences are changing and making it easier for me to stay on the diet.  For instance, I'm a huge chocolate fan and just this morning after a few pieces of dove chocolate I was done and actually wanted some almonds.  In the past I would have continued to eat the entire bag of chocolates without ever registering whether or not I was full or even enjoying the chocolates.


I also like that the WeightNot program stresses a walking regimen versus a hardcore workout regimen as when taking in less calories it can be harder to do a vigorous workout.  I do have to say prior to surgery I was not walking as much as I should have, but then again I was having serious pain in my legs and after my two weeks of recovery I can't wait to start walking at the gym and getting to see some of the my old work buddies who use the gym too (exercising and socializing)!