Weight loss for good!

                                                                                       30kg's difference!

I have had a lot of people ask me how I lost weight.  So I tell them.  The next thing I am asked is how have I kept it off?  Ahhh, yes…how many times have we heard it?  The crash diet to lose weight, only to put it all and sometimes more back on!  Well here are my tips to losing weight and keeping it off, it doesn’t matter if you’re wanting to simply be healthier, just starting out, already at your goal weight or somewhere in between, this is a lifestyle that anyone can adopt if they want it enough.  So here I go…all my tips, hints and suggestions rolled into one place!

1.     Get inspired

This is crucial.  You can want it, but what will keep you moving toward your goals when your alarm goes off at 5:00 in the morning for that before work training session?  Create an inspiration board for yourself.  It can be quotes, pictures or symbols.  Make sure they are important to you.  This is your space, your place to come when things get tough.   

                                                                                          My inspiration board

Check them out.  These have really helped to motivate and inspire me to be the best I can be:

http://reasonstobefit.tumblr.com/listofreasons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3wHRR_xWE&feature=player_embedded

Get onto pinterest and or instagram and follow real people.  People who live this lifestyle everyday and share it with the world.  Check out the amazing Kate Beck, a super inspirational young woman!

http://cocogirlbutter.blogspot.com.au/

2.     WANT IT!

You gotta want it bad!  It sounds so simple yet this is where a lot of people stumble, myself included.  In the years leading up to me deciding I truly wanted to lose weight, I would stumble at the very first hurdle.  I would say that I wanted to lose the weight, but when faced with temptation, I would always give in.  You have to want it so much, no amount of ice cream can deter you from your goals.  You have to let that goal fill you up, let it take over your mind and make you determined.  Because guess what?  If you don’t want it badly enough, you will never achieve it.

3.     It is a lifestyle.  Start slowly.

I have never thought that I was on a diet.  I have always simply, been changing my lifestyle.  I started very slowly and I think this is what helped my to stay on track when it was hardest in the beginning.  My first aim was to cut fast food out of my diet.  The second goal, was to start walking every day…can you see how I did it?  Don’t even consider yourself to be on a ‘diet’ because you are setting yourself up to fail.  Diets eventually end, lifestyles don’t.  Start now. How many times have you told yourself you will start on Monday?  What are you waiting for? Just do it, why not NOW?

4.     Make a plan and set some goals.

Yep, you don’t have to have a plan set perfectly in place to start.  Make that plan and GET ORGANISED!  Get your diary out and write down EVERYTHING!  Don’t leave anything out.  Write down when you are going to train, when you are going to cook and when you will be dining out. This way you are prepared, there will be no surprises.  Once it is in the diary, it has to happen. Think of your training as meetings with yourself.  Bosses don’t cancel!

Goals.  Make them smart.  Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based.  Yep, this pretty much sums it up.  For example ‘lose weight’ is the goal here.  But it isn’t very specific, measurable, achievable or time based.  A smarter goal would be: ‘In one month, I would like to lose 4kgs’.  This is specific and measurable.  Depending on your weight, build and fitness level, this may or may not be achievable.  It was for me when I was just starting out, so it was realistic and time based as I put a date on the completion date.  I find that my goals really help to motivate me.

5.     Work for it!

Every damn day, just do it!  No I’m not joking.  Train 6 days a week…and GO HARD!  Challenge yourself, push your own limits.  If you stumble, get back up straight away.  Not tomorrow or dare I say it, Monday…NOW!  Falling down is a part of life; it is how we get back up that counts. Set goals and have the guts and determination to smash them.  Nutrition wise, adopt the 80/20 rule.  Eat clean healthy and nutritious whole foods 80% of the time and indulge 20%.  This way you are not depriving yourself of anything and you are less likely to jump back into bad habits claiming it was all too hard.  I’m not going to lie to you.  Losing weight is hard!  It’s all a mind game.  If you tell yourself you can’t, then you won’t.  Similarly, if you tell yourself you can and you will!

You’ve got this.  I know you have.  Have faith in yourself and you will.

Liz Xox

My February 12 Week Body Transformation, Training Buddies, Chocolate Cake and the Week that was!

Hi everyone!  This weeks post is a little bit all over the place.  It has been a huge week, and I couldn’t decide on one topic to write about.  So I decided to write about everything!  Well…a few awesome things that I did and or realised this week.

So, here I am, another round of 12WBT down!  Those twelve weeks flew fast! At the end of round three 2013 (September) I hit my goal weight, then for the following twelve weeks I started to get bored with my workouts.  I was in a bit of a gym rut and went threw what I called at the time, my “screw the gym tantrum”.  During this time I went back to swimming and went for walks and runs.  Even this started to get boring and I thought I was doomed to boring cardio workouts forever and thought, well, no wonder people completely fall off the wagon and give up going to the gym!  Oh so wrong I was! 

So, I set myself a new challenge, which was to tone and shape.  Shit…this would mean competing with all the buff males for the free weights.  Ok, I can cope with that; maybe…I just want a strong set of arms and a flat stomach, ok that means I’m going to have to start lifting some weights…I can deal with that.  The weights area of the gym has always been very intimidating to me.  I managed to recruit a few gym buddies and 12 weekers this round so I’ve had plenty of mates to train with.  Training with mates definitely makes working out a lot easier and turns it into something social.  How and why?  Firstly, you are more likely to turn up to the training session because hey, you’re not going to stand your training buddy up…right?!  Secondly, you push each other.  Yep, a little bit of competition and someone to yell at you to keep you going can mean the difference between an average workout and taking the roof off it!  Third, as a female in the weights area, especially in my gym, you can look like a fish out of water…with a buddy, you’re not alone!! Yep a good training buddy is worth their weight in gold as far as I’m concerned! 

So we started to hit the weights, it took a bit of coordinating, slips and trips, trials and error but we all got there in the end!  I’m learning to walk around the gym with my head held high, and not to let anyone intimidate me; I’m definitely getting better at this.  We soon figured out that at a certain time each night, there is a free room to use…SCORE!  So many times this room has been used to set up grueling circuits, other times it has been a quiet place to stretch or dare I say it…chat!  Oh and play…throwing fit balls at each other? Yep!  That happens, it’s fun!  This round has been so much fun and I owe that to my gym buddies, you know who you are.  February hasn’t been my best round nutritionally and until I compared week twelve to week one, I did not think I’d made any progress. 

I think it’s safe to say that I have definitely made progress!  I am continuing to lose fat and gain muscle, which is my aim.

It was back to Uni this week, which means six solid days of work a week and minimal sleep and down time.  So on the Sunday, I prepared myself for the coming week and cooked up a storm!  The fridge and freezer were restocked to make eating well easier on such a hectic schedule.  So this cook up included a delicious chocolate cake for my brother’s birthday.  I will openly admit that I did not think that it would be remotely edible.  I mean…really, healthy chocolate cake?  Three letters, Y.U.M!  It was delicious, so if you are in need of a chocolate cake recipe give it a go and let me know what you think! (Just remember that healthy does not mean low in calories so enjoy in moderation!)

Liz’s Healthy Chocolate Cake!

Ingredients: ¼ cup cacao powder, ¼ cup almond meal, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon, pinch of salt, 4 eggs, ¼ cup honey, 1 tablespoon natural vanilla essence, ¼ cup melted coconut oil.

Method: Preheat oven to 160 C.  Combine the cacao, almond meal, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Add the eggs, honey, vanilla essence and oil.  Mix well until smooth and combined.  Pour into a lined cake tin and bake for 40   minutes or until cooked through.  Allow to cool.

To make the ganache, place a small block of 70% dark chocolate in a heat proof bowl, over top of a saucepan of boiling water.  Allow to melt.  Add a good dollop of low fat Greek yoghurt and mix well.

Top the cake with the ganache and fresh berries of your choice and enjoy!

It was such a nice surprise on Friday to come home after a LONG day to my 30+crew merchandise.  It brought such a smile to my face!  I have a new favourite hoodie and am proud to be rocking it!  This is definitely an article of clothing I feel like I have earned the right to wear!  For those of you who don’t know what 30+ is, it is a group of 12 weekers with thirty or more kilos to lose.  We support each other along our journeys.

Other things that happened this week…I bought more active wear…yes yes I have a problem I know!  But why is this significant?  IT IS PINK!! I have never been an overly girly girl and pink…well I was brought up on blue.  As a young girl my bedroom wall were blue, I wore a lot of red, white, blue, yellow…basically any colour except pink.  As I got older I associated pink with being very feminine, which was not how I ever felt being so large.  I never felt attractive enough to wear pink.  Long story short, I am starting break that stigma.  I am starting to learn to wear pink.  I deserve it now and feel like I can rock it and own it whilst feeling comfortable in my own skin!  So…here is a nice (sweaty) pic of me in my first pink top! 

So this basically scratches the surface of my week.  But these have been the highlights.  I realised this week just how far I have come in the last twelve, even though I didn’t think I had.  It just goes to show the importance of documenting your journey and mapping your progress.  When you can look back at old photos, you realise just how much change you are capable of, it can also help to motivate you.  I now know that I am capable of so much more than I gave myself credit for.  This in itself is a huge idea to get my head around.  And for today I will leave it here.

Liz Xox

1000 calories, a major reality check and back on track!

At 100 kilos, it was easy to burn 1000 calories.  Moving such a large amount of weight around used a lot of energy!  As I lost weight, I started to realise that I was burning less and less.  My workouts started to get easier as I got fitter and I had slipped into a habit.  I would start with a gruelling 20 minutes on the cross trainer, proceed to the rower where I would spend a moderate 20 minutes, then sit on the stationary bike for a final leisurely 20 minutes.  Twice a week I would reduce these times and spend 20 minutes training with weights.  If I were to do this workout now, I would burn maybe 400 calories.  The fitter you are and the less you weigh, the harder it is to get your heart rate up to burn big calories.  Simple.   

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote about not being ok.  Life has been pretty hectic as of late and all of a sudden I found myself in one big depressing hole.  I have felt like my whole world has come crashing down around me.  Yep.  I have taken the time to step back and realise that things are not as bad as they seem, things could always be worse.  Anyway, I have spent months up and down, the last month, has been very down.  My training has been pretty average, ok but nothing ground breaking, but I have binged constantly.  I slipped back into old habits of eating what ever I wanted, whenever I wanted and often this was done in private.  I knew exactly what I was doing.  I knew that I was playing games with myself.  But sometimes that hole is just so deep that you have to do what you have to do to survive it emotionally.  I used food to distract and comfort myself until my mind was in a slightly better place.  I could feel myself bloating and getting bigger and I have been tired and lethargic.  Yep, two sure signs of over eating.  My first reality check came when I jumped on the scales and realised that I had gained four kilos! Yes four freaking kilos!  I knew I had gained weight, I could feel it sitting in my gut.  I was not impressed.  So I vowed this had to stop, I deserve better.  I knew how crappy I was feeling and I knew exactly what needed to be done.  I started straight away…operation detox!  By lunchtime that had failed, but I didn’t give up completely.  Ok…so I had a blow out, doesn’t matter, straight back into it Liz, no mucking around.  It took me another week of this, waking up and vowing to eat clean and train mean, then stumbling when faced with emotion.

So 1000 calories.  That was the challenge set by my PT mate Kayla.  We would burn that many calories in an epic stair session.  Well, that was set for Easter Monday.  Easter Sunday I had not eaten one nutritious meal.  Not a single one.  Boy did I pay the price for that on the Monday.  So feeling as crappy as I did, operation detox started again!  We ended up doing postponing the 1000 calories but did a reasonable session.  We then put together an epic workout for the next day when WE WOULD burn those 1000 calories. 

So Tuesday night it was.  After a full day at work and joined by Kathryn, we hit the gym and cranked out the following:

·      15 mins stepper – level 15, resistance 30-40

·      10 mins interval sprints

8 rounds of the following circuit:

·      20 side lunges - holding 2 x 4kg dumb bells

·      10 weighted burpees - 2 x 4kg dumb bells

·      5 jumping chin ups

·      10 push ups

·      20 mountain climbers

·      5 ring dips

·      10 barbell squats 13kgs

·      10 dead lifts – 13kgs

·      1 minute of skipping

2 rounds of the following circuit:

·      15 crunches

·      15 side crunches (left)

·      15 side crunches (right)

·      15 double crunches

·      10 lower body twists (L&R=1 rep)

STRETCH!!!

I started so optimistic and pumped, totally ready to smash out these 1000 calories.  However by the time we reached round two of the crazy circuit, I was stuffed!  My muscles were like jelly and I was ready to give in, I mean I’d already burnt around 400 calories, that was a decent effort…right?!  NO!  My mind clicked into gear and I kept pushing.  JFDI.  JFDI. JFDI. That is what was running through my mind.  Just freaking do it!!! So I pushed and something clicked.  It was suddenly becoming easy, I wasn’t so tired anymore, I was rather elated and determined to finish. My heart rate was climbing…beyond its max at 211bpm…(I’m not actually sure if I reached this or wether my hrm malfunctioned…but that is what it tells me my max was!)  I was getting it up to 170/180bpm regularly anyway!  With a resting heart rate of around 48bpm, 150bpm is normally what I get in an average training session.  Around this point too, Kathryn had to leave the room to throw up!  Brilliant!  But guess what?!  She did not let that stop her! She came back and was straight back into the task at hand!! How amazing is that?!  Very proud!!

So I pushed myself for two hours!  Then by the time we had packed up our equipment and stretched, GUESS WHAT!  I had burned 1100 calories!  100 more than what I had been aiming for!  This session was a major reality check for me.  I had eaten clean ALL DAY!  No little treats and extra snacks and definitely no chocolate binges!  Because of this I was able to train much more effectively.  It made me realise how fast the body responds to a healthy diet.  It made me realise how strong I am and how far I can push myself.  It was a major rock star moment for me in the gym.  I actually, legitimately felt invincible when I had finished!!  It was just the greatest feeling coming out of such a slump.  LIZ IS BACK! 

1100 calories burned!! =D

Needless to say, after that full body workout I suffered a major case of DOMS. That insane muscle stiffness, the tight pain when you bend over or try to lift a box is a sign that my training is working and that my body is changing.  It is a good pain.  I have learned to love this pain.  So, as for the remainder of the week, did I stay on track after my mental breakthrough?  Absolutely!  I have mostly eaten clean (I use the 80/20 rule) and within my calorie goal each day and trained like a crazy person!  Wednesday night I decided to go to my first boxing class run at my local gym, which I actually really enjoyed!! (Trying new things is good ;) Thursday I trained twice.  Yep twice!  Cardio at the gym in the morning and my regular boot camp in the evening.  Friday was legs…ouch! Saturday too was a solid session.  As for today…Sunday, well I am about to hit the gym for a mega burn!

So what can you take from this?  What have I learnt this week?  It is ok to not be ok.  It is ok to be in a slump, but ultimately you must survive it.  Eventually the time will come where you find yourself standing at a crossroad.  You can go backwards into old destructive habits, or go right into the healthy and happy lifestyle you can and will create.  This time I chose to go right.  I chose to be happy and healthy and to live the life I deserve.  This is a choice that I make daily…to be the best version of myself. 

Life is hard.  Being over weight and depressed is hard.  Clean eating and daily training is hard. You must choose one, choose your hard.

Liz Xox

Just incase you wanted to see me jumping around ;) LETS GET RIDICULOUS! =D

New things…like yoga…

We all at some point have tried new things.  We may not want to for what ever reason…”I’m not good enough”, “I’m too busy”, “I’m not into that”, “I won’t be any good at it”…same old mind games, blah, blah, blah.  So my mate talked me into trying yoga with her.  Yes.  Me.  Yoga.  I have spent years avoiding it because I couldn’t “see” myself doing it.  If you have met me, you’ll know all too well how clumsy and uncoordinated I am.  I’m patient with other people, but when it comes to myself, I’m not patient.  Far from it and I generally find it hard to slow down and relax.  I’m working on it.  My idea of a fantastic holiday is not lying around on a sandy beach on a tropical island, having a waiter bring me cocktails for hours.  Rather I tend to pack my days full of adventure and site seeing, walking and moving around as much as possible, I have to see and do as much as I possibly can.

So…yoga.  It happened.  I spent all day working myself up over it, telling people how bad I would be, worrying that I would face plant, break an ankle or concuss myself some how, because knowing me, that would happen.  At 6:30pm I went into the class pretty nervous and very self-conscious.  No shoes?  But I’m at the gym… do I have to take them off?  Ok…done, I am SOOOOO out of my comfort zone.  Next came the comparisons, for the first time in a very long time I was comparing myself to everyone else in the room.  “OMG, I’m HUGE!  Everyone is tiny compared to me…I’m so fat!”  No seriously, nearly everyone in that room was a size 4 or 6!  My head hasn’t really been in the game lately, but I recognised the mind game I was playing and was able to flip it.  Enough comparisons!  Recognising the games we play is half the issue sometimes.  So for recognising what I was saying to myself, I am proud. 

So we started sitting on the floor, in some pose…I couldn’t repeat the name if I tried to be perfectly honest, but I was fiddling with my hands, not really knowing how to ‘relax’ them.  Thankfully it was a very small class and nobody cared what I was doing.  So I sat, and stretched…after some pretty brutal weights sessions earlier in the week, it felt good to stretch. 

So like I said, I’m not good with the slowing down and relaxing thing.  The soft music, mood lighting and acrobatic contortionist positions had me fighting back a few laughs, was I really doing this?!  “Bite your tongue Liz, bite your tongue…oh wait we’re reaching”.  Slowly, eventually, I managed to relax a little, sitting, twisting and stretching, my butt firmly on the ground with no potential to fall.  Great I thought, I can do this. 

Next came the downward dog, ‘YES!  I know this one!!” Oh wait, legs are going in the air, arms started to flail aimlessly and all of a sudden I was extremely tense, on the verge of falling and ridiculously tense all over, IT WAS SO STRESSFUL!  The instructor was good, correcting positions and not drawing focus to any wobbling, well…until I managed to do the splits that is! 

I survived it though.  I tried it and I survived it.  Would I do it again?  Maybe.  Probably.  I don’t know.  I am trying to open myself up to new experiences and try new things, but maybe yoga just isn’t my type of exercise?  At least I can say I have tried it.  It is good to try new things.  We human beings thrive on routine.  How often do you go out to dinner, to the same restaurant, and order the same dish?  Yep, I admit, I don’t even need to look at the menu when I walk into my favourite restaurants.  Oh Argo’s?  “I’ll have the special salad and sweet potato fries thanks”.  Sushi train?  “Smoked salmon and avocado please!”  However routine supports discipline.  Day in day out, I train.  I don’t always want to, but I do, because it is just a part of my daily routine, without it my day is disturbed which can potentially send me down a self-destructive route.  We humans don’t like to put ourselves into situations where we feel unsafe.  We don’t like to look foolish, feel embarrassed or to fail, especially in front of others.   So after all of that, the pros to trying new things far out weight the cons. 

Trying new things often requires courage.  The more often you are brave and courageous, the better you feel about yourself, the more often you believe you can do anything.  Trying something new opens up the possibility of you enjoying something new.  Countless people have changed their lives, because they tried something new and they loved it.  Trying new things keeps you from becoming bored.  Yes, yes…we all love our routine, but you have to keep life interesting!  Finally, trying new things forces you to grow.  You will never change if you do what you have always done.  Growth and change requires the willingness to take a new action.  Constant self-challenge keeps you humble and open to new ideas.  You will never know everything, I will never know everything, I don’t think that any one person can ever know everything.  Therefore there will always be something new to learn.  So try it.  Open yourself up to new experiences, embrace them and immerse yourself in them.  Then, and only then will you know whether or not certain experiences are right for you.

Liz Xox

It's ok to not be ok.

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball that simply catches you off guard, I’m talking a true crisis here.  Something you have no control over.  How do you cope?  Some people become emotional wrecks and simply cry.  Some people believe they have to be the strong one and bottle up every emotion, and then others suppress their feelings by eating.  Most of my life I have fallen into the latter category.  Whenever I was upset, hurt or angry, I would eat.  If I was happy I would eat, if I was just ‘ok’, I would eat and soon enough you have yourself a habit which is extremely tough to break. 

My weight loss journey has been emotionally tough. Every emotion I ate away, I have had to feel.  It is like peeling back an onion.  The more weight you shed, the more emotional you become.  I have had to deal with emotions I suppressed for years; I had to get to the bottom of why I ate when I did.  In a way it has been liberating, simply letting go and starting new.  Letting the old Liz go in order to find the new Liz. 

This brings me back to the crisis.  I am dealing in the best way that I can, some days I stumble, other days I am ok.  Some days all I need is to smash a training session or just simply run…with no agenda of burning X amount of calories, get my heart rate right up and I know, I can feel that I am alive.  Knowing that my blood is pumping makes me realise all is still ok, it is not the end of my world.  Other days all I want to do is curl up in a ball with a tub of ice cream and cry.

This past week has been pretty harrowing, topped off with the premature death of a friend and colleague.  I have never felt emotion like I have this week, fine one minute, a complete wreck the next.  I slipped back into old habits, allowing myself to eat what ever I liked because “I don’t care anymore!” And “I deserve it!” I skipped 4 out of 7 training sessions this week…not a good tally, and spent an awful lot of time in bed, in a way allowing myself to be depressed.  But yesterday I dragged my sorry ass out to train and as my head cleared I realised exactly why I train.  It’s not for all the goals I set along the way, yes they’re important, but they’re not the essence of my training.  Essentially I train for me…because I always feel better after a workout.

The biggest lesson I have learned from all of this, is that it is ok, to not be ok.  Sometimes you do simply need to collapse in a heap, curl up in bed and eat a bag of chips.  The important thing is to pick yourself back up and remember why life is great.  It is ok to not be ok, but in the end you are responsible for your own actions.  I am responsible for my own actions and realised that three days of bed and food was not helping me one little bit.  Getting smashed last weekend didn’t help me to deal with this emotion, rather numbed it for a few hours and left me feeling sick the entire day after.  I realised that I was slipping back into my old habits and decided that needed to change.  It is tough, but as soon as I started to train, I immediately felt so much better.

I’ve been on this journey for over a year now and have had plenty of ups and downs.  This is just a very big down!  I am still learning that I don’t have to be strong all the time.  I realised this week that good family and friends will always come to your aid.  They will comfort and support you until you are back on your feet.  But the most important lesson I have learned this week?  It is ok to put yourself first, to put your hand up and say, actually ‘I’m not ok’. 

Liz Xox

Dear Man,

For those of you who do not know me, on the side of my studies, I work in retail, in the menswear department.  The other day I had quite a large man looking for pants in a size larger than we stock.  He was polite enough…an average customer.  My heart in my mouth, my heart hurting for him already, I told him as sensitively as I could “unfortunately the 7XL is the largest size we stock, but you can always give it a try”.  All of a sudden he turned and snapped at me, his face frowning, “What would you know about being big?  You’re a tiny thing standing there, telling me what to do”.  He then stormed off. 

Needless to say I was shocked and hurt.  He would have been extremely embarrassed and I was simply confused and upset.  First of all, I have NEVER been referred to as ‘tiny’ in my entire life!  That alone is something I need to get my own head around.  Secondly, I probably understand how he was feeling a lot better than he thought, and more than most other people would too.

I found myself feeling sorry for the guy, if he had stuck around, I probably would have told him that yes; I know exactly how it feels to not fit into the largest size in the store, to walk out in tears hating yourself.  I would have told him that I know all too well how not being able to simply go clothes shopping totally crushes any tiny amount of self-esteem you managed to conjure up that day, how you try to internalise the emotions so that no one else can see how unhappy you really are.  I understand that you put on a brave face for your family and friends so that they don’t worry.  You simply ‘don’t like’ most styles of clothing because you know you would never be able to wear it, but secretly, you LOVE the clothes…if only, maybe one day…yeah, one day I’ll lose the weight.  You’re doubtful that the largest size in the store will fit you, but you try it on anyway, it doesn’t do up…no way will it do up, like never in a million years, I mean there is a good three or four inches to make it close!  But you tell people it’s “not quite right” to avoid telling them it’s WAAAAAAAAY too small, it’s a wonder you didn’t rip it trying to pull it over your head! 

I understand this mans frustration and hurt.  Being overweight, fat, obese, morbidly obese, heavy or large is not something anyone can understand.  It is only if you have been there yourself that you can TRULY understand how it feels.  I do not blame this man for blurting out what he did, nor do I blame anyone else who doesn’t ‘GET’ what it feels like to be ‘fat’.  How could they/you know?  I am HAPPY that you don’t know what it is like; I wouldn’t wish it on my greatest enemy.  It is a pain beyond the physical, it lies deep within you slowly crushing you and eating away at your soul.  You feel fake, but pretend you’re not.  It’s tough.  What more can I say?  What do I want to say… what would I say to this man if I saw him again, if this ever happened to me again?  “I’ve been there, I truly do understand”. 

Liz Xox