Ten things you don't know about me: #10

#10: for many years I made my living as a "Plus" model.


I used to get stopped on the streets on a regular basis by modeling agents who thought I should get into the business. The only problem was that when I'd go for the first interview they'd always tell me to lose fifty pounds and then come back. I'm 5'10", so I'm tall enough, but they were asking me to get down to 120 lbs, a weight I was at in fifth sixth grade. If I go below my present weight of 140 lbs I start to look skeletony from the waist up. That big rear just stays put. I just don't have THAT kind of model structure. Now back in those days I did weigh a good fifteen to twenty lbs more than I do now and I still wasn't into wanting to lose it yet. Or rather I was but I wasn't doing it...Then a female agent I had in Firenze suggested I go for the new "plus" sizes since these models were difficult to find. In Europe a plus size model wears a size 12 or 14 (as compared to normal models that wear a size 6) , so this was perfect for me. Since the "real" models didn't want these jobs (considered beneath them and only 'cause they had gained weight) I was happy to take them up since the pay was exactly the same! In my plus modeling stint I worked for Max Mara, Luciano Soprani, Versace, Laura Biagiotti, and my number one moment was a fitting session for Valentino WITH Valentino. Well, actually it was for Valentino, his gorgeous blonde American lover and their four dogs. I was flown down to Rome for the occasion and worked the day at his atelier next to Piazza di Spagna. Unfortunately I wasn't asked back because he thought my rear was too large for his fitting clothes. Oh well, thanks anyway Valentino! The last job I did was in 1993 at the ripe age of 33 (I lasted a long time 'cause I always looked younger than I was) just three months after having given birth to Olivia. If I recall correctly it was catalog work. I brought her with me and breastfed her in between photo shoots. That one job was fun with her but I couldn't see it happening again and in that one moment I was just happy to take the time to be her Mom.
A few months later I started running regularly and got too thin for the "plus" clothes. End of Plus modeling career.

A First

Yesterday I was huggling with hubby, which is easy to do since in our studio his work area is side-by-side to mine. I just hop off my desk and plop myself in his lap and get myself some hugs and kisses at any time of the day! We've been together almost ten years now, but I still like to ask him useless questions like "Do you still love me?" where he has an obligatory answer. We do it at least twice a week. Cheap fun. So while he was correctly answering all of my silly questions he said, "Just don't lose any more weight".

Now Hubby is a man of very few words. In terms of emotion or expressing how he feels it's like pulling teeth. If he says anything significant to you, you have to take it seriously 'cause he'll only say it once. He's seen me at my low of 137 lbs and my high of 190 lbs. and has never said ANYTHING about either values. NOTHING. Just kept loving me exactly how I was, and for that I am very grateful. So I had to really listen to what he was saying.

"You don't like me like this?"
"No, you look good, just don't lose anymore."
"I thought you liked thinner women?"
(no answer = not necessarily true)
(me puzzled 'cause I thought it was true)
(I've just discovered after ten years that Hubby likes my big butt)
"So, if I stay at this weight it's okay"
"Just don't lose any more. You start to look run down and too thin".

It's true, I did lose the weight for me and I am very pleased that I am happy with myself, but I can't tell you what a mental uplift it was for me to know that THIS is what is attractive to my Husband. What I am right now. I don't have to worry about losing anymore, just maintaining and being happy where I am. I must say that the mental shift has been nice. Last night I went to the fancy gym to train and thought more in terms of firming than losing. Time went faster while I pedaled away for 80 minutes on the bike plus the another twenty running (think marathon training!).

Sunday Run

I had a fantastic run today. I should say a fantastic long run since it took me two hours and ten minutes to finish. Since I'm lazy and didn't feel like writing myself up a new marathon plan, I just took the one that Hubby had written up for me in the fall and cut and pasted it into spring. Today I had to do:

1h30' + 6 x 1km, rec.2'

I had to get reinforces for this since I had the babysitter come watch Evan and then Shygirl followed me on the bike. With workouts up to one hour I'm fine by myself, anything longer than that I really need to be with someone, otherwise I can talk myself into shortening the kilometres or going slower in no time at all. I did the first ninety minutes at a casual pace. We yabbed and gabbed and gossiped the whole time. We also planned what we wanted to do in New York 'cause Shy girl will be coming with me and running the half marathon. I got to the 6 x 1km and was able to get them all in at 5'20"/km. I am really really pleased with this because I remember running the same workout last fall and I didn't even bother taking the times of the km's since I knew they'd be slow. Yay me!

I also temporarily resolved the maintenance dilema. I'm going to go up to 1800 calories for a few weeks and see how it goes. I may need to increase that to 2000 calories as I get closer to the marathon date. For 1800 calories I'll break it up into 400 at breakfast, 200 snack, 500 lunch, 200 2nd snack and 500 dinner. I choose all healthy foods but allow that the second snack be anything I want (even chocolate!). By the way, when I was limiting myself to 1600 calories dinner and lunch were 400...anyway, this structure seems to work for me right now. I feel comfortable with it for some odd reason. Again, it's what works right now. I've learned in my dieting "career" that this could change - and then I have to find a new trick to pull out of my hat.

Tag

I was reading a post written by DG who quoted reading a post by Nancy which I then went to read and found out it was all about weight maintainence, which is exactly what I'm going through now. Now the positive side to this is that everybody has noticed that I lost some weight. Yep, there's nothing more gratifying than having people notice it in a positive way. Also, my running is so much easier without having to lug around those few last pounds. I run faster and that's satisfying. What's difficult is still learning how much I can eat without gaining it back. Right now it's even more difficult because my period is late and causing me to retain water like crazy. I can go up and down by five lbs in just water weight. Ugh. One thing they did get right in the article from Nancy's site: exercise is something you have to do almost every day. I work out four to five days per week and if I didn't I would surely gain back weight pretty quickly. Speaking of exercise, my trip to the More Marathon in New York City is confirmed so I better get cracking. I also got an all expense paid invite to THIS marathon in Thailand. Whoooeeee!!!!

Update! Update!

A few weeks ago I started to get this sudden build up of work. People were calling out of nowhere: old clients, new clients, current one's with more referrals. All of this has been coupled with Hubby's new work assignment in Rome. For the next year and a half he will be going to Rome for two to five days per week, which means that I solo it at home with the two kids. I decided that the ONLY way I was going to be able to pack all of this in would be to get up early. Now the trick to getting up early is in going to bed early, something I've always had difficulty doing. This week I really forced myself to do it though, aided with the fact that I was also really tired. It worked! For one week straight I was able to rise at 4.45 a.m. It really works out well because I love the time to myself in the morning when nobody wants/needs me to do anything for them. Plus, I get assignments started and then interrupt to take the kids to school. When I come back home I'm already half way through some work and I can finish it...or go running without feeling guilty since I already have part of the work done anyway. I never really got anything done late at night anyway.

I took a ten day hiatus from running so that I could get over the flu. I started back last week but every time I went for a little forty minute run it felt like hell. Friday I went again and it was better so I felt encourage to go ahead with my plan of running 22 kms on Sunday. Shy Girl and I did it together with a 30' run/5' walk combo and I was surprised that I actually made it with no problems. This morning (the day after), no aches or pains. Now I just hope that I'll be able to continue on with the training. I just need to focus...

Weight is steady at 65 kg...

Ugly HTML

Yes, I'm better now, thank you.
I've been spending my Sunday working and one of the things I have to do is surf and look for races where we can go and do marathon advertising. My head is dizzy from all the really bad sites I've seen! I mean, html has advanced, but that doesn't seem to have allowed anyone to take web graphic lessons. Here's an example .
My challenge is coming to an end and I am VERY proud of myself for having kept it up for a whole thirty days, or rather twenty-seven 'cause I still have three more days left. I'll be ending it with a few photos since this has not only been a thirty day effort but a whole 2,5 years! You're all just getting the tail end of it.
Then I have to decide whether to close this site...I'll think about it later...

Weight lost so far: 2,6 kg
exercise today: 60' run
water consumed: never enough!
Days left in challenge: 3

K.O.

After having taken care of a sick baby for five days, I finally caught his intestinal flu. Fever, nausea and intestinal discomfort have been with me for the past few days. You think that along with eating NOTHING it would be enough to make my weight budge? WRONG!! Seven more days left to the "challenge"...

Winter Break

Modena Sporting Club
Originally uploaded by juliainitaly.

I'd made a date with Shygirl to go running the other night but the only time that she can go these days is after six o'clock p.m. Here in northern Italy that means it's dark, cold, icy, freezing, and you might find snow on the ground. I could go in the morning or the afternoon by myself but I just hate thinking about her running around that park by herself in the cold, dark night. The forecast was set for snow so I wasn't really enthusiastic about going running outside, however, an hour later there we were going round and round the park in the cold night.
Now this has really been an odd winter. Where I live it generally snows once at the end of january. I mean it's cold and everything, but it's not freezing. This year it started snowing in mid november and I can't even count the number of times it's snowed since then. It's never a lot, maybe a couple of inches, but it sticks for a few days and is really slippery.
I'm pretty hard core when it comes to exercising. I will go under ANY circumstances, but this was getting old. We didn't want to join a gym 'cause I HATE gyms. I'd much rather run in the snow than be indoors. On the other hand we both felt like we needed some sort of boost to help us get through another month of outdoor running. Then it came to us: couldn't we find a way to just go once a week somewhere? Detto, fatto!(said and done!). We signed up for 25 entry passes to the M0dena Sp0rting Club. It's THE most expensive gym in town. It has plenty of machines and classes at every hour of the day and a huge weight room. But the best best part? It has a spa! Men's and women's is separate. It has two saunas, a turkish steam bath, four jacuzzi's, These Roman dipping baths (freezing water) and deck chairs where you can just chill out. Optional is massage and pedicures. We went last thursday for the first time and spent 20 minutes on an exercise bike, 20 on the step machine and 20 on the running treadmill. Then we hit the spa...
I can't wait to go back...for the spa...and you know what? The next night we went running on freshly fallen snow and had a wonderful run. We were just in need of a change attitude!

Weight lost so far: 2.5 kg
Calories: 1640
Exercise: 45' + 10 x 100mt uphill
Days left in the challenge: 11 (I can't believe I've lasted this long!)

Down & Up

Yesterday I could only only get in a quick thirty minute run 'cause Hubby was leaving for Rome. When I got back home I did some floor exercises and then got this crazy idea to lift some weights. I have a balance bar on the porch with some 10 kg weight on them. I only did ten squats where I went halfway down and then up again before I got distracted by Evan. As I put the weights down I thought "It's not going to do anything anyway..." Well, today I can feel it. A lot. Right on my butt where it counts too! I'll have to do that again soon sometime.

Weight lost: 1,1 kg
Calories: 1585
Water consumed: not enough!
exercise: running 30' + exercises
days left: 14 (2 weeks?!)

Up & Down

Weight lost so far: 1,4 kg
Calories : 1620
Water: 1,5 lts.
Exercise: rest
Days left: 16

This is where I start to falter...

So. Explain this to me: Friday, good day. I stayed within 1600 cals plus I went on a 11km run with ShyGirl around the park. Woke up yesterday and had gained 200 gr. Nothing to get excited or upset about but notice the upward trend...Yesterday was a nice cooking day but I was really careful about what I ate. For lunch I had bought a squid which I had fantasized about frying but immediately talked myself out of it since it wouldn't really fit in my calorie counting regime. So I invented a stuffed baked squid recipe. Very tasty and dietetic too, I might add. I took some rice and partially cooked it. Then I added a chopped onion, a squashed clove of garlic, a zucchini, salt and pepper. Then I stuffed the squid with this filling, put it in a pan where I had layed down some sliced tomatoes. On top of it all I poured a half a glass of white wine. I baked it covered for 30' and then uncovered another 30'. It was so, so good! So I ate probably a half a cup of rice and 100 grams of squid.
For dinner we had guests and I made foccaccia and layed out fixings for it: mozzarella, bresaola, stracchini cheese and rucola. I only had one piece. I had also made some pastries (too involved to tell you how I did this), but I only ate half of one. Anyway, at the end of the day I figured that I had eaten approx. 1580 calories. Still within my budget.

SO WHY DID I WAKE UP WITH A 1 KG GAIN!

Anyway, this morning I raced a 12km and was very very happy that I averaged 5'21"/km. I haven't run that fast in years.

I'm just going to keep concentrating on the challenge. I am not going to worry about the slight, freaky, non explicable gain. This is usually where I give up but I want to make it to the end of the challenge so I can have a more scientific conclusion to the whole thing.

Does this ever happen to you?

Weight lost so far: 1,1 kg
Calories : 1580
Water: 1,7 lts.
Exercise: 12,4 km
Days left: 17

Icicles

Last night I went running with Shygirl. I couldn't get a babysitter until five o'clock so we knew that we'd be running the second half of the training session in the dark. Since we needed an uphill to do some sprints plus a measured 1km we had to go to Tre Olmi. It's about seven minutes from my house by car. It's on the outskirts of town, with lots of fields around it. It's really taking a lot of will power to go running these days because of the weather. It is FREEZING outside, and last night was not an exception at -4c. So we did the warm up and the sprints and then another fifteen minutes of running, then we were supposed to end it with 4 x 1km. By that time it was really dark, plus it was foggy so it gave this ghost like feeling to the whole experience. At the end of the first km I felt my hair and I had icicles growing off the ends! Shygirl said that she could feel them on her eyelashes as she was running. We were happy to have finished the workout but we've decided that in order to mentally survive the rest of the winter we're going to try and get one day passes to a gym someplace and go at least once a week.

Weight lost so far: 2,1 kg
Calories : 1550
Water: 1,5 lts.
Exercise: 20' + 10 x 100mt uphill + 15' + 4 x 1km @ 5'00"
Days left: 19

I LOVE FOOD!

One thing that I have learned about myself in the dieting process is that I truly love food. Not just eating food, but making good food. I want every bite to count, I want the best quality and I really want to enjoy whatever it is that I'm eating. Luckily along with this trait is that fact that I love to cook. My mother passed away when I was ten and my father worked as a radio announcer at night so he was always happy if one of the four of us children (is that correct english...?) pitched in to cook. I remember sometime around the age of twelve I decided that wednesday would be my cooking night. I asked my Dad for a budget and he was happy to let me do that. This is where I learned to really cook. My Dad liked to cook also so he had a lot of cookbooks. We had the Time-Life series of recipes from around the world. I made Paella from Spain and homemade Pizza from Italy. Once I made this really complicated meat dish that went into a pastry covering. It took hours to do. I can still remember everybody waiting around the dinner table for it to come out of the oven. When I came to Italy my first fifteen years here were spent in Tuscany. I used most of that time figuring out how to make "Ribollita" or just a nice simple version of Lasagna. They were always shocked that an American could actually cook since we're always portrayed as women that slap frozen dinners on the table or run off to a fast food store to pick up an order for the family. In a funny way it was also my forte with men. They loved that I knew how to cook and would brag about it to their friends. I figured it was some sort of strange mother/girlfriend psychological entanglement.
Oddly enough both of my siblings are in the food business. My brother has a degree in restaurant and hotel management and is supervisor for a group of thirty restaurants in the South (USA). My sister owns a chain of ice cream stores in the Hawaiian Islands. I always felt that eventually I'd do something with food. So far all I do is eat it, but I have plenty of years ahead.

This is a link I read almost everyday: The Girl Who Ate Everything
I love reading about all the things she eats. She LOVES her food, in a good way...

Weight lost so far: 2,1 kg
Calories yesterday: 1652
Water: 1,5 lts.
Exercise: zero - no babysitter
Days left: 20

The Crack of Dawn

The organization of my time pretty much revolves around the children. Olivia at 12 is not so much a problem on a day to day basis, but of course Evan at 2 is my main worry. I know by now you all think I have a one track mind with running, it really isn't that way. I've organised my life in such a way that I'm pretty self sufficient except for when I have to go running. That's the only real time daily that I need someone to watch Evan. Since in order to keep my sanity I need to go running at least four days a week, whenever Hubby leaves for the week to go work somewhere, I have to find a babysitter or friend who can come and watch the baby for an hour. This last weekend Hubby went to Sicily to speak at a convention. He flew home sunday night and then monday he was to take off for a four day training session with his top athletes on the coast of Tuscany.

"What time are you going to leave on Monday?" I asked him this in hopes of getting in a run before he left.

"At the crack of dawn."

Now, I get up at 6.15 a.m. every morning to bring Olivia to school and quite frankly, I have never seen him up and dressed at that hour. But of course I wanted to believe that he had this urgent need to leave at "the crack of dawn". I came back home at 8.20 and he was still puttering around at the computer. At 10.00 he decided to have breakfast. Finally at about 12.00 pm I said "I need to go to the post office and on the way back I'll take a quick forty minute run in the park". He looked at me like that was completely normal and fine. So I did.
Men truly have their own time schedule.

I ran 40' and then went on the track and did a "run 'til you drop" 1km in 4'40". I was a little disappointed in the time 'cause I thought that I could run it about ten seconds better, but maybe it just wasn't my day.

Hubby finally left at 3.30 pm.
The crack of dawn...

Weight lost so far: 1,2 kg
Calories yesterday: 1601
Water: 1.2lts
exercise: running - 40' + 1km @ 4'40" - about 8km
Days left: 22

I've subscribed again to Fly Lady. I'm not quite yet into doing the entire routine, it would be too much for me to handle right now. What I am doing is just "Cleaning the Zones". You concentrate on one or two rooms per week and do a thorough cleaning of each. This week for example was the kitchen. On the list was defrosting and cleaning the fridge (done!), cleaning the oven (done!). All things that I hadn't done in over six months - yikes!


Weight lost so far: 1,2 kg
Calories today: 1605
Water: 1.2lts
exercise: running - 10' + 5 x (1km/walk 3') + 10' = 9km
Days left: 24

Half a Gorgeous Day

The days here have been absolutely beautiful. Clear skies, very blue, lots of sun...and freezing. Like - 4 c° in the morning and not past 6c° during the day. It's really frustrating to look outside and think that it's a gorgeous day until I actually do go outside and freeze my butt off. I'm aching to get working in my garden, which like all winter gardens looks horrible right now. I'll probably have to wait another seven weeks or so before I can even think about it. Oh well, I probably don't have the time anyway.
Hubby went away for the week and Evan still has a cough so he'll have to stay home from day care. I'm trying to set up a schedule with my babysitter, but to no avail so far. Tomorrow my friend Lucia is coming over to watch Evan while I go running. I'll have to see what happens with the rest of the week.

Weight lost so far: 1,2 kg
Calories yesterday: 1589
Water: 1.5 lts
exercise: running - 20' + 10 x 1' fast/1' slow + 15' - approx. 10km
Days left: 25

The New Cure

garlic
Originally uploaded by juliainitaly.

My husband's sister and mother are always coming up with new cures that we have to do to get healthy. Cures that, by the way, they rarely follow through on their own. Sometimes I'll follow them on something, sometimes I won't. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I grew up in the Hippy Dippy area of Marin County, California so I already SAW all of this way back in the 70's. Nothing new, yawn. So yesterday they sent a bottle of this "Ancient Tibetan Homeopathic Remedy" that is supposed to be a cure all for everything. It's basically a garlic concentrate. Three hundred grams of garlic marinated in alcohol and kept in the dark for I-don't-know-how-many-days. You're supposed to take it like a regular homeopathic remedy. Before each meal starting with one, two and three drops which then increase over a ten day span until you're taking twenty-five drops thrice a day. I was going to chuck it down the toilet when I saw on the paper that it promised to straighten out slow metabolisms. WOW! I'm goin' give it a try. The only thing I'm really afraid of is masking the garlic odour that might result from the cure. I've been to China and the Middle East. Garlic breath can be deadly. Believe me. On the other hand if the results is a speeded up metabolism, it just might be worth it!

Post number ONE, Two zero zero six

Did you see that my last post was on the 22nd of december? The next day we were supposed to all jump in car after the kids got out of school and head south one thousand kilometres. A eight hour drive for us. Well, the next day Olivia woke up feeling awful and by the afternoon had a 102 degree fever. Hubby woke up with no voice. Evan was still hacking away with the cough. So much to my dismay :-) we cancelled the trip and decided to stay home. This of course meant that with me being the only healthy one of the group, I played Florence Nightengale for a solid week. Everybody ended up happy (sort of...) and healthy after about eight days. Illnesses and viruses nothwithstanding, I had a nice week.
I did eat anything I wanted though I did try and practice a little restraint when I felt full (as opposed to continueing stuffing myself 'til I felt sick). All this ended in a one pound weight gain for the holidays. ONE POUND. I'm so jazzed. I've been exercising every day, mostly running, sometimes swimming or biking, and I think this really helped in keeping the pounds off. The other nice side effect is that I've been in excellent moods. Never depressed, never down, actually quite happy. I'm pretty sure that I can attribute the exercise to this, which makes me want to keep it up the new year. A depressionless 2006!

More Marathon

More Marathon
Originally uploaded by juliainitaly.

I just got the "Okay" from the running magazine that I write for to go to New York to cover the "More Marathon". I AM SO EXCITED! It's a women's only event. I've never run an entire marathon with only women. Most of all I'm excited to be going to New York City in the springtime. Wow, now I REALLY have incentive to get in shape for the spring. If you're interested in coming, please drop me a line. Here's the site for additional information:
http://www.nyrr.org/more/home.php

Strength (or weakness)

Affondi
Originally uploaded by juliainitaly.

See this hot fitness model in the photo? She's performing an exercise called the lunge. At the beginning of every training cycle I always start out with strengthening exercises. They keep your muscle tone up and I try and work on specific exercise that'll help me with my running. The lunges are great because they work right on that 'ole gluteus maximus and whips it right into shape. Last monday I decided that I needed to do a few...come to think of it I couldn't remember when the last time was that I'd done any. So after a 30 minute warmup run I did 10 x (20 walking lunges/100mt uphill sprints). Walking lunges are easier for me to do. When you get back up, instead of taking the step backward to go to your original point of origin, you go forward. Well, it must have been awhile since the last time I did this specific exercise. I could feel every-single-muscle in my thighs and butt for the next four days. I did them again yesterday and it felt fine. No pain. Which means next week I have to increase the intensity...