Last week I spent four fantastic days in New York City for BlogHer ’12. I was completely thrilled to go, looking forward to visiting with old friends, meeting new ones, and participating in the first BlogHer Fashion Show.
This is quite possibly the first conference I’ve been to where I was excited about every outfit in my suitcase. I had a dress for every night, and cute tops with Lee jeans for the day. Lee sent me a pair of the newest Fall denim to wear to BlogHer before it was available for purchase. (Ivy Slender Secret bootcut, in case you’re curious. I haven’t seen them on the Lee website yet, but trust me, they’re gorgeous. You’ll want to check out these jeans and see if they make your butt look as good as they did mine.)
And? I rocked those jeans.
It sounds shallow, I know, but it felt like such a victory when anyone told me how good I looked. The self-esteem boost was tremendous. I felt more confident and happy, which in turn probably helped me look even better. It’s the vicious circle in reverse: feel good, project happiness, glow with beauty, which then makes you feel good. Much better than the hate yourself, project negativity, mask any inner beauty, which then makes you hate yourself even more.
I apparently suck when it comes to taking photos of myself in my clothing, so I can’t show off all the dresses I wore. Here’s me in Times Square one evening. This dress is a size eight, and was almost too big in the top.
I need to track down photos from others that I might be in. And then of course there was the BlogHer Fashion Show. I can’t fully describe how awesome of an experience it was. Well, I guess I took a stab at describing it over here. It was the cherry on the top of hitting my goal weight!
I was still trying to make good choices food-wise, but of course I was in New York and had a world of food in front of me. On Wednesday I wished I had brought some Slim-Fast snack bars with me, just to have a good snack around when I needed it.
Slim-Fast answered my wishes, however, by sending me a large box of snack and meal bars (plus coupons) to hand out to friends on Friday. I kept one box of Chocolate Nougat Gone Nuts and one Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bar for myself (and oh how I needed those at the airport on Sunday!) but shared the other boxes and coupons with friends and other bloggers.
Otherwise, I ate a little bit of conference food here and there, pizza and Chinese food for a couple of dinners, and of course had to have a cheeseburger at the CheeseburgHer party on Saturday night.
I didn’t drink enough water, and by the time I arrived home on Sunday, it was obvious. My pants were tight and I felt uncomfortable. So for the past week I avoided the scale, focused on drinking plenty of water and went right back to the Slim-Fast plan. It took about five days to reverse the bloat, but now my pants are already loose again and this weekend’s scale check has me at 159.2. Slightly higher than before BlogHer, but within a margin of error for weight fluctuation.
I should also add that one of the things I love about BlogHer is that there are so many women of all types represented. While losing weight and getting healthier is important to me, I wouldn’t have been treated any differently had I weighed 50 pounds more. Or 100 pounds more.
Some of the folks who hugged and chatted with me this year at BlogHer 2012 are the same folks who welcomed and befriended me at BlogHer 2006, when I weighed over 60 pounds more than I do now. They don’t care what I look like – they care that I am healthy and happy. We value each other for our thoughts, not our looks. But they know that losing weight has been important to me, and they’ve been supportive during the journey.
BlogHer ’12 will have a special place in my heart with a lot of positive memories of laughing with friends, meeting other friends in person for the first time, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I can’t wait to see what BlogHer ’13 in Chicago will hold!
Full disclosure: This post was created in connection with my appointment as an Ambassador in the Slim-Fast® Summer Slim-Down Challenge. Visit www.facebook.com/slimfast to join the conversation.
Also, the Lee jeans I mentioned were a complimentary pair provided by Lee, although being free doesn’t change how well they fit. All opinions are my own.
