Interview Saturday!!!

We have another Interview Saturday today.

Todays interview was done with Purl Princess whose blog you can visit here .

Purl has been a huge inspiration to me, and a huge help in my quest for a better me. Here are the questions I asked her for this interview.

1. Give us a little background info on yourself.

I'm 27, soon to be 28. 5'5". I love running, figure skating, knitting, reading, ballet and yoga. I have a cat named Marathon, a boyfriend whom I love, and I love to travel.

2. Your participate in weight watchers..how is that compared to other diets?

I think WW does work the best in the end. It's easy to follow, and is reasonable. Since I travel a lot for my job, and go out a lot for dinner, WW is the easiest to incorporate. It just doesn't make sense for me to eliminate all of my carbs for example. I also don't think I'm really a carb addict so that the balance of WW works the best for me. I also believe WW to be the best because it trains you to have healthy eating habits, which should really be the ultimate goal.

3. What all diets have you tried?

I haven't tried many - South Beach, a brief stint on the Sonoma Diet, but I quickly gave up on them. The reason being they are too difficult to follow and aren't easy to adapt to my life.

4. Why did you fail on them?

See above.

5. What was your highest ever weight?

I really don't know - somewhere above 150 lbs. I stopped weighing myself at that point. I went on a diet and didn't weight myself for a month, by then I had dropped below 150 - I know I lost A LOT in that first month though. I figured it was better not to know how high I had gotten.

6. Your current weight?

140 ish

7. Ever have trouble sticking with it?

Of course - who doesn't?

8. What motivated you to push further?

I motivate myself. There is no one else that I am doing this for other than me. When I don't eat right or miss a work out the only one I am letting down is me.

9. Compared to males, females have much more pressure on looking fit. It seems everywhere you look, you see girls in size 2 on the TV, billboards or in videos. How do you respond to this?

I think it's all crap. I used to get worked up about skinny models and actresses but I've accepted that it's all completely fake. Those magazines are all airbrushed, and those women aren't real. And besides for a model/actress - it's their JOB to look that way - if I had a private trainer, gym, cook, stylist and all the money in the world then I could look like that too.

10. Who has inspired you the most?

I find athletes and regular women are the ones that I want to emulate. I have no desire to be a size 0 twig with no strength. I want to look strong and athletic more than anything.

11. Favorite book?

You may as well ask a mother to choose which of her children she loves the most...
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Harry Potter 1-6 - JK Rowling
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
I could go on but I won't.

12. Give us your favorite diet meal?

Um... just one? I honestly don't know if I can answer this question. I love to cook and am always trying new things. I love the Moosewood cookbooks, and the Rebar Vegetarian cookbook is incredible. I am a vegetarian so most of what I make consists of pasta, veggies and tofu. I love avocados, edamame, anything with lemon or capers... I wish I had a more specific answer...

13. Give us an example of something that set you back.

When I was training for my first marathon in 2004 I hurt my knee while running. As a result I couldn't really run for a while which was hard. A month before the race I discovered a possible stress fracture in my foot and couldn't finish my training. On the day of the race I was nearly ready to cry I was so scared, I had never run more than 24 km - how was I going to do 42 km?

14. How did you overcome it?

I just went for it. I reasoned with myself that I could try and run, and I could always stop if it became too much. I didn't struggle much until the halfway mark, and at 25 km I was starting to die a little. But I had a great running partner and we just kept going... suddenly there was only 14 km left to go and I told myself that yes I could do another 14 km - I was going to finish. And finish we did - I couldn't walk for three days after, but I did it.

15. What was the tipping point, the moment that made you say "I need to change"?

The first time I went on a diet I was about 22. I had been in University for 1.5 years and had put on a lot of weight. I wasn't exercising (I had been a competitive figure skater until I started University), and was eating poorly. I was starting to gain and was growing in clothing sizes. One day I was trying on a skirt at the mall and realized I needed a third size bigger than where I had been a year and a half ago. That mortified me. So I went on WW, went back to the gym and lost the weight. I kept it off until about a year and a half ago. I got a new job and moved to a new city. The new job involved lots of travel, eating in hotels and nice restaurants. Before I knew it I had gained 20 lbs. again. I lost about 10 of those at the end of 2005. I'm now working on the next 10.

16. What is your reason now, what is the main goal you want to achieve?

I want to be what I know I can be. I hate my stomach - it's my least favorite body part. I would love to look at my stomach and think - hey that's not so bad. Otherwise, it's not that I'm desperate to lose a lot more weight, I just want to be toned, fit and healthy looking. That's my goal right now, and for the rest of my life.

17. Do you agree with the theory that most woman fail at diets because they attempt to look like magazine models?

I think most women fail on diets because they expect an instant fix. Losing weight, especially if you have a lot to lose, takes a very long time, and a lot of hard work. If you can't accept that before you start trying then you aren't going to stick with it. You have to accept that you could do everything right one week and not show a loss. You have to accept that as long as you keep doing the right things, you will be rewarded.

18. Favorite quote?

"Books are the purest essence of the human soul."

19. Finally, what would you say to everyone out there trying to loose weight right now?

We have to accept that models, movies and TV aren't real. We aren't going to look like that no matter what. The weight isn't going to come off in a day, it's a long arduous process and we must accept that before we begin. I also think it's okay to take a break from dieting once in a while, and just be "normal". It becomes exhausting to count every morsel that goes into your mouth.