Holiday Fatass

So, the eating and drinking has continued. It got really bad when my friend and brother-in-law came to visit. We started eating and drinking first thing in the morning and didn't stop until we went to bed each night. Late.

Over the few days they were here I put on TEN POUNDS.

Fortunately, seven of those went away within the first week the friends were gone, but three pounds still lingered. And really, I could have gotten rid of them by now, but I've still been eating and drinking a lot. It's disgusting.  So I'm already up three legitimate pounds this holiday season. I WON'T add more to that. I lost a significant amount of weight this past year and I want to make sure I don't gain everything back before the New Year. I know my binge habits. I could pull it off.

I had a tooth pulled last week, which was nice. It gave me an excuse to sleep on my couch all day. To be honest, with all of the binge eating/drinking I've been doing, I've even been wanting to purge, but I won't because I'm so afraid of vomit making my tooth socket infected or something. Ugh. I am pathetic and gross.

Holiday McBoozey

Typical holiday anxiety. I'm reminded right now of being derailed last Thanksgiving. I had lost about ten pounds, and it took a while. Then some friends and family came out to visit for Thanksgiving, we spent five straight days eating and drinking, and I put all the weight back on. And it took until almost February to get back on track.

Well, Husband's brother and a mutual friend are coming out here and will be at our house from Wednesday til Sunday. I'm really looking forward to seeing them again, but I NEED to not lose sight of where I am and where I am going. Exactly where are you going?

Alcohol has been a problem, as it always is. The stress of my life right now makes me spend the majority of my day anticipating getting home and being drunk. This is a sign of a drinking problem. I fear I'll never sleep without it. Even though I know you don't sleep as deeply once you have metabolized the alcohol, it beats not falling asleep to begin with. I wish Husband hadn't given up weed, or at least that he would be okay with me partaking. Oh well. I'll just kill my liver with the booze. The alcohol has also brought my weight loss to a crashing halt.

I'm not as despondent as this post is making me sound. Things are fine right now, they're just not great and I'm wallowing in it. And I'm a little drunk.

The shrinking game.

So, I pulled it off. I managed to drop 9 pounds in the week before my trip. Of course, I know that's mostly water weight, blah blah blah, but I'm fine with it. And I did so much drinking over the 4 days that I was gone, I gained back 3 pounds. But I'm fine with it. I saw pictures of myself on vacation and didn't even hate them. I actually felt a little weird about it and I have one picture I can't stop looking at. It's a picture of me and three of my friends on the beach. On the inside, I was terrified of taking the picture because in it, I was standing next to a girl I have noticed from day one, and how skinny she is. She's not like, the skinniest person at my school or anything, but she's skinny. And then after I got home, she sent me the pictures that we took. And my waist is much smaller then hers. My arms and legs are a little bigger, but my waist is definitely smaller. I couldn't believe it. We're built differently, but we are objectively, about the same size overall.

Why can't I see it?!
There are other pictures from the weekend of me too. My collarbones are more noticeable. My arms just slightly less disgusting.
I've spent so much time since I got home, staring at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out what I actually look like. I'm not THAT skinny. I'm not underweight. There's no need for concern. Sure, I'm on the low end of normal for my BMI and that's with a lot of muscle mass from working out so much, but I still see myself as a fatass.
The pants I bought for clinic three months ago were a little tight when I bought them, now they are hanging off of me.

And I think I look exactly the same.

Typical frustrated post

Fat fat fat fat fat.

I wanted to lose five pounds before leaving for Florida next week. Instead, I gained four.
What is wrong with me?!

Here's the main problem. I recently had another round of final exams. That is a point in the year when I do one of two things: Starve myself of any significant calories, pound coffee and hit the books hard, OR, eat everything in sight to avoid studying and coast through finals not caring if I actually get A's in all of my classes.

The biggest problem was, I couldn't get all A's. I had two classes in which no matter how well I did on the final, I would still be a point or two short of an A. Which meant I could coast into B's in those classes, and I didn't have to do too well to get A's in the others. So instead of studying, I sat on my couch, avoiding studying, and stuffing my face full of buffalo chicken dip. For 6 days straight.

I then had two days of restricting, then husband and I went to visit some friends for the weekend which involved a lot of food and a lot of beer. And so, getting home on Sunday night, I decided to weigh myself and I was up to a disgusting number. I brought it down two pounds in the past two days by being reasonable with food and getting some exercise, but not where it needs to be. Ugh, I wish I wasn't leaving for an athletic event and I could just starve myself for a week. At least I have an excuse to exercise like crazy for the next 7 days.

Jean shopping

So, I fell into an alternate reality today.

I have spent literally days, in the past, trying on jeans, hoping something fits. Hoping something doesn't make my already awkward body look even worse. Coming home empty handed and feeling defeated.

But of course, today I went with Husband, with whom everything always works out smoothly. No-traffic-in-New-England-on-Labor-Day, no-lines-at-the-airport, everything-is-magically-on-sale-when-he-shops Husband. So of course, today, when we got to the mall, the first store we entered to try shopping for jeans had them on sale. I usually start least expensive and work my way up until I find something that works for jeans, so I started with the ones that were marked down to $25. Neither pair were my usual style or wash, but I always start cheapest, just in case. And lo and behold! The first two pairs of jeans I tried on fit great! And looked great too! This only took about 10 minutes! Husband was still looking around so I continued to look at other jeans just in case (although I really only needed two pairs), and I eventually found a pair that were just like one of the first pairs I tried on but in a better wash, so I switched those ones. But seriously, I have never had so much luck shopping for jeans. Ever. It took us about 20 minutes and $100 to come home with 4 pairs of jeans (two each) that we were incredibly happy with. I'm never shopping without Husband again.

In skinny news, I'm at the point where I can't complain to my friends about my weight. Not that I like to do that anyway, but as of about a year ago, if my friends (who are also not fat, but not tiny) started to talk about weight and looks, I could chime in and agree that I would like to lose a couple of pounds. Well, those couple of pounds are gone, and then some, and the other day, we were remarking about clothing choices and I mentioned how I would like to be a few pounds smaller before wearing a certain style, and I got completely scoffed at. As if I could never want to be skinnier than I am.

And yet, I still am having trouble coping with the fact that in less than one month I am going to be in Florida, in a swim suit, probably embarrassing the hell out of myself.

Long time no write

August 5th? Wow, it has been too long.

I'm sure you're probably thinking I fell onto the binge train and have horrible news to update, but that's not the case. No, I've actually dropped about 4 pounds since I last posted. 4 pounds in two months is pretty terrible, but it is at least keeping in the right direction, so I will let it go.

Life has just been it's typical business. I start seeing patients later this fall, so that is terrifying.

The biggest hindrance to my weight loss right now is that I am training for a swim meet that's being held in the beginning of November. You would think it would help, but the problem is, I actually want to do well, which requires being in good shape and fueling my muscles, so that means it's hard to run a deficit. The advantage is, swimming burns insane amounts of calories, so even though I have had a couple of binges in the past two months, none of them have lead to a gain because my metabolism is revved. So that's a win.

Anyway, I really wish I had more to update besides that. I'm going to go try to catch up on a few of your blogs. How is every one doing??

I get mad for stupid reasons

The further I progress in my education, the more often we have to wear "clinic attire". In fact, I start working in the student clinic in the fall and that will require clinic attire every day, which will involve a lot of new clothes. I had one pair of dress pants and a couple of nice shirts that I have been getting by on for a while now, but since I have to wear nice clothes more often, I had to do a little clothes shopping. And here's the new irrational thing that makes me so upset:

I only believe my pants size. 

What?

Let me explain: I am what I would call "bottom-heavy". I'm about 5'10" and I have wide hips and thick legs. Muscular, for sure. But large. So when shopping for pants, I generally wear a 6. Occasionally, depending on the brand, an 8, and in generous vanity sizes, a 4. But in general, I consider myself a 6 as that's the most common pant size I fit into.  

I would classify this is pretty large. In my head, 00 is extra small, 0 and 2 are small, 4 is medium and 6 is large. I don't know how it really works, but in my head, that's how it works. So on the bottom, I am a large. 

Shirts? Well, when I bought "official school clinic" polo shirts, the women's size small was actually a little too wide. I can make it work, but it doesn't fit well. I also bought a couple of button down shirts at the mall. I grabbed a 4 and a 6 off the rack, in case the 4 was too small, but I know I'm smaller on top than bottom so I thought I might fit into a 4. Too big. Both of them. I had to put them both back and get a size 2. 

A bad judge of my own mass? Yep. But here's where it gets irrational. 

I was so mad. I wanted to scream. These fucking shirts are lying! They are all trying to say I'm "small", when in fact, I am monstrous! Some one has devised a plan to make all of the fat people feel good about themselves, so they changed the sizes to read smaller than they actually are! I have perfect logical rationale for this too. I have a shirt in my closet that I have had since probably my sophomore year of college. It's yellow and I like it. But it is a size "large" and it is a little small on me. I can wear it, but it doesn't fit well. That proves it! I am actually extra-large but all the modern-day clothes are saying I'm small so that I will be "content" with my size and spend the rest of my life being fat and dumb and happy like the rest of America, while the smart few who have it figured out will secretly live lives of being tiny and proud in their small bodies and trendy clothing. 

But you can't fool me America. I know I'm a whale. I know I have a long way to go before I'm genuinely skinny again. But I will do it. And you and your size "small" t-shirts can go fuck yourself. 

Not better. Just different.

The weekend took a toll on my body.

Friday evening: Husband and I went mountain biking. I only ran into one tree on Friday night, which is good (although resulted in a good deal of bruising on my left leg) but it was very very muddy. At one point, my tire slipped going down a hill and sort of fell off my bike. Half way. Kind of. Either way, I scratched my leg on something... Not a big deal. Until... I got back on my bike and after a couple of minutes I started to feel like bugs were biting me. I swatted - essentially at nothing - but it kept getting worse, like more and more bugs were biting me. After a minute, the feeling got so intense that I had to get off of my bike and I was scratching all over. It was as if bugs were biting me and some one was sticking needles all over my body. There were hardly any bugs out (even though we were in the woods) and there certainly was no one with needles. Then I looked down and where I had previously scratched my leg had swelled up an blistered from just below the medial aspect of my knee, up over to my medial thigh. Clearly, I was having some kind of allergic reaction. I didn't know what to do, so I tried pouring cold water from my water bottle on my legs and arms. That seemed to help, but we didn't have much water and I was starting to panic. The biting/needle feeling was only intensifying. So, Husband and I booked it out of the woods, back down the hill and to the car. He quickly got our bikes loaded up and drove me home where, not knowing what exactly to do, I turned the water in the shower on full blast cold and jumped in. It actually helped. It took probably about 20 minutes of standing in the shower for the feeling to subside enough for me to want to get out, but blistering/swelling in my leg went down and the biting feeling was down to a very mild itch that I could mostly ignore. Once I got out of the shower, the swelling started up a little bit in my leg, but I iced it for a bit and that kept it at bay. No idea what that was, but I'm seriously hoping it never happens again. 

Saturday morning: There was an annual seven mile race near where I live and I have never run it because it's always about 90-100 degrees in the morning this time of the year and I get heat exhaustion too easily, but I have wanted to run it ever since I moved to this area. Well, we have been having some strangely cold weather lately (which is AWESOME!) and the highs have only been in about the 70s, so a couple of nights before, I signed up to run the race. It turned out to be 56 degrees out that morning so it was actually pretty chilly and the race ended up being SO fun. People come from all over the world to run this race. Last year there was 18,000 people. This year there was only about 11,000 but it was definitely still a sea of people. Here are a couple of photos. The first is of people waiting to start the race. The second is the large hill that the race begins and ends on. The whole course is just a series of steep hills, which I love :)

I had fun with it too. I could have finished faster than I did. Took me a little over an hour. But I also stopped for a minute at a friend's house. He lives on the road the course takes so he throws a party every year for the race, so I stopped the for a minute. I also drank some beer while running. The spectators have fun with the race and they will set up things like weight-lifting challenges and stuff on the side of the course for the runners who are just running for fun. Many people offer free beer to the runners so I took a beer and drank that while I was running. Did it make my stomach hurt a little and slow my time a bit? Yes. Was it more fun for me and the spectators to see people drinking while running? You betcha. I didn't care about my time, so I had fun with it. 

The only down-side to Saturday was that I got a migraine in the afternoon which put a bit of a damper on the rest of the day. But the race was awesome. 

Sunday: My muscles were still pretty sore from running the day before (I don't live very close to hills so I don't run them very often) but Husband wanted to go mountain biking again. We went to a different location than on Friday and I wore long pants, just in case of another scratch from whatever that was. The ride was a good time for about the first hour or two, but then the fatigue from the cumulative 48 hours was catching up to me and I was practically walking my bike out of the woods that day. My whole body was shaking as I tried to keep pedaling/bracing/balancing/etc. over the last few obstacles and hills. I hit a couple of trees throughout the ride, but eventually we made it back to the car and headed home. I can't remember a time in my life I felt so physically exhausted. 

But exercise is my favorite, so I kept with it. I knew this week was going to be busy and I wouldn't have much time for it so I just went all out. 

In answer to Pegasus' question, I am currently in chiropractic school. Since most people don't know how much work is involved in becoming a chiropractor, I often send people this link which is a general breakdown of a chiropractic education vs a med school education. I don't intend it to be braggy like "oh, the chiropractors know soooo much more than MD's" because it's hard to compare the two. They are two healthcare professions which take a different approach to patient management so the education differs in some respects. I actually started chiropractic school around the same time as my cousin started med school and from communicating with her, have found the two to be more similar than dissimilar. But on here, I often talk of the stresses of being a doctor soon and many people think that, as a chiropractor, I am elevating myself beyond my knowledge or abilities, which is not the case. So that is the long answer to your question, what I am studying. 

Also, I have a Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience. In case you were interested. 

I'm a big nerd. 

And I like what I do. I often get exhausted. The days are long but I like the challenge so it's worth it. 

Speaking of which, I was going to post some more about my life as of late, but I have more studying to do so I can't spend all night on here. 

Be well :)

My mother is the organic Paula Deen

Well I am back from vacation and back to school.

I didn't hit my goal of losing five pounds over my three week break, BUT I knew it was a lofty goal when I set it. That being said, I am down one pound from the start of break.

One pound? That normally is not an amount that really means anything to me.
However.

I explained earlier the nightmare that is food at my mother's house. So in reality, the fact that for the first time ever, I went to my mother's house for almost 5 days and didn't gain a single pound, is HUGE! (Pardon the pun).

I kept busy with visiting family and their in-ground pool was open so I went swimming at least twice a day, and my sister's husband likes to run so I went running with him three times. The running we did wasn't quite as productive as it would have been if I had run on my own because even though his sprint is faster than mine, he doesn't have my stamina (he's a soccer player) so there were periods of time we had to stop and walk when I would have kept going. And we only ran 3-5 miles each time to they weren't super long runs either. But better than nothing. Between all of the swimming and running and visiting, I managed to avoid most eating, and I guess the eating I did do I managed to cancel out with exercise. Woohoo! Stoked.

My mother is recovering from surgery so she didn't do as much cooking as usual. Just 3 dinners, which were self-serve and disorganized so again, easy to only eat what I wanted. Then, the day before I left, mom made me the usual giant breakfast: Three egg omelette, cooked in bacon grease, and "two slices" (about 3 times the normal thickness) of banana bread, slathered in butter.

So much food. It tasted good, but it was WAY too much food. Fortunately, after I had picked at the eggs for about 20 minutes and fed half of the bread to my niece, my brother was hungry and I asked if he wanted the rest of my breakfast. He said yes, and was happy to eat it. (Ugh, to be a 27 year old athletic male... he piles away sooo much food and is so skinny).

I sometimes wonder if my mother realizes how much she eats. I want to suggest to her a food diary or something but I know she would be offended. She's too emotional about food and ALWAYS thinks that her weight problems are "not her fault". Her food choices are very healthy (lots of local, organic fruits and veggies, organic soy protein drink mixes without added crap, etc.) but she eats constantly. Especially for what little activity she has been getting since she had surgery back in March. It was an intestinal problem that prompted the surgery and she has had trouble eating solid food since then but she still consumes a lot of juice and smoothie-type drinks and hasn't been able to get much physical activity yet so I think her calorie count is still too high. She renders her own lard from a pig that she was slaughtered and makes her own butter out of local cream from grass-fed cows so yes, her food choices are healthier than their mainstream alternatives, but I think she thinks she can eat as much of it as she wants and not gain weight because it's "healthy". But when it comes to calories, if you're consuming more than you're burning, you won't lose weight. But it's impossible to have a rational conversation with her about it so I just have to listen to her complain.

But anyway. I'm back to the grind at school. This term I am taking an elective, which I have wanted to do for a while but I haven't found a way to fit it into my schedule. This one fit into my schedule but it's going to be crazy. I'm currently taking 11 classes so if my posting becomes even less frequent, I apologize. My free-time is rapidly dwindling.
But hey, less time for eating, right?

Vacation post #2

I ran again today, which is good but it wasn't enough to make up for the cookies and beer I consumed last night. I ran 5 miles in the sweltering heat. I then went to the beach to swim but my legs were so worn out from the run and the waves were so strong it wasn't even fun.

In other news, I love my mother-in-law, she's kind and generous and makes my life better in so many ways. That being said, she's so out of touch when it comes to food/dieting. She's constantly "dieting", so she claims. Says she has been her whole life. But if this is her idea of dieting, she has no clue. I knew she ate frequently because she always talks about her hypoglycemia and how she has to eat every two hours so she doesn't pass out. She says that is mostly to blame for why she is so overweight. I almost felt sorry for her, until I actually have paid attention to what she consumes. If she's really concerned about her blood sugar, she's doing it all wrong. She needs to learn portions.
Take today for example.

She woke up, had a large bowl of cereal with milk and also coffee with cream and sugar. An hour later, she was getting ready to go to the beach (which is right across the road and she only goes for an hour or two). So she packed some almonds (with sugar coating) and then made herself a sandwich. A full-blown meat and cheese sandwich. And ate that on the way to to beach. Then about an hour later, she started snacking on the sugary almonds. Then, an hour later (after I have had only a banana and have run 5 miles and swam for 30 minutes), we all head back to the house to have lunch. She gets out the Triscuits, puts 6 of them on a plate, globs about 2 tbsp of cream cheese on each one, and puts smoked salmon on top of each glob of cream cheese. As soon as she finishes that, she scoops about two and half cups of leftover jambalaya onto a plate, heats it up, and eats it. As she's doing this, I make for myself a bed of lettuce, and put a small piece of raw salmon on top of it, and drizzle on some soy sauce and sushi vinegar. My mother-in-law looks at it and says "Oh, you're eating a salad? I'll have to keep up with your salad habits". So, she polishes off her jambalaya, and dishes herself out some lettuce, puts a chickpea salad that she's made (doused in oil) on top of the lettuce, pours more oil on top, and eats that.
Ten minutes after she finishes her salad, she devours a brownie with ice cream.

And it's only 2 in the afternoon! We're still going out for dinner tonight! I think she thinks that she eats "diet food" and so she should be skinny, but I can't even begin to think of how many calories she consumes on a daily basis. With no exercise! She's been eating like this every day. Eating a salad doesn't "cancel out" other calories consumed. It only adds more.

And I remember one time when she made a passing remark when I was eating a cookie, that she wishes she had my "young metabolism" so she could "eat like me". What?! She eats soooo much more than I do. And doesn't exercise nearly as much.

Vacation post!

So, as it turns out, Husband loves this laptop he got me so he decided to bring it along on vacation. That means I can read blogs and post! I can't keep updated daily because people are generally everywhere so it's hard to be discrete, but I slept really late today and every one is already at the beach (except for one person who is taking a mid-morning nap so I don't have to worry about him) so I have a little alone time to blog!

I'm happy to report that up until last night, I have done VERY well avoiding food. It's surprisingly easy to do because there are quite a few people here in vacation and every one just kind of does their own thing. Plus, I tend to forget that no one in Husband's family has an eating disorder so no one is watching any one else's food intake like a hawk. It's great.

So travelling went as planned. I had some carrots on the way to the airport, nothing at the airport and then spent most of the ten hour ride from the airport to the beach sleeping so that rid me of any unnecessary snacking. I had a close run-in with some combos (those cheese pretzel things) and because at one point my father-in-law needed to sleep (they drive overnight) so Husband drove and it was my job to keep him awake. I sat down next to the combos and very soon after dug my hand in to eat a couple (I have a weakness for anything salty) and they were almost gone. So Husband and I polished them off but I only ended up eating 6 of them. Nothing I can't recover from.

First thing we did when we got down here was have breakfast. I had a biscuit and two eggs with cheese. Pretty fattening stuff but I am giving myself a little more leeway because I am so active down here.
So we hit the beach from there. I went for a walk, then swam for an hour in the ocean (lots of work!) then napped in the sun. Lunch time came around and people sporadically went back to the car to make sandwiches for lunch. I was getting hungry but it's easy to say no to food when you are currently on the beach in a bikini. So when they asked me if I wanted a sandwich, I politely declined. And praise the Lord! No one here has an ED so no one thought it suspicious when I said "no thanks, I'm not hungry".

I have also managed to run twice. My Sunday run was the best because I was able to run as far as I wanted and I burned a good 517 Calories. Yesterday my friend wanted to come with me and I felt bad saying no, even though she is not a very good runner so I knew I couldn't go as far with her, but it ended up working out okay because I made the mistake of having salad for lunch, which was not fully settled before my run and it made my stomach hurt something fierce. So we went about two and half miles and burned about two hundred-something Calories. Better than nothing.

Also, I am estimating using my run-keeper app. I just downloaded it and so far I love it! I think the Calorie count is more accurate than plugging the miles into Daily Mile. That thing WAY over-estimates. Run keeper takes into account elevation and changes in speed, etc. and it seems a lot more accurate.

So as I mentioned before, my eating was great until last night when I had been drinking a little. Then I got an upsetting text from my brother (I won't bore you with the details, every one is fine, my family is just VERY inconsiderate) and I was a little drunk and furious which totally sent me into a small binge. It was about a 600 Calorie binge. Normally, this would seem huge, but I have spent the past three days steadily restricting and constantly moving (running, swimming, playing frisbee, kayaking) so I know I had racked up a huge deficit so it hasn't set me back completely. I'm a little disappointed I don't have a scale here because I can feel my clothes are looser, which is an AWESOME feeling, but I will have to wait until July to see if I have lost. I am going to my parent's next week but my mom's scale SUCKS. It is literally older than I am, it's not digital and it reads about 15 pounds lighter than I actually am. My mother gets mad whenever she uses mine because she says "It lies and says she weighs too much" (Like, yeah, my newer digital scale is the one lying) but I have compared my scale to the ones at my school (like, professional/doctor grade with the slidey bar things) and my scale is pretty spot on. Sorry mom, you weigh more than you think you do.

I want to run right now, while my stomach is empty and I don't have to worry about it hurting later, but I didn't bring enough running shorts. I knew there was a washer a dryer here so I only brought two pairs of running shorts, but I haven't had enough clothes for a full load and no one else has put clothes out to be washed so I haven't been able to wash my sweaty running clothes to go for another run. I'll have to go do some serious swimming I guess.

Cookie death

Miranda and Kitty, you are both right. My mother is going to be obnoxious about the whole thing, but she is just going to have to deal.

And Kitty, that's part of the problem. My mother's weight fluctuates a lot because she is so fucked up about food too and she HATES it when people are thinner than she is. Really, whenever I visit, I always hope she is thin because if she is, she is less likely to force-feed every one else. But when other people are thinner than her it makes her determined to fatten every one up. Yes, I'm sure part of it is associating food with love and she is trying to show "love" to our family by feeding us, but mostly it's a skinny thing because when she is thinner, she doesn't do it. She just wants every one else to be fatter than she is. 

Yesterday went well. I started off my morning reading through some of Ana Regzig's blog. Always so motivating. So, with no food in my stomach, I went outside and ran 13 miles. It's crazy how a little motivation can spur an incredible run. For the rest of the day all I had was a "refuel" protein shake (180), coffee (0), almond milk (30), salad with mustard/vinegar and feta cheese (150) and a very small portion of chicken and sugar snap peas (300? Not totally sure). Oh and lots and lots of water. And it paid off. I woke up this morning at a fantastic weight! Lower than I was expecting and I didn't even feel dehydrated. 

Today started off well. I did wake up hungry but made myself a large "iced latte" of unsweetened almond milk and strong iced coffee for about 50 calories. Since we are leaving on vacation today, I figured I would also eat up the last of most of the vegetables before we left since a) they will spoil while we are gone, and b) I want to get plenty of fiber because my bowels tend to slow a lot when I travel and I don't want to be all bloated and backed up while on vacation. So my intake was mostly almond milk and vegetables, and I figured I would leave it at about that because I pretty much never eat anything when I travel anymore. But then I went to my neighbor's to give him a key to our place while we're gone. He asked me if I would like any cookies that his wife just made. I lied and said I had already been eating cookies today and that I shouldn't. He said okay and left it at that. A few minutes later, his 4 year old daughter came up to me with a tray full of warm cookies and offered me one. I tried to turn them down, but she was persistent so I had one. Ugh. I tried to nibble it slowly so as to be able to bring it inside my house and throw it away, but the neighbors were chatty and I felt like an ass just standing there holding a slightly nibbled on cookie. So I ended up finishing it. Which totally sucks, because I haven't gotten any significant exercise today, nor will I before I am on the beach in a bathing suit TOMORROW. Hopefully I won't have any more run-ins with food between now and then. 

Either way, now that I have these "incognito windows" on this computer, this is the only place from which I will blog and I am not taking this laptop with me. I will be gone for two weeks so you won't hear from me until sometime after July 4th. So good luck with the holiday to my American friends! We all know it's not a party without booze and fattening food, so let's do our best to make excuses and not feel obligated to partake. Sound good? Okay.

Views and Foods

So my viewership has shot up lately, which kind of worries me because I don't have any additional followers. I'm always paranoid some one will find this. Not that I have been terribly secretive about the content. Any one would know who it was if they found it.
Anyway.

My main reason for posting is to express my nervousness about what happens AFTER North Carolina. After NC I am spending a week in New England with my family. My mother already warned me "bring some larger clothes cause I'm making lots of food!"

Ugh. She loves to fatten people up. And whenever you turn down food she just gets mad. She goes right from cleaning up from breakfast to making lunch and then into making dinner. There's never a break. She then gets mad at every one because she doesn't have any "down time" to spend with us because she is so busy cooking and cleaning. Here's a thought... No one here is hungry. Stop force-feeding us!

It's going to take a lot of sneaking and arguing to get out of gaining weight. But I'm determined to do it. I WILL do it.

Starting now. Exercising as much as possible so as to keep my metabolism up because I KNOW I will be eating more when I am there than I do here. If I can at least stave off a gain, that will be accomplishment enough.

Difficult

It's hard not to be discouraged lately. I know I haven't been exercising as much lately because I had finals and then I hurt my ankle, but I cut back my calories to hopefully make up for it but it doesn't seem to be helping. I have a journal where I have been tracking my weight loss and I knew it had been probably a month since I have been able to mark off the next loss so I opened it up yesterday only to find it has been almost TWO MONTHS since I lost anything. Well, maybe not anything, but only about two pounds. The increments in the book are 3 pounds so I really only need to lose another pound. But it has to be "legitimate". Sure, just to see if it would spur my motivation, I have dehydrated myself from running in the heat and not eating enough and I could get the number on the scale down about 5 pounds, but I haven't just woken up in the morning after a normal day and been down any.

The really frustrating part is that on Friday, Husband and I are leaving for NC to the beach for a week. And I am a cow. I was doing so well for a while there and I had hope that I would be smaller than I am now. But I'm not. On the plus side, I am about 15 pounds lighter than when I went two years ago. Which on my 5'10" frame is hardly anything.

I need some motivation. I might have some soon though. I don't want to get my hopes up too soon because she has posted temporarily like this before, but Ana Regzig started posting again. I remember when I first found her blog a couple of years ago, reading it spawned a period of restricting and exercising in my life that I need to get back.




And Penny Nicole, thanks for your comment. I did read your  most recent blog post and I am glad my comment was able to help you feel better. I was afraid it might come off as arrogant but it really was my intention to help, so I'm glad it did.

Positive reinforcement

So I finally did something I haven't done in literally years.
Binged. Purged.

I really thought I was past it. I hadn't done it in years. But I was studying for an exam and mindlessly downed  probably close to 1,000 calories in trail mix.
And I didn't want to purge. I hate everything about it. I hate the way it smells, the way it looks, the way it leaves my throat and mouth aching.
I think part of the problem, was that typically when I binge, I just run off the Calories, however many miles it takes. But yesterday I had a very important exam to study for and as I mentioned previously, I hurt my ankle the other day and it is still hurting. So I went upstairs to the bathroom.
I paced for some time, going into and out of the bathroom. To the bedroom. To the bathroom. To the bedroom. Back again. I also am not a very quiet purger. I tend to start out quiet, but if I go until there is nothing left, it gets noisy at the end, and I live in a fourplex right now where the only place in the building where you can really hear into the other residencies is in the bathroom because they are all adjacent and the sound travels so well through the walls there. I know my neighbors and I didn't want them to hear.

But I ended up doing it anyway. I just couldn't bear it. And it was vile and horrible. And today I am constantly reminded of it by the aching in the muscles of the floor of my mouth.

Let this be a reminder to have some self-control.
No more purging. No more bingeing.

I also decided to step on the scale today. I had my last final and I now have three and half weeks off. My goal is to lose 5 pounds in that time. I have the time to exercise so I have no excuse and I wanted to figure out what my "starting point" would be.
And I'm sure there is an aspect of dehydration from yesterday (although I tried to re-hydrate last night) but my weight was down a bit today. Unfortunately that almost seemed to reward the behavior...

Last night's dinner

I made chicken and broccoli for dinner last night. The broccoli was frozen stuff with cheesy sauce. I had 1/3 of the package (which was a serving, 45 Cal) and split a chicken breast with Husband.

I used to eat a whole chicken breast. But they are 8 oz, which is more than two servings of meat. So I told Husband we could split it and I would take 1/3 of it and he could have the other 2/3. He was fine with that.

I served dinner on our patio. It was nice night.

But after his first few bites, Husband looked over at me

Are you a little kid?
What?
You look like you're cutting your food up for a baby.

I tried to laugh it off.

No I'm not. Haha. I'm just cutting it like normal and it's pulling apart into pieces.

He started picking at it, mocking the small bites I was cutting up, but laughing along with me. At least he was laughing about it, right?
He then suggested we go for a bike ride after dinner.

Of course! That sounds fun!
Okay, I was thinking we could ride our bikes to go get some ice cream!

Ugh. Okay. Only a few miles, so not a far enough bike ride to make up for the scoop of ice cream I had, but I had at least run earlier in the day.
The run didn't go so great because I hurt my ankle while I was out so I headed home after only 2.5 miles (so 5 total) and it's still sore today but I'm hoping if I rest it a little, it will improve and I can get back out there. Finals are over tomorrow and I will have more time to work out pretty soon here. I can't be hurt during my break.

Memories

I started reading "The Best Little Girl in the World"

So far I think I like it. I'm not very far into it though.

Just opening the book brought back bad memories though. Memories from childhood.

Before the start of the book, there is a little rhyme:

Fat and Skinny had a race
All round the pillow case
Fat fell down and broke her face
Skinny said "Ha-ha! I won the race!"

I felt so mad when I read it.
My sister has always been very very skinny. She (like most members of my family) has an eating disorder. I don't know how long she has had it. I know since we were young but I don't know exactly what age. I know for a time she had been ordered by doctors that she wasn't allowed to eat anything that didn't have calories. That was when we were probably about eight or ten years old.
But for about three or four years (around the end of 3rd grade til maybe about 6th), I was pretty fat. I don't think I was obese (by BMI standards) but I might have been. And whenever my sister and I would walk into a room together, my grandmother would sing that rhyme:

Fat and Skinny had a race, Fat fell down and broke her face.

I just remember feeling so much shame. It wasn't enough that I had previously seen my mother cry about the fact that I was overweight. She hates fat people.
But for my grandmother to hate me for it too?

In my family, there is nothing worse than being stupid, and being fat is the same as being stupid. Being fat is a visible sign that you are lazy and stupid.

So I got skinny. And I stayed skinny up until I was about 22 and left the ballet company I was dancing in. I put on 50 pounds in two years, taking me from being just into the underweight BMI to just into the overweight BMI. It was such and awful feeling.
So I started losing again.
I'm no longer overweight, but I'm also not skinny. And I hate that. But I'm getting there. Slowly. But I'm getting there.

ChromeOS FTW!

Just found out this morning that my Chromebook has "Incognito Windows" where I can be logged into this account in this window while logged into my normal account in another window. And as soon as I close this window, all memory of what I did in this window is erased. My blogging life just got a thousand times more awesome.

Now to actually take the time to update.

But I have finals this week. By next week I should be posting more.

Posting

Posting is going to be difficult for a little bit. My laptop has pretty much crapped the bed so I have been in the market for a new one. We have a desktop computer and I have a tablet so I really don't even NEED a laptop, but Husband bought me a Chromebook because he is often on the desktop computer while I am doing homework on mine. The problem with this, is it automatically keeps everything logged in under my actual Google account, which is not the same as the one I use to blog. I don't even know if I can log it out, nor do I want to because it syncs everything and that's not a risk I'm willing to take.

So I'll post as I can.

My weight has been pretty stagnant which I need to do something about. I don't think it has moved in over a month. I know if I cut back my intake a little and up my exercise a bit I can lose. But time has been my biggest issue. I've done some good restricting but, as long-time readers will know, I am incapable of losing weight without exercise. I have been running at least 15 miles a week for a while but not last week. I had a sinus infection and didn't run for 10 days. But I ran five today. Just so hard to find the time.

I was out of town this past weekend for a wedding which is always stressful because visiting old friends always means a lot of eating, but the trip actually ended up okay. We left Thursday and I had a fruit smoothie (Frozen fruit, OJ and unsweetened almond milk) and about a cup of trail mix so that wasn't too bad. Friday I didn't eat at all until dinner, which was sushi, but it was followed by beer. Saturday I had two eggs with cream cheese and asparagus. Didn't do too badly at the wedding (some chicken and veggies... successfully avoided the cake!) but SUNDAY sucked. I had half a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, two hot dogs with chips for lunch, a wrap at the airport on the way home and a venti iced latte on the drive home from the airport. Sucks.

This is why I am fat.

Strangely disappointed?

So, the last two weeks at school have been crazy, so I haven't been posting, I've hardly been running and I've been stuffing my face with crap.

So for the past two weeks I have been sitting on my ass, studying and eating junk food.

I have been avoiding the scale, knowing it would be bad news, but today my curiosity got the better of me and I checked.

1 pound.

Only up one pound? How the hell did that happen?

The weirdest part is that I was almost disappointed. As though I was looking forward to the self-loathing that comes with seeing a gain on the scale, my punishment for "misbehaving".
But nothing.

Oh well. The good news is that it has not sparked in me and feelings of "Oh, well, I can just sit around and stuff my face and not gain anything". I know better. I have one more class to go to today, then I am going to run five miles.

In less than two months I am going to be on the beach. And I am not going to be a fat ass for that. 

If there's one thing I know...

... It's eating disorders.


But I'm not one for "I told ya so"s so I just kept to myself.

When I started grad school about a year and half ago, one of the first classes I took was Biochemistry. It was blatantly obvious to me by her mannerisms (and the fact that she has a PhD in "food" studies) that our professor has an eating disorder.
After taking the final for that class (over a year ago) I was out for a drink with some classmates and the professor came up in conversation. I mentioned in passing that I was certain she had an eating disorder.
Every one disagreed.
No.
No way
Yeah right, she's so smart and she is an expert in nutrition.
Her hair isn't falling out.

I explained that I didn't say it to be catty or a gossip and it made little difference to me if any one believed me. But I know eating disorders. I could tell by her personality, her perfectionist attitude, subtly (to the untrained eye) fluctuating weight, and I explained that it's very common for people with eating disorders to go into a profession that pertains to food. Might as well get paid for your obsession.

Well, a year later and we had the same professor for Nutrition. At the end of the class, we did a short topic on eating disorders, at which point, professor came clean that she "used to" have an eating disorder.

People were shocked.

Not me. I didn't even bother to glance in the direction of the classmates who didn't believe me. It didn't matter. I didn't feel any more validated than when I had made the statement a year prior. I know eating disorders and I can spot them from a mile away. I felt equally as certain about it the day I mentioned it as I did the day she decided to talk about it.

Fat fat fat

Weight is stuck again.

And it's no mystery.

I can't stop drinking!

Seriously folks. It's a problem.

And probably, if I drank less alcohol, my muscles wouldn't be so sore from what working out I do, and I could work out more, therefore burning more calories, while at the same time consuming fewer calories. And getting fucking skinny.

But instead, I drink.

In the realm of food and exercise? Fine. Eating mostly nuts and veggies, keeping the intake low. Running 5-6 miles a day.

And then the sun goes down, and I throw literally about 600 Calories per night into my stomach of just alcohol. I could totally drink more hard liquor than beer. But Husband keeps buying really great beer. So many new things to try, each more delicious than the last. And that's the worst part. Cause I like scotch and we have good scotch and I could be drinking that. Or bloody marys. I make kick-ass bloody marys. But then the beer shows up and with it, my beer gut.

And this is why I am fat.

Because I have no self-control.

White shirt

Hey folks, kind of got through the plateau. I think. I'm not enough below that I feel safely under it, so I am going to get through the weekend and see if I don't spike back up to it. Fingers crossed.

Kitty, in answer to your question, I'm way too superstitious about my weight to post it on here. It's stupid, I know. But I can't bring myself to do it. But, If you're wondering about how I look, I will go out on a limb and post a couple of shitty pictures of myself that I took this morning. Because last fall I tried on this shirt and it was too small. Now it is hanging off of me, which is nice.

Sorry I don't have a shot from the side. I have massive arms and small tits so any time I see myself from the side, that's all I see. Massive arms. Small tits. Can't bring myself to share that.  No matter how flat my stomach is.
(In related news, I always suspected I look fatter than I am because of my large arms, and then last month a magazine I was reading was talking about "faking a hot body by having great arms". And it's true. Your arms can make or break you)

I'm still a whale compared to where I was in high school and the beginning of college (until I quit the ballet company I was in and got super fat) but I'm headed in the right direction. And I will get there.

Also, there is a good chance I will freak out and take these down pretty much immediately, so, they might not be up for long.
(Also, in the second picture, there is a wrinkle in my shirt off my right hip that totally looks like a fat roll. It's not. But it's driving me crazy in this picture. Ugh)
Also, also, in the second picture, my legs are kind of spread apart, but there is no light shining between my thighs so it also looks like my hips are even more massive than I distorted-ly think they are. These pictures are terrible. What was I thinking. 

Also, I no longer have dread locks. I don't remember if I blogged about that a couple of months ago when I combed them out. Maybe I'll post about that later.
I miss them though. Husband misses them even more. He keeps bugging me to put them back in. Maybe this summer. We'll see. They're a lot of work. 

Plateau

So, this is probably my longest plateau without a binge. I was losing weight pretty rapidly for the past month and then this past week I didn't lose a single pound. Not even half a pound.

I'm sure this is largely due to glycogen, which is why I haven't gotten distraught. I have increased my running distance by about two miles and have been pushing myself to run a little faster. I may have even gained a little muscle because I have been consuming some protein and carbs post-workout so I'm pretty sure I've just increased my muscle and glycogen. Because I have gotten smaller. My clothes are yet a little looser. In fact, if the weather gets nice soon here I will need to shop for some new summer clothes because I have nothing. I only have one pair of jeans that I can wear. They were a pair of "oh, I'll hang onto these and maybe one day fit into them" jeans. Which is nice that I fit into them, but I kinda need more than one pair of jeans.

I almost binged on Wednesday night. I was definitely in a binge mood. Then husband came home and asked if I wanted to go out for wings. YES!

I actually was a little nervous because I love wings and I was in the mood to feast.
Fortunately, when I still had a few wings leftover, the waitress came by and asked if I needed a box. I said no. I was totally prepared to eat all of the wings. Then Husband interjected that I should probably get a box and not finish the last few because her could tell I was plenty full and would only wind up feeling sick if I ate more. (He knows me so well)

So, thanks to my husband, even though I did eat more junk than I should have, wasn't a huge binge.

And thank goodness I didn't binge on wings.

What I have been eating lately has been super healthy. Mostly nuts and seeds and veggies with a little meat or yogurt or fruit here and there.

Well, the wings were definitely a shock to my system. I went to bed with a bit of a stomach ache and woke up in the night with the most violent stomach pains. After some water and praying I would have a BM or something, anything to relieve the pain, I went back to bed. Had a stomach ache most of the next day too until having a very unpleasant BM that night.
That'll teach me to eat that garbage. Bleah.

So, I'm hanging in there. Just trying to hold on until I get past this plateau. It's bound to happen, right? Ugh. I hope so.

(I do actually recall being stuck at this weight for a looong time a few years ago.... I think it might be a weight that my body just "likes" to be at. But I say no, body. I will press on. I will get smaller.)

Dresses

Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned a classmate asked if I had lost a bunch of weight?
I sort of brushed off his comment.

But I have continued to lose weight.
A few days ago I had a practical exam which required me to wear clinic attire (which is typically dress pants and a button down shirt).

Well, I didn't realize just how much weight I had lost. Until I went to get dressed the morning of the practical. All of my clinic clothes: too big.

Had I realized this a day or two sooner, I would have been ecstatic, but not realizing until the day of meant I had to wear over-sized clinic clothes. None of my dress pants have belt loops so I couldn't wear a belt and my pants kept falling down and my shirt kept coming un-tucked. It was awful.

The classmate who made the previously mentioned comment saw me and said "I was right. I knew you had lost weight".

The part that sucks is that, obviously, I don't see it. I think I look the same. All of my clothes are just too big.

The numbers have gone down a lot. Again, I'm sorry I'm too superstitious to share them with you. I want to. I want to tell you what I weigh because it's the lowest I have been since I got married. But (as long time readers will know) I feel like every time I post my weight on here, the numbers go up immediately after. Maybe if I reach an "underweight" BMI, I will let you know. Then at least I have a little room to go up in case my stupid superstitions sabotage me.

Either way, since I finally saw a number this morning that was down to around what I was when I got married, I figured "Hey, I wonder if I can get into my wedding dress".
Tried it on. Too big.

What?! This means I'm actually SMALLER than I was when I got married. Which of course is another small annoyance because I look at wedding photos and think "Man, I wish I was that thin again"
But I'm actually thinner.

I wish I could actually see it.

What is wrong with me?

First off, thanks for your comments. I feel the same way. I always think "I don't want to be doing this forever, maybe I'll grow out of it" but realistically that probably won't happen. At least not any time soon.


Also, would you like to hear how fucked up my head is?

So, I have this classmate who has the same class schedule as me and we have spent a good deal of time together since starting grad school over a year ago. Not once in this time have I ever been attracted to him.
But he's been dieting and working out lately and has lost about 20 pounds sometime in the past 6 months or a year or something. It's been gradual, and he's of pretty average size so I haven't really noticed it.
But.
He's been talking about it lately. He hates to miss a workout. During finals week, the school gives out these bags of snacks to students (cause we're five and we love snack time) and mine had pretzels and his had cheez-its. He asked if I would trade him because the cheez-its had 210 Calories and the pretzels had 160. (I said yes, I wasn't going to eat them anyway. I always give those snack bags to my husband)
Yesterday was our school founder's "birthday" (he died a long time ago) so the school was giving out donuts. He turned them down.

But here's where it gets fucked up. I found myself totally attracted to this behavior. And not just a little. We're talking sexually aroused. By his dieting.
And it's only the dieting. When he's not talking about dieting, I feel nothing. He's not my type. At all. But his calorie restriction and working out? Soooo turned on.

Then, two nights ago, this happened with basically a stranger.

So, I have my first round of national board exams next weekend so I am taking a board review class. Big room. Full of people.
The guy sitting directly in front of me was a good looking guy. Decent face, great body (rugby player).
His friend sitting next to him opened up a package of those Chex Mix muddy buddies. He offered them to Rugby Guy.
Rugby Guy turned them down.
I got turned on.
A few minutes later, Chex Mix guy pulled out a handful of the snack and placed them in front of his friend. Rugby Guy ate one. Let the rest sit in front of him. About an hour later when we all got up to take a bathroom break, Rugby Guy scooped up the rest of them and threw them in the trash.

Holy shit. Again. Incredibly sexually aroused. I had to basically bolt in the other direction to stop myself from grabbing him and doing him right there in the crowded hallway.

What. The. Fuck.

Fortunately, I am still very much in love with my husband and have more sense than to act on any of these impulses. But this is fucked up. A psychiatrist would have a field day with this.

This shit won't make you happy

I'm not delusional. I know this isn't going to make me happy. It never has.

There are all the reasons in the world for weight loss. And yours are fine, but don't kid yourself.
This won't bring happiness.

I've been searching around for new blogs to follow, as so many people no longer post. And it seems like every one says the same thing.
"I'm doing this so I can be thin and happy"

Well, I've got some bad news for you.
Have you ever read one of these blogs? Is any one happy?

Sure, there are moments of happiness. The number on the scale went down, the clothes became looser, that one day you didn't eat all day and you felt fine.
They're all small victories, but they don't bring real happiness.

As I've mentioned many times, I grew up around this. I've seen it last lifetimes. My grandmother and her sisters are around the age of 80, and they are saggy bags of bones. They've always been thin because it's their obsession. But not one of them is happy. They take comfort in their exercise and their perfectly portioned "meals" (even when they go out to eat, they take their meals in Tupperware which is horribly embarrassing).
But never are they happy.

Happiness has a lot of of biological factors, and nourishment is one of them.

In Marya's book (which most of us have read) she references a study in which a group of young, healthy men were put on a diet of just under 1,000 Calories "they began to: stash food surreptitiously, talk about food constantly, chew gum and mints perpetually, read recipes for dishes they couldn't make. As the study went on, they were frequently caught digging through garbage cans, sneaking into the hospital kitchen to binge. They began to purge and - interestingly enough - they became incredibly worried about their weight, the shape of their bodies, and began to diet. They worried about getting dirty, got disgusted with their own biological functions, and didn't want to touch food anymore"

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment might be that study. Hard to say because some of the facts sounds little different. I would have to read more into it.


But the bottom line remains the same.
I'm not intending to criticize. We all have different reasons for behaving the way we do.  And if you want to be thin, this might work. But it won't make you happy. So, if that is genuinely your goal, I suggest you find something else.

8,000

My blog exceeded 8,000 views today. And I even saw the ticker when it was on exactly 8,000. Which, so far, has been the most exciting part of my day.


Mostly, it's just been cleaning the house and listening to Weezer. Because it's 1996.

New blogs?

I made it through finals week and I'm a few pounds lighter. And people have noticed. I hate when they notice. On the one hand, it's reassuring to know that even though I am incapable to seeing it, I am getting a smaller again. On the other hand... Don't look at me.

I didn't get my 4.0
I mentioned before that I bombed a radiology exam earlier in the term so there was no hope of an A in that class. But I super crushed the final and wound up with a B so it's not like my GPA is destroyed or anything. I just wanted that 4.0. Oh well. Next term.

Also, I guess today I am going to spend a little down time looking for some new blogs to follow. No one I used to follow really posts anymore. I think there are maybe about 3 or 4 bloggers who post on the regular, but even that isn't very much reading material. Any recommendations?

Sorry this post is a little boring. Nothing fascinating going on in my life lately.

Flu diet results

I haven't had much of an appetite since getting sick. So I haven't gained back the weight. But I'm also not up to my usual strength either. When I worked out a couple of days ago I couldn't lift NEARLY what I was lifting about a week before the flu so I have lost some muscle and I probably am low on glycogen (which stores a lot of water with it) so once I'm sure the weight will come back with getting my strength back. Which sucks.

On the plus side, a classmate today asked me if I have lost "a bunch of weight" lately.

I told him I had lost some when I was sick. Which is true.

The down side to him noticing, is that if the weight comes back as I fully recover from the flu, it's going to be noticeable that I've gained weight.

So I'm going to go for a run. Hopefully with more success than yesterday. I haven't been able to rid myself of the upper respiratory issues since being sick so cardio is super difficult. Yesterday I was running much slower than my maximum ability and still the increase in my breathing ended up making me cough so hard I threw up. Fortunately, there wasn't much in my stomach so not much came up, but there was some additional dry-heaving. Which is never fun...

Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day. We went out to eat the night before. I had a white chocolate martini and butternut squash ravioli and still somehow woke up half a pound lighter the next morning. Figure that.

Flu diet

Want to know how to lose ten pounds in 3 days?

Get the flu.

Husband and I both had the flu this past week. He got it about two days before I did. Today is the first day he is feeling a lot better so that gives me hope that by Monday I should be good to go.

I haven't been that sick in a long time. I glad it occurred when it did and not next week or anything because I have finals next week and I literally didn't get out of bed for two days (okay except to go to the bathroom).

It was awful. I still feel pretty crappy so.... This is all I am posting for now.

Julien Smith

"You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy.
You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like.

If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way.

Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference."

Rugby

I've started playing rugby again, which is fun. It does require eating a little more on practice nights though, but I think I'm burning it all off.

On Tuesday I hurt my psoas muscle and have been out of the game since. Last night was practice and I tried to participate but sprinting and quickly changing directions were too painful so I used the stationary bike for the remainder of the two hour practice. The nice thing about the bike was that it gave me an estimate of Calories burned. I have no idea how many Calories practice burns but I got off the bike feeling less fatigued than I do at the end of a typical practice and the bike said I had burned almost 800 Calories. I did keep the intensity high throughout the workout. I should have taken a picture of the screen. So many lights :)

Wasted time

I just spent an hour looking through old pictures of myself and cursing myself for no longer being that skinny.

If I had spent that hour running, I would be that much closer to looking good again.

Fail

I failed an exam today.

It's my own damn fault too. I just didn't study enough.
I had the time.
I didn't do it.

And I thought this term I would get my first grad-level 4.0

But after failing this exam, the highest grade I can get in this class now is a B. Which kills the hope of a 4.0

Dammit.

 I'm going to go run until I pass out.

Bye.

It's hard to be normal

Having grown up around all manner of disordered eating, and having eating problems of your own as well, you sometimes forget how abnormal you are.

Until some one asks you how long you take to eat.

A classmate and I had plans to get together yesterday to study for an exam we had today. We were going to meet up at 4:30 (which was perfect because that was right after class and we usually end up studying until close to midnight, so it's a great distraction from dinner) but he called me around 4:30 and said that he was hungry and how about we meet up after we've gotten something to eat. The conversation went something like this.

Classmate: So, we should eat first, and then meet up to study
Me: Okay, yeah. Sounds good.
C: So, how long do you need to eat dinner?
Me:  ..........
C: Is that okay?
Me: What? Oh. Yeah. What did you say?
C: How long do you need to eat dinner?
Me: Um.... how about.... like, 20 minutes?
C: ...*pause*..... How about we meet up in an hour?
Me: Oh. yeah. 5:30? That sounds good. See you then.**

Fuck. I'm an idiot. See, if the question had been "How long does it take you to ingest 5,000 Calories?" the answer would have been "five minutes." If the question had been "How long does it take you to eat half a sandwich?" the answer would have been "all day".

But "dinner"? Typically I either eat dinner with Husband, make myself a portion 1/3 the size of his and eat it in the time it takes him to eat his (I've never timed this interaction), or I don't eat dinner (seriously, I hate dinner, I am never hungry at "dinner time" and I prefer to go to bed a little hungry, but eating meals together is supposed to be so vital to a long healthy relationship, and I do like his company).

So I just made a guess.
But one hour. I'll make a mental note of that.


** I ended up leaving school, going and putting gas in my car and then taking the long way to my favorite coffee place to get a coffee. That killed an hour