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.