Take 2

I have decided to throw my scales away. Probably about time, because the pair I own are always give me different readings, confuse and panic the heck out of me, and generally cause me grief. They're like a year old and the battery's almost gone, so it was time to ditch them for good, I think. Not to mention, weighing myself is a major issue/compulsion for me, and I think I need a break from the scales. Time to start going by how my clothes fit and how I see myself in the mirror for a while - I'm thinking I'll end this 'scales cleanse' around mid-March, when I'll most definitely be able to afford a new pair that don't give me shit, unreliable readings. Awesome. 

I finally had a normal day today. Went to the gym (whoop whoop!), had a good work-out, and generally ate like any ordinary person out there. I didn't count calories, I just went via hunger signals and how full I felt during meals. I think portion control is a major issue for me.   

I don't want to binge anymore, purge anymore, harm my body anymore. I just want to be normal I guess, like other teenagers without resorting to starvation, or desperate overeating. It should be something fun, not painful or stressful. I'm also going to work towards giving up smoking in March, so from now on I'll be cutting down for sure. I'm on a mission to feel better!

Another "day one"

I seem to be out of the bingeing cycle - at long last. I must confess to something that has been helping me (and please bear in mind when you read on: this isn't a healthy behaviour at all, and I definitely wouldn't advise you to do it under any circumstances, unless, of course, it is to prevent a big binge and purge session, compared to which it is preferable). I've been chewing and spitting out the food I would normally binge on. Secretly, and alone, of course. Usually it won't be that much. Maybe a couple of bags of crisps, toast, occasionally cereal, that kind of thing. Nothing chocolatey or creamy, like peanut butter, because I find (tmi coming up) that it's hard to know if I've 'got it all out' when I spit, as it tends to stick to my teeth and roof of my mouth. It's something I am trying to stop, but when everyone's out of the house and I get that binge urge, to me it is far more appealing than actually swallowing and ingesting all that food, and having to compensate later. But anyway. On we go.

Today has been excellent. I had a lovely day with my mum doing jobs around the house, and walking down to the shopping centre to drop off all the clothes I cleared out of my room yesterday. I also bought my sister some new hair dye because she tried to go blonde recently and it failed epically. I always get really fascinated whenever perusing the dye aisles, but sadly I can't really pull off any other colour than my natural dark brown, due to my skin tone :( Maybe if I was thin I would be able to go a different colour, but it would look a bit weird with my eyebrows :P

I still haven't gone to the gym though. Big fat failure. Made up for it with a relatively low intake, however. Fruit salad, fat free yogurt, toast with PB, salad nicoise, coffee and diet coke is all that has passed my lips today. Call it 750 max? And I haven't eaten since 6pm, which is definitely a good sign - lots of time to burn those calories off. Tomorrow I'll stick to 2 meals (fruit, yogurt and toast for breakfast, coffee/tea/diet coke/water throughout the day, and a salad for dinner. Or soup. Soup is good. I bought some leek & potato earlier because it's my favourite. And 50p from Tesco, which is a total bargain. :) 

Just when I thought I could sink no lower

Still maintaining 146. I went up to 147 on the weekend, but this morning I'm back to my good old average weight. I feel vaguely okay about it. 

Something horrible happened on Saturday night, though. Practically all of last week I was bingeing - every night without fail, actually. Not necessarily humungous binges, but overeating late at night when I didn't need it and wasn't even hungry. Saturday, I guess, was the straw that broke the camel's back. I binged all afternoon, and even when I was babysitting in the evening, I continued to binge; in someone else's house, as well. It was awful. I wanted to get the boy to bed as soon as possible so that I could carry on pigging out in the kitchen on whatever I could find. It didn't help that she'd told me I should 'help myself to anything might I get hungry'. I finished off half a large pan of potato and dill rice with full fat natural yogurt, hoummous and sweet chilli sauce. I ate two mini bags of Haribo and a packet of crisps I found hidden in a cupboard. I also ate some bread with more hoummous, a couple of slices, and had 1/2 a slab of cranberry Wensleydale cheese. All of this I washed down with 750ml of flavoured, low-cal sparkling water. I felt so ill and hysterical about it so I walked quietly up to the top floor of their huge house, went into the unused bathroom, and purged. Well, I threw up about a third of what I ate. I know this because I was still bloated, and it was only the recent round of food that came up. But it was fucking grim. I hated it, it scared me and I'm never doing it again. I don't have a gag reflex, really, so I had to do it by glugging the rest of the fizzy water, and leaning over the toilet with my hands curling into the fat on my stomach. Ugh.. never again.

Bingeing saga aside, though, the last two days have been good. Yesterday I managed not to binge for what felt like the first time in forever, and I was super proud of myself. Today has also been successful. I've had a day off, and not much to do, which has resulted in me feeling like a slob - but I think I'm going to go to the gym in 40 minutes or so to make up for it. Maybe sort out my clothes, and get rid of all the ones I no longer wear. The plan this week is to stick to 1000 calories a day max, just enough so I can keep up my metabolism, but hopefully drop some weight too. I'm also going to keep to high-protein meals, less carbohydrates, more veggies. And coffee. Coffee is amazing. 

By some miracle of God I was still 146 this morning. A miracle indeed. I have a vague feeling it's to do with the fact that I'm not on prozac anymore. Maybe that was contributing to me not being able to lose weight that easily? I have no idea, but either way, I feel good just being able to let my body go at its natural pace. No chemical shit. I truly hate medication :( 

I don't normally update first thing in the morning, but I probably won't have time to do it later as I'm off to work in a couple of hours! Today is so beautiful. The light is golden outside and my cats have decided to play at the front of the house :) It's so sweet. I felt ultra motivated after I saw I hadn't gained, and made myself a yummy breakfast of strawberry Ready-Brek with some dried apples, cranberries and prunes. Probably came to about 200 calories. Then I washed it down with a pepsi max (probably not the best choice at 11am, but it was in the fridge and I was too lazy to make coffee or tea) and a cigarette, and hopped in a bath. Now I'm drying off, and in a minute I'm going to put on my new high-waisted shorts with a pretty top :) Finally I'm off my wretched period. So it'll be gym tomorrow, no excuses, before I go out to meet Caro and Tina for sushi. 

The plan tonight is to just keep busy with the boy, then make myself some soup when he's gone to bed. Fingers crossed it works out to be a good day! :)

Fucking pizza.

Firstly, Happy Valentines Day everyone :) I thought I was going to have a shit Valentines, as usual. But Tina came over, and we spent the afternoon together :) It was lovely. We got some cheap knock-off Bailey's (possibly my favourite alcoholic drink ever), and sat outside in the sun drinking and smoking. Which brings me to... the weather might FINALLY be looking up. Thank the fucking Lord. Nothing worse than a bleak, long winter that never ends. 

Oh, and I got a message from Alfie! Nice to know he still cares, after everything. That made my day extra special. It's the first Valentine I've ever had - besides my own dad, of course. I should probably visit him soon at uni, but he's always so busy, and I feel way too fat to show my body in front of him. I want to be in the 130s at least before I even consider seeing him. I just feel so ridiculously unattractive up here. 

I ate quite a lot today, though, which wasn't great. Good old porridge and golden syrup for breakfast, chased down by a large cup of herbal tea. Then me and Tina went for coffee, and I got a cinnamon soya latte (I have no idea how many calories were in it. I'm going to guess it was around 180, as I only got a small one). We also shared this feta, rocket and sun-dried tomato pasta salad, which was yummy, but another 200 calories on top of the coffee. Then we frequented all the cheap-o shops and I got a ton of instant hot chocolate & coffee sachets, strawberry Ready-Brek, tinned chopped tomatoes and Pepsi Max for a fiver :) Gotta love the pound store. I also got some bread and Tesco Value garlic & herb philly, so I'll be having that with my chopped tomatoes hopefully over the next couple of days. And I'm going to have the Ready-Brek for my breakfasts, as all the porridge oats have nearly run out :( 

So we came home, got some booze, and I had this tiny vanilla shortbread cookie thing, which wasn't even that nice - thank God, otherwise I would have eaten the whole packet. Oh and she also offered me some Valentines chocolates her mum had given her, which I couldn't turn down. Fat Gabby took over once again. I doesn't stop there. I had some saltine crackers with hoummous too! Bloody hell. I was on a snack frenzy. Luckily I had plenty of diet pepsi and cigarettes to stop me from going too overboard. But at least I stopped there... for a while. 

When Tina left, I made myself some Caesar salad from the leftover ingredients in our fridge, and ate a few chocolate mini eggs with my sister in front of Harry Potter, which she insisted on watching with me. Not that I minded, I love Harry Potter. Then at around 10pm she ran out of cigarettes and practically had a hissy-fit breakdown, until she realised she could order them online from Hungry House. But not without a food order! Oh joy. 

She ordered a small cheese pizza. What a joke - it was bloody massive, and she made me eat like 2 slices with her! Luckily, I left most of the bread bit and just ate the cheese topping, but it was so disgustingly greasy I had to drink like 2 huge tumblers of water just to get rid of the sliminess in my mouth. Urgh. So that was a major flop, but I'm just glad I only ate the equivalent of one slice. She left the pizza box on the kitchen counter for anyone to help themselves to, and there were 5 massive slices left. D: Pizza, my second kryptonite after crisps. I should probably give them both up for Lent. 

So all in all today I probably consumed around 1,400 calories, give or take a few. It pained me to add that all up. I'm going to do some exercises on my bedroom floor to work off a couple, just so I can fall asleep without feeling guilty. Which leads me onto the point of... I have been slacking SO badly with the gym thing lately. I haven't been in over a week! Gross. But I'm gonna try to go tomorrow, before I have to babysit. Then it's fun fun childcare time from 3-11pm. Oh well, at least it means money :P 

The plan tomorrow is probably just to have porridge with dried fruit for breakfast with peppermint tea, then maybe I'll bring a can of soup in my bag to have for dinner when the boy has gone to bed? Je ne sais pas. I feel weird cooking my own food in other peoples' houses. Small price to pay to lose weight, I guess, and it'll stop me from eating the food in their fridge. Which is mortifying to say the least. 

I had my waitressing training day this afternoon. I learnt so much, and by the time it was over, I was completely exhausted. Everyone there was so lovely, and I surprised myself by going from 11.30am to 7pm without a) anything to eat and b) not one cigarette. Needless to say, the minute I got home I completely binged on Easter chocolate (it's only February, for God's sake, but the creme eggs and Malteser bunnies have already started plaguing the supermarket aisles!!), 4 packets of Hula Hoops, bread and hoummous, Caesar salad with extra parmesan cheese, and wine. Oh, that brings me onto the second point: I quit the prozac, cold-turkey, approximately 3 days ago. I think it was the right decision. I truly believe it was making me worse. So yeah, now I can drink, and hopefully my mood will be stabilised from now on. 

But back to the training thingy - I ran into an old friend! This girl I made friends with on holiday about 5 years ago was there, and oh my God, she is so skinny. Like, we used to look so similar, weight-wise, height-wise, facial features-wise... everything. Now we're about the same height, but she is ridiculously beautiful, and has the thinnest arms I've ever seen. But yeah, she's really awesome and sophisticated and I think we might end up being really good friends. Also she was the only other smoker there, and we were both dying by the end, so we bonded over that! It was probably the most motivational thing that happened to me all day. Seeing someone change so dramatically like that over a few years, and how much of a difference weight loss makes to someone's attractiveness overall. Needless to say, I felt pretty much like a fat failure next to her. I don't know if her weight loss was natural or not, but what I do know is that she has a figure I would die for. Lucky bitch.

Now onto me and how I've been doing... ha. Ever the let-down, I've been eating so much food over the last few days. I got back to 146, but I went straight back up to 147 today, and tomorrow, I'm dreading seeing it, but 148 will probably happen. I've realised I'm not ready to recover. I won't be starving myself again because I don't think it helps whatsoever, but I can't deal with 'normal' amounts of calories just yet. Not until I reach my goal of 136, anyway. So from now on it'll be porridge with fruit for breakfast, soup or chopped tomatoes with toast for dinner, and plenty of tea, water and coffee in between to keep me going. Maybe I could reach 136 by the beginning of March...? Kind of going out on a limb there, but if I aim high, I'll probably shift at least some of this fat before then. 

I've been slacking majorly with the gym, too. Haven't been in over a week :/ So tomorrow it'll be gym, and seeing Tina, as she's back in London. Just gotta make sure I don't get lulled into a false sense of security with the whole social eating thing!

General update!

I've had two extremely lazy days :P I didn't have work yesterday or today, so I just turned into a slob, haha. Probably a good thing, because tomorrow I have to be up at 6.30am for a waitressing training induction that lasts 5 and a half hours or something, then I have to go straight from the office to pick up the kid I'm babysitting from school, bring him home, give him tea, and stay there until midnight when his mum comes home. I am going to be dead on my feet by the end of the day. 

I have also started thinking really seriously about eating a bit more, and raising my goal weight to 136 lbs. That was my study leave weight, and in hindsight I looked/felt okay there. As I'm 146 lbs this morning, that's only 10 lbs to lose, and I have ages to do it, so I'm just going to take my time :) It's gonna be 1200 calories per day, with exercise, until I get there. Then it will just be maintenance, which shouldn't be too hard. 

I also feel happier about the fact that I'm going back to being a vegetarian. Vegan is just too strict for me. I'm really glad I tried it, and maybe I'll return to it at some point when I'm in a better mind-frame, but it's not for me at this moment in time. Vegetarian is a lot easier. It means I don't have to fuss if a sandwich has a bit of mayo in it, or I get a salad with feta cheese. It just opens more doors for me, I guess, and isn't as restrictive. 

Kinda dreading tomorrow, but at least I get paid. And lots of running around and being on my feet will equal more calories burned...

Recovery take 2... worth it?

I've been thinking long and hard about some stuff. The first decision I made, is that I want to revert to my vegetarian ways. Vegan is too restrictive for me at the moment, and I fear that the more I become entrenched in denying myself things, whether that's for ethical reasons or not, the harder it becomes for me to loosen my grip on my disordered eating habits. That's not to say that all vegans are disordered. Far from it. But for me, at this moment in time, I need to feel calm, I need to focus on my work and being happy(er) and healthy, and cutting out two whole food groups is feeling a little overwhelming right now. It took about a week of thinking for me to come to this decision, especially since I felt so much guilt over my choice to slowly start phasing dairy back into my diet, but I can't afford to be so harsh on myself, or my eating habits, at this moment in time. I'm sorry if that sounds pathetic. I won't be eating butter and full fat milk any time soon, but I'm definitely going to stop paying attention to small print and derivative ingredients, because it's doing my head in. Maybe in a month or so I'll be able to eat some philly on toast or something without freaking out. I need to feel normal again. I do not feel normal - at all - recently. 

It dawned on me that this exact time last year, was the period of time when I truly, seriously started to consider recovering from my eating disorder. In all fairness, I'd had a pretty big wake-up call, after being urgently admitted to hospital for an 8-day stay following one of my worst ED phases to date. I had given myself two reactive blood disorders, a ruined immune system, a 'deranged' liver (as my doctors described it), and chronic fatigue due to my poor eating habits, and bulimic behaviours which involved bingeing, purging through laxatives and fasting, and compensatory restricting that had been going on for years. So, as you can imagine, I realised it was time to say enough was enough, and I did my very best over those next few months to recover - both physically and mentally - from what had happened to me. 

Today, I looked at my scatty, erratic eating patterns, the neuroses I still have over certain parts of my diet and routine and weight, my obsession with numbers that refuses to die, my hold-ups about my body, my ruined self-esteem. Where did all that positive thinking last year go? What had my attempt at 'recovery' come to? A year on, I'm still riddled with the same scarily obsessive thoughts, the same compulsions to binge on almost a nightly basis and an equal amount of compulsion to restrict my diet in whatever way I can. I still look at the scales twice a day, stepping on ten times to make sure the number's right, and every time, I want to bash them against the wall or my own head because I fucking hate the sight of my own weight in digits. 

I need to get back to 'normal' again. Somehow. I've thrown my scales into a place I can't reach them without serious effort. I'm not weighing until I feel I can handle it emotionally, without it becoming a binge/restrict trigger. Maybe I'll pussy out. Maybe I'll want to starve every second of it. Maybe I'll still binge, because that's an easy kneejerk reaction to wanting to get better. But I need to do this, whether it's worth it or not, because you know what? I don't want to be fucking ill when I go to uni in October. It's not fair. I don't deserve it. 

Sorry for this little inane ranting session. I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning and wonder what on earth it was I was trying to get across.

Carb overdose :(

Hello beautiful people. 

I had a nice lie-in until 11.30, which was cool. I never get to lie in these days. My sister has developed bronchitis. She was wheezing away all morning, and my mum was running around like a blue-ass fly trying to get her organised for the doctors'. I didn't have work today, my mum went off to stay at her boyfriend's, and no one was around to see me :( So I just had a day by myself. It was actually alright. I've never minded being alone really, unless I'm super bored or depressed, neither of which I was today, so that was good :) I've just been looking after my sister, watching films in bed, and doing little things around the house. 

Food-wise has been... mediocre. I don't feel ridiculously stuffed, but I'm not as empty as I would like. I had so many carbs today, it was pretty grim, but that's mostly what was in the house, and when I was out I couldn't be bothered to spend money on proper food. So here's the old intake for the day:

-Porridge with a bit of golden syrup + handful of dried fruit/seeds (200 cal)
-1/2 hot cross bun with "pure" soya spread (100 cal) 
-Slice of wholemeal toast with hoummous (175 cal)
-Packet of SunBites wholegrain crisps (135 cal)
-Costa soy caramel macchiato, single shot (40 cal)
-Orange Capri Sun drink (82 cal)
-A couple of strawberry laces (50 cal) 
-2 cups of herbal tea (4 cal)
Total- 786 cal 

Not too bad considering I was on some sort of carbohydrate bender... 

Tomorrow I'm up to central to meet with my photographer friend. So I haven't lost any weight like I said I would, but I'm going to get a good beauty sleep tonight, do a face scrub so my skin looks nice, and pray I look pretty at the end of it all! 

The "Broke-Ass Student" Diet

Okay, so I'm back to 146. Thank-tha-lord. 146 I can handle. Almost.

I GOT A JOB! A proper one. I'm going to be a part-time au pair for a lady who lives round the corner from me. My job is to look after her kid most afternoons/evenings, cook him supper, read him stories, do art and music with him and put him to bed. Some nights I'll stay over as his mum's work takes her all over the UK, so I'll be a part-time live in babysitter. The best part (besides not being at home half the week or around adults, a.k.a. getting away with not eating) is that it pays £7.50 an hour. I don't even have to clean, I just get to hang out with her son, occasionally do the school run, and help her out with basic tasks around the house, as she's 5 months preggers.

Eating early tea means I won't have to eat when I'm babysitting, and I hate eating in other peoples' houses. Seriously, I hate it. I just end up bingeing when people tell me to 'help myself' to whatever's in the fridge, so saying I've already had supper will fix that problem, and I won't be tempted. 

In other news, I have to get my wisdom teeth out. All four. Total bore, but a) the pain is getting pretty unbearable, so it's probably for the best, and b) I heard you can lose a couple of pounds getting them pulled... maybe it won't be so bad? I'm just hoping it won't take me out of work for too long :/

Hope everyone is well. 

Job

The good news: I got a waitressing job. The training day is next Tuesday, and after that they'll put me on the first shift available. Shifts range anywhere from 4-12 hours. You can't smoke, you can't turn up late, and you get fined if they catch you eating any of the food or drinking any of the alcohol. The uniform is strict black shirt and trousers, hair off the face. You must arrive in impeccable condition, and they make you work pretty hard, especially if you're catering for a big event. Am I the only one who thinks this is a golden opportunity to lose more weight?

I'm also meeting a lady this afternoon who needs help looking after her 5yr old son. An au pairing job, basically. If I get that too, I'll not only be earning quite a bit of money, but I'll be active and distracted pretty much all week long.

The bad news: I'm still fat. 147.2 lbs as of this morning. I'm giving myself a 650 calorie limit for the next few days. Hopefully by Saturday (the day of the shoot) I'll be 145 max. Saltines, fruit, coffee and cigarettes will get me through.

Ate about 1,500 calories today. I am a fat, fat girl.

This morning I woke up with virtually no energy. I had to get to the cafe to submit my CV, and was also planning on going up the high street to ask other shops if they had any job vacancies. My mum wanted help with the housework, and her filing, and I knew I just wouldn't have enough energy to do all of this while running on empty. So I told myself that I'd have a 'healthy day'. Just one day, to tide me over, and give me a boost. 3 nutritious meals, maybe a snack if I needed it. I wasn't exactly happy with this decision seeing as I'm currently trying to lose weight as quickly as possible, but I felt so crappy that I forced myself into the kitchen, and made myself a bowl of oatmeal with light soya milk, walnuts, raisins, chia seeds and a drizzle of maple syrup. I felt almost instantly better. 

It all went downhill at lunch. I'd been schlepping around for 3 hours in the sun and felt weak and tired, so I had almost a whole pot of organic hoummous with carrot sticks and crisps, an Innocent smoothie, and a soya latte. It instantly set off binge alarms in my head. I looked at myself and saw fat and bloated, so I waited until my mum had left for work, grabbed some sweets and crisps from the kitchen, and c/s about 600 calories worth of food whilst watching TV. I couldn't even face dinner after that, so I just smoked, drank diet coke and did some calisthenics in my room until I felt decently empty again. 

Why am I so fucked up about food? Is it too much to ask to just have a 'normal day' for once? Obviously it is, because the minute I eat a portion that is slightly too big, I have to go and binge. Ugh.

Today should be alright. It's going okay so far. Had a banana and a glass of cappuccino soya milk for breakfast; went to the gym, burnt off breakfast; had an americano with soya milk; bought carrot sticks and a bottle of water; came home, read my book for an hour and listened to music; had carrot sticks with mustard, 3 oatcakes, and a low fat non-dairy yogurt for lunch; smoked a cigarette; came back up to my room; called the cafe I want to apply to work at; made plans to drop off my CV tomorrow morning; read some more; came on here. 

For the rest of the day I shall be consuming only diet coke, water, cigarettes, and a can of lentil & vegetable soup for dinner. Tina's coming over at 5pm, and I will not cave in to bingeing with her this time. Crisps in the cupboard? No thank you. I'd rather embrace the feeling of hunger for now, and have my nice low-cal soup to finish off the day. 

I hope to get this job so badly. I can't stand being poor any longer, with no extra money to save up for this summer. We all want to go inter-railing in June, and the ticket alone costs over £300, never mind the hotel bookings, gallery tickets and food/spending money. And then there's always university to be saving up for. This is why I hate my dad sometimes. He doesn't grasp the bigger picture, he just selfishly thinks he's doing the best thing for me, but, ironically, he couldn't have had a worse idea. 

Ground, swallow me up

I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but I had another blow-out day. Eateateat. Bingebingebinge. It never stops. I was doing okay until about 5pm. All I'd had was a banana, juice, a glass of Vive Soy "cappuccino" flavour soya milk, a few sips of diet coke, some water, cigarettes, and a Starbucks. Would have been fine if I'd just left it till dinner and had a bowl of soup. But no. Tina comes over and we decide to watch a movie, binge on salted popcorn, vegetable samosas, hoummous, sesame bagels, rice cakes and peanut butter. I just don't know why I do these things to myself.  

I'm currently in bed, curled up in the dark with my laptop and blankets around me, sipping on a can of diet pepsi (and quietly hoping it will make everything I ate tonight pass through me). It was times like these that I wish I could just take a bunch of laxatives, or try to purge. But I am not going back there. I'm not going to make it that easy for myself. I will sit with this horrible feeling of fullness, until I learn never to do this to my body again. 

I explained to Tina that I want to go on a soup diet for the rest of February. Amazingly, she didn't try to discourage me - even better, she wants to join me. I need all the help I can get. I'll start properly tomorrow. This is a promise to myself, and to you, readers. I will not screw up again. 
   Also, my mother keeps ranting at me not to smoke. She gives me a hard time about it even when I'm discreet, go out the back, and carefully dispose of my cigarette butts. So from now on, until I make the decision to properly give up, I will not be smoking when she is in the house. I can't deal with the extra drama right now, so I'll go back to what I'm good at: lying, pretending, and concealing the truth.  

Plans make everything better.

So I haven't had the best of days. Definitely wasn't a fantastic start to February. My father, God love him, sent me a charming little email this morning notifying me that he was going to cut me off in 3 weeks' time. Just to clarify - this is the man who wanted to see my mum destitute after they divorced, and I wouldn't put it past him to want the same for me. This is all started, of course, because my mum mentioned to him that I had finally put the boot in with my art. His opening line to me was that I was a massive disappointment to him; that I'll never learn any life lessons; that I never see anything through, and this makes him 'sad'. So yep, the minuscule amount he puts in my bank account every week (it is less than half of what most of my friends are getting from their parents), is going to be zapped on the 21st of February, which leaves me only three fucking weeks to get a job. 

Needless to stay this spiralled yet another day down the drain with bingeing, chain smoking, and glugging cappuccino flavour soya milk upon the hour. I am bloated, gassy, unhappy, and really want life to just fuck off right now. I want to escape to the countryside for a few weeks, be by myself, be creative on my own terms without the restrictions of some dumb A-level, and just live amongst nature for a while. When I come back I want to be thin, beautiful, and free. Maybe then, people will stop pestering me and demanding things from me all the time. 

I said I'd come up with a new plan for February today, so here it is. I'm assuming I'm back up to 148 lbs at this point, which is depressing, but if I'm honest, it just motivates me to lose even more than I originally intended. I'm eating on a budget, and I'm trying to save the money in my account to put aside towards a summer holiday with my friends, so the only money I will have to spend is the £5 here and there that my mother pays me to do jobs for her. 

While browsing the shelves of Tesco today, I rediscovered my love for soup. Strangely, I've forgotten that soup can be nutritious, low cal, and CHEAP. A can of lentil & vegetable soup (vegan, of course) is about 150 calories, and 49p. Win. I also found some oatcakes for 22p. I will be eating those with my soup. From now on I will be smoking rollies rather than straights, because they are much cheaper. Tina always brings fags when she sees me at the weekends, and as she decided to quit her course and restart this September, she'll be moving back to London in the next few weeks. Hopefully this will mean a lot of sharing and caring :) Ie. Gabby turns into a charity case until summer. 

Anyway, back to the point, here's the plan for the rest of Feb: 

Breakfast Banana + soy cappuccino/juice/dairy-free yogurt ~250 cal 
Lunch 3 oatcakes/cereal bar + an orange/carrot sticks with mustard ~200 cal
Dinner Can of vegetable soup ~200 cal 
Extras Water + diet coke + black coffee + cigarettes ~0 cal 
Exercise 30-45 mins at the gym, minimum 4x a week ~-250 cal  

I've made it quite flexible (ie. different food choices) so I don't get bored and end up bingeing. At least, I hope not. My net will work out at 400-650 cal a day, which I am pretty content with. I'm thinking of doing this plan until March, when I can debut my new skinny body to the world. Perhaps I'll lose so much weight that I will have to sell all of my old, fat clothes for money. That would be nice. 

Anyone want to join me a la February challenge? (That probably made no grammatical sense, I apologise). I'm a vegan, so feel free to substitute things for lean meat or fish, regular milk, etc. But the point is we could all be a bunch of very happy people this March if things go to plan :) I say let's go for it. Then maybe there will be a chance I can show my (currently flabby) legs to the world when the weather warms up next month...