Farewell to the Fatty

I had a terrible day. My sister is normally alright with me these days. And by alright, I mean she'll converse with me, she'll laugh with me, and she'll generally be a far better presence in my life than she was a short year ago. But then there'll be the odd day where she'll take it upon herself to be the nastiest, cattiest, bitchiest person out, and everything that comes out of her mouth will be poisonous vitriol.

Today, it was that I didn't go to the gym enough, I didn't try hard enough to get a job, no wonder I didn't have many friends left with the way I 'went on', and that I project all my issues onto my family and seek attention from everyone all the time. Talk about 'projecting'. And to add insult to injury, I binged. On carbs, and cheese, and crisps, and chocolate. I can already see it on my body.

I'm probably around 158 lbs again; I wouldn't be entirely surprised, either, if it was more than that. The way my body works now (I assume as a result of years worth of restricting, bingeing, and metabolism-butchering), it takes a day's bad eating to put on a kilo, and around a week - often two - to take it back off again.

I've come to deduce, therefore, that the only surefire way for ME to lose weight successfully, is to adopt a plan of consistent caloric restriction (ie. <1000 calories a day), to follow it, and to stick to it for an extended period of time. The only times in my life where I have actually lost significant amounts of weight - and felt happy with the results - have been the times where my discipline is high, and my calories low. I don't know if this is just a result of having ruined my metabolism through seven years of disordered eating, or perhaps merely my frustration at my own body for not performing as quickly as I want it to under these circumstances, but I don't seem to be able to lose weight on >1000 calories anymore, even with exercise. It's disheartening, sure, but at the same time, it's the right kick-up-the-backside I need for me be able to commence a new 'chapter' - or rather, revisit an old one.

Hopefully, from now onwards, I'll stick with some sort of binge-free plan, have sufficient energy to work out but not burn out, and by the time I'm back in Los Angeles on June 26, I'll be a little lighter, and happier. Some notes to consider: 1) A tall light mocha frappuccino from Starbucks is 96 calories, and it's half-price-frappuccino week in the UK. There's something about fat-free, icy, half-price coffee goodness that just does it for me. 2) I need to buy Bran cereal, and low-cal lentil soup, ASAP. Luckily these are both inexpensive purchases, and as both are adequately filling/high in fibre, I feel they'll help me out on the good-old-restriction-train I'm supposedly about to board.

I also realised that I'll be satisfied - happy, even - if I just so much as see a glimpse of the 140s again. I just need to know I'm making progress.

Late-May mania

I had a crazy weekend. It was Tina's birthday party on Saturday night, and when everyone left, it was just Tina, her bf, Caro, Zara and me. I stayed up all night, talking manically, chugging diet coke and smoking menthol after menthol. I ate continuously for two days straight. Sunday afternoon I took a two-hour nap, then my mum's boyfriend's son came over for dinner. He brought weed, and we smoked it on a park bench, talking shit about life and music and friends. Monday morning I woke up, exhausted beyond belief, and 159.8 lbs.

Yesterday and today, I felt so full from the weekend's over-consumption of food, that I was able to easily restrict to 600 calories a day. This morning I weighed 156.2 lbs, -3.6 lbs in a day. If it were not for my poor energy levels (which, unbelievably, were far from soaring after the amount of calories I ate at Tina's), I'd continue on this streak. Wednesday (tomorrow) would constitute Day 3, and we all know about that three-day hump that comes with restricting. Past that, and you're on a roll. It would be so easy to keep going after that. But I'm making the executive decision to take heed of my last two days restricting, and continue along a still-restrictive-but-slightly-healthier path of 800 calories a day. 4x200 calorie meals is safe enough to still lose weight, but not dangerously unhealthy, and besides, I need the extra energy to work out. I ran on the treadmill today for 20 minutes straight, which I can't remember being able to do in years.

Re-reading 'Wasted', I've become obsessed with bagels, lollipops, carrot sticks with mustard, fat-free yogurt, raisins, coffee with a little cream. I'm thinking of quitting smoking, finally, in June - or at least limiting it to 'social smoking'.

I'm still tired, but feeling vaguely more normal, and, oddly a little more like myself.

It starts here

I need a good solid layout so I don't freak out and eat everything/anything. I've realised I probably need to start thinking of this as more of a lifestyle change than a 'diet', as the word diet seems to send me into a state of panic. I need to find something sustainable that I can settle into and follow, and that might take a while so I have to be patient. It's been a while since I successfully restricted, but I have faith that once I'm over the 'three-day hump', I can do it.

Money is also really tight for me at the moment, as I've mentioned, so I need to be frugal with my food choices. I'm also considering giving up caffeine and nicotine for a while after tomorrow (party), to cleanse out my system and reset everything. So it won't just be saying no to bad food habits, it'll be saying no to smoking and drinking diet coke/coffee... hopefully they'll all tie in together and it'll be easier to say no to overeating (and easier to save money). My new plan is going to consist of a piece of fruit, maybe a low-fat yogurt or cheese and salad for lunch. Dinner will be simple, either a small portion of what's being cooked, or some cucumber sticks with fat free Caesar dressing. This might change once I settle into eating this way, but I'm sticking to a few definite rules:

-8 glasses of water a day
-Don't eat after 6pm
-Herbal tea and vitamins for breakfast
-No snacking besides gum

I'm also going to keep up the exercise and try really hard to control myself after I've worked out. It's easy to simply make some toast and butter when I'm being lazy but it's difficult to compensate for those choices later.

I just have to try to gear myself back into that mindset wherein food is unimportant, just a mechanical thing you do a few times a day. I pin so many emotions on food and use it for a whole host of reasons - whether I'm happy, sad, anxious or celebrating, I'll eat. That has to stop. Weighed 156.6 this morning and hoping for 156.0 tomorrow.

A vegetarian's kryptonite...

My sister's cooking sweet and sour chicken downstairs, and I can smell it from my room. I swear to God, if I wasn't a vegetarian, I'd be all over that like a mo-fo.

Right well I'm just going to come out and say it. I had the most depressing morning ever. Yes, I say this sort of thing all the time. But I have hit an all. time. low. with my weight, and not a good 'low'. I weighed in at 157 freaking pounds. Okay, so admittedly I stepped on the scales early (8am), after a bad night's sleep (5hrs) because I had to wake up for a doctor's appointment.

The problem is, I've been exercising like a bitch on speed for the last few days, I'm talking kickboxing at my gym, biking, treadmill, all of that stuff. And I think because my metabolism sped up slightly, I compensated by eating more. Exercise makes you hungrier - that's a well-known fact - the point is you're supposed to eat your post-workout snack, then STOP until it's dinner time. My problem? I just keep on going. Bread. Lots of bread. And cheese. The two evils of this universe.

While I'm proud of myself that I've actually got my ass in gear after so long being a dormant lump, my recent weight gain is making me completely re-consider the benefits of exercise. So we all know working out is good for you. But is that all worth it, if I just end up gaining a pound a day doing it?! I want to keep going to the gym - I know it's good for me - but the problem is my diet, and the way I over-compensate with food when I'm tired, hungry, or bored.

I have a month until I go back to the States, and I refuse to have another awful, awful experience with my self-esteem like last time. Last time was a clothing debacle. I tried on every outfit in my suitcase at least twice over EVERY morning just to find something that didn't make me look fat. And I'm heavier now than I was back then.

I'm eating minimally from now on - or at least until the 25th of June. Healthy eating is obviously great if you can control yourself with proper portions at meal times. I don't stick to set meals, I graze all through the day and by 10pm I'll realise I've consumed up to 2,000 calories unwittingly... when I thought it was more like 1,200. Evidently, my body won't lose weight on 1,000+, so I need to step it up a notch, get my weight back down to a 'safe' zone that I feel comfortable with, and stop trying to make myself feel better with late-night crackers and hoummous.

Something helpful is that I'm broke again, which may be a blessing in disguise - because this way, I can't afford Starbucks (milky fatty goodness), cigarettes (cancer-inducing shit sticks) or things to binge on (calories ahoy). This way, I'm buying what I need, surviving on less and fingers crossed losing weight. Lots of it.

So if all I can afford for lunch is a small bag of fries with ketchup and a diet coke from McDonalds, and all I can afford for dinner is a £1 salad, that will be that. I'm not planning on spending over £3.50 a day. Time to get my butt in gear.

The "D" word

I've felt pretty depressed over the past week, I'm not going to lie. My weight's been veering between 155 and 156 and showing no signs of dropping below that range, which depresses me even more. Today was the worst. Last Friday, I applied for a job at my local coffee shop. They seemed to really like me and everything went well - I aced two trial shifts over the weekend, and the boss said she would call me to let me know whether I'd got the job on Monday. My fucking phone which is nearly 4 years old and dying on me didn't receive her call, so she never got through. And when I went in today to explain the situation, she told me I was too late, and she'd given the job to another trainee. So I had actually got it, but because my failure of a phone gave up on me, it went to some other guy. I spent the entire afternoon crying way more than I should have done over some cafe job. Maybe I cried so much because it would have been perfect had everything worked out... maybe I cried because I felt like that was my last hope or something, and it's the closest I've got to actually doing something I enjoy on this fuck-up of a gap year. Doing something that gets me out of the house every day and gives me a routine and a purpose and provides me with some money of my own. My mum didn't understand. She just shouted at me for crying and said I needed to get my life together. Well, hello, that's what I was trying to do. Now I just feel like giving up. Because my life is back to how it has been since February 2012. Two-dimensional, inconsequential, and mostly spent in bed, wishing I was somewhere else with a new name and face.

Even writing about all of that is making my heart hurt again, and I'm beginning to wonder how I'll get through the next few days. I have my shitty waitressing job to attend tomorrow. It's a 6 hour shift and I just hate how mentally drained I feel after coming back from these central London things... but whatever. I have to do it, I don't even have a choice in canceling or they'll fine me more than my wage. Ugh.

Saturday night street dancing

Tina came over last night. We feasted on pimento & almond-stuffed olives, peaches, and orange juice. There was a live band playing above the pub at the end of my street, and we walked over, buzzing, cackling from the hilarity, making fools of ourselves dancing and leaping around on the corner of the road. I felt alive, for a moment.

My digestive system is out of whack from all the fibre. Fibre intake is a bit like water intake - when you deprive yourself of it for a while, your body has a hard time dealing with large amounts of it, and your weight goes up. Eventually, your body lets it all go, and everything gets re-set. My weight went up to 155.6 this morning. I know it's food weight, but it leaves me feeling discontent. I came across these pictures of myself earlier when going through old archives.

Raw food revolution

I’m setting a little challenge for myself over the next few days, to consume a mostly raw food diet without obsessing over calories or weighing myself. Yep, this means reverting to my vegan ways for a while. I am interested to see if it makes any difference to my energy levels, mood, and general overall appearance (skin, weight, etc.)

So yeah. I’m going to take it upon myself to eat “raw” (with the exception of coffee, and soy milk) until this time next week, and see where it leads me. Fruit, veggies, nuts, seeds, whole dried fruit, raw vegan bars and juices, and shitloads of water.

• raw overnight oats with soy milk, peanut butter, raisins and walnuts -400kcal
• raw vegan Nakd bars x2 -290kcal
• raw sweet peppers, 1 punnet -45kcal
• raw sesame, pine nut, chickpea and olive oil hoummous -700kcal (I didn't eat this all in one go but had half with the peppers, and half later)
• orange juice, 2 glasses -240kcal
• 2 coffees with soy milk -115kcal
• elderflower water with ice, several glasses -50kcal
• butterleaf lettuce and green beans with raw balsamic honey dressing -55kcal
Total: 1895kcal
 
It astounds me how much I can eat/drink without clocking up the calories. I was stuffed when I came home and just had a few bites of veggies, as that was all I could handle. 1895 calories might sound like a lot, but I ate what felt like a huge volume of food for that amount, and hopefully my metabolism should get up to speed digesting all of it. I can excuse 1500 + calories if it's all the good, clean stuff. If it's crisps and chocolate, I feel shitty, and my metabolism slows down.

My aim tomorrow is to eat more fresh produce! I might venture to the fruit/veg market stand in the morning, and stock up on cheap cucumber, celery, kale, and peaches. Yummm.

Yesterday was okay, I guess. I had a fall out with my mum over the application for student finance (one of the most overly-lengthy and stressful online forms to work through, in my opinion) and a minor breakdown about money. But I met Tina for lunch and we pigged out on some organic goodies from the health food shop. In the sun. With iced coffees :) I ate way too much yesterday though - over 2,000 calories, which isn't exactly conducive to weight-loss-mode... I weighed 155 lbs this morning after glimpsing 154 yesterday :( I'm sticking to 1,200-1,400 from now on, with daily workouts, so I can get my weight under 150 as soon as possible.

I've got a big afternoon waitressing - my shift is from 4.30-11pm :( I don't know why but I always dread my shifts, because they're so draining and we don't get any breaks - but afterwards I usually feel really buzzed like I'm high or something. And I end up talking to nice people. So I just have to cling onto that bit, I guess. It also means I don't smoke for half the day, which is a plus... God I really need to quit smoking. It kind of clashes with the whole healthy lifestyle thing. Shame I'm such a hopeless addict :s

I'm debating whether to keep logging my daily intakes here, in one place, or to create a new page on this blog/a food tumblr to log my intakes? What do you guys think? It's nothing of great importance, but I'm leaning towards keeping this blog more feelings/progress/life-oriented, and categorising my food logs and all the technical stuff off into another separate journal.

Anywayy, eating plan for the rest of the day:

Breakfast was a homemade iced mocha with skim milk (around 120 cals - yumm)
I had 1/2 piece of wholegrain bread with 1tbsp peanut butter (140 cals) and a few bites of last nights leftover mac and cheese (50 cals?) out of boredom this morning :( I have got to stop doing this

So the rest of the day, lunch will be egg whites, walnut and apple salad with some cheddar cheese and balsamic dressing (300 cals). Because that is what's in the fridge, and I need to get my veggies/protein in there somewhere...

During waitressing I've packed 2 Trek protein bars (480 cals) to keep me going (if I even get a chance to sneak off to eat them). That'll bring today's total to 1,090, then I'll have some room for juice or whatever if I'm still hungry when I get home.