SF vanilla soy latte -- 140 cal
Americano -- 45 cal
Veg stir fry with garlic and hoisin plum sauce -- 230 cal
Salad (Quorn chicken pieces, 3 stalks celery, lite mayo) -- 260 cal
Pizza (2/3 slice) + creamy dip -- ~200 cal
Feel completely disinterested in food. Today experienced a massive dip in energy. Makes sense. I've been living off <1000 calories a day, taking Ritalin every afternoon and smoking a butt-ton to make up for the lack of food. 875 calories today and I'm stuffed. I bought a 400-calorie sandwich earlier. If I were being smart I'd eat it, but I don't want it. Maybe I'll eat half, although then I'd have to throw the other half away and I hate wasting food. Ugh.
It's weird how I have absolutely no desire to binge. 3 more pounds and I'm in the 150s. Part of me wants to stop but then I think, why now? Why not keep pushing? Technically 9 more pounds and I'm there, why not just go a little further?
Thursday, 26 March 2015
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
162.2 pounds this afternoon, my dehydrated weight post-bath. It's working. The knowledge that I could break into the 150s by the end of the week is invigorating.
Intake:
- Salad with romaine, onions, 1 cal garlic spray, egg whites, tabasco (120)
- Caramel macchiato, soy (240)
- Battered sausage with ketchup (480)
- Diet Pepsi (1)
- 841 calories
If I eat anything else tonight it will be a banana with 1 tbsp peanut butter (210) or a small glass of red wine (100) but I'm feeling so full after dinner. We got fish and chips but I didn't eat any of the chips which was a first. I felt so incredibly stuffed just having the sausage in batter. It was a ridiculous amount of calories for just one sausage at any rate. I got the calories off the internet so a little worried about the accuracy of my calculations, but it's not like it was a huge volume of food or anything. I would have felt safer with veg but equally when I got home from coffee it was already 8.30, my mum had just come home from work, and there wasn't time to cook my own dinner. Plus I took some ritalin while I was out, which had the traditional effect of suppressing my appetite, so even though I was planning on eating more than just the sausage I was extremely full once I had finished it. Weird. Maybe my appetite is going down in general. I certainly don't feel the same level of hunger now as I did two weeks ago.
I guess I've lost 10 pounds since March 1st. I don't think it shows. It's probably all water weight anyway. It's odd to think that in three weeks I could fit back into all those clothes I got too big for. My jeans, for one.
It's only 9 pounds until I get back to the weight I was a year ago. I don't think I will be satisfied at 153, but it's a damn good start. My plan is probably to continue restricting below 1200 calories until I hit 150, then channel my energies into clean eating and exercise. The steadier the last 10-15 pounds come off, the longer they'll stay off. At least that's how it's supposed to go. I would love to be 140, athletic, healthy, glowing with self-confidence and able to fit size 10s again. That sounds much more appealing than whittling myself down to some ungodly number and turning into a rake.
Intake:
- Salad with romaine, onions, 1 cal garlic spray, egg whites, tabasco (120)
- Caramel macchiato, soy (240)
- Battered sausage with ketchup (480)
- Diet Pepsi (1)
- 841 calories
If I eat anything else tonight it will be a banana with 1 tbsp peanut butter (210) or a small glass of red wine (100) but I'm feeling so full after dinner. We got fish and chips but I didn't eat any of the chips which was a first. I felt so incredibly stuffed just having the sausage in batter. It was a ridiculous amount of calories for just one sausage at any rate. I got the calories off the internet so a little worried about the accuracy of my calculations, but it's not like it was a huge volume of food or anything. I would have felt safer with veg but equally when I got home from coffee it was already 8.30, my mum had just come home from work, and there wasn't time to cook my own dinner. Plus I took some ritalin while I was out, which had the traditional effect of suppressing my appetite, so even though I was planning on eating more than just the sausage I was extremely full once I had finished it. Weird. Maybe my appetite is going down in general. I certainly don't feel the same level of hunger now as I did two weeks ago.
I guess I've lost 10 pounds since March 1st. I don't think it shows. It's probably all water weight anyway. It's odd to think that in three weeks I could fit back into all those clothes I got too big for. My jeans, for one.
It's only 9 pounds until I get back to the weight I was a year ago. I don't think I will be satisfied at 153, but it's a damn good start. My plan is probably to continue restricting below 1200 calories until I hit 150, then channel my energies into clean eating and exercise. The steadier the last 10-15 pounds come off, the longer they'll stay off. At least that's how it's supposed to go. I would love to be 140, athletic, healthy, glowing with self-confidence and able to fit size 10s again. That sounds much more appealing than whittling myself down to some ungodly number and turning into a rake.
Tuesday, 24 March 2015
163.2 @ noon when I woke up. Today has been successful so far with the exception of an unplanned cheese & ham toastie I bought when I went to meet my sister for coffee. Breakfast was a smoothie (frozen raspberries, red pepper, tangerine, cayenne and grape juice), a piece of wholemeal toast and 1 banana microwaved with cinnamon, vanilla extract and a small amount of butter. Then I had the toastie with my sister (305 calories), a cappuccino, another coffee (black) with C at Starbucks and just made myself a Caesar salad with quorn chicken, romaine and celery for dinner. It's 9pm so if I have anything else it'll be veg because that's literally all I stocked my fridge with today. Cabbage, leeks, stir fry, celery and lettuce. Either way I'm only at a total of 970 for the day, so technically I still have ~200 calories 'wiggle room'. It may however be spent on wine as I find it helps me sleep.
It's alarming to me just how quickly I seem to be able to fall right back into restricting whenever I'm at home. I don't know what it is about being here that seems to facilitate that mentality. Part of it is not being able to eat whatever and whenever I please. My health-consciousness in London seems to increase ten fold. I never get take-out with the exception of sushi literally once in a blue moon. The fridge is always stocked with low-calorie or healthy foods, and whenever we have a cooked dinner it's always protein and veg and maybe some organic pasta. Then there's the not being able to eat at night. That's a big one. By 11pm everyone's usually in bed and the house is dark. I live on the mezzanine floor (essentially the attic) and don't have a door, so a sneaky midnight trip to the kitchen is out of the question. I eat less meat. I walk more; I also sleep more, and wake up earlier. All of these factors mean that some kind of weight loss is always inevitable here whether I'm thinking about it consciously or not.
The question is when (or where) to stop. Technically, it's only 10 pounds until I hit the number I was maintaining last January, when I met L and had just gained some rebound weight off the back of illness. Ostensibly I was 'slim', not underweight nor overweight but perfectly healthy and with pretty much nothing to worry about. Having gained to 172 this year, however, 153 seems like a dream. The worry is I get there and still feel fat. I certainly felt fat at 153 last January, but that's because I was comparing myself to my post-flu low-weight of 137 pounds. To be perfectly honest, I think 137 is about as far as I can push my body when it comes to weight loss. Not that a lower weight wouldn't look nicer, but for the sheer fact that when I weighed 137 my bones started jutting out. Being almost 5'10" has its perks.
Update: Had the rest of the Quorn chicken with some lite salad cream and a glass of wine. So total calories today = 1170. Watching House and sipping a diet ginger beer. Slowly weaning myself off Coke and so far it's been doing wonders for my water consumption.
It's alarming to me just how quickly I seem to be able to fall right back into restricting whenever I'm at home. I don't know what it is about being here that seems to facilitate that mentality. Part of it is not being able to eat whatever and whenever I please. My health-consciousness in London seems to increase ten fold. I never get take-out with the exception of sushi literally once in a blue moon. The fridge is always stocked with low-calorie or healthy foods, and whenever we have a cooked dinner it's always protein and veg and maybe some organic pasta. Then there's the not being able to eat at night. That's a big one. By 11pm everyone's usually in bed and the house is dark. I live on the mezzanine floor (essentially the attic) and don't have a door, so a sneaky midnight trip to the kitchen is out of the question. I eat less meat. I walk more; I also sleep more, and wake up earlier. All of these factors mean that some kind of weight loss is always inevitable here whether I'm thinking about it consciously or not.
The question is when (or where) to stop. Technically, it's only 10 pounds until I hit the number I was maintaining last January, when I met L and had just gained some rebound weight off the back of illness. Ostensibly I was 'slim', not underweight nor overweight but perfectly healthy and with pretty much nothing to worry about. Having gained to 172 this year, however, 153 seems like a dream. The worry is I get there and still feel fat. I certainly felt fat at 153 last January, but that's because I was comparing myself to my post-flu low-weight of 137 pounds. To be perfectly honest, I think 137 is about as far as I can push my body when it comes to weight loss. Not that a lower weight wouldn't look nicer, but for the sheer fact that when I weighed 137 my bones started jutting out. Being almost 5'10" has its perks.
Update: Had the rest of the Quorn chicken with some lite salad cream and a glass of wine. So total calories today = 1170. Watching House and sipping a diet ginger beer. Slowly weaning myself off Coke and so far it's been doing wonders for my water consumption.
Monday, 23 March 2015
164.0 this morning so on the right track. Ate minimally:
-Wholemeal toast with hoummous and tomatoes (200)
-Caramel macchiato with soy (240)
-Diet Coke, 1 can (0)
-Bag of chips (175)
-Rocket salad (180)
-Iced coffee (120)
Total: 915
Lowest intake in a while. Trying to get my sleep sorted. My general sleeping schedule at home tends to be a solid block (waking up maybe once, when my sister leaves for school) averaging 3am-3pm. I'd like to adjust to a schedule of 1-9. In an ideal world that would allow me the restorative sleep I need to recuperate from the bad effects of last term, dull my anxiety, and alleviate at least part of the late-night mania I experience after waking up late. Plus it would mean more alone-time, which is hard to fit into evenings spent with my family.
-Wholemeal toast with hoummous and tomatoes (200)
-Caramel macchiato with soy (240)
-Diet Coke, 1 can (0)
-Bag of chips (175)
-Rocket salad (180)
-Iced coffee (120)
Total: 915
Lowest intake in a while. Trying to get my sleep sorted. My general sleeping schedule at home tends to be a solid block (waking up maybe once, when my sister leaves for school) averaging 3am-3pm. I'd like to adjust to a schedule of 1-9. In an ideal world that would allow me the restorative sleep I need to recuperate from the bad effects of last term, dull my anxiety, and alleviate at least part of the late-night mania I experience after waking up late. Plus it would mean more alone-time, which is hard to fit into evenings spent with my family.
Sunday, 22 March 2015
I'm finally home. Thank God. The end of term was absolute hell. Because of my appalling attendance, I've been encouraged to take a leave of absence and study abroad is now off the table. So I've been devastated, depressed, in a black hole. But now I'm home and I feel like fuck it, I should just be focusing on myself to counter this. I was not who I wanted to be this term. I was overweight, and lethargic, and miserable. I will not return to university the same person in April. I need to change, evolve past this useless era of my life.
165.4 this morning, so 2 pounds lost since I got home. My goal is to be in the 140s or at the very least, low 150s by the time the holidays are up. I don't know what my plan is yet, but it's probably going to be a 1200 calories, no eating after midnight kind of thing.
Food today:
-Caramel macchiato with soy (240)
-Toast with peanut butter + banana (300)
-Roast gammon with asparagus, salad, dressing (350)
-Grape and raspberry juice (110)
Which comes to exactly 1000 calories. Granted I don't eat anything further (and I doubt that I will seeing as it's half past 9) I should technically see 164 tomorrow. There will be some progress after today I'm sure.
Feeling inspired but unable to tap into any thought or idea with the focus it takes to begin a new project. Considering waking up early tomorrow and going to the library or Starbucks to write. I need a fresh start and a new creative schedule, one that works.
165.4 this morning, so 2 pounds lost since I got home. My goal is to be in the 140s or at the very least, low 150s by the time the holidays are up. I don't know what my plan is yet, but it's probably going to be a 1200 calories, no eating after midnight kind of thing.
Food today:
-Caramel macchiato with soy (240)
-Toast with peanut butter + banana (300)
-Roast gammon with asparagus, salad, dressing (350)
-Grape and raspberry juice (110)
Which comes to exactly 1000 calories. Granted I don't eat anything further (and I doubt that I will seeing as it's half past 9) I should technically see 164 tomorrow. There will be some progress after today I'm sure.
Feeling inspired but unable to tap into any thought or idea with the focus it takes to begin a new project. Considering waking up early tomorrow and going to the library or Starbucks to write. I need a fresh start and a new creative schedule, one that works.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
The day started off with this. No complaints. I need the brain fuel to power through this 3000-word paper due in for Friday. My sleeping pattern has been much more erratic since essay time started a week ago; 8am became the regular bedtime, and rising at 6pm the norm. I've hated it, as lack of sun makes me incredibly depressed, but anyway. Might have fixed it today. Ended up passing out at 2pm after an all nighter (first essay got done and handed in), and then woke up incredibly disoriented at 2.30am this morning. Spent about two hours in bed watching House then finally got up at 4.30 and decided to work (it's 8am now and I have around 1,750 words of notes which is a definitive start). 6am breakfast pictured above. Morning snack will be more fruit and plenty of water, lunch will probably be sushi even though I can't afford it and for dinner I'm either going to make vegetarian bolognese (with quorn mince) or some other concoction involving the ingredients in my fridge right now. I really love the feeling of sitting at my desk reading articles, eating breakfast and drinking coffee as the sun comes up. It's very gratifying and makes you feel like part of the human race - the part that wakes up before 7am and actually gets shit done in the mornings. It's just peaceful to have that solitude before all the other students wake up. The ideal schedule would definitely involve waking up hours before everyone else, although it means getting to bed earlier. That's the one downside as I love to stay up late and sacrificing that is something I've always found always difficult.
Trying to turn my obsession with food into an obsession with healthy eating will probably be a successful way to navigate the next few weeks. I'm getting preoccupied with the arrangement of my food and how it looks aesthetically before I eat it. In general I love to cook and make food look beautiful so channelling my obsessions into this will prevent me from making bad choices. I hope.
Weighed 165.8 when I stepped on the scales at 3am. It's my absolute intention to be in the 150s by the end of next week. I'm looking forward to being able to relax, read and socialise when I get back. I isolate myself at university to the point of it being voluntary loneliness, except I never feel alone. I just feel disappointed in the other people who seem to be around, for not being interesting enough. Eventually I'm going to pickle in my own snobbery, but for now with all the work it's actually doing me some favours. I really do want to become more obsessive about my work. I'd like the title 'workaholic' to apply to me and I don't care if it makes me antisocial. Work is more fulfilling than meaningless conversation at any rate.
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Update: so I finished up the fast at 73 hours and broke it with a bite of a potato rosti and a bite of broccoli. Then I foolishly decided to eat 3 packets of sweets and drink a pear cidre, which in retrospect I feel very bad about. It's now about 5am, I'm getting into bed in ten minutes. I feel very lost as to what to do, whether to carry on while I'm still in the swing of things, or go back to restricting for a bit. Or maybe intermittent fasting. It all depends on my weight. Depending on whether I'm up or down when I wake up I'll make a decision.
68 hours into the fast. This afternoon I weighed 167.0 pounds, which wasn't as bad a gain as I had expected, but still a gain. Today I've had 1/2 a cup of Green Machine (70), a soy cappuccino from Starbucks (120) and a cup of mulligatawny soup (200), in total 390 calories. The problem yesterday was that I went over 1000 calories in liquids without realising or keeping track, which is a remarkably easy mistake to make when your brain is tricked into thinking that soup isn't "real" food. Anyway, I'm glad I stuck with the fast and pushed through despite. There's only 4 more hours until the fast technically ends, but I'm thinking that if I weigh under 165 tomorrow, I'll keep going. It's not as if I have any social commitments coming up that would require eating; the only issue is my own discipline and willpower. But I've read that day 3 is somewhat of a hump in terms of breaking through the hunger wall, so part of me thinks it would be a shame to end it before I get through to the other side. We'll see. Either way, I'm not planning on exceeding 700 calories today, so hopefully I'll see 165 tomorrow, fingers crossed. Then it's only 5 pounds to go before I hit my low weight of the academic year (I got down to 160 some time in the holidays, before I went to New York and binged back the lost weight).
In other news, I saw a therapist today and agreed to ten sessions with him. So that felt fairly beneficial. I ended up crying about my father, as usual. Clearly I have a lot of issues still to work out. But today felt like progress somehow, which was good. I have two more weeks of essays and then I'm home. I am dying to go home and see my friends. I've felt so very isolated this term - this whole year in fact - and being at home, while it can be occasionally stressful, is probably what I need the most right now. I just need to be reminded that there are people who understand and care, I need to be around my family and remind myself that all is not lost.
If I could be somewhere in the 150s by the time I go home, that would be great. I have about eleven days to lose a minimum of eight pounds, in that case. It's a bit extreme but if I continue to lose at a rate of roughly two pounds per day, I could be in the low 160s by the end of the weekend. The grunt work is the difficult bit, but once I stabilise at 160 I'm hoping it will be fairly easy to break through to the 150s in a matter of days. Then I will be working on exercising and refining my diet to be as healthy and simple as possible. The broader goal is to come back in the summer term weighing somewhere around 145, although I don't know how easy it will be to lose that quickly at home. If I could get back to 153 (my weight last January) I would be extremely happy, anything else is a bonus really.
In other news, I saw a therapist today and agreed to ten sessions with him. So that felt fairly beneficial. I ended up crying about my father, as usual. Clearly I have a lot of issues still to work out. But today felt like progress somehow, which was good. I have two more weeks of essays and then I'm home. I am dying to go home and see my friends. I've felt so very isolated this term - this whole year in fact - and being at home, while it can be occasionally stressful, is probably what I need the most right now. I just need to be reminded that there are people who understand and care, I need to be around my family and remind myself that all is not lost.
If I could be somewhere in the 150s by the time I go home, that would be great. I have about eleven days to lose a minimum of eight pounds, in that case. It's a bit extreme but if I continue to lose at a rate of roughly two pounds per day, I could be in the low 160s by the end of the weekend. The grunt work is the difficult bit, but once I stabilise at 160 I'm hoping it will be fairly easy to break through to the 150s in a matter of days. Then I will be working on exercising and refining my diet to be as healthy and simple as possible. The broader goal is to come back in the summer term weighing somewhere around 145, although I don't know how easy it will be to lose that quickly at home. If I could get back to 153 (my weight last January) I would be extremely happy, anything else is a bonus really.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
I'm now on my 50th hour liquid fasting. At 38 hours in, I weighed 166.8 lbs. It's now the end of Day 2 and I have had: beetroot and raspberry V8, a soy espresso frappuccino from Starbucks, black coffee, diet soda, mojito (non-alcoholic), Thai tom kha coconut soup, chicken broth, homemade pea soup and about half of a small tub of bean soup (which I stopped eating because it had too much "solid food" at the bottom). I'm extremely bloated and hoping that the fact I feel heavy with water weight is just the sheer amount of liquid I consumed today. Soup especially is sodium-heavy so I've been drinking as much water as possible.
I screwed up a bit today because I felt so incredibly weak in town that I impulse-bought a fuck ton of healthy, expensive soups intending to split them up over the next few days but had what I can only describe as a soup binge whilst watching films in L's room. I hate that I now feel bad for consuming "too much soup". It seems ridiculous to me, that before I was bingeing on real food and not feeling bad about it, and now I'm feeling guilty over soup. I'm just so desperate for it not to go wrong this time. I'm pleading with my body: don't gain, don't gain, don't gain.
My assumption is that I'll just pee it all out (excuse the imagery) over the next 12 hours. Or so I hope. The appeal with a true water fast is that you get to see the numbers go down every couple of hours, every time you pee or happen to be near a scale. Just like obsessive time-checking on a fast measured by hours, I can see how one could get equally obsessive checking their weight frequently whilst water fasting.
Part of me is questioning the whole thing, and if it'll work - and if it doesn't, will I throw in the towel and go back to regular eating? I feel like I want to say no to "real" food for as long as it takes before I get my weight down and get back to myself, but when will that be? Days? Weeks? I don't know how long I could keep this shit up, or if it's even worth it. 72 hours doesn't seem like enough, either way.
I've just got to remember why I'm doing this. It's not just for going home and making an impression. It's to get the control back in my life. It's for the parties, the appearances, the glorious moments of feeling beautiful and powerful somehow, the moments where you know someone's taking notice. It's for being able to wear anything and look amazing, it's for the role in the film, it's for next year abroad at a private American university where appearance will be extremely important (much more so than here). It's for being able to celebrate and not feel guilty about it. I'm sick of feeling guilty.
I screwed up a bit today because I felt so incredibly weak in town that I impulse-bought a fuck ton of healthy, expensive soups intending to split them up over the next few days but had what I can only describe as a soup binge whilst watching films in L's room. I hate that I now feel bad for consuming "too much soup". It seems ridiculous to me, that before I was bingeing on real food and not feeling bad about it, and now I'm feeling guilty over soup. I'm just so desperate for it not to go wrong this time. I'm pleading with my body: don't gain, don't gain, don't gain.
My assumption is that I'll just pee it all out (excuse the imagery) over the next 12 hours. Or so I hope. The appeal with a true water fast is that you get to see the numbers go down every couple of hours, every time you pee or happen to be near a scale. Just like obsessive time-checking on a fast measured by hours, I can see how one could get equally obsessive checking their weight frequently whilst water fasting.
Part of me is questioning the whole thing, and if it'll work - and if it doesn't, will I throw in the towel and go back to regular eating? I feel like I want to say no to "real" food for as long as it takes before I get my weight down and get back to myself, but when will that be? Days? Weeks? I don't know how long I could keep this shit up, or if it's even worth it. 72 hours doesn't seem like enough, either way.
I've just got to remember why I'm doing this. It's not just for going home and making an impression. It's to get the control back in my life. It's for the parties, the appearances, the glorious moments of feeling beautiful and powerful somehow, the moments where you know someone's taking notice. It's for being able to wear anything and look amazing, it's for the role in the film, it's for next year abroad at a private American university where appearance will be extremely important (much more so than here). It's for being able to celebrate and not feel guilty about it. I'm sick of feeling guilty.
Monday, 2 March 2015
25 hours in, and I've consumed two coffees (with milk), a lemonade, chicken and vegetable broth, edamame soup and a can of Coke. I guess this has turned into a general liquids-only fast. Tomorrow I'm gonna cut the milk in my coffee, and avoid full-sugar fizzy drinks as a base rule. I bought some beetroot & raspberry V8, which I'm thinking of splitting up throughout the day. Hopefully, given sufficient black coffee consumption and 'mother's little helper' I should be able to make it through the day on only one soup this time.
Around dinner time I almost cracked. I was hungry and craving a PB&J. Luckily I didn't. I'm telling myself I can have that PB&J, just not now. This is how it works. You put it off, hour by hour until you've done a week's stint and barely even noticed. Or so you hope.
I... don't know how this is going to affect me. I don't even know if I'll lose weight, that is if I last long enough to see a marked difference. I've read stories of girls online losing 6, 8, 10 pounds in the first three days. I don't think that will happen to me. I'm already technically 1/3 of the way through my projected 72 hours of liquids-only and I don't feel like I'll have lost even a pound today. It's hard to get an accurate reading right now because I'm full of water, and part of me doesn't want to step on the scales in case I see the dreaded 170 flash up at me again.
I want to buy jeans again, and fit into the size I've always worn (10-12 UK). Being 5'9, I would have to get considerately more emaciated to fit into a smaller size than that, so a goal of size 8 feels pretty unrealistic at this point. But maybe I'd fit into 12s after fasting. I don't know. I want my old figure back. I also miss seeing the line of my cheekbones when I look in the mirror. My face seems bloated and puffy to me now, and extraordinarily round. Part of it's reality, part of it's distortion. Also, I have developed pudge on my stomach where there never used to be pudge, even at higher weights like 150 and 160. That, and the weight on my face will probably be the first to go, I am assuming (and hoping).
A major motivation is being able to wear the clothes I idolise on others. A smart black uniform of a t-shirt tucked into cigarette jeans, belted at the waist. Military boots, a long coat. or leather jacket. I long to look fashionable, and more infuriatingly own enough clothes to dress in the way that I wish, but I don't fit most of them, and the ones that I do fit seem to look wrong on my slightly-larger-than-usual frame. I look at skinny girls and think that they waste their potential. If I were a size 8 I'd wear whatever I damn well pleased. I'd walk down the street and feel unstoppable.
Looking (and being) scholarly is a good model for success. The more brainy you look, the more brainy you sound and the harder you'll work (or so is scientifically proven). The true exhibition of discipline. Books under arm, cigarette in mouth, rushing frantically to make a lecture. Reading up on literary theory, writing maniacally any chance you get. This is the model I've idealised for myself for the past year and I am so very desperate to emulate it successfully. I seem to embody some elements but not others, and on a case-by-case basis rather than regularly, routinely. Routine and ritual becomes oh so important when you're trying to shift an accumulated thirty pounds of weight.
Around dinner time I almost cracked. I was hungry and craving a PB&J. Luckily I didn't. I'm telling myself I can have that PB&J, just not now. This is how it works. You put it off, hour by hour until you've done a week's stint and barely even noticed. Or so you hope.
I... don't know how this is going to affect me. I don't even know if I'll lose weight, that is if I last long enough to see a marked difference. I've read stories of girls online losing 6, 8, 10 pounds in the first three days. I don't think that will happen to me. I'm already technically 1/3 of the way through my projected 72 hours of liquids-only and I don't feel like I'll have lost even a pound today. It's hard to get an accurate reading right now because I'm full of water, and part of me doesn't want to step on the scales in case I see the dreaded 170 flash up at me again.
I want to buy jeans again, and fit into the size I've always worn (10-12 UK). Being 5'9, I would have to get considerately more emaciated to fit into a smaller size than that, so a goal of size 8 feels pretty unrealistic at this point. But maybe I'd fit into 12s after fasting. I don't know. I want my old figure back. I also miss seeing the line of my cheekbones when I look in the mirror. My face seems bloated and puffy to me now, and extraordinarily round. Part of it's reality, part of it's distortion. Also, I have developed pudge on my stomach where there never used to be pudge, even at higher weights like 150 and 160. That, and the weight on my face will probably be the first to go, I am assuming (and hoping).
A major motivation is being able to wear the clothes I idolise on others. A smart black uniform of a t-shirt tucked into cigarette jeans, belted at the waist. Military boots, a long coat. or leather jacket. I long to look fashionable, and more infuriatingly own enough clothes to dress in the way that I wish, but I don't fit most of them, and the ones that I do fit seem to look wrong on my slightly-larger-than-usual frame. I look at skinny girls and think that they waste their potential. If I were a size 8 I'd wear whatever I damn well pleased. I'd walk down the street and feel unstoppable.
Looking (and being) scholarly is a good model for success. The more brainy you look, the more brainy you sound and the harder you'll work (or so is scientifically proven). The true exhibition of discipline. Books under arm, cigarette in mouth, rushing frantically to make a lecture. Reading up on literary theory, writing maniacally any chance you get. This is the model I've idealised for myself for the past year and I am so very desperate to emulate it successfully. I seem to embody some elements but not others, and on a case-by-case basis rather than regularly, routinely. Routine and ritual becomes oh so important when you're trying to shift an accumulated thirty pounds of weight.
I'm currently 16 hours into a (semi-liquids, mostly water) fast that I only officially decided on last night. Shooting for 72 hours, and the only substances I will be allowing myself to consume will be water, tea, coffee, vegetable broth, chicken broth, the master cleanse lemonade, diet coke and, if I get especially starving, 0 calorie pickles.
The last time I fasted properly and successfully, I was 17 (besides unintentional fasting during my hospitalisation, where I was too sick to eat.) I went for four days on 0 calorie liquids (including carbonated diet drinks) and lost four pounds. However, I also started out weighing a lot less than I do now, plus my metabolism was shot to hell from starvation. So this time I'm expecting speedier weight loss, seeing as my weight at the start of the fast was 171.0 lbs. Currently it's 169.0 lbs. Ideally I would fast myself into the 150s, but that would mean committing to the fast for a minimum of 10 days. I'm not sure if I have the willpower to make it through 3, let alone 10, but I'm playing it by ear.
Obviously the appealing thing about a fast is the instant results. It's like zapping weight loss. The other appeal is not having to worry about food for a while. Thinking about food is one thing, worrying about it is another (what to eat, when to eat it, which diet to follow, etc). I hope that this will free me up some extra mental space as I have two essays to write over the next fortnight.
The last time I fasted properly and successfully, I was 17 (besides unintentional fasting during my hospitalisation, where I was too sick to eat.) I went for four days on 0 calorie liquids (including carbonated diet drinks) and lost four pounds. However, I also started out weighing a lot less than I do now, plus my metabolism was shot to hell from starvation. So this time I'm expecting speedier weight loss, seeing as my weight at the start of the fast was 171.0 lbs. Currently it's 169.0 lbs. Ideally I would fast myself into the 150s, but that would mean committing to the fast for a minimum of 10 days. I'm not sure if I have the willpower to make it through 3, let alone 10, but I'm playing it by ear.
Obviously the appealing thing about a fast is the instant results. It's like zapping weight loss. The other appeal is not having to worry about food for a while. Thinking about food is one thing, worrying about it is another (what to eat, when to eat it, which diet to follow, etc). I hope that this will free me up some extra mental space as I have two essays to write over the next fortnight.
Sunday, 1 March 2015
Sorry for the brief interlude of absence. My weight ballooned to 171.8 lbs; my sleep's been fucked. Last night was the first time in ages that I had a proper sleep. Bed by 4am and up by 1pm, so 9 solid hours of sleep. Still, I woke up dehydrated, grumpy, and weighing 170 on the scales.
170 is not good enough. 170 symbolises all the things that are wrong with my life. I'm going to stick to this sleep pattern until my weight gets low enough that I can afford to fuck with staying up late/not sleeping/pulling all nighters. After all, this is the major reason I lose weight at home. I stop eating by 1am latest, fall asleep by 4 or 5am, and wake up at midday. Usually all I have at home until dinner is a smoothie, and Starbucks with C or K (who sometimes I split a panini with). So my actual window of eating solid food is very short (about 7pm-midnight).
I had a dream last night that I got down to 135. OH to be 135 again.
I wonder how fast I can lose 35 pounds. The end of Easter?
170 is not good enough. 170 symbolises all the things that are wrong with my life. I'm going to stick to this sleep pattern until my weight gets low enough that I can afford to fuck with staying up late/not sleeping/pulling all nighters. After all, this is the major reason I lose weight at home. I stop eating by 1am latest, fall asleep by 4 or 5am, and wake up at midday. Usually all I have at home until dinner is a smoothie, and Starbucks with C or K (who sometimes I split a panini with). So my actual window of eating solid food is very short (about 7pm-midnight).
I had a dream last night that I got down to 135. OH to be 135 again.
I wonder how fast I can lose 35 pounds. The end of Easter?
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