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.

Bring on May

I'm trying to pull things together. It's not easy, but I'm trying my damned best to stop being so hard on myself. It's time to reclaim my life and put myself back together. I've been watching Felicity, and dreaming about New York. Bash, her eyes filling with some sort of spark, tells me she's looking at apartments there. She got her first offer the other day. Somehow, it seems, her state of mind might be salvaged. She had a stressful year, down, in part, to the fact that she hated Boston, along with an accident that left her mother paralysed in January. But she's getting through. 

I weighed 155 this morning. An improvement. Yesterday I had about a pint of blood sucked out of me at the hospital, so in a week I'll find out if there's anything wrong with my thyroid. I'm half-hoping there is, and half-hoping there isn't. Another disorder would probably drain me completely, however I would be able to rest assured that there was some other explanation for my weight gain, depression and fatigue besides... well, my own head.

For now, I'm putting myself on a high-protein, low-carb diet. I don't want to eliminate carbs altogether, but 'white' carbs can definitely go, I'll be sticking to whole grains for the time being. And I'm going to start working out again, 15-20 minutes every day, because I've fallen out of my cardio workouts and conditioning and it feels terrible. I guess, in a nutshell, I'm going to start treating my body and my mind better than I have been doing. Eventually I want to cut out smoking altogether, but for now I might just limit it to social smoking, then when I feel ready I'll start on the nicotine patches/gum and find some other habit to satisfy my oral fixation (do they sell sugar free lollipops?) - either way, I'm getting healthy. May is going to be a month of health. And I'd like to say happiness, but that might be a bit far-fetched. I am working on my self-annihilation, though, because it doesn't help things at all. I realise through my recent blog posts I've been sounding more and more depressive. And while that's often my default, I should work harder to move away from the negative mindset. It does me no favours.

I've decided to take before and after photos this month, because I think it's time for me to stare my weight gain in its big ugly face, and get some motivation to do something about it. Hopefully these will be improved, after 4 weeks of working out, eating clean, and thinking more positively.

I know. My legs are so chunky, my stomach and hips are bloated, and my thigh gap is basically non-existent these days when I'm not in heels. My aim is to lose 10-15 lbs, and tone up by the 1st June. A big motivation is that I'll be flying back to LA - this time for 3 weeks - at the end of June, and straight after that I'm going to Portugal with my mum. So the real deal starts from the second I wake up tomorrow, no excuses this time.   

Sharks

Everything is shit. I'm 157 lbs, and there's no way I can get out of that one. I have to face the facts. Things at home are miserable. I'm happiest when I'm asleep or in bed, away from reality. I'm broke and it sucks because one of my best friends is back from the states and I couldn't even afford to get on a tube to meet her tonight, along with all my other friends who were welcoming her home. My mum finds any way to get at me about my current lack of employment. I've booked numerous waitressing shifts for next month, I'll be working my butt off but even then, the money I earn doing that won't be transferred to my card until June (and besides, I need it to go towards savings for uni, let alone my plans for this summer, so it won't be money to live off). I listen to songs I used to love and find inspiration from, but now all they do is make me cry. In fact, everything is making me cry at the moment. I cried after I finished dinner, not because I felt guilty about the food I'd eaten, but because I thought the empty plate and glass looked tragic, sitting there alone on the table, compared to the night I should have had.

I'd like to be 120 lbs. I'd like to be 140 even, anything but this. This is disgusting, obscene, wrong. I'm debating in my head whether or not to cut to a measured 600 calories a day, or take advantage of being fat and 'diet steadily' at a safe, controlled 1200. It probably doesn't matter what I plan anyway, because we all know my track record with sticking to things.

I want to be free. I want to be free of weight worries, calorie worries, health worries, money worries, friendship worries, life worries in general. Having Kit here was lovely, but in other ways, it depressed me to no end, because she has everything I envy. She's in a long-term relationship with a man who loves her to pieces, and they're moving into a beautiful seaside cottage together this Autumn while she attends art college. Even though she's only 19 like me, she's going to be living in this perfect blissful idyll with someone who adores her for the next three years, and after that she'll be off travelling, doing what she loves best, and being free. Her family all get on, and they rarely have arguments - unlike my own family, who started tearing each other apart before I was born. She lives in the country, where the kids are free to explore as they please. She even has her own art studio that she can escape to if things get too stressful, along with all the land they own out there. And it's not just her wealth and personal relationship I envy - I haven't mentioned that she's also incredibly beautiful, toned, and slim, and hasn't once watched her weight, having been a dedicated swimmer for the past six years. I'm not saying she's perfectly happy. Of course not. She has plenty of anxieties of her own, as does any young person trying to find their footing in the world. But she's cushioned, and she always will be. I was thrown off the cushion and in to the deep end so long ago I can't even remember what it felt like to be on the cushion. Ironically, being pushed in with the sharks didn't make me any freer. It just made me more depressed because I realised what my life, as me, embodied, and probably would continue to embody as I grew older.

Who knows. This is just a meaningless rant, one of many. All I know is that I cannot be 157 anymore. Cannot and will not. This time last year I weighed 141 lbs. If it takes my last energy to get back there by the end of May, so be it.

Farewell to the fairground

That feeling where you can't control your own body, your weight, or what it's doing in general, is probably one of the scariest feelings a person who has suffered with an eating disorder can experience. I've had that feeling for weeks now, and it's one of the major reasons I haven't posted since I got back from holiday. The direction my weight goes in is so at odds with the way I eat that I've begun to suspect I might have developed some kind of underactive-thyroid problem. I go over 1,200 calories and suddenly I'm a kilo heavier, regardless of the fact that those 1,200 calories have undoubtedly been healthy ones, regardless of the fact that I will have worked out for 45 minutes at the gym and done a further 15 minutes of conditioning at home.

I'm still bouncing around the 152-154 mark on the scales. I hate it. It makes me sick that last summer I could eat double the amount I'm eating now, and maintain weights as low as 137. It makes me regretful that I deemed that weight "fat" at the time. And it makes me confused as to how I ended up here, at a number I once thought I would never, ever see again.

More than anything, it makes me want to starve again.

And starve I will, if that's what it takes. This time I'm armed with multiple sachets of cup-a-soup, fruit tea, fat-free cheese, and truckloads of olives, because they're small and manageable and delicious and CHEAP.

The good thing is the weather's looking up, so no more stuffing my face purely because it's cold. The annual funfair's been set up on our local common, and Kit, an old friend, is coming down to London to stay the night. Tomorrow will be spent at the fair, and tomorrow night will involve wine, and possibly a movie. I've missed her so much, and I'm praying I won't have to eat majorly while she stays with me. Her company will be enough.

Lastly, I've realised I don't want Alfie in my life anymore. He's been super insensitive about stuff lately, and messed with my head big time. I had an emotionally abusive relationship with my father for years, and I am not going to let history repeat itself by making myself vulnerable to another man intent on toying with my emotions. That's the long and short of it. Maybe I'll elaborate later. For now I'm feeling pretty beaten up about it.

Glorious

I feel anxiety-riddled - terrified, to be more precise - realising that I'm flying to Los Angeles in exactly four days from now, and I still weigh 152 lbs. Even more anxiety-provoking, is the fact that I'd like to start properly restricting again (600 calories a day + exercise, plenty of caffeine, and a matching OCD mindset to go with it, whether or not that fits in with my schedule), but being on the cusp of going away is unnerving to me simply because I'm scared I won't be able to keep it up abroad, and the simple act of trying this week will have been a waste of my time if all goes to bollocks out there.

All of this panic induced (surprise surprise) a binge. A weird-ass binge that consisted mostly of seed bread dipped in guacamole and hot sauce, and whole dried prunes. There were other things, too, but it doesn't really matter now, because it's probably the 40th time I've binged already this year, and listing all the foods I shoved into my gob this evening isn't going to make me feel any better, let alone prevent it from happening again.

The point is, I'm freaking out. I'm still freaking out, even after bingeing, which just proves that blanketing your emotions with food does nothing to calm your nerves, or sort things out mentally. In fact, more often than not, it makes things worse. Especially if your nervousness is rooted in the way you look, and how much worse you'll probably look 2,000 calories later.

Normally this sort of terror would propel me into three straight weeks of strict 'dieting' (and by dieting, I mean breaking down when my daily caloric intake exceeds 600). I'm doing everything I can - mentally - to push myself over that edge of sanity and survival instinct keeping me from lowering my weight. I realise, now, it's a mind game. A steady, stealthy period of conditioning yourself into thinking, behaving, and living in a disciplined, regimented way. It's definitely not easy, but I've done it before (see my entries written over last year's study leave, during which I'd hit that stage where restricting becomes easier than bingeing - because even the idea of slipping up by a mere 100 calories is mentally exhausting). There's this huge part of me that thrills thinking about the idea of possibly returning to London a stone lighter than I am now. After all, that's what I've gained, give or take a few lbs, since last summer, and to get that weight back off me at long last would be not only a major relief, but glorious.

We'll see how it goes. So far, I haven't eaten since 10pm, and it's now nearly 2am, which is a good sign. Eating after midnight usually sets me off again.

Tomorrow's projected intake:

-1 c. bran cereal (90)
-1 c. frozen raspberries (30)
-1 c. green beans (30)
-Starbucks skinny cappuccino (96)
-1 c. butternut squash soup (140)

Along with something small, sweet and (hopefully) binge-preventing.

Day 1

-1 c. bran cereal (90)
-1/2 c. soy milk (30)
-Classic side salad (50)
-2 wheat tortilla wraps (180)
-3 slices edam cheese (225)
-2 tbsp. guacamole (28)
-1 c. lettuce (5)

Total: 608 cals

108 cals over my self-imposed limit for the next week, but it's a start. I'm no longer counting coffee, and also am allowing myself up to half a bar of chocolate every night, because I honestly believe it staves off binges. If I tell myself I can have as much chocolate as I want (and I really start to feel ill after a moderate amount of it), I'll tend not to go for the salty carbs or hoummous-y goodness that usually lead to my downfalls. I'll cut the chocolate out (or find a lower-calorie substitute) when I feel like the bingeing is under control, but for now, I'm justifying it by telling myself it's better than a 2,000-calorie break-down in the kitchen every night.

In exactly a week from now, I'll be on a plane to Los Angeles. The big L-A. It would be ideal to get well enough under 150 to deter me from ruining my progress abroad, but we'll see how it goes. Easy does it I guess.

My end goal, besides the obvious losing weight, will be to go long enough without bingeing that I break the habit, therefore deterring that all-too-familiar mindset of 'well, I had one bite, so why not eat the whole thing, and then everything else in the fridge'. I don't expect to never binge again, but when it becomes routine to binge rather than to just leave it, that's when you know there's a problem.

Midnight pity party

Fuck boys and their massive appetites. Seriously. What is it with men? They're obsessed - actually obsessed - with food. And sex. And food. I'm seriously stereotyping here, but having just eaten the world's biggest take out dinner on account of hanging out with Alfie, I do have a point.

Unggggh. Words can't express how full and ill and disgusted I feel with myself. I miss the days when I wasn't disgusted with myself, and I was actually proud of what I'd eaten. It's not even like I can excuse it with saying I burnt off some calories beforehand - or afterwards - if you know what I mean. Oh no. There was none of that. Sometimes I wonder even if he even wants to sleep with me still. It's no wonder, considering I've gained around 20 lbs since we first met (oh, God) and not of those lbs has gone to my boobs, as far as I'm aware. Even now, he's texting me, trying to egg on some kind of late-night-sext-scapade, but I'm pretty sure he'd never actually suggest sex in real life. He seems to be, like, this special breed of guy who is just fairly content with oral sex alone, and never actually wants to make the move to sleep with me. What a little tease.

So. The deathlist. Veggie burger (the biggest one I've ever seen); 1/2 large portion fries; 2 slices garlic cheese pizza; and about 4 different, very high-cal condiments. And then the binge that ensued once he'd left, because apparently all that food wasn't enough for me. Jesus Christ. It's a wonder he still wants to kiss me when I eat like this. Obviously, I have very big problems.

Now I'm up at 2am downing glass upon glass of diet coke, hoping it will wash away at least some of the crap currently in my intestines, along with my sorrows.

I've honestly had enough of this. I've had enough of the 150s. I've had enough of looking at myself in the mirror and cringing. I've had enough of over-eating night after night, with no way to get rid of it (bulimia isn't an option when you live in a house with two very weight-conscious women, and only one bathroom). So all of this leaves me with only one option left: restriction. Not that I mind this. If I could go the next week on 300-500 calories a day tops, curbing my desire to binge as best I can, I might actually stand a chance of going to LA with a shred of self-confidence in tact. If I keep this up, though, I'm looking at more depressive episodes over my lack of control, possibly more weight gain, and my self-esteem left in tatters on the floor - indefinitely.

It's fine. It's cool. I have bran cereal (high fibre, and takes a long time to nibble). I also have carrot sticks and mustard (thanks, Wasted) and butternut squash soup, which is about 120 calories for half the carton. I'm not going to count coffee calories, I've decided. It's caffeine, which excuses the calories I get from the 1/2 cup of soy milk I take mine with (in any case, a little soy or skim milk daily is nothing to be feared, in my opinion). Coffee is pretty much ritual for me at this point, anyway, and I don't even care that I might be discounting up to 180 calories by dismissing it from my daily intake totals. Whatever. Anything's better than what I've been doing lately - but a week of pure, dedicated restriction will undoubtedly be the fastest way to get rid of the water weight I've clocked up over the past fortnight. Whether or not I'll keep it up abroad, is a whole other question, and one I find highly intimidating to face at the current minute.

It's time to move my life on. And it's not moving on as long as I stay like I am now. Gabrielle the Fatty. Sometimes I wish I had a new identity and a new set of friends and a new name and a new body and a new everything.

I haven't spoken to Tina in a week, and suddenly I get wind of the fact that she now has a boyfriend?! So glad I'm still in the loop (not)! I wonder about them sometimes. My 'friends', I mean, or who's left of them. Is it really, really pathetic that I'm hurt she didn't tell me? Probably. I'm most likely jealous that it isn't me with the good news. But there you go. That's life.

And something else... Last night, on the longest bloody waitressing shift of my life, I met... a guy. 19 years old, sandy brown hair, cheekbones to die for. Musician - of course. And I can't stop thinking about him. The weird thing is, I'm not sure I'll ever see him again. If I do, I do, and I guess that'll be fate's way of telling me something, right? It's one of life's most profound, but most depressing moments, when you finally click with a person, you just click... and you talk about all this stuff, you share your mind with them over the course of an evening, you give them a little piece of yourself... then you look at them again and you realise you're kind of in love with this... stranger. Except, it's like, they probably know you better than your own friends. Because you just cut to the important bits, you let them see it all in just a few words, you showed them the window to your very soul. You look at them and you see the way their face looks under the streetlamp and how pretty the smoke looks coming out of their mouth, and you think, I wish I could kiss you... I wish I could know you, but I might never, and maybe this will just be a moment. That's the stuff that really, really fucks with my head. I meet these perfect people for a millisecond and then they're gone, without a trace, and it makes my heart hurt, because I might never see them again, and then it'd be like it only ever existed in my mind. I'm so depressed thinking that might have been... it. Motivation to book a shitload of shifts for when I get back in April, on the off chance we might be working together again. Cry. Cry. Sob sob sob.

I'm totally sleep-deprived, which, in combination with being sad and weepy about stuff already, is making me petty. Time to close my eyes and wait until the morning comes.

Vive la revolution!

Sigh.

Walking contradiction

I can't understand myself. I want to be thin. I'd like to be 128 lbs, maybe 124 again some day. That was a nice number, while it lasted. But I'm so far away from that, and it's been so many years since I had that kind of control, that it seems like an impossible task. I want to be strong, also, but to be strong I can't break my body down. I can't subsist on 600 calories a day, which is what it seems to take, these days, to get anywhere. I want to be a woman, I want to be an adult, I want to take care of people. But sometimes I feel like a lost little boy, a street urchin, abandoned and bewildered and I need people to take care of me.

Life is so confusing. My own head is confusing. I babysat this evening, and boy told me I had a fat stomach. I know he's only 5 and it's probably all a joke to him. But he's right. I'm right. I know I am. I know I'm not delusional when I see myself as large. Sure, maybe some outfits can hide it better than others, and maybe my pretty hair and pretty eyes detract from how pudgy my face and upper arms have become. But I see it. I see it all. At the beginning of the day, and at the end. The minute boy falls asleep, I'm in the cupboard, scrabbling for anything I can find, trying not to leave a trace.

Perhaps I should work on becoming thin first, then improving my strength. I'm strong now. I may weigh a lot but it's not all fat. I get comments on my muscle tone all the time. It's not enough though. I want to see the faint definition of abs, next to hipbones you can grab a hold of. I want the flab on my arms and legs to melt off. I keep crying thinking about how awful it'll be when I'll see Alfie at the end of this week, and I'll take off my clothes, and he'll see how chubby I've become.

2425 calories isn't going to cut it.

Notes on today

Just a short one, but I thought I'd write up my intake for today. I haven't felt confident enough to do that in a long while. For some reason I wasn't hungry all afternoon. Even when I ate dinner I felt like I could have done without it. Either way, 

-2 rusk biscuits and 1 mashed banana with 100ml skim milk and 1tbsp gooseberry yogurt, 300cal (this is my new favourite breakfast. I let the rusks soak with the banana in hot milk, then microwave it for 30 seconds and eat it with a tiny bit of yogurt. Yummy)

-Diet coke, 0cal

-1/2 cup orange juice, 50cal 

-Soy cappuccino with 2 pumps vanilla, 120cal

-Caesar salad, 250cal

-1/2 bar milk chocolate, 250cal

Total: 970cal 

I know it's not particularly impressive, but it's the best intake I've had in weeks. I could have done without the chocolate, I know, but weirdly enough having a couple of cubes at night stops me from bingeing on loads of other carb-y crap. Considering there's wholemeal bread, peanut butter and cereal bars in the house, which on a regular night I would probably just gobble up mindlessly, I think I did pretty well. 

The trick seems to be eating a filling, healthy breakfast, then surviving on coffee, juice and cigarettes until dinner time. It's easy to avoid lunch when you wake up at midday, and no one's home until 5pm. Eating alone during the day has totally depressed me recently. It just reminds me that I feel lonely already. Eating alone, when lonely, is just too depressing for words. 

I need another hobby besides what I do and don't put in my mouth. I need to start writing again, properly this time. And I need Alfie back in my life. Where is he? Who knows.

Somewhere

Increasingly nothing to say. I spend a lot of time indoors, looking at the rain outside, wishing it was summer again, wishing that our friendship group was still in tact. Last night I have a dream. Charlie apologises over text, says she can't believe what went down, she wants me back. In my head, I applaud myself for not responding to her messages. But then I wake up and realise - in that sobering, cold way - that I'm never going to see her again.

On Friday, I spend the night holed up in Caro's dorm room. She's like me, has a box balanced on top of her closet full of food. Silent assurance; fuel for those lonely, hungry times. We devour half of it, washed down with 8 shots of cheap vodka, diluted by litre upon litre of diet coke. We get outrageously pissed. Cigarettes out of her window, cover the smoke alarm. Wrap our backs in curtains. She kisses me, red smudging on her cigarettes, then onto my lips. We talk about everything. Women, men. Weight. Summer, each other.

Alfie's back for Easter break tomorrow. I don't know how I feel about this. I have days and nights where he's all I think about, then others where he's the furthest from my mind. Sometimes, I just think he's shit. Another shithead arsehole guy, wanting wanting wanting, taking taking taking. Known a few too many of those. Then othertimes, my whole body begs to be held by him, comforted, reassured, just for a moment. I yearn to be embraced, completed by someone else. I wish to explore everything; I'm curious, like an innocent, and I want to know. What all the fuss is about, what I've been missing out on. I wonder if it'll be the same for me. Perhaps, I'm just meant to be different.

I'll look at myself, and think, I could be improved. Maybe I don't deserve to be held. Then I catch myself smiling, glimpse a candid reflection of some actual expression of my own joy, and I think, I'm just a human. I'm just a girl. There's nothing wrong with me. I spend approximately 7 hours a day thinking about food, and how I shouldn't be eating it; about myself, and how I should be better. That's a lot of time. When I see myself laugh from the outside, totally unwarranted, I think that I must be pure. Not this messy, diabolical thing I consider myself to be half the time. Evil things don't have an open heart.

I think that things might get better. I think one day I'll feel alright in my own skin. I won't have this crippling low self-confidence, nor this extreme vanity or high level of self-indulgence, forever. I hope. But I'll be me forever. It's about bloody time I got comfortable being just that. Maybe then, I'll start to treat myself more kindly. They say your body's your temple, not your burden. I'd like to think this way. It'll take some time, but eventually, I'd like to get there. I'd like to eat, think, behave purely. Because somewhere, deep down, I know I deserve that. Somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere.

Being "me"

I decided to give my blog a little make-over, along with my head. I realised I've been a depressed, chaotic mess lately, and I don't want things to be that way anymore. It may sound stupid, but ending up back in the 150s again, has made me reconsider a lot of things. While I should have been eating well, treating myself a bit more kindly, and focusing on other stuff besides food, I turned myself into a food-maniac. I've been so preoccupied with wanting to lose weight, hating the way I am now, and desperately wanting to change myself into something (or someone) I'm not, that I've ended up addicted to stuffing my face, because a big part of me has felt I deserved that kind of treatment. No. I'm not doing this anymore. The self-hate ends here. I have things to look forward to, and things to be happy about, and it doesn't all have to be miserable. I'd like to start celebrating myself, and enjoying life, instead of drowning in a bottomless pit of self-loathing all the time - one that I created.

It's time for a bit of a life make-over. I'm going to start treating myself well - eating small, healthy meals that satisfy and nourish me, and exercising every day. I'm dying my hair a lighter chocolate brown, and getting a few inches taken off, and I'm going to make sure it looks as shiny and healthy as it can. I've realised how pale I look, and my naturally almost-black hair isn't doing me any favours. I'm gonna start wearing some different stuff, too, so that I can start looking at my figure differently. I'm not interested in hiding myself anymore. I just want to be the best that I can be. Hopefully weight loss will follow, and while that might be a slower process than I wanted, as long as I eventually get to where I want to be, that's all that matters. I've been kidding myself that I could take on this new identity and no one would notice. But transformations don't happen overnight - they're a gradual process, and I'm starting my metamorphosis now.

Things to look forward to -

1. New waitressing job that I've just started - good way to meet new people, get out of my comfort zone, earn some money and not to mention the great exercise!
2. Alfie coming home for Easter next Tuesday
3. Going to LA on March 30 - getting a tan, drinking yummy smoothies, and seeing my dad
4. Bash coming home for summer on April 28th
5. University in October, after a (hopefully!) amazing summer
and finally,
6. Being me. Yes, that is something to look forward to.

Purgatory

Since last week, not much has changed. I've been in this cloud of depression and I don't know why but this time, nothing is lifting it. I cry on average about 3 times a day, usually to the point where I'm hysterical, and every morning I wake up with a throbbing headache because of it. Not to mention I've been ridiculously ill (glandular fever symptoms, not able to stand without being dizzy, etc.) until yesterday, when I felt much better physically, and could see my dad, who is back in London for a few days. That little patch of illness is probably the only reason I'm down to the 151.8 lbs I weighed in at this morning, because I have still been eating relentlessly like a horse whether hungry or stuffed. I feel so terrible giving this miserable update on my life, but on this blog I try to be honest, and let my readers know what is going on. I've been really out of whack with my email lately for obvious reasons, too, so lovely girls who I email: I will be back on the scene as soon as I get my head together.

But I don't want this post to be all bad. I had a massive cry this morning (yes, another one) and afterwards, I felt this massive unhappiness at how badly I've been treating myself lately. Not physically, necessarily - obviously bingeing isn't conducive to a healthy relationship with your body, but it's not been as damaging as it could have been. I guess what I mean is I've been very unkind to myself, mostly psychologically. Really hard on myself, and not giving myself a proper chance to recover from stuff. Last week I made a huge change by almost completely cutting out smoking, and I'm pretty sure if I can do that, I can make other changes, too. In the afternoon I worked out for about an hour. I did pop pilates, ballet workouts, stretches, a bit of yoga, and afterwards I felt like I actually deserved to smile, because I wasn't a total waste of space. My waitressing job properly starts on Wednesday, and that's going to be really active. I figure if I gym it 3-4 times a week, workout at home every morning, and waitress about 15 shifts a month, I'll get in shape a lot quicker, which will, obviously, cheer me up.

The pressing 'thing' (which I can't remember if I've mentioned on here yet or not) is my trip to LA on the 30th March. My sister and I are flying out to see my dad and spend about ten days there. Obviously I'd like to be in the best shape I can be by then, simply because I want to enjoy my time there, feel confident, and not cringe when it's time to bring out the leg-bearing outfits. I stumbled across this plan on Tumblr last year and have always wanted to try it, but it's never quite been the right time, and I could never trust myself to actually work out. However, tomorrow I'm giving it my best shot, because I have approximately 18 days before I travel to the land of the skinny minnies, which kind of freaks me out. So I'll let you know how it goes. I figure if my net intake works out than less than the recommended calories, I won't be too fussed about sticking to exact amounts. Anyway. We'll see if I like it and if not, I'll take a proper mental holiday from dieting, until I'm in a better place, and can make it work on a healthy level. 

I'm kind of done with making myself miserable, though. Being sad is boring. And I really, really want to feel better again. 

Struggling, flailing, sinking.

I am so disappointed with myself it's not true. I finally got a new set of scales (a pair of my own, at last, that actually work). They cost me £16.50, and they were the cheapest ones at the chemist's. £16.50 later and I'm ready to kill myself. I weigh 155 lbs. There you go, I said it. I am thoroughly ashamed of that number, and almost considered deleting this blog altogether after I saw those 3 little black numbers flashing up at me earlier on today. I'm confused, sad, anxious, and just... lost. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't recognise my body in the mirror. It looks distorted, like one of those fun house mirrors that stretches your hips and stomach and thighs and face way out of proportion. Except that's my actual reflection, and I can't get away from it. 

I calculated that today I consumed 3,032 calories in total. I don't even feel full. In fact, I feel like I've undereaten today. How fucking disgusting is that? I'm a pig. 

I don't know what to do. I don't know whether to start restricting again, or to start a plan, or a specific diet, or just take a bunch of laxatives and drink water and diet coke for the next 4 days until I see the 140s again. 

Oh, and I'm ill, to boot. Coughing fits every 10 minutes. So I can't smoke, obviously. And Bash is back in London. Worst timing ever. We're supposed to having lunch at her house tomorrow, but I'll just want to curl up in the corner with a coffee and a cigarette and ignore everybody. 

Other people just... don't... understand.