167, thoughts

I'm 167.8 today. L visited over the weekend, yet I somehow managed to still lose weight. She left today before I woke, and when I finally came round, drowsy and fuzzy-eyed after lunch time, I realised I was alone again.

I don't want to be alone over Easter. :( But I guess I'm going to be, unless my mama comes to spend some time with me. I hope she does, but it can also be stressful sometimes. I have so many little annoying rituals and quirks and things that sometimes I think only L can put up with - the incessant worrying, dips and spikes in mood, random bursts of euphoria, long sleeping hours, constant counting and fidgeting and ticcing, an itching to stay up late at night writing my life out through my fingertips...

You know, it's funny, in my last post I talked about how I'd "stopped centering my entire life around losing weight", that it was "no longer the centre focus of my entire existence". Okay, that's true. Food, and the number on the scales, is not something that has the propensity to make me suicidally depressed anymore. But maybe that's because I'm not technically overweight anymore, and over Christmas, weighing anywhere between 174 and 180 on my father's bathroom scales, I was constantly anxious about it: consciously dieting, limiting myself only to the raw whole foods section of Whole Foods, eating stupidly extravagant salads I couldn't afford in an attempt to slim down, and actively trying, not for the first year in my life, to avoid overeating on Christmas day for fear of what the scale would say the next day. The scales are still an instrument with which I cannot break the addiction. I weigh myself every day, same time. If I don't, I start feeling out of control. Yes, it's not the worst kind of addiction, but an addiction nonetheless. I don't know other women who weigh themselves every day like this, but maybe it's because it's not something women go around telling each other. Maybe it really is a point of shame, no less shameful than obsessively checking nutrition labels at supermarkets, or the compulsive covering of blemishes with a concealer stick before each exiting of one's own home. A small, protective measure that helps you feel just a little more in control, even if it's merely the illusion of control.

But I'm 167 today, the lowest I've been since last summer. Funny how such a small incremental change in weight can trigger all sorts of old associations. 167 means something very different from 170, 172, 174. 167 is a different "era" altogether. I wonder if I can keep it up.

I'm still very conscious of food. Nowadays it tends to be more about amounts, rather than caloric value, if there's even a difference. I can eat "regular food". I eat pasta, potatoes, bread in a way I really couldn't before, as long as I'm not uncomfortable with the amount. I feel anxious about getting in enough fruit and veg, and I try to make these the focuses of my day. I'm not afraid of fats, and I'll cook in oil, but I can't eat a giant plate of low-calorie vegetables, simply because it feels like far too much. I like to leave more on my plate these days. I prefer the act of cooking and making food to the act of eating it.

Losing weight once again, begs the question: will I have to start re-exercising a muscle that up until this point has remained, for the most part, almost completely dormant? Will I have to start actually, actively, obsessing again? I don't want to be a weirdo about food. I don't want food to have anything to do with me. I want it to be a distracted concept. I want to appear to others as someone who really doesn't think about food at all. When I look at it this way, it completely makes sense to me that I've been actively resisting the urge to lose weight up until this point, for the very real fear I might "turn obsessive" again. Being fat isn't fun, but it provides a certain sense of calm in knowing you don't have to think about these things in the capacity you used to. It's really nice to just not give a flying fuck about food. Thinking about food is utterly exhausting and can ruin your life. But being fat and not having the confidence to wear, do, be what you want is even more exhausting, and that's why I'm blogging again. I have the hindsight and maturity to recognise that at 5'9", 150 pounds is not overweight. Equally, I have the experience to recognise that 180 is a place I never want to find myself in again. It's all about finding a happy medium. That's what this is about.

I don't have a "goal weight", particularly. Maybe I want to lose 10 or 15 pounds. But moreover, I want to set myself up to have a good experience once I leave this university bubble. I don't want my weight to be a source of depression or anxiety anymore. I want to focus on other things. Creativity, building a social life, working hard. I want to be someone who casually maintains their weight through healthy eating and exercise, not someone who angrily fixates on numbers and unattainable goals and calorie-counting. Maybe "casual" isn't a term I'll ever truly be able to apply to any aspect of my character, but it makes for a nice goal, and that's something at least.

I still exist (just about)

I started this blog almost 6 years ago, when I was 18 years old and still in school. I weighed 146 pounds. I lived in London; my world was pretty small.

I'm returning to this blog at 23. I weigh, as of this afternoon, 168 pounds, but that number feels fairly irrelevant to my existence. In three months I will be finishing my university degree, and I will move back to London, as a virtual stranger, in the hopes of starting the rest of my life.

I'm blogging again not because I think anyone will listen (will you? Are any of you still there?) but because I am alone, lonely, still figuring it out. I tried to journal but it's not the same. This blog remains a safe space, I never stopped thinking about it really. It doesn't feel like regression to return. Things are different now, but in many ways, they're still kinda the same. I still have a desire to type my entire life into a void.      

Updates since the last time I posted:

-I stopped centering my entire life around losing weight. I just couldn't anymore, I didn't have time, and my body didn't seem to respond to any of the trials I was putting it through. While it's no longer the centre focus of my entire existence, and I wouldn't say I have an eating disorder or even "disordered eating" anymore, it still preoccupies a part of my brain significant enough to want to start blogging again.

-I came off Sertraline (Zoloft) at Christmas, and I haven't gone back on it so far. I'm hoping I can stay off anti-depressants long enough to see if they really did have an impact on my weight. I think they did; I also think (hope) I can stay off them and find other ways of controlling/boosting my mood. I'm still in therapy, as I have been for almost 2 years, but that soon will end too, once I graduate. That's another bridge, I guess, which I'll cross when I come to it. For now, therapy, ADHD meds, not drinking, and working hard at things I enjoy seem to be (almost) enough. For later... we'll see.

-I have a gym membership, but I haven't been since January. I'm also broke, more broke than I've ever been, which probably means I should either quit that membership, or start moving my ass to the gym more. The latter seems like a better option. I also bought a cheap yoga mat recently, which I hope is conducive to like... yoga and things. I'm trying to be "healthy" these days.

-I'm trying (sort of) to write a book. (Again we'll see how the fuck that one goes. Watch this space.)

-I don't have a job, and I need to get one of those really soon

-I don't have a social life, hence why I haven't had a drink in almost 4 months... again, one of these would help (a social life, not a drink)

-I went vegetarian a month ago, and by vegetarian I mean mostly vegan, with the occasional Quorn product thrown in there. It helps me control things a little, plus I've never felt right eating meat since I first went veggie as a teenager. I'm yet to see if this has an impact on my weight, which it must have already in some infinitesimal capacity as I was 175 over xmas and these days I rarely weigh higher than 170/171.

So that's it. I don't know what else to tell you currently... but we'll see how it goes. I hope blogging can become some kind of stability/support system for me again, it definitely was before. Anyway. I digress. Please reach out. Gonna finish drinking my mango smoothie now, and clean the entire house, hooray

x

Time for f*cking change

180 pounds. Dear fucking GOD.

It's time for a health kick. And time to get back into blogging.  

LA in 14 days so... yeahhh I have to get my shit together. For real. 

I bought grapefruits, tenderstem broccoli, almond milk, pink lady apples, grapes, coke, iced coffee, bananas, raspberries and cashew nuts. I collected my 2 months' worth of Ritalin from the pharmacy.  

I officially have seven days to write my essays, which in my head equals seven days painting a load of terrible depression paintings, knitting an ugly Christmas jumper from scratch, taking too many prescription meds for all the wrong reasons, binge-watching Season 3 of Fresh Meat for Vod & attempting to starve myself at least semi-successfully because fuck, I'm going to America and I refuse to weigh this much on the way there because 11 hours is a fucking long time to be trapped on a plane with your own thoughts. 

There will be a plan, shortly... but right now I am literally too cold to think, so have a Vod.

New start, new horrible start

Wow, I haven't posted here in a long time. It's time to get back to it.

L left to do her master's degree and I'm now living on my own, which technically should make restricting a lot easier... yet I'm up to a horrible 175 lbs, (down from the shocking 182 I glimpsed a few nights ago after a particularly bad binge). I'm depressed as hell and I need to get out of this funk. I'm jobless, broke, and behind at school. In short, my life has gone to shit and I need to do something about it - and quite frankly I know no better way than to lose a shit ton of weight. [At least then, I'll be thin and unhappy.] 

BMI: 25.8 

Av. cals per day: Too many 

Av. exercise per day: Not enough  

Today's death list

- 1/2 pot wholegrain fat-free apricot yogurt (200)

- Coffee with cream and sweetener (30)

- Brown rice, stir fry veg, soy sauce (400)

- 2 BirdsEye chicken burgers (270)

- Cornflakes with almond milk (200) 

- All-butter fudge (250) 

- 2 bagels with PB and jam (800)

Total: 2150 cal

See? This is what I mean. SORT YOUR LIFE OUT. 

I also joined a gym. Have I been? No. I'm useless. This shit stops today and I start the new plan tomorrow. My sister's coming until Monday, and she usually wants to eat comfort food, stuff our mum cooked - macaroni cheese, green beans, sausages, mashed potato, sticky toffee pudding. I'll endure it because I love her, but I will not spiral out of control. I don't want my weight a notch higher than 173 after this weekend. Yes, somehow, miraculously, I am aiming to lose weight on this bender. I don't know how, but if I could do it when I was 15, I can do it again now.    

I will not be fat and depressed any longer. I will look back on how I did it the last time, and, I will do it again. 

Bruiser

168.8 this morning, but not for long. 7 lbs in a week is unsustainable especially by my standards. It had to end at some point. 173.6 on the scales tonight, at 3am, after Black Russians, beer, and McDonalds. I miss JG. Life is too short to live in a fairytale, but I want him so badly, more than I've ever wanted anyone in my life. Caro is staying. She's a breath of fresh air. Bash isn't speaking to me. The guy she was seeing the previous times she visited me here, came onto me last week and I had an honest moment, told her everything. It may have been the biggest mistake of my life, but the whole thing made me feel so damn uncomfortable I had to get it off me somehow. If I was more naive and less cynical I would say it was sexual assault, or at the very least highly invasive. Now I'm just used to it. I'm a real bruiser. I don't even get drunk off spirits anymore. I bought a dress, for Lina's graduation tomorrow. I intend to fast all day on coffee so I can fit into it; I'll take a picture, if I have time, and upload it here. It shows my stomach but if I suck in and don't eat all day I should be able to get away with it at dinner. Ugh, I shouldn't have had all of that salt at McDonalds. It's so bloating. Mafia Jacket (real name protected) from work is messaging me. I think he loves me, or wants to fuck me, or both. I don't even know whether I like him or not. I think I like other Joe. I'm so fucking confused right now. I just need to be alone and starve for a while so I can feel self sufficient again. Skinny for when he comes back, so he regrets it all.

Bruises

I told him, in jest, that I bruise like a peach. But today, 10 days on, I still have those bruises on my arms and legs, and it's a reminder. I reminder of what we had, not just the sex but everything beyond.

I have to write him a letter. I have his address, but I don't know what's blocking me. Is it that I'm scared sick he's met someone else already?

His best friend, Joel, told me I was being somewhat pathetic about it. That it was only a "brief whirlwind romance". Why don't boys ever get it? Am I just like all those other needy girls who fell for JG? The whole thing makes me nauseous. It is all so time consuming, frustrating, depressing, horrific and disgusting.

Moving on. Thank you, Bella & Sam, for your comments on my last post(s). I went to the appointment and it actually went well. She seemed cynical at first (or maybe that's just my paranoia talking) but by the end she was in agreement with me that the dose I was on was far too low considering the severity of my symptoms, and agreed to trial a higher dose with me, with a view to meet again in a month to touch base and probably increase further. She switched out my first 10mg dose of standard methylphenidate with 18mg Concerta XR (longer-release ritalin, 8 hrs instead of 4) and kept the other 2 10mg doses the same. So I'm on 38 mg /daily now, and I haven't decided whether I like the extra-release ritalin better or not. I don't feel it as much, but it makes me feel "normal", whatever the fuck "normal" is... so who knows. We'll see.

On the weight front, I'm down to 170.2. Five pounds in five days isn't bad going. Admittedly, I've forgotten how to eat properly. Yesterday, I ate a couple of bites of porridge (the bowl seemed far too big); at work, a sandwich (low-calorie), half a bag of sweets and some crisps. Today has been much the same; 2 pieces of low-calorie toast for breakfast, then a kind of Spanish omelette/chorizo/egg/kale thing Lina made for dinner. Instantly rejected, because my body sucks. Jazz bar tonight, but hopefully it won't be a late one. I'm exhausted and have a 12-5.

ABC?

Day 1 of the ABC diet sort of inadvertently happened yesterday. I more or less stuck to the limit (although I'm not taking it quite as seriously as previous attempts; as long as I stick roughly to the numbers I'm doing something right) and ate some caramel wholegrain popcorn in the morning (126 cals) and a couple of chips at lunch with some mayo (~50 cals worth) in the afternoon. Then in the evening, Lina, her sister and I went over to our friend Joe's house and drank a whiskey and a glass of wine. I'm not counting alcohol on this diet, it seems pointless as the only time alcohol makes me gain is when I get the drunchies... oh and then I made chilli for everyone and had a small helping, not sure how many calories but I'm guessing around 350? Then I drank a beer later in town.

Yesterday I was 175.4, today I'm 173.0 and that's after hardly any sleep.

I'm desperately missing the other Joe. I will differentiate between the two Joes by referring to "my" Joe as JG (the Joe who's left, who I was seeing, who I may be irrevocably and painfully in love with and perhaps never see again) and our uni friend Joe as JM from here on out. My feelings towards JM are complicated. He seems to find everyone attractive but me, or maybe he's just scared of me.

I have a doc's appointment in 2 hours, to readjust my dose. I hope they sort it out because bloody hell my brain isn't functioning. I get let down by every GP I see and that's why my dose hasn't been increased in four frigging years. Ugh. Fingers crossed.

We bought a microwave, which has made me stupidly excited. I've been making oats in the rice cooker for so long that hot porridge in 1 minute seems too good to be true.

Poison

I am almost definitely not OK. Last night the guy I've been seeing left, and suddenly all I can see in front of me is this unbearable sadness. It's time to starve again.

I'm 175 pounds. I won't go into detail as to how I got there, but involves more than several failed dieting attempts and the return of pernicious, insidious alcoholism that did next to nothing to help The Weight Situation. I was vegan, for a while. It didn't help me lose weight, but it provided a feeling of safety and control. Now I don't seem to stick to anything. Therapy is helping me psychologically, albeit in small increments. I have a job at a bar, and it's not one that I love - far from it - but it pays the bills and keeps me out of trouble.

I haven't written in months and months. Not on this blog, or for pleasure. It's time to start engaging that side of myself again before I become well and truly braindead.

It's 3.30pm and I'm not hungry; all I've consumed is coffee, about 100 calories' worth with the milk. I feel heavy, and all of my clothes look shit.

I think that love is poison. True poison.

I'm devastated and fully intend to "starve the pain away".

I will begin to write again, and it will help, a little.

I will eat a little, drink a little, survive.

Doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon. I'm asking to up my dose of Ritalin. It won't solve all my problems, but it will definitely help. This mental fog has been going on far too long.

I hate Mondays

Weight = 172.0 lbs.

Weight lost in the past 4 days = 5.2 lbs.

Days til Canada = 8.

Food death list =

PB(2)&J - 200 kcal
Popcorn, chocolate - 100 kcal
Ham sandwich - 260 kcal  
Macchiato, soy - 240 kcal
Edamame salad - 145 kcal
Crisps - 180 kcal
Olive bread w/tomato relish - 300 kcal

Total = 1425 kcal

The edamame salad was about the only healthy thing I consumed all day. I'm so pissed at myself for the popcorn and the ham sandwich. Vegan diet needs to be resumed tomorrow. I've run out of Ritalin and so my appetite has returned with a vengeance. Tomorrow: soup, salad, fruit and coffee only. And essay-writing. So much essay-writing. Ugh.

Vegan cyclist bullshit, take 2 (day 5)

Weight: 174.2

Intake:

- Porridge with flax, banana, peanut butter (100)

- Caramel macchiato, soy (240)

- Vegan sushi box (330) 

- Diet Coke (1)

- 1 punnet tomatoes (65)
- Rice and avocado (600)

Total: 1336 

Vegan cyclist bullshit, take 2 (day 4)

Weight: 174.6

- PB&J (200)

- 1/2 peach (30)

- Caramel macchiato, soy (240)

- 1/2 avocado salad (150)

- 1 cup multivitamin juice (85)

- Thai Green curry w/noodles (400)

- Crisps (150)

Total: 1255 

Vegan cyclist bullshit, take 2 (day 3)

Weight: 175.8

- 1 baked potato (135)
- 1 sweet potato (180)
- 1 banana (90)
- 1 tbsp. peanut butter (95)
- 1 punnet raspberries (60)
- Caramel macchiato, soy (200)
- 2 cups spring greens (80)
- 1/2 avocado salad (150)
- 1 cup peas (100)
- 1 cup multivitamin juice (85)
- 1 lentil burger (180)

Total: 1355

Rant

I feel like I just don't know anymore. Like, what is my life right now? This term has been an utter shit fest. I'm freaking out about Christmas. Am I really going to be able to get enough weight off to feel good about myself when I see my father on the 8th? That's a big anxiety. I can't handle the comments. Losing weight isn't for them, it's for me - a protective, waterproof agent, there purely so that any criticism can just slide right off. It's a preventive measure, damage control. My own self-loathing at this weight bounces right off me and onto them, and they pick up on it, and make comments. And then I'm going to freaking Los Angeles for Christmas. Where my actress sister now works in the coolest vintage clothing store, and where I will be expected to parade around in the streets of Melrose in skimpy summer outfits. God, I just hate it all with a passion. My plan is to ditch the 6 pounds that have me rooted in the 170s by Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday. Four days away. If it takes laxatives, and barely eating, and feeling hungry all the time, so be it. I'm already grouchy as hell.

Vegan cyclist bullshit take 2 (day 2)

Cycling didn't happen. And, because my body isn't used to the large amounts of food, I gained .4 of a lb. Not a big gain, admittedly, and it's better than gaining on 800 calories (which started to happen earlier this month, if you can believe it). It's 4pm and I've had two baked potatoes (no oil) with sriracha ketchup, and a 3 banana-maple syrup-cinnamon smoothie. Purely functional food. I've said this before, but I really want to just see food solely as something I have to shovel in to get energy and nutrients. Everything that doesn't have sugar (sweet, pure, fat-free energy), caffeine (appetite-suppressing, calorie-negligible goodness) or some kind of psychoactive property, like clean pharmaceuticals (Ritalin) or nicotine (Menthol smokes) is a waste of time. Fat is disgusting. The way other people slather meat in butter and then fry it makes me feel sick. The food I snack on late at night when I'm feeling bored or alone also makes me sick. My own sick demands, as a fleshy, messy, neurotic human being. I need to be better, stronger, faster. Right now I'm a 175-pound lump and I don't even recognise myself.

This week is going to be hell. I have either a class or a meeting or something else every day, two essays, shit tons of reading for my course, oh and then Mummy is coming up on Saturday. Hopefully I won't be dead by then. I refuse to weigh a pound over 168 by the weekend. I don't need the comments. I need to look well, and overweight is not well. Also, clothes shopping and dinner might happen. Time for damage control.

Vegan cyclist bullshit take 2 (day 1)

Morning weight: 174.8

- 2 bananas (200)
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (195)
- Couscous, houmous, tapenade, spinach (350)
- Macchiato, soy (180)
- Spaghetti + passata wine sauce (500)
- Raisins/cashews (200)
- Crisps (350)

Total: 1975

New goals:

-Not eating after 12
-Bike every day (aim for 15k)
-164 by Canada (8th Dec)
-160 by L.A. (19th Dec)
 
The goal is then to maintain at 160... indefinitely. I never thought I'd say this, but hitting the "technically overweight" band on a (admittedly questionable, online) BMI scale has really thrown things into perspective for me. I've had some realisations. Namely, that weighing 160 at 5'9, bordering on 5'10, is really not all that awful. Also, that veganism is the way to go. It's literally the only way I can eat over 1500 calories a day without gaining weight. And I'm goddamn sick of gaining weight, let's be honest. Thirdly, I'm going to freaking Canada. In 17 days to be precise. I'm losing a minimum of ten pounds in that time, no excuses. Even it means pedalling my goddamn heart out on the exercise bike twice daily. Ten pounds, 17 days, no excuses.

I would like to find a way to make fruits and veggies constitute my entire diet. I'm beginning to really loathe other things. Regular food makes me feel insane. Maybe that's just plain weird, but the food other people eat just freaks me out. I hate that it's abnormal to eat five bananas for lunch instead of a hermetically sealed four-day-old beef(?) sandwich from the campus library cafe. I get a kick out of being unusual. Plus, this is something to get angsty about. A good excuse for rage and rageful positivity. I want to be better than other people; it's what drove my eating disorder forward in the first place. This is a vaguely acceptable way to do it. Carpe f*cking diem. Long live the vegan weirdo bullshit (for the three-hundredth time this year).

I hate myself

I hit the highest weight I've ever seen on a pair of scales on Saturday. 181 fucking pounds. Writing it makes me feel deeply ashamed, but there it is. Which actually constitutes as overweight, both in the emotional sense (feeling oneself to be far too large) and the literal sense (BMI teetering over the edge of 26). I've got a rotten relationship with food. I don't trust it; I don't trust that eating it or not eating it will make a difference, and I don't trust that it wants anything other than to work against me. It's weird to personify food in this way, as the devil or such, but the reality is that on the night prior to hitting 181, I ate only a grand total of 1400 calories - an amount that never before would have caused a five-pound weight gain in one sitting. I don't understand food, and it doesn't understand me. I can't eat normal quantities anymore. My metabolism is butchered from years of fucking around.

The plan (and there has to be a plan, otherwise it all really is shot to hell):

- 1 c. cereal (130)
- 1/2 c. fruit (60)
- Black coffee (15)
- 150-calorie dinner

Day Two

I ended up going out to Byron with Lina, and demolishing half of a veggie burger with french fries. So Day One was shot to hell, but in my head it was worth it. This morning I weighed 171.2. 

The plan is a 500 calorie limit:

- 1 c. cereal with almond milk (180)

- 1/2 c. raspberries (60)

- Whatever's around for dinner (200 max.)

Plus chocolate, because there's a lot of that lying around the house.

I was told it would be better than this

I hit my highest weight this week. I made a vow to myself, at some point, that I wouldn't ever exceed 150, at any point. Well, that one failed. I exceeded 170 by a long shot and I continue to slip up and lose control. My life's fairly broken at the moment. I've been ill for two weeks, the kind of ill that prevents one from actually leaving the house for much longer than half an hour. My eyes are red and hollow looking. I'm bloated and my digestion is shot. I can't seem to get back into the 160s. I already started and ruined a relationship this term, with an Italian musician, of all people. I refuse to see him until I am myself again. This can't be me; this can't be all there is. My own mediocrity astounds me. I'm so slow and lethargic that I barely metabolise enough not to gain on 1,200 calories a day. It's time to restrict again, in earnest, and sort myself out.

I organised my room, stringing up all my best blacks and whites on an industrial steel clothing rail, and it actually makes me feel motivated to fit into all my old clothes. Wanting to shrink to belong in my own room.

Today's intake so far:

- 1 c. cereal with almond milk (180)
- 1/4 tomatoey pasta dish (154)
- Hoummous (100)
- Diet Coke (1)

I'm 168.8 lbs. And no, that's not a dodgy reading, I got the same number 10 times weighing myself in multiple places in the bathroom. I don't even know how the fuck I managed to gain on 1179 calories, or how my weight actually went up overnight (I weighed 167.8 before sleeping) but probably it had something to do with the fact that I had 4 cold and miserable hours' sleep on the shitty air mattress I've been using this week because all the beds are in my new apartment. I get a better night's sleep on the couch. I'm literally so pissed off. I told my mum I wanted half an hour alone or I'll be pissed off all day. She can't stop interrupting me for things, helping her with this or that. I feel bad for complaining and any other day I'd be happy to help her but not today. Today I want to punch a brick wall. And it just so happens to be the day I have to go out and meet people, and have coffee, and go clothes shopping. I mean kill me now. My past self would have been horrified at the idea of me going shopping at 168.8 lbs. What the fuck, why do I even bother rounding down? I'm 170 pounds. 170 giant fucking pounds and I'm never going to change.  

If it's possible to drop 4 pounds of water weight overnight I'm sure as hell going to try. I had a Diet Coke, a fat free yogurt and a bagel and then swallowed 20mg of Ritalin. That's 340 calories. If I only have coffee when I'm out, and a 250-calorie ready meal when I'm home, the day shouldn't technically come to more than 1000 calories. Well, I say 1000, more like 700, but I'd rather tell myself it's 1000 than underestimate and wind up bingeing out of panic and frustration.

* EDIT: 20 mins into taking Ritalin -

I actually had a lovely day with my mother yesterday. We did some rounds of the home and furniture shops and looked at bric-a-brac, pointing at this and that. Sometimes, when I can behave like an adult, and appear as if I have my shit pulled together, my mum is my best friend in the whole world. Then I fall apart and turn into an angry adolescent again, and we end up arguing. We ate carrot sticks together in the evening and the thought crossed my head that perhaps she would be far more cooperative with me if I were the perfect 22 year-old woman: thin, refined, anorexic and organised, with a touch of OCD and a penchant for dipping raw vegetables in mustard when hungry. It's my full intention to become that person; I just don't know how/when it will happen. Sometimes I think that I'm very anorexic in my mind, and then I remember that once upon a time I was borderline anorexic, weighing a little under 124 lbs at 15. I didn't appreciate my BMI of 18.3 back then, but nor was I sophisticated enough to work it at the time. I was scrawny rather than svelte, flabby rather than muscular, and deranged and derailed rather than fussy and neurotic. I don't want to be 124 lbs again, because I don't want to look ill (and I would). 140 lbs would work, if I had the matching persona to go with it. 140 would be fine, maybe 135, but one doesn't need to be truly underweight to appear as such. There are other factors than can come into play such as muscle mass and bone density and dress sense. I'm bigger than I was then, not just height wise (almost an inch taller) but also I'm a lot stronger. A lot of this weight is muscle, which is fine, but it's not what I want - at least, not with the fat I've gained along with it. My arms and legs seem so huge to me. Some of that might be muscle, a lot of it might be, and I'm sure it is but that's not what I want. I don't want my thighs to be bulging out of jeans. The ideal is to zap the fat without ruining the muscle, because being toned never hurt anyone. But I don't want guns.

I admit I was a little (read: very) derailed by the reading on the scales. I stepped on again after going to the bathroom and it said 166.8. So I don't know if it was a false reading or whether it was just water weight I had to "lose" in the morning. Either way, 166.8 isn't good enough and still constitutes a gain. Hideous, but maybe I can drop 2 additional ones today. That would make me 164 at the beginning of a new week, which is the lowest I've been in a while. And I'm sleeping on the couch. I have to get a train at 1pm and I refuse to be in a bad mood for the two-hour journey.

I don't know why I'm complaining so much. My life is pretty nice at the moment. I'm not working, I don't have to start reading course materials until next week, and I just got a new phone to replace the old one that kept breaking. So I should just plug in some bloody headphones and get on with it.

My sister called my mum on the phone yesterday and then passed over her manager-slash-Earth-Momma Dawn. Dawn's a total bitch at best but I try to put up with her. This is the same charming woman who consistently tells my sister I'm a jealous and toxic presence, and who, during an expedition to a New York flea market this Christmas, told me that if I wanted to hide I should. That is not the sort of advice one gives to someone with crushingly low self-esteem; it's the sort of advice that perpetuates the whole thing, and she of all people, at 5'6 and approximately 105 pounds, should know that. But whatever. I may be biased because shoot me, I don't much like the idea of my eighteen-year-old sister being pimped out by a 40 year old LA producer with peroxide hair and a missing finger. Oh, and I might mention that while I lie in my cold freezing air mattress cave all night, my sister is parading around Melrose Avenue buying wicker peacock furniture for her apartment and drinking iced matcha lattes in a pair of Lolita sunglasses. And yes, I'm bitter - can you tell?

Speaking frankly, I hate the America thing.

Day 3

- 3 fat-free dessert yogurts (180 cal)
- Coffee Light frappuccino (85 cal)
- Salad w Light House dressing (100 cal)
- Carrot sticks w chickpea/lentil dip (140 cal)
- 2 chicken breasts (295)
- 1 pc. rye bread (130 cal)
- 1 pkg. chips (169 cal)
- 1/3 cup Irish Cream (80 cal)

Total: 1179 cal

+ 20 mins calisthenics

Weight: 165.4 lbs

I didn't lose any more weight but am persevering anyway. Trying to have faith in the plan. My mother expressed some concern for the diet, telling me not to "get too obsessed". I told her I wouldn't go backwards, that this would help me. And I truly think it will. I want to fall back in love with clothes, and fashion, and making myself look adorable, and I don't think I can do that at eleven-and-a-half stone.

I want to join an adult ballet class when I get back to uni next week and start properly working out. I love the calisthenics routines, and my abs are killing from the other day still, but it's worth it. I'm seeing a change already.

The goal is to get down to 162 by sometime next week and then to maybe liquid fast for 3 days if I can handle it. It's so nice to think of getting back to 150s. Then I'll be on the straight and narrow until I get back to the 140s, my stellar weight on this blog.

Drive is picking me up tomorrow, in his car (surprise surprise) to go get lunch. Is it a date? Shot to hell if I know. Either way will let you know how it goes...