170.8 605 cals

Down again this morning. Yay!

I think I made a mistake by keeping my calories so low yesterday. I was fantasizing about binging when I fell asleep. 

My boyfriend has some gift cards to olive garden, which is like a restaurant for young people - one of the cheapest "sit down" Italian restaurants with waitresses and everything. He's been wanting to go the past couple days. I looked up the soup and bread sticks that I usually get - the soup is 250 calories, which is ok, but the bread sticks are 150 calories each! I about died when I read that. He's been pestering me to go. :-/

Then again before I only had liquids yesterday, I had basically stayed at exactly the same weight the two days before that.

Two days isn't so long I guess. I think I basically just need to calm down. It took me months and months to get this fat. It's ridiculous to expect instant gratification.

Except I kind of do :(

Another shitty thing; my breath stinks! It's happened before, but I hate brushing my teeth and then having bad breath 15 minutes later.

Although I've noticed sex with the boyfriend has been much better. I wonder if that's just a confidence thing? Or because he was out of town so long and recently got back... either way, not complaining!

Intake today:
257 g Fiber Gourmet Macaroni - 605 cals

@ AJ: Thank you so much for your kind words. You're officially my first fan, by the way. Did you know that? Although I've gotten 6 more since :D 4 lbs is a lot, it's just hard when I want to lose 70.

@ Kes: Thank you for helping me keep in perspective. Sometimes I go off the deep end. 4 lbs is a lot for one week. Like I said to AJ, when I need to lose so much weight, it seems daunting. I just need to take it one day at a time.

Weekly Update One: 563 calories day / 4.1 lbs lost

I've decided to do a weekly update every week, to easier track my progress as time goes on.
I intend to start every Saturday and calculate up through Friday. Then, on Friday evening or Saturday morning I can post my weekly update!

Total calories for the week:
80 + 850 + 1029 + 410 + 800 + 590 + 180 = 3 939
3939 / 7 = 563 calories per day
Saturday Morning weight - Friday evening weight
176.1 - 172.0 = 4.1 lbs lost

I guess that's ok. I was hoping to lose more, seeing as I'm so overweight to begin with, but progress is progress. If it was easy everyone would do it.

I've definitely noticed a difference in the way my clothing is fitting, so that's good. I really shouldn't be so hard on myself; I'm doing well. I just want instant gratification I suppose. But it took me months of being a glutton to get me into this mess, so I suppose it will take me months to get out.

Thank you everyone for following my blog and commenting! I've just started this blog a little over a week ago, and it really helps having buddies, knowing that someone knows that I exist and at least knows of my struggle.

172.9 180 calories

Is my scale on drugs?
I think my scale is on drugs.

This morning, it first said 174.2 lbs. But then I weighed myself again and it said like 173 something. And I did it again and it said like 175. So I figured it needed new batteries.Turns out the ones I put in had that magic "press both ends and it will tell you how much charge it has in it" strip and it said they were fully charged.

Whatever.

I left the new batteries in anyway and left it alone.

Came back a couple hours later, weighed 3x, it says 172.9 So we'll just go with that.

Zero calories so far today...

I guess that's it for now! 

EDIT: Not quite zero calories today, but still very good.
I had 2 dream bars at 90 calories each, total 180 calories.

Haven't really done much today but worry about the future and feel sorry for myself. Hope things are better tomorrow.

173.8 HARRY POTTER DAY! 590 calories

Same weight this morning.

I hate only having internet access in the afternoon. I feel like such a failure when I have to update (read: increase) what I've written as my calories for each day the next day.

However, the internet company says the internet at home should be working tomorrow. I hope so!

Had lunch again with the boyfriend. I think he is sufficiently not worried about me now. I've been making sure everything I've eaten in the past few says has been in front of him.

Bowl of Panera black bean soup - 170 cals

Baguette bread - 180 cals

TOTAL so far: 350 calories

I'm really frustrated right now, because I thought the side of bread they gave was 100 calories. I thought I remembered that, but clearly I was wrong. Now I have to go back and update the past few days. Sigh. I HATE it when something turns out being more calories than I was counting on...

My tattoo went ok. We got a lot done, both on the tattoo and on figuring out what we're going to put on some of the blank spots. The tattoo, when I'm done, is going to take up my entire back. I've been working on it for like a year on and off.

One thing was super horrible though; I had to put this thing under my stomach and lay down on it, to "straighten out the ditch in your back". What he meant, of course, was flatten out my jelly roll, so he could tattoo on it. I wasn't as fat as I am now when I started this tattoo.

I wish I was losing faster!

I've noticed that I tend to lose when I go to karate as well as restrict. No big surprise there, but I'm gonna make a bigger effort to go as much as possible.

Also.

IT'S HARRY POTTER DAY!

Gonna go see pt 2 tonight at midnight. YAY!

EDIT: So much for fooling the boyfriend. I sent him home to get dinner while I showered, and told him to bring me a frozen dinner. I tried to send him to the ATM so I could throw dinner away, but he told me that it would waste gas. I must've seem stressed because he gave me a hug and asked what was wrong. I gave some lame excuse like "I'm used to getting my way" or something, but it was a no go. I asked him what he had for dinner, and he said 3 hotdogs. I said that wasn't that much (he's 6ft 4) and he looked at me pointedly while saying, "I had three meals today." Sigh.
Anyway, dinner is smart ones - 240 calories.

173.8 lbs 800 cals

I knew this would happen. There's no way you can be eating AT MOST 1/2 the calories you should be and NOT lose weight. I thought I was losing my mind there for a minute.

I forgot how cranky restricting makes me though. I hope I adjust soon. Every small annoyance just irritates the piss out of me. I feel bad for my poor boyfriend.

I couldn't deal with the stupid phone and internet company so I set him to it.

Hopefully the other thing that happens when I restrict will kick in soon - cooking and baking all the time. He fucking loves that.

However, I'm worried he's gonna wise up to what I'm doing - and so soon after I agreed to see a counselor for my mental health.

Last time he didn't have any idea until, like an idiot, I told him. Stupid, emotional, me. I was feeling neglected and overlooked - how could he NOT notice that I just wasn't eating?

Of course, now he's noticing. I'm such an idiot.

Yesterday he noticed at 6pm that I hadn't eaten anything, so I lied and said I went to a restaurant after my karate lesson. I have noticed that he confuses quantity with calories, so that's why I had a big bowl of fiber pasta and veggies for dinner.

And that brings us to today. I had an appointment at noon with my tattoo artist. I'm working on a full back piece - a tattoo that takes up my entire  back. Only boyfriend's computer, which is one of the very few things in the house that we use to measure time and is set correctly - was set to the pacific time zone, where his business trip is.

So we left the house at 11am to go to Panera (he had been bugging me to go to breakfast, and after his comment yesterday about me not eating all day, I felt like I had to go) only to get in the car and find out that it was actually 1pm. I was completely panicking because my tattoo artist was coming in on his day off to tattoo me. But I get to the tattoo place which is only a few minutes from my house to find out he's not there, either! I was worried he'd come and left, but he hadn't been in yet that day. So I call him, no answer.

Well, there's a Panera right next to the tattoo shop too, so I leave my phone number for him and me and boyfriend go off to have brunch.

Maybe I was being too cautious, because I had a bowl of soup and piece of bread, instead of the cup of soup and apple that I really wanted to order (and I usually don't eat the apple...) I just want to keep boyfriend off my back, and happy.

I think it's like when you're in middle school and it feels like everyone is watching you, and you're so self conscious... and then you get older and realize hardly anyone gives a fuck. Maybe he wouldn't have noticed at all.

I dunno. I do know that I feel positively ill now. Come to think of it, didn't I say that a few days ago about panera soup as well? I'm pretty sure I did. But where else can I go to get something I can actually eat and still restrict?

I know, without a doubt, that it would be so easy to make myself throw it up - at least part of it - but I really don't want to go down that path.

So the bowl of broccoli cheddar soup was 290 cals
and the baguette was 180 cals
Cals so far - 470

I'd like for that to be it today, but with boyfriend, I dunno.

Tattoo artist and I got a hold of each other and rescheduled for 5:00, which is in a little less than an hour. I'm such a wuss when it comes to pain. Wish me luck!

EDIT:
Had dinner with the boyfriend.
Smart Ones pasta entre - 240 calories
dream bar - 90 calories
TOTAL: 800 calories

175.6 (Tuesday, July 12) 410 cals (redemption!)

Finally, a change yesterday.

Here's what I wrote by hand to post today when internet came back:

Feel like a fat ass failure (stupid cookie incident yesterday) , I didn't even want the first one, really, but after the first one I REALLY wanted the 2nd two. Blegh. I'm an idiot.

Anyway, calories today:

112 g of gourmet fiber pasta - 260 calories
275 g of broccoli w/ cheese sauce (green giant brand) - 150 calories

TOTAL: 410 cals

I consider myself redeemed for yesterday.

What the Fuck?! 176.5 1,029 cals (FAIL)

I'm getting a little frustrated today because my weight is still the same. I know, logically, that the laws of physics are immutable and if I'm taking in  fewer calories than I'm burning I will lose weight. But sometimes it takes your body a couple of days to catch up and that's what I'm suffering through right now.

INTAKE:

89 g banana - 79 cals

112 g of gourmet fiber pasta - 260 cals

1/2 tbs butter - 50 cals

15 g parmesean cheese - 60 cals

cup of potato soup from panera - 210 cals

TOTAL: 659 calories

I haven't even been hungry today and in fact I feel quite bloated and uncomfortable from the soup. It's actually a little unnerving how quickly I fell back into restricting.

But my boyfriend has been out of town for two weeks and he is coming home tonight. I don't want to sit at home and stare at the clock until it's time to pick him up, so I decided I will go to the 2 hours of classes at karate tonight.

And that meant I had to eat something, because this morning while in the shower I was shaving my naughty bits in anticipation of my man being home, I started to get out of breath and tired just from standing on one leg.

Pathetic, really. I think it's a combination of having restricted and being such a fatass in the first place.

I'm having internet problems right now so might not be able to update the next day or two... but I will definitely try to find a way!

I feel like I had more to say but I can't really remember it right now. I feel like it's way too early in my journey to have reached a plateau already, but fuck it, I'll deal with what I have to.

EDIT: My boyfriend came home late and I had cookies for him and I ate 3 of them :( At 80 cals each, plus a cup of 2% milk, my total for this day was actually 1,029. How fail is that?

What day is it?? 176.5 850 cals

It's hard to keep my days and calories straight when I don't sleep. I don't know what day to add things to. This will just be Sunday's info, seeing as its 4am on Sunday. I had 70 calories of roast beef. I wasn't even hungry, but my boyfriend of almost 4 years and I broke up for a minute and I felt the binge monster lurking around. We are NOT an on-again off-again couple or anything lame like that, so this was a big deal. This is only the 2nd time we've almost broken up. I think today is gonna be a higher calorie day, just because yesterday was SO low.

My right leg and lower back hurt terribly!

EDIT: Here's today's updates.

INTAKE
7 thin roast beef slices - 70 cals
100 calorie bag of kettle korn - 100 cals
Box of fiber gourmet macaroni - 680 cals
TOTAL 850 cals

They had an error with the macaroni a while back where the were putting too much pasta in the boxes. I never know if I got one of those boxes or the regular ones. I calculated with the higher amt. If I did indeed get the lower amt, my intake would be more like 670 cals. But better safe than sorry!

Last night was really rough. Like I mentioned before, boyfriend and I almost broke up. He wants me to have better mental health. I agreed to go see a counselor of some sort if he did too. I was dithering this morning on whether or not to pig out (which is basically my idea of eating "regularly"), but I decided I would instead try to focus on "balance". I was feeling really down, and wanted a comfort food. I opted for a healthy alternative macaroni. I could have stopped eating it at 1/2 the box (it is 40% fiber after all,) but I just wanted the mental satisfaction of finishing something. Of feeling full.

I find it really hard to find balance in anything I do. I tend to either fast for days and days or pig out. But I'm trying. I have to learn if I want this relationship to work.

Weight was up this morning, and with all the food I just ate I don't doubt that it's up even more. It's not high calorie, but it has a good deal of mass. I just hope things pass through quickly!

(Saturday, continued) 176.4 lbs 80 cals

It's odd, my weight is up a little today, but I have only had some soup and diet soda - all liquid. I figure I must have been really dehydrated yesterday, although it certainly didn't feel like it.

I didn't sleep at ALL last night. It was funny, I was playing World of Warcraft and surfing the internet all night, and I knew I had a karate lesson in the morning. I moseyed out to my car way early - I'd figured I'd get there like 40 minutes early and chill. And when I got out to the car I was suddenly convinced that my lesson was an hour before it really was, and I drove like a crazy person trying to get there in time, which was REALLY stupid because there's no way I would have made it in time. But I did get there 50 minutes early for my actual lesson and 10 minutes late for my psychosomatic lesson.

That was when I got the soup at the gas station. It was a soup at hand chicken noodle - 80 calories. I had gone to Panera, but they didn't have black bean soup that day for some reason, and nothing else looked safe. I'm glad I went to the gas station, this was way lower cal than anything Panera had and way cheaper, too. I had 3 pieces of gum throughout the day too but I figure that's pretty negligible.

So my lesson was okay, we are just beginning to review for my black belt test, so that's a terrifying proposition. They've had 4 black belt tests this week alone. That is not a common occurrence - it's funny how they seem to cycle that way. We'll have 5 black belt tests within 2 mos and then nothing for another 7. I'm hoping I'll have mine in like September or October, and the friend who's party I went to after my lesson is having her test in August before she goes off to college.

After my lesson, since I didn't sleep the night before, I was dying from exhaustion so I took a nap in my car for an hour. That doesn't sound that remarkable but I was in a really snazzy part of town and was paranoid the cops were gonna give me trouble. First I was in a residential neighborhood but cars kept slowing down to look at me - okay maybe it was only one - but it still spooked me so I went to a secluded parking lot in between a CVS and a bank. It was so hot today and there were no spots in the shade so I had to keep the engine running and the air conditioner on. I have no cell phone - well, I lost it anyway - so I basically just had to hope and pray I didn't sleep too long and run out the battery on the car. I was way too exhausted to think of a better plan.

The party at my friend's house was good, and I was only very slightly tempted by the huge layout of food. I was one of the last people to leave and her mother tried to send me home with cookies and cakes, but I refused. If boyfriend had been in town I would have gotten them for him, but he doesn't come back until late Monday night, and I didn't want that crap staring me in the face for the next 2.5 days.

We played some pretty cool party games, my favorite one was jousting where we were balanced on this very low, flexible beam armed with pool noodles (the noodles were essentially useless) and tried to knock each other off by pushing and whacking and jumping (making the beam go up and down). I felt like a perv because I was so happy at getting to physically push and shove my karate instructor. I think it was more physical contact than we've ever had. I've seriously been in love with him for like 6 1/2 years. I missed my chance after he was divorced, I was legal, but I don't think I really had a chance anyway. Not that I would have gone for it even if I wasn't dating someone at the time. He's super conscientious about keeping his private life and public life apart. At least his new wife is really sweet. That's what I keep telling myself anyway. I think it's messed up that her 7 or 8 year old kid calls him Dad, though. Whatever.

I hung out with my first love karate instructor, who took my virginity, for a while at the end of the party. I was hoping he would ask me to hang out afterwards but he didn't. When I'm not with him I know it's a bad idea. When I'm with him... blah. It'll probably be a long time before we're in a similar situation again, so that's good.

I got home around 8 and took a nap for like 2.5 hours. My leg muscles (esp my right leg/thigh area) have been really sore and my shoulders are starting to get sore too. Must be from that jousting game. And earlier I gagged a couple times. I've noticed that when I'm severely restricting I get randomly nauseous. I've no idea why, and it totally sucks.

Boyfriend, who's been out of town for like two weeks has not gotten online tonight yet, and I missed him yesterday too. I would really like to talk to him!

It's clear to me that I'm having a lot of difficulty concentrating - it took me 3x as long to write this as it should have. I've had to reread it like 5x. So that's all for now.

176.1 lbs 0 cals (so far)

I don't know how, but I managed to forget how quickly the weight comes off when I first start restricting. I'm down at least 3.5 lbs from yesterday morning. I know that it must be mostly water weight, but it's still very comforting.

I didn't sleep a wink last night. I'm not really all that surprised. I've been having a good deal of trouble sleeping lately even when I was eating normally. And restricting always shortens the sleep I get.

I have a party tonight, so I'm a bit worried about that. I don't want to eat crap there. But I'm feeling very strong right now, so I think it'll be ok.

I think my biggest problems are that I hate lying and I hate wasting food. If someone asks me if I've had anything to eat, for instance, I usually say no, if I haven't. And I feel like a bad person when I waste food. But this isn't a family party, it's a friend's. When the host is being a good host and offers me crap, I'll say I've already had some, thanks. I think since I'm planning this now, it will be ok. When caught off guard though, I'm too truthful.

I have a karate lesson today. I think I might do fighting class too. I was already feeling a little weak at karate yesterday, but I think if I take it a little easy it will be ok.

Well, that's all for now!

~179 lbs 560 calories

I'm a little ashamed to say that I don't actually remember what I weighed this morning. I know I broke into the 170's - yesterday it was the 180's. We'll just call it 179.8 for the hell of it.


Today has been pretty good so far. Most of my calories came from bread. The french baguette I had my sandwich on was 260 cals for the whole thing. I always make my sandwiches really thin - it doesn't take much meat to make them flavorful. I had 4 thin slices of roastbeef - landofrost brand - 40 calories. I also had a low sodium chicken noodle soup soup at hand cup - 80 calories. Bringing my total caloric intake today so far up to 380 calories.


I'm dithering on whether or not I want more to eat tonight; I know from the past that if I push myself too hard too early I'll binge. On the other hand, I want to start a good precedent. I bought a few safe things from the grocery yesterday. I guess I'll just wait and feel it out.



EDIT: I did decide to have a bit more. I had 2/3 of a side of cheesy rice and broccoli. The whole thing was 270 cals, so I figure 2/3 of it is roughly 180 calories. That brings my Friday total up to 560 calories. Not bad!

How Electrons relate to Anorexia

Do you know anything about electrons? Do you remember high school chemistry? There's a lot of things you might know about electrons, but there's one fact in particular that I'm looking for. 

Did you know that it's impossible to know exactly where an electron is AND where its going during any given time? When you saw a picture in your high school chemistry book with a little orbit for the electron to follow, that picture was actually bullshit. No kidding. Electrons do not follow little paths. They are not on their own little lane of a track surrounding the nucleus. That path is actually the outer most boundary of where you're LIKELY to find that electron. It's like a probability field. 90% of the time you're likely to find the electron somewhere within those bounds. But the rest of the time... it could be just about anywhere else. If for whatever reason you want to learn more, here's a great video on the subject.

How does this relate to anorexia? Risk factors.

Just because someone has all the risk factors for developing anorexia, does not mean they will. And on the flip side, just because someone has NO risk factors for anorexia, does not guarantee they will never come to struggle with it. 

In fact, I've met people who have actually made a choice to develop anorexia. On purpose. Of course, they wouldn't say it in just those words. They would say something like "I don't consider myself to be eating disordered, I just really enjoy being thin and devote a lot of my time to staying that way." But all their behaviors mirror those of an anorectic.

Now. About me. I don't know that people would call me anorectic. I suppose you might call me a volitional anorectic. I have never gotten scary-thin. I have never passed out from lack of eating, have never restricted for more than a few months at a time.

What I have done is severely restricted my calories when I have gained too much weight, until I've gotten down to a weight I'm comfortable at. I've lost as much as 80 lbs doing this. And when I get to a weight I'm happy at - I stop. I go back to eating "regularly."

So that's what this is about. I've gotten to a weight I'm uncomfortable at, and I'm back to restricting.