Back in Town

   I'm finally home after an exhausting week in Wisconsin. I would pretty much kill to have those 6 days back, as now I have more work to do than ever and less time! The whole time I was out of town I kept telling myself that it was going to be OK, and that I would finish everything when I got back...HA! What a joke. I now have so much just piled up from being put off that I don't know how I'm going to finish it all by this weekend. And to make things worse, my parents are visiting this Sunday, which means I have to MAJORLY clean and pretend that I live like a functioning human being.
   As for food and weight, I was overall pretty happy with how I did for 6 days, although I know I could have had more self control in a couple of instances. I brought my own food with me for travel so that I wouldn't buy/eat airport food, so that helped a lot. I can't say that everyone else's pizza and fries didn't smell outrageously delicious as I ate my celery sticks and carrots, but what can you do.
   While I was actually there, in the hotel and at the event, it was kind of impossible to carry around celery and carrots, as it was a very hectic schedule from 8am to 9pm every night, and I was already carrying so much...I had my gigantic tote that is half my size, so that I could have a change of shoes and clothes, along with my laptop, camera, chargers/cords, planner...it was packed. Then I also had a visual aid case, which is basically a giant tripod/easel thing that the visuals for my presentation rest on. Basically...lots of shit. No room for baggies of food and little cups of dressing, not to mention what a disaster it would have been if any food had spilled on something important.
   Nevertheless, I tried very hard to be good. The organization holding the event gave everyone a card with $35 on it to use for lunch everyday, and there were some TERRIBLE options! Typical food-court crap: greasy pizza, hamburgers, cheese fries, chinese...luckily there was a sub place where I could just get nothing but vegetables and vinegar on a wheat sub. I got that every day, never adding cheese and always taking the top half of the roll off and eating the rest with a fork. I wish I had been strong enough to not get the roll entirely and just have the veggies in a bowl, like what I do at Subway...but I was so exhausted and hungry by lunch time each day that I let myself rationalize half a roll.
   We also had gone to a Target the night we got into town and got some groceries to keep in the fridge at our hotel, so I had bought some soy milk and some granola, which is what I had each morning before leaving. Thank god the hotel didn't have bowls, and I just poured a little bit in one of the water cups, or else I would have definitely eaten too much. For dinners each night we had the option of just going back to the hotel and each figuring it out individually, or going to dinner together at a restaurant. Almost every night we chose to just go back to the hotel, which was great, because then I either didn't eat or just ate the fruit and veggies I had in the fridge. The one night we did go out, I ordered this spinach wrap that was (thankfully) terrible, so I only had about 4 bites out of it. I did, however, have a vodka club soda, which was sort of cheating but DAMN did I need a drink after that day.
   The worst thing I ate the whole trip were some cheese fries that someone offered me. I dipped them in ketchup, which is a condiment I haven't even TASTED in SO LONG! I had forgotten how much I love ketchup...too bad its nothing but sugar. My biggest "trigger" was being out of town on Easter Sunday, which the event organizers felt compelled to compensate for by having candy and chocolate and egg-shaped cookies FUCKING EVERYWHERE!!! I cheated with a few Reese's Pieces and a cookie, but then I went to a bathroom and purged because it dawned on me that I had NO IDEA what was in that cookie, and it had been really thick and covered in green icing...which is NEVER good.
   I'm a pretty good judge of whether I've gained, lost, or maintained my weight...I can always just feel the slightest differences. Coming home I felt relatively confident that I had not gained any weight, but as luck would have it the batteries to my scale died while I was gone. They are those round-disc batteries that I don't just have laying around, so I haven't been able to weigh myself since I got back...which is a little unnerving.
   I'm in the office now, but I'll pick some up on my way home so that I can get an accurate reading tonight. I had been pretty proud of myself for only purging twice while away and managing to (for the most part) keep to a really low-calorie diet each day, trying to never go above 500 cal. Although I didn't get to hit a gym while I was gone, the walking between building and up stairs carrying all that shit ALL DAY LONG in HEELS did a pretty good number on me. With any luck I'll be down to 105 (as per my April 5th goal) and if not, I will hopefully have at least not gained anything.
   Since being back, I haven't really eaten much at all. I've been so stressed with all this catch-up work and pretty close to a panic attack at any given moment, that I haven't really been able to think about food. It was a friend's birthday dinner last night, which I really didn't want to go to but went anyway to be polite...I ordered an entree that came with soup and dessert, all of which were delicious, but that I purged as soon as I got home. Usually I go out of my way to get every possible bit of food out when I purge, taking drinks and doing various jumping exercises in between...but since it was all I'd eaten in two days I was too exhausted after the first purge to go back and do my second and third go-rounds.
   Got to get back to the endless pile of work I have to do, but it felt good to take a little break and process some stuff. Will give weight update after I buy replacement batteries tonight.

LM