Closing Up Shop-New Home!

Hey guys! I decided to finally make a new blog that is more resourceful, useful, and informative to everyone instead of what had become essentially the live journal of a bulimic. This one is going to be way less venting and talking about myself and more about always providing the same kind of information that I love getting. If you want to check the new blog out, it's:

As ED As Pie, Blog

I've also gone ahead and tried to link everything with Tumblr and Twitter, which I'm sure had been unsuccessfull, lol. But here is the Tumblr to match: 

As ED As Pie, TUMBLR

The Tumbler one is going to be only images. Not all thinspo...obviously some, but lots of other relevant subjects.

And of course, I still tweet my little heart out every day, feel free to follow me:

@FreeFromFood

I decided not to delete this blog, because there are so many pictures and memories on it. So I'm going to leave it up in case anyone in their right mind ever did want to go back to it for some reason...I did have some good tips and tricks in the beginning, lol. 

I sincerely hope that everyone who followed me here will go check the new blog out, and that you all are doing as well as possible with whatever your goals are, whether they be of recovery or weight loss. So looking forward to having a blog again, and for once doing it right so that I don't stress over missing posts or writing these long dissertations of updates in my life. The new blog is going to be much cleaner, and more purposeful. It's not a diary, it's a tool and a resource for YOU GUYS!

<3 LM

New Apartment and Low-Cal Meal

Hey there!
   Well, just got back from a week in NYC that I spent finding an apartment for when I move up for law school. It's a really cute little studio right in the heart of Chelsea. I'm really excited, but now I have until the end of July to get my shit together and pack up. I'm going to have to get rid of SO MANY CLOTHES!!! The closet in the new place is ridiculously small compared to the one I have now, I'm going to have to buy a stand alone wardrobe just to keep HALF my things. Major closet purge to come. Hey, at least it's one kind of purge that won't make me feel like shit, lol.
Here's the new place:

 


















 It's pretty small, but it's just for me, and I can't wait to be there! Open to any decorating tips for space-efficiency!

Anyway, I wanted to share one of my fav low-cal, high protein meals. It's so easy it's stupid and requires like zero preparation, which is a bonus when you're in a rush and don't want to cook-cook. I take a Morningstar Spicy Black Bean Burger (120cal) and microwave it for 1 minute. While that Microwaving, I throw a piece of Nature's Own low-cal wheat bread in the toaster (35-40cal). When the toast pops up, I throw on a slice of Kraft Singles 2% Light Cheddar (60cal), then put the bean patty on top so it gets nice and melty. Then I top the patty with a teaspoon of Pace Salsa Verde (less than 10cal) to make sure it's not too dry, and then I throw a little Tabasco Green Chili Hot Sauce on top for an extra kick. The whole thing is 230 calories, high in protein, has close to zero fat, and is very filling.

      

 

Obviously, any of these can be substituted for comparable products, and for even less cals you don't have to use the cheese. I just find that the 60 cals are worth it to me for the added taste and protein, especially since I tend not to go over 500-600 cals in a day anyway. When I'm working out every day I let myself have a little more, but since my torn rotator cuff it's been hard, all I can really do is run at the gym right now. Hope someone likes the idea! It's muy delicioso!

LM

Triathlon is now a Duathlon, and I'm kind of a fuck up

    So, I was training at the gym last Friday and fucked up my shoulder. When I got home from working out, it was killing me, but I thought it was just normal soreness. I had spent an hour doing the breast stroke, so I figured I just over-exerted a bit and took some tylenol.
   Well, it wasn't getting any better, so I thought (like a dumbass) that maybe I just needed to try cracking it and stretching it out. Ya, that made it about 1,000x worse. So THEN I managed to continue my stupidity by thinking that a massage might help, so I used my certificate for a free massage that I had got at the last 5k I ran. Holy shit I've never had a more painful massage in my life!!! Had to make them stop after 15 minutes, went home and was almost in tears from the pain. I decided to go to Urgent Care,  where they told me my shoulder was dislocated and sent me to the ER.
    At the ER, they took more x-rays and determined that my shoulder was not, in fact, dislocated. I initially thought this was good news, but as it turns out what I actually have is a torn rotator cuff, which is apparently much worse. Arm's in a sling and I have to see an Ortho now to determine if it will heal on its own or needs surgery. Which means I can kiss the Triathlon goodbye, since there's no way my shoulder will heal in time to do a 1/4 mile swim by July 17th.
   The GOOD NEWS, is that the Triathlon I registered for also has a Duathlon division, where you just do biking and running. While the swimmers are doing the swim, the Duathlon competitors do a run. So it goes run-bike-run instead of swim-bike-run. Sucks I won't be able to get my first Tri under my belt, but I'm happy that I don't have to give the race up all together-especially since I've spent close to 1G on it now between the registration fees and the equipment.
   So that's the Triathlon news. In other news I had a bit of a nervous breakdown last Wednesday and binged and purged for the first time in over a month, and cut myself for the first time in about 6 months. Not gunna go into all the details, but let's just say my moving out of here to NY can't come fast enough. I talked to my therapist about it, and he said that I have to work on being able to express my frustration and anger outwardly to those I am frustrated and angry with rather than inwardly toward myself with self-destruction. My response: DUH! Story of my fucking life.
   Anyway, since the rotator cuff injury on Friday I haven't been able to work out, since there's not much I can do with my arm in a sling. This has been giving me a ton of anxiety, since I was exercising 3-4 hours a day. It was the only thing that gave me peace of mind, and made me feel ok about eating healthy meals. I mean, ya, they were still really low-cal, but they were meals and they were consistent.
   I've felt so gross and bloated without the workouts, so I've cut back on food a lot. I'm pretty much not eating anything but steamed broccoli, prunes, fiber one yogurt and bran cereal right now, and drinking water, green tea, and grapefruit juice laced with Epsom salt. It's sort of my take on a cleanse. I know when most people do cleanses they do only clear liquids and no solid foods, but I've found cleanses to be more effective when combined with some solid foods that are packed with fiber. And Epsom salt is a natural laxative, but doesn't taste too awesome, so it's best mixed with juice to cover the taste. Just no juices from concentrate or with added sugar or corn cyrup. All organic 100% grapefruit juice. Raspberies are packed with fiber too, but I don't really like eating them by themselves. I've been trying to throw a couple in the yogurt or cereal or put them in the blender with the grapefruit juice, but I don't always remember.
   I'm thinking this will pretty much be my diet until I can workout again, since I'm def not comfortable with the meals if I'm not burning it off. Luckily I'm still sort of on track, down to 103lbs. Although if I'd been working out for the past 3 days I know it could have been lower. Ugh. FML. Just want to get back under 100, that would make my life.
   OK well here's the scale shot for today:

Could be better, but could also be worse. Here's hoping for a better week! BTW, if anyone still reads this you can follow me on twitter at @FreeFromFood. I tweet like a zillion times a day, it's so much easier and quicker than sitting down and writing blog entries. I'm actually considering starting to use the blog primarily for diet tips, low-cal recipes, best foods and drinks for losing weight, etc. I ironically have a lot of nutritional, fitness, and dietician background, and always hear fellow ED girls talking about what they are doing, and a lot of it is flat-out misconceptions that only hurt in the long run. But you know the old saying "Do as I say, not as I do." Ya, it's always the ones that know the most about what's right that do the most wrong to their bodies! Exhibit A: Me. lol Whatever, I'll tweet whenever I post a good recipe or tip.
Ciao!

LM

Actually...

BlogPress is a piece of shit and hasn't worked in 3 days, despite it not being a free app and I shelled out $4.99 for it so that I could have a dependable app. FAIL. If it's still not working tomorrow I'll take the five dollar hit and fucking delete it and find another one.

ANYWAY...as I was yelling at my phone like a crazy person, I realized I could just e-mail the pic to myself without going downstairs and getting the cord and importing to iPhoto. Yes, I'm that lazy sometimes. So here it is.

Now I'm for serial going to bed. Ciao!

LM

The Official Diet/Exercise Update

Hola chicas! I'm kind of tired, have been doing a lot of work today, so my eyes are going a little bonkers from staring at the computer screen since like 10am. So, I'll just get straight to the main update.

Basically what I've been doing for about the past month or so is that I eat between 600-850 calories per day, and I work out between 2-4 hours per day. Since I went on hiatus from blogging, I had a period where I got all the way down to 97lbs, which made me so incredibly happy and proud of myself I can't even tell you.

I obviously took a picture to document reaching the lowest weight I'd managed to get to post-inpatient treatment. That fucking place really fucked me up. I entered at 95lbs and left at like 115! All they do is make you eat and eat and eat! I was so fat when I left, and it's been a struggle to get back down ever since. Anyway, this was awesome, but it unfortunately didn't last too long.

I decided I really wanted to enter a Triathlon before I move to NYC. It's something I've always wanted to do, and I figured I might as well do it while I'm still in warm, sunny Florida so that I'm not doing it in the freezing cold Hudson river or something. So, I got serious about preparing my body for that level of physical difficulty. I hired a personal trainer, and altered my diet to include more calories than I had been taking in, mostly in the form of protein shakes post-workout. Well, as was inevitable, with all the conditioning training we were doing plus the added protein, I got a lot stronger. Which is good, but that comes with gaining muscle mass, which adds weight, which was rough for me.

When I got up to 108, it was officially too much for me to handle, especially after my 97lbs victory that had been so recent. I went back to pure cardio and lowered the calories, and as of this morning am at 105. I took a picture, but it's on my iPhone not my laptop, and I don't really feel like hooking it up and importing it at the moment. But I'll prob just post it by itself after this post with my BlogPress app.

I am still technically "training" for the Triathlon, I haven't given that up (especially since I already paid the $69 registration fee), I'm just not doing conditioning anymore. The events are really all cardio anyway (swim-bike-run). While I do understand that stronger muscles help cardio performance, I just don't give a fuck. I'm not trying to win it, I'm trying to complete it. I'm pretty confident I can do that at a lower weight. My goal right now is to get back down to 100lbs in the next couple weeks, and then see from there if I want to go lower. I mean, I obviously do want to go lower, but it might not be smart to go too much lower than that until after the race. I am going to need to have some stamina.

That's the update for now. I'm going to start posting some recipes and products I've been using/am hooked on. I have so many meals that are under 250cal and still provide the full amount of fiber and protein for the day. Alright, I'm off to bed. Gotta be at the gym by 8:30am. Night!

LM

Strategery.

Well hey there!
    I spent most of yesterday recovering from my epic birthday night, in alternating states of hydrating and sleeping with a single outdoor excursion to my therapist's office. I'm finally pretty much back to normal and WIDE AWAKE, so I thought I may as well do something productive and pick up the bliz-og. It's gunna take a little bit to get back into writing again, but I'm already happy that it's back in my life.
   My friends took me to a STRIP CLUB for my birthday! Ohmygosh it was epic. I had somehow managed to go my entire life (well, I guess since I turned 18) without ever having been to a strip club, and it never bothered me, to be honest. I thought they were probably sketchy as fuck and since I'm a flaming liberal feminist at heart, I've also thought of them as degrading to women. So I had mixed reactions when that turned out to be my surprise...but guess what? This sister can admit when she's wrong-shit was off the chain. Thought I'd died and went to heaven! Even sprung for a private lap dance, which was also awe-some.
   Of course, the hardest thing about birthdays (for me, anyway) is balancing the desire to have fun and celebrate with staying in the parameters of what is acceptable food and alcohol consumption. Now, what I deem to be acceptable food and alcohol consumption may different from your definition, and I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that anyone reading this blog's definition is probably different from the average person's. But everyone knows what it's like to overindulge, and most people can empathize with the guilt that can come along with that.
   As I touched on in my last post, I've almost entirely eliminated binging and purging from my life, which is something that I never thought I'd be able to say in a million years. As my therapist constantly reminds me, I am still bulimic, but have shifted from SIV to over-exercising as a form of purging. I know that he's right, but I honestly feel so much healthier and better without all the vomiting. I was always sick, my throat always hurt, I felt like I always smelled like throw up, and I spent a really disproportional amount of my waking hours bent over a toilet. All that and I was still never happy with my weight, I was always hungry or thinking about food or anticipating my next binge.
  I don't really "binge" anymore like I used to, where I'd just eat and eat and eat with the sole intention of purging afterward. I sort of just eat the same thing every day, which is boring. However, boring = predictable, and I like knowing how many calories I'm going to have that day, how many grams of fiber, how many grams of protein, etc. It keeps me sane and not running for the junk food isle at Walgreens at 2am. Of course, sometimes I allow something different for special occasions, like my birthday, in which case I try not to super stress and just eat whatever because it's my birthday-just let myself eat a little more than normal.
   Like, normally for my birthday dinner I would just lose my shit. I'd think "it's my birthday, I can eat what I want" and then 4 bites into some ridiculous fried appetizer I've already decided I've had too much fat or carbs and that I'm finding a bathroom and purging the whole meal as soon as its over. And that's before the entree or dessert. And suddenly your birthday isn't that fun when you're over a toilet thinking WHY WHY WHY DID I EAT THAT?!?!
   This year I took a new approach, which was to stay within the limits of what I would consider acceptable or normal on any other day, but then let myself enjoy a bite or two of an appetizer I might not usually get and a dessert. Sharing is caring!! Sharing saves my life!! I really wanted to try the parmesan spinach dip, but that's something I would normally steer clear of because of all the fat and grease. So, we ordered it (and fuck yes it was covered in grease), and because there were three of us and I still had an entree coming, I was able to just have about 3 bites without feeling guilty or wasteful because my parents each had some, too.
  For my entree I just got a salad, which was made of spinach leaves and arugula instead of lettuce, and it had a goat cheese medallion on top with some walnuts and some kind of lemon-butter dressing. Now here, the salad was pretty much OK except for the huge hunk of goat cheese (which is my favorite cheese and oh-so-delicious) and the dressing. Walnuts have a high fat content too, actually, but there were like 5 halves, they weren't worrying me too much. So the cheese is what I wanted the most, but also what was prob the worst, so I immediately cut the medallion in half and set one half on the spinach dip so that it would get taken away. Then I asked for balsamic vinegar to use instead of whatever they gave me (balsamic vinegar = 0 cal), and now I felt fine about enjoying every bite of that half-medallion of goat cheese.
   Dessert is the worst, but I really believe that some pre-planning and sharing make all the difference. Oh, ya. I forgot about the pre-planning. Unless the meal out is truly spontaneous for some reason, you can usually look up the menu beforehand for anywhere you're going to end up for a special occasion, and then budget accordingly. This particular restaurant was famous for it's "unique" desserts, like fried brownie wontons and cheesecake spring rolls. Ya, you read that correctly. What I actually wanted was the fried brownie wontons, and I wanted to eat all three of them by myself. But, I know where that road leads...so I compromised and got the cheesecake spring rolls (still totally decadent and ridiculous, but a lot less than the brownie wontons). There were two cheesecake spring rolls, and what I like to do is serve others first so that it both seems like you are being polite but you can only leave yourself the amount you want to eat. This works better for me than everyone just eating with their fork out of the main dish, because you might still end up eating more than you meant to. So, I just cut it all up and gave each of my parents a bigger portion than I left myself, and then I got to enjoy the best 3 bites EVER. Seriously, it was so fucking good it shouldn't be legal.
    OK, that's all for now. Just wanted to share my big birthday meal, how I dealt with it without purging, and my strip-club extravaganza. Hopefully some of the tips can be useful to others, even though I know they seem obvious. I've actually read about 3 books about diet and nutrition during my little break, and they've really helped me a lot with how I approach weight loss/fat loss. When I next get the chance I'm gunna go in and change all my numbers, since they are mad old. Also, I can't wait to do a post about workouts/exercise/supplements. Til next time!

LM

"I can be changed by what happens to me, but i refuse to be reduced by it."

Today is my 24th birthday, and I decided that it would be the perfect time to re-enter the online world of social media. For months I've been trying to decide whether or not I should start blogging again, and if I should, when would be the right time to start?
Well, a lot has happened since I decided to stop writing. I'm thrilled to report that I've been accepted to law school in New York City, and will be leaving the south (hopefully) for good in August. During my break I busted my ass studying for the LSATs, applying to 15 law schools all over the country, and taking online classes to finish my undergraduate degree. I made the decision that I needed to focus everything on my future and getting the hell out of here, and that distractions like blogging and tweeting would have to wait.
Although I certainly missed this outlet, I believe that it paid off. I increased my LSAT score by 6 points from the last time I took it, which doesn't sound like much, but is actually huge. It took me from the 48th percentile nationwide to the 80th percentile, opening doors for me to schools that I previously didn't stand a chance at getting accepted to.
This time last year I remember starving myself for the days leading up to my birthday so that I could eat a birthday dinner. Today, I'm able to say that I have not skipped a meal in about two weeks, and that I am very much looking forward to my birthday dinner with my parents tonight.
This does not mean that I've magically "beaten" my eating disorder, I still struggle with it daily. Without going into too much detail (saving for the next post), I would say that I've largely become more of a restricter and exercise addict than binger and purger- although I still have my episodes every so often. Overall, though, I feel a lot better today than last year. Not that it's necessarily any better or healthier, but right now the exercising is providing me with the ability to five myself permission to eat and even enjoy food, albeit food I consider "healthy," which tends to include mostly "safe foods" like fruits, vegetables, protein and fiber. I can't wait to talk about what Ive been doing/up to in more detail in future posts, including exercise/diet regimens and my life in general.
I debated for a long time whether I should wait til I was permanently moved to NYC before rekindling the blog, as I thought that would truly represent my new start. But, I have a feeling that the days and weeks leading up to and immediately following the move and beginning of law school classes will turn out to be stressful and hectic-so I decided might as well start a little early-and what better than my birthday?
On that note, I'm going to run and get a quick gym session in before getting ready for the rest of the day. I'm really happy to be back, and I hope that everyone has been staying strong. I'm excited for the future and looking forward to sharing more in the posts to come!

LM


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Bunch of Pics for Now

Hey guys!
   I've been taking it upon myself to embark on various home improvement projects while I'm gainfully unemployed, so that I don't feel quite as useless. The other day I re-organized the kitchen by taking everything out of every cabinet, scrubbing the cabinets clean, throwing out everything that was expired (my mother SERIOUSLY had 3 cans of YAMS that expired in...wait for it...1997), putting everything back in a way that actually makes sense (i.e., coffee/tea cabinet, spices shelf, pasta/rice shelf, etc.). It took all day but I was pretty proud of myself and the kitchen looks like a million times cleaner and nicer because I threw out so much that it made room for stuff that was just cluttering on the counter.
  Anyway, the next project was for me to re-paint my room (nothing crazy, just white-it's just that the old coat was so old it hadn't been done since my 13th birthday, so it was like dirty and not even white anymore) and drilling hooks into the back of my door. I know I was suppose to post some recipes and a bunch of my workout/fitness info, but a lot of my stuff I packed up and moved into my Dad's office while i've been painting so nothing got ruined. But, the good news is that I finished today, so I'll be moving the stuff back into my room tomorrow and will be sure to post then. For now though, I do have some pics already on my lap-top and some of my little project that I just thought I'd post until I can get out the knitty-gritty stuff tomorrow.

OK so this is basically how I was storing my purses before. Sadly, this is not even a 1/4 of them. I have a problem. So, this is what I came up with:

 Which, I must say, was not as easy as it looks. Those six little hooks took me about 3 hours to get drilled into the door in the right spots, measured evenly. In fact, I originally tried to do it by hand with a screwdriver...which was definitely not happening. So I got to take a trip to the Home Depot and buy my very own adorable little power drill:

 I'm very proud of her. She made the job much easier. Close up of the handiwork:

 Oh yeah, baby! So here's how the purse situation is now:

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Of course, each of the big purses have like 6 little purses inside of them, or else the 6 hooks would never work. But I think it's better than the floor, where I could hardly walk.

So now for some body shots. These are a little different than how I usually do them, and I apologize for the really weird lighting effect. I was trying to to full-body, so instead of using the bathroom where the mirror only comes up to my hips, I used the wall mirrors in the kitchen, but we have this huge sliding glass door there where the natural light comes in and it made it kind of difficult with the shadows and stuff. But the idea is to show that even though I'm pretty much the same weight, I've noticed a difference in my muscle tone from the changes I've made that I wanted to show you.

 

Full Body Shot, Front

Starting to see some more definition in my abs/stomach

 

Full Body, Side

I've noticed less dimpling/cellulite in my thighs

Calf 

My legs are where I've noticed the biggest difference. I've never been able to see my calf muscle like this before. 

So here I took a close up of my stomach so you could see that I'm starting to get a little bit of definition in the ab area, although it's kinda freaking me out that it looks like its only on one side, lol. I'll be like that weird guy from "Lady in the Water." 

Here's a close up of my arms, which are the part of my body that I absolutely hate the most. They are way too big, so I am trying so hard to tone them up. But even after only a short time I'm starting to see a difference. I can actually see where the muscle is now instead of nothing but flab, but definitely needs a ton more work. 

 I know this one is a little weird, but all I'm trying to show here is how much my upper thighs have smoothed out. Unfortunately they haven't gotten significantly smaller or anything yet or crazy toned like I hope they will eventually, but I usually have such bad dimpling, cellulite, and stretch marks there. I mean, they arent gone or anything, but they have become a lot less noticeable.

 

And of course the normal collar bone shot. I think it looks exactly the same, which is ok with me-as long as it doesn't get WORSE, right? 

OK, I'm off now. I'm meeting a friend for coffee in the morning at Starbucks, so I'll be sure to bring my laptop, camera cord, and my recipe journal so that when she leaves I can put up the info I promised.

LM

As promised

  Well, I promised that I would take the time today to update on what's been going on with me, I guess both diet/weight wise and my life in general. I am fully capable of writing a 700 pg doctoral dissertation on this, but will try to contain myself. That is the worst about not posting in a while-we all know that I'm already a little wordy and talkative as it is, so keeping posts to a reasonable length after an absence is like about 1000x harder than normally for me!
   If I actually went into every detail, I'd be typing here for the next few days. The super-duper-condensed-could-fit-inside-a-FB status-version is this: Stopped taking my meds after moving ->didn't get the job at the law office -> had depressive episode -> did nothing but sleep, cry, and binge/purge every day for about 2 weeks -> finally snapped out of it enough to get some shit together and go on 2 more interviews -> didn't get either of them -> OUCH -> my crazy ex-girlfriend who used to stalk me before I moved and duct-tape letters to my front door, drove 5 hours to where I am now and begged me to see her -> did not even respond, ignored her calls and texts b/c I knew nothing good could come from seeing her -> 1 week later she texted me that she "started purging to understand me better" and that I ruined her life -> told her she needed serious psychiatric help and to never contact me again -> my dad got sick with the flu and pink eye and I spent about 4 days taking care of him and disinfecting everything in the house -> had falling out with my 2 best friends and haven't spoken to either of them since -> still unemployed and running on empty -> only thing that keeps me going is working out right now. WHEW. So, maybe it wouldn't QUITE fit in a FB status, but I think that was a pretty admirable job, knowing me.
   Sorry if it was pretty Debbie-downer-esque, but that's just what's really been going on. Haven't had any good news in a long time, and it seemed like every time I thought "OK, I can't take this shit anymore..." THAT is precisely when something else happened and it got worse. I've been feeling so alone and stressed and miserable and useless. I guess it's not fair to say that ONLY working out is keeping me going right now, to be most accurate it's probably more like working out and my therapy appointments. The only thing that could be called a ray of light since my last post is that I have found a new therapist down here, I really like him, and he's pretty awesome (aside from a tad too many questions about my mother, but I can live with that). Since I'm still out of work we've been meeting on Mondays between 12 and 1pm, but if I EVER find a job, I'm not sure what we'll have to do. Not thinking about that right now.
   To keep myself busy I've basically been cleaning and re-organizing the whole house. It's times like these that my OCD really comes in handy. My parents' told me their kitchen hasn't been so clean and orderly in at least 15 years. BOOM! I also quit smoking (cigarettes, not weed-let's not get carried away here), which has been both good and bad. Obviously, it's good in terms of health benefits and saving money, and I genuinely have seen a marked improvement in my running stamina. But, of course, it's been bad in terms of just being something else stressing me out and one less outlet/release that I have. It's been approximately a week and a half since my last cigarette...which isn't exactly anything to write home about, but every day counts and it's getting a little easier.
   There's also been a lot of changes in the diet/fitness/weight arena. Last I posted I was at 104lbs, and since then I got all the way up to 112 briefly and am currently back down to 103lbs. I've changed my diet and exercise plan entirely from the one I was following before. The thing was, it was working really well for a while, I dropped lbs very quickly while following it-but I was gaining weight even easier if I went off it even slightly. Also, it seemed like no matter how much cardio I was doing and how many calories the machine SAID I burned, I just sort of hit a plateau with my body. I absolutely could not get below 104lbs, and sometimes I'd gain 5lbs in one day from having 1 glass of wine or 200 extra calories. And, I know that when you have significant weight gains like that in such a short amount of time that it isn't REAL weight, it's just bloating/water weight/constipation/etc, but it's still really mentally trying when you kill yourself every day at the gym to see a certain number, then 1 time out of 5 times you decide "OK, one glass of wine with dinner won't hurt, I've been doing so well this week..." and you wake up the next morning and see the past week of work virtually ERASED on the scale. Nothing more upsetting to me than that!
   So, I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong and went about stalking the health and fitness section at Barnes and Noble every day, as well as talking to some of my friends who are really into working out, including one who is a personal trainer. The overall consensus seems to be that you can't have sustained weight loss with such a low calorie diet, which is really difficult for someone with an eating disorder to wrap their heads around. Also, when you only do cardio on top of the calorie-restricted diet, then you are losing muscle mass instead of fat, which is what you want to lose. Everyone I spoke to, including the authors of the books I read (they spoke to me in my head), advised increasing my calories to about 1,600-1,800 per day, adding weight training and strength training circuits to my workouts, and alternating days between cardio and muscle building. It was also recommended that I try taking some creatine supplements for faster muscle growth and work-out enhancers for extra energy and fat-burning.
    None of this was very appealing to me, I absolutely could not comprehend eating that many calories per day and not ballooning to 300lbs within a month. These suggestions seemed to go against everything I stood for, and everything I worked so hard to overcome. But the reality was that what I was currently doing wasn't working anymore, and the common denominator in my life since developing an eating disorder has always been that the second I changed anything, it equalled weight gain. I have always fantasized about getting to a goal weight and just STAYING there, instead of yo-yoing back and forth, which is basically what my life is: a constant cycle of gaining and losing, bingeing and purging, with my happiness and self-worth entirely dependent on the number on the scale.
   So, I integrated the changes by gradually increasing my calories over about 2 weeks, venturing into the weight lifting/strength training machines section of my gym for the very FIRST time, learning what machines I liked best, researching which areas I should be targeting, taking Creatine supplements, adding more protein and HEALTHY fats (monounsaturated) to my diet, adding foods that boost HGH, testosterone, and progesterone production (all are important for burning fat, building muscle, increasing energy). It's been really, really hard. Ironically, I've found that eating and working out like this is actually at least TWICE as hard as the way I was eating and exercising before. Here I was thinking that it took all the willpower in the world to live on 300cals a day, but for someone who has had disordered eating for as long as I have, it was INCREASING the calories WITHOUT purging that has probably been the most difficult thing I've done in an extremely long time.
   The first week was the worst, because I could feel myself gaining weight immediately. I had been warned that this would happen initially because my body was used to living on so much less, that it would store the extra calories for a while because it wouldn't know what to do with them. Everyone told me not to get on the scale until my body had a chance to re-calibrate and my metabolism could catch up. But, of course, that was impossible for me. When I got on the scale and it showed 112lbs, and the last I had been on it I was 105lbs...I almost had a complete nervous breakdown. It took every ounce of strength in me not to immediately purge whatever was in my stomach, do about 3 enemas, drink some laxative tea, and fast for the next three days.  Even now, I still don't know how I calmed down, but somehow I was able to tell myself that I was warned this would happen, that I shouldn't have weighed myself, that it's not real fat weight, that I was also building muscle, etc. I talked myself off of that ledge, and then basically lived in sweatpants, sweatshirts, pajamas, and moo-moo dresses for the next week to avoid any tangible reminders.
    But the crazy thing is that, it really did eventually start to work just like everyone said it would. I started dropping pounds again while still eating a normal amount of calories. Now, I've been following this program for about 2 1/2 weeks, and despite the first crazy insane gain, I'm now back down to 103, which I never in a MILLION years would have said was possible eating the amount I am right now. Also, I'm not just down, but I feel stronger and like I am very slowly starting to get some definition in my muscles. I don't exactly have Madonna arms or a Rhianna stomach yet, but for the first time I can actually envision it in the realm of possibility. I spend a minimum of two hours in the gym every single day, alternating between cardio, leg, arm, ab, and back workouts. I haven't purged since September 8th, so 8 days now...which is the longest I've ever gone without purging in about 4 years. Even when I was in a treatment center or psych ward, I still managed to sneak around enough to purge when I wanted to. I was in-patient for almost 3 months, and basically purged the whole time I was there without them knowing. So this is pretty monumental for me. My therapist thinks that I've just transferred my bulimic tendencies from SIV to over-exercising. This may be true, but I seriously feel the best (about my body, not my life) I've felt in a long time.
   OK, I have to get back to the real world and start making dinner if I'm going to make it to the gym by 6:30 so that I can go out tonight with a friend by 9:30. Tomorrow I'll post some pics and also some recipes and more information that I've learned/stolen from some books. Seriously, I went into Barnes and Noble every day for a week and took about 4 books per day to a little unoccupied aisle where no one could see me, and then I unscrupulously and unapologetically sat on the floor and took pictures of the pages with the best information with my iPhone so that I didn't actually have to spend the money on buying any of the books. Unethical? Perhaps. But you gotta do what you gotta do in this economy! Tomorrow I'll break down what foods contain the highest amounts of certain hormones and nutrients, what they do for you, how many grams are recommended per day, some metabolism/BMR info, how to increase them, and the muscle-to-fat burning ratio. Some of the info has really helped me re-imagine how my body works and understand certain processes better. Alright, ciao for now!

LM

Before Bed

   I just took my trazodone, so this post is guaranteed to be short or abruptly end when I fall over. I was just laying in bed thinking about the current state of my life, and how various circumstances have kept me from updating for the past month-ish, and about how stressed and lonely I've been when I heard my iPhone make the "you have a new e-mail" noise. I wasn't going to read it right now, but something told me to just look at it. I did, and it was a notification that someone had commented on my last post, so I went and read it and decided to muster the energy and strength to write a post.
   Since I usually post my progress updates on Monday nights, every single Monday that has gone by since my last post I've thought "Shit, I missed it today-I'll do it next Monday!" And then the next Monday comes, and so on and so one and it's the same old story. I'm obviously not going to go into everything right now, because I'm already starting to fall asleep, but I wanted to thank whoever the Anonymous poster is who commented and encouraged me to keep writing, because with how hectic and stressful everything has been since my move with job-hunting and my new therapist and some friends and family drama, I definitely let my writing fall to the sidelines-and it's not cool because this is often the only outlet I have aside from my therapist, and even there I'm not as candid and honest as I am here.
   So I figured I owed it to anyone who is still reading or who has just found my blog to get back on the wagon, so to speak. I am still alive, and I absolutely promise to schedule in an hour block on time during the day tomorrow to give a more thorough update and upload some pics (yes, I have still been taking them-just not posting them). Thank you again, I've really missed the community! Good night.

LM

Never thought I'd be this happy to be at home!

   It's been about 4 days back home living with my parents now, ever since The Great Moving Debacle of 2010 ended. As bad/difficult a time I was having before I left, that whole experience put some stuff in perspective. My parents can be insane and impossible at times-but so can I! And at least they love me, and are giving me a place to stay while I figure my shit out, and have given up their whole house practically to become a giant storage unit for all of my stuff-not to mention they buy groceries and DON'T STEAL FROM ME!
   Don't get me wrong, we still have our issues-but I think all families do. Granted, I do think ours can be significantly more abnormal than most, but there have got to be families that are worse, too! It is still a little rough while I'm job searching at the same time my mom is job searching, but setting up the wireless router has really helped with the sharing the one computer issue. My laptop is SO much better and faster, and I can just bring it anywhere in the house that my parents are not located, lol.
   I think I mentioned before that I had a really solid, good interview at a great law firm about a week ago. I got called today to schedule the second and final interview, so it's now set for August 12th at 1:00PM. Now I just have to brush up on my typing and Quickbooks skillz. I'm not too worried about that, though-I'm more worried that one of the other candidates will just have more/better experience that I can't really compete with. But whatever-I made it there, too, right? Obviously they like something about me.
   In the meantime I've been unpacking, exercising, searching for a new therapist, and battling evil fucking insurance companies. Just a day in the life. The unpacking is going really slowly-I just have so much stuff I don't know where to start! I'm def going to eBay or Craigslist my treadmill though, at least that could make me like a few hundred bucks  to keep me going until I'm employed again. Since I joined the gym nearby, don't really need a personal treadmill anymore. I'm also going to be an extra in some random club scene being shot for some commercial...I know, it sounds pretty desperate/lame-but they are paying the extras $200 cash just to smile and look cute in the background. I'll take that ANY day. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to make that money, honey.
   I haven't binged/purged in two days now, and I'm trying really hard to stay disciplined and just stick to my meal plan. When I don't eat too much, then I don't have to purge...it's just so much easier said than done. So far today I've had 3 small meals adding up to about 250 cals so far...but I'm going to the gym at 9pm, and I'm going to eat another 80cal before I go to give me some energy, and then I usually have 1/2cup of egg whites when I get back from the gym for the protein, which is another 50cal. So all in all I'll have done around 380-400 today, probably more like 425 if you include the fiber supplements. I'm happy with that-every time I go to the gym I do at least 450cal on the treadmill-more if I can handle it. Last night I stopped at exactly 450 because I was in a rush to get home for Real Housewives of NJ (I know, it's a guilty pleasure)-but the night before I stayed on for 565cals, which I was really proud of. When I'm done with cardio, I always sit in the sauna for 10-15 minutes. I might just be nuts, but I feel like I burn a little more with all that heat and sweating-and it feels really refreshing when you finish.
   There is this little Italian place across the street that my parents really like, and on Mondays and Tuesdays they have a special on Large One-Topping Pizzas for only $5...so unfortunately, every Tuesday without fail, my father brings home a giant cheese pizza. I went downstairs into the kitchen for my last meal around 5:45pm (baby carrots with fat free ranch) and saw the PIZZA and almost fainted. I wanted to eat the ENTIRE PIE sooooooooo badly!!!! I just stood over it, smelling it, breathing in the cheese and the crust for about 5 minutes. Then I pretty much had to pinch myself, close the box, and sit down and eat my carrots. Sometimes eating something healthy can stop me from bingeing, because in my crazy head I think "well if I binge and purge now, I'll also end up purging the carrots, and those are good..." It stopped me this time...but there is still half a pizza in the fridge. I'm really hoping I don't succumb to a midnight binge later...
   OK well I gotta wrap this up if I want to leave for the gym by 9-after going to 4 therapists in the area, I finally found one that I REALLY love...and surprise, surprise--he's the only one my insurance denied. I'm so fed up with calling and arguing with them! Sometimes I genuinely believe that insurance companies and people who work there are pure, unadulterated evil. I've yet to speak with a single person that has shown any sign of possessing human-like qualities such as listening, understanding, or problem-solving. I mean, I know it must suck to work for insurance...but c'mon-they don't all have to be such condescending douchebags. Anyway, if I have to go to one more therapist's office and start completely over again one more time, I'm going to pull my hair out and have a nervous breakdown...and I seriously doubt that I'll find someone better than the doctor I finally settled on. So, despite HAVING mental health insurance that is only a $25 copay for the offices in the network....I'll be paying out of pocket the private rate to stay with this guy. We'll see how this turns out. I agreed to it under the assumption that I'm going to get this job and be working again full time in the next couple weeks and will be able to afford the private rate. If I do not get the job...then I'll have to discontinue sessions until I get another one.
   Alright-I'm off to eat a quick snack and then walk to the gym. Don't worry-I carry mace when I walk alone at night. I'm sure you were definitely concerned about that, lol. Until tomorrow ~

LM

Peek-chores

   Now that Real Housewives of NJ is over, I got out my camera from the "electronics" box and took some pics. Still at 104lbs as of...about 20 minutes ago...hopefully that will steadily go down the rest of the week. I've been being so good, sticking to my 50cal meals spread out throughout the day. Like I said, I didn't step foot in a gym while I was away, but since I've been back I've gone each night (making that...two whole nights now) and burned about 600cal last night, and 500cal tonight. It feels good to be back in the gym, so hopefully that will start to show some results.
   After that ridonkulous long post earlier, I'll just keep the rest to the pics for now. I'll save my new therapist search and the EVIL insurance company talk for another time. I've missed the internet and this community SO MUCH! I can't wait to stay up late reading what's been going on with everyone else!

Amen.

This is my favorite bathing suit. Haven't put it on in a while.

LOL I look really tan but its just an optical (bad lighting) illusion. I wish I were this tan!

The collar bone zone...I think I can see a little bit of a difference.

The Juicy bathing suit test. Still not quite right..actually it looks exactly the same to me.

Juicy FAIL from the side.

That's a WRAP. Goodnight!

LM

Had almost forgotten what accomplishing a GOAL felt like!

   Hey guys! I'm gunna keep this post short and sweet because its 1:00am and I have to wake up early to drop off my resume at a law office that is 45 minutes from here, first thing in the morning! The plan has been going really well overall, with a few exceptions in the form of binges. There was the one I already wrote about in my last post, and then I had another one late last night after sneaking out to the porch to smoke some Mary J. Wow, just typing that gave me high school flashbacks! And I KNOW that puffin on the sticky icky gives me munchies, and it is well documented that it often leads to binge episodes for me...but man does it calm me the fuck down! So, sometimes (like last night) after a rough day I weigh the pros and cons and still decide that I need some green in my system ASAP.
   Luckily, it was a much more responsible binge than the previously discussed one, and I basically ate a bowl of Fiber One cereal, 15-20 whole grain wheat thins with hummus, and a 20cal sugar-free fudgesicle with about a tablespoon of peanut butter (not disputing the weirdness of putting peanut butter on a fudgesicle). So, while I would have preferred that it didn't happen-all in all the whole binge was between 400-500cals, which is about the same amount as I've been burning on the treadmill every day, which has really been helping. In this instance, without the binge I would have been in the negative for the day (having burned more than I ate), and with it I about broke even, so it definitely eased the anxiety a bit.
   Enough introspection for now-let's cut to the chase. I am proud to report that, despite those two setbacks, between my exercising and diet plan I did indeed get down to my goal of 107lbs for today! Which is a relief, because I haven't been succeeding at much else lately. Still haven't completely unpacked my trunk, which has caused me to keep postponing driving back to my apartment, because the whole point is to fill up another carload of my stuff, which I can't do until I empty the car.
   OK, the pics are below. My apologies in advance for the gym shorts instead of underwear-I know it's harder to see my thighs and track progress in that area, but I'm still on my period so I figured you'd rather look at gym shorts than my pad lol.

So happy to see that number!

Front

Side

Collarbone

   I'm ALSO sorry that the pics are so grainy, the lighting in my Dad's bathroom is worse than in my Mom's, but I like it better because he doesn't have that annoying mauve-colored shower curtain in the background. So, I went for the better background and tried to brighten the exposure when I loaded the pics...very little success. A photographer I am not.

   I really have to try to go to bed now, even though I know it's going to be difficult because my mind is already racing with the amount of shit I have to do tomorrow. OH! That reminds me! Don't have time to go into it now, but since I'm really moving down here I began the process of finding a new therapist and psychiatrist, and I have a 1:00pm appointment tomorrow with one of the therapists I found on my insurance plan-so I'll be sure to let you know how that goes! Goodnight, my loves!

LM

It's 1:30am...do you know where your thoughts are?

   I think that today may have been the least productive day I've had in an extremely long time. I woke up with my period (shoot me), so I had cramps all day, and was bloated, and my lower back has felt like I spent the past three days moving furniture or something. Overall I had been doing pretty well the the new plan, but I had a slip-up/binge today around 2pm. I'm not really sure what triggered it...I think it was a combination of a lot of things. Of course, I think my period had a little bit to do with it, as I was moody and irritable and craving chocolate...but I also had gotten in an EPIC argument with my parents last night that was so bad that I'm looking for places to rent ASAP instead of trying to "wait it out here" until I found a new job. But ya, so I still wasn't speaking to them as of "The Binge," and I was trying so hard not to give in when my mother calls me from a restaurant she is having lunch at, where they happen to serve one of my FAVORITE (binge) foods in the WORLD: Fried Pickles!! Ya, I know-some people think it's gross but if you love them, then you LOVE them! Well, I think that her strange way of trying to make amends, instead of apologizing, was to call and ask if I wanted her to bring me home an order of Fried Pickles.
   Hmmm...let me think....NO! I mean, I think that she had good intentions..but she also is very aware that I'm very bulimic, and that fried pickles are up there with my binge foods like Ben and Jerry's, Peanut Butter Oreos, Nutella...ya. So I found it strange that she would encourage that. Anyway, I said no to them knowing that if I had them I would be unstoppable. And yet--I ended up bingeing ANYWAY! It was like, once the idea of bingeing was in my head, once I entertained those fried pickles...then I just as willing to entertain whatever else I could find. Which was: leftover baked ziti, wheat thins w/ cream cheese, little tiny chocolate cookies I found in my Dad's secret hiding junk food stash that he keeps from my mom, cereal, and good old BREAD! So that happened. But, I immediately purged everything...in fact, I was so disappointed in myself that I did way more than my normal purges-I must of done at least 5 cycles of purge-drink-purge-drink-purge-drink until absolutely nothing was left.
   Even though it made me feel a little better that I got rid of the junk...I was still really upset that I let it happen in the first place. And you know how after a really intense purge you are just completely exhausted? I felt like I had been hit by a train...probably also because of the PMS symptoms, but whoa-I was actually a little worried that I might have overdone it. So I laid down for a little while...and MAN-I am just so miserable here. When I'm distracted with job hunting and sending out resumes and going to see friends I don't have to dwell on it, but I really am so depressed to be at home with my parents right now. The kind of depressed where you don't ever want to get out of bed...and nothing seems worth doing.
   I promised myself that today I would finish unpacking all of my clothes, to get ready for the next carload of things I'll be bringing down in my next trip. I did NO such thing. And it wasn't like I had something better to do...there was just literally nothing I could tell myself that made getting out of bed seem worth it. I even tried telling myself "Hey, just get up and go to the gym and work out...you won't be unpacking, but it will get you out of the house, then maybe you'll feel better and more awake and will be able to do this." Nope. Still couldn't lift my head off of the pillow.
   "In 15 more minutes" became "in an hour" and now its almost 2am and I can honestly say I did NOTHING today but suck at life. The only ray of light is that I did get on the scale (which I promised myself I wouldn't do until Monday, but I was so concerned that with my period I had gained weight) and I'm down to 109. Not exactly a monumental drop-but anything that isn't a gain is cool with me. I think that there is reason to believe that I still have a shot at 107 by Monday, as long as I keep up with the exercise and don't have more binge-a-thons. Even though I couldn't bring myself to get to the gym today, I did a yoga podcast for 45 minutes and did about a half hour of ab work, so that I didn't feel like a complete schlepp.
   But now my cramps are back with a vengeance, and I'm super irritable...so I do apologize at the less than cheery tone of this post. Just wanted to give an update-I liek being able to share both when I'm doing great and when I'm doing...well, not so great. Right now I'm just trying to keep my eyes on the prize. And of course,since I pretty much slept all day, I'm WIDE AWAKE NOW! I'm supposed to leave tomorrow to drive back to my apartment for about 14 days to give myself a break while I still have another place to go to...but I can't do that until I unpack everything from my car, which makes me think there is a possibility it will have to get pushed back until Monday since I didn't accomplish that task today.
   Oh lordy lordy lordy. Well, you win some you lose some I guess. I think I'm going to try and take advantage of this newfound energy spurt while it lasts and fold some clothes before hitting the sack again. At least there's always tomorrow...or in this case, the rest of today. Anyone out there have any home remedies or tricks for relieving the awful suckiness of periods? Love hearing new suggestions.

LM

Passed OUT! But I FINALLY finished!

   So, I woke up this morning in one of the most amusing ways. I stayed up last night until like 2am writing down my plan for today and searching a bunch of food info and stuff that I wanted to share with everyone....and I guess I tried to push myself an eency bit too hard, and I PASSED OUT with my laptop ON MY LAP, my pen IN MY MOUTH, and my notepad IN MY HAND. I woke up about 40min later than I had planned on...and I just sort of looked around like WTF? Everything was still exactly where it was when I was working on it...I guess I'm lucky that I didn't kick the laptop off the bed at any point in the night. Then I had that moment of panic that everyone who has ever fallen asleep studying for an exam knows about-where I was like OMG I DIDN'T SUBMIT MY POST IN TIME!!!!! But then I came to my senses and realized that this blog is actually NOT being graded by anyone, and that my future hasn't been ruined, lol.
   Anyway, like I said I meant to wake up at 10:30 this morning (I had planned on going to bed around 2:30am, which still gave me 8 hours), but since I ended up passing out who-knows-when without setting an alarm, that ended up being 11:08am. That's right-11:08 exactly. I know this because I looked at my phone and yelled "AHHHH, IT'S 11:08!!" Since then I have eaten breakfast and done an hour of fake-yoga (I call stretching on a yoga mat with Enya playing in the background "fake-yoga")-so I'm feeling refreshed and energized and ready to finally sit down and type out what I'm going to be doing in the next weeks to remedy my binge-induced weight gain.
   Most of you have probably heard about eating 6-8 small meals a day instead of 3 big meals-the concept isn't very new, it's been around for a while. The problem is, when most people do it, they break up a "regular" daily intake of 1,500-2,000cals into those 6-8 small meals. Obviously, I don't want to consume anywhere NEAR that many calories...but I really like the idea of eating less more often, and the science behind it seems to be that this eating pattern promotes a faster and more efficient metabolism, which allows your body to burn fat more effectively.
   Many of you have probably ALSO heard of the 2-4-6-8 diet that's uber-popular among the ED community, which is 200cal one day, 400cal the next day, and so on. The logic behind this is ALSO to keep your metabolism from slowing down too much, by sort of "tricking" it into a pattern where it never gets used to ONLY having one set amount, which would make it sort of plateau.
   Additionally, I've written before about how I'm really into getting the daily amount of fiber in the least amount of calories possible. I've also written before about how I'm sort of obsessed with Tanya Zuckerbrot, who wrote the F-Factor diet all about losing weight with fiber and founded my FAV website, SkinnyintheCity.com. Right, well the whole idea of enough fiber aiding in weight-loss is that fiber is basically undigestable, meaning that it is not absorbed by your colon. That is why it is so helpful in aiding digestion, because it pretty much goes right through you since it can't be digested itself.
   Then, of course, there is my old BFF, the negative-calorie diet, which consists only of foods that burn more calories in their digestion than they contain, in essence cancelling themselves out and allowing you to eat your fill of these foods without the guilt.
   So what to make of all this? What I've been doing the last few days is trying to make a plan that basically COMBINES all of these ideas into one diet, and then add in exercise. What I've come up with is the following:

Day 1: 300 Calories

300 calories DIVIDED by 6 meals = Six 50cal meals

Day 2: 450 Calories

450 calories DIVIDED by 6 meals = Six 75cal meals

Day 3: 600 Calories

600 calories DIVIDED by 6 meals = Six 100cal meals

Day 4: 750 Calories

750 calories DIVIDED by 6 meals = Six 125cal meals

Day 5: Start Cycle Over at 300 Calories.

This is the most basic way to explain the diet. In addition to that foundation, which combines the 6 small meals and 2-4-6-8 method:

*Within the 6 meals, you must meet 100% of daily fiber value (mine is ~20grams, find yours at http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/fiber.asp)

*Hunger felt in between meals can be satieted with negative-calorie snacks

*Must integrate at least 60minutes of high-calorie burning exercise each day (My favorite is 60 minutes on the treadmill at 15% incline and between 3.5 and 4.5 speed-burns between 500 and 650 calories in just one hour!)

OK, so how do you do this? Below is a list of foods and snacks that are ALL ONLY 50 CALORIES:

Volumetric:

1 cup Manischewitz Matzo Ball & Soup Mix

1/2 of a large grapefruit

2.5 cups sugarfree flavored gelatin

12 baby carrots

3/4 cup serving of fruit smoothie (1 c nonfat sugar-free yogurt, 1 c strawberries, 1 banana, 3 c crushed ice)

10 dill pickle spears

1.25 c spinich, boiled and drained

3/4 cup gazpacho (no bread)

1 c chopped cantalope or watermelon

Surf 'n' Turf

1 think slice smoked salmon

1.5 pieces California roll

1/3 slim jim

1.5 strips bacon

2 thin slices turkey breast

Vegan

1/2 Nature Valley Oats 'N Honey Granola Bar

1 Lightlife Smart Dogs Meatless Franks

1/2 cup vegetarian barley soup

2 pieces Turtle Island Tofurkey Jurky

Combo

1/2 wedge of honeydew melon w/thin slice honey ham

3 saltines each topped w/ two thin slices turkey pepperoni

3 Nabisco Original Wheat Thins topped w/ low-fat cream cheese and thin slice of pickle

10 medium strawberries w/ 1 tbsp Cool Whip topping

1/2 c diced watermelon mixed w/ 1 tbsp lowfat yogurt

Sweet

1 fig bar

1 Charms Junior blow Pop

1 tbsp honey

2 hershey kisses

5 Brach's jelly beans

12 M&M's Chocolate Candies

Crunchy

5 potato chips

2 cups light microwave popcorn

4 lowfat Honey Maid Honey Grahams

11 dry roasted peanuts

Frozen

6 oz. Dannon Light & Fit nonfat yogurt

1/2 low-fat ice cream sandwich

1 Breyers "Pure Fruit" Fruit & Cream Bar

1 Dove Ice Cream Miniature

Mediterranean

15 seedless grapes

1.5 cups chopped cucumber w/ 3/4 tbsp olive oil, squirt of lemon juice and salt

2 medium tomatoes or 16 cherry tomatoes

4 pimiento-stuffed Queen olives

7 almonds

2 oz. red or white wine

Bottoms Up

1 cup V8 100% vegetable juice

1 cup light apple juice

1 cup coffee w/ 1 tbsp half-and-half and 1 tsp sugar

1 diet root beer float w/ 1/4 cup light vanilla ice cream

unlimited iced tea

6 oz. Bud Light

2 oz. red or white wine

And here is a list of all the negative-calorie foods:

Negative Calorie Vegetables

Asparagus

Beet Root

Broccoli

Cabbage

Carrot

Cauliflower

Celery Chicory

Hot Chili

Cucumber

Garden cress

Garlic

Green Beans

Lettuce

Onion

Radish

Spinach

Turnip

Zucchini

Negative Calorie Fruits

Apple

Blueberries

Cantaloupe

Cranberry

Grapefruit Honeydew

Lemon/Lime

Mango

Orange

Papaya

Peach Pineapple

Raspberry

Strawberry

Tomato

Tangerine

Turnip

Watermelon

But What about the Fiber?! High fiber-foods include vegetables, whole grains, beans and legumes. A food item is considered to be high fiber if it contains at least 5 g of fiber per serving. The Mayo Clinic offers guidelines of some favorite foods and their fiber content. LOW-calorie, HIGH fiber foods:

Fruits

* Raspberries rank as one of the highest high fiber low calorie foods, at 8.0 g per serving and 1 calorie per raspberry

*Raspberries are followed by Pears at 5.1 g, with about 51 calories for a medium sized pear

*Next are Apples at 4.4, at roughly 55 calories for a small apple

*Then Blueberries, roughly 40 calories for 50 berries and 3.5 grams fiber

*And Strawberries, which average about 2 calories per strawberry and 3.3 grams of fiber each

*Finally, Raisins, which provide 1.6 grams of fiber per 1.5 ounce serving and roughly 42 calories for a 5-ounce box.

Grains

*Whole-wheat Spaghetti weighs in at 6.3 g of fiber per serving and approximately 174 calories per 1-cup serving

*One cup of Oatmeal provides 4.0 grams and about 60 calories per serving

*Whole-wheat or Multigrain Breads offer 1.9 grams per slice and about 65 calories per slice.

Vegetables

*Cooked Peas, at a whopping 8.8 g of fiber and a low 67 calories per cup serving size

*Boiled Turnip Greens, which offer about 5.0 grams of fiber per cup sized serving and about 48 calories

*Raw Carrots offer 1.7 grams of fiber and 21 calories for a small carrot

*Boiled Broccoli offering 5.1 g of fiber and about 52 calories per cup

Also, seeds and nuts help supplement your low calorie and high fiber food diet, but I had a harder time finding exact serving sizes and calories, because there are so many styles and brands...but:

*Sunflower seeds

*Sesame seeds and

*Pumpkin Seeds

Just be sure to look at labels when purchasing store-bought food to determine the grams of fiber as well as calories per serving.

   As you can (hopefully) tell, this took me a lot of time to put together and I scoured the internet and all of the diet books I own to come up with this routine, so I do apologize for it taking so long to compile...but I hope that you find the lists useful regardless of whether or not you have any interest in trying the "plan"-everyone can use low calories snack lists! What I'll be doing is following the 6-meal, incremental calorie plan by making up all of the meals from combinations of the foods from the previous lists. Let's see how this goes!!

-LM

Back in the USA!

Hey everyone!
   The giant gap in posting has to do with my roomie's emergency surgery being RIGHT before I had to leave for Antigua, so between spending all my time at the hospital, packing, driving all the way down to Miami for the flight, and leaving...I didn't have a spare minute to think, let alone post. Then, once I was in Antigua...of course my cell phone didn't work without charging me $19.95 per MB transferred, and I didn't bring my laptop because I was afraid of something happening to it. SOOOOOO, ya. BUT, I'm finally home!!
   I got back in the country last night, and got a good night's sleep...and now I am ready to majorly fill you guys in! As far as my roommate, thanks so much for your concern. It actually was/is pretty serious, but she's going to be OK. She has something called Ulcerative Colitis, which is basically an inflammatory disease of the large intestine. It's extremely painful, and she ended up having to have part of her intestine removed. She's doing a lot better now, and luckily they didn't have to do one of the more extreme surgeries where the entire colon is removed and them you have to have a colostomy bag...which is kinda of gross. They only had to remove a small part, so she is recovering well now. I'm really happy that she's doing better, but she is still in some pain and won't be able to work for another few weeks. Her room is also upstairs, and since the srugery she can't go up and down stairs very easily, which means she has been living on the couch in the living room. Obviously, she's sick and needs to be there...but I can't imagine another 3 weeks of not being able to use the living room or TV there, so I'll probably try and not be home as much as possible so that I don't feel locked in my room.
   And, for the more relevant (to this blog) news...I have good and bad regarding my weight, the wedding, and the dress. The bad news, is that with all of the time I ended up spending at the hospital and the tight travel schedule, I ended up not being able to get in very much exercise in those last days before I left. So, I never reached my 99lb goal. Ugh, that hurts just typing it. HOWEVER, that is the only bad news, and despite not getting under 100lb before leaving, I also didn't gain ANY WEIGHT. Which, to me, is a small victory in and of itself, considering the lack of exercise and some of the awful hospital food I ate. When I left for Antigua, I was still exactly 105lbs...however, because of everything, I didn't have the time to take pictures. I did take pictures at the wedding though...IN MY SIZE ZERO DRESS!!!! Ya, that's basically the best news....that even with not getting down to 99lbs, that Nanette Lepore dress I ordered somehow, magically, miraculously, managed to zip up and fit for the wedding!!! I don't know how it happened, but I'm not going to question it. I'll just accept the gift!!
   The wedding was absolutely gorgeous, the resort was fabulous, and it was so amazing to see so many of my friends again in one place when I hadn't seen a lot of them in over a year. What I was worried about, of course, was eating at the resort-it was an all-inclusive deal, so all your meals and drinks were free. Well, not "free"-you pay for it in the price of the resort, but you don't have to think about it while you're there, which is really awesome. However, I was concerned with there just unlimited amounts of free food everywhere, that would lead me to binge and purge constantly. Well, I was there for four days, and ate 3 meals a day every day, and then drank alcohol at night...and only purged one time the entire time I was there. Here is the strangest part: I felt AMAZING! Like, I felt great in all my outfits, everything fit me, I felt good in all of my bathing suits...I have really never experienced anything like it before. I felt healthy, and balanced, and like even though I was eating 3 meals a day, it was ok. I didn't feel like I was gaining weight, I was having regular BMs (the more PC way to say bowel movements, lol), and I just felt good about myself for the first time in a long time.
   I've been trying to figure out what it was about the trip that made me feel so good. I think it was a combination of things. First, it wasn't like a normal hotel-style resort. It was 30 individual cottages, each held two people, and they were staggered into the natural mountain side. I happened to be in the cottage that was the furthest up the mountain, so going back and forth from the beach, the pool, the dining area and my cottage was actually quite a hike, and it was uphill. I made the trip back and forth at least 10 times a day, so I think that part of why I didn't feel like I was gaining weight was all of the exercise I was getting that was built into the trip. Then, I pretty much spent all of my time swimming, either in the ocean orin the pool. Swimming burns a TON of calories, so I think that helped, too. Finally, the way the meals were set up, was that breakfast and lunch was buffet-style, and dinner was sit down-style with a menu.
   The buffets had very few vegetarian options, so for breakfast every day I really didn't have anything too different from what I was having at home. The only thing I could eat was the eggs and the fruit, really...everything else was come form of meat. And the eggs weren't pre-made, there was an actual station where they cooked everything to order for you, so you could request only the whites. So, every day for breakfast all I had was egg whites with chopped mushrooms, some strawberries and watermelon, and black coffee. Very little calories in all, and yet it was quite filling and all I usually wanted/needed after the previous night of wine-drinking, lol. Lunch was the same, very little vegetarian options. There was always three different kinds of meats, and then salad and some sides. So each day I pretty much ate a giant plate of lettuce with balsamic vinegar, and whatever side didn't have meat mixed in. One day there was this delicious looking chick pea and artichoke heart salad that look amazing that I wanted to try so badly, but they had to go and mix in bacon, so I couldn't have it. The worst thing I had the whole trip was some pasta one day, but I had only a half cup and didn't put any cheese or sauce on it, just topped my salad with it and ate it with vinegar. Dinner had three menue options that changed each night, but it was always 1 meat dish, 1 fish dish, and 1 vegetarian dish...so that was pretty much picked out for me! One night it was a grilled porobello mushroom with no bun (it was like they KNEW!), one night it was roasted vegetables in a lemon-butter sauces, and another night it was a Carribean-style rice and beans sort of casserole. Really, the meals couldn't have been more perfect for my situation. I was able to sit down and eat three times a day with everyone, so that no-one was wondering why I wasn't eating or anything, and still in reality stick pretty well to a very low calorie, low carb intake.
   The wedding was absolutely beautiful, and my friend looked so gorgeous. I took about a kajillion pictures, and I'll post soem of them just so you can see how pretty it was. The worst part of the whole trip was just a little bit of sadness I felt that she had moved on to another stage in her life, had found love, etc...and that I am nowhere close. I know that sounds a bit selfish, but of course I never expressed that. But I really don't think it's that abnormal for single people to have those feelings at weddings. It didn't help that literally all of the other guests aside from me and my friend Roberto were couples-and they were all taking those lovely beach-couple pictures. You know the poses-kissing in the sunset, holding hands in the sand, etc. Which just left me and Roberto taking pictures of trees and leaves and shit, haha. Anyway, I think that if that was the worst part, then it was pretty great overall. I'm so happy I went, and you know what the best part is? I left at 105lb, and came back at 104lb! So even with the meal schedule, I actually LOST a pound while I was there, which like I said, I think has something to do with how effing far up a mountainside my cabin was, and all of the swimming.
   I'm still at my parents' place at the moment, won't be returning home until Sunday morning. I figured with my roommate living on the couch, I may as well stay away as long as possible, plus, this weekend is Father's Day! But, my dad is actually flying to Washington, D.C. on Saturday to spend it with my sister and her kids, since they haven't seen him since his surgery. Which, by the way, he has been recovering AMAZINGLY! Even faster than the doctors predicted, and he returned to work last week! I'm just so happy that he is doing wo well after such a traumatic surgery, that I wanted to really do something special for him this father's day. So even though he is leaving Saturday, I'm going to take him out Friday night. The only catch is, since his heart surgery, he has a pretty restricted diet, so I can't just take him to his favorite place and let him have his favorite meal like I wish I could-so instead I'm going to cook a really healthy meal for him at home, and then take him out to South Beach, Miami for a live flamenco show, which he has always wanted to see. Also, he has these storage sheds outside in the backyard that have been through three hurricanes now, and are completely falling apart. But, since he has been recovering from quadruple-bypass surgery, it hasn't exactly been a priority. So I also ordered two new storage sheds from Lowe's, which I'm picking up tomorrow morning. I'll then spend the day while he's at work assembling them and transferring all the stuff over from the other ones, and then throwing the old ones out. I know he's going to love it!
   Since this post is so long, I'll end it here and do another post for the pictures. An all-picture post! I took ones this morning of the scale, front, side, collar bone...and then I have some wedding pictures, and specifically one of me in THE DRESS!! I'll post them in the next hour! I have to re-do my weight goals and dates, too, but I probably wont get to mapping that out until later tonight or tomorrow morning. Until then-thanks for reading, and stay strong!

LM