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

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

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

Steady as she goes...

Hey all!
   Nothing regarding my diet/exercise/weight has really changed since yesterday-I've decided not to weigh myself until Monday morning, so that I won't freak out over little fraction of a lb changes and just WORK MY ASS OFF! Then, if I'm a little short of my goal in the morning, I can work all day and still have a last shot for night time.
   Also, I realized that a lot of readers and bloggers are in the UK (Thanks, "Because I Love Who I Can Become!"), so as soon as I'm through with this post I'm going to go through my stats and do metric conversions and UK sizes for all of them. I know that we Americans are the only ones not on the boat with the Metric system, lol-so that must be frustrating. To be remedied shortly =)
   What I kind of want to post about today is about the RAD class I took. I don't know if I've ever brought this up in a post before...pretty sure that I haven't, but I was sexually assaulted about 5 years ago. I never really got counseling or treatment for it until very recently, and I still get nightmares and flashbacks sometimes of it happening. Ever since, I've had this idea that men can do whatever they want and there's nothing I can do to stop them. I'm no match for their size or strength, which really scares me-because nothing I did stopped it last time. It is quite a reality check-I always used to see on television and in movies, women would escape in the nick of time with a kick to the groin or something like that-but it wasn't that easy.
   Well, overall I'm fine now...I still think about it sometimes before I fall asleep at night, but it doesn't hinder or interfere with my every day life anymore. In the beginning, I couldn't leave my apartment for weeks. Then, when I had sort of recovered a bit and had gained back a semblance of normalcy, I saw him in a mall food court after 3 1/2 years. That was rough-it was really terrifying thinking things like "What if he saw me?" "Does he know where I live now?" "Has he been in town this whole time or did he just come back?" etc, etc. For various reasons that I won't go entirely into, I never reported the attack or pressed charges. It was a textbook case of a combination of 1. alcohol and drugs being involved, 2. blaming myself, and 3. that he was not a stranger but rather a friend of a friend. All of these factors made me too scared to report anything to the police. I was afraid that no one would believe me, or think that I was drunk and exaggerated it. Then on the complete opposite end-what if the police did believe me, and it went as far as an arrest and a trial-and then I had to testify in front of him and my family and our mutual friends would be called up....inevitably some would side with him and some would side with me. Neither result seemed particularly desirable to me.
   Anyway, now that the background information is over with, I'll get back to the point. I was reading my local newspaper and came across an article about the police department offering these Rape Aggression Defense classes for FREE! So, I went online and searched "Women's Self-Defense Class" in my area, and sure enough the most highly rated one that kept coming up was the RAD class. There were some others, but they weren't all free and didn't have as great reviews. So, I asked a friend of mine if she wanted to do it with me, she said she would, and I registered us both.
   Well, even though the classes are extremely long (Four hours for three days), they were really awesome. I learned so much, and a lot of safety measures that I never even would have thought of. The first day was not hands on, it was basically a 4-hour power-point presentation, but with a very good instructor who didn't just read the slides, and demonstrated a few things, and had a lot of stories of past cases to drive the points home. The second day was really cool, we got to be much more physically active and were taught a bunch of amazing resistance, defense, and aversion moves if ever attacked from just about every angle/position imaginable. It was a lot to take in, but so empowering to know that you don't have to be a 6-foot Amazon Women to have a chance in hell at escaping!
   Here's comes the bad part. Well, not bad-just disappointing, I suppose. The third day is what they call "Fight Night," and it is supposedly the best part and most useful. It is basically where you get to use everything you learned the previous two days, where you enter a room not knowing what is about to happen, and certified RAD instructors who you haven't met before surprise attack you in a variety of scenarios, forcing you to remember what moves to use in those situations. I was really excited about it, but also extremely nervous. What happened was, at the end of the second day, we had finished a little ahead of schedule and had about a half hour left, so the instructors decided to teach us some "advanced" moves that required them to sort of "fake attack" you in order for you to use them, and one the the moves involved what to do when you are being dragged by your legs.
   When I was attacked, I was dragged by my hair to a room where the door was then locked and I wasn't allowed to leave. So, even though this move wasn't exactly the same, something about the sensation and feeling of being dragged away triggered a flashback. I was near tears and had to leave the room. After everyone else had gone and the class was dismissed, I asked to speak to one of the instructors and explained that I had been sexually assaulted in the past, and that I've been diagnosed with PTSD and have been working on trauma issues in therapy, but that I was extremely nervous about "Fight Night," based on what had just happened.
   She told me not to worry, that it was completely understandable, and that they would let me go first with no one else in the room, so that if I had to stop for any reason, the rest of the class wouldn't know. That made me feel a little better, but that night (Thursday) I had nothing but skin-crawling, bone-chilling nightmares all night...the kind I haven't had in years. And I know that I shouldn't have let it effect me the way that it did, but I ended up no-showing to Fight Night.
   Now, I feel so awful about it. I can't believe that I let my fears from the past stop me from learning how to protect myself in the future! True, I got the information out of the first two days-but what good are all of those moves and tactics if I can't remember them in a high-stress situation? That's sort of the point of Fight Night-making you recall information when you are caught unaware. I called the police department today and found out that they are holding the classes again at the end of July...which will be about a week or so before I move, anyway. I e-mailed the main RAD instructor I had and made up some excuse about yesterday, and asked if I could come again in July. Hopefully, I don't let my past ghosts get the best of me next time. But, all that being said, I think that anyone who ever has the opportunity to take either an official RAD class or any Self-Defense class for women-PLEASE DO IT! There are RAD classes offered in the US, Canada, the UK, South Korea, and Switzerland. Here's a link to their website: RAD Systems: Program Locator. If it helps even one woman avert an assault or battery, its done its job.
   I think I'll let that be the final word on my RAD class. I'll be spending the rest of the day finishing making my friend's Wedding Guest Book. She wanted a guest book that people could sign, but also wants to make a "Wedding Scrapbook" after the wedding, where she can put people's messages in it by their pictures. So, she didn't want to buy an expensive, fancy guest book because she plans on tearing the pages out and using it in the scrapbook. But she also didn't want something cheap-looking or trashy, like just throwing a memo pad on the table with a pen, lol. She was stressing over it, so I offered to make one for her-because I love craft projects like that. I'm going to finish it today so that I can take pictures of it and send them to her to make sure she likes it, while I still have time to change anything in the next week. I'll post pictures here of it when its done-I'm rather proud of it, if I do say so myself. =)

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."

-Louisa May Alcott

LM

  

Whoopsy Daisy!

Why hello there!
   I got back into town as planned Wednesday around 10am, and I walked into my apartment to find...that our electricity was turned off. This was QUITE perplexing to me, as before I left I had left a utilities check on the kitchen counter for my roommate to mail in. Well, apparently, she forgot. SOOOOOO I had to pay it immediately online, and they don't just "turn it back on" with the push of a button, they have to set up an appointment to come out to your place and physically turn it on.
   Luckily, I had that Rape Aggression Defense class (henceforth to be referred to as RAD to keep me from typing that all out every time), so I was able to get out of the stifling heat and lack of internet and television from 1-5pm at least. Imagine my surprise when I came back, and it STILL wasn't back on! Ya. I had to sleep practically naked to tolerate how effing hot it was, and it finally got turned back on last night-thank god! So, now that I've had the opportunity to wake up NOT in a pool of sweat, have my breakfast, read the paper...I decided it was finally the perfect time to post-since I have power again, and all.
   First things first: I can't stress enough how much your following and comments mean to me! Thank you so much! This post actually might get a little too long because I have so much to say that I kept saving or putting off for my "next post," not realizing that it would be like 3 days! I'll try my best to be mindful if it gets too ridonkulous, and maybe split it into two posts if I have to.

   That being said, I have lots of glorious photographs for your enjoyment! Not to bring up all sorts of old news or anything, but I've been meaning to post some pictures from my birthday so that you can appreciate how ridiculously delicious my dinner was! Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures until AFTER we had devoured the Mushroom Crostinis, so they are absent. I got everything else though!

Caprese Salad

Three Cheese Tortellini in White Truffle Sauce

I also took pictures of my friends' meals, because they looked SO good even though I don't eat meat. 

This would be Veal Milanese (veal scaloppini breaded and pan-fried, topped with marinated tomatos and fresh greens)

Lobster Ravioli in Fontina Cream Sauce

And of course...The Cake! Double Chocolate Layer Cake, to be exact. 

   So, ya-that was my birthday dinner! I know it's kind of silly to post the pictures now, but ever since I left my parents' place on Tuesday, I've been back to some extreme restriction in the hopes of reaching my goal of 101lbs by Monday, in spite of having missed last Monday's 103lbs. And when I'm fasting or doing intense restriction, obviously all I think about is delicious food! So in a weird way looking at the pictures from that dinner lets me remember how good it tasted, and then I sort of feel like I ate it again! It might be crazy, but its stopped me from bingeing TWICE now, so I'll take it. 

   Speaking of Monday's goal...I'm once again switching up my plan a bit, but not much. Basically, instead of complete fasting and not eating anything from Tuesday to Monday while exercising like I did for the three days that I went from 110.2 to 104.6, I'm allowing myself 125 cal per day in the form of 2 Fiber Supplements (15cal together) and a 1/2 cup of Fiber One ORIGINAL Bran Cereal (60cal) with 1 Fiber One Vanilla Yogurt (50cal). So, with just chewing two supplements and having a small 110cal breakfast in the morning, I'm getting 93% of my daily value of fiber. I eat the cereal and yogurt about a half hour after waking up, and then I take the supplements at lunch time. Since they are in gummy-form, they are actually kind of good so I like pretending that they are a meal, lol. The rest of the day I just drink water or green tea, 1/2 cup every half hour or so, alternating between the two. 

   The "rationale" behind this approach (I put it in quotation marks because...let's be real, nothing we do is really "rational") is that I'm kind of obsessed with Tanya Zuckerbrot, and I watch all of her Youtube videos, and try to catch her whenever I know she's going to be on TV. For anyone wondering who the hell she is, she is this celebrity dietician who wrote "The F-Factor Diet" and also started the website Skinny in the City, which I am also totally obsessed with. Basically the idea is to have a diet rich in fiber, because fiber is undigestible but very filling. So when you eat fiber, it fills you up and moves right through you, aiding in more regular bowel movements and helping you lose weight. Well, obviously, she does not endorse disordered eating and I've taken her basic premise to the extreme-but ya, that's what I'm doing right now. I decided to try it after being incredibly frustrated by the fact that even though you can lose weight very quickly by fasting and exercising, it also screws with my digestive system, and I end up constipated, bloated, and retaining water...which makes me feel disgusting. I figured, there has to be a way to eat very little but do something to help with those side effects. It's only been yesterday and today so far (Tues and Wed I just fasted), but I definitely feel better than I usually do when I'm just straight-up not eating anything. I guess we'll see how well it really worked on Monday!

   In other news, I know I briefly mentioned in another post that I had been dress shopping for the Antigua wedding that is FAST approaching (like, holy shit its in less than two weeks fast!!!), but still hadn't found anything. Well...I did something kind of bad. Actually, it might be really good...but it could also be very bad. After my last dress shopping rampage at the the mall, I tried on at LEAST 30 dresses, and I was consistently a size 2 every time, which on the one hand felt really incredible, but weird at the same time because I don't feel like a size 2, I feel like a size 10. Well, I've always had it in my head that a size 0 is the perfect size. I remember when I was overweight in high school, and I would go through the racks of clothes I couldn't fit in, and I would look at the size 0s as if they were these mythological, fantastical creations. And I would think "Who on EARTH could fit into these?!?!" Then, I would overhear the pretty, popular girls at school talking about shopping, etc. and discover that THEY were all size 0s and 2s. Well, for the first time in my life, I'm a size 2. And yet, I'm still not happy. I don't feel as thought the size is translating to my weight, or the shape of my body. 

   Anyway, I'll stop the rambling. This is what I did: I bought this Nanette Lepore dress for the wedding...in a size 0. I've always wanted a Nanette Lepore dress, ever since I saw an amazing one on the Tyra Banks show in one of their "Makeover" episodes (I know, I'm a loser). Well, the store had it in a size 2 and a size 0...and I could have gotten the 2. But I had this tunnel vision moment, and I thought that if I bought it in a 0, it would give me even more motivation to lose weight and fit into it for the wedding! I thought, this is non-refundable, and non-returnable...(it was on sale)if I do this, I HAVE TO WEAR IT! So I made myself get it in a 0, and now that is what is pushing me through. Whenever I'm about to binge or am too tired to exercise, I look at the dress and tell myself "You are SO close! Don't fuck it all up now!!" Seriously, though-how freaking adorable is this dress? Normally I would think it was too casual for a wedding, but it is a beach wedding and my friend showed me pictures of the wedding dress she is going to wear...let's just say I have nothing to worry about. Other than fitting into it, that is! Another part of my reasoning was that, in addition to providing the motivation to GET into the dress, it would also provide me with the motivation to not go crazy and splurge once I get to Antigua, because I'll be there two days before the wedding, so I'll still have to fit into it the day of. I know, I'm crazy. But determined. 

   And on that note, I'm going to free anyone who is still reading from the clutches of my tangents! I did want to write a little bit about my RAD class, but I'll save it for after tonight, which is the final class. Stay strong, everyone! 

LM

Bittersweet

Hey all~

   As per usual, this comes just in the knick of time for tonight! What I'm probably going to do is just post the scale and body pics real quick, so that they are up and done with, and then stay up writing a longer, more detailed post afterwards. At least, that's the plan at the moment.

   You may have gathered by the title that there are both good and bad feelings involved with today's results. On the plus side, I did somehow miraculously manage to get down to 105-which is a helluva lot better than 109. However, my goal weight for today HAD been 103, and that didn't happen. Also, my parents' scale is a little...what's the word...hmm...SHITTIER than mine, so it doesn't show fractions of a pound, so I don't know if I'm closer to 104 or 106.

   The pictures themselves are also bittersweet for me, because in some areas I'm starting to see a bit of a difference, while in others I'm just NOT! For example, you'll notice that I've included an additional picture in this post: one of my collar bone. I've always just done the front and side views, but today I was feeling particularly happy with my collar bone area, and for the first time thought that it was actually starting to become more pronounced, which made me really happy. On the other hand, I continue to be frustrated with the complete LACK of any difference in my giant stomach! Of course, I understand that I didn't lose any weight this week, and that in the pictures I'm about .8lbs heavier than last Monday's pics, so I souldn't have expected any big difference. It's still frustrating, though, since my stomach/hips/thighs are the areas I'm most self-conscious about. Leave it to me to lose weight just from my tits and neck, lol!

   OK, it's picture time-say cheese!

Note the inferior technology

Front:

And yes, I did forget to shave under my arms. My bad.

Side:

I blurred out the arm stubble in this one, lol.

Collar Bone:

Sorry about how disgusting the bathroom mirror is! =(

That's all for now-with about a quarter of an hour to spare! More intense posting to come!

LM

Being Home is No Holiday!

Hey there, everyone!
   I got to my parents' place today, and finally got up the nerve to get on a scale for the first time since my birthday, which was Tuesday. As you know, the night before I had managed to get down just under 105lbs after a whole weekend of fasting and exercising. That felt SO good!
   The morning of my birthday, I let myself have a breakfast of 1/4cup egg whites (25cal) and 1 Fiber One yogurt (50cal). Even though it was a breakfast of only 75cal, it was incredibly difficult for me to make myself eat anything after the 3 days of fasting. But, I knew that my friends were taking me out to a great restaurant for dinner that night, and that I wanted to try and enjoy that birthday dinner as much as possible-which meant not making my first bite of dinner my first bite in nearly 4 days. I wanted to gradually build up to it so it wouldn't be impossible to do. Later for lunch I had 1 Wasa Crsipbread (45cal) with 1 Laughing Cow French Onion Light Spreadable Cheese Wedge (35cal) and some Spicy Olive topping (15cal), meaning I managed to keep my breakfast and lunch a little under 200cal. After lunch I worked out for about 1 1/2 hours, did about 45 minutes (400cal) on the treadmill, then did 2 miles on the stationary bike (which actually burns way less calories than you would think...the machine only said like 22cal when I was done!) and some free weights for my arms.
   I was feeling pretty confident that I'd done enough to allow myself to indulge for my birthday dinner. And indulge I did. I had an appetizer of Mushroom Crostinis, which were little pita triangles covered in gorgonzola cheese, olive oil, sauteed onions and Portobello mushrooms...they were TO DIE FOR! But, the plate came with four of them, and I only ate two and gave the rest away. THEN I had a Caprese salad, which was four giant, thick slices of tomatoes topped with equally giant, think slices of mozzerella, with basil and balsamic vinegar. ALSO ridiculously good, and again, I had two of the four and gave the rest away. Here comes the worst of it: Entree and Dessert. Oh yes...it was bad. For dinner I chose the Three Cheese Tortellini in White Truffle Sauce (which was EXACTLY as mind-blowingly amazing as it sounds) and for dessert I had the chocolate layer cake. With the tortellini, I asked for a to-go box and put half of it away before I started eating, so that I wouldn't eat more than half. With the cake, I only had two bites and then passed it around the table for everyone to try...between the 7 of us, it wasn't hard to get everyone else to eat it. Still, though...compared to the 3 1/2 days before that meal, which was nothing + 170cal-that meal was BEYOND sinful. It was so awesome though, that I just kept telling myself "It's your BIRTHDAY! You're allowed to have this one great meal with your friends!" and "You can work it off the rest of the week!"
   What I hadn't really thought of or accounted for, however, when I made my weight-loss goals and schedule, was that literally the VERY NEXT MORNING after my birthday, I was leaving to visit my friend until today...and that RIGHT from her place, I was coming to see my parents until Tuesday. The reason this is such a problem, is that as most of you know, it is infinitely more difficult to stick as rigidly to your diet and exercise routines in front of other people, especially if those other people know about your ED and are hypersensitive to everything to do with food and exercise. I wasn't too bad while I was at my friend's...the worst thing I ate was some vegetable fried rice, and I only had about 1/2 cup. But the problem was, even though I wasn't going crazy and eating like a madwoman-I wasn't getting in my normal amount of exercise. The 45 minutes of floor exercise and ab work I was able to squeeze in before she woke up in the mornings was really nothing compared to what I was doing before I left. I wanted to weigh myself SO BADLY so that I could get my bearings and try and evaluate how many lbs my birthday dinner had cost me and how far I had to go till my next Monday weigh in...but she doesn't own a freaking scale! UGH
   Like I said in the beginning of this post, I finally did get to a scale today...and it was so depressing that I think it was borderline traumatic. 109lbs. You know that moment when you step on a scale, and you KNOW you've gained weight, but you're hoping it's only a little bit, or within a certain range? Like, I was silently praying and wishing to myself in my head "Please don't be over 107, please don't be over 107..." over and over again. When that 109 popped up, I almost fainted I was so heartbroken. I went into my room and just sat on the bed rocking back and forth, crying, on the verge of hyperventilating. My initial thought after I calmed down a bit, was that last weekend I went from 110.6 to 104.2 in only 3 days, so it is not out of the realm of possibility that I could go from 109 to 103 by Monday night.
   The problem is, last weekend I was at my own apartment, with my own privacy and the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I was able to eat nothing, exercise to my heart's content...and even do hot yoga (for which there is NOT a studio where my parents live!). Now I'm home, and although my parents don't exactly watch me 24/7, and we don't really sit down for meals together unless we're dining out...it is still extremely hard for me to hide eating nothing from them. Eventually, I get asked "When was the last time you ate?" or "What did you have for ________ ?" PLUS, in addition to fasting being so impossible when I'm home, I don't have access to the same exercise equipment and studios that I do where I live. I already said there's no Hot Yoga studio here, but at my apartment I have a 24 hour gym, and here...well, I don't. Which means anything I want to do for exercise I'll have to either do behind closed doors in my room, or try to escape for long enough to actually run a few miles or go to a park.
   The only thing I ate today was dinner at this little Italian place my parents love-which was good, but super fattening and calorie packed...which is why I purged it as soon as we got home. I was a little nervous they would catch on, but luckily my dad was tired and went to bed and my mom went to run some errands, so I was able to just purge undeterred for like 20 minutes in the bathroom. I've been drinking a ton of tea and water, and took double the amount of fiber supplements, trying to force my body to eliminate some of the water weight and cleanse out what I can. Going to go for a run in the morning before my parents wake up-Sunday is the only day that both of them have off, so they always sleep in-which will let me be gone for a solid 2 hours or so before they get up.
   Basically, I'm going to try my best to do everything I can to get my weight as low as possible by Monday night-but I'm not overly optimistic that I'm going to be able to reach my 103 goal. Right now I kind of just hope I can get it down to at least 105 or so, so that when I get back to MY LIFE on Tuesday, I can spend the whole week instead of just a weekend doing whatever I have to do to reach my next goal.
   Sorry this was so long, but I hadn't been able to sit down and write a reall post in a few days. Thanks so much for reading and your support! Special shout out to Liz for always hitting me up with great comments =) Wish me luck for tomorrow and Monday, I'll post Monday night with my weekly update and pics--no matter how dismal they are. Good night, and stay strong!

LM