Back on Track.

Hey all the people who don't read this blog and weren't eagerly anticipating a new post!

I remembered that I, like, totally started this thing and maybe I should keep doing it?  I warned you I suck at this continuity thing.

Since I stopped writing a lot has happened in my life. I met my current boyfriend. I graduated from college. I got my first job. It was terrible so I got a different one.

Oh yeah, and I gained a crap ton of weight. I was something like 170lb when I stopped writing. Today I'm around 225. There are couple of reasons for this. I stopped eating sensibly, healthfully. I started eating junk because it was easy.

Getting back where I was will not be easy. To say to the least. But my sister is getting married in 2014 and I refuse to be a fat bridesmaid!

On Impatience

I'm impatient.  Very impatient.  I think it's one of my biggest faults and biggest source of frustration.  I get impatient in traffic and speed too much.  I get impatient in class when the conversation drags on too long at the end of the period.  And I'm impatient when it comes to food and weight.

Patience is a virtue I wish I had a better grasp on.  At least I almost never let it affect how I treat others, but that just means that the one who is suffering the most is myself.  If I could just take a deep breath and let it all flow, it wouldn't have to feel so darn wound up all the time.

I hate how much time it takes to lose healthily lose weight.  I want results quicker, and in larger numbers.  I know how ridiculous and ineffective this is in practice, but that really doesn't do much to abate the desire.  This is what makes the entire diet industry the scum of the earth.  Any diet that says you can lose the weight quickly and keep it off is bald faced lying.  It took time to put it on, you can bet it'll take about the same amount of time to take it off.  The diet industry feeds off of the very human desire to see tangible, measurable results.  Diets don't work.  Any temporary dietary changes you make will only have an effect so long as they are in effect.  When you stop eating nothing but cabbage soup, for example, and start eating normally again your body is going to gain weight.

It sucks.  Truly it does.  And many don't seem to understand that the diet industry only makes money when there are heavy people to victimize.  They gain nothing from helping you because then you can stop using their product.  If they make you dependent on it, however...

It takes time.  Sometimes I wonder if I have the patience to ever make it to my goal weight.  If not, I'm coming to terms with the fact that it wouldn't be such a horrible fate.  I'm overweight, hovering near obese now, but I am healthy in every other way.  I have wonderful friends.  A loving boyfriend.

Maybe slowing down and trying not to care quite so much will help the time pass a little quicker.

4th Friday Weigh-in, Several Months Later

Ha ha ha ha ha hi.

I'm... um... back, I guess.  Please don't hate me.  I warned you I was a blog abandoner!

I wish I could say I'm back with good news, that news being a lower weight, but alas.

I'm 188.

God, just writing it depresses me something fierce.  What happened?  Well, for starters, my classes started getting stressful, so the posts were the first thing to go.  New habits take... 6? 8? weeks to form and I'd only been at it for a couple or so.  Plus I was basically talking to thin air, so yeah, not much motivation to stay on it.

I also became romantically entangled, as it were.  I've been with my boyfriend for almost 4 months now and boy, does having him around crash my eating habits.  I'm not blaming him, mind you.  I'm an adult and I make my own decisions and I take responsibility for them.  I am responsible when I eat the cake, cookies, ice cream and chips we buy.  Sometimes his money, sometimes mine.  I buy it for him, but I almost always partake.  He's aware of my piss poor will power, and dear that he is, is encouraging me not to buy it for him.  I also know he's better off without that stuff too, so I've started taking him up on it.

I haven't been this close to 190 for over a year.  If I'm brutally honest?  I hate myself for gaining this much weight back.  But choosing to start this blog up again and stay accountable by posting my weight will be one way I can get back on track.

So, uh, bye.

3rd Friday Weigh-in

172.8.

Miraculously, despite my idiocracy, it seems I'm moving in the right direction.  My goal for this week is to eat more vegetables.  That's a little vague.  Specifically more spinach, lima beans, kidney beans, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, bell peppers and more.  I like a lot!  I just never seem to buy them for some reason.  Oh and there will be fruit.  So much fruit.  I'm looking at you pineapple.

Have a great weekend!

Huge Mistake

So yesterday I got a sugar craving.  That's how it started.  For some ungodly reason, I decided to act on it.  Armed with two one dollar bills, I traipsed from my workplace down a flight of stairs to a vending machine in the student lounge.  I was feeling... Mike and Ikey.

The first problem.  There were people around.  I have what I like to call food anxiety.  I feel bad about myself when I purchase or eat food around people I don't know, or don't know well.  This anxiety is lessened when I buy foods that aren't so "bad".  Mike and Ike, the big box, is pretty "bad".  It's nothing but sugar, corn syrup and artificial flavoring.  I knew this.  I still wanted it.

Avoiding eye contact, pretending I was the only person in that lounge, in that building, in the universe... I bought it and ran.  Okay, I walked out, but I felt like running.

I had planned on only eating a serving size and then sticking the rest in my backpack for another day.  Key word.  Planned.  Here's the second problem.  I was doing other things while eating.  You know what that means.  Mindless eating, my arch nemesis.  If I have to multi task while eating, I usually portion out whatever it is I'm having into a bowl and when it's gone, I'm done.  No more. That was you serving.  You've had your treat, now go do the dishes.  But I wasn't at home, I was at work, so without even thinking about it I popped it open and started snacking.

Cut to 560 calories later, the box was almost empty.  Disgusted with myself, I threw the remainder away.  I couldn't even remember eating it.  All I remembered were the articles I'd read, the copy work I'd done.  By this time it was almost lunch, but I wasn't hungry anymore.  My emotional disgust was becoming physical as my body realized how much sugar was sitting in my gullet.  "Holy crap, we have to process what now?!"

So, in another idiotic move, I skipped eating any actual food for lunch.  I just couldn't bare to eat anymore calories.  I wanted to punish myself for being so stupid.  By being even more stupid.  So I left work to go sit through my two hour class, hands visibly shaking, unable to take notes because of said shaking, dizzy with cold lips and fingers.  I wobbled my way home after and caved, ate a sandwich, drank some water, laid down.

I realize that this was more than just a bad dietary decision.  I put my health at serious risk over some candy and the associated emotions I have on eating it.  This shouldn't be normal.  But I think, increasingly so, it's becoming that way.  I know more people with an unhealthy relationship with food and their body image than I do those that don't.

And just think.  I'm doing better.  This is better.  I'll leave things on that note.

2nd Friday Weigh-in

174.0 lb.

Dammit.

That's my only thought for the day.  When I have other thoughts, I will write another post.

No promises, though.

What's in Mystery Meat, anyway?

Cooking for myself is a recent development.  As a child, your parents do all the providing.  Whether that comes in the form of a home cooked meal or a paper sack, they are responsible for what you consume.  Mostly.  You gradually gain more independence in your food choices, get lunch money instead of packed lunches.  School food is an entirely different blog post.  Let's not go there.

In college, if you go, you have the most freedom yet.  From what seems like a wide selection of food, your choices seem endless.  Cereal OR eggs and bacon for breakfast?  Both?  Wowza!  Being serious for a moment, it all malarkey.  Frankly a farce.  The food in big shiny serving containers, made in mass quantities to feed hungry college kids is not much better from Mystery Meat Monday of the third grade.  You don't know what's in it, not really, it just looks like you do. Those mashed potatoes might be the genuine article.  Or they might be only a step higher than shredded sawdust.  You'll never know.  After all, there'll be so much salt and butter added it's sure to taste alright.

I'm sorry; is my soapbox blocking traffic?

The sad fact is, people go to college to learn and walk away (hopefully) with a diploma and the freshman fifteen.  Plus some more if they're really unfortunate.  Something is wrong here.  Part of it is probably poor choices.  But another part is that we don't know where our food comes from or how it's made anymore.  We don't read labels, or question what chemicals are put in our food.  It's served to us and we are clueless about where it came from and sometimes even how it's made.

Now I'm not saying we should all be on hyper vigilance, or that these things need to be abolished.  But we didn't become one of the fattest nations by eating organically.  What I'm saying, if I'm saying anything, is that we need to start thinking about it, at least.

I'm no longer in the dormitories.  I live in an apartment off campus, with a fully functioning kitchen.  I cook for myself every night, to varying degrees of fanciness. Some nights I make lasagna or chili or some other multiple serving dish and freeze the extras, for many lunches and dinners to come.  Other times, I just boil some whole wheat pasta and sprinkle it with mozzarella and bacon.

Hey, I never claimed to be perfect.

I almost never eat out anymore.  For money reasons, sure, but primarily for health reasons.  Yesterday for lunch, I acted out of character and went to Steak and Shake with a friend who had quite a hankering for a nice greasy burger.  I might disagree with his desire to act on it, but I don't condemn.  I treated him, actually.  During our meal, I made an off hand comment about how even I like to eat fast food occasionally.  He stared at me and fumbled for verbal footing.

"Steak and Shake is not fast food," he said finally, his tone indignant.

Moments later, our food arrived.  The waitress apologized for our long ten minute wait.  As I looked at the chili I had ordered, a meal that I'd had absolutely zero hand in preparing, cooking and serving, I knew my friend was not alone in his vehemence.  Much of America, of the world, very much agreed.  This is not fast food.  It's life as we know it.