When was the last time I got really into blogging? The last time I lived at home? Well this place must do something to drive me here because here I am in my childhood bedroom writing a post on the same blog I've had since 11th grade in high school. I guess my new college degree hasn't really changed much about me after all.
Today's intake was actually pretty okay.
b-coffee and milk
l-chicken sandwich with balsamic, kale, mozzarella and red pepper (so delicious)
d- taco with beef, rice, salsa, lettuce and corn chips
And now I'm fasting until 11am when I have my wisdom teeth surgery. I'm nervous about the pain and how nauseous the pain medication is going to make me. I've never been under but everything makes me nauseous so I just know it's going to be bad. Only up side is that I'll hopefully be on a really low intake the next few days.
Achieved 10,000 steps today as I was supposed to be doing everyday. Now hopefully I can keep this up if I can manage it. More steps plus more strength and flexibility exercises I'm hoping will be able to keep me a bit more balanced. If I can put energy into fitness I'll have more accountability to eat healthily, I'm hoping. Because if my life has been anything, it's been proof that I'm miserable at following a diet.
My little sister hit a deer with our minivan last week so we had a rental car for our vacation. Or should I say rental warship. This car was absolutely massive. We nicknamed the giant white beast "the Yeti", a fitting monicker I think for a Chevy Suburban. I got to drive it only once, but it was like what I imagine steering a sporting boat would be like. Fast, large, wasteful, and fun. Today we had a Jeep Grand Cherokee and I had a great time driving it to go shopping for a new coat. I didn't actually buy one but I did decide on the style I'd like to order online.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
Skiing in the bitter cold
On the car ride home from our family ski vacation in Vermont I listened to almost the entire audiobook It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell, a memoir about a girl who grows up fat and gets skinny her senior year of college. She was 260 by the time she started losing weight, I'm lucky never to have gotten that big. (but she's really pretty, unlike me. Sometimes very fat girls with pretty faces are preferable to average fat girls with ugly faces. There are somethings hard work cannot fix.) Listening to it, I cried for all the sad parts of my life it reminded me of. And I also felt inspired to make a change in my life, too. Bulimia was awful, but I'm finally done with that now. I throw up occasionally, but EDs don't consume my thoughts the way they used to.
I bought myself a fitbit with my Christmas money. I love it, and it gives me a much better way of tracking my daily calorie burn. It gives stats for how much you're burning with active exercise and how many steps you take, plus how much you've burned just by being alive. It's actually really helpful for getting a realistic picture of how much I should be eating. (Not that I can stick to an intake plan, I feel I have very little rational control over what and how much I eat.) My goal is to take 10,000 steps each day. I've met this goal maybe 5 times in the 15 days I've had the thing. Though I must add that for a whole week I was skiing for a few hours each day which isn't tracked as steps but is actually a high calorie-burning sport. There's a lot of lunging and pushing your weight and lugging around heavy equipment.
My skiing has gotten technically much better. My turns are sharper, I hold my skis parallel most of the time, I ski more fearlessly down steep pitches. To my humiliation my aunt and cousins kept pointing out my improvement, which to me felt like they were emphasizing how embarrassingly terrible I had been at skiing only a few years ago and through my entire childhood. I've always been the slowest and most timid of our group, always requiring someone to stay back with me and make sure I actually came down the mountain instead of standing frozen in fear half way down the slope. This trip was refreshing, it felt good to keep up with my group, plus I had a new appreciation of how lucky I am to have the resources to participate in this sport.
There was one moment where I reverted to old ways and scared myself into some serious self-reflection. I followed my braver siblings and cousins down an experts-only black diamond trail that was mostly ice covered by mounds of powder. I made it down about half way before I lost footing and freaked out. Blind terror took over and I froze where I was, unable to keep linking turns and escape this section of the trail. I just kept looking down and slipping inch by inch, making my eyes swell with tears and my calves burn from holding my weight at that odd angle. Eventually I sat and removed my skis, sliding down while whimpering and repeating a mantra of "help me, help me, help me" inside my head. My dad waited only 50 yards down the hill and shouted to urge me down. I shook my head vigorously "no" and cried even harder. As soon as I somehow made it down the black diamond, I flew down the easiest trail I could get to and back to the connection trail to our condo. The entire time I was ski-skating my way across the flat trail that connects the chairlifts to the resort housing I fought violent sobs and too-loud-for-public wails that kept bursting out of me.
By the time I made it back to the beginner slopes I was calm again and the snow had stopped. All morning and while I was on the difficult trails it had been snowing and gusts of wind whipped up the mountain to blind the skiers. Now that I was away from the challenge the sky was clear and I wanted to stay outside. I rode the chair alone, looking behind me to see mountains far in the distance. Vermont is so beautiful, a true treasure to our country. I took pictures and began to contemplate the complete terror that had just gripped me. When I got stuck up there, I lost total control of myself, my thoughts and my actions. I didn't do anything rationally, I just freaked out and panicked. Is that a panic attack? I skied back to the difficult mountain, stopping on the empty connection trail to smoke my travel-size piece. High and in rapture with the gorgeous scenery, I had a wonderful lift ride up and a near perfect ski to the bottom. The sun was setting and the sky turned beautiful colors. At one point I was skiing through golden patches of trail created by the sun sinking perfectly into the notch where two mountains meet. That last run was heaven, true bliss.
An update on my life (besides last week's vacation):
-graduated from college! (Dec 15, 2014)
-went home to PA on Dec 19, been here ever since (except for week in VT)
-still not sure what I'll do with my degree/life
Hope to post again tomorrow, I'm trying to get back into more exercise and be more conscious of my nutrition. Maybe I'll get a hike in? One can only hope.
I bought myself a fitbit with my Christmas money. I love it, and it gives me a much better way of tracking my daily calorie burn. It gives stats for how much you're burning with active exercise and how many steps you take, plus how much you've burned just by being alive. It's actually really helpful for getting a realistic picture of how much I should be eating. (Not that I can stick to an intake plan, I feel I have very little rational control over what and how much I eat.) My goal is to take 10,000 steps each day. I've met this goal maybe 5 times in the 15 days I've had the thing. Though I must add that for a whole week I was skiing for a few hours each day which isn't tracked as steps but is actually a high calorie-burning sport. There's a lot of lunging and pushing your weight and lugging around heavy equipment.
My skiing has gotten technically much better. My turns are sharper, I hold my skis parallel most of the time, I ski more fearlessly down steep pitches. To my humiliation my aunt and cousins kept pointing out my improvement, which to me felt like they were emphasizing how embarrassingly terrible I had been at skiing only a few years ago and through my entire childhood. I've always been the slowest and most timid of our group, always requiring someone to stay back with me and make sure I actually came down the mountain instead of standing frozen in fear half way down the slope. This trip was refreshing, it felt good to keep up with my group, plus I had a new appreciation of how lucky I am to have the resources to participate in this sport.
There was one moment where I reverted to old ways and scared myself into some serious self-reflection. I followed my braver siblings and cousins down an experts-only black diamond trail that was mostly ice covered by mounds of powder. I made it down about half way before I lost footing and freaked out. Blind terror took over and I froze where I was, unable to keep linking turns and escape this section of the trail. I just kept looking down and slipping inch by inch, making my eyes swell with tears and my calves burn from holding my weight at that odd angle. Eventually I sat and removed my skis, sliding down while whimpering and repeating a mantra of "help me, help me, help me" inside my head. My dad waited only 50 yards down the hill and shouted to urge me down. I shook my head vigorously "no" and cried even harder. As soon as I somehow made it down the black diamond, I flew down the easiest trail I could get to and back to the connection trail to our condo. The entire time I was ski-skating my way across the flat trail that connects the chairlifts to the resort housing I fought violent sobs and too-loud-for-public wails that kept bursting out of me.
By the time I made it back to the beginner slopes I was calm again and the snow had stopped. All morning and while I was on the difficult trails it had been snowing and gusts of wind whipped up the mountain to blind the skiers. Now that I was away from the challenge the sky was clear and I wanted to stay outside. I rode the chair alone, looking behind me to see mountains far in the distance. Vermont is so beautiful, a true treasure to our country. I took pictures and began to contemplate the complete terror that had just gripped me. When I got stuck up there, I lost total control of myself, my thoughts and my actions. I didn't do anything rationally, I just freaked out and panicked. Is that a panic attack? I skied back to the difficult mountain, stopping on the empty connection trail to smoke my travel-size piece. High and in rapture with the gorgeous scenery, I had a wonderful lift ride up and a near perfect ski to the bottom. The sun was setting and the sky turned beautiful colors. At one point I was skiing through golden patches of trail created by the sun sinking perfectly into the notch where two mountains meet. That last run was heaven, true bliss.
An update on my life (besides last week's vacation):
-graduated from college! (Dec 15, 2014)
-went home to PA on Dec 19, been here ever since (except for week in VT)
-still not sure what I'll do with my degree/life
Hope to post again tomorrow, I'm trying to get back into more exercise and be more conscious of my nutrition. Maybe I'll get a hike in? One can only hope.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Thanksgiving Break
I hate schoolwork. I have this pathological avoidance of it. Even if I like the assignment, I'll put it off and put it off until the due date passes, and then a week more, and then maybe I'll turn it in 3 weeks late or just quit the class. I hate this about myself. It's lazy and self-destructive and a complete waste of a valuable education. At present I'm only delinquent on 1 assignment, and I'm trying to convince myself it doesn't matter that much. But it does. I'm graduating in a few weeks and I need to just buck up and do the work.
Weight loss, same thing. I binge on bad foods, make constant poor decisions. I came home to find my skinny little sister even skinnier after an autumn of field hockey practice and a new diet. "I'm trying to be healthier" she told me in the American Eagle dressing room on Black Friday. I'm hovering somewhere around 140 pounds, meaning this autumn I gained around 10 pounds. Part of it is definitely that I stopped purging so much, part of it is that it's cold out and I don't walk and bike everywhere anymore. I really need to start a gym routine. (I say for the thousandth time)
Yesterday at the mall I saw my best friend from high school. If I weren't with my sister I might have just walked on by, never saying hello. But we did stop and pretend to exchange pleasantries. As we walked away from each other my eyes filled with tears and my stomach clenched with grief. I hurt her, back in 12th grade when I was blinded by my own raging pain and emotion and self-hate. But then I tried to make amends all summer, I reached out over and over again throughout college. She's polite, but makes it clear with her actions that she wants nothing to do with me. Last night when I got home I cut all our social media connections, seeing her pictures only makes me sad now.
My mood was lifted though, when we got to the movie theater and I stopped in at the bathroom. My period. Thank God. Three weeks ago the condom broke and I've been a ball of nervous tension ever since. I really need to go to the doctor and get on the pill or get an IUD or something. I never want to deal with this shit again. I texted L, who is now officially my boyfriend btw, and he was super relieved. I knew he was too afraid to ask about what was going on, but I wish he would have just let me know he was nervous, too. It would have made me feel a lot less alone.
Three weeks left and I'm no longer a college student. I can't wait to be free and yet I'm completely and utterly terrified. Nothing will change, and yet my whole identity will change. I won't be a "student" for the first time since I was 5 years old. It's time to finally figure out who I'm going to identify as for the next phase of my life.
Weight loss, same thing. I binge on bad foods, make constant poor decisions. I came home to find my skinny little sister even skinnier after an autumn of field hockey practice and a new diet. "I'm trying to be healthier" she told me in the American Eagle dressing room on Black Friday. I'm hovering somewhere around 140 pounds, meaning this autumn I gained around 10 pounds. Part of it is definitely that I stopped purging so much, part of it is that it's cold out and I don't walk and bike everywhere anymore. I really need to start a gym routine. (I say for the thousandth time)
Yesterday at the mall I saw my best friend from high school. If I weren't with my sister I might have just walked on by, never saying hello. But we did stop and pretend to exchange pleasantries. As we walked away from each other my eyes filled with tears and my stomach clenched with grief. I hurt her, back in 12th grade when I was blinded by my own raging pain and emotion and self-hate. But then I tried to make amends all summer, I reached out over and over again throughout college. She's polite, but makes it clear with her actions that she wants nothing to do with me. Last night when I got home I cut all our social media connections, seeing her pictures only makes me sad now.
My mood was lifted though, when we got to the movie theater and I stopped in at the bathroom. My period. Thank God. Three weeks ago the condom broke and I've been a ball of nervous tension ever since. I really need to go to the doctor and get on the pill or get an IUD or something. I never want to deal with this shit again. I texted L, who is now officially my boyfriend btw, and he was super relieved. I knew he was too afraid to ask about what was going on, but I wish he would have just let me know he was nervous, too. It would have made me feel a lot less alone.
Three weeks left and I'm no longer a college student. I can't wait to be free and yet I'm completely and utterly terrified. Nothing will change, and yet my whole identity will change. I won't be a "student" for the first time since I was 5 years old. It's time to finally figure out who I'm going to identify as for the next phase of my life.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Just keep swimming
Decided that I need to join a gym. I think I'll feel better if I start working out and eating better. So I'm going to try and go carb-free for a few days to see how I like it. Unfortunately I eat mainly carbs so it's going to be a bit hard to find new foods. But I think I can do it if I don't over think the whole thing.
L and I have been sleeping together lately. Spending a lot of time making playlists and smoking pot and talking about where we want to travel. He makes me so happy, but he still hasn't broken up with his girlfriend. Part of me never even expects him to. I'm not worth it for him to end that relationship, I'm a distraction, a blip on his radar, a nothing.
School work hasn't beaten me down too badly yet. I'm up to date on all my classes and I think I'm going to pass all of them this semester. Tomorrow I'm going to a climate change talk and there's going to be a senator there. I really can't wait to write about it.
Talking with my roommates the other day about it, I realized that I really want to be an activist. Or maybe a scientist. But climate change is really important to me, and I want to do something to help save the environment. I don't know what yet, but something.
L and I have been sleeping together lately. Spending a lot of time making playlists and smoking pot and talking about where we want to travel. He makes me so happy, but he still hasn't broken up with his girlfriend. Part of me never even expects him to. I'm not worth it for him to end that relationship, I'm a distraction, a blip on his radar, a nothing.
School work hasn't beaten me down too badly yet. I'm up to date on all my classes and I think I'm going to pass all of them this semester. Tomorrow I'm going to a climate change talk and there's going to be a senator there. I really can't wait to write about it.
Talking with my roommates the other day about it, I realized that I really want to be an activist. Or maybe a scientist. But climate change is really important to me, and I want to do something to help save the environment. I don't know what yet, but something.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Ennui
Currently climbing my way out of a several-day-deep hole of depression. Of the last 72 hours, I spent about 40 sleeping, 12 at work, 3 having sex, and the rest binging and watching television. Is it depression thats causing this overwhelming laziness, or is the laziness making me sad? Cause that's all I feel, overwhelmingly sad. All I want is to be sleeping so I don't have to be thinking. When I'm awake and thinking (or worse, talking to people) the insecurity and the self hate grow so strong its hard not to cry. I've cried a lot in public over the past week.
There was at least 4 homework assignments due today. I've only done one of them so far and I feel like such a huge failure. But it was me, these past few days, who actively procrastinated, knowing this would happen. I can't write, I can't do the work. I just do not care about any of this.
There was at least 4 homework assignments due today. I've only done one of them so far and I feel like such a huge failure. But it was me, these past few days, who actively procrastinated, knowing this would happen. I can't write, I can't do the work. I just do not care about any of this.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
up and down and up
After my last post I only made it a few more days before the binging started again. It's embarrassing to admit here what a failure I am. I've been eating bad foods again in large quantities all alone. And then I run the bath so my roommates won't hear me purging. They think I don't do that anymore and I wish I could live up to their expectations of me.
Each morning I wake up and either remorsefully take a stock of last night's damages or happily congratulate myself on a low intake and bounce onto the scale. One wonderful morning it actually read 131, a great number for me. But this morning it was 134, still not awful, but up over the past week. My goal right now is to see 129 or lower by October. I don't think it's completely impossible, especially if I find a little time to actually get in some exercise.
Dieting is so boring. I wish I had some better news to tell you all.
Each morning I wake up and either remorsefully take a stock of last night's damages or happily congratulate myself on a low intake and bounce onto the scale. One wonderful morning it actually read 131, a great number for me. But this morning it was 134, still not awful, but up over the past week. My goal right now is to see 129 or lower by October. I don't think it's completely impossible, especially if I find a little time to actually get in some exercise.
Dieting is so boring. I wish I had some better news to tell you all.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
A little optimism
Somehow, by some miracle, I've been binge-free since last friday. That's 10 days! I feel so fantastic, I can't even say. This has been a plague of mine for 13 years, which, not so coincidentally, is also the number of years since my mom died. It's kind of odd to type something like that out onto this white space. I have a problem that I've been embarrassed about since I was 8 years old. I binge eat and that's the thing I hate the most about myself, and I hate a lot of things about myself. And finally that I'm feeling just a little control over this behavior is so liberating. It's like if I could solve this than I could do anything.
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