I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes...

Well, it seems like days since I last updated this blog, despite my last post actually only being the day before yesterday. I've just been all over the place with sleeping/not sleeping these past couple of days and I've sort of lost my bearings. After my last post I was up all night without sleeping. The night after that I wanted to try and retrain my body to get back to a normal sleeping time - so that I could go to bed at the same time as my boyf - so I took a sleeping tablet hoping it would help me get straight to sleep and snooze nicely through until the following morning. Unfortunately, I must have taken a few too many Diazepam too or something, because I went to sleep on Tuesday night at about 11pm.....and woke up on Wednesday evening at 8pm! I had been in a complete coma the whole time, slept through two alarms, my other half trying to shake me awake and both our cats clambering all over me, mewing to get fed. I woke up foggy and icky and not feeling great - not to mention being starving hungry and fixated with the idea of tuna cheese melts! - but due to having just pulled a super-sleep-shift, I wasn't going to be tired enough to go to bed to sleep at all last night, so again sat up all night, watching a documentary on Women in the Georgian 1660's in Great Britain and a bit of Jerry Springer (“An Hour Of Your Life You'll Never Get Back!”)

Today was going to be a bit of a bad day because it was the day me and the other half got money and went to do our big weekly shop. And as is the tradition, we started this day with a bite to eat in KFC, followed by coffee in one of the little local coffee houses and then a wander along to the supermarket. This was all planned well in advance and I'd figured out how to bring in my total intake/expenditure for the day to just under 900 calories, so I wasn't too worried.

But it was the insanely raging hunger I woke up with yesterday, after that 21 hour marathon sleep, that crept up on me and really took me by surprise. It wasn't just a normal hunger, this was an all consuming insane craving that consumed my stomach with agonising pains and fed the imagined scent of a tuna melt into my head to make me think that somewhere in the apartment, lurked a ready toasted plate of the gooey cheese and toasted tuna booty. I knew that I could ride out the pangs with lots of water if I really wanted/was determined to, but I decided instead to have dinner with Mia. I lightly toasted a baguette, spread tuna with mayonnaise on it and topped it all off with grated cheese before slipping under the grill to melt together. Then, I added a handful of sliced Santini tomatoes to the top, a liberal smear of cottage cheese and a generous sprinkling of black pepper. Et voila!

And I won't lie, the damn thing was fucking uh-mazing!

But with Mia as my dinner guest, no good feast goes un-purged, so as soon as I'd finished I chugged back another pint of water and silently made good on my promise to rid myself of every morsel I had eaten. I felt so much better afterwards. Cleaner, emptier, back in control of everything. The cravings had been sated and the hunger had abated, so I consoled myself with a good litre or so of water and a couple of Diazepam to quell any shakey-quakey after-effects. All was good on the Western Front.

As I said earlier, I was up all night again through the wee small hours until morning, watching crap TV. I even ended up finding myself watching an episode of TAPS, which I'd seen before, but kinda felt like revisiting because of the whole time of year, leading up to Halloween and whatnot. I love Halloween and Autumn and it's at this time of year that I allow myself to let the skepticism take a back seat and just enjoy a good spooky tale. I actually quite like the way they conduct the investigations on this show though, because they go in to each site with the premise of of trying to debunk whatever phenomena has been reported by the owners/occupiers, rather than try and ramp up the ratings with sensationalised, exaggerated bullshit to make you think that they find something everywhere they go. It was a bit of fun and a good introduction to this year's season of spookiness, reminding me to get started on one of the myriad horror/paranormal/ghost story books, I have lined up on my Kindle, waiting to be read.

Which reminds me....I really must go check that my Kindle is fully charged and ready to go, because I have 'Last Days' and 'The Ritual' by Adam Neville at the top of my list as well as the second novel by Syd Moore 'The Drowning Pool', which seems to follow on in the same vein as 'Witch Hunt', which I really liked. It merged the horrific trials and executions of alleged witches in the 17th Century, with a modern tale of a journalist trying to write a historical piece, all the while discovering her own familial connections to these women who were persecuted over 200 years ago. I read it around this time last year on my Spooky Season book kick and I guess reading the next one right now would make perfect sense.

Getting back to food though. Today was a free pass day to do what I wanted. When me and my other half went to KFC I had a Zinger Burger and a Small Popcorn Chicken. I think it came it at just over 800 calories. But no sooner had I devoured it, than I felt incredible twisting stomach pains and a pressure I just wasn't familiar with. I was ridiculously full, but hadn't really realised because I'm not used to being satisfied by such a small order. I would normally wade through twice that amount of chicken in KFC, but this time I was so full, I could hardly move and all I wanted to do was throw up. But I had to restrain myself as I was out and about in public and I really don't like the idea of getting my face anywhere near to a toilet where the thousands of arses of the general public have sat and shat, so I kept it down for the afternoon, the whole time lumbering in pain as we moved away from the fast-food-fat-fest to another calorie-laden lair of temptation: the coffee shop. Urgh. I felt like I was waddling as we ambled our way down to this cute little place about five minutes away. It's not one of a chain like Costa, but a privately owned small business who just happen to make stunningly good coffee and insanely good cakes which you can smell cooking in the ovens as you cross over the threshold. Aaarrrrggghh!

I wasn't hungry or thirsty or in any way in need of any sustenance, but hey, when you're off the wagon, you get to roll in the dirt as much as you want don't you? So I ordered a small hot chocolate and just about managed to get it down without throwing up, but the minute I'd swallowed it back, I just felt it shudder and slosh around in my abdomen, making it almost impossible to not vomit. Somehow though, will the greatest will and determination known to mankind, I managed to fight back to the beads of sweat forming on my forehead and the watery mouth that always comes before the inevitable involuntary puke, to hold off on the technicolour yawning whilst we sat in a too-warm lounge, listening to 80's music on the radio and reading the local papers.

After that was our trip to the supermarket. Something I really wouldn't recommend to anyone feeling overly nauseated – not unless you don't plan on buying anything you can cook up into a meal for your other half. Shopping for me was easy. I didn't want anything that I saw around me. All I could think about was getting home and collapsing onto the sofa, falling asleep and then waking up the next day to a renewed, fresh approach to consumption. Restriction and control. Feeling clean again. As we wandered up and down the aisles, I had to keep reminding my other half to pick out stuff he wanted for himself, but not to worry about me as I have absolutely no intention of eating any of his big meals, day in, day out.

My own personal shopping consisted of: Yoghurt, rice cakes, Ryvitas, Go Ahead Bars, tinned grapefruit, bars of chocolate (sometimes I just get through a day on a small bar of Dairy Milk and a cup of coffee!) Sugar Free Relentless, Ribena: No Added Sugar, Pickled Beetroot, Mr Freeze Ice Pops, Cup A Soups and cottage cheese. Oh and a packet of cigarettes. That's basically what I'll be existing on, during the days when I'm not having a binge or a cheat day. The way I feel today after all the gluttony and the subsequent agonising stomach aches, makes me wish I hadn't consumed all the crap I did today. My insides feel like they've been put through the mill and I ache for that calm, familiar sense of emptiness and clean control again. To get through the day on a couple of rice cakes and a yoghurt, feeling strong and resilient and calm.

Roll on tomorrow. Bring on the return to restriction. Bring me back to that safe, sensible, place where I don't have to bear the brunt of my idiotic pig-outs. And please don't make me suffer further with the aftermath of today's over-consumption. Yuk. It's about 2am here now. I really do have to go and get some sleep. Hopefully, when I awake, I will be back feeling like I did before I gave myself a free pass to gastric agony.

Wish me luck

x

Redeemed!

You remember that extra pound I said I'd regained in my last post, after the pig-out on the previous 'cheat day'? Well, I woke up today to find that I'd successfully managed to starve it off again after a minimal calorie intake yesterday. Woohoo! That was a pretty good thing to wake up to. I wasn't sure if I'd have made enough of an impact with my restriction to get rid of it right away, but when I stepped on the scales this morning and saw the numbers had gone down I was incredibly happy. Hunger hurts, but starving works. It might be a cliche but it's a cliche for a reason: it's just so fucking true.

Today I decided to eat a little more, but limited myself to 500 calories for the day. I'm not sure how much of an effect this will have on my weight loss as I think my metabolism is already fucked up from daily restricting and it might make even this small number of calories add a little weight back on, but I'm hoping if nothing else, that it will have allowed me to maintain the same weight I read on the scale this morning. Ha, I'm saying 'this morning' because I got up so late yesterday/Monday (2.30pm) that I'm still up now and it's gone 4.30am on Tuesday. I weighed myself when I got up yesterday, but I'm not planning on going to bed anytime soon. I'm not remotely tired and I'm happily making my way through all the great Pro Ana/Mia/BED/EDNOS blogs there are out there. I've discovered some really interesting, well written ones by some incredibly honest ladies who my heart goes out to. There's a lot of pain in those pages out there, but within that pain there is also strength and beauty; there is a lot to be admired.

I've listed some of my favourites in the sidebar blog list on the right hand side, but today's big shout out goes to http://xthexstarvingxartistx.blogspot.com who I just discovered today and have been enjoying (is 'enjoying' the right word to use when talking about these subjects? Sorry if it sounds crass or lacking in understanding; perhaps I should use the word 'appreciate' instead?) going back through the archives to read from past to present, her year long battle/journey with Ana and weight loss. It's one of the much more articulately written blogs I've come across and the fact that it's by a fellow Brit is just one more bonus point to add! I highly recommend that any and all go visit her blog, read her journey and drop her a bit of support in the comments field too, because I'm sure she'd appreciate it. 

I just love how supportive the Pro Ana community is among these blogs. Reading the words of another anonymous individual, whose thoughts and sentiments echo your own completely, is incredibly inspiring. Got me to stare down a 110 calorie skinny Dairy Milk bar for daring to suggest that I eat it, earlier on in these wee small hours! (No, really, I was totally debating whether or not I would risk going over the 500 calorie limit by succumbing to it's delicious chocolaty goodness - but reading through the her 'Dying To Be Thin' blog, really helped me to 'just say no!') I feel like such an amateur in comparison to some of these incredible girls (and guys) who have been blogging about their own weight loss journeys for so long, but that just inspires me to carry on in my cause and do better with my own. I have a long way to go and it would be great to hear from anyone who might have stumbled across my own wee slice of the internet, so please feel free to stop by and say hello in the comments section.

I'm going to work my way through a few more of these blogs tonight, finding the ones which are currently active and being updated, before adding them to my blog roll. I'm also just not sure I like the layout of my own one. It seems very garish and kind of 'in your face' which is not the vibe I was trying to go for. It took me ages to get it this way, but I'm not sure I like the red on black. I think I'd prefer pink and black or blue and black. Hmm...I'll have to think about it. I also need to work on getting my losses written up in the 'Stats' page, details on how I'm actually eating on the 'The Diet' page and list a few more resources on the 'Books' and 'Links' pages too. I want this to be a fairly comprehensive blog with lots of info, lots of pointers in the right direction to to others wanting to follow a similar lifestyle, along with lots of my own real experience along this path and a few glimpses into the rest of my fairly uninteresting life too, for those who want to know a bit about the real Thinderella.

So I think I'll leave this post for now and go spend a bit more time perusing the xstarvingartistx blog again for a bit.

Sleep well my fellow journeymen/women

x

Aftermath

Urgh! I feel SO ill.

In my last post I mentioned how yesterday was going to be a 'cheat day', with my other half bringing home a McDonald's for me on his way home from work. Which I was both fearing and looking forward to in equal measure. As it turned out though, he decided to take the Saturday off, so no Quarter-Pounder with cheese for me. Instead though, he decided to order a pizza. Fuck!

Ordering from Domino's, as opposed to another pizza place, is much less stressful because they provide some info regarding calorie counts on their online site; whilst other nutritional information can be found elsewhere online. Unfortunately, we were ordering from our local fried chicken/pizza/kebab house, which whilst being the nicest, cheapest and friendliest place to order pizza from, they don't supply any nutritional information on any of the food - gulp! But it was a cheat day and I had committed to the idea of having a bit of a blow-out, so I just thought "fuck it!" and took the plunge.

I had a ten inch pizza, topped with chicken, pepperoni and extra cheese (hey, if we're going to be bad, it might as well be über-naughty, right?) and a small portion of fries, with a little pot of garlic and chive mayonnaise. And to add to the fat-tastic calorie fest, I had a can of full-fat Coke to wash it all down with. I certainly wasn't doing things by halves. Oh, and when it turned up, the whole order came complete with a bloody free garlic bread! Grr... Normally, the prospect of getting free food would be great, but not when you're trying to starve your arse off! The guy at the pizza place was only trying to be nice because he used to live in the same apartment building as us and we're pretty friendly. He wasn't to know that he was being the bearer of evil temptation!

And so I ended up with half of a ten inch garlic bread too. Meh! Initially, I ate half the pizza, most of the fries and a slice of garlic bread, all washed down with the can of Coke. I felt instantly guilty for having pigged out and really had to fight the urge to purge - especially after I then glugged back a pint of water afterwards. I really was thirsty, but I also know that there was this not-so-subconscious other motive at work too: if I've binged and I'm going to purge, the first thing I do is flood the rest of my stomach with water; partly to soften up the food in my gut and partly to dilute the stomach acid before it hits my teeth. I repeatedly throw back a pint of water in between purges, about five or six times until I'm sure that my stomach has been completely emptied and rinsed clean. 

So, naturally, after gulping down all that water after the pizza and chips yesterday, my stomach twitched and my throat vibrated in anticipation of a trip to the bathroom. I wanted to do it; imagined myself wandering through the narrow s-shaped turn in our hall-way, navigating past the cat toys next to the door-frame and closing the bathroom door behind me, before silently dropping to my knees. It would have been so easy. But, I'd already promised myself that yesterday was going to be an approved 'cheat day' and I didn't need the binge/purge thing becoming a compulsion that I can no longer control. So, I fought back the temptation to bring it all back up and let every last gram of fat, sugar, salt and ick, sit in my gut until it traveled through my digestive tract, away from the temptation of itchy fingers.

Later that night, as I watched the horror/thriller film 'Mirrors' which I just love (I'm a bit of a fan of a good horror film) another kind of guilt hit me; one that's been drilled into me from a very young age: the guilt of letting good food go to waste. It's one of those weird psychological ties to food I know a lot of people of my generation have. Food is something that we should be grateful for when so many people the world over are going without - even here in the UK, where the numbers of people having to rely on food banks to feed their families, is climbing every day. It's a deeply ingrained guilt, of middle-class sensibilities, that I really need to work on getting rid of. Because, as my other half sloped off to bed and I was left with the plentiful remains of our dinner, I felt almost duty-bound to polish off the rest of my pizza and a bit of garlic bread. That food was perfectly alright, had been bought and paid for and I just couldn't let it sit there mocking me for my wasteful, frivolous bourgeois sense of abandon.

So I ended up eating the whole ten inch pizza, two slices of garlic bread, a portion of fries and a garlic dip, washed down with a can of full fat Coke. Then, to make matters worse, I munched my way through half a bag of Twirl Bites. Well, it's not like I could do that on any other normal, well behaved day, so I just figured that I might as well make the most of a bad day and go out with a bang. All or nothing, right?

Anyways, today I woke up and weighed myself and found that the pound I'd lost between yesterday and the day before, had crept back on overnight, after yesterday's fat-fest. Fucking typical. Starve like an Ethiopian for a week to lose a few pounds, then put one of them right back on again the very minute I start to eat like a regular person. That'll be my metabolism fucking up then I guess. Urgh. You can't win. Well actually, no, you can. You just have to keep at it. Anyone who tries to tell you that you won't actually lose any weight if you don't eat because your metabolism will go into starvation mode, obviously hasn't ever met an anorexic person. I'm pretty sure anorectics don't get to see that 'gleeful clattering set of bones' (to quote 'Wasted' by Marya Hornbacher) by chowing down on cheeseburgers and fries. Yes, it's right that when you first start to severely restrict, it will slow your weight loss down as your body 'goes into starvation mode' but what the nutritionists fail to tell you is that starvation mode ultimately revolves around your body relying on it's own internal resources (fat and lean muscle mass) to get by. It isn't getting anything through eating, so it burns what fuel it has available. And if you're fairly overweight, it will turn to fat first as your body goes into ketosis. However, if you are already at a low BMI, you could be in danger of losing lean muscle mass from places you really don't want it to go, like you're heart, so be careful you starving skinnies out there!

Fact is, I dropped a stone in just over a couple of weeks through severe restriction, both intentional and unintentional. It wasn't difficult and my body got really used to just having to get by on its own resources. I'm planning on continuing to restrict until I get to see something vaguely human looking, staring back at me in the mirror. There is the problem of how the slowed down metabolism will automatically absorb every fucking calorie available if I have a 'cheat day' and I will see an increase on the scales the following morning. But it's just a case of weighing up the pros and the cons. Can you live without going bat-shit crazy on the calories for one day, or do you just need a day of utter gluttony? Is a temporary movement back up on the scale, worth the moment of madness? Your choice. Do you continue straight on in your journey south, or do you take a slight diversion on route to being thin? Everyone is different; your life, your decisions. But either way you just have to make sure that you make a conscious decision to do what you want, be happy with it and stick to it. Mia can be a helpful friend to have around when we occasionally lose control, but let's be honest; we don't really want to be sticking our fingers down our throats every other day if we can help it, do we?

Back to the restricting for me though today. After yesterday's blowout I was wondering how my appetite would fare. I had visions of me sitting here, craving anything with cheese on top as my metabolism screamed for a repeat performance of yesterday. But it's been a lot easier than I thought and I'm sat here now just getting ready to watch the MotoGP on BBC2 (I fucking LOVE motorcycles!) having so far consumed a very reasonable 116 calories in total: 51 from a cup of coffee with semi-skimmed milk and one sugar, 65 from 4 Twirl Bites (I actually had to get the digital scales out to calculate the calorie count on them, because they're so small!). I'm two thirds of the way through my first bottle of water (1.5 litres) which is helping nicely to stave off those hunger pangs, but the other half has just passed me two Fruit Gums, which he calculated to be 7.5 calories per sweet, so we can look to add another 15 calories to my daily total if I do indeed decide to eat them. Which I probably will, because I think I can take the not exactly mahoosive extra calories and not gain any more lard! I guess that's a total of 131 altogether then.

I really do like this way of not eating. I feel cleaner, more in control. Like it's a challenge I'm setting myself and actually achieving. Feeling successful is always a good thing. Yeah, I might have chalked up an extra pound between yesterday and today, but I did enjoy the pizza and I'm right back in control of things today like a good little Wintergirl. And that sounds like the perfect note to end today's entry on.

I'm off to watch the rest of this bike race.

Guten abend y'all

x 

Feeling fierce!

And so it is that another week draws to a close and another weekend arrives to ruin television and make the high street too crowded to want to bother going shopping at all. But....there's that cool, crisp note in the air; the fresh scent of my least favourite season, giving way to one of my favourite times of year: Autumn has arrived! I really do get excited when Summer turns to Autumn. People think I'm weird because I'm sort of backwards when it comes to seasons and temperatures. I hate summer and the sickly, sultry warm weather that it brings. I hate the intrusiveness of bright sunshine that just seems to turn up uninvited and invade your living space, your sleeping patterns, your privacy. No, I prefer the colder climate that Autumn and Winter bring along. The days that get shorter and the nights that get longer. I love the feeling of cold air stinging in my lungs and being legitimately able to wear a big warm winter coat.

I love sitting in a coffee house with a steaming beverage whilst torrential rain beats a tattoo on the roof and the street outside. Or curling up on the sofa with a loved one, watching a DVD and snoogling beneath the duvet for warmth, comfort and closeness. I love Halloween parties and the countdown to Christmas; leaving work in the inky blanket of blackness that swirls around you like a comforter. Autumn and Winter are cosy. They are mysterious. They are inspiring and they are the times I find myself most motivated to work on my writing.

I'm not even kidding when I say that I actually get excited come the 21st June, when the longest day passes and after that comes the guarantee of every single day in the next six months getting shorter and shorter. September brings with it the promise of new starts. Of freshly made commitments to study well and behave better in this years class. I'm 33 years old and I still associate September with the beginning of a new term and find myself inexplicably drawn to the stores selling stationery and school supplies as my inner scribbler hunts for tools that will help me hone my craft. I always feel a sense of renewed energy, a vitality, a desire to reconnect to my goals and aspirations. 

Today as the weather forecast warned of gale force winds hitting the North East of the UK, that familiar tingling began in my spine. Time to relax and enjoy the next six months. The other half accepted our invite to the Halloween party we'll be going to this year and once again the desire to seek out spooky books and embrace the supernatural sensations this time of year brings with it. I'm not in any way a believer in anything ghostly or supernatural. I don't believe in anything other than empirically proven scientific research. I'm a confirmed atheist and I have no 'spiritual' beliefs whatsoever. But I do love a good ghost or horror story. And I like to embrace some of the pagan heritage that still lingers on in the area in which I live. A bit of witchcraft around this time of year is an interesting titillation; something that makes me almost wish that it was real; that we did live in a world with a curiously fascinating 'other side'. 

I know. That probably all sounds a bit mad. But we all have our own little interests and idiosyncrasies. Everyone likes different stuff, different seasons and ways to enjoy their favourite time of year. This just happens to be my favourite time of year and I intend to enjoy it. Even if I do have to forgo the regular indulgence of a Costa Hot Chocolate with marshmallows and cream at the moment.

I guess I really should get onto the subject of diet though, seeing as how that's the main purpose of this blog - to account for and be accountable to my decision to lose weight. Well, yesterday was a good day. I managed to make it all the way through the day on nothing but a coffee and lots of water, culminating in my consuming a Slim Fast Rich Chocolate Shake for dinner at around 8.00pm. The coffee was 51 calories and the shake was 230 calories, so yesterday came in at a thoroughly respectable 281 calories for the day. 

Today has been pretty good too. A black coffee at breakfast time which contained 22 calories, 3 of himself's Sports Mixtures sweets (at 16 calories each that made 48 calories altogether) and a Cadbury's Freddo Bar at 95 calories. So today has amounted to a pretty non-eventful 165 calories for the whole day. I'm really quite proud of how well I've been doing. Had to ignore a few hunger pangs today and swallow a few of them down with a couple of gulps of water, but the willpower remains as strong as I need it to. 

I'm just wondering how I'm going to get on with my 'cheat day' tomorrow. The boyf (it sounds too weird calling him my fiance!) is working, even though it's a Saturday to make sure that the site is safe, secured and not exposed when the stormy weather comes in on Sunday. On his way home he's declared that he will be swinging by McDonald's to sample the latest Australian Barbecue special and naturally, will be picking me up my favourite Plain Quarter-pounder With Cheese And No Goop! I definitely deserve a day of being bad, after having been mostly good of late. I purged all the pizza I ate a few days ago (properly made sure it was all gone by rinsing my stomach out with about 5 pint glasses of water drunk between purges to make sure everything came back up!) and every other day has seen my calorie count fall way below 500. I just don't know if my appetite or my stomach will be up for the challenge, after so many days existing on so little. 

Then of course, there is also the worry that if I do manage to eat it all, my appetite will come back with a vengeance the next day. But if that does happen I will just have to get back to being good again. Hunger hurts, but starving works, right? I'm a big girl (literally, unfortunately) and I can conquer hunger pangs. I am the master of my own body and brain after all. I think the fact that I actually allow myself days off to have a little binge on the forbidden fruits of fast foods now and then, helps assuage the need to binge or cave in to cravings on other days. I'm not ever telling myself I can't have those foods anymore, just that they are to be considered a treat on a 'cheat day' when I've been good enough to see the scale move down and my smile turn up. Plus the fact that I'm allowed/supposed to eat chocolate every day on this diet, means that I never get the urge to go mad and binge on sweet stuff. I'm playing games with my own mind to make sure it doesn't ever feel like it's being forced into some permanent kind of ban on all things naughty. Because everybody knows that the minute you tell yourself you're not allowed something and that you have to give it up, you instantly start craving it as your mind struggles to deal with the prospect of never again tasting it on your lips.

Controlled, allowed, occasional indulgences combined with a daily prescription for chocolate, should hopefully help me to stay this path and remain disciplined and virtuous on those days when I'm supposed to be restricting. I've got a long way to go so I'm going to need to have strategies in place to make this journey doable and make maintenance possible. Getting the first stone down and done and out of the way is a good first step and an indication of how I can do anything I want if I just put my mind to it. 

I think that's a good and positive note to end on for today. It's almost 3.00am and I promised the other half I'd get up with him and make him breakfast before he goes to work, like a good little 1950's housewife! So it's about time I got to bed and got some sleep. To any and all of you who might be reading this, I wish you goodnight and sweet dreams. 

Till next time

x

Going Strong-ish

I weighed myself today using the dodgy scales in my only tilted apartment and taking the reading which showed the heaviest weight, found that if the numbers can be trusted, I've lost about 16 pounds so far, which is good. 1 stone and two pounds lighter than when I began and so far, so good. I haven't found it at all difficult, so I just need to keep on doing what I'm doing and hope that the results continue coming.

These past few days have been easier than usual anyway because of some stomach bug I seem to have picked up. I have had absolutely no appetite and have been perpetually nauseous since Saturday, not to mention the frequent trips toothed bathroom every half an hour! Urgh. But the freedom from having any desire to eat has been pretty liberating.

Yesterday was a bit mad. I felt pretty rubbish from the minute I got up and managed to get a cup of coffee into me, but around 4.00 pm I thought I really should try and get something into my system, just so I could take my vitamins. So I ferreted around the bags of chocolate munchables in the living room and settled on a Mars Bar. I know, not the kind of thing one would usually associate with a diet, but when you're not actually consuming any calories from anywhere else, 270 calories from a Mars Bar isn't exactly going mad. And it sort of worked, because it did actually make my stomach feel a little better and I was able to take my supplements safe in the knowledge that they'd be absorbed. 

But then I got it into my head that I wanted to try and eat something else. Something ridiculous. I decided I wanted a pizza. I wasn't hungry, I just thought that I could have a few slices and my stomach would be fine. So when my other half got home from work we decided to order from Domino's; some special offer where you get 2 medium sized pizzas, a portion of wedges, a garlic bread and a bottle of Coke for £19.99. I ordered the Mexican hot because I love jalapenos and when it turned up I thought it'd be great. So I ate half of it. Within minutes of taking my last bite I became so acutely aware of this huge mass of chewed up, disgusting mixture sitting in my stomach, I felt ill. I also felt kinda guilty for having ingested so many gross calories of fat and processed white flour/sugar. 

The Domino's website only has a calorie count for the larger slices, not the medium ones. But I had ordered an extra topping of chicken on my medium pizza, so figure the calorie count is probably around the same as the large one per slice, without the extra chicken. That puts each slice at about 213 calories each. Four of those and we're just over 850 - far too many for one sitting. So partially because I just felt so ill and partly because I didn't want to have eaten all that pizza, I went straight to the toilet and puked the lot up. Felt a whole lot better for it too. I just couldn't keep it in there.

Today I felt marginally better so I had a yoghurt for dinner. Not too bad at 121 calories. And I was fine for about two or three hours until I had the massive urge to eat the last two leftover slices of pizza from last night. No idea why, because I felt gross as soon as I'd eaten them, so naturally I had to go and purge them immediately. But my tummy felt icky afterwards so I decided to eat some chocolate, because there's something about the way that melted chocolate coats the inside of your empty stomach and makes it feel so much calmer and better. I had a Cadbury's Freddo at 95 calories, a skinny Dairy Milk at 110 calories and about 7 Bitsa Wispa bites at 133 calories. That's 338 calories from the chocolate, 121 from the yoghurt earlier on and 51 for the coffee I had for breakfast. That brings today's total of calories consumed (not including the purged pizza) to 510 calories altogether. That's not too bad really, I can totally live with that. 

I don't know what I'm going to eat tomorrow. I want to eat something small, so maybe a couple of slices of toast and a little bit of chocolate. Or maybe a Slim Fast shake. And lots of water throughout the day to flush my system out. I just know that I need to keep whatever calories I do consume to an absolute minimum. We're in September at the moment and I really would like to have lost another couple of stone by Christmas. Maybe that's asking too much, but it would really help keep me on track to start the next year having made some decent progress. I just need to stay strong, remember I'm in this for the long haul and keep reminding myself of the reverse thinspo hippo I want to make sick with envy.

Y'see, I'm not one of these fat girls who finds solace in hanging out with other fat chicks in some kind of sad deluded attempt to convince myself that it's okay to be grotesque pig. Fat acceptance groups are a tragic lie that perpetuate the myth that it's okay to be grossly corpulent. Everyone who tries to spout the spurious spiel of fat acceptance is either a perverse weirdo with a fat fetish, or in most cases a lazy, pathetic, weak, failure who hasn't managed to get their own weight problems under control. I refuse point blank to bow my head in decided agreement to capitulate to the fate of being forever fat. I don't feel better when I'm around other lardy retards or gain solace in the company of mutual massiveness. Fat people make me want to throw up because it's like looking in a mirror and having all my own faults shown up under fluorescent lighting where I can see how ugly I must look to others. Fat women are reverse thinspo and right now I have one particular person in my mind as my current reverse thinspo.

Fat Jackie. That's not her real name. I'm not going to print in here in case someone somehow makes the connection that this in my blog and figures out who I'm on about. Fat Jackie is a friend of my other half. She's not just fat, she's enormous. I already look thin stood next to her. She's just despicably slovenly with her appearance, never even attempts to make any effort to reduce how disgusting she appears to the public. She even posts photos of herself on Facebook in too-small vest tops, stretched across her 25 stone frame, breasts drooping in an ill-fitting bra, fat arms and bingo wings out for all to see. She is repulsive. So repulsive, I don't even know how my other half can bear to be around her. But she makes great reverse thinspo for me and truly motivates me to stay strong and keep on keeping on. Because I will never EVER let myself get like that. It's good to see how bad things can get if you just continue to let yourself go. It's an ever present, real life, (barely) human warning of how ugly you can really become if you just give up and spend your life stuffing cream cakes into your face.

I'm really looking forward to the day some time in the future when she looks at me and sees that I've noticeably lost weight. That I'm so much prettier, cute and confident than ever and that I make her look like something a bullock shat out in a cow field. I always do my make up immaculately before I go out anywhere as it is, but when she sees me sans the extra weight, I will have the perfect cute emo/goth outfit, awesome hair, perfect make-up and be radiating confidence. I just want to rub her disgusting face in it. Show her that anyone can lose weight if they're not a lazy, weak fucking heifer. She's such good thinspo, I'm actually feeling nauseated just thinking about her!! Everyone needs a good bit of reverse thinspo and there's plenty out there. I just wonder though, if she was ever strong enough to shed some weight, who SHE would use as HER reverse thinspo? Hee hee, she'd probably have to go online and find some bedridden fucking patient on a TV documentary about the super morbidly obese!

I know all that probably makes me sound like a total fucking bitch, but if you're a fat person yourself, you'll know that feeling you get when you walk into a room and then thankfully see the troll who's even fatter than you. You instantly relax, safe in the knowledge that she's the biggest, the fattest, the one taking up the most space in the room. You know she's going to look at you at some point and know what you're thinking, because she thinks that herself whenever she's lucky enough to be in that position. All women do it. Fat women especially. We feel as though the eyes of the most judgmental will fall upon someone else rather than us. We will slip just about under the radar of shame as the humongous harridan takes the medal for 'fattest whore in the room.' So yeah, maybe I am a bitch. But we're all bitches at some point if we really admit it. We all take that little bit of gratitude at another's misfortune, if it makes us feel slightly less bad about ourselves. 

Fat Jackie makes me sick, but that's fine by me. Because if I feel sick then I'm not going to want to be eating and that is the perfect result of reverse thinspo! I'm sure many of you out there have your own 'Fat Jackie' to help stop you when you want to reach for that extra biscuit, or eat that pizza without purging. I hope she helps you to stay strong and stays disgusting in her own right, because nothing can show up the beauty of our own successes, quite as well as the failed, unchanged hideousness of someone like good old Fat Jackie. 

And on that note dear readers, I think I shall call it a day. Delight in your own reverse thinspo and may Fat Jackie's forever abound to keep us all on the straight and narrow. 

Adieu

x

Suddenly Starving?

Funny how things can take such a dramatic change in so few days. The last time I posted here I was lamenting the fact that I'd inhaled two quarter-pounders with cheese and now here I sit, not having consumed anything solid since Friday morning. The weird thing is, is hasn't been an intentional attempt at not eating, it just sort of happened without me realising or even trying. It's surprised me just how easy it is, not to actually eat properly. Yes, I know it's only been a couple of days but it's as if my appetite has just disappeared overnight. Now you can see what the title of this post is actually referring to!

On Friday morning I got up and pottered about telling myself I needed to eat something, but the thought of consuming anything really substantial made me feel really nauseated. So I ransacked my way through the cupboards and refrigerator looking for anything that looked remotely appealing, but it wasn't until I sat back down on the sofa and saw my 'chocolate stash' that I found something to eat that didn't make me want to hurl!

Eating chocolate every day is supposed to be the premise upon which my diet is based. It's kind of a gimmick, but as any seasoned dieter knows, the quirkier and unusual an eating plan is, the more appealing it seems to be. It's as if that idiosyncratic little requirement is going to be the magic bullet that will make THIS one actually work and be something you can stick to. That was partly behind my thinking in creating the 'Eat Chocolate Every Day And Still Lose Weight Diet'. (The other reasoning being that I love chocolate so much, I just cannot imagine denying it to myself in the pursuit of a smaller dress size; so by not only allowing it but making it mandatory, I was less likely to cave in and go nutso on a Dairy Milk binge!)

Anyway, on Friday chocolate seemed like the only thing I could possibly even try to consume and the thought of it melting, slipping down my oesophagus and coating the inside of my icky feeling stomach seemed just perfect. So I ate a Wispa Duo that came in at 280 calories. And I was right. As soon as I ate it, I felt better. Not like I'd satisfied a hunger or a craving, because I'd had neither. More like I'd taken some medicine and made my upset stomach feel better. Now that's a thought – chocolate as medicine; prescribed, not proscribed!

For the remainder of the day I pretty much just chugged back water; about 3 litres. But later on in the day as I made dinner for my other half, I had to at least try to make an effort to be seen to be eating something, so as not to worry him more than anything else. But I also needed to take my vitamins and they cannot just be taken on an empty stomach or with a glug of water as a lot of vitamins (A, D, E, K etc) are fat soluble vitamins that need to be taken in the presence of fat, in order for the body to absorb them. So I settled on a Slim Fast Rich Chocolate Shake, which whilst not particularly high in fat, does contain enough to metabolise the vitamins not only fortified within the shake, but those which I take every day in supplement form. That came in at 230 calories and was the only other thing, other than water that I consumed that day.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling not remotely hungry again. I had no desire to eat anything at all. So I just didn't bother. Me and himself had to head into town to pick up some shopping and he suggested picking up the newspapers and heading to Costa for a coffee and a bit of chill out time. I love Costa. I love all of the disgustingly fat-tastic cream-topped creations they come up with, despite the insane calorie counts they can rack up. I'm a sucker for a full fat Massimo Caramel Latte, with an extra shot of coffee, a shot of caramel syrup, whipped cream on top and a drizzel of caramel sauce. That was my drink of choice any time me and he would normally go hit Costa for a couple of afternoons. But just recently I discovered the one of the best online tools out there: the Costa Nutritional online calculator. www.costanutrition.co.uk.

You basically get to go through the whole ordering process choosing your drink, the size, the type of milk you want it made with and all the additional optional stuff like a cream topping, extra shot of coffee, shot of syrup, flake, chocolate dipper etc. At the end of it, you get a comprehensive breakdown of the nutritional values that make up that drink and when I ran my favourite beverage through the calculator, I was quite shocked to find that it came in at 454 calories. For a drink. And I would normally have two of those in a couple of hours, taking up 908 calories out of my entire daily intake. That's half of the amount of calories a woman is expected to need, just to allow her body to tick over every day. And I was knocking those back as drinks, not including the food I would inevitably consume there too. The muffins all came in at just over 400 calories a piece. The Tuna Melt I usually went for has 484 calories in it too. So if you take into consideration that on a normal jaunt off to our local Costa, I might have a couple of caramel lattes, a tuna melt and a chocolate muffin, I would be consuming about 1800 calories - which is around about the amount of calories I should be consuming in an entire day, just to maintain a normal healthy weight. Not that I've ever been anything close to a normal healthy weight!

I was pretty surprised though to find out that in just one visit to Costa, which would in no way constitute my entire day's food intake, I was consuming an entire day's worth of calories. I guess if you're not paying attention to what you're eating and drinking, you can easily find yourself going well over what is an acceptable amount of calories by anyone's standards. Which is one of the reasons I've gotten to this size. I come from one of those families where junk food was never on the menu, everything was cooked from scratch, but portion sizes were astronomical. There was always a hearty main course and a mouth watering dessert, both of which I would be served up in portions fitting a man doing a hard day's physical work. I grew up thinking it was not only acceptable but normal to eat like a horse. I was always told to “clear my plate, because there are starving children in Africa who would never get to see a meal like that.” Nothing like a good old guilt trip to make you pile on the pounds right?

I guess the point of this massive ramble is that I'm having to relearn a whole new way of being aware and accountable when it comes to eating. And that really is the only way to attack something like weight loss. I was so grateful to have found that Costa Nutritional site because it was a real opener and it also allowed me to play around with the options to find an alternative to my previously favourite drink. Instead of the calorie laden full fat, cream-topped latte of before, I found that by choosing a Medio Skimmed Milk Cappuccino with an extra shot of coffee and a shot of Sugar Free Caramel Syrup, the calorie count would come in at a much more respectable 118 calories. And it really didn't taste much different to the full fat alternative.

So that's what I had yesterday afternoon as me and t'other half sat down to read the papers and mull over the crossword. I felt quite saintly, as I swanned past all the comestibles and ordered our drinks (although, I did notice, for future reference, that out of all the foodstuffs there, Costa do now do an English Breakfast Muffin With Bacon which comes in a 275 calories, should I ever be in there, insanely ravenous and in serious need of a bite to eat!). We were there for about two and a half hours (that cryptic crossword had the two of us scratching our heads the whole time) and when I finished my skinny cappuccino I whipped out my phone to log onto the Costa Calculator again and checked how much damage a small black coffee with two Sweet 'n Low added in would do. Turned out it was only 22 calories, so I happily ordered one of those which I nursed for a while and then sipped on the walk home.

That evening I just about managed a glass of grapefruit juice, but food was out of the question. Absolutely no appetite. The entire day's count came in at 370 calories, all in fluid form.

And so that brings us dear reader to today. Sunday. Still not feeling hungry, still not really eating. Not unless you count three individual tiny Bitsa Wispa bites at 19 calories each and the Slim Fast Café Latte I'm struggling to consume at a rate of about two sips every ten to fifteen minutes. I'm not sure what's going on with my stomach to be honest. But I'm certainly not complaining this current lack of appetite as it makes the restriction of calorie consumption a whole lot easier. And of course, the longer I go on consuming less, the more my stomach will become accustomed to receiving less and hopefully should shrink a little. And that in itself will hopefully affect my appetite too in future.

Today's calorie count currently stands at a rather low 287 and I shouldn't imagine it will climb any higher if my lack of appetite remains. I just hope I can wake up tomorrow feeling the same disinclination toward food and continue on this mission towards a smaller me.

So for now I shall sign off, say goodbye and wish you all the will and won't power you need to stay the path of elective starvation!

Until next time

x

"I was only trying to be nice babe...."

As you may be able to tell, the heading for this post came from something my fiance said to me today as he came home from work. He walked in looking all cute and bedraggled from working on a construction site all day and I was really happy to see him when he said 

"Are you having a bad or a good day today, honey?" 

Aww, I thought, he's asking about my well-being and being all genuinely concerned so I replied:

"Um...I'm not sure really, I only just got up a couple of hours ago and...."

"Well, what I meant was, are you being a good girl on your diet or are you having a naughty day?" he interrupted.

"Oh, I'm just plodding along trying to starve this arse off of me as usual I guess...." I said

"Hmm.....so you won't want what I've got for you in this bag then?" he replied, raising one eyebrow in mock confusion.

"Well, that all depends on what you've got for me...." I countered. 

At which point he proceeded to pull two Plain Quarter-Pounders With Cheese (No garnish or goop) from McDonalds, out of his rucksack and wafted them in front of my nose.

Grrr.....Goddamnit you gorgeous specimen of a man! How dare you test my will with my most favouritest fast food indulgence of all time! How am I supposed to turn those down??

"You are pure evil, you know that?" I smirked at him. 

"I was only trying to be nice babe!" he replied with this cute, mischievous lop-sided smile.

BASTARD!!!!

Ha ha ha.... I mean that in the nicest way possible of course. He's a total sweetheart and because his route home just happened to pass by those impossibly tempting golden arches, he thought he'd pick up my favourite meal for me to have as a 'naughty day' treat. How could I refuse such a lovely gesture? Not to mention the hot wafting aroma of meat and cheese causing me to salivate like a dog. So, without further ado, I thanked him for being evil and happily munched my way through the two burgers until I felt ready to burst. Did I really used to work my way through two of these things, a portion of fries and a McFlurry without feeling full? That used to be my order before I started to seriously cut back on the calories. Today, just the two burgers were a struggle to finish, so I can only assume that my stomach has been learning to accept less and perhaps also may have shrunk a little too.

When I'd finished I wanted to just get right up and go purge the whole goddamn lot out of me before it had a chance to register on my metabolism; but two things prevented me from doing so. First of all, I'd just taken my daily cocktail of meds prior to himself presenting me with said burger-tastic booty and I couldn't be sure what had been absorbed and what was still in my stomach. If I threw up I wouldn't know if I had to retake the meds again (risking a double dose) or not take any more (risking a missed dose in my treatment, which isn't a good idea). Meh! Easier to just leave the junk heading for my trunk and chalk it up to a 'naughty day'. To be honest I also didn't want to just go and chuck up the food my lovely other half had brought home for me, as a treat to be nice. It seemed wrong and disrespectful (even though he wouldn't have known about it) to not keep it down. Does that make sense? Probably not.

So yeah, today I ate two bloody Plain Quarter-Pounders with cheese for my dinner, but in all honesty, they were worth every calorie and every gram of fat they sent right to my thighs! I guess I should do a recap now of today's calorie intake so I can weep into my keyboard like the monstrous heifer I am!

Breakfast - 151 Calories

2 x 39g sachets of golden syrup porridge oats - 100 calories

Cup of coffee with skimmed milk and one sugar - 51 calories

Dinner - 980 Calories

2 x McDonalds Plain Quarter Pounders With Cheese - 980 calories

Total amount consumed - 1131

Urgh.....1131 calories. I'm such a fat bitch. Oh well, at least I didn't go overboard and eat any other cakes or crap too. I even decided to forgo my daily bar of chocolate (the ethos upon which this entire diet is based!) just to try a bit of damage limitation. I guess when you look at the overall total, it could have been a lot worse. I've drunk 4 litres of water too throughout the day to keep my stomach full - and smoked like a fucking chimney too, to help stave off the hunger pangs which came back with a vengeance a few hours after I'd digested the McDonalds (fast food is a fucker for that!), but I wouldn't recommend smoking as a healthy way to deal with weight loss!! Ha ha. 

I forgot to take my vitamins and supplements, which I should really do now, but it's like 5.15am now and I need to be getting my ass to bed or thinking about getting breakfast ready for the other half who is due to get up in about an hour. Either way, I need to be getting this post published pronto, because I am dying to go pee! Yeah, I know TMI, but if I can talk about sticking two fingers down my throat on here, I'm pretty sure the occasional talk of using the toilet for it's intended purposes has got to be allowed, right?

Until next time y'all

x

I'm going slightly mad...

Hi again my fellow Starvin'-Marvins!

How are we all keeping? Restricting and showing restraint like good little dieters? I hope so. I've been pretty strict and stringent with myself (save for one day off where I got to eat like a pig, but that's part of the plan of the diet anyway, so it's all good.) I have however, despite my days of eating under 1000 calories, been freaking out thinking that I've actually GAINED weight, not lost it, when I know that's just not logical. Maybe it was something to do with me having had my period for the past four days. That can make me feel like a total bloat, so it's kind of understandable. But I'm just so totally paranoid that all my hard work will go unrewarded, it's making me want to restrict even more. It doesn't help that I have no accurate scales to monitor my own progress either. I know I said I'd wait until I had my next doctors appointment but it's driving me crazy not knowing. 

Part of me wants to go and use the weighing machine in Boots in town in my lunch hour, but that too is fraught with problems. Firstly there's the annoying issue of me not knowing how accurate the scales in there are compared to the ones my doctor used, so I can't be sure of me getting a useful reading. Secondly, I hate the thought of being seen getting on those dreaded scales in a public place where anyone could see me. I don't want anyone to see that I'm even remotely concerned about my weight because then they'll have something to use against me. Life's little bitches would love to know just how much I despise myself and how desperately I want to lose weight. They would happily sit and smirk and giggle and gossip behind their hands, delighting in the knowledge that I'm not quite as confident, assertive and assured as I'd like them all to think. And I cannot stand the idea of anyone getting one over on me.

No, I'll just have to wait until I get to see the doctor next week and cross my fingers that I've lost some weight. 

I know that being 3.00 am it's technically Wednesday, but it's sort of still the same day as yesterday because I haven't been to bed yet. I'll just give a quick recap of what I've had to eat today so that you can all have a look and see if you think I'm eating too much (all comments are welcome by the way, dear readers!):

Breakfast - 281 Calories

Cup of coffee with semi skimmed milk and one sugar - 51 calories

Slim Fast premixed bottled shake - 230 calories

Dinner - 423 Calories

One Ryvita Cracker - 35 calories

2 Pickled Baby Beetroot - 26 calories

100g of cottage cheese - 104 calories

Can of tuna fish in brine (drained) - 140 calories

Pot of Activia Intensely Creamy cherry yoghurt - 118 calories

Snacks - 275 Calories

Sugar free caffeinated energy drink - 13 calories

Raspberry and grapefruit flavoured still water - 6 calories

Skinny Dairy Milk bar (22g) - 110 calories

Cup of coffee with semi skimmed milk and one sugar - 51 calories

Wispa Bites ( 5 pieces) - 95 calories

 Total of items consumed today - 979 calories

Hmm....whaddaya think? Just scraped in under the maximum 1000 calorie limit, and got to have my chocolate with a cup of coffee at the end of the day which is always good; something to look forward to. Dinner was a pretty balanced affair: tuna for protein, beets for fibre and vitamins, cottage cheese for calcium and Vit D, Ryvita for fibre and slow release carbs and yoghurt again for calcium, vitamin D and a little bit of fruit. I'm not really hungry eating this way now so my stomach must be getting used to the considerably smaller portions, but I'm kinda missing the hunger pangs because they're just such a powerful feeling of being in control. Maybe when I move along to the next phase of my diet, where I have to restrict the calorie amount still further, they'll creep back in and remind me what it feels like to have hunger - whilst not being at the mercy of it. 

I really like the Slim Fast shakes that I've been using to replace breakfast or lunch this past week. At 230 calories a bottle and fortified with vitamins and minerals I think they're a great way to just get a meal time out of the way without having to put any effort into preparing or cooking anything. I hate cooking. I feel hard done by just boiling a kettle to make a Cup-A-Soup. I like ready to eat packs of roast chicken, fruit, yoghurts, chocolate and these shakes. I know the proper Slim Fast plan says to have a shake for breakfast, a shake or a soup for lunch, a couple of their bars or other products for snacks and a 600 calorie main meal, but I'm really not following their plan; just using their shakes for times when I seriously cannot be arsed to assemble anything else. I've only tried the chocolate and cafe au lait ones so far and really like the way they taste. Keep them in the fridge and drink them with a straw to get the best out of them - they taste better chilled and last longer when sipped through a straw. At just over £6.00 for a pack of 6 bottles, that's 6 meals taken care of and all for the princely sum of just £1.00 per meal, which I think is a bargain.

Has anyone else used the Slim Fast products before? If so what do you think of them? I know that a lot of people who have followed the whole Slim Fast plan in the past, have lost of ton of weight really quickly but then put it all back on again as soon as they came off of it, but I'm not really planning on going back to eating like a fucking pig again once I've reached a goal weight. I plan to just adjust the calorie amounts over time, tinkering with the numbers to see what number will allow me to maintain my weight, whilst still keeping track of everything and supplementing my real food intake with the Slim Fast shakes. I will still be able to eat chocolate every day - providing it's counted in to my daily calorie allowance - and of course, there will still be planned 'blow out' days where I get to eat whatever I want every once in a while, so I won't be giving up McDonalds, KFC or pizza for good - heaven forbid!

I'm still easily consuming up to 4 litres of water every day too, which does keep the stomach full and I think has helped make a marked improvement in my skin which appears clearer and much more hydrated of late. And of course there are my daily vitamin supplements which I also have to take to make sure I'm not missing out on anything. I take the Perfectil Skin, Hair & Nails Plus supplement, Osteocare, Cod Liver Oil, Evening Primrose Oil, Starflower oil and Imedeen Skin Supplement every day, washed down with a Berocca. I'm pretty sure I'm getting everything I need from all that. That reminds  me actually. I have to go and take today's dose of vitamins right now before I forget. It's just gone 3.05 am and I'm going to be staying up through the night so that I can be up to get my fiance out of bed for 6.30 am and make him some coffee and porridge before he heads out to work. I've already made his sandwiches and sorted out his packed lunch, so I think I'll use these next few hours to seek out some documentaries online about diet and eating disorders to help keep me motivated.

Till next time...

x

Bloody computers...

Hi again folks. I know it seems like I ran out of steam after that first post, but I can assure you, my absence was entirely unintentional. Basically, the day after I set up this new blog account, the mains wire to my laptop sparked a wee bit and then completely severed, rendering me computer free ever since. But I decided today to try and log on using my Sony Xperia T, which has been a bit of a ball-ache, because despite having owned this spaceship of a phone since last November, I still don't know how the damn thing works. I'm really more of a Nokia 3310 (remember how awesome they were?) kinda gal, but one must move with the times I suppose. And if I'm honest, now that I've taken the time to figure out how this incredibly complex little handset works, I'm really glad to have found a way to get online, check email, look up calorie counts, waste time on Facebook and update my blog. Granted, it does take a lot longer to type up a few paragraphs one letter at a time, using a stylus, when I'm used to touch-typing a long, rambling entry on the laptop; but it's better than having no access at all and being unable to update my own little slice of the internet - until myself or my other half can be bothered to source a replacement mains cable.

Enough of the techno-talk though. Dieting is what this blog is supposed to be about, so I guess I should give you all an update as to how this is going. In all, it's been going really well. I've averaged about 600 calories every day, with some days accruing no more than 350, whilst one day hit about 800. It's probably good to have a variable daily calorie count as it doesn't allow the body to get too used to one specifically low daily calorie intake and go into starvation mode.

I've actually been really surprised at how easy it's been. Not only switching over from a gluttonous daily over-consumption of unlimited junk food amounting to over 4000 calories (yes, that's how many I was regularly putting away before!) but to suddenly have to be restrictive, accountable, maintain willpower and show self control. Looking at my previous eating habits, people on the outside would most definitely NOT consider me to possess any willpower or self control. I would eat with abandon, choosing to consume McDonald's, KFC, Dominos, Chinese or Indian takeaways, along with sweets and chocolate throughout the day. I looked like someone who had zero self control and who was constantly at the mercy of their burgeoning appetite. Some probably looked on in disgust as I chowed down on whatever I wanted, shocked to know that I have an awesome, good looking boyfriend, despite being the size of a house. Others probably pitied me, thinking I was just too far gone and too weak to make any inroads into losing any weight. I fucking hate pity. 

The surprising thing is, it's not that I DON'T have any willpower or self control; I just wasn't choosing to use those tools, to do anything about my weight. I was choosing to be a glutton. I liked food and really enjoyed eating whatever I wanted, despite all the while despising my ever-expanding corpulence. I know, fucked up, right? You see, that's an example of how I can be a walking contradiction in terms and also my own worst enemy. It also doesn't help that I'm too smart for my own good, quick-witted, smart-mouthed and able to rationalise and intellectualise whatever stance or standpoint I choose to take up. But I guess that's something you'll all come to see for yourself as time goes by!

I've always been a big girl. Even as a five year-old I stood out as being much bigger than my peers and I continued to gain excessive amounts of weight, all throughout childhood and my teens, until I found myself at age 16, fitting into a UK size 22. I'm not sure how much I weighed exactly at that point as we had no weighing scales in our family home, but I'd estimate it to be about 16 or 17 stone. Which on a frame of only five foot tall, isn't exactly attractive.

I absolutely HATED being big. It angered and depressed me and garnered a huge amount of negative attention and comments from the other schoolchildren, their parents, strangers in the street and even my own family. I've gone through my whole life feeling miserable, worthless, disgusting, unlovable, depressed, devalued and ugly. Not just because of the insults and taunting of others, but because of my own inner critic which really, truly, only judged myself, by the same standards I hold everyone else according to. I've never been any harder or harsher on myself, than I have on anyone else. Fact is, being massively fat is NOT attractive and NOT healthy. Carrying more than double your ideal healthy weight, looks disgusting. It swallows up your features so you don't even look like you; it creates bulges and rolls that make clothes fit terribly, stopping any natural female (or male) shape and silhouette from emerging; it makes you tired, carrying around all that extra weight and you get constantly hot and sweaty, just walking around in town; it puts a strain on your heart and causes all your other organs to swim in litres of visceral fat; it makes personal hygiene difficult as you have this huge mass to keep clean, despite sweating more than an average sized person, thus requiring more baths and showers; it clings to the outside of you like a badge of self neglect.

Other people with issues like alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, anxiety, anger management problems or OCD, don't necessarily show their problems on the outside. But an over-eater has no place to hide - we show our weakness, our overindulgence and our lack of self control on the outside in one great big, hot, sweaty fat-suit for the whole world to see. And I've spent my entire life feeling the glare of countless eyes running over my bulging, expanse of flesh, judging me and my issues worn on the outside like a badge of low self-esteem. People look at and judge me by the same standards I judge me; those same standards I too judge everyone else by.

So why have I waited so long to do something about this problem, if it has had such a negative impact on my life? Well, remember how I said I'm a walking contradiction in terms and my own worst enemy? OK, so basically, despite my despising every inch of my gargantuan girth, over the years I've learnt not to let anyone know how I truly feel. I've created this aggressively assertive, intelligent, funny, straight talking, tough as nails persona that belies my inner torment. I will not allow anyone to see how painful it is to be me. Partly because I despise pity and refuse to have people feeling sorry for me, but also because I won't give anyone any ammunition to use against me, as the cruel bitches of this world are wont to do.

And that part of me that refuses to bow down to the big mouths, bitches, gossips and cruel taunting onlookers, it taps into my innate stubbornness. It makes me want to stick two fingers up to what society expects of me and stay fat because then I'm being my own person. I want to rub their noses in my obvious overweight outer shell, telling them to take their expectations of me and fuck off. I want them to see me as fat yes, but not quiet, shy, homely and downtrodden. I want them to look at me and think "How dare this disgusting fat blob be confident, outgoing and happy - she's supposed to be miserable, ashamed of herself and hurt by our honest remarks!" Because that fuck's with their heads to see me so content and unnerved by their bullshit.

And so, for as long as I can remember, I've been putting on this front, perfecting the act of happiness and fending off attacks with my steely nerve. A strategy that's worked perfectly up until now - I suppose it's still working today too, in that the masque hasn't slipped or let anybody know how I really feel inside. But in a way I guess it's also kind of backfired on me too. Because whilst I've defiantly dug my heels in and refused point-blank to capitulate, that whole time I've been simultaneously eating my insides up with self-loathing, depressed at the sight of my own reflection.

Over the years I've missed out on so much, because my fiercely stubborn nature wouldn't allow me to give in and diet. Because I figured that as people found out, they'd realise that by wanting to lose weight, I must actually have hated being fat and desperately wanted to be thin like everyone else. They would see through the chink in my armour, to the soft vulnerable core I've been protecting and hiding all these years. And that, in turn, would give them the perfect material, gossip and ammunition to spread about and use against me, like my own personal Kryptonite. I've seen for myself the way that bullies - the kind who work covertly smug among the perfect and popular crowd - will set upon the idiosyncrasy of any poor victim who appears sad, different, vulnerable or alone and ridicule them until they crumble. I always swore that would never be me, that I would stand fierce and keep my armour intact. Which I did, but I remained fat, remained depressed and had to stand on the outskirts of teenage life, almost as if I were actually outdoors peeking in through the steamed up glass of segregation, viewing everyone else enjoying life at a distance.

I didn't ever get to experience a slow dance with a guy at the school disco; I didn't get invited to any of the 'cool perfect kids' parties; I couldn't go swimming or to the beach and bare that flab; I couldn't wear any trendy clothes and my mother struggled to find me any clothes that fit in the years before plus sizes became widely available; guys never looked at me unless they were treating me like one of them. I could stand about and jostle with them, telling the filthiest jokes, allowing myself to be the butt of their jokes - always laughing the loudest as their words silently cut me to the core. I would play up in class getting myself thrown out with one of the disruptive boys who I would then get to spend the hour with, trying to outdo one another with tales of bad behavioral exploits. But of course I was never going to be the object of any of their affections. As 'one of the guys' I was privy to a lot of their talk about girls. Who they thought was fit, who was ugly, who was a slut who was guaranteed to 'put out' and who they were going to ask out at the weekend. But I was never treated like an actual girl by any of them. My huge outer shell of fat and my ability to play rugby or fight with them, painted me as 'one of the guys', utterly devoid of any femininity or desirability. Every day was a painful reminder of how different and despised I was by most of the girls - and how asexual I was considered by the guys I hung out with.

But when I was 16/17 - and desperate for attention, affection & validation, I allowed myself to be used by older, indiscriminate, married men with sour beer stench breath and only one desire. Met in pubs, off of fishing boats, even out in the street, these guys looking for 'any port in a storm' (pun intended!) would basically buy my company with a steady stream of double and triple measures of spirits,  Not for me the awkward, clumsy yet charming foray into one's first teen romance. No excitement of the first date, first touch, first kiss. No planning the perfect outfit to wear to prom. No chatting among girlfriends about who was cute and who might ask me out. No invitations to the camping trips down by the river. No Valentine cards or someone to kiss at midnight. No rides in cars with boys. The closest thing I had to a romantic date was being plied with Bacardi till I could barely stand - in pubs where the owner clearly knew I was only 16 - before being unceremoniously fucked in a graveyard, children's play-park or heath-lands, where we may or may not have been afforded privacy. Allowing myself to be so casually used like that was a cry for affection and attention, but it merely served to cause me more heartache over time, as the self hatred and disgust, reinforced my belief that I deserved no better.

Being fat and being smart, isn't the most rewarding combination. You can see what's wrong with you, but you can rationalise why you should stay that way, despite how much you hate it. Part of you that has pride in your intellect wants you to believe that you are worth more whichever size you choose to be. But the other part of you that understands the way the world really works, knows that by being fat you will never be happy. It turns the unflattering mirror on you and forces you to see how ugly, fat and worthless you are, every day. Smart you may be, but no two men ever fought over a well developed mass of grey matter.

This is how things have played out for me over the past 30 years. I've hated myself but refused to do anything about it so I've lost out on most teenage life experiences. My stubbornness and unwillingness to capitulate might have done wonders for my integrity, but it did nothing to help facilitate a happier, more involved teenage life, with typical nostalgic teenage memories. As I grew older, I experienced a few brief flings and one night stands with equally unsuitable guys I knew we're nothing but bad news, but I guess I needed to at least try and pretend to myself that I was capable of getting guys, any guys, despite how hideous I was. When I think about some of the men I allowed to touch, kiss or have sex with me, my skin crawls. The thought of their hands on my body, their hot fetid breath on my face and the countless orgasms I faked just to make them hurry up and finish....it all makes me want to throw up and claw the memory out from behind my eyes. I hate that I sold myself so cheaply to the lowest bidder, because all I did was decrease my own self worth.

So where does all that leave me today? Well, for some unknown reason I have yet to figure out, I finally managed to meet a guy who truly loves me for me, treats me like a princess and compliments me all the time. He's tall, dark and handsome, with a rugged outdoorsy exterior, intelligence, honesty, integrity and a great sense of humour. So what's the catch? Why is he with me? What's wrong with this picture? I don't know. But we've been together for a few years now and he shows no sign of jumping ship! Unlike one particularly nasty controlling ex of mine, he doesn't make negative comments on my size, doesn't tell me to lose weight because I'm unattractive/unfanciable and doesn't cheat on me without bothering to hide it. (Oh yes, that was one seriously nasty bastard I allowed to treat me like that a good few years ago!) No, my fiance has been amazing, since the day we met. He is the only person I would come to learn to trust over time, the only person I would open up to and share my innermost thoughts with. It horrified him to hear how much self-hated I had. He hates to hear me talk negatively about myself and is constantly trying to help bring my self-esteem up. But as much as I appreciate his efforts, he will never understand just how deeply the wounds of hurt, rejection, mockery, exclusion, insult and self hatred go. They are not minor issues that can be swept aside and fixed with one man's gestures of love and affection. They are battles I must choose to fight myself if and when I think I need to challenge my way of thinking.

And why am I here? Well now that I'm happily settled in a long term relationship with a genuine guy who treats me well, I kind of feel like I'm now in a secure enough place to actually start taking down some of this outer shell, this fat-suit, and maybe allow a bit of the real me to emerge, like a butterfly, from my chrysalis of corpulence.

I've been restricting my food intake for a few weeks now but I have no idea how much weight I've lost. I didn't know my true starting weight because of a little problem between my apartment and my scales: I live in an old building which has sat halfway up a hill for the past 150 years. Over time the building has edged forward a few degrees, leaving all the internal floors with a slight incline. That makes registering a true reading on my set of scales impossible. I tried to get a ballpark figure by placing them at a dozen or so different locations around the apartment, but the readings varied so wildly that one room had me weighing two stone heavier than another one. It was hopeless. The only figures I can actually utilise at the moment is the reading I got at my doctor's on 14th August. If I remember rightly, it read 122 kilos. All I can continue to do is keep on with the restriction of calories and then see how much I weigh when I next go see the doctor, a week on Wednesday. Maybe once I've got a reading from him, I should come home and try to find a place somewhere in this godforsaken apartment where the scales give out the same number. Perhaps then I could keep them there and use them to monitor my weight at home, providing they don't just happen to be right on that particular day and instead tell me a load of old shite every other day I try to use them!

Phew! This has turned into quite a post. I just wanted to give a wee bit more of a back-story about me, who I am and what's brought me here. I imagine that there are quite a few other women and girls with a similar tale to tell, who want to free themselves from the tyranny of 'fat' for once and for all. And if I can suddenly go from eating 4000 calories a day without thinking, to restricting my intake to less than 1000 - less than 600 on many days - then you all can. You just have to want it enough to say no to huge meals and welcome hunger pangs as a fierce affirmation of your strength and determination.

Until next time

x