Stressed, self-hating and fat

This made me laugh when I saw it. Couldn't resist sharing because I feel as though I have in fact said that before.

Speaking of...

I've been on this awful bingeing rampage lately. It started on Friday when I went drinking with friends and got drunk food, and then a house movie marathon for Saturday and Sunday where we all just sat around and ate because we were bored (the aforementioned “we” being my housemates, who go to the gym regularly, are in shape and can seemingly afford these kinds of binges with little consequence).

This binge eating pattern persisted even today and I really need to get it under control. I think it probably has to do a lot with PMS, based on a pattern I’ve noticed, but it should be avoidable and is therefore an unacceptable excuse in my books.

School stress is also a killer for me. I either eat anything and everything or I practically refuse to eat, both in a self hating kind of way when I’m stressed. Both are awful but at least with the latter option I don’t hate the effects on my body.

I was thinking about my current weight and my previous weights and it made me think. When I was at my heaviest, at about 165, I hated how I looked, which isn’t surprising as I was overweight. After losing about 20 pounds I was happy with how I looked. Then after being at that weight for awhile and realizing I could lose more weight, I became dissatisfied again. Now if I see my weight nearing 140 I begin to freak out, I think that I am incredibly obese and out of shape and that I’m letting myself turn back into what I was. When I was under 130 before I went on my trip I was happier with how I looked but still found many faults with myself. It just makes me wonder if I’ll ever be happy with myself and the way I look.  

Right now I’m between 140-135 depending on how much I’ve binged and I’m really unhappy about it and it causes me to freak out from time to time. I want to get back under 135 because I feel like 135 for me is the point where I go from “noticeably fat” to “the kind of fat where I can hide it so people don’t immediately notice”.  I just feel stressed, self-hating and fat right now.

                                                                                                                      

I just want to be back where I was before I went on my trip, which was below 130, and keep going from that point because I felt more motivated because I was closer to my goals and they seemed tangible rather than unrealistic.

I know it takes works to get what I want because nothing worthwhile comes easily, but I can wish can’t I?

Dear self...

When thinking of my goals for this next month I can't help but relate to this picture.

I’ve been doing alright managing not to eat tons of crap food. Last night it was pizza night at my house and I turned it down, and today I turned down an offer to get Beaver Tails.

I wasn’t hungry and wasn’t going to eat today but I have an assignment to finish tonight so I decided to eat, figuring food might help with concentration and cognitive processing and what not. Then once I had something to eat I got cravings, caved and had some chocolate, which was definitely worth it.

Total cal for the day=250 (under allotted amount)

In other news, I’ve been feeling kind of sick for about a week and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better so I’ve been lacking energy and sleeping more than usual. The silver lining in this is that I can’t eat while I sleep and I tend to lose my appetite when I don’t well, which helps with my diet at the moment. Also my housemates know that this is how I get when I’m not feeling good so they are less likely to question why I’m not eating much.

I didn’t end up going to the gym today because I wasn’t feeling well though.

Midterms are coming up and seem to be split between before and after reading week so that’s not too bad. Start to feel a bit of exam stress thought. Going home for reading week on Feb 17^th and I’ll be back at school on Feb 26. My goal is to not gain tons of weight while I’m home, which always seems to be the case.

Also I have this need to look decent when I go home just in case I see people I used to know. I know this sounds silly but I want people to see me and think “she looks good” not to think “wow she got fat after graduation”. 

Get-Fit-February

I was talking to a friend of mine this morning discussing how we couldn't believe it was already February. She is going on a trip in about two and a half weeks so the conversation turned inevitably to expressing concern over getting in shape for her trip and how we hated the dreaded "bikini countdown". That terrifying moment where you realize you only have x number of days to get into shape because you'll have no choice but to be in a bikini. 

This lead of course to the both of us mentioning how we both are unhappy with how we look at the moment weight wise, and how we need to start eating better and actually get off our asses and go to the gym, as January was a particularly bad month for both of us in that sense. She even happened to mention how she can't stand to look in the mirror these days. 

Thus the creation of Get-Fit-February. Other possible names included No-Fat-February, Fuck-Fat-February, Stop-Being-A-Fat-Fat-Fatty-February, and Fuck-Get-Off-Your-Fucking-Ass-February, but they didn't seem as fitting for our purposes and were a tad wordy. 

Our goal/ my goal for this month is to actually go to the gym every day. Or to do some sort of workout or exercise, however big or small (preferably big, but there are always those rough days and something is better than nothing). 

I am terrible with working out. I hate it. I am not a gym person. I like the results and how I feel with all the endorphins and what not, but it is next to impossible to actually get myself to go. This is also why I tend to use diet to control my weight primarily. I find it much easier to just not eat than to burn off calories. 

People are sometimes surprised when they find out I don’t go to the gym, because I will eat in front of them, don’t work out and am not obese ( at the moment) but what they don’t see is the times I’ll restrict like crazy to compensate. It’s not exactly the healthy way to do it but it’s what I find the “easiest” and takes the least amount of time.

Anyways, about actually working out. The last time I actually managed to go to the gym consistently is when I was competing with my housemate in a similar kind of workout every day challenge thing so that's why I have a little bit of hope that I could potentially pull this off. 

I managed to convince myself to go to the gym today at least, which is a small accomplishment as getting started seems to always be the hardest part. Unfortunately it was crazy busy and I didn’t get as good of a workout as I would have liked but I’m hoping it’ll improve if I go every day.

Also managed to stay under my calorie limit for the day. I consider the amount listed on the ABC diet list for each day to be the upper limit of what I can consume, because I’m not going to force myself to eat more if I don’t feel hungry or want to.

Food for today

-Eggs with green peppers and mushrooms cooked with a bit of olive oil on toast

-Coffee with sugar and milk (they were out of sweetener unfortunately)

-Dried Mangos (my housemate offered them and I couldn’t resist)

Cal- 350

Just as a side note is anyone else paranoid that the nutritional information on stuff is wrong or that you measured or counted wrong and that you had more than you thought and you’re actually consuming way more calories than you accounted for? This is why I normally add 10% of my total calories to my calculated total for the day, just to cover my ass.

I also don’t trust the machines at the gym that say how many calories you burned, or online calculators for other exercise so I choose to not factor that in at all. It’s a pass/fail kind of thing for me with working out, I either did or I didn’t. I try to push myself harder each day but I don’t base it on calories burned.

This not counting what I burn at the gym mindset of mine has to do with an article I once read than people will eat more to compensate for the fact that they are working out, as they feel entitled to it, which works for some people but not all. The problem is that a lot of people apparently undo any progress they made at the gym when they adopt this mindset.

 At the end of the day its calories in/calories out so its great that you burned 300 calories at the gym but if you eat 300 calories as a reward for working out you aren’t going to make progress. Yes, you could argue working out builds muscle, which increases the total amount of calories you burn in a day so it’s not as big deal but it still slows progress none-the-less. I just don’t want to fall into this trap so I eat as though I was completely sedentary all day. 

So in summary:

Calories: under allotted amount = Pass

Exercise: worked out = Pass