Caffeine no more.

I have been looking more seriously at the changes that I need to make. Diet, exercise, healthy living.  Everything just seems so overwhelming.  Two weeks ago I decided to cut out one thing that is affecting me: caffeine.  I'm not someone who drinks six cups of coffee per day, but I do drink a grande cup of Starbucks soy chai each morning (sometimes two in a day!).  When I don't drink it, I find myself suffering by noon.   I started researching some of the side effects of caffeine.  Anxiety is one that stuck out;  I have self-diagnosed PMDD, so in my research I saw that caffeine is pretty bad for someone with PMDD.  I also go through the "crash" during the day where I feel terrible, am groggy, etc.  So I decided to quit my super expensive habit of drinking Starbucks. 

The first day failed as I had my chai before work; my co-workers were really hard on me because they knew what my plans were.  The next day I succeeded.  I had a headache by noon, and took two naps at two hours each; it was difficult to say the least.  Day two I slept later than usual by about two hours (9:30am). I felt okay in the morning, but knew that once I was a few hours past my first normal dose of caffeine, I'd feel the side-effects.  Yep, I dragged myself to work and had an exhausting day.  My muscles hurt everywhere and I felt dehydrated, no matter how much water I drank.  I felt out of it the whole day, and my co-workers, boss and even a random customer asked me what was wrong. 

Day three was still exhausting -- all of my muscles ached, I felt tired all day and I still felt like I was in a funk.  My boss wanted to strangle me.  I was annoyed and had a shorter fuse than normal, which was tough because I've made some huge personal strides at work lately. 

The rest of the first week went okay; I found that I stopped enjoying the breakfast sandwich I normally got from Starbucks, because the two items usually go together and it just wasn't the same.  It left me with positive and confused feelings all at once; I have stopped spending $7-8 per day on Starbucks, but my routine was always to start there.  I usually start my day with a drive with my dog so that can have something exciting to do.  I do this because he used to get sick quite frequently when I took him to the dog park.  So, what now?  I substituted other things - Subway breakfast sandwich, a stop off to get a bagel, etc.  So, it is just confusing. 

I've just completed the second week of being caffeine (well, Chai) free.  The end of my first week, and the beginning of the second week were interesting. I have noticed that I'm more depressed lately and I'm much more lethargic. I kind of miss the jolt in the morning where I have a great bolt of energy, but I don't miss the afternoon lull or the sweating and rapid heartbeat if I drank chai too quickly.   I'm moving in a couple of months to another city, and my life and my job are almost up in the air which are most likely contributing factors, but I can't help but think that the lack caffeine is not helping me.   I don't want to start drinking it again, and I look forward to see how I can progress. 

Ravenous (the book) and weepy (me).

I have been reading a book called 'Ravenous' for the past week or so, by Dayna Macy (see her blog here).  I'll say this, I'm inspired by it.  Her writing style makes me even salivate over olives, and I can tell you right now that if I come across an olive in as much as a tomato sauce I spit it out - I'm not a fan.  She talks about discovering foods by where they come from: Visiting places like an artisan cheese maker, organic farms, and from what I read on the back cover - even a humane slaughterhouse (yikes! I'm a vegetarian!).

It's smart - she is writing about discovering what food is to her, how specific foods became her downfall and where those foods begin, what life is, etc.  I have been really trying to feel the same things by proxy: I'm trying to figure out why I have specific cravings, and how to handle them.  I recommend this book to any and every one.  I have about 1/2 - 2/3 left, and I'm savoring it as much as possible, so that I can really let it sink in and resonate.  I'd really like to start journaling about food, but I start to write and I just get this immediate 'cease and desist' notice from my brain, causing me to give up... 

After reading this I realize that I'd really like to taste food again, feel the sensual aspects of it (read the chapter of her cooking in a kitchen with a stranger!), and see if I can learn to enjoy it rather than treat it like something I should shovel in, and to use as a barrier between myself and emotions.  My friend and I were joking after we saw someone who is truly fit today: "his body is a temple. we treat ours like trash compactors."  Basically it's true. I shovel crap in and intellectually I see that it's crap.  Emotionally I'd like a connection with what I'm eating, but I don't have one.  It's doing nothing but preventing emotions; almost like a blockade. 

I have to bring this up.  I have been so emotional for the past few months.  If I see someone open the door for someone else or do something equally nice, I feel the slightest amount of tears collecting at the back of my eyes.  If I see something heartwarming on TV I pretty much break down and tear up, while swallowing as quickly as possible to stop the tears.  So help me god if I see a puppy or an adorable baby.  I can't stop these weird outbursts and I can't tell you where they come from.  I'm trying with an educated guess to suggest that it's a subconscious thing with my emotions, food, feeling stress, the inability to get to the gym and desire to go, etc.  But I would love to know how to make it stop.  Or to get it to release! I'm a system with no shut off to my pressure valve, and eventually I'm going to blow!!! 

I've had 3 sessions with a therapist now; she's nice, I like her... But she annoyed me this week by spending 10 minutes lecturing me on food and nutritionists and overeating, like I haven't heard any of that before. I'd like to work on some of the emotional stuff with her, I don't need the "mom" lecture as she called it, from her!! I already get that elsewhere thanks!!!  

Oops, I did it again

I have kind of had a reminder-breakthrough.  Well neither of those, really.  Have you ever had a moment where you have this 'epiphany,' only it's not an epiphany but something that you've been telling yourself for years, that you keep hearing and finally HEARD?  I had one of those tonight.

I eat a lot at nights when I'm alone.  Food has been my companion, my love, my best and at sometimes only friend.  It's been like this since I was probably 6 or 7 years old.  I found a picture from 3rd grade that was of me in a bathing suit, and good golly did I look engorged.  I transfered from a school with a small, safe learning environment and community to a public school in the beginning of third grade.  I was the outcast, the weirdo. I didn't raise my hand before going to the bathroom because I never had to before. I didn't know the lingo, didn't have the friends that my other classmates did.  I was such a social butterfly and have always been so, but that was tough when everyone thought you were strange.

I was bullied at home by my older brother. I remember hiding food, saying "I only had one cookie" when it was clear that I had eaten with fervor one half of a package of cookies.  Even now for example, tonight I bought some cookies for me and my roommate and I had five of them; I had this plan in my head to tell my roommate that I only had three.  She worked tonight, so even though my bank accounts and credit cards have a total of less than $100 in them, I chose to spend $22 on the same delivery calzone and mozzarella sticks that I had last night(!!). Even more embarrassingly, I went grocery shopping today and have plenty of semi-decent food to eat.

School was hell until I went to Catholic school when I was 15; and I hated it after that, still. I went to 'fat camp' the summer between 5th and 6th grade, and at camp right after I turned 11 I had my first kiss.  I thought I was the coolest girl in the world. I'd bet half the girls in school hadn't been kissed! Take that Kelly, Hillary, Caitlin and Caitlin, and whatever the hell else your bloody names are. After fat camp, it was a new middle school.  I survived in 6th grade - at 24 pounds thinner, people noticed me. The weight piled back on though, and I reverted back to the social butterfly-turned-pariah that I'd become.

From ages 8-14 I was bullied, never asked to dance at a school dance, laughed at when I did the asking.  I was so depressed when even the geekiest and those who were considered the strangest guys in my grade wouldn't dance with me in middle school. I based my self-worth on the fact that I couldn't get a 'boyfriend' (aka someone who would hold hands at recess, or sit with me at lunch).  There was a girl in my grade who had been heaver than I was, had frizzier hair than I did; we both were blessed with curly hair during the mid-90s (read: frizzy hell).  She kind of liked the same boy I did. I asked him out to selfishly prove to myself that I could get a boyfriend; he accepted and we were together for a whole two days.  It is still the longest relationship that I've ever been in. They ended up dating for the rest of 7th grade and most of 8th.

To offer an understanding as to the power that I give men: in seventh grade my entire public school class went on an environmental retreat, where we learned about nature and were supposed to have bonded.  My crush of one year (and still for another year until he moved in 8th grade) was on the trip and we ended up in line (yeah not by accident, it was puppy love!) for dinner together. I'd wanted to be a vegetarian for a year, but couldn't do it. I asked him 'why aren't you getting a burger?' and he responded (swoon!!) 'I'm a vegetarian.'  My response: 'yeah, me too.'  That was nearly 16 years ago and I'm still a vegetarian.  That was probably our longest conversation..

Due to severe bullying during my freshman year at public school I nearly died.  I won't say how or go into details, but it was terrible.  I was punched in the face when I tried to confront a friend-turned-bully.  After defending myself we were both suspended.  My one and only fight.  Girls taunted me or laughed at me to my face and behind my back.  It was hell.  I turned into one of those goth kids, fell in with the wrong crowd, and smoked a half-pack of marlborough reds until my brother stole them and beat up the guy who bought them for me. I didn't have many friends after that; my brother's reputation was known around my town.

I went to Catholic school during my second freshman grade year (the idea of a nun, and a decision which haunts and beats me up still yet) and found solace in the drama and music departments, but the bullying changed from mostly students to a few stupid girls and the teachers and faculty.  I am not Catholic, and they never let me live it down. I always felt, again, like an outcast.  I kind of had some crazy moments also, some of which were caused by others and that I reacted to, some were due to my brother's teasing, and some were just my own teenage angst.  Fast forward (quickly please) thirteen and-a-half years and here I sit.

I've endured bullying from home (until a few years ago when my brother and I unofficially made a truce), bullying from boys, being punched in the back of the head for sitting on the wrong seat on the school bus, severe bullying at work as an adult, an abusive mentor-mentee relationship, sexual harassment, sexual assault, compulsive eating ED treatment, the loss of a precious job that I look back on and shudder and I sit completely in my own mind and feeling crazy.  There's this feeling of never being good enough.  My brother called me a man-hater until a few years ago and still gives me the vibes that he thinks I am one.  It's not that, but maybe he's not exactly far off.

I'm in this state of constant underlying gentle anxiety. Does that make sense? It's not to the point where my heart is pounding and I feel nauseous, but it's there, like an old frienemy. Sitting on my shoulder, ready to take over when I need someone to, ready to cause me pain and then offer me a solace to which I always turn: food.  So tonight, after my calzone, mozzarella sticks and five cookies, I topped the night off with a bowl of ice cream (taking some from each quart, so that my roommate wouldn't notice as much) with chocolate chips on top.

I went on a date with a guy I met on match.com during my brief membership in 2006.  I lost almost ten pounds in the month leading up to our date - I wasn't hungry at night.  I remember being so excited, because I just felt better - we talked a lot, I was looking forward to talking to him instead of eating blindly at night.  He was a complete weirdo, so that one date was our last, but again I turned to food. From 2004 until 2011 I'm pretty sure I gained 90 pounds.  I'm down 40 pounds at this point, but I know it won't be long if I continue this trend.

I hate reading comments on articles where people say "fat people would be thin if they didn't eat so much".  Thanks a-hole, I never thought about that.  It's more than that, it's just like anorexia or bulimia except for your eating disordered brain tells you to do the opposite. This night-time eating thing is for the birds. I'm so sick of it, both physically and emotionally.  I'll beat it, but I feel like I'm traveling this dusty road alone - no one can pick me up from this, I'm the only one who can stop myself.  I wish it were easier.

Stay safe, enjoy your holidays.

Help; I need somebody, Help; not just anybody..

I'm a morning person.  My body wakes me up at 6-7am, no matter what time I went to sleep.  If it's 8am, it's a damn miracle.  My job requires me to work late, meaning 12p-10p four days per week.  I usually have a break at around 3:30 or 4pm, so by the time I get home I'm starving, and so exhausted that I don't want to cook or prepare anything. So I eat: crap foods.

The month of December has been pure hell at work. I've been yelled at by ignorant people, we've been robbed where I work (long story), and for the entire month of December I'm working late.  I usually work these later shifts once or twice per week which is fine, it's when I take my dog to the dog park in the morning.  Now that I'm doing it four times per week, I notice that I eat crap foods when I get home.  My roommate wakes up at 5-7pm for the night because of her work schedule, so she's always up for eating when I get home, which in a sense encourages and enables me.

This job doesn't pay me well. I find that because I'm always in the poor house, when I get money I can't hold onto it. A lot of times it goes to food.  I have a feeling that it's a deep-rooted issue from childhood, because I know we had some money troubles for a few years back then, and I was always really terrible at budgeting. Also, I was always teased about my weight and turned to hiding and eating food when I was like 5 years old and older.  I know this is all related to PTSD but I can't figure out how.. I also go to the grocery store and buy fresh and beautiful foods with desires to cook, but most of the time they go wasted.  I get anxiety cleaning out the fridge, knowing a. how much money I wasted, and b. how it means what I really put in my body.

I hate waking up full and feeling disgusting.  This is a true sign that I've slipped into some of my old ways. This is truly embarrassing, but here is a taste of my old ways and what I put myself through last night.  I got home at 10:20pm and thought about ordering food. For some reason I have this thing that I can't figure out: if I think about food in a certain way ('ooh, I want pizza'), it is an all-consuming 'deal' until I actually do what my brain is consumed with: eat the food I can't stop thinking about.  By can't stop thinking about it, I mean NOTHING stops me from thinking about it. I won't pay attention to conversations, TV, music, internet, you name it.  Then I do what I'm consumed with and it's like 'okay cool, back to reality.'

Last night I unfortunately thought about a calzone and mozzarella sticks.  At 10:30pm I ordered them, and started watching (of all things, The Biggest Loser).  I ordered said food as well as a pizza, 'to tide me over for a couple of days.'  They came at 11:15; I ate my calzone and mozzarella sticks, and when I was putting away the pizza took a slice to eat. I don't know why, but !#%(&# @$%@ I wish I hadn't.  I sat on the couch in a sad state of lethargy, watching the Biggest Loser contestants run a marathon. P.S. if John wins this I would like to personally drive to his house and punch him in the face for being a bloody jerk.

So I went to bed last night, and just like in my old ways I had trouble falling asleep. It was after 2:30am when I finally did.  I woke up this morning at around 7:30, and fought off actually getting up due to exhaustion until 9. Then I got up.  I got an all-consuming desire to blog this, like I know it would help.  It hasn't, but maybe it will soon.  I don't know what to do. My job doesn't offer health insurance for more than six months, so I'm still waiting on that. I'm sure therapy would help, but I'm stuck.

Mid-week weigh-in, coming clean.

I'll start this off by saying that I never talk about food or eating with people. I was in treatment for an ED once (compulsive overeating) and other than in group and personal therapy there, I haven't talked about it... On that train of thought, I haven't actually BINGED (like 2k+ calories binged) in at least a 6-9 months, so I have been doing well, other than still slightly over-eating, occasional stress or emotional eating, or just eating the wrong foods etc. I've been keeping track of things relatively well. Working on getting better. 


My weekly online Weight Watchers weigh-ins are on Sundays. I haven't been exercising and it was catching up to me.  I didn't lose any week last week (261.4 to 261.4). So on Sunday and Monday, I decided to go exercising with the dog, and I did each day; it felt great! I didn't eat all that much during the day on Monday. That night, I had a huge binge with my roommate who did the same thing. For no reason other than we were watching TV, bored, and ate pizza from the box instead of civilized using plates!! 


Over the course of two hours I ate half an order of cheese fries and an entire medium (12") cheese pizza. OMFG!!!!! I didn't sleep Monday night, at all. I actually stayed up the entire night and read a book, feeling like I absolutely wanted to die. How could I have done this so regularly before!? I mean, I used to almost do it daily!! I felt sick until Tuesday at about 1pm. 


As I've now blogged about 34 times about it, y'all will know that I had a 712 calorie workout yesterday and I felt pretty amazing.  Today I'm going to bring the dog out to the island we've been going to do and do it again.  After that, I'm going to spend some time at the gym and try to do at least 30 minutes on the elliptical, to keep at a 700+ calorie daily daily output. 


Today when I woke up I weight myself again, to see if the damage was really done: 260.8. I'm so relieved.  I forgive myself for Monday and am going to count it as a lesson learned.  This entire week I'm going to try to make up for it and I want to lose at least 2 pounds from my Sunday weigh-in. I deserve forgiveness, I expect hard work, and I deserve to lose 2 pounds!! 

The Biggest Loser & Emotion vs Intellect.

Tap tap microphone, is this thing on....?

I've been watching this Biggest Loser season like it should be a weekly trip to church. I've watched it off-and-on for years. I took ahold of my life this year and came to terms with what I wanted and needed to do with weight loss and just connected with this season's cast. Hannah and Olivia and Irene: these girls blow me away.

I honestly couldn't connect with Irene in the beginning -- they didn't show her as a prominent contestant, she seemed like a background character..  She is coming out of her shell and I feel like I really relate to her. Tonight when Irene was saying the stuff that she was to Jillian, I so connected with that.

Olivia and Hannah.  These two ladies have been my favorites from day 1. Some nights I watched solely for their wit and comments. I connected with them.  I have a sister I'm extremely close to, and Hannah and Olivia seem like our type of sibling-team. So, I hope that one of these three ladies wins the ranch challenge.

I have a problem. I can logically sit and think 'this is wrong, don't do this' but emotionally I am not able to reign myself in or stop myself from doing xyz, whether it be eating too much, secretly eating an extra portion of something, skipping the gym, etc.  I think that this is why I emotionally eat: instead of connecting emotions with what I'm intellectually thinking, I eat those feelings. compressing them to where I can't feel what I'm doing.

I feel like I have that same problem with emotionally connecting my intellect with my self-worth.  Intellectually I will sit here and tell you that I'm amazing, strong, talented, smart, funny and maybe even beautiful.  Emotionally, I can't connect those things, and therefore don't LIVE them... Like, I KNOW them but I don't truly BELIEVE them.  I'm sure once I lose more weight some of the emotion will connect, as I SEE myself actually looking like who I want to be, but I don't know if that is enough.

I started at 300 pounds in November, down to 290.6 on January 1st.  I've been in the 260s since March 20th. I lost from 0.8 to 3.8 pounds weekly. On April 17 my weigh-in was +1.6 and April 24 was -3.8. Weighing myself again this morning, I'm back up a couple of pounds. I'm looking at ways to combat this hugely plateau, have reached out on twitter, received a few ideas by e-mail and by looking online.  The thing that I need to figure out, is HOW do I beat my emotion?  How can the intellect go to combat with the emotion and make the emotion a believer?  If you've read this far, let me know your thoughts! ARGH!!!

I can't live, if living is without you

Mariah Carey said it right ... in that one line anyway. "I can't live, if living is without you-u-u." I have two pillows on my bed and I sleep on the left side of my bed with a specific pillow. The other one I only occasionally use, if I sleep on my side. Mind you, they're not that different - maybe just an inch or two of thickness at most. Sometimes I accidently put them on the opposite side of the bed (whilst changing sheets etc), and it can take a couple of horrific nights to figure this out.

Late last week, I did the dreadful incorrect side switch. Unbeknownst to me as to why, I have had 16 to *maybe* 18 hours of sleep in 3 days. I have trouble falling asleep, do so around 12-12:30, and wake up by 5:30-6 with a painful stiff neck and back, feeling frustrated, delirious.  My days go south: I don't exercise as I'm exhausted, food habits turn to junk, etc. Of course I can never figure out why, until my pillows are discovered!

The stars aligned early this morning, when for some reason I clutched my pillow.  It felt funny, just off slightly.  I reached over to the other pillow and I could almost hear the sky opening up and birds singing. I DID IT AGAIN! I quickly switched them and laid back. I was so excited to go back to sleep, but I realized that I had to get out of bed at that moment. Talk about a buzz kill.

So, dear pillow, please don't leave me.  You are one idiosyncrasy that I can't bear to part with. I look forward to an early night tonight, and 8-9 hours of blissful sleep.