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. 

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.

Feeling like a marshmellow

Two months ago I posted my last post to-date.  I stopped going to the gym about two weeks after that, fell into many old habits (what's that saying about old habits dying hard?), became depressed...  A month ago and last week are two specific days that are important to me, but are really difficult.  They're pertaining to an anniversary of a death and a birthday of said person's death.  Mystery aside, they're really tough every year and they have been for the past seven years. 

The job I'm in now also doesn't allow me to take off any time between now and January, which when your family is around 400 miles away makes for a terrible holiday season.  I can't figure out how to break the cycle that I am back in.  I want to change again, I want to re-take my body back over, I want to become myself again.  I'm still paying off my training sessions, so I will have those to go back to, but I'm just in a funk. 

I've thought about diaries, but I honestly hate them. I log into MyFitnessPal every day, but rarely post anything. I try to use it to motivate myself, but at this point nothing is motivating me. I watch the Biggest Loser every week, and love seeing the contestants do so well. At the same time, I feel gross when contestants who weighed more than me now weigh less. To top it all off, I've gained around 4-5 pounds and just feel lethargic all of the time. 

Any suggestions?  Thoughts? Ideas? Share here or on twitter: @300toFinally175.  I'm hoping for a Bob Harper style mental ass-kicking, or at least something that changes my mindset!  Help! Thanks.