Down & Out

I've got a day off from work today for a study day. I have already finished all my assignments, so it is pretty much a bludge day. I have now officially finished uni forever! I don't think it has sunk in yet because I am not that excited. I guess it will sink it more when I realise I an have my weekends and evenings back.

I am in a bit of a down frame of mind at the moment. It is a combination of lots of things, work, family, friends and weight.

I am increasingly unhappy at work because of the way people treat me. I am an assistant and I am just so sick of being treated like an idiot and doing other peoples dirty work. I mean I now almost have a Master's degree (pending graduation in October), so I feel like I can handle more then making coffee and fixing the photocopier. All this wouldn't be so bad if people could treat me a bit more respectfully. I am close to losing it at someone and already got in a little trouble last week for giving some attitude to a colleague when I told her "It would be a joy" (with a sarcastic tone) to book a restaurant for her.

In terms of family, both my mum and brother have bipolar and my brother isn't doing too well at the moment. I am a worrier at the best of times, but currently I am almost in knots with worry. I just don't know what is going to happen, he is also addicted to marijuana and alcohol which obviously makes the situation much worse. He refuses treatment or medication, so I am starting to think that I may have to involuntarily commit him to a mental health institute.

I have previously mentioned the death of my flat mates father earlier this year. He is coping ok, but my heart is just breaking for him every day. I just wish I could do something to help, but I feel lost and I know that nothing I can do will help. I just wish with all my heart that he didn't have to go through this.

My weight is an ongoing issue (well duh!). I feel like this is just so hard and I don't think I can continue the way I am going. I am exercising every day and eating healthy, but it isn't coming naturally. It is hard work and I just feel like life shouldn't be this hard. I shouldn't have to dread this weekend because I will be eating out every meal from Friday-Sunday for my dad's birthday weekend away. I should be able to enjoy the time with my family and not obsess over strategies for avoiding food and where I will find time to exercise and what the scale is going to say next week. I am so sick of missing out on life because I am avoiding food.

Thinking about all those other issues that are stressing me out makes me feel so self absorbed and shallow to even talk about my weight.

Anyway, I think getting that off my chest will be a big help. Spending the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching TV will also be a good tonic! I am sure I will feel a lot better in an hour and feel embarrassed of my whinging. :-)

I Did It

Well I finally did it, I got through a Friday night without pigging out.

I made my fresh and healthy chicken and BBQ pizza and it was so yummy (chicken breast, green capsicum, onion, light mozzarella cheese, pineapple pieces and BBQ sauce). I am so happy to feel like I have enough control to get through a Friday night without eating everything in site- especially because I had a pretty bad day at work, which topped off a pretty bad week at work. Normally that would be ample reason to eat a whole pizza.

I got up this morning and did my circuit training (treadmill, boxing, bike, fit ball)and it was so good to work out hard and push myself with the knowledge that I was burning fat and not just last nights take away and chocolate.

Now I just have to get started on the homework and it will be 3 out of 3 this weekend... I have some lite buttered popcorn and weight watchers blueberry cheesecake ice cream as an incentive for later.

- 0.5 Kilos

Another half kilo loss this week to bring me down to 110 kilos. This is my lowest weight in a few years, which should be exciting, but it is a bit anti-climatic because it was such a struggle to get here.

I am slightly disappointed that it wasn't a bit more of a loss. I prepared fresh meals every night this week of veggies and lean meant, as opposed to my normal lean cuisines and packet pastas. I also had a bit of a motto to push just a little bit harder with exercise every night. Every time I thought I had done enough, I would do a little bit more. I was hoping that these factors combined would give me a 1 kilo loss, but I guess that pizza from last Friday is coming back to haunt me. I just feel like that at my weight I should still be able to lose a kilo a week if I try really hard. Anyway, a loss is a loss and I will stop complaining.

I am all set for tonight, (Friday night is always my downfall) I got up half an hour earlier and did my exercise because I struggle to find the motivation to exercise on a Friday night. Last night I went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients for my low fat BBQ chicken pizza for tonight. The only obstacle will be that I have a fuck load of homework to do this weekend and what makes doing homework easier? Chocolate. I will resist though, I promise.

I am (again) aiming for a 100% week. In exactly a week my brothers and I are taking my dad away for his 50th birthday. I made a pledge to myself that I would lose as much weight as I could before I go as sort of a gift for my dad. Not that I will tell him that, but I know it would make him really happy to see me looking healthier. I really wanted to at least be under 110 kilos before then, so I have 1 week and I should be able to do it.

Pizza Binges

So my 100% week fell in a heap about 9 hours after I wrote my last post. I have serious problems with not eating crap on Friday nights. I am always so exhausted as well as happy to finish work by then, all I can do is come home and order a pizza. Every week I try to resist, but I am so weak. I really hate that I have no control over myself. Last week I also went to a local bakery after work and bought a selection of these mini treats. They were so worth it though! I want to buy a heap of them for my dad's 50th birthday in a couple of weeks, so I decided to sample them first... I also decided on the Nocciolato cake for my dad's birthday dinner while I was there.

Anyway, this Friday I am going to try and avoid my normal pizza binge by making my own healthy pizza at home. I am going to go shopping and get it all ready on Thursday night, so all I have to do on Friday after work is put it in the oven. It might not be the healthiest meal ever, but it will be better then my normal binge. Fingers crossed this works because I need to try and be careful over the coming weeks because I have a lot of things I have to go to where yummy (fattening) food will be present.

Also I am having some pretty intense chocolate cravings lately. I just feel such an over whelming urge to go crazy on cherry ripes and cookie dough kit kats. This, teamed with my strong desire to smash plates on the floor last night because my flat mate didn't do the dishes can only mean one thing- PMS. Great.

You can tell I am hungry with all these chocolatey websites I am linking to that I normally couldn't be fagged doing. Better go and get my home made chicken and veggie soup warmed up for tea before I crack.

- 0.5 kilos

I was pretty happy to see a half a kilo loss this morning on the scale. After last weeks mammoth loss of 2.5 kilos I wasn't expecting much of a loss, if anything.

My only annoyance is that I am now 110.5 which is equal with my lowest weight in recent years. I am dying to see some fresh numbers, numbers that I haven't seen since the 90's. Hopefully next week I will see some new numbers. I am aiming for a 100% week, Friday nights are my biggest downfall, but I will do my best...

Achievement of the week: I jogged on the treadmill for 5 minutes during the week! This is the first time I have jogged in about 15 years. I jogged for a minute, walked a minute, then jogged a minute etc for 10 minutes (so 5 minutes of jogging all up). I could feel it in every muscle of my legs. I was actually only jogging at 6 kph, which is a pace that I have walked at, but jogging instead of walking is so much harder (especially when my poor little legs have to carry all that extra lard). I can't wait to keep going with it and gradually build up to being able to jog without stopping for 10 minutes. That is still a very long way off, but definitely something to aim for!

Interval Training

On Saturday morning I got up early and decided to try doing some interval type training. My flat mate took on the role of trainer and I did 5 minutes on the treadmill, 5 minutes of boxing, 5 minutes on the exercise bike and 5 minutes on the fit ball. Then I repeated the circuit, so it was 40 minutes all up.

The best part of the training session was that every 5 minutes that I did, I worked 10 times harder then I normally would, because it is only 5 minute sessions, I was able to push myself to my limit for each session. During my last session I nearly vomited, which I guess is a good thing. I must have really pushed myself! I can't wait until next Saturday to do it again.

My eating wasn't that good over the weekend. Friday night I went to my mum and grans and bought fish and chips for tea as an early mother's day dinner. Then Saturday night my dad and step mum came to stay and we went out for dinner and I had a big steak and potato's, red wine and chocolate cake. God it was yummy though! Sunday we went to the footy with my brothers to see my mighty Cats win over the Eagles in Geelong. Everyone ate chips and hot dogs, but I bought an apple and a sandwich- so at least I drew the line somewhere!

-2.5 Kilo's

I just knew the half a kilo gain earlier this week could not be right, which was why I refused to properly acknowledge it. I could feel my body getting back in balance so I decided to have a sneak peak at the scales because I wanted to banish that horrible 113.5 number from my mind. Low and behold I had dropped 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds) since Monday's weigh in and I am now 111 kilos.

Obviously Monday I was carrying a lot of fluid from my drinking and I was just finishing my period, so I like to think it is not an unsafe weight loss. It is probably just showing the fat that I have burned over the past couple of weeks that was masked by my period.

I am now half a kilo off my lowest weight in years. Just before Christmas last year I starved myself silly to get down to 110.5 kilos and of course piled it all back on. Before that, the lowest I got to in recent memory was 98 kilos back in 2004.

I haven't been able to notice a huge change in my body yet, but I feel like from this point on every few kilos will make a difference. It is all good new fresh numbers from here!

Quick Update

So Saturday night turned out to be fun. I actually danced all night and didn't feel too self conscious. I worked up quite a sweat too, I must have burnt quite a few of those vodkas off. It was fun to dance, but I still prefer a quiet night in.

I gained half a kilo this week. I have no idea why and so I am refusing to believe it. There is no way that can be accurate considering how well I ate (except for the drinks on Saturday night) and how much I exercised.

I worked out my highest weight and current weight in pounds today- they are pretty scary numbers:
Highest weight: 282.7 pounds
Current weight: 249.7 pounds
I can't believe that I weigh 250 pounds! I think I prefer kilo's, not quite as alarming to look at...

My new favourite exercise this week- boxing. My flatmate holds the pads up and I box with gloves. It is such a great work out and heaps of fun too.

Night On The Town

Some of the girls I used to work with from Geelong are coming to stay with me this weekend. We are going to have some drinks and then hit the town. I am really looking forward to catching up with them, but already dreading the going out part. If I had my way we would just stay at my place and talk and drink and not go out at all. I suffer from extreme fat person paranoia when I go to clubs. I think everyone is staring at me and laughing at me and lets face it, some people do...

Once when I was living in Geelong and I was at my heaviest I went out with some friends to a club. We were dancing and a guy walks up to me and starts imitating me and making comments about my weight. This is humiliating enough, except my friends tried to stick up for me. Their hearts were in the right place, but it just escalated the situation and there was yelling and then his friends came over and it turned into a huge argument and people were staring at us. Then the guy decided to prove a point because he felt like my friends had embarrassed him and he followed me around for the next half hour making nasty comments, until eventually I had to leave. The next morning my friends were still making a big deal about it (once again, they were trying to be nice) and it just made it all the more embarrassing. This is not an isolated incident, but probably the worst one I have had.

So now when ever I go out, no matter how much I drink, I rarely get drunk because I am so self conscious. I am fine when I go to the pub with friends for casual drinks, work functions, dinners or when I go to parties at friends houses, I always relax and have fun, but I just freeze up in a night club situation. I end up feeling like a fat, boring, prude because I won't dance and my feet start to hurt and I just want to go home. It is really hard to stay in a club till 5am when you are sober! I don't even know if I would like clubs if I was skinny, I really prefer to just sit around and talk with friends in a pub or bar.

I hope I don't sound too negative, I really want to have a good night. I have a bottle of apple vodka in the freezer, so let's see how I go tonight...

-4.5 kilos!!!

I weighed myself today for the first time in 7 weeks and registered a 4.5 kilo loss. Of course I know this is great and I should be really happy, and I am... but I couldn't help but hope for more.

My plan was to weigh myself on the first day of every month, but I might go back to a weekly weigh in. I just built too many unrealistic expectations around the monthly weigh in, so if I go back to weekly I can keep tabs on myself and my un-realistic expectations.

So my current (naked, first thing in the morning) weight is 113 kilos. I was hoping to be 105 kilos by June 1st for my dad's birthday weekend away. That is clearly not going to happen unless I amputate my leg. My new aim will be to be under 110 kilos, I should be able to at least achieve that.

I just hope that I can blast away another kilo this week because I really hate that number 113, I will be much happier with 112 or even 112.5. God I just can't wait to get 110, I am so sick of seeing these numbers over and over again. I want to get into some fresh numbers that I haven't seen in years.