Getting, and Staying in Shape! Summer 2014

Time and time again I keep falling off the wagon and regaining the same 15 pounds, I want this summer to be the last summer I yo-yo diet! Here's to getting the maintaining part of weight loss right.

I think dieting is going to be a different experience for me this time around. I'm finally completely aware of how much of a commitment this is to make changes for good. I want to use this journal partly as a food log. I tried this EFT thing thinking there was no way it could work but it worked for me the first month, I actually lost 4 pounds really easily. But for some reason I gained it all back about a month ago. That's when I realized despite getting over bingeing years ago, I still have some issues with relying on food for emotional comfort.

For the first time in my life, I finally started to get a sense of how often I use food as a way to relax, cope, or even express my emotions. When I get home from work for example, I always need to eat something immediately otherwise I feel really anxious like my day isn't complete and I haven't had any enjoyment in my day. When I'm on the go I often need to grab something otherwise I feel anxious. Just the feeling of having something in my mouth (lol) is just comforting to me.

So first I'm trying to get used to eating smaller portions, and to sort of push the reset button on my body, I'll be avoiding almost all processed foods for maybe like, 2 weeks?

I'm even thinking of going to a doctor or something to get help and have my nutrition and progress monitored! As long as it's not crazy expensive, therapy has taught me how much it easier it is to have outside support from a source other than friends or family.

This is my first food log: I think it's important for me to get a handle on how much I'm really eating, and what kinds of food I choose to eat.

Breakfast: Grilled fish, tomatoes and a few avocado slices (maybe 1/3 a whole avocado, btw I usually hate breakfast food especially for breakfast, it's just gross to me)

Lunch: Two boiled eggs, salted

Snack: 1 whole broccoli head, just plain, steamed

I like this whole avoiding processed foods thing because when you eat fresh food you can eat a whole lot more.

The only thing is that I'm like not hungry so I'm worried my metabolism is dead or something.

I ran 5 miles yesterday, so it seems like I should be burning more calories.

I realized I needed to start this food log when I came home yesterday after eating healthy all day and ate 3 80 calorie cookies, and then ate 5 more, resulting in a 700 calorie intake of cookies for the day when I barely ate much else, that I just don't know when to stop when it comes to sugar so I pretty much have to quite cold turkey for a long time and treat my sugar addiction like any other addiction.

So I'm wondering if I should do a one day fast so that I finally just get hungry.

After my initial weight loss I immediately plateaued and regained after ONE cheat day, I have never had a problem losing weight in my life until now! It sucks...

Since I'm kicking off this diet with kind of a veggie/protein fast sort of thing, I'm thinking about getting an avocado from the grocery store for dinner since it was so delicious, creamy and filling this morning but I didn't have much left. I also like edamame beans but I would prefer to eat them unsalted since I'm eating a lot of plain vegetables and I don't want to use salt at every meal to season them.

Another reason I'm starting off with such bland, unseasoned food is that I want my tastebuds to recalibrate as well. I can always choose to go back to eating regular foods but I think this could be an interesting experiment for me. I really don't mind living on plain veggies and stuff for a short while.

The cool thing so far is that when I eat plain, mostly raw vegetables, I don't feel the same ups and downs in my energy and moods like I normally do. This is huge for me. Right now, I'm not really emotionally equipped to deal with ups and downs in my energy due to my diet. A big factor that usually undermines my good intentions is that I get cravings when I'm bored! Food is definitely an easy way to enjoy life with minimal effort, no wonder I've gotten into the habit of giving into my cravings.

I bought a coconut a few weeks ago and it was a B to open but it was pretty awesome. I toasted the white meat, ate some of it raw, and drank the water inside. Not bad for a few bucks. For dessert I had a small portion of berries, yogurt, toasted coconut, drizzled with maple syrup. (This was before my decision to cut out sugar until I could manage it in a sane way)

I'm weirdly enjoying it this time...like it feels better, honestly, to be on this restrictive diet right now than be unhappy with the way I look!

I'm 125 pounds. Which is not the end of the world but enough on me that I'm still not wearing shorts since my legs bulk up so easily. I wouldn't mind my weight if it didn't go to such unflattering places! On the other hand, I fixed my posture so my back doesn't look huge anymore and my neck looks a lot less bent or protruding. Yay, progress.

Like I said, I feel a thousand times better doing the work to get healthier, the emotional turmoil of insecurity is so much more exhausting.

I wish I would have figured that out sooner! Ahh. I was able to jump start my motivation because I realized that this guy didn't like me basically. But at least it motivated me to finally get moving. For once I want to be on the ball, and not just be adapting when things go wrong.

I want to remember my wise words in here though. It's just so much harder to dislike yourself and be unhappy than to be the opposite.

The hardest part I think, now, is how I'm going to cope with my eating triggers, my main ones are:

Insecurity

Happiness

Boredom

When I'm feeling any of these emotions I tend to want to eat, but realizing it's mainly an emotionally thing actually makes it easier to makes changes and resist the cravings! Before, the temptation was so strong because I actually believed that the food could make me happier somehow, and that it was better tasting than it actually was.

So I forgot to post my dinner:

I was too lazy to go to the store so,

Just like 3/4 of an eggplant cut into strips with a little bit of homemade meat sauce on top for flavor. Keeping it simple although I felt like I was cheating a little by eating protein for every meal.

And then for a bedtime snack I had half of a banana with reduced calorie soy milk/steel cut oats/granola with raisins sort of thing.

As a rough estimate, I probably ate 200-300 calories for breakfast since my serving of fish was tiny, and I only had a few slices of avocado, only water to drink, and a few slices of tomato. My lunch was just two eggs so probably like 150-200 calories. The plain broccoli snack was at most 100 calories. The eggplant itself is very low in calories, and I just brushed the tops with sauce so probably 200-300 calories tops there. The half banana/granola was probably like 350- 400 calories.

The only thing I feel bit guilty about today are the oats because I didn't plan for them, and intended to do more of a veggie fast.

At most I ate 1300 calories, and more likely it was around 1200 or so. But I felt full and satisfied. I really hope this is going to work out!

I also decided that for now, I'm not eating after 8 PM or before 7:00 AM.

I've broken through my plateau, thank god, I was starting to get worried that my metabolism wasn't working anymore. So when I got on the scale I had dropped over two pounds in a day. I have been weighing myself daily. Its weird how my body works like that, nothing and then it's like bam, the weight comes off in less than 12 hours.

I feel more motivated now that my body is cooperating. It's hard to keep my motivation sometimes because even if I reach my ideal weight, I'm always going to be this petite, short little woman. It kind of feels like what's the point if I'm never going to end up looking like a leggy supermodel anyway. I really hate how chubby my face is right now though! I want to stop feeling like a little girl. So I'm thinking about getting a tan, maybe that'll make me look better. I honestly get easily discouraged because of certain flaws I have. It's not just my imagination, there are certain things I really want to change. Either way, I have to learn to be happy with what I have like said yesterday. Since this is what I've been given, it make no sense to be insecure to the point of sabotaging the good things I can have.

Food Journal

Most random day ever

Breakfast: spinach green smoothie (small)

Snack: 1 poached egg, 1 spare rib

Lunch: Sashimi (salmon and squid only), a few Japanese noodles (served cold)

Dinner: 1 piece buttered toast with egg and one piece of bacon.

Snack: a few cherries

So today I was pretty hungry so I really needed to add some carbs and I'm going to be busy for the next couple of days. I really want to do a veggie fast ONE day this week but I haven't been able to go through with it so far. But I'm definitely aiming for at least one day of a veggie fast this week.

I've lost another pound! It may seem extreme but I think it's just water weight, I'll post my food journal later.

I'm two days behind and I honestly don't remember much of what I ate 2 days ago so I'm going to try to work backwards.

I think I had a very small salad for dinner. The light bulb just went on in my head when I remembered I had therapy that day. I had peanuts (500 calories of peanuts because I was on the go and was super hungry but had no time to eat) for lunch, lol, and a sports drink. For breakfast, I think I had my usual green smoothie/boiled egg mid morning snack combo?

The next day, I had a really small 'salad' for breakfast with avocado slices, a few slices of tuna steak, maybe 3 slices the size of an eraser.

Then for a mid morning snack I had two pieces of chicken, smaller than the size of two golf balls? I'm not doing the best job of explaining my portion sizes but I'm just winging it right now and I'm okay with that.

Lunch was half a sandwich. It was a chicken sandwich with provolone, pesto, and tomato on focaccia bread. It felt so 90's nineties or something, like who eats that kind of stuff? But I'm just eating kind of random stuff these days.

I was stressed today so later on at about 4:30 I had another 1/3 of a sandwich that I bought at the same place. I cut it into thirds so I can make it stretch out over the next couple of days.

For dinner I had 3 pieces of sushi.

I literally ate protein at every meal....and maybe too many carbs.

Part of my journal is going to be about managing eating triggers and binge eating triggers. Although it doesn't seem like much, my three pieces of sushi were higher in calories than I thought when I bought them. So that really stressed me out, and I actually struggled with wanting to give up for a day or so. I had been doing so well, and even the thought of eating 1400 calories for a day compared to my usual ballpark 1200 made me feel really discouraged and upset because it was a genuine mistake.

I tried eating 1500-1700 calories in June, but I didn't even lose any weight at all. I actually gained like 5 pounds. So I know I really have to make drastic cuts in order to lose weight at all. So knowing I could be back in that annoying zone of restricting my eating and still gaining weight almost made me panic. Like if I step on the scale and my weight loss is totally negated in the morning, I'll be really upset.

I had initially lost 2 pounds with the EFT thing--to my amazement. That was back at the beginning of June. I was ready to try losing a pound a week.

I swear weight loss just doesn't work that way. You can't just lose a pound a week. It'll either be more or nothing at all, in my extensive experience.

So I gained it all back in June after literally one day of over eating. So I'm terrified of that happening again.

I look forward to the weekend so much, and sometimes I get really stressed out by the end of the week. I was somewhat close to giving into the voice in my head that says, if I've screwed up I should just eat a bunch of food so that it'll be worth it. But I didn't!

I didn't have the heart to let myself down. I honestly would feel so stupid lying to other people about my diet if I didn't stick to it.

Now that I'm journaling about my feelings and my thought process about the trigger, I feel so much more level headed. I'm so glad I was finally able to look outside myself and my mind and manage my triggers, and stop harming myself. Sometimes the ways I try to ease the tension just make me so much more tense and insecure. It is so weird to actually have self-control....like I can't believe I didn't have it for years when so many people exercise their self-control everyday! It's a different world and I'm still not at the point where I feel confident that I won't relapse. It's really scary because when you're in the mindset of wanting a "fix" you become kind of delusional.

I seriously I can't believe I let it get this bad. I feel like some clueless hobo that let their lawn get overgrown with weeds, and didn't clean their house for like 10 years. If you maintain something it doesn't get all run down and you don't have to exert so much effort to untangle the mess you've made. I just want to experience the way most people but if I'm polluting my mind with disordered thoughts about eating, it effects my entire quality of life.

Which brings me to how I keep forgetting how serious my problem is. I have managed almost a full week in recovery, which is basically what I'm going through.

Sometimes my brain starts to try to make compromises I know I can't keep: just one taste won't hurt me, just binge once and it'll help me relax, my day isn't complete without something delicious,

every meal has to be a perfect symphony of flavors and if it's not my day is ruined and I should just go on a binge of every delicious food that comes to mind

If a guy doesn't like me I should just eat

I can always start over tomorrow

I feel panicked, what am I going to do with my time and thoughts if I'm not obsessing over food? Isn't my life going to be empty and colorless?

It's just temporary but my brain freaks out in every single of

My behavior is seriously similar to a drug addict. I was actually at the supermarket, looking around at all the food trying to pick out all the food I felt like bingeing on,

But I was like I seriously just CANT lie to myself. My word means nothing if I'm just making compromises all the time. It wasn't worth being disappointed in myself.

It's like my idea of relaxation is actually suffering: a painfully full stomach, lethargy, not being able to sleep, feeling bad about myself. None of that is relaxing. How could I actually convince myself that is actually what I wanted? The short term rewards of eating aren't even that irresistible. How could I have made it up to be such a big deal in my head?

I'm beginning to actually understand my eating disorder as something that really is a part of me. Before I would always tell myself I didn't have a full blown disorder and that I could basically quit at any time as long as I had the right mindset. But I have a real problem and I'm finally getting out of the clutches of my eating disorder.

If I'm so obsessed with my body and the way I look, if it's that important to me, then why I am not already at my goal weight? I think it's important for me to ask, "Why am I overweight?" Not that I'm actually overweight by medical standards, but I need to ask myself why is there a gap between how I see myself and who I actually am. Why is it so difficult for me?

I never had quite the right answer for that in the past. I was convinced it was because certain foods were "too good" or too tasty. Now I'm beginning to understand that just because something tastes amazing doesn't mean you need to stuff yourself. It doesn't signify any kind of behavior or action. If you have a bad day, it doesn't mean food can make it better. I mean sometimes it can but it especially doesn't work if you rely on it as much I have. I honestly thought food was the answer to a lot of my predicaments. Like if I felt anxious after work, like I couldn't just do the emotional grunt work of learning to cope with my emotions. How can food even get ties into an emotional avoidance issue? It's so weird how they're connected!

I've started using a little scale to measure my portion sizes because I was curious if my instincts are right on portion size. I eye balled 50 grams of cereal today and I was seriously spot on!

Not eating much veg today I don't know why! I think I'm managing my end of the week stress better though. I'm going to try the veggie fast over the weekend.

Breakfast: granola with milk

Lunch: plain popcorn

Dinner was the other 1/3 of the sandwich I bought the other day. I still have one more third to go! Best four bucks I ever spent. It's amazing, being free from my prison of always being obsessed with food.

Sushi, especially the cheap kind, is a really good option for someone like me that doesn't want to cook or doesn't feel like planning out all their meals in advance.

I also ate 3 plates of conveyer belt sushi as a mid after noon meal.

Since I measured my granola and milk I know my total calories were at 350 for that meal.

The bag of popcorn was 244 lol.

The 1/3 sandwich was probably like 200 calories or less.

The 3 little sushi plates were around 300-400 calories in total.

So I stayed well within my range today!

So over the weekend I want to take it really easy, start eating clean (even though I've kept my calories low and avoided most processed food this week I know I could do much better obviously) and work out a lot since I was busy this week. I'm actually pretty excited. I haven't had a project to work on in so long!

I want to plan out most of my meals now so that I can fit everything in.

So basically on Saturday I'll try the veggie fast. If can only manage to do this for 2/3 of my meals I'll still consider it a success.

I need avocados, spinach, I'll probably even through in a few sweet potatoes.

I'm not sure what else to get...

I'll probably just go to the farmers market or grocery and buy a bunch of stuff.

I might just go for some fresh mozzarella as well.

I seriously don't get why this is so exciting to me all of a sudden. It's like I actually enjoy taking good care of my body. It's just fun, eating things that taste good, give me energy, lift my spirits and are also transforming my body. My body and my mind feel pretty light right now, since I've been sleeping and eating better it's so much easier to make long term decisions without feeling anxious.

Before when I was dieting I felt really anxious and deprived all the time and I definitely didn't think about I had to make changes in the long term. It's like I'm okay with having to control my food intake from now on, taking it a day a time and trying to make smart decisions. But I'm not there yet, I have to do the work to lose the weight over the next few months first.

Maintaining weight loss is literally completely new territory to me! So I wonder if it'll be really hard to figure out how to do the balancing act. It seems a lot harder than weight loss because I'll be paranoid about gaining weight again. I'll worry about that down the road when the finish line is within sight.

Right now I'm still in the first leg of this marathon.

For Saturday, I also want to add some mushrooms into my meal plan.

Sunday, depending on how I'm feeling I might attempt a veggie fasting day again. It's better for me to do this on a day where I don't have many obligations and stressors.

If I'm feeling weak and like I lack the energy to exercise, I'll definitely add in:

Some protein--like chicken, beef, scallops, fish, shrimp, eggs

I want to look up some good recipes on how I can prepare my protein.

I also want to learn how to make some soups and different kinds of salads.

I think that'll be enough to work with for now.

Food Journal:

Breakfast: 1/3 broccoli, 5 cherry tomatoes, 2/3 cucumber, some dressing

Lunch: 1/2 broccoli, 1 whole avocado with a bit of mayo

Pre workout snack: Banana

Post workout: basil seed drink, acai berries, mushroom/cheese/tofu stir fry thingy

The veggie fast was pretty successful.

My breakfast was like 100 calories with the cherry tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli

Lunch was more, 160 for the small avocado, 40 for the broccoli, 50 for the condiments

So that's 350

Plus the banana 100

Basil seed drink 120

Acai 81

So 650 so far

The leftover mushroom thingy is harder to gauge but it really wasn't much so I'd say 100

750--which is really low but that was kind of the point of the fast

I've reached that point where my body is getting used to eating less. I don't know if it's necessarily easier, even though food isn't on my mind 24/7 like it was before, it's still possible to overeat really easily, by just eating one meal out or something. So I'm feeling a little discouraged, like how am I going to maintain good eating habits long term?

I guess either way I have to eat to live anyway so I might as well be on top of the choices I make...

Food Journal:

Breakfast, 50 grams of granolish cereal, 100g or so of reduced caloried soy milk

So about 300 calories at most

Lunch: (one egg) Omlette, with tomato and onion and a bit of avocado/cheese, 1/2 bagel and cream cheese

About 400 calories

Dinner: Egg, acai smooth mix (81), edamame beans (100)

About 300 calories

But I feel like I had too much salt or something, I feel gross like I let myself down a little. I think I'm going to go back to eating protein and veg, I can eat more that way.

Not to mention, I think I'm starting to get PMS, I feel like a sensitive, bloated, sore whale right now. I'm exhausted. I absolutely hate feeling this way!

I've been looking over my journal entries to make sure I don't forget what my original intentions were or some of the little rules I try to put in place for myself.

I don't think I've been eating after 8 PM by default, but I had forgotten I had made that rule.

This time around the keeping the promises I made to myself have become way more important than the weight loss itself, in a lot of ways. It's the number one thing that keeps me from cheating on my diet. I know that I can't lie to myself and cheating on my diet is cheating myself.

After a few years of just letting myself eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, without even trying to lose weight at all, it's a refreshing change. It's kind of annoying how if I wanted to weigh like 130 I could basically eat whatever I wanted but to get down to like 108-110 I have to work so hard!

Okay I clearly had like amnesia about eating clean lol. I don't consider bagels to be a health food. I realized that when I looked over my plans for the weekend. I don't consider most cereal to be that healthy either, although I was technically eating a healthy cereal, I don't know, grains feel so weirdly taboo to me. Plus I swear they always drag my energy level down, I feel like I'm super sensitive to them for some reason.

Eggs are boring but they're really satiating to me, but obviously I need to eat a more varied diet. After what I've been through I'm just happy that I'm even able to diet and exercise this successfully.

This is only the beginning! I feel more motivated and more ready (pretty much) every day.

I forgot to add that I ate a white peach too.

So that kind of made me feel like I was also eating too much fruit.

Food journal:

Breakfast: some kind of multi grain cereal with reduced calorie soy milk.

Lunch:

At the deli I bought 130g of a roast beef salad.

I also bought 100 more grams of another prepared salad with lots of veg.

Made my own boba drink with just a ripe banana and milk, and some tapioca. I'm definitely doing this again! Heaven.

Snack, like 5 walnuts before they started tasting weird to me.

Dinner: an egg, toast, gatorade

The last 2 days I've just wanted to feel full so I've been eating more carbs than I originally planned for. Hopefully I'll get back on track tomorrow! Calorie wise I'm still right about where I need to be.

Okay I don't know why, but I'm still eating too many carbs. I really think I'm PMSing. Keeping the calories down though.

For breakfast I had a bowl of multigrain cereal with reduced calorie soy milk.

Lunch was a little less than half a bagel with cream cream.

And then for the rest of the day I just nibbled on things, like veggies, tomatoes. I really don't remember what I ate yesterday because I swear I ate like 1200 calories but I know I'm missing something...

I obviously know this isn't ideal!!!

But I'm keeping it honest, I just didn't feel like eating healthy today AGAIN.

By the end of this week I want to lose 2 pounds!! Then I'll be 121. Which is on the slightly higher end of a healthy weight for someone my height, yay finally. I really want to be comfortable wearing shorts and dresses before the summer ends!

Baby steps...

Okay so I have lost a pound so far this week. I'm just glad I'm not gaining weight! Overall, since beginning this, my stomach has probably already lost a inch and my face looks way less puffy. It's probably going to be another week or two until I start seeing the difference in my legs and arms, that's how it usually goes.

I've worked out 5 times since starting my journal, for roughly an hour and a half each Which doesn't seem like much but at least I can run for 30 minutes without stopping at a time at 8.5km which is like 4.5-or maybe a little more mph which isn't bad for like 1.5 weeks of a little exercise.

And how did I decide to celebrate...by eating half a burger!! I know I'm falling back into old habits and I should care....

But I'm not bingeing and I managed to resist the urge so I'm honestly happy with that!

I had a tiny breakfast, a peach. Then I ate 1/2 a burger and a very small handful of fries. Then I had 1 (not fried) spring roll, some Thai noodles. And I'm making cookies for friends so I ate a little cookie dough. Totally non dieting fare but with really small portions.