Well, I’m clawing my way back up and out of the shame spiral and trying to move on from my compulsively diet-sabotaging day yesterday.  It’s six pm here and I’m just now starting to feel like a normal person again, probably because I spent all day working out.  I’m trying not to act like a complete freakshow around the whole binge thing, but I woke up this morning and just needed to get seriously calorie blasting workout in.  I’ve been good for awhile on the diet (goodish anyhow) and I forgot how truly awful I feel when I eat like that.  I was headachy and grumpy all day and I couldn’t focus.  I really need to catch up with some of my friends, having been gone a week, but I just couldn’t bring myself to strike out into the world.  The food intake has been okay- I ate a bowl of spinach pasta with raw spinach and pesto this morning because I knew I was going to work out hard.  I’m going to have a big salad for dinner and drink another gallon of water and hopefully tomorrow I will feel back to normal.  I’m picking up Noah from the airport tonight, thank goodness, not only because I miss him but because we suddenly have more work then we can handle.  

Now it’s closer to 1 am- Noah successfully retrieved from the airport, catching-up plans made with neglected friends, several chapters of my book read.  A good day, all around, and boy did I need it after my crazy-making binge episode yesterday.  I am really noticing my age these days- the last time I lost a bunch of weight, I was, I think, maybe 23 or 24.  If I had been working out the way I am now, I would have dropped tonnage right away five years ago, but now it’s more difficult.  I know it will only become more and more difficult as I hit 30 and beyond, so I just need to persevere.  I’m just about the go-gettingest girl I know and this one thing has been stuck in my craw for so long, I just want to get it the hell done.  I know I’m probably looking at a 1-2 year process to get fully back into shape, since I’m not into super-restrictive crash dieting, but I just need to see some signs.  I know I am vaguely thinner, but I haven’t fully transitioned into the smaller-sized pants yet.  The muscles in my arms are growing more defined, but they’re still a lunch-lady monstrosity.  My stomach is still too horrific to contemplate, though it burns enough after the shred video that I know stuff has to be happening.  I just can’t believe I let it get this bad- arrggggh.  

It will be nice to work and spend time with Noah tomorrow.  He and I and some other friends are going to the movies tomorrow night (I’m pushing for the Haunting in Connecticut, but my friends don’t normally allow me to indulge in an obsessive guilty pleasure: horror movies, the harder the R rating the better) and we have to get a few projects on track during the day tomorrow.  My plan is to wake up early enough to get in another serious workout.  I’m very sore and tired today; I kind of feel like I overdid it, but I also feel good and also, it could just be because I had an overfull stomach.  Anyhoo, I’m going to try to get to sleep.

Breakfast: Raw spinach salad with pasta and pesto, tomatoes, olives, radishes

Lunch: no

Dinner: salad with mixed greens, spinach, tomatoes, radishes, olives, red cabbage, chicken, green onions, feta, green garlic dressing

Snack: about 2 servings low-fat Cheez-Its 

Exercise: 6 miles with the dogs, 30 day shred video, 40 minutes stationary bike (11.5 miles)

1000 miles in 2009: 104

Song of the Day: Sankofa, by Cassandra Wilson

Daily awesome:  NPR is doing it’s national fundraising drive.  Public radio is an incredible service to many of our communities; I give to my local station, KUOW, every year and y’all should do the same!  The This American Life website is pretty sweet, has an online donation station, podcasts (which are also available, and FREE, at the ITunes store) and info about the most incredible program on NPR (depending on your taste and where I am also, incidentally, trying to get an internship starting in December 09).  Also, like most other fanatic NPR listeners, I have a burning crush on Ira Glass.  He’s so geeky and dreamy.