Little Black Dress Bound

After months of absence I am back. I am going to do this. I am so tired of letting myself slip up over and over again. I need this. I want this. For so many reasons. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this. I am turning 20 in a month and I want to leave my teens with a commitment to my health and well-being.

Here is the part where I talk about how terrible it is being fat so that when I’m losing motivation I can look back and remind myself. Almost none of my clothes fit me, its gotten so bad that I have to wear the same thing multiple days in a row because nothing will fit and I don’t want to buy any new clothes. I am ashamed of the way I look. I am so self conscious when I go out that I’d rather stay in. I’m always worried about what people are thinking when they look at me. I am always adjusting my clothes for fear that something is showing. I’ve been breaking out. I can’t even walk up the stairs to the 4th floor without huffing and puffing for at least 5 minutes. My “all time fattest skirt” isn’t that big anymore. Double-chin, ’nuff said. Only 3 pairs of jeans fit me, and two are so tight they hurt. Camel toe. I have been so tired recently. Its way too hot out. Don’t want anyone to see me. Don’t want Dylan to see me, can’t stop by the dealership, can’t see family friends. Feel seriously bloated. Constipation. Getting the look from mom, dad and Matthew.

Now here are all the things I can look forward to if I get to my goal: Feeling confident. More energy. Healthier. Not afraid to try on clothes (actually enjoy shopping). Might actually like pictures of myself. Be smaller than Matthew. Get Yaz to shut up. No longer intimidated at the gym. Be more fit. SMALLER SIZE. Might actually wear my first bikini? Fully enjoy my trips to Hawaii instead of dreading the beach. Be happier. Prove to myself that I can do it. To know that I am attractive. Finally have a “hobby” to keep me busy. Wear vintage clothes. Be able to buy all those cute clothes that only have “smalls” left. Look good at mom’s wedding. Show up Lisa. More balanced. Be confident running into people from the past. Finally feel in control of my life.

I will add more later! Gotta go…

Well my boyfriend has been a vegetarian for 3 years now. I’ve also had several close friends that are vegetarians, so I’ve tried some meat substitutes before. Some I liked, and some I really didn’t. Gardenburger for example, very good. Now when I say gardenburger I don’t mean just a generic veggie burger I mean the brand Gardenburger. Because I really don’t like boca veggie burgers. There is a big difference. I had also tried “facon” before, which I really disliked.

So last week I decided it would be fun to try some new stuff. I decided to make spaghetti with meatless meatballs. I wanted to try the Gardenburger Mama Mia Meatless Meatballs but New Seasons doesn’t carry it, so I ended up buying Nate’s Zesty Italian Mealtess Meatballs. They are to be kept in the freezer and the instructions say to simmer them in the spaghetti sauce for 10 minutes. I ended up cooking them a little longer than 10 minutes and they completely broke up. It was like fake ground beef in the spaghetti sauce, not one meatball. Despite the fact that they didn’t stay firm, I really enjoyed the sauce and so did my boyfriend. Two nights ago we decided to try again. I was really careful not to stir the sauce too much, and not to have the meatballs cooking for over 10 minutes, although they still broke up really easily. This time we ended up with a few meatballs. However, when I tried it I have to say I wasn’t impressed. I really prefered them broken up. My boyfriend liked them either way.

While at New Seasons to buy the meatballs we saw Gardenburger Breakfast “Sausages” and we decided to try them. Instead of having them by themselves we wanted to put them into some breakfast burritos. So the next morning we cooked them up. In the burritos we had diced breakfast potatoes, green pepper, onions, mushrooms, scrambled eggs (we looked for egg substitute but couldn’t find it) and the sausage. I had mine with salsa as well. I really enjoyed it. I think my boyfriend cooked them a little too long but other than that they were great. I had a couple bites of it by itself as well. Either way they are a good replacement for the real thing, and a lot less fat and calories!

We’ve been looking into egg substitutes and soy cheese as well. Those will probably be our next adventures.

On this page I will talk about my experiences going vegetarian and cutting out as much animal products out of my diet as I can without going insane.

So for the past 3 months I have been trying out a vegetarian diet. There are many reasons but the most compelling for me is the health benefits. I didn’t really notice a difference when I stopped eating meat, I’d never eaten a ton of it before anyway. However, I have slipped up a couple times and allowed myself something, and I’ve noticed that each of those times my stomach felt really gross and bloated. And I kept burping, which I rarely do. I’ve even began trying to limit my intake of animal products, I am drinking soy milk now, eating soy yogurt and I rarely eat cheese.

I’ve also been avoiding any food or beverages with sugar substitutes like splenda. Anything with aspartame. I admit though I’ve slipped up a couple times and had a diet soda. What really sucks is all the really great little diet treats have aspartame in them. Humph =( So I’ve turned to having the real thing when I want a treat, but in a smaller portion and less often.

Here is to a healthy future!

Although I haven’t written for months, I was OP up until 3 weeks ago when I came home for break. I weighed in at 157 right before I came home, but I haven’t really weighed since then I am afraid to see the damage I’ve caused. But I finally talked some sense into myself and I am back. I have reorganized my goals and now I am recommiting myself.

I am going to weigh myself in the morning. I weighed last week at 162, but since its TOM I have prepared myself to see 165. I really hope its not that bad (8lbs in 3 weeks YIKES) but it is definitely possible. I decided that my goal is to now be at 130 by my birthday on June 25. And if I am really at 165 that gives me 6 months to lose 35 lbs…so I’ll need to lose between 5-6 lbs per month.

I even started early! Tonight I was watching tv and I wanted a snack. I looked in the cupboard and saw oreos. I set the box on the counter, took out two cookies, got a cup, opened the fridge, picked up the milk and froze. I thought to myself “I deserve better than this.” I set the milk down, put my cup away, put the cookies back in the box and the box back in the cupboard. Then I ate an orange.

Hopefully I will be able to tell many more stories like this as the weeks go by!

Don’t you hate when you get so mad that you cry? And shake?

And here is the break down of all the stuff going on in school:

Tuesday: Spanish Chapter 1 test
Wednesday: Marketing midterm
Thursday: Psychology paper due
Friday: Spanish paper due & math midterm

The last couple days I’ve started to get a little annoyed with my roommate, but I figured it was largely due to my stress with school and figured my weekend at home would clear that up. I did fine with all of this, until today. So after I got back from eating dinner I went to my favorite study spot and started studying for my math midterm. Everything was going pretty well, then I started hitting a lot of problems I could NOT figure out, I started getting really stressed out. So I was going back to my room and I decided to give my boyfriend a call. No answer. And that is the 7th time I’ve called him today and he hasn’t answered. This may seem extreme but he works from home so he has his phone with him at all times, and he texts me all day long but its impossible to get him on the phone. So I texted him saying I wanted to talk to him, he responds with “I’m busy”.

He is ALWAYS busy. I hate this stupid excuse. All he’s doing is reading something online, or playing video games. And he always acts like he can’t help it, its not his fault he’s busy. I just got so angry. And I need to keep studying for this stupid math test but I don’t even know what to go over. Math is usually my best subject but this teacher is just RIDICULOUS!!! I mean he’ll give us a new rule or theorem, then he’ll take the entire class explaining the proof of the theorem and NEVER gets around to doing examples of how to use the theorem. Which would be really helpful…considering thats what we’re tested on. Yeah, and one time someone asked for an example and he said that examples were boring. He is so arrogant. Whenever I go in to ask him for help he acts like I’m some idiot for not understanding. He is this short stalky ugly man and I just want to kick him. I mean he’s a grad student so he couldn’t be much over 30 and he’s already got a receding hairline. I know his appearance has nothing to do with it. And if he was actually a good teacher I’d probably find him endearingly eccentric. But he’s not so I don’t.

And I just wish that for once I could talk to my boyfriend when I want to talk to him. And you’d think that on such a stressful week for me he’d be understanding of that. But no. He’s too much of an idiot to get it.

All I want is to get tomorrow over with so I can go home for the weekend.

Well I don’t know what has gotten into me the last two days but I’ve been actually wanting to work out, and that NEVER happens to me. So last night my friend and I went and played badminton for about 45 minutes, and instead of heading back to my dorm I stayed and did the bicycle for 30 minutes. I can’t believe I even lasted that long, for some reason the bicycle more than anything makes my thighs really sore. And then this morning, I made a spontaneous decision to go do some cardio before my “body sculpting” class. One thing I think I need to work on is my eating on the days I work out. In my mind I should eat just as much as if I hadn’t worked out. Cause to me, eating more defeats the purpose of exercising. I mean right now, the daily plate says that I can eat 1600 more calories for the day..that is more than my normal daily target by 300 calories. And I already ate breakfast and two snacks. I don’t think I could eat 1600 more calories today if I tried. (Well..I don’t mean that literally..of course I could) The thing is.. I’ve recently, as in 4 days ago, decided to go vegan. There have be numerous things that have pushed me to this decision. I’ve still been getting plenty of protien, I usually have black beans with dinner. I have soymilk with my breakfast every morning. And for snacks I’ve been having almonds and Odwalla super protein chocolate soymilk shakes. But because of this decision, my choices for food is really limited here on campus. Which is sad, because I’m probably going to one of the most liberal, vegetarian friendly schools in the country. And yet still, my choices are limited.

Here is what I mean, so far today I’ve had:
9am: 1 cup cheerios w/ 1/2 cup soymilk (145 calories)
12pm: 13 almonds (91 calories)
2pm: 1/2 bottle of Odwalla super protein shake (170 calories)

On a day I hadn’t worked out I probably wouldn’t eat again til dinner, where I would have stir fry w/rice and veggies, or a mexican rice bowl w/ black beans and salsa. However, if I do that now I will still be way under my calories for the day considering I burned 700 calories working out. I might go grab some fruit or something from the deli on campus but I don’t even feel hungry. I could make myself a salad although having a salad really doesn’t sound good. I feel lost, it is so weird to me that I can’t get in enough calories. Anyone have any advice?

Well I drove home today after my last class. I am at my boyfriend’s house right now. It’s weird, last year when I came home I would be really excited but this time I just feel normal. Or I used to get really clingy to my boyfriend when I came home. But tonight I met him at Red Robin and when he walked up to me and hugged me I felt awkward, almost like he was some stranger. Then he kept wanting to hold my hand at dinner, and was saying how good it was to see me and I felt shy about it. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been gone for two weeks, it feels like I was just here. Maybe I’m just used to being gone so it isn’t as big of a deal for me to come home anymore.

Anyway, I lost 1 lb. this week. Which is good considering it is TOM. This morning I woke up and just from getting out of bed became aware of three different spots I am sore. My upper arms, my stomach and my thighs. Sheesh, that body sculpting class is kicking my booty!

Well it’s already Wednesday night, which is hard to believe. I’ve been doing really well this week staying OP even though TOM is really raging this month. And the scale has stayed at EXACTLY 165.0 since Friday URGH. I’ve been managing to get a little something sweet in and still staying within my calorie goals. Like yesterday I had a hershey’s chocolate bar with almonds, split with my roommate which made it only 115 calories. And today I had a Tbsp of peanut butter with a sliced banana, mmm! I even got some activity in today, I went and played badminton for about 45 minutes with my friend. According to thedailyplate I burned 327 calories!! I am relieved that tomorrow is Thursday, because Thursday and Friday are my slow days class wise. I am actually excited for my body sculpting class tomorrow. But mostly I am looking forward to going home on Friday, I haven’t been home for two weeks. I get to see my babies (dogs) my family, my best friend and my boyfriend.

I am getting slightly aggitated at the scales stubbornness. I am thinking it must be because of TOM but it doesn’t make me any happier. Maybe if it doesn’t drop by Friday I will just have a really big loss next week.. Or maybe I’m actually losing inches instead? I haven’t measured myself since I started losing weight so maybe when I go home this weekend I’ll pull out my measuring tape and see.

OH YEAH and on Tuesday we had the “pre-test” in my Body Sculpting class which basically tests our fitness level at the beginning of the term, then we do the same test at the end of the term to see how much we’ve improved. I didn’t enjoy it, but it is a necessary evil to be able to see my progress at the end I s’pose.

Those who know me know that I am not a morning person, last year I would sleep as late as I could depending on when my first class started. I was planning that for this year, hence I didn’t schedule anything before 12. However, I’ve decided to get myself up at 9am every morning so that I have time to have some cereal, to check my email, make my bed, etc.. I’m trying to get off on the right foot. So far I’ve done good, I even managed to get up at 9:30 on Saturday. Sunday though I pushed snooze til 10:30. I’m hoping I don’t get seriously off track this coming weekend, especially since I am going home. I don’t know why this is, but it seems that whenever I stay over at my boyfriend’s we both have a hard time getting up. Maybe it is just too cozy laying together, I don’t know, but we usually don’t get out of bed til 12 or something. Well I’ve got two projects for spanish coming up, one due Friday and one due next Tuesday. I haven’t started on either, EEEK. But considering I just got the assignments yesterday that’s not too bad. I wasn’t worried about it last night, but this morning I’m feeling anxious. Especially since one of them is a group project, I hate group projects. I don’t like having to depend on other people for my grade, and I especially don’t like having to set up times to meet with them and yada yada. I’d rather just do it when it is convenient for me. I’m sort of antisocial. I also hate when Professor’s will say “oh don’t worry either, you get to choose your group” That’s even worse, because most of the time I don’t know anyone. I’d rather they just assign groups. I don’t even know why I am talking about this. Well I’ve got my exercise class this morning, I am going to be SORE.

Well this weekend went well nutritionally. Lets see….. On Friday morning I weighed in and lost 2.2 lbs for the week! (WEEE!!) So that comes to a total of 9.4 lbs. So for my treat on Friday I had a “whammy” which is this amazing ice cream concoction I get at late night eating in my dorm, it is basically a blizzard but you get your choice of two candies or sauces to put in. I usually go for a sundae theme and get peanuts with chocolate sauce. Sadly though it wasn’t as good as I remember them being last year.. hmmm… Anyway, I was mostly on my own this weekend as my roomie went home. Saturday, I layed in bed watching I Love Lucy most of the morning. I then went and ran a few errands. Oddly enough I haven’t felt like eating much this weekend. I get that way sometimes, where eating becomes more of a hastle than something I look forward to. So last night for dinner I couldn’t think of anything on campus I wanted so I just ended up making myself some oatmeal, with almonds and some banana slices. Today, I did some homework off and on between laying in bed watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Titanic which were both on tv. When Titanic was over I was feeling hungry, and realized it had been 4 hours since I’d eaten. I again, couldn’t think of anything good to get on campus but I decided to get a veggie burrito but since they are so high cal I only ate half. It took a lot of will power to put it down though. I had planned on doing some exercise this weekend but didn’t make it to the gym, the pouring rain really disways me from leaving my room.

So here was my food intake for the weekend:
Saturday
9:30am: cup of cheerios w/ soymilk
11:00am: apple
2:30pm: handful of almonds
4:00pm: HUGE bowl of fruit, consisting of a lb of strawberries, a cup of pineapple chunks, and a cup of grapes
8:00pm: 3/4 cup quaker oats oatmeal w/ honey, almonds, and 1 small banana sliced

Sunday
10:30am: cup of cheerios w/soymilk
2:30pm: half a veggie sandwich & cup of pineapple chunks
8:00pm: half a vegetarian burrito

Well I have to start another crazy week tomorrow, I am hoping that I will be able to work ahead on my readings so that I can go home for the weekend. I usually go home every other weekend to see my boyfriend, friends and family. Luckily my last class on Fridays ends at 2:50 so I can be home by 5-ish…unless I hit traffic :-/ Well now that the first week is over I hope things around campus calm down a bit… We’ll see I s’pose