I’ve been struggling. Things have been happening in my life that I can’t control, things around my family and my friends and my (lack-of) love life. I know that I can’t control these things but I am struggling to deal with the feeling of being completely unsupported and — as a result — both alone and lonely. I feel as if it is always me who picks up the slack in every situation, and I wonder how far I can stretch myself before I break. The question becomes more and more relevant because it feels like I’m reaching that point.

So I guess the question is how do you combat this? How do you fight the feelings and thoughts that are telling that the reason no one is there is because you don’t deserve anyone, that if only you were smarter and prettier and funnier and, yes, skinnier then maybe you’d have the support you needed. Maybe people would pick you instead of someone else. Maybe relatives would realise that if they screw up their lives it doesn’t just affect them — particularly when you’re the one who has to bail them out.

But here’s the problem: I’m not smarter or prettier or funnier or skinnier. And the fact is that I don’t have anyone here. There is no one who would just drop everything for me. And as much as I might wish that it were the case, maybe this is a lesson I have to learn: No one will do it for me.

So, yes, I’ve been struggling. And I anticipate that will continue, simply because what I’m fighting here is my mind and my emotions. If it were just circumstances, I think I would be fine. But this? I’ve been weaving in and out of this ‘mood’ the whole of this year, been feeling like I’m not going anywhere and who would care if I did anyway.

I know that weight-loss can and will pull me out of it. I know the benefits for self-esteem and balance that exercise brings. I just….I can’t seem to find my groove. I lose weight and then gain it back. I dilly. Followed generally by my dallying.

I guess what I have to remember is that there’s a lot of things I can’t control. I can’t stop my relatives from making bad decisions. I can’t stop my relatives from hurting each other, and all I can do is be there if it all comes crashing down. I can’t make a boy pick me over another girl, and I have to accept that it will feel shit for awhile because it’s a type of confirmation that I’m worthless — even if I think the boy’s a bit of a dick for the way he acted anyway.

What I can control, though, is exercise. I can control the fact that I feel amazing when I achieve something new in a run. I feel amazing when I lift a new weight. I feel amazing when I realise that I don’t just have to be beautiful, that my body has functions and uses and it isn’t just the outside that matters.

That is what I have to concentrate on, for as long as it takes me to get out of my funk. It will get better. It will get better.

Posted at 9:00 pm | No Comments »

I’ve just started a new job. Contrary to my past jobs, it’s in an office and it’s very structured, particularly in terms of the days. Lunch is always around 12:30 - 1pm, and then I’m home for dinner. What it means is that there’s just no snacking the rest of the time, which I think may account for my (somewhat unexpected) 700gram loss! Pretty proud, really. Let’s get this rolling.

Next job: figure out what to eat for the next few days. Hmm….

Posted at 2:52 pm | No Comments »

Weigh in again today. I wasn’t expecting much, for several reasons. In fact, I kind of expected a gain. But I got lucky! Am going to work hard this week to make sure I stay lucky, whee.

“The harder I work, the luckier I seem to become”. J.P. Morgan

Current Stats
Current Weight: 88.5
Loss/Gain This Week: -0.3
Total Loss: 11.8

Posted at 12:32 pm | No Comments »

I had a weigh in today, and I am officially down 1.4kg from my last WI. For me, this is just confirming what I’d already guessed: I do best on my own. The WW meetings are simply not for me, and, if anything they tend to discourage me.

But that’s okay! Because I seem to have figured that out, now, and I’m back on the right track.

Current Stats
Current Weight: 88.8
Loss/Gain This Week: -1.4
Total Loss: 11.5

Posted at 11:29 am | 1 Comment »

I’m a night snacker. I can’t even claim to be reformed, since I’m still sitting here trying to distract myself so that I don’t get up and pilfer the cupboards. It’s easier that there isn’t really anything in the cupboards to eat. Maybe I’m learning! I hope I get to the point where I don’t have this nightly mental battle. For one thing, it’s really distracting to constantly have to argue with myself.

But I’m over my points today by 1 point already, so that’s that. There will be no more food tonight.

Posted at 9:40 pm | No Comments »

To distract myself, I’ve been listening to Shauna and Carla’s podcast, Two Fit Chicks. I’m currently up to the third podcast which is about goals. How convenient, I say, because I need to distract myself from the desire to snack and just today I wrote out my goals and rewards for them.

I’ve learnt, over the past 2 and a half years of weight-loss, that I suck at goals. If I give myself a goal or a deadline, I will not make it. Ever. It just doesn’t work! Particularly time-orientated ones, they are horrendous and guaranteed to derail me until at least a week after the time I wanted to achieve the goal.

I’ve also learnt that it takes me forever to lose weight, simply because there is only so much that I’m willing to give up. I flat with my two best friends; we often invite people over for drinks; a vast number of our friends are college kids; my lifestyle is not particularly conducive to weight loss. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, just that I have to be able to concentrate on it, and there are times (our tradition of celebratory chinese, for example) where I choose not to be so strict…particularly since this is a plan for life.

So I’ve only made three goals. These three goals are very small. These three goals have very large rewards attached to them, and these three goals have no time limits. Because for me, there’s no pressure, I don’t have to focus on the ‘big picture’ — I focus on the little picture and the big picture will take care of itself.

So here they are!:

• 85kg - Get a haircut.
• 82.5kg - Manicure.
• 80kg - Massage.

Posted at 12:05 pm | No Comments »

It’s 9:18pm. You’ve had dinner. You’ve finished your points for the day. You don’t want any more. Stop. Dreaming. About. Snacking. There’s nothing there to eat, anyway! Nothing. There will be no more food passing these lips. No go and clean your teeth.

Posted at 11:15 am | No Comments »

The name of this post comes directly from names of one of the daily threads on the Weight Watcher’s forums. I’ve browsed the thread long enough to find out what GYST means, I just never posted in it! But I love the sentiment… Yes, the world is shit sometimes and yes it all falls to pieces and yes sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to — but at the end of the day, it’s my shit and only I can do something with it, so I might as well Get My Shit Together.

So here’s the plan. I am dropping the Weight Watchers meetings. But not the program. I worked out that I can go to the gym and have the WW online tools and pay just $2 extra each month than what I’m currently paying for the meetings alone. That’s fantastic news for me, and it’s highlighted exactly how I’m going to approach this.

Today is the second day I’ve managed to stay on plan in about two weeks. I’ve even got enough points left over for a lollipop, should I so desire it (which I don’t, really). Or I could borrow half a point from tomorrow and finish some crisps (low-fat, oven baked) I snacked on today.

I’m….happy. And I’m beginning to remember how to eat well, which feels so good. Now the next dilemma is making sure I can continue this once I go back to reality (i.e. come back from my holiday in Queensland). And when I’ll get back, I will have to start thinking about cost again — but I can do it, which is the awesome part. Particularly since I’ll still be on holidays from Uni, so I’ll have time to figure out recipes and such.

What are you doing today to get your shit together?

Posted at 9:25 am | No Comments »

I’ve decided that I need to update my progress pics. I haven’t done so since about August last year, around the time I skidded off the rails completely. But now I need to face up to the fact that this is my new starting point, so I’m going to start the progress pics again.

So here are my new progress pics, at 89.6kg. I’m down 10.7 from where I originally started, but up 6.3kg from my lowest, halfway through last year. I feel kind of like I’ve gotten myself back together, so I’m hoping to hit hard through the rest of the year. I’m enjoying the running and everything else. I had a bit of a mope to my Mum, about the fact that the beginning of this year has felt like I’m just treading water and it’s all too hard. But now I’m beginning to feel like I can handle it…fingers crossed.

So this is me. I still haven’t quite figured out the angles of the camera built into my computer. Which is the reason I look a little manic in the first photo! The first photo was just after I went for a run today, while the second picture was taken about 10 minutes ago. I’ll add these to my progress page, too.

Posted at 10:03 am | No Comments »

It never fails to shock me how out of touch I can be with my body. How sometimes, I just don’t understand what it is that my body is trying to tell me.

For the past week or two, I have been ravenous. I would eat and be satisfied, but an hour later I was hungry again. I wasn’t eating little portions, and I wasn’t eating ‘good’ food. I wasn’t having something that should make me so hungry — but I was. Constantly. Frustratingly. I would eat and be full, even to the point of discomfort, but then still want to eat because there was still that hungry hollow in my tummy and I wanted to get rid of it.

What is it they say about obese people? We often confuse hunger with thirst? I was always incredulous about this, I didn’t understand it at all. But last night I realised that I had fallen prey to something so silly I couldn’t believe it had actually taken place.

My ‘hunger’, my insatiable hunger that wouldn’t go away….. was, in fact, wind. I wasn’t hungry at all. I’d just been eating too much that didn’t quite agree with my stomach.

So now I’ve got to take a step back and think before I eat. Am I actually hungry? Or is it something completely different?

Posted at 2:45 am | No Comments »