Staying Strong

First of all, thank you for all your support and motivation!  I think a liquid fast is the greatest thing in the world because you can still get some nutrients but in a "sippable" manner.  When I'm drinking something it's easier for me to throw it away only partially consumed.  Yesterday I had half of a soy iced latte and then a homemade strawberry smoothie.  Today, unfortunately, I binged/purged but will be back to liquid fasting tomorrow.  Since my parents will be gone during the day, I can stay in my room for a while away from the kitchen and any temptation.  When they're home, I try to be social so my visit isn't wasted, but it makes me more prone to eating.  We also have a graduation party tomorrow night, and since I don't like eating in public, I can pretend I ate and sip on diet coke or something.  It should be a glorious day, and I want to step on the scale on Tuesday (when I'm back at college) to find that I lost more weight.  I had better break 145 by then...

The second thing I thought I should mention is about the book diet I'm starting on Tuesday.  Pretty much what happens is you read a book every week as a distraction and follow the diet plan.  The first two days are tea fasts, but I've been informed you can drink coffee instead or just zero calorie liquids.  I'm a huge coffee drinker, so that was important to me!  The next days are <400 cals of soft foods, but I can mention that later as the days draw near.

Thirdly, I should tell you that I got a pedicure, turned down ice cream (do a little dance! had sorbet instead but still...improvement?), and received a million compliments.  My little brother's friend is obsessed with me...literally.  My brother and mom tell me all the time how the guy talks about me 24/7 about how beautiful I am and whatnot.  He always wants to see me, but since I'm away at college it never happens.  I made his day today, apparently, because he got to say hi to me when I picked my little brother up from school.  It's funny that I get all these compliments, but I just can't see what they do.  When I look in the mirror, the person I see doesn't feel like me.  Not that I know what "me" really looks like anyway.  I thought I was ugly when I was little, and I think that concept has been so ingrained in my mind that I can't get over it.  I see pictures of myself and have this strange disconnection with it.  In fact, I hate pictures because they make me uncomfortable.  I think, "Is that really me?"  Unnerving.

Last night, I had a "lost my mind" moment, but I'll save that more tomorrow's musings because if my post is too long I feel like no one will want to read it!  Like my creepy dream post from the other day haha.  But anyway, took 4 laxatives, 2 diuretics, going to sleep (or trying to), and liquid fasting tomorrow...the bathroom and I will be great friends tonight...

Can't Sleep

I haven't been able to sleep properly lately, so I'm sitting in the dark of my room listening to "Dance in the Dark" (Lady Gaga) and "Airplanes" (B.O.B., Hayley Williams, Eminem).  They're awesome songs, and I recommend you all listen to them immediately.

I've lost a two pounds in the past, well, day because I started doing a liquid fast.  Slimfast drinks are my new favorite thing because they're chocolate, have protein, delicious, and only 190 calories.  I have it in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day chewing illegal quantities of sugar free gum, drinking mass amounts of black coffee, and an absurd amount of diet pop.  My jaw is sore from all this gum chewing...

I'm going home tomorrow for the weekend over memorial day, and it will be day 3 of my liquid fast.  Fortunately, I won't be home until dinner time so I will pretend I had a very late lunch and not eat.  I can probably get away with not eating Friday and Saturday, too, because Friday, my parents are going to dinner and Saturday, we're all going to a graduation party where no one will notice if I don't eat.  Sunday and Monday are going to be a lot trickier, but I'm an excellent liar so I should be okay.  Plus, my mom supports my weight loss...and until I'm a frail skeleton (my dream), I don't think she'll ask too many questions.

I'm going to attempt to sleep now, and if I have any psychotic dreams I will be sure to let you know.  And I'll give you the low down on the book diet if you're interested.  Just let me know.  Night, lovelies!

Creeeepy

I had a terrifying, or rather series, set of dreams last night (or more accurately, nightmares).  I'm currently perched on my bed still in my pajamas, and the memory of the dreams has somewhat faded with my wakefulness so I cannot go into detail.  I can, however, give you a general idea of what my twisted mind decided to create in my sleepy bliss.  It's long:

After finishing my term paper last night, I wasn't really tired so I didn't actually lay down to go to sleep until 5am...thought about not sleeping at all.  At one point in my dream, I was living in a house with a group of my friends, and for some reason a guy in our group decided to poison me with "(something) dehydrogenase"?  I don't think it was an actual substance, but my chemistry major background was apparently sneaking into my imagination.  I didn't know it was one of two lethal drugs whose effects cannot be reversed, and after it already made its way into my system, I was informed of this.  Two of my friends, Bethenny and Alex from Real Housewives of NYC were at lunch and Bethenny told Alex about the substance.  She wrote it down because she was an organic chemist or something in my dream, and that's when they realized I would be dying.  In my dream, I could feel it burning (probably a result of the sun seeping through the blinds in my room) and found it really painful.  A few other minor things happened, but I guess I was supposed to die.

The next part of my dream brought me to sleeping in my room while two of my friends were talking in the other room.  One of them was having marital problems and is actually married in real life.  The other came in to wake me up to find out the bus schedule.  When they left, I was suddenly in a different house with another one of my friends as my roommate.  She was giving me things so that I could take a shower in this massive bathroom on the top floor of the house.  And, for some odd reason, the flesh of the skin on my right foot was completely coming off, beginning in a heart shape.  We tried to find neosporin in her room, but all we could find were colored pencils.  That part didn't hurt, and I don't remember too much of what else happened.  Some boy drama, blah blah blah...

Then I got in a fight with my mom in another odd house and refused to talk to my family...we got into some fight over cookies.  I escaped through the window and an elevator like contraption.  My dad saw me leave while he was on the treadmill? and didn't care.  I wandered along a river that was filled with baby animals, ducklings, puppies, etc.  The ducks were cute, but soon they were overwhelming me and an old man helped me get out of the shallow water.

The final part of my dream was ed related.  I was sitting with two other women, who were telling me the story of an anorexic and a bulimic girl.  The anorexic one died, and the bulimic girl somehow survived; they were dancers I guess.  I was afraid to hear their stories, and while we were waiting for something I walked over to the cement wall and started to cry.  The wall was red with blood and I watched, entranced, as trickles of water (my tears maybe) slowly was washing away the blood.  But I was sickened by the redness as it continued to flow down.  

That's the general idea of everything that happened last night in my dream.  I know a lot of it doesn't make sense, but when do dreams ever?  When I read over it again, it's really rather creepy.  So much death, physical torture, and I was literally in pain in most of the scenes.  The terror and knot in the pit of my stomach when I discovered I was poisoned and doomed to die in an excruciating manner felt so real.  I remember having visions of my insides turning into liquid and me foaming at the mouth.  I thought, "Is this it?  My life is really over?"  I didn't like that feeling; I don't want to die yet.  But anyway, on a more realistic note, I'm doing a liquid fast today and for as long as possible.  I'm starting what is called the "Book Diet" on June 1, and for all you eager beavers and curious cats, I'll go into detail about it in a few days in case anyone would like to join.  If you go to PT, you can find it...looks promising and combines two of my favorite things:  reading and not eating!

Productive

You will be so proud of me...I finally cleaned my room today!  It felt good to finally organize something in my life, so at least one thing will be in order.  Now I just need to get my weight in check.  I took pictures last night because I couldn't sleep, and it was a huge eye opener to how ridiculously fat I am.  I'm just very depressed about this; why can't I be pretty?

I'm taking steps to changing this and trying not to binge...unfortunately, today I still had around 1000 calories, which is waaay more than I intended.  Hopefully, I still lose a little weight.  Technically, you're supposed to, and considering I've been bingeing and purging so often lately, I think my metabolism should be up, right?  I don't know, I think I'm just trying to convince myself.

I just need to have more motivation and not let the loneliness I feel at night trigger a binge.  Ultimately, the problem is that the only way I know how to deal with these depressing feelings is to binge and then purge. But starving would be so much better.  Why can't I be one of those girls that completely loses her appetite when depressed or stressed?  I do lose my appetite for stretches of time, but I'm not really sure when that occurs.  It really needs to soon; I just need more control.  Perhaps now that my room is clean, that will help me.  And once I have a car for the summer, which I should be getting soon, I can escape from my apartment to a coffee shop or library away from food.  Always a good thing.

My Happy Place

I talked to my mom on the phone today, and she was trying to convince me to find my "happy place."  I told her I didn't know where it was.  She said I was happy in Anthropology (my favorite clothing store), but I explained that my happiness would quickly be shattered as soon as I tried on clothes.  Shopping for shoes is always fun, though, because you don't feel quite as fat...of course, I do usually find my calves to be rather large or if there is a full length mirror then I am quickly traumatized.  After some thought, I told my mom that I am usually somewhat happy reading in a small coffee shop.  But then she said that she was more talking about a mental "happy place."  Oh.  Well, I don't have one of those.

It's funny, too, that my mom mentioned how I was never happy unless I was losing weight.  You'd think that would be a red flag that there's a problem.  I'm never happy unless that number on the scale is going down every day, but even then, am I really happy?  I wish she'd understand that, and sometimes I wish she'd try to help me or even get someone else to.  I don't think she understands that I've been stuck in this dark place for years and can't seem to crawl my way out.  I pretend to be happy when I'm on the phone most of the time, but it's so much energy.  I just wish I could be happy...even just for a day.

crawling out of the rut

I hate it when I get in these ruts, and it feels like the whole is so deep that I need a ladder to get out.  Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find this ladder, or when I do, I end up falling off.  Part of the problem, I believe, is that my mom keeps insisting that I will be happier once I drop 15 lbs.  I, of course, know this to be a lie, and her pressuring me is making me binge.  I think tomorrow I am going to tell her to stop nagging me.  The fact is that I need to lose weight for me and me alone, and her adding to the pressure is really hindering my progress.  I do the best when my parents have no idea that I'm dieting (which I always am anyway or trying to at least), and then they are shocked and pleased when I come home.  Perhaps I just like the element of surprise.  Shock and Awe.  Or Shock and Frighten, that would be better.  I would love to be so thin that I am covering myself in layers to hide the weight loss as supposed to hiding my fat body...it's my dream.

This is the one thing that I can call my own, and I am really good at losing weight.  The problem is keeping it off.  I know that I can easily drop 10 lbs by memorial weekend, but I just need to gear up and stop worrying about...well, I don't even know what I'm worrying about!  There's something nagging me in the bag of my mind, and it's bothering me...I swear it's my mom's voice, saying, "Oh, you're just always happier when you're thinner."  I can hear it now, and in fact, I heard it yesterday.  But I need for her to stop because I like to keep my food habits in my own little personal bubble, separate from the world and away from the nagging queen.  Does anyone else feel like this?  You'd think this so called "support" would be beneficial, but not for me.  Probably because I can never tell her what I actually ate...she'd be horrified.  She'd probably be even more horrified if she found out I throw up almost every day...like today...in the medical center bathroom...ironic, yes?  Felt a little guilty about that but only a smidgen.

Congratulations!

Good job, you all guessed correctly...not to belittle your impeccable perception skills, but when I looked at the picture again, I realized it was fairly obvious.  But I congratulate you nonetheless.

An update on my weekend:  I officially suck as a human being.  I saw myself in a window on my walk home from reading in a bookstore and coffee shop (yes, I read in both haha), and I was mortified.  I wanted to sink to the ground and die on the spot when I saw my reflection.  Hopefully windows make you look fatter than you are, but I doubt it.  It's just kind of devastating finding yourself so repulsive, ya know?  Traumatizing.  So, I ended up bingeing on some nutella after just having blueberries all day...I need to stop bingeing and purging at night because ultimately, that's where I go wrong...like today.  I baked a red velvet cake, which was disgusting, and at some of it before throwing it away and throwing up in the bathroom for a while.  Now I feel sufficiently empty again, but my stomach hurts and my head throbs.  Tomorrow is going to be a rough day, I'm sure.  I kind of wonder sometimes when all this purging is going to catch up to me.  I'm sure it's already ruining my body, but I have yet to have anything serious occur so I think I'm still in the clear.  I'm starting a 2463 diet with a friend tomorrow.  The 800 calories day just seemed too much [oh my god, there's an adorable commercial on tv with a golden retriever puppy...so cute...now its a car commercial, warm fuzzy feeling officially gone...damn], so we altered it.  Even though I totally ate more than that today, but that was because of a binge.  For some reason, intentionally eating that amount without purging is just beyond my comprehension.

I hope everyone else had a good weekend because I sure didn't.  Of course, I don't know the last time I had a good one.