Tonight was the season premiere of Desperate Housewives. I liked the episode, but I thought as a premiere it could have been better. I still can't stand Edie, Carlos needs to grow a backbone, Gabby needs to stop being so selfish, Bree needs to calm down with trying to be perfect and Mike needs a personality. He's always seemed so bland and wooden to me. So, laundry tomorrow, followed by a hot shower and possibly some reading. Thanks to the Boy, I have a few more books and a pedlar and thigh master on their way from Amazon.

I made it a full week without a single slip up! I am so proud of myself! And I did it without being famished! It may not seem like a huge accomplishment to "normal" eaters, but for me it is! I'm adapting fairly well to this. Can't wait. My energy level today is incredible. I'm tempted to wake up the Boy and see if he wants to go somewhere with me.

Does a half mile walk and twenty minutes of scrubbing an oven on no sleep count as exercise? I really hope so! My walk turned my hair into a curly, tangled, mop of frizz, I had sweat pouring down my face, and I had so much trouble breathing in the humidity, I sounded like a feminine Darth Vader. In addition to the walk, I enjoyed scrubbing grime out of an oven that probably hasn't been cleaned since before we moved in. Blech! Cleaning the stove made my hair even more of a mess, had sweat pouring down my entire body, made my thighs shake and burn from crouching and made it hard for me to breathe through the fumes, nausea and heat. I was planning on using the exercise ball today, but to be honest, I don't want to. I'm running on no sleep, no caffeine, and no food. And it's my TOM. I think I'll wait for the Boy to go to school, take a nice shower and then watch Dr. Phil, or take a nap.

Crisis averted, diet intact! :)

Tons of water, diet soda, smoked turkey, and Virginia ham saved me. Took me over an hour to calm down, but once I did, and Boy apologized for not calling me earlier, I stabilized a bit. My TOM arrived a few days early, which explains the headaches and wild mood swings I've been having. I'll be relatively normal again in a day or two. I'm heading to the grocery store today - got money early! - and I think I'm going to try a new recipe, perhaps one Boy can eat as well. He's lactose intolerant and can't stand vegetables, so I'll probably make a meat dish and my standard salad as a side. I have to go back to my school in a few weeks and see about going back next semester. I'm hoping that by then, I'll fit more comfortably in a desk. :)

I deleted this because it was unnecessarily harsh and unfair. I was upset, overwhelmed, and PMSing. I typed to vent, and it was very one sided.

I tried to make a list of weight loss goals earlier and wound up completely overwhelming myself. Realizing I'm going to still be losing in 6 months is pretty scary, overwhelming, and discouraging. On the other hand, I had to eat my whole life to get to this weight, it only makes sense that I'll have to spend a good portion of time losing it, and the rest of my life keeping it off. I just have to keep thinking about the benefits and why I'm doing this. So instead of setting a huge goal, I'm setting a mini one. I want to get below 300 pounds by Thanksgiving. That's about 37 pounds, in about 8 weeks. So a bit less than 5 pounds a week. I just have to stick to it, no matter how hard it is. It can only get easier, right?

Day four of the Atkins induction and I'm sticking to it. I've done absolutely no cheating whatsoever and I've even skipped diet sodas since I usually drink too many of them. I haven't had a single bite or sip of anything that's not on the acceptable foods list. Four days may not seem like much, but it's a huge accomplishment for me. I'm having intense sugar cravings at night though, which are really hard to deal with, but so far so good. My sleep cycle has been incredibly off since my cold last week so that might have something to do with it as well. For the past few days, I haven't fallen asleep until 8 or so in the morning and I wake up late in the afternoon. I'm exhausted now and I'm trying to stay awake so I can get to sleep at a normal time tonight. If all else fails, I'll take two Nyquil at about 9:30 tonight. That stuff knocks me out pretty fast.

I feel like I'm getting sick again. I woke up, completely exhausted with a slight headache, and I can't seem to focus on anything. I hope I get over this soon. I hate being sick and I miss being able to concentrate on what I'm doing. I usually devour books, and I can barely get through two pages today. :(

The Boy and I were talking yesterday about exercise. I have trouble doing the standard exercises, since I'm so overweight, but in my searches for exercises I can do, I came across an article that recommended a pedlar and an exercise ball. I bought the exercise ball a while ago, and I'm saving for a pedlar now. Our discussion was sort of like this.

"Honey, I'm going to try to use the pedlar while sitting on the ball, when I get it. Promise you won't laugh at me?"
"Of course not. I might mess with you a bit to watch you fall off, but I won't laugh."
"That's mean! ((pause)) Are you serious though?"
"I'm not answering that question."

Bully.

So, today will be the first day or my millionth attempt at dieting. I'm reading the Atkins, I've joined a forum for support, and I bought a scale. A home scale, so I can weigh myself at normal intervals without having to go to the doctor. Currently, according to my home scale, I weigh 341. I'm going to weigh myself next Friday after my first week on Atkins and see what I weigh then.

The Boy is currently working on fixing our air conditioner. The thing decided to make some hounds of hell growling noises last week so we took it out of the window. Of course, two days later, we both get colds, the temperature reaches the mid-eighties and we're both too tired, hot, and cranky to do much more than sneeze and yell at one another to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD KEEP YOUR FREAKING BLANKET ON YOUR OWN SIDE OF THE BED!! We're a strange couple. I just sat and watched in fear as Boy pulled the little on/off knob off the front of the AC. It broke last year and with a piece of plastic and some compressed air, he fixed it. He's like a 22 year old MacGyver. So I'm just sitting here, wasting time on this pointless little post, waiting for him to pull out a rubber band and a bottle of mustard or something to fix our newest problem with the AC.

On another note, my mom needs to start monitoring her blood sugar, so she had to buy one of those little finger pricking devices. I'm terrified of getting to that point. I don't want to be diabetic. I don't even want her to be diabetic. My mom and I have a love/hate relationship with each other. We don't get along all the time, we've often had some Jerry Springer style fights, but at the end of the day, she's my mom and I do love her. It's scary that she's so unhealthy. She smokes, she's overweight - but she did lose 6 pounds - she eats tons of unhealthy food, mostly pizza or take-out, and lately, she's had trouble feeling her left hand. She complained about her fingers being numb a few months ago, so I scheduled a doctors appointment for her, and bullied her into going. She recently had a follow-up, since her entire hand and part of her wrist have gone numb, and she's supposed to get a ton of tests done, including one to make sure she didn't have a min-stroke. I've tried to get her to go low-carb with me, but the most she'll do is switch to diet soda. I guess that's better than nothing though. Speaking of my mom, I should go try to put her little finger pricker together.



Starting weight: 341.

So I read this article today and it really struck something in me.


"Senior year in high school, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been, over 300 pounds. A year or two earlier, I’d attempted suicide (which my parents just swept under the rug). Negative self-image? Hell, yeah. I was also only one of a handful of truly fat kids in school, and certainly the most outcast (I totally understand how it is that girls who aren’t the only obese ones in school would have an easier time with their self-images). Moving to town freshman year as a painfully-shy, already-obese kid with a horrendous family life didn’t help much, either. I really didn’t have any friends, though a couple of kids tried, and spent most of my time locked up in my room. I didn’t drink or do drugs at that point, in part because I was terrified of winding up like my father, a drunk. Plus, no friends.

Incidentally, I have a really hard time watching Heathers, as brilliant as that movie is. You see, I was Martha Dumptruck. They had that character down, except for the bit where she thought the guy really had written the note sincerely. No fat girl would ever fall for that."



I was that girl. I am that girl. I've been overweight my entire life, easily the biggest student all through grammar, middle, and high school. And like most overweight students, I was torn to shreds because of it. I have to wonder why though. I mean, what do people hope to accomplish by calling someone a pig, or making fun of them? I can almost guarantee that someone who is overweight already knows it, so you're not telling them something they don't know. Are you trying to, in some warped way, inspire them to lose weight? It may work for some people, but others, it just destroys. I'm one of the people that it hurts. I don't find it helpful, and it doesn't inspire me to work harder to prove something to you. I will lose weight in spite of what you say to me, not because of it. Oh, and let me share something with you. If you are overweight, really overweight, you will probably not notice that they are losing weight right away. Shocker, isn't it? So the person you heckle about their weight? They might be on a diet already! And I'm an emotional eater, so when something hurts me, I lunge for food like a hyena. It's something I struggle with, and having rude comments thrown at me doesn't help. So please, shut the hell up.

I don't understand why it's okay for anyone to belittle someone else. If you hurl a racial slur at someone, chances are someone will speak up in their defense. If you hurl an insult at a fat person, chances are someone else will laugh. Why? What is funny about it?

Woo hoo, I've got a cold! My oh-so-adoring boyfriend started complaining about not feeling well and bam! The next day we both woke up congested, irritable, and too miserable to even get up and find the remote for the cable box. We spent all day in a vegetative state watching Animal Planet. On the plus side, I don't feel much like eating. That's a dangerous path for me to travel, considering my history with EDs, but I'm too tired to care. I've done nothing for the past two days but lay in bed, sneeze, watch TV, read, and snarl at anyone who comes within four feet of me. I'm fully expecting men in white coats to walk through the door armed with a chair and a dart gun loaded with a sedative. Next time the Boy complains about feeling sick, I'm chasing him out of the room with a can of Lysol.

Good news though! I splurged and ordered a scale this week! It should be delivered within the next two weeks or so, and then I can keep track of my weight at home. Maybe being able to see the numbers fluctuate will help keep me motivated. I just have to be careful not to fall into any of the ED traps I used to. Can't wait though!

Hot Chocolate and Stevia

2 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder = 2 carbs
3 Stevia packets* = 0 carbs
1 cup Westsoy unsweetened soymilk = 1 carb


Put the cocoa powder in a small pot along with the Stevia. Add 1/4 of the soymilk to the pan and turn the heat on. Stir constantly until the mixture starts to bubble. Be careful not to let the cocoa burn. When the mixture bubbles, add the rest of the milk and stir. Let the cocoa get as hot as you like.


I made this a few minutes ago and it was amazing! Really chocolatey, rich, and sweet. Really nice treat and in comparison to normal sugar-laden cocoa, much better for you.



My boyfriend got tired of me complaining about not being able to bake or anything and went to Whole Foods to find a sugar substitute for me. According to what I've read, it's not approved as a sweetener in the US, but it's sold as a supplement. I don't care what it's sold as, I found out I can bake and cook with it! And it doesn't destroy me like Splenda does, so I'm practically giddy with joy. This stuff is really sweet though, so even I have to use it sparingly. Visting the NuNaturals website, they have other types of Stevia products as well. I'm going to assume some of their products contain trace amounts of carbohydrates since they went through the trouble of naming the type I have as no carb. Either way, it seems to be a sweetener I can handle. And it makes some kick ass hot cocoa.



*The box of the stuff I have is NuNaturals NuStevia NoCarbs Blend. It's a box of fifty packets. According to the "supplement facts" on the back, a serving size is 1 packet and contains 0g carbs, 0g sugars, .42g of sugar alcohol, 0g fat and 0mg of sodium. it also contains 80mg of stevia extract, but it says that the daily value is not established. The ingredients list is erythritol and natural flavors.

It's been months

So, it's been a few months since I started this thing, and as I expected I haven't kept up with the blog or the diet. I find myself constantly struggling to ignore the foods I want and stick with the foods I should want. And more often than not, I lose the struggle and wind up inhaling chocolate and hating myself for it for hours afterwards. I know it's self discipline and no one can do this for me, but sometimes it really does feel too hard.

I hate being fat. I hate looking down and seeing that y stomach sticks out farther than my breasts. (Considering I wore a C cup in grade school, that's really saying something. I'm up to a DD now and one of the things I'm looking forward to is seeing how much they shrink. It'd be nice to have people look at me, and not just my chest. Yes, contrary to popular belief, fat chicks get hit on as well. Though in my experience, there is often some comment made about my weight as well. "I like a woman with meat on her bones." "There's more of you to love." "I like something to hold on to." Let me just make something clear here. I'm in a committed relationship, and even if I weren't, the first man who tries to grab hold of my fat rolls is getting a swift kick to his nether region as I run screaming from the room.

On the plus side - pun not intended - my clothes have been falling off me lately. A few months ago, some of my jeans required much hopping, twisting, flailing, and fat tucking to get them on. I literally used a hanger to pull the zipper up on one pair. Now I actually have to find a belt since they have started falling down if I don't hike them up every few yards or so. I haven't been to the doctor to find out my weight since I've been cheating so much, but I'm taking the baggy clothes as a good sign.

One of the reasons I'm struggling so badly with this diet is because most of the low carb "treats" are sweetened with Splenda. I know some people swear by it and there are fanatics who'd sell their first born for a lifetime supply of the stuff, but I have a very strong reaction to it. There's no way to make this delicate so I won't even try. The smallest nibble on a Splenda sweetened hard candy sends me doubled over to the bathroom while my boyfriend tries to stifle his choking and figure out a way to politely open the windows without hurting my feelings. (Heaven help you if you're in a confined area with me.) After about an hour of excruciating stomach cramps and screaming to dear god just PLEASE MAKE IT STOP, the headache comes. Picture a group of very tiny elephants playing soccer behind your eye sockets, then double it, and you've got the headache. And it's still a good 12 hours or so before it's safe for me to be around people and a full day before anyone who knows me will let me in their car. I've done countless searches for recipes online, and not just for sweets, but for anything, and there seems to be a really heavy reliance on Splenda in recipes, particularly the granulated kind. Low carbing is doable, but it can get old if you just keep having the same thing over and over again. Eggs for breakfast, tuna for lunch, some form of meat for dinner along with broccoli, cauliflower or, green beans. Water throughout the day and a sugar free popsicle for dessert. I'm dying for something baked, like a cookie, but I can't find anything - pre-made, or a recipe - that doesn't require Splenda. So I cheat and have cake or a cookie. And before I know it, the whole thing is gone, I'm bloated, and I want to throw myself out my window. (Wonder if I'd bounce?)

One thing I'm embarrassed to admit, but I feel I have to is this: I'm too fat to fit comfortably at a normal desk. I should be starting my third semester at college, but I was suspended for many reasons. I can't and I won't blame my weight for my failure at school, but I admit that it's part of the reason. Anyone who has been overweight during high school knows exactly how painful it can be and how cruel kids can be. However, adults can be just as bad. One of my favorite bloggers wrote a post about how he dislikes being called big guy and honestly, I can't blame him. I find it discouraging that even after his weight loss - amazing and inspiring - people still call him big guy. References to someones size, whether weight or height, are very rarely seen as terms of endearment. Would you like it if I called you a Q tip, with your size 13 feet and large head perched atop your abnormally thin body? No? Then shut it. Anyway, I started college last fall, thrilled at the thought that I was finally heading somewhere. I was nervous, but I signed up for classes, and couldn't wait to start. I'm very shy in person and not very good with crowds, but I was absolutely determined to succeed. I can recall exactly when my enthusiasm came crashing down. I walked into my World Civilizations class - my humanities choice - and saw one of these staring at me. I'm supposed to fit in that? Now, I know most people can fit in there with no trouble, but I can't. I know my weight is my own fault, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with when just how fat I am is shoved in my face. I chose a seat in the back left of the room, figuring I can at least be in an aisle so I can turn slightly and maybe be a bit more comfortable. I sucked in a deep breath and squeezed in. My breasts and some of my stomach fat settled on top of the desk and I could barely breathe. I was humiliated and close to tears. No one paid any attention to me, so I did my best to deal. It was a lecture class and required a lot of note taking, and I came across my second problem. I couldn't comfortably look over my breast/fat on the desk and see the notebook to write. I used my backpack to raise the notebook and I adapted as best I could. About halfway through the class, the lack of air was starting to get to me. I felt a cold sweat break out on my body and my head start to droop. My vision went fuzzy and I felt like I was going to be sick. I slid slightly out of my seat and half crouched, half sat to ease the pressure so I could breathe. The man in front of me, easily in his thirties turned to look at me and gave me such a look of contempt, I actually wished I could just sink into the floor. He didn't just leave it at a look though, when I was desperately trying to pretend I wasn't there he spoke to me. "Having trouble, tubby? Try Slimfast." Then he turned back around and went back to taking notes. After class, I made my way into the bathroom and cried for a good ten minutes before heading off to my next class. Only to be faced with the same desk in a different room. I started skipping classes after that. It's not completely my weights fault, but I can't help but wonder if I had been thinner if I would've done better. So my college suspended me for missing too many classes and not maintaining a good enough GPA to be a student.

I'm trying to use this semester as a kind of time off to focus on losing weight. But I keep falling into the same traps I always have. My boyfriend started school yesterday, and now in comparison I feel inadequate. My feelings of inadequacy contribute to my ever present self loathing tendencies and I start thinking about all the things that are wrong with me. I feel worse about myself, get depressed, and start eating. And of course, it's never anything I should be eating. And after my enormous binge, I feel guilty and disgusted that I can't even get that one thing right and the circle begins again. I know the pattern, I know it's unhealthy, and I know no one can break it but me. I just wish I knew how.