#3 Progress markers
Like most women, I have a wardrobe full of clothing in various sizes. On one hand, it's completely crap to know that at any one time, I can't wear about half of what's there because it's too big, too small or otherwise unsuitable.

... on the other hand, I love trying on old clothes that now hang off me! I love rediscovering clothes that will fit me very soon and using them to track my progress.

I've got a few pairs of jeans that I'm increasingly hesitant to wear because the baggy look really isn't in. Right now I'm also fitting into a couple of skirts that were unwearable, as in "breathe and you'll burst out" tight. It's just a shame that I don't plan on hanging around at this weight and will never really get a chance to wear them.

On the other hand, it means I'm just one step closer to those beloved skinny jeans.
xx Lizzie 4:41 pm Post a Comment

Negative thoughts
As I expected, the overindulgence two days ago has brought all the forbidden fruits back to my mind. I hesitate to say that I'm craving anything, because that's a bit too strong a term. It's more like a niggling little part of my brain will suddenly remember pizza, and then I contemplate what it would be like to eat it. Would it be so bad? I did say I would allow myself two days of off-plan eating... yet I only had one. Surely I deserve it, I've been so disciplined the past two months and besides, isn't it unhealthy to elimate foods completely?

Then my logical side kicks in and shouts... HA! Fat chance! That's not how we think anymore! No sir, we know that food isn't good and it's exactly that kind of behaviour that got us into this sorry state in the first place! You had a break already and overdid it, now it's time to get back in the saddle and gallop on towards the next goal.

I'm irritated by this internal struggle and more so that it's not driven by real, strong cravings. The thought of a certain food will just pop in from nowhere and set off an argument between my inner skinny chick and the food demons. (Luckily she's kicking butt today).

I heard a great quote today and it's helping me through this struggle.

"I am not responsible for my first thought. I am responsible for my second thought, and my first action."

My first thoughts might be unhealthy and tempting, but I will not give in, I'll remind myself why I want to stay on plan and the only action I'll be taking is bouncing off to the gym.
xx Lizzie 4:31 pm Post a Comment

#2 Fabulous fingers
I just noticed whilst typing that my fingers are looking slimmer.

I've always had hands that resembled sausages, the kind where even if you were lucky enough to squeeze a ring on, it would look crap. Suffice to say, I've never worn any! But I would like to. I hate to think that I might one day dread going shopping for a wedding or engagement ring because I don't like the way my hands look. Not to mention the embarrassment of struggling to try on jewellery in front of a sales assisstant... at least if you don't fit into clothes, you have the privacy of your own changing room and nobody else need know!

Luckily it looks like that is changing. Along with my emerging collarbones, I can look forward to seeing the changes in my fingers as I drop the next 10lbs! Here's to the slimline hands that I'll have one day.
xx Lizzie 1:25 pm Post a Comment

Back in the driver's seat
The payoff to indulging in all the forbidden fruits is the morning after. I suppose it's nature's way of preventing excesses, much like alcohol and hangovers. Sure, we can overdo it and enjoy it at the time, but you will pay for it the next day. Right now I feel full, but there is a little part of me that is hungry. It's probably for no other reason than I'm accustomed to eating breakfast after I wake up. And if there's one thing this journey should be teaching me, it's that I should eat when I'm hungry, not because of time cues.

I am heading off to the gym in about half an hour. This is a definate change compared to my old binges, where I would feel rotten and consequently not want to move all day. Inevitably I would end up eating the same crap and the cycle would continue for a few days until I felt sufficient guilt to start exercising again. Now I'm holding myself to much stricter standards - absolutely no excuses. There is not a single reason, short of a broken back, that would hold me back from some form of physical activity - and even then, I'd probably be asking the nurse if there were any small dumbbells lying around...

It's not that I always enjoy exercising. Of course, I certainly don't hate it. I'm working on loving each and every minute, but for the time being it's enough that I have the discipline to go at it every day and I love the way I feel afterwards, like I've accomplished something.

Last night I got my "whoa-nelly, this is enough!" moment and destroyed all the leftovers that I might have wanted to eat today. I had planned on eating junk for two days and then hopping back on, but I got scared that it would stretch into three or more days, and I don't want to backslide that much. Plus I may have just maintained, but another day would certainly mean a gain and I don't want that scale budging in the wrong direction.

So today I'll be fighting the cravings. This just feels wrong. I haven't seriously felt like this, wanting and dreaming of junk food, for months. Serves me right for thinking I had all that behind me! Now I'm calling on every ounce of discipline I have to resist and will probably do so for the next few days, until the memory of the excesses fades and my life is firmly back on the healthy track. But I made it through once and I'll do it again, dammit. Holding myself accountable in print helps as well.

So I hereby solemnly swear, today I will eat good, healthy foods in small portions, only when I am hungry, and I'll sweat out ay negative feelings at the gym. I'm back in the driver's seat, baby!
xx Lizzie 1:10 pm Post a Comment

On and off plan
Five days before Christmas something changed. From then on, I started using my gym membership, went daily and did at least an hours exercise. I read nutrition labels, bought healthy, low-fat food and started calorie counting. I kept a daily record of everything I did and ate. This, with the exception of maybe ten days total, has been my life for the past four-ish months.

One of the abovementioned days is, in fact, today. I feel like the biggest hypocrite writing and thinking about my old ways in disgust whilst knowing I have not made healthy choices today. Knowing that when I log off, I plan to continue making unhealthy choices. Which brings me to the question - what does being "off plan" mean?

Is the plan we mostly speak of the plan we're on to lose weight? Be it the zone, calorie counting, atkins, weight watchers... is eating food not advocated by these plans "going off plan"? Or is going off-plan when you eat things you didn't intend to eat, emotional eating or something else? I'm having a hard time reconciling this with myself.

On the one hand, I am not eating because I'm bored, unhappy, upset, angry, stressed or tired. If I pinpointed it to any feeling, it would most likely be frustration. But not frustration as in, not seeing results, because I am. It is becoming apparent that I'm losing weight and more importantly, I'm developing muscles and becoming more toned. I am about halfway to goal and I know that if I continue down my normal path, I will get there. Not soon, but definately this year.

I think it's just missing the tastes of certain foods that I haven't eaten for a long time. When something formed a major componant of your diet and you eliminate it completely for four months - yeah, the body will rebel! The first few weeks I had terrible cravings for junk, even stuff I'd never really liked much. How insane is that! Also the past few days I've been thinking a lot about the long term. Whilst I definately never want to go back to the old lifestyle I led, I can't honestly see myself continuing the cold turkey elimination of pizza, chocolate and gelato for the remaining 50 or 60 years of my life.

I hate using labels to define myself and my relationship with food because I think it can almost border on a self-fulfilling prophecy. "I'm a binge eater" seems akin to "I will never have a normal relationship with food" and I don't want to not have the hope that I can completely reform. I certainly don't expect it to happen overnight, in a period of months or even years. But at the same time, I can't imagine myself at 60 and still in a mentality of 'living to eat', not 'eating to live'. My tastebuds may change to some extent and I am coming to enjoy a lot of healthier foods and I know that those foods contain no nutrition whatsoever. But at some point, and for me it seems to happen once every two or so months, I just think, "enough already! I want to TASTE it all again, dammit!".

Two problems with this though. Firstly, I worry it's a fine line between one day of that kind of eating, becoming two, becoming three, a week, a month... and boom, everything I've worked for is gone, the scale is rising and there's no end in sight. Secondly, I do want to taste these things again. But I also know that I probably won't feel like it again for another six weeks. So when I do eat the formerly off-limits foods, I am eating in quantities that are way more than 'just for a taste'. Which really brings me back to a binge, only I feel enough guilt or satisfaction to signal "over" and I can climb back on plan. I mean, I now have the strength to keep exercising and tallying the calories regardless of what I eat, so that is a form of damage control... you can never go completely off track if you're still holding yourself accountable in print about what you at and if I eat to the point of physical pain, I know I'll still have to go to the gym, so there's less inclination to do that.

So I guess all that rambling aside, I'm acknowledging honestly that tonight I plan on eating way over my normal caloric limit and furthermore, foods that I do not normally allow. I am not going to pretend it didn't happen, fail to track the calories, skip exercising or allow myself to feel too guilty, nor do I plan to restrict my calories next week to compensate.

So the question is, does planning to eat off plan in fact make it part of your plan?
xx Lizzie 7:30 pm Post a Comment

The truth, the whole truth and nothin' but the truth
If I had to smack any eater disorder label accross my forehead, it would be binge eater. I went through a bulimic stage in my early teens but that didn't last long (as my good teeth and present size demonstrate). However I think it really goes hand-in-hand with binge eating because if my stomach weren't full to the point of exploding, there wouldn't be such a pressing need to rid myself of all that excess food. Thankfully, because of my generally poor gag-reflex, it was quite short lived. It didn't stop me from overeating on a daily basis though.

For the time being, my eating is disordered. I cannot remember a time where I was an intuitive, healthy eater. I spent my early teen years eating reasonably healthy food at home with my family, but I also ate 250g of chips in secret. Every single day. Without fail. This went on for 5 years and was often accompanied by large portions of fries from McDonalds or greasy chicken from KFC and sweets to 'cleanse the palate' between courses.

When I look back on it now, it's really quite scary that I was so addicted and unhealthy from such a young age and nobody - not my family or friends - had any idea how much I really ate. Sure, they knew I liked certain foods but they never saw the true quantities I consumed, or knew how often I ate to the point of physical pain. The funny thing is, it certainly wasn't to mask or manifest any emotional pain. I had a great childhood, enjoyed school, good friends and was even fairly active. I was even a very fussy eater - but by God, the things I did enjoy, I consumed in copious quantities. That is quite scary because you should control food, and food was quite clearly dominating me.

Fast forward a year and I kicked my chips addiction. How? Because I moved overseas and I was physically unable to buy them. Instead they were replaced with chocolate, pizza, cheese on toast and gelato - which never quite filled the void, so of course had to be consumed in ever larger amounts to get the desired feeling. After my year abroad I moved yet again and was quite determined never to eat chips again. I still resist them because I am shit scared that I could fall into another five year destructive addiction. However, that's not to say I didn't compensate - oh no, I just turned my attention to chocolate and fast food. Hardly healthy!

I was like that for a good two months, waking up sick each morning from the excesses from the night before. Watching the clock at work, I would watch the clock tick closer to 5pm and plan what I'd eat that night. Occasionally I would hit a day so low that I'd swear off sugar and fast food, but mid-week I'd be on a cycle of binging again. I had lost a few lbs when I'd moved back, but it quickly became clear that I'd regained and was heading upwards.
xx Lizzie 7:08 pm Post a Comment

#1 For the love of skinny jeans
With the exception of iPods, I've always been somewhat slow to jump on the trend bandwagon. Indeed, I believe I'm too late by about a year for the skinny jeans. However... they're still being sold in shops, so I'm still in with a chance! Better late than never. I mean, look at this and tell me it isn't a great look.

Oh sweet skinny jeans. How I long to wear you with tight mid-calf black boots. We're coming into winter and you, me and a possibly a chic scarf, an oversized bag... we could have fun together! Very sadly I'm still about 20lbs away meeting and getting to know you. Because of this, I haven't invested in a pair yet but a favourite past-time of mine is going round the shops, post-workout, and trying them on... knowing that each day, I'm just a little closer to buying a pair of kick-arse skinny jeans.

At my highest weight, I was a definate pear shape. I had one of those butts you could rest a 6 pack on. It was never even a muscular, large one like Serena Williams, no, it was pure flab. Still is, but(t) it's shrinking! I have no idea what kind of a figure I'll have at goal weight, since I've never been at a normal weight as an adult. Chances are I will remain a pear shape, but here's hoping I'll have a bum that suits skinny jeans!
xx Lizzie 12:26 pm Post a Comment

Up and running
I'm an all-or-nothing, type-A obsessive personality. This is both what got me into my present overweight, unfit situation and will also be my salvation. Over the past sixteen weeks, I've come to embrace a healthier lifestyle. This means exercising daily and counting calories. It might not suit everyone but it's working for me and more importantly, they are changes I can commit to in the long-term. I have no desire to spend the next ten years crash dieting and yo-yoing up and down on the scales.

I will leave this blog free from menu plans and stats for the time being. For one thing, I eat very similar meals every day and the dull factor would kick in after three days. Instead I plan on posting a daily reason of why I'm doing this, to motivate myself (and anyone else who happens to be reading!). I would also encourage anyone to check out 101 reasons I hate being fat (and vote!) if you're after an inspiring, funny blog.
xx Lizzie 12:09 pm Post a Comment