Nothing tastes as good as how skinny feels:

Well…I found plenty of things that taste just as good. Quesadillas, and ice cream, and plenty of cheesesteak. I went to Philadelphia this past weekend to visit one of my best friends. I felt good about going and promised myself that I wouldn't make a fuss about not working out and not being able to eat my typical stuff. And I didn't. I made myself so comfortable in fact, that I lost all perspective on food, and ate my way through the long weekend. Sure, we did a TON of walking, and I had an absolute blast. But the way I felt all day yesterday did not feel as good as all those cheesesteaks. It was a combination of my body being like "what?!? what did you do to me? what's all this crap I need to digest?", not going to the gym in...5 days, and the guilt of my conscience for allowing myself to snap right back into my old regiment without hesitation.

I will not step on the scale until I feel better about this. I don't need to look and see the damage I did. I feel it throughout my body, and that's enough.

So the rest of this week will be a detox. Eating tons of color (orange cheese wiz is not a color, Chrissy), and back to the gym I go. I need to get this stuff out of my body, it's making me sick, and stressing me out. For the first time in a while yesterday at the gym I got dizzy, light headed and needed to pour water over my head before I passed out. Wake up call.

One month later....

So...it's been a month since I decided to take a break from driving myself insane and weighing myself. I even decided to see if I could go longer, maybe push it back to the first day of march. but..this morning as I was getting ready for work I decided to just go ahead and do it. A part of me didn't want to...given the pretty stressful week I had. A part of me wanted to...given the successful weeks before. Ultimately...I promised myself a month and the month was up...so I wanted to see the damage.

I didn't break the 100lb mark. 3lbs shy. I'm not horribly upset...I knew it was a stretch to think I could loose 10lbs in a month. I'll take the 7. It's better than none. or a gain. I thought back to all those moments I've had over the past month...all those people that have said just the right things at the right time to me...those moments of bravery...the moments of being strong. I think I did a lot of soul searching this month that happened because of the lack of scale in my life...I can't live by a number, although sometimes I'd like to. I need to start living for the moments of change...the phone calls from people needing someone to help them through a tough week of binging, or not working out. The feeling you get from boys that you've known for years...all of a sudden looking at you differently. The flirtation, although flattering but unwelcome...and one of them going to pick you up and put you over their shoulder (I didn't let him! but the thought of a boy doing that to me was...a milestone). Even the silly moment of seeing the guy that always talks to me at the gym...in IHOP at 4am and having it be awkward and drunken and hilarious. I want to embrace all of those things.

That being said....I've had a good month. I want to have better months. I want to grab these last 3lbs by the balls and keep going. I want to kick my workouts into high gear...no more half ass workouts. I don't care how much I hate running, I'm going to force myself to run and embrace the pain and push my body because I know I'm not. I want to seriously stop thinking that having cheat meals once or twice a week is okay because it's not. This stuff isn't difficult...I'm making it difficult. calories in, calories out...it's not re-inventing the wheel again...it's science.

Thank god I don't have a valentine...the last thing I need is unnecessary chocolate, dinner, wine, and dessert.

Life vs Death

Everything went white and all noise stopped as we crashed into the car. All I could think was "fuck, I'm going to die". It was a moment I hope to never relive again. 

But, alas, I opened my eyes, looked over at my best friend, and we both got the fuck out of that car. It started to set in about 30 seconds after we got out and I lost my shit. It felt like I lost control of all my senses and my body didn't work anymore. 

I'm okay now. A little sore, but that's to be expected when an airbag hits you directly in the chest. I don't want to think about how much worse off we both could have been. I'm giving mad props to my body for being able to take a hit and slowly bounce back. I think if this was me and my body two years ago things may have panned out differently. I took a rough hit yesterday, and I'm not going to lie and say I responded well because I didn't. After returning home, I drowned my sorrows in Chinese food and ice cream. It wasn't that good...actually...not as good as I hoped it would be, and I didn't feel better at any point doing it or after. I can make as many excuses as I want about it, but at the end of the day it was my decision, and I own up to it, and will do my best to learn from it and not resort back to old habits in a time of crisis. Moving on.....

"Death is peaceful - easy. Life is harder" <3

Time to weigh my choices and think about change.

Wow do I have a lot to say this week. It's been one of those weeks in which the eating and the gym haven’t changed all too much, but I've definitely seen a change in my behavior and overall interaction with others. It's something that...going into all this change I never was aware of before. You see all the breakdowns and life changing "ahh ha!" moments on TV on all those "I’m fat and want to be skinny" shows, but I never realized how much loosing weight and being healthier would impact my daily life. I honestly thought that yep...I'll loose weight, and everything will stay the same. Except nothing stays the same, and the longer I'm in this the more things seem to change, and my perception of the world around me shifts a bit more.


Exhibit A: I've been a bit more....ballsy? this week with my interaction with certain folks. I will not go into specifics around the subject, but just know that my confidence in myself had me doing and saying some things that the old me would never consider because well...how can you make moves when you have zero confidence in what you're doing. Sure, there were men...hah, sorry, boys. But they were in essence handed to me with an absolute "green light means go" and I didn't even have to think about it. I don't even care if anything works out of not, because you know what? It felt good doing it.

Exhibit B: I don't know how to word this one so bare with me. I got a message from someone I don't know (but he knows me) (and it's not weird/creepy so don't worry!) and he said that...well I should really just quote it...

"I am just going to be upfront here: I can't believe how absolutely drop-dead gorgeous you are. Wow. You are a really beautiful girl, and I was taken aback."

If anyone was taken aback it was me. I can count on one hand the number of times a boy (yepp..no men yet!) has said something so significant to me, that it literally impacted me so much. And not just a boy...a person that I don't really even know. And it wasn't some creepy okcupid message from someone in another state, it was someone that meant it, and put thought and value into his words. and that means a lot. I was honored, and flattered. Because really..it's hard to be brave sometimes and say those words. And it's hard for me to accept them, and let them sink in when you feel like you'll never be the person you want to be.

So this was my "ahh ha!" moment of the week. That somebody out there found me to be attractive and was brave enough to tell me so. And I was brave enough to start to put myself out there again. It's hard for me to let go of those boys in the past...the ones that found me to be attractive when deep inside I hated the way I look. Those are the boys that still haunt me...their words (whether real at the time or not) don't necessarily mean more to me...but I hold them in a different light based on who I was, and can't seem to let them go yet.

So yes, in case you're wondering...I did write this mystery person back. I was kind, and polite, and silly, and told him back the truth...and was brave back with what I needed to say. Maybe it's the fear of karma that made me want to write back and not just ignore it. We all know what it's like to be brave and then get ignored...and everyone deserves a response...unless you're creepy, hah. Maybe it wasn't fear of karma at all and was just....me growing up and wanting to be a better person? ...can't stay a bitch forever, can I? In other news I felt like I ate a bit too much yesterday, felt yucky and gross. What I gained in insight this week outweighed whatever I ate. Ohh I love a fun play on words. Maybe I can't hide behind fat forever...it's going away and peeling back the woman I want to become. :)

Snow Day :)

Ever have those mornings when you wake up and you just KNOW that you lost weight? You feel lighter, your skin feels tighter, and you just...know. Every time it happens to me and I weigh myself  I'm usually right. Although I won't allow myself this time, I'm gonna go ahead with the assumption that I did. And hell, if I didn't? I'll never know, will I? :)


I've had a great couple of days thanks to good music, good friends, and today's not necessary snow day, but I'll take it. I had an awesome workout at the gym yesterday, and a great dinner with friends that (for the first time in a while) wasn't stressful for me. We went to a local Mexican restaurant, where I made sure to check out the menu online before and do some simple menu decoding....Eat This! Not That! pays off again! I skipped the chips and salsa, chose the most sensible thing on the menu, and drank lots of water. I'm a camel these days, don't know why, hah. After dinner, me and my girlfriends had a little too much fun playing with a giant cardboard box. I squeeezed myself into it...hey, I fit!

My goal for today is to mentally prepare myself for some shoveling so I can get out of my driveway, and get to the gym. Dinner with dad tonight. If i can accomplish getting out, then my reward later tonight is cuddling up with my down comforter and watching too many episodes of Sex and the City. :)

There's gold ahead...there's golden dreams.

Day 20 without looking at the scale and it’s beginning to get to me. I’m caught in an awful predicament where without it…knowing the number I mean, its becoming difficult for me to track progress. I don’t know if what I’m eating is enough. Or if I’m eating too much. I’ve never been into counting calories because I fear I’ll become obsessed. So I roughly judge it. I’m not sure if I’m working out too much and sending my body into starvation mode and my body is holding onto everything I’m eating. I try to use the “I eat when I’m hungry” approach….snacks has never been my thing since changing my lifestyle. In fact, eating lunch today I realized that what I had in front of me was something the old me would have considered a snack. Crazy when you start to notice those things, huh?

I’ve been pretty good at planning my meals lately too. Not crazy about it, but when I wake up it’s pretty easy for to think about what I’m going to eat during the day and it’s worked out pretty well. Can I go another 10 days? Sure. I know I will. Can I go another month after those 10 days? Possibly. It’s something I’m still debating now…pushing the date to the end of February. Will I go crazy doing it? Absolutely. I’ve been trying to do some research online too, finding out what my calorie burn should be…coming up with many different answers wherever I go, leading me to believe that I’m working out too much and not eating enough, starving my body. But I don’t know this to be true because I refuse to step on the scale. Again…with the mental games I play with myself. Someone should just tell me to relax.

Driving to the gym today I thought a lot about insecurities. Those silly little thoughts that haunt our daily lives. I can’t think of anything worse than not feeling comfortable about the body in which you reside in. Yet I am…along with most everybody I know. Nobody ever wants to talk about it openly..and who would blame them? Who really wants to discuss hating yourself and what you’ve singly handedly done to yourself? My insecurities are slowly starting to go away though. Now this is something I can track. I know that I can actually look at myself in the mirror and semi-like what’s staring back at me. I’m not wearing clothes to hide or cover up parts I hate, and not constantly tugging or fixing my clothes as I walk or sit down.  I have a collarbone, that I’ve never seen before, and I catch myself touching it daily. I’ve allowed for a few full body pictures to remained tagged on facebook. And I embraced being the only girl lifting weights at the gym the other night, focusing and breathing, while the guys all looked at me and judged. Hey…if that’s progress, then I’ll take it.  

"You have to make it a battle to make yourself better everyday"

10 days into the no-scale club. I'm doing good so far! I hid them both (yes I have two scales...don't judge, long story) under the bathroom sink. Hid meaning...of course I know where they are, but they are out of my vision, so it's much easier.

I've got a lot of people reaching out to me the past couple weeks; telling me how good I look, sending out all sorts of virtual compliments, talking about different food, what I'm eating, what I'm not eating, asking me questions about what I've been doing specifically, wanting to know "my secret". One family friend even said the new pictures of me brought a tear to her eye, and has motivated her to get serious about getting healthy! That's nuts to view me as a motivating person, when I still see so much more improvement I want to make in myself. Makes me think of a line from my favorite musician, Bryce Avery:

"Do you feel the weight of the world singing sorrow? Or to you is it just not real? 'Cause you got your own things..yeah we all have our things I guess"



So what is "my secret"? I don't think I have one. Since I've never talked about it before...let's chat now. I pretty much stopped drinking anything but water, coffee (black, 2 splenda!) milk, occasionally juice. No more drunken alcohol binges..that helped a lot, and of courseeee it's way more healthy and safe. I started doing research on food, reading memoirs and books, not about diets, but about people's journeys. I started to feed my body intelligently, eating foods that I know will fill me and not be crap. eating breakfast. not eating carbs in every meal. eating way more fruit, and even more vegetables. If I can help it, not using butter, not using salt, not eating anything fried. And of course I started working out and doing cardio. pretty much daily. I think that the changes I've made aren't rocket science. I've always known what it took to loose weight and be healthy, I just never did it. Which is a WHOLE other blog post. hah. ;)

I think I made a huge milestone tonight. I got some pretty upsetting news while at the gym, work related. Nothing I wish to talk about, it has nothing to do with me directly, but it's something that brought up some anxiety levels on the drive home. I immediately started craving carbs, and lot of them. Fortunately for me, I had already discussed dinner with my mother and she made a nice potato and egg omelette. So...I got my carbs but not the pound of pasta I really wanted. I ate my normal dinner amount, was satisfied, and thinking about the upsetting situation I'm going to have to face tomorrow morning at work, I walked mindlessly into the kitchen and went to get more. I stopped myself as i lifted up the lid. Am I hungry? No. Am I trying to fill some sort of void in my stomach about tomorrow? Yes. As soon as the thoughts ran through my head I put the lid down, walked into my room, and started to type.

To the people out there that has reached out to me: I'm glad that you have. To be honest, it's still difficult for me to accept it, and take on this role. I know I must sound awkward and uncomfortable when I talk about it, but just know that it does mean a lot, even if I can't express it in the moment. I end up thinking about the words you all say to me daily, and have gotten me through my workouts the past week or so. And finally a shoutout to that same gym employee as before that walked by me mid-workout yesterday and said "you're the only person that I see here everyday...that's what I like to see".