DAY 144 - ANXIOUS

Well I'm gradually sleeping more hours.  Friday night was a grand total of 3 1/2 hours.  Sat I managed about 6 hours and last night about 6 1/2 hours.  I'm still waking up with a knotted chest and feeling anxious but getting there slowly.

I'm off to discuss this with the doctor shortly.  I'm hoping that maybe as well as the valium they'll give me some kind of sleeping pill although I doubt they will as a) I don't suppose the two mix and b) I think they don't like people to sleep through long-haul flights because of the deep-vein thrombosis thing.  Anyway - we'll see.  I had to get one of those phone - first thing in the morning 30 times because it's engaged whilst everyone is trying to do the same thing - appointment with some random doctor I don't know.  Despite calling from 8:20 to 8:40am repeatedly, the 20 minutes meant that the earliest left was 10:40am!!  I REALLY hope it's a good and sympathetic doctor - I need someone who is very free and easy with the old prescriptions and generous with drugs!!

Another source of anxiety is tonight - it's my weigh in.  I haven't been weighed (or found out my weight) for two weeks.  I was 12 stone 11lbs last time.  To be honest I'm not fussed about knowing tonight either but I will find out as I think that my counsellor will take me off to go onto a mini-maintenance.  When I told her about the possibility of going to Japan she said she would take me off 4 weeks prior to do this.  I really don't want to stop - although I do want to eat in Japan.  I'm going to see if I can persaude her to let me do if for a couple more weeks and do a 2 week mini-maintenance -  but I suspect she'll talk me out of it.  I would like to at least be in the 11s before I go to be honest as I left them all at 11 stone. 

Also I'm going to have to tell her that when I get back I'll have to change meetings as after Easter one of my college classes will be on Monday evenings.  I don't think she'll be too pleased as I made quite a fuss to get into this class rather than a Sunday morning at 10am class!!!  Still it can't really be helped - I have to do the college class.  When I come back I want to go straight back onto packs to get me down to the weight I want to be.  Of course this means I'm going to be doing LL well into summer and the full maintenance right through summer - in the end it will probably work out at a full year being on foodpacks of some sort or other.  But actually I don't mind.  It's worth doing well and I kind of like being on foodpacks now.  I'm SO busy at the moment that I'm actually dreading having to make/think about food over the next 4 weeks when I'd rather just be having my foodpacks and have the extra time to study/make preparations!

Yesterday I made a start on my first essay.  It had a two fold effect of making me feel better that I'd made a start, but also freaking me out a bit as I have so much to do.  But I've drawn up a schedule and I reckon I'll finish it if I stick to it.  I really need to make a start on the second one too as one week when I return from Japan won't be long enough to do it and that particular essay counts for the entire course as there's no exam - so I need to do well.

Last night I watched that telly programme about the girl who tries to slim down to a size zero (although she starts at BMI23 and in perfect health).  It was actually quite shocking and really it brought home to me some of the truths about it.  Of course I knew that people who do this, by and large, are not naturally that way and are just not eating - at all! - as many confirmed in the film.  She was so miserable and desperately unhealthy at the end of it.  Several things jumped out at me:

FIRST THING - one of the doctors said that a healthy BMI is 21-30.  Now on most of the charts I see it says 20-25 is healthy.  25-30 is overweight and 30 is obese and then it gets into morbidly obese further up.  Now the LL online BMIomoter puts you at obese as soon as you hit 25 (which I think it harsh) - but every time I see it I think - "I'm still obese".  Kublai played with it the other day and it said he was obese too - he cycles 25 miles a day at least, eats very healthily, plays football and tennis/badminton weekly and there's no extra fat on him at all.  It really shocked me.  He keeps having a go at me about this - he claims that the BMI index was formulated post war in Belgian on people who were malnourished and has no relevance now.  I agree with him that the BMI scale is rubbish but it is being used by lots of people/organisations to make us feel bad I think - and it works.

SECOND THING - even knowing all this and seeing the programme - part of me would really like to be that thin.  I honestly think that clothes would look better on me.  I hate the extra fat on me - the feel of it when I pinch my arms or stomach or bum is horrible.  To be fair I do still have quite a lot of fat on me so maybe I would feel different at 11 stone or 10 stone.  But I do wish I was naturally skinny - even though I know one or two people who I imagine are unhealthily underweight and I don't like the way they look.  It's ridiculous that at 34 bloody years old I should feel like this!!!

Anyway, better stop writing and get on with some more admin type stuff.  Will update on my weight later on and further LL plans.  I know that Sally, my counsellor, will make me feel so much better - she's great and I always leave feeling uplifted.