Well last night I had some tofu with soy sauce and wasabi. Some mixed salad leaves with a small bit of cottage cheese and balsamic vinegar and black pepper - and it was all lovely.
I didn't eat very much - but it looked like LOADS and I'm scared it was too much. But I didn't eat until uncomfortably full or anything. I ate everything though - and then went back for a bit more tofu and a bit more cottage cheese! At no point did I feel sick or full - but I hope that I haven't destroyed my "I'm full-ometer" for life from the way I treated myself pre-LL!
I am finding it a monumental pain in the arse to go shopping though - I really don't have time and I can't be bothered AT ALL! Just did an online shop for next weekend from Sainsbury's so hopefully I won't have to go shopping for a while after that - but even that took ages!!
One thing that does worry me is that now my head is being filled again with thoughts about food - something I just stopped thinking about completely before. I liked the safety blanket of not having to think about it ever!
But, as much as I'd like to just be on foodpacks forever - I can't be! So gotta move on!
I have bought some gorgeous clothes recently though!! Also the way people react to me is SO different - especially men who are suddenly being very nice to me - which is both nice and a bit disconcerting too!
On Thursday I went for a consultation at a very posh hairdressers. I haven't had my hair properly cut or coloured for about 5 years - it's extremely long (to my waist) and in very very bad condition, greying etc... I only ever wear it scraped back.
So - I will be splashing out an OBSCENE amount of money for a top notch cut and colour next week! I hope it looks ok - although frankly anything will be an improvement on the current mess!
I might then actually take an "after" shot to go with my "before" - even though I want to lose some more.
Poor gaijinboy (who is basically supporting me at the moment whilst I'm studying) is being very tolerant. I'm going to have to get a very well paid job later this year!! Or any job at all really!
Well just had my tofu - can't say I enjoyed it like I thought I would. I could hardly eat any of it - but even what I did eat made me feel bad. I felt immediately that I wanted to throw it all back up - still sitting here willing myself just to wait for this feeling to pass - but it will I know and I'm not going back to throwing up . I feel really queasy - not from feeling full I don't think - I don't feel exactly full - just like there's something inside me that shouldn't be there....
I feel like I've done something bad... I suppose this feeling will go away soon...
So now I'm in the 11s!! 11 stone 12lbs. I was 11 stone 2lbs when I came back from Japan and was pretty ok with that.
Because of going to Japan I have to move into management next week - which will be rejigged to include rice and alcohol so I will be able to cope! I really really wish I wasn't moving into management just now - but I plan to going back into abstinence when I return to lose the last bit!!
But over the moon really.
Also the doctor was great! (And v. handsome!) He prescribed me loads of valium and some temazepam!!!
AND I got my nails done and bought loads of clothes - which I'm not 100% sure look ok on me - I'm new to this - but will get Kublai and Marie (lodger) to give me their opinions.
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.
I am sh1tting myself. I went for an i/v Thursday for this volunteer thing - teaching an intensive English course for one week in Okayama-ken (not a million miles away from Hiroshima) during my Easter "holidays" from university and found out today I've got the job. It's not paid but they'll pay for my return flight, homestay whilst teaching, travel etc and then give me a week's rail pass for free for afterwards (this covers the whole country and the shinkansen and is a fantastic bonus) - and a discount on a 2nd week if I want a two week railpass! I leave on March 25th.
Anyway, of course I feel sick at the thought of the flight. The longest I've managed so far is 4 hours - and then with lots of valium! I couldn't sleep last night for stressing about it, I've had 3 hours sleep and I'm tearful, hugely anxious and feel like i'm about to break down - I don't know if I can accept the job - but of course I really want to! Career wise it would be a great move as they repeat this every year several times a year and it's growing massively. The group I would teach would then come to the UK later this year and maybe I could be involved in that. Certainly when I go back to secondary school teaching it is something I would have lots of opportunity to be involved with because that's what this organisation does - secondary school exchanges!!
I was offered a similar opportunity when I got back from Japan in the first job I did as an assistant TV producer. I bottled out as I couldn't do it - someone else went instead of me and in the end I lost my job. :o( It's my biggest ever failure and I just feel like this is another opportunity to confront it - or it be something that defines my life from now on.
PLUS I have to give in two essays totalling 10k words and revise for 2 exams straight after Easter - I had a similar situation over Xmas when I had 3 weeks to do the same and in the end I only took Xmas day and NYE off and the other days worked from 7am till late at night. So I'm pretty stressed about that too. I should be able to get one essay done before I go and if I go for 3 weeks I'll have a week left when I come back to do the other one. Then I'll revise for the language exam whilst in Japan (loads of kanji - they make us remember how to bloody write them off the top of our heads at SOAS..:o( and lots of grammar. But, to be honest, 3 weeks in Japan will be the best revision for that anyway!). The 2nd exam hopefully won't happen till a few weeks after I get back so I'll revise for that then I suppose!
And then the other problem is my Japanese ex-boyfriend! I really want to see him but I'm getting gaijinboy (my current OH) to join me after I've finished teaching for the remaining two weeks (if he can get time off work!). I don't know whether my ex will want to see me and how it will work out with Kublai there? Also I still miss Kiyo all the time - so I wonder if it will be hard - but I can't imagine going to Japan and not seeing him. I think I'd rather not go at all! Plus I couldn't go and visit everyone else where I lived and not him - the population of the place is TINY!!
And then there's my diet. I really want to stay on it until I get to 11 stone but I'll have to come off it probably next week. I spoke to my counsellor about the possibility of going to Japan and she was great. She said she would re-jig the re-introduction of food phase to make a 4 week programme which would get me to the point where I would have enough "re-introduced" foods to cope with the Japanese diet - ie vegetables, tofu and rice.
Luckily it's Japan and not Italy I say!! The whole 4 year I was in Japan I maintained a healthy weight without dieting - so although I fully expect to gain some weight whilst out there it shouldn't be too drastic. Then I would like to go back on LL full time again when I get back - but this means it will probably be June/July before I'm off it again - which is a bit depressing- although worth it if I get to be in Japan for 3 weeks.
I think I'm going to cry again - I just need more sleep.
And I have SO MUCH on this weekend. OH's parents just called to say his cat has/their died .... :o( We have to go and see his best friend's newborn baby this afternoon and I've knitted it a jumper but not sewn it up. :o( Will have to buy a present en-route instead I suppose. :o(
And I need to buy an entirely new wardrobe - plan a week's intensive English lessons, write 10,000 words, plan 3 weeks in Japan and not break down completely.
So we had a fabulous weekend. I'm aching now in my arms and legs and it will have been fabulous toning exercise I imagine. Strangely there was another woman there also on LL. She's lost 9 STONE!!!!! Really lovely woman too. There with her equally lovely husband. It was nice to have some solidarity in the soup thing because the dojo provided home cooked AMAZING looking vegetarian lunches - the sort of food I absolutely love - incredible veggie curries, salads, rice, cheese, breads ,,,yummmmm. A few people did a double take when they saw me sitting eating a bowl of powdered soup but no one asked a thing - so it was fine!
I got really into the taiko - got a bit overwhelmed (as I'm wont to do really) on a few occasions and had to fight back the tears. When you really lose yourself in it and feel the power from the drum coursing through your body, it's quite an emotional feeling!! I'm considering trying out a group here in London, but the one I have in mind requires a massive commitment and the guy who runs it seems a little scary - I've got a good bit on my plate at the moment so I'll try and clear a little bit out of the way and then get in touch with him. I don't know if it might just be one thing too many and I've been trying NOT to do that. On the other hand I felt, whilst doing taiko this weekend, that I've perhaps neglected my "spiritual" side a bit. Not that this is exactly "spiritual" but it certainly taps into a side of me that isn't met by my academic work or other exercise. At the same time as having that meditative element (for want of a better way of putting it) - it's also extremely good exercise!! Plus it would be fab thing to get involved with for my future teaching etc.
Anyway, we rolled off the overnight train on Monday morning at 8am and I went to Oxford Street to do some shopping as I need an interview suit for an interview tomorrow. Well - I was still shopping at 4pm!! BAD GAIJINGIRL! I had a good shopping day. I am now a size 14 trousers and a size 16 top! I was a bit confused by this but all was explained. I bought a white shirt for this interview and at home I only have black bras. In fact, they're black size 44C bras. Now, obviously I knew that they are now too big - but I imagined I was somewhere around a 38B (which is where I was when I last hit 11 1/2 stone). Obviously I needed to buy a white bra so I had them measured up... 36DD - WTF!!!!!!!! I had GREAT fun trying on bras and bought a couple to take home. I don't want to go too mad as hopefully I will be changing size a bit more. It really made me feel much better about my boobs as they really are droopy and saggy now I feel - lots of lose skin around the edges etc and I didn't feel they were at all attractive. But shopping for really pretty bras in really womanly sizes made me feel much better! I also bought a pair of black trousers and a pair of jeans and a lovely pair of shoes. I feel I'm going to look really good for the interview which should help with my confidence!!
Anyway - all of this meant I didn't get to my meeting on Monday night!! BAD GAIJINGIRL AGAIN!!! So, yet again, I don't know how I've done weight wise - but again, at the present stage I think this really is a good thing. So we'll see next Monday where I'm at.
Now I feel much more confident with sticking this out - the horrible blip of a few weeks ago seems to have passed - maybe it really was the stupid contraceptive pill - as well as my food worries and tantrum throwing, my mood seems to have lifted considerably and I'm coping better with stress - even though I have quite a bit more right now!! I really do feel I could keep going until 11 stone before hitting management at this stage.
Well, hopefully this weekend should be a bit easier than the last few. Tonight at 11pm, Kublai and I are taking the overnight train to Glasgow where we will be met tomorrow morning and taken here. We have a very full weekend of drumming workshops lined up so hopefully no time to throw any childish "I want food" tantrums.
Potential difficulties are the fact that they provide homemade veggie food for lunch and I'll be sitting down with my soup and explaining to everyone else what's going on. Also in the evening I think everyone may go out for dinner together which puts me in a tricky situation. Personally I would like to give it a miss and go to the local sports centre for a swim and sauna - but I don't want Kublai to miss out and I don't suppose he would go for dinner with other people he doesn't know unless I go too? And I don't want to make him come swimming if he wants to go out for dinner. Anyway, maybe I'll want to go to dinner too to chat to everyone else. We'll see.
Been thinking a lot this week about why is it that I still feel fat. I know that now I'm pretty normal. I fit into a size 16 in most shops - in some shops a 16 is too big (although we all know shop sizing means zilch!). But all I see is the roll of flesh around my stomach. Initially I was excited that I could fit into "thin" clothes but now I'm super critical. I still feel really fat. I don't think it's my head trying to catch up with my weight loss - I think I have a pretty realistic idea of what my body looks like now - it's just that to me, that image is still fat.
Not sure where I am weight wise at the moment - may well have a WI on Monday - then again even if I do make it to class I might ask not to know again so I don't get too depressed if it's not good. Anyway, I'm somewhere around 12stone 11. If I get down to 11 stone - is that extra 1 stone 11lbs really going to make such a big difference? Maybe this is why part of me wants to be super skinny. But getting to, say, 9 stone, seems like an impossibility to me and possibly not really right for me either. So am I destined to always be unhappy with my body? Seems to me that the majority of women are!
So I took ninamoonshine's advice yesterday and just chilled out. I had all kinds of plans to work all day etc etc - but actually spent most of it in bed just relaxing. I went for a swim in the afternoon and bought a new belt because my trousers fell down as I ran across the street in the rain... Then I had a colonic! (Warning - it gets a bit grim from now on so stop reading here if you're squeamish!) I've been twice before for colonics and the girl who does me is just wonderful - really lovely. Turns out she sees loads of people on LL! I haven't been constipated at all but I had it in my mind that if I have it done now, there wouldn't be much up there so she'd be able to really give it a good old clean (if you know what I mean!!). Actually she got a surprising amount out - so much that there was a bit of an explosion midway through and we had to stop!! Anyway, I feel great now - I did the last couple of times too!
Then I had my meeting last night. I got weighed but as promised didn't take the reading - so I don't know how I did - although I have lost weight and it seems I've moved into a new BMI (so BMI 28 it must be) which is really good news! I may not make it next week so it's possible I won't know for a couple of weeks still what my weight is. BUT I feel much more relaxed about it all at the moment and less stroppy about the whole thing.
Also - came to a bit of a realisation. I went back on the pill exactly one month ago - it's during this last month that my weight loss has dropped dramatically and my moods have been really up and down. Speaking to a nurse in my group she said it would almost certainly have affected my weight loss - she said some people actually gain up to one stone from going on the pill - from actual physiological changes - rather than just eating more through mood swings. I feel a bit of an idiot because I'm sure I sort of knew that in the back of my head and now I feel I've wasted a whole month and slowed down my weight loss for no good reason.
Anyway, I'm stopping them. The weight thing I can live with but I'm not having these mood swings (if indeed it is the pill that's causing them). I was "drug free" from November - mid Jan and felt absolutely fine, so I'm going to try that again and see if that's what it takes for me? I have been on Anti-depressants/injections/pills etc etc for the last decade (anti-Ds for the last 5 years until November last year!) - and it's time to just give myself a complete break I think.
So, I feel really quite positive at the moment. It's reading week, so I'm sleeping till 10am each morning - which really helps me - do like having lots of sleep.
BUT - must get on and do some work or I'm storing up trouble for myself in the future.
So - it's the weekend again - which has been problematic for me for the last few weeks. I've woken up feeling really tired, grumpy and shitty. I've noticed this happening almost daily now.. Despite getting 8 hours sleep last night I feel like I'm about 5 hours behind on sleep and just really low and down and tearful! I feel like life is so mundane and I'm just plodding along some completely pointless path for no good reason.
I wonder if this is to do with coming off the anti-depressants? It's been at least two months now since I did though - so that's a bit weird. I guess I need to just soldier on. Maybe my body still needs time to readjust to get to "normality" - whatever that is!
Mum suggested I take St John's Wort - but I would really just like to stop taking things to make me "happy"..... I can't help feeling I just need to get over myself and accept that this is life - get on with it! What the hell have I got to be unhappy about anyway? Not a lot really!
Anyway, grumbles over. Hopefully this weekend will not be so bad as I've got plans for the rest of today and tomorrow we're going on a day trip to Surrey to visit our two best friends and my god daughter - so that will be a nice day of countryside stomping and chatting and not obsessing about food!!
Then it's my meeting on Monday which is always like a dose of tonic.
. I feel really queasy - not from feeling full I don't think - I don't feel exactly full - just like there's something inside me that shouldn't be there....
Then I had a colonic! (Warning - it gets a bit grim from now on so stop reading here if you're squeamish!) I've been twice before for colonics and the girl who does me is just wonderful - really lovely. Turns out she sees loads of people on LL! I haven't been constipated at all but I had it in my mind that if I have it done now, there wouldn't be much up there so she'd be able to really give it a good old clean (if you know what I mean!!). Actually she got a surprising amount out - so much that there was a bit of an explosion midway through and we had to stop!! Anyway, I feel great now - I did the last couple of times too!
