well.

a heart of romaine, some shredded carrots, and two tablespoons of dressing two hours ago. i'm hungry and heating up a lean cuisine as we speak.

easter was yesterday and i did well. actually did well throughout the weekend at home. small portions. stayed full. really craving chocolate right now so that's not good.

goal: drop 10 this week by being super strict. gotta look fab in my dress this weekend. gotta FEEL fab. 

the scale

was at 334 on sunday. today i'm at 330.

yay? ugh. therapy session this week was all about mom and her style of encouragement. almost said "lack of encouragement there." doc thinks i should consider giving up on making or waiting for my mother to morph in the the supportive cheerleader she obviously is not.

i'll have to marinate on that one.

it's good friday and i'm in the law library. i've been here for an hour. i haven't started my paper yet.

but i'm going to. right now.

i only wish someone felt this way about me. it's what i need to be told.

You've got such a pretty smile

It's a shame the things

you hide behind it

let em go

Give it up for a while

Let em free and we will both go find it

I know there's nowhere you can hide it

I know the feeling of alone

I know that you do not feel invited

But, come back, come back in from the cold

Tell me how you really feel

Tell me what is on the inside of you

All the somethings you conceal

Only keep away the ones who love you

Step away then from the edge

Your best friend is life is not your mirror

Back away, come away

Back away, come away

Back away, come away

Back away, come away

Back away, come away

Back away, come away

I am here and I will be forever

I know there's nowhere you can hide it

I know the feeling of alone

Trust me and dont keep that on the inside

Soon you'll be locked out on your own

You're not alone

You're not alone

And don't say you've never been told

I'll be with you til we grow old

til I'm in the ground and I'm cold

I'm not sitting up here on some throne

Like a dog you can always come home

Dig up a bone

Look around

ugh. the dark place again.

going to the dark place. again. i hate it here. i also hate herr's
popcorn. and everything trader joe's makes. and chocolate. oh, and
myself. i started a 30-lbs-in-10-weeks challenge. that was 9 weeks
ago, and my weight is exactly the same. i've gone up, i've gone down.
i'm back to the start.

i'm getting to my dark place again. i hate it there. i've been
thinking more and more about regret. i'm starting to regret doing this
and not g.b. had i chosen differently, i wouldn't still be here. in
the same clothes. almost a year later. i'm so depressed.

i haven't worked out in two weeks. i'm so tired. i'm so depressed. i
work hard and barely anything happens. i'm just really, really
depressed right now.

i'm starving (TMI for the boys, probably)

but it's not b/c of my band. i have a positive side effect to weight loss that to most people is not positive. i have been getting my period regularly for five months now. incredible, since it was pretty much nonexistent for a few years. i'm pretty young and haven't had kids yet (and want several), so a big motivator for me in losing weight was the ability to ward off reproductive health issues that were beginning to become scarily apparent. not having your period for months, then years (erratically here and there does not count, to me) scared me.

anyway.

in august of last year i got it for the first time in ages. however, it was an insane mess. i passed clots the size of tennis balls and was laid up for over a week. never in my life have i experienced such a thing. my bathroom looked like a homicide scene. i almost called the doctor thinking i was hemorrhaging. it lasted about 10 days, severe exhaustion all the way through, and then it was over.

i didn't have anything until late november, clots included, but not as bad. lasted nearly two weeks. then, miraculously enough, i got it again on 1/1 with heavy cramping, etc. this time it lasted a week.

the same thing happened 2/1.

the same thing happened 3/1.

guess what happened on 4/1? i'm amazed. and really happy to be back to normal, although this time the clotting is pretty severe again. i'm really bad about taking my iron supplements (along with all my other vitamins), but i'm making damn sure to take them this week.

is it weird to be happy to have your period (and regularly, and heavily)? is it also weird to have a feeling of satisfaction in passing large clots? for some strange reason i feel like a real woman. being so large makes me feel mannish and unfeminine. then, not having my period for so long just made it worse. now that i'm closer to normal, i feel happy in my femininity - as crappy as it is and as big of a pain in the ass it is to have my period, i'm grateful for it.

however.

i'm STARVING this week. i'm craving salty and sweet and am basically going nuts. both yesterday and today i've eaten a big bag of herr's popcorn (total calories: 490. 35 grams of fat. YEESH) and m&ms. yes i bought chocolate. it started with the small packs from the little deli in my building. today i graduated to the medium-sized bags from the pharmacy. one each of plain and peanut. and popcorn. i am not restricting myself because i don't have any room left in the sanity bank to fight with myself. work has been insanely draining (emotionally) and school has too. oh, and the rest of my life; let's not forget about that, shall we?

i have a lot on my plate for this weekend. tomorrow i'm getting my nails done after work (and getting a tan.. i know.. i'm stopping after my friend's wedding in a few weeks), then trader joe's run.. then tomorrow night i'm eBaying it up. i have a lot to list of my own, and my mum has been on me since thanksgiving about putting her old clothes up. i hope the eBay market is doing better than retail. i have a lot of stuff to move.

saturday will entail (since my house is 100% sparkling clean, due to an impromptu mid-week family visit which i will not go into now) schoolwork. i need to get my paper started for seminar. that starts with research.

i have to fix my dvd player. after a month of ownership it crapped out. this one replaced the other toshiba player that crapped out after about 14 months. these things should not be disposable! if it's not fixable, i'm going to try to take it back to the warehouse store i bought it from, so i'll do that saturday.

sunday will be schoolwork for the week.. and sleeeeep

gotta go read for my counseling class that starts in 1/2 an hour.. posting this from the libs.

peace out,
legally banded

Test post

Testing posting via email. Hope this works.

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328 today. A change of -5lbs from my last weigh-in, which I am pretty sure was just a week ago. Pretty good, if that's true. I haven't worked out, but I did get that fill. 

Had some vom issues yesterday and today. Well actually today and today. Starting around 1am.  Came home from a party, late, had the munchies, went to mcdonalds. Why? Because I must be a glutton for punishment, if not for nothing else. Ordered an insane amount of food (I'll confess. I ordered a Big Mac, a 10 piece mcnugget, and a double cheesburger. All for me). Ate one chicken nugget in the car. Ate two bites of Big Mac burger/fixins (no bread). Got sick immediately. Threw up a lot. What's interesting is that the puke was grey. It had been brown hamburger just minutes earlier and now it was grey. That grossed me out. Hopefully enough never to go back. I should know that McD's never ever stays in me and I am always the one to end up in pain. Yet I go back. I do think their food has an addictive quality. Anyway, I threw the rest of the food out and squirted a ton of dishwashing liquid over it so I wouldn't be tempted to take it out of the trash. Sick, but it needed to be done.

This morning (or shall I say, afternoon, sleeping beauty, who slept in till 12:15pm), I got up, laid in bed for a bit, had a shower, did a couple things around the house, and heated up some trader joe's potato latkes. Served up 2 with applesauce and tucked in. Two bites in, I was toast. I think I ate too fast. I was pretty hungry. I was sick for a couple of hours, though. Over two. Thank god it is sunday. 

I was able to eat later in the day. But I'm sore. Like I just did 1000 crunches. Not the way to rock hard abs. When will I ever learn?

issues.

ok so this morning my first thought was, "ooh! i can eat one of those cookies for breakfast! yum!" because once they're gone, i'm not buying any more. they were part of my weekend binge and that's long over, so there. i took the box of the remaining three with the intent to eat them all. i sat in the chair in my bedroom and ate the first one,  and got stuck. 

long story, but i proceeded to get sick with the voms at home, in the car on the way to work, in the parking lot (including into a plastic grocery bag that had an effing hole in it so i got slime all over my pants and gearshift), in the bathroom at work three times - all in an hour and a half. it was a mess. i got really shaky at work and had to leave. after an hour of being in the office. i felt weak and a hot shaky mess. 

i went home and crashed on the couch (oh and when i went home i tried to take a drink of crystal light and i threw it up. this was two hours after i ate the effing cookie!) and fell asleep until about 1pm. i woke up and felt better.

a few hours later i tried to drink and all was well. ate some soft food with no problems. 

don't you know, though.. i finished the other two effing cookies before coming to school? there is a lot more wrong with me than can be discussed in this blog post, i'll tell ya that right now.

i'm at school, between classes, in the libs. i just twittered "i need new friends." my friends don't understand what this is like, one in particular, who i feel just doesn't listen to me. yet i consider her a best friend. she asked if i was mad at her and i told her it was a bad day, didn't feel well, etc. (she knows about the band but hates tmi so i am trying not to tell her how much i vom)... she asked me if she could get me a soda. a soda. a fucking soda. do you really not listen? you should be very aware by now that i haven't had a soda in over a year.

i have some thoughts on bulimia, while i'm at it (and then i have to go to class), but a trigger for later: does bulimia strictly mean bingeing and purging, or does the desire to binge have to be coupled with the desire to purge to qualify? i binge and i purge, but i don't purge by choice (or do i, knowing my band's limitations?)... just a triggering thought that's been nagging at me all day.

peace love and casebooks,

legally banded

another fill, bit more depressed

so i saw the surgeon again today. two weeks since my last appointment. i've lost three pounds. is it wrong to feel utter disappointment in that? 

i asked the doc what amount of food i should be eating. he's so patient with me. he never has one-word answers or seems cross that i ask a seemingly stupid question. he told me that he's not really interested in a certain size, e.g. half a cup. he says it's more important to eat until i'm full, and no more. he doesn't want me to get hung up on measuring. he doesn't want me to feel hunger, either. 

i also asked him if i should be worried that now i'm at 8 ccs and the band holds 9. he said, with a chuckle, not to worry (he's all about allaying my fears, isn't he??); that this might be "the one," and there's a lot of fill potential between 8 and 9 ccs (in .1 increments, that is). also, he said that he's filled these bands over 9ccs, that they can take it. i hope i never find out. i'm comfortable with the manufacturer's suggestions, thankyouverymuch.

i don't think my problem lately is physical hunger. scratch that, i know it's not. i rarely feel physical hunger. it's all in my head.

i am starting the realize band research study online tomorrow. it runs for four days. they're paying us in amazon dot com money. i had the kickoff conference call today. a handful of people from all around the country called in. one woman, who was very annoying, interrupted the moderator to inform us all that she was down 89 lbs in 7 months. whoop de do. thanks! now i feel even more miserable about not being able to break -60lbs in nearly ten months. nine months and three weeks, to be exact.

it's a general depression. i haven't worked out in a few days (since friday). i ate all i wanted all weekend and gained .8lbs. who knows what i could have done without a band... 

my goal = my desire to lose weight - panicking about becoming someone different + extrinsic rewards like feeling better and having my clothes feel looser - my intense addiction to eating.

that's a complicated equation.

i've been shopping.