OMG NEW MUSE HELLO

Damnnnnnnn can I just be her? Plus I'm in love with her INSPIRE Magazine spread, omg.


Been decently restricting the past few days. Had a moment of weakness with pizza today, but I did spend like 45 minutes shoveling the walk and the alley so I'm going to rationalize that as making up for it.
I'm actually still around the same weight as when I came home, so since I was expecting the worst, all in all it's been OK.
Next week back on my own so I can stop this ridiculousness. And maybe start actually using my gym membership.... new years resolution maybe even though I think those are stupid? Any low-impact suggestions for a girl with knee problems?

holidays schmolidays

I apologize for my long absence! End-of-semester schoolwork and exams took over my life. Luckily that meant I had very little time to eat. (: Down to around 114 again, I think I'm going to set a goal at 105 for Valentine's Day since it seems to be slow going. Plus I am back at home for the holidays and that is a struggle and a half. So much junk in the house that I end up binging on because I haven't even seen such goodies in so long.

I think tonight I am going to straighten up my room (a good mess - clutters of presents!) and camp out and make me an inspirational notebook of some kind. Feels juvenile but I think it will be a nice break from overinvolved schoolwork. Has anyone else done something like that? Any recommendations?


Hope all you lovelies are doing well in the face of the solstice! Use the post-holiday sales as an excuse to get some exercise walking around the mall, is my suggestion. Haha.

disbelief!

Uh, so, I gained like 5lbs in the less than a week I was at my parents'. What in the name of all that is holy is that? It wasn't even just Thanksgiving. Since I haven't been home in ages they decided to order out pretty much every other night, as a 'treat'. What? Aren't we supposed to be cowering the face of the failing economy and saving money? My dad actually yelled at me for not having both pasta AND pizza on Sunday night.
My stomach feels enormous and I see my face getting its Polish fat back. Yikes. Though that last bit may or may not partially be due the very unflattering haircut I also received while at home. Hope everyone else had a better time!

Slowly, slowly, I am getting back on track. Fell a little this morning by having a butter croissant (how are there 400 calories packed into that? really?) but I discovered that a can of reduced sodium cut green beans only has about 80 calories, so that was dinner after I spiced it up a bit. I may allow myself a soy yerba mate latte in a bit to cap out at around 600 calories. Not too shabby compared with last week; I'm trying not to beat myself up too much and steadily wean myself off being a fat eater.


Side note: Is it wrong that I feel a little heart-leap of joy every time I see a "closing" sign on a Starbucks? Vivent les independent coffeehouses!

lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate

Well, as soon as I stepped into my parents' house there was a bagel and cream cheese on my plate. Avoided lunch by napping, and then had to have deep-dish pizza (damn you, Chicago) because that's what was ordered for dinner. And dessert because my mom was just looking at me in that way.
Being home is like a constant war between my two greatest impulses, that of pleasing others and that of avoiding food. Guilt motivates both, but, odd as it is, pleasing others will always win out even if it makes me hate myself for days afterwards. I probably had over 2000 calories today; I feel like hell and I want to cry, but I didn't disappoint anyone. Self-loathing and punishment delayed are acceptable consequences to accommodating others.
God knows I may feel differently next time I step on our scale, but right now I'm trying to rationalize by saying if I can get through these next few days I can fast/restrict like mad next week. Besides, now that my parents have seen me eat (oh lord, how they saw me eat) maybe they'll get off my back and I can actually do better the next few days. Eating at home, I guess, is a game of chess; today I sacrificed my pawn so tomorrow I can move my king out of check.

forget-me-now

Trying to pack to go home for Thanksgiving, and failing. I am so indecisive and needed to pick out what I'm going to wear for nearly a week is hell. Not looking forward to my family's incessant nitpicking at my eating habits, either. I think I've mentioned that before.
Besides the loathe of that which is to come, today went fairly decently. Stayed around 250 calories, and didn't purge. Sad that that is an accomplishment, but right now I'll take what I can get, honestly.
What are (for the Americans) everyone's Thanksgiving plans? Right now I'm planning on surprising everyone and becoming the life of the family get-together, helping cook and serve and all of that. It will be helping out my father, and keep me occupied. And then "sampling a bit of everything" at the meal and "saving room for dessert". It's so odd to have to plan this out; so much easier to live away from home.

OK, time to go pack up books so I don't forget anything and ruin my chance for catching up on schoolwork whilst at home.
Oh, and I actually put up a user picture. Of me with a plate of food and a beer at a party, because goddamn if I don't love the ironic.

grey

Melancholy must not become me. People keep asking me what's wrong, and look expectant. "Nothing," I say, straighfaced, "school's just a bit, you know." And they nod, like they do. Because, of course, they can't know what it is. That's it's like everything's gone a bit blurry. I can't get to sleep, and then when I do I just want to stay in bed forever because getting ready to go out of the house is an exhausting ritual. I feel ridiculous, perched next to the toilet vomiting or shoving spat-out food into the trash or evaluating the value of each bite in my head. And even with these things I've still had about 500 calories today. Everything seems an exercise in futility.
But since melancholy must not become me, I smile when people look.

I figure Thanksgiving will be a kind of hell, so that 500 calories is overwhelming. But if I stay below 200 the next three days, maybe it will be OK. Most likely not, but I'll pretend for my own sake. The lack of progress just gets aggravating, though, since I know that my goal is extremely obtainable, and it's my own failure getting in the way.


Lately I've turned to my comfort poetry, C.P. Cavafy. There is something of a pervasive yearning in his poetry that is just so entirely sad and beautiful. I found my copy during a charity booksale, so it's a 40-something year old, stained and yellowing paperback that I now cherish. This is one of my favorites, something of the sadness of time and the ignorance of youth:

    An Old Man

In the inner room of the noisy café
an old man sits bent over a table;
a newspaper before him, no companion beside him.

And in the scorn of his miserable old age,
he meditates how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, the art of the word, and good looks.

He knows he has aged much; he is aware of it, he sees it,
And yet the time when he was young seems like
yesterday. How short a time, how short a time.

And he ponders how Wisdom had deceived him;
and how he always trusted her — what folly! —
the liar who would say, "Tomorrow. You have ample time."

He recalls impulses he curbed; and how much
joy he sacrificed. Every lost chance
now mocks his senseless prudence.

...But with so much thinking and remembering
the old man reels. And he dozes off
bent over the table of the café.

what an oink oink pig

Haha oh my god my roommate just bitched at me for walking up and down the hall ONCE with my heels on. Are you fucking kidding me? She blasts her music all the time while she knows I'm sleeping. Seriously she is the most uptight stoner I've ever met in my life.


Anyways, I'm a little drunk but I feel like a fucking pig. I've been eating too much for all the alcohol I've been drinking on top of the food, like, holy shit calories in alcohol. And purging when I get a chance which I know is a stupid goddamn thing to do but it's comforting. I really want to right now but if a few footsteps woke up the roomie...

So starting tomorrow I'm going to have to begin to severely restrict, working my way down to low calories to not shock my body. Only one meal a day is my plan, if I'm working, and then just a salad because that bakery bread is a deathtrap. I'm supposed to go to the farmer's market tomorrow with this girl I'm kind of seeing so I'll have to buy fruit and stuff there, so that can be a meal too I guess? I'll map this out in the morning when I'm less disgustingly tipsy. Maybe a rice cake, an apple, and an americano or two for caffeine. Something like that. None of this disgusting shit I've been doing for the past week. For god's sake I drank beer tonight. If it hadn't made me so tipsy I'd probably be having a bigger panic attack.

Speaking of tipsy and parties and all that, I feel so awkward when people check me out, is that weird? I wore a dress today which is a new thing I'm trying out even though I hate my legs, and my friend was like "hey, this dude in the corner is totally checking you out right now." That makes me feel so weird. People always think I'm just fishing for compliments, but I seriously hate my body so much and think my legs are absolutely disgusting so I kind of hate when people pay attention to them. Whatever.

Oh and thank god I am a fast thinker/talker. My friend came into my room today as we were getting ready to go out and I had forgotten that I had my books about disordered eating on my desk. She started looking at them and in a moment's time I thought to tell her that I was thinking about doing my senior thesis on body image and eating disorders in modern literature from a feminist perspective. Thank the lord the feminism book was on top of the pile.