Science, bitches

I've been eating shit for the last week. Still under my caloric goal, but unclean food. And guess what? My waist shrank. Yeah, I'm finally under 28 inches. I've kept up on my work-outs, still with the same partner (thank you for the motivation) and I'm actually getting excited about going back to school to work out with Becka. I seem to have found a new wellspring of motivation in the last week (again, thank you). I think a lot of it comes from being home with Liam, but also for the fact that being in the Midwest mellows me out, which leads to a decrease in cortisol (a stress hormone that increases your body's ability to hold on to excess fat stores).

Science, bitches.

More human than human

I’m really torn between feeling guilty for not obsessing over my diet, and feeling happy for the first time in months. Being back home, in the Midwest, finally seeing my boyfriend for more than three days every other month, it’s really confusing. It’s like I don’t know how to handle…feeling good about myself. Liam loves me, no matter what I look like, no matter what I do, completely unconditionally. I almost don’t believe it’s real.

And that’s my problem: no matter what he tells me, and no matter what my logical brain “knows,” I don’t believe for a second that any could love me if I were fat. I believe that the only reason he loves me as much as he does it because, currently, I’m good looking. But the second I stop taking care of myself, and obsessing over my diet and my exercise, he’ll stop loving me. It’s actually really embarrassing to admit that, because I never thought I’d be the person who thought that real emotional love was based on physical looks. I know he loves every part of me, but I don’t think (and this, really, is insulting to him) that he’d be able to be with me if I wasn’t a size small. And that’s bullshit, and I know it. He loves me for who I am, and he thinks I’m beautiful because of who I am. He could give a fuck less about what I look like. But I don’t believe it. We’ve been together for eight months, and we can’t have sex for the same reason that I can’t eat what I want to: Guilt. I feel like eating anything “bad” will make me fat, and having sex will make me a whore. So, basically, everything I’m doing is to prevent myself from feeling like a fat whore. That’s the echo in my head; “fatwhorefatwhorefatwhorefatwhorefatwhore.” So to keep myself from feeling like a bad person, I avoid food and I avoid sex. And then that voice isn’t so loud.

As I'm writing this, it’s almost midnight, and I’m up watching the newest I Used to be Fat, thinking about cardio tomorrow. Did I mention that I hate cardio? But I did legs today, and arms yesterday, and I don’t work muscle groups more than twice a week. So tomorrow’s made up of a glorious amount of cardio. Did I also mention that I ate a piece of pizza at 8:30pm? That’s sick. There is something fundamentally wrong with eating that late. So I’m running an extra mile tomorrow, because that was a mistake and I should know better by now. I can’t keep doing this. Drinking tea every night and staying up until 2am and thinking about how much I need to sleep and not caring enough to actually do anything.

I feel disconnected from my body, like I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I don’t know that girl. And I know I don’t want to go back to the South. I’m sick there. I don’t want to go back to grad school. I’ll just get sicker. I can eat here. I can’t do that there.

Sometimes Liam tries to talk with me about eastern psychology, and eastern religion, and the general concept of duality and balance. I feel that. I feel like two different people. One’s weak, pathetic, fat, loud, explosive, emotional, needy, lazy. I’m ashamed of her. The other one is strong, quiet, stoic, cold, rigid, structured, almost robotic. Mechanical. That’s the person I want to be. I don’t want to need so much. I want to be less human, or more human. And that’s the other dual part: I can’t figure out if what I’m trying to be is something subhuman, or something above human. Or simply more human.

I don’t have a balance, and I don’t feel like I have a structure. I know I do, but it’s not enough. And I know that if I give myself completely to either side, skinny or fit, emotional or strong (because I assume those are opposites), I’ll lose something.

Skinny Fit (fat?)

I had a morning workout with one of my good friends. Leg day. Yesterday was upper body. Today, we did squats, lunges, HIIT, all that jazz. It's nice having a consistent, focused, dedicated work-out partner where ever I go. I'm now working out at two different gyms while I'm home, the hospital and the 24-hour gym. She's 5'4" and started out at around 155 pounds. She's down to 135 now. I'm jealous that she's down lower than me, but she's also shorter, and she didn't have as far to go. She's lost 20. I've lost 50. So, there you go (and yes, that's me being profoundly catty, but I fit into her fat jeans, and while I love these jeans, they're someone else's fat jeans). She also counts calories, and we eat around the same amount every day. We can spend two hours in the gym together just making up new mean routines for each other. It's a good time.

My diet's been unnaturally healthy, even for me, but I've been eating more than normal. I've actually gained about two or three pounds back, but I look significantly better than I did a week ago. I'm constantly torn between knowing that I can lose all the weight I want if I just cut down to around 300 calories a day, and wanting desperately to look toned and maintain my muscle density. Skinny or fit, skinny or fit, skinny or fit. It's constant, and I fight with it the second I wake up until I fall asleep. I want that scale to say 125, but I also want my biceps popping out of my sleeves. So, I maintain a consistent diet. And I work out. The most important thing is to just keep going, right? And I'm good at that part.

But for right now, I'm frustrated.

Spoiled

The more time I spend around people, the more I realize that I'm bad at spending time around people. I want to run screaming back to my tiny apartment where I can control everything and no one asks me questions.

On the plus side, my stomach is looking so much flatter. More to post later - sorry about my intermittent absences.

Competition

I flew into my home town Sunday afternoon. It feels nice to be back in the Midwest, honestly. I’ve missed snow. Mostly, I’ve missed my dog. He’s gained at least seven pounds since I left. Dad feeds him hot dogs instead of normal dog food. I put both my dog and my father on a diet. Dad’s normal weight is somewhere around 175-180 pounds. He’s currently at 196. He got me a one-month membership at his gym, which is open 24-hours a day. That’s profoundly comforting.

One of my best friends from home, also my former lab partner, Mallory, took me out for lunch today. We went to a Mexican restaurant. I ate half a taco. Dad and I went and worked out for about an hour and a half. He pushes me on cardio, I push him at lifting (let it be known that I can out-lift him by at least twenty pounds on everything). My diet’s already cleaning up now that I’m not so stressed, and it’s getting easier to cut back on calories. Food in general. I keep wavering between wanting to eat enough to build muscle, and just wanting to be thinner. I think I’m just being desperate and whiney. But it’s a weird thought to hover around. I just need this layer of fat around my stomach to get the fuck off of me. Mallory’s lost at least twenty pounds since the last time I’ve seen her. She’s still not thinner than me, but she looks great. No, I’m not being catty (no, no, that was catty, I accept it). But I really am genuinely happy for her.

Aside from the taco, I had salad and homemade veggie soup today, and a protein shake. I haven’t had enough water and it’s seriously taking a toll on my mental capacity. Being on diuretics can be a drag, but I’m going to keep using them until they’re gone. Yes, I know it’s just water weight, and it’ll come back when I stop taking them, and I’ll stop in a few days, but it’s nice to see the number go down.

I can’t sleep here. I’m writing this at 2am. I’ll post it in the morning. Dad’s so technologically illiterate that he doesn’t even bother to get internet. Gotta love him. Come to think of it, if I can’t sleep…I can always go to the gym.

Update: Worked out twice today. An hour and a half each time. I love being on vacation. Be jealous. Another friend and I are in a competition to see who can get down to 125 fastest.

Scheduling

It's not that I have a lot of time on my hands, hah! I just micromanage. An average "heavy" training day looks something like this:

6:30am: Wake up

6:35am: Weigh self, take morning supplements (caffeine, CTS max)

6:45am: Meal 1 (usually plain rolled oats and coffee)

7:15am: Half hour run/jog

8:00am: Personal training (at $20/hour, this shit ain't easy on my tiny student budget. I bought 10 sessions as a present to myself for getting into grad school. I plan on doing another 10 next semester)

9:30am: Home, squeeze in studying, cook and pack all my meals for the day, quick shower

10am: Head to my office on campus, work on research until class starts

12pm-6pm: Grad classes + meals 2 & 3 (usually a romaine salad, vegetable soup, and chicken or tilapia, occasionally whole-wheat carbs) +afternoon supplements (CTS max, multivitamin, protein shake)

6:15pm: Catch a workout class/lifting/cardio at the campus gym

7:45pm: Walk home (I barely drive anywhere), shower, have a protein shake (homemade) + meal 4 (salad or soup, sometimes string cheese and raw veggies) + night supplements

8pm-11:30pm: Homework/research/writing papers until bedtime

Rinse & repeat :)

On days I don't have class, that 6 hour afternoon slot gets taken up with a lot more research, running participants, and writing papers. And an extra work-out session, usually with Becka (she's also one of my lab partners), typically involving me falling off of something. Today we went to a step class, which was a lot more intense than I thought it would be. If you haven't gathered, I spend a lot of my time sweaty and gross.

Split Open Shins

My workout yesterday morning with my trainer was fantastic. We did a mountain climb (jacking up the treadmill) for 10-minutes worth of thigh-numbing cardio. Then we moved on to sumo squats, kettle bell swings, incline push-ups, box jumps, toe taps, high-knee sprints, jumping jacks, and other fun stuff. The toe-taps were the close-out, just before abs. Trainer told me to do them "for a minute, or until you fall on your ass." I fell on my ass at exactly 60 seconds, straight backwards off the 24-inch block. I have a bruise on my ass. Abs were easy, but since I'd done abs the day before with Becka, my entire torso was just non-functional.

Then I came back home, took a shower, and went to my noon boot-camp workout with Becka. There were only four of us in the class, we two grad student and another guy and girl. The guy dropped out after half an hour. Wuss. The trainer was a chubby guy. Becka and I quietly commented on our shared disdain for fat trainers. Our training consisted of three rounds of minute-long box jumps, squat presses, kettle bell squats, push-ups, oblique twists, jumping jacks, dumbbell swings, one-armed push-up rows, medicine ball throws, and shoulder shrugs with 35-pound bells. I was first up on the box jumps, and wouldn't you know it, I tripped again. Forward, this time, and I carved my shin open. Fat trainer gave me a band-aid and told me to keep going. I did. Today, my shin has a 5-inch diameter bruise with an 2-inch long ugly red cut. I'm actually kind of proud of it. I've iced it; still hurts.

I just texted Becka a picture of it. She said "Awesome! Looks like the bruise got way bigger. Battle wounds!"

There's a reason I love this girl.

After our work out (total time spent doing circuit training: 2.5 hours) she and I were changing in the locker room, talking about our individual diagnoses. She's a former gymnast, diagnosed with ED-NOS for six years now, and "coping." She's immensely afraid of gaining weight and just as addicted to the gym as me. Thank fucking god I finally know someone in real life I who I can talk to about this. We have a lot of other things in common too, like our intense fear/dislike/general abhorrence of sex. I think that just goes along with ED too. Self-control/perfectionism/all that closed-off-shit.

Started on at least a 5-day cycle of The Water Pill from Complete Nutrition. It's the only sure fire way I know to make the number drop on the scale. Yes, I know, it's just water weight, but I'm already down to 18% body-fat, so I'm gonna reward my psyche by letting myself see that number go down. I need it.

Headache

The Victoria's Secret Christmas commercials on Hulu make me feel obese and haggard.

My final exam in psychopathology less well than I hoped, but I haven't received my grade yet, and I probably won't for at least another week, so I'll hold off punishing myself until then. I know from that deep place inside myself (which is miraculously free of neuroticism) that I got an A, but I'm still paranoid.

What I do get to punish myself for today is how much I've eaten over the last two days. Today wasn't much better than yesterday. The real crime was Starbucks. Even if you get the skinny versions of their drinks, they still have enough sugar to kill a small child. Abdominal fat. Ugh. I didn't work out today either, but I did have a two-hour final worth 1/3 of my grade. So I'll use that as an excuse and kill myself tomorrow. And I do plan on it.

I have to wake up at 6am to make it to my 8am training fresh and ready to go. Training lasts an hour, and I'm sure my trainer is planning on killing me since it's our last workout together until next semester. After that, I come home, shower, go to my office on campus to work on my take-home grad stats final. Then, I go to a performance training session with Becka in the campus gym. Right after that, Becka and I have to drive a city over for a meeting. Then, I have to go shopping with another classmate for a Christmas gift for yet another classmate. Then, I will shower again.

I am going to try to do all of this while subsisting on tea and vegetable soup. If I'm not ready to collapse by 7:00pm, I will have done something wrong.

I have a permeating headache right now, and I really want to go to bed.

I thrive on this

I am stressed. I have a final tomorrow. It's for my grad-level psychopathology class. It involves answering four essay questions. The professor gave us eight essay questions to study for. We won't know which four are actually on the exam until we take the exam. We have two hours to answer the questions. We must be thorough, but concise. This is one of three grades I receive in this class (the other two being for a paper, on which I received and A+, and a 3-hour presentation, on which I received an A+). In order to pass the class, I have to get an A. Anything less with either fail me, or put me on academic probation, because that's just how our program works. So far, for the semester, I have a 4.0. I am an A student. I am also a type A personality. I thrive on stress. It makes it easy to quiet all the little voices in my head that tell me I'm weak. I'm not weak today. So I took the advantage and ate a shit ton of food, knowing that academics come before nutrition, and I can't panic about food while I'm panicking about school. No, seriously. And this is coming from someone with an eating disorder. So that should tell you how stressed I get about school.

And grad school is fucking hard, kids. But hey, I'm gonna have a Ph.D. in a few years.

I'm also stressed because I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast, Chinese food for lunch, and a burger and fries for dinner. I had almost 2,000 calories today, and I think I'm gonna die. I only worked out for an hour and a half today. On the plus side, I have a new workout buddy. Her name is Becka. She's another member of my cohort, and she's a former gymnast. 5'0", 105 pounds of almost pure muscle. She also has some kind of an eating disorder. She's one of the loveliest people I've ever met in my life. She also happens to have a deep scar running from her right eyebrow, across her face, diagonally down to her left cheek. She doesn't try to hide it. We do yoga together. For our workout today, we did chest, back, and abs. She has some of the most envy-inducing core strength I have ever seen. This is me, jealous.

On second thought, this might not be stress. This is actually kind of fun. I see it more as a challenge, something to overcome, than something to suffer for. That's how I feel about exercise too. Maybe I can apply that mindset to food. As soon as finals are over, I'm going to utilize this theory.

Zen

I practiced meditating this morning - or what I think of as meditating. Just focused on my breathing for about fifteen minutes, trying to make myself as calm and relaxed and totally empty as possible. It worked for a little while; it really did. Of course, it was while I was watching the actor's commentary for Resident Evil 2, which is just so funny that I couldn't focus on being upset anyway. Liam said something that pissed me off, which was valid. Just a comment on how whenever he asks me how or what I'm doing, the first five things out of my mouth have something to do with food or exercise. I got unnecessarily upset that he pointed it out. I'm upset that I got upset. I realize how this is just perpetuating the cycle of upset-ness, so I'm determined to make a conscious effort to be more accepting of life, or more zen, or something. Whatever that means. The point is, it's no fun being so stressed and upset and worried and angry all the time, so I'm going to try and change it, and hopefully add a few years to my life.

And get read of all the the cloyingly awful fat that won't drop off my abdomen. It's stress/sugar weight. I'm working on it.

136.8 pounds this morning. The lowest I've been. I can feel 135 inching closer and closer. I figure the less stressed I am, the better at time management I get, and the calmer I am, the faster it'll happen and the better I'll feel when it actually does.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm doing my best to relax, and I'm doing my best, I really am. Just bear with me.

Nine more days.

I told you I'd change my mind again. I'm going back to therapy, albeit not until school starts back up in January. I go home in nine days. I'm going to be staying with my father for almost a month, and my only responsibilities will be cooking, dog-watching, and working out. I'm going to be in the gym every single day, rest days be damned. I was 137.2 this morning. I'm here again, just over a pound away. I've been right here so many times.

I did an hour of cardio this morning. It was easy; there was a UFC marathon on Spike. If anything inspires me to quit bitching and keep sweating, it's watching angry, shirtless men beating each other. I was subconsciously competing with the guy on the elliptical next to me. He was going faster than me the whole time. Nosy little me, I leaned over to look at his resistance level. It was set to one. Mine was set to twelve. That means I win. I also did the most thorough bicep cycle of my life; five different lifts for one muscle group. My torso fits into an extra small, but my arms need at a least a size (sometimes two) larger. My flabby, awful torso. My soft fucking torso. It's the worst part about me, other than my (current) complete lack of resolve. I also did standing calf raises, but those barely count as an exercise.

When I came home, I got to eat spaghetti, which is such a huge treat. I'd feel safe about it if it weren't for the fact that spaghetti sauce has so much sugar. Some brands have up to 10 grams in half a cup. That's obscene.

The niacin and caffeine are making a difference, at least on the scale. I feel like I have rabies, and my mood swings on a dime, but I'm getting tighter faster. I keep fantasizing about how I'll feel when the scale finally reads 135. Worst case scenario, I don't feel a damn thing. Best case scenario, I start sobbing out of sheer joy and take a picture of the number. I have a feeling it'll be somewhere in between.

As of yesterday, there is officially a real diagnosis on my transcript: ED-NOS. This is based on a mutual diagnosis from my general practitioner and my psychologist. I've known it for over a year, but it only feels real now. This is good, because insurance will cover more medication/therapy. This is bad, because I have a label, which makes me feel more than a little sick, and extremely over-exposed.

Yoga and dosage

I broke down last night and called the emergency crisis hotline. No, I'm not suicidal. I'm just too miserable to function. I talked to the woman on the other end for forty minutes. She told me I needed to learn to relax. I took a yoga class this morning. It really did help for about an hour. Then I went to the student health center to talk to the nurse practitioner about increasing my dosage. She doubled it. My third counselor at the mental health center on campus wants to move me to a fourth counselor on a different campus, one who specializes in eating disorder.

I'm so, so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Back up to 139. I can't sleep anymore.