Diet Diary

I have nothing to do except stress out about my weight. I am on academic probation for my Master's program and that makes my weight seem like the one part of my life that I can control---that is, IF I could control it.

After I work out for more than 40 minutes with my punching bag, I don't feel hungry. I feel weak and sleepy. The day after I work out, I tend to binge eat like I am having my last meal. It becomes a crushing hunger pang that won't leave me alone until I eat. What is worse, since I exercised to the point of exhaustion, I am sore and too weak to burn off the excess calories I inevitably binge eat the day afterwards.

Yesterday, I ate 600 calories until 4 pm, which is fine. However, around 5 pm, I became famished and panicked. I drove to a fast food joint and binge ate a medium sized combo meal for a whopping total of 1000 calories. Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up hungry and ate 5 small raw apricots. So much sugar and sodium! I really hate that the thought of grease and butter sends me into pleasurable conniptions.

Today, I have had 400 calories and it's nearly 2 pm. The thing is, 80 calories is in pure half and half creamer. Another 110 calories comes from the Red Bull Red Edition drink I had. I feel bloated and I am burping, despite eating 210 calories in actual food (80 calorie serving of Fiber One with small amount of 30 calorie Almond milk in the morning, a small serving of home-made lentil soup for lunch). I drink so much liquid that I get bloated and when I weight myself I weigh even more than I would expect based on my solid food intake. That makes me depressed....that makes me start thinking about french fries.

I am writing so that I can distract myself from the thought of cheap dollar nuggets at Wendys. I feel full, but I keep thinking about food. Grrr..Hopefully, I won't be so sore tonight and then I can exercise for 40 minutes and burn off some calories from the past two days...but then tomorrow how I will crave sugar and carbs!!

Gained 2 Pounds, Lost 3 in Past Week

Earlier this week I was 171 pounds. Yikes. Now, about a week later, I weighed myself and weighed 168. This is obese for my height. I am disgusted. Still, at least I am not 171 anymore. I have to give myself credit for each pound that comes off or else I will just cry and give up.

Since I gained 20+ pounds on my ex-boyfriend's fried salmon dinners, I have struggled even more with my weight. I shot from 148 pounds to 174 pounds. My average weight prior to having a boyfriend was 153-155. My low weight was 148 this past year. Now, my low weight for the past 5 months has been 164. GRRRR.

I cannot believe I let myself eat my ex-boyfriend's junk food. It was Arabic food--nothing but rice, potatoes, and either fried chicken or fried fish. We broke up last January. Since then I have been taking 2 martial arts classes for a total of 4 hours each week of hard core work outs. Weight lost? Maybe 5 pounds. On a good day.

I think my body is in a little bit of shock due to my weight fluctuations. Since 2011, I lost 40 to 46 pounds. Then, between October of 2012 to January of 2013, I gained 25 pounds. Then, from January 2013 to May 2013 I lost 5 to 10 pounds. Then, from May 2013 to June 2013, I gained 5 pounds. Then, this past week, I lost 3 pounds. Yo-yo dieting takes on new meaning for me. It is more like bungee-jumping dieting.

I ate 1250 calories yesterday. I walked for 1 hour twice yesterday. I fought my punching bag for 20 minutes yesterday. I really did take two cups of popped popcorn to my room for my midnight eating disorder time. I woke up in the early morning and ate all of it. Thankfully, I had already included those 200 calories into my caloric intake journal, so I was not eating too, too much.


1200 calories is my limit. I don't want to eat more than 1200 and I refuse to eat less. If I want to reduce how many calories are in my body, I will work out. I have to eat 1200 or else my body will go into more shock and I dread how my weight will shift and fluctuate after a starvation diet (I succumbed to a starvation diet about 5 years ago and was 131 pounds down oh, I don't know, maybe 50 pounds before the psychiatric hospital intervened, forced me onto weight gaining anti-psychotic pills, quarantined me in a locked room without the usual running and walking I  had been doing, and forced me to eat three times a day). So, lesson learned; no starvation diet. Only calorie restriction and excessive exercise.

Yesterday my snack was a raw roma tomato sliced with black pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil drizzled on it. I felt a little guilty about the olive oil, too. It was not half bad. I think that snack is a bit better than my previous tomato snack/lunch of tomato, olive oil, and chevre melted on top.

Today, more tomatoes, punching bag, and oatmeal. Wish me luck. My goal is to weigh 155 by the end of August.

Sleep Eating as Binge Eating

I alternate between losing 3 pounds and gaining 3 pounds. I went to see my psychiatrist and the intake nurse weighed me (with shoes on--important point there). I was one pound heavier, despite my diet. I blame it on not doing my boxing routine for several hours that week. 168 pounds on a tiny 5 foot, 2 inch tall woman. I believe that puts me in the obese category.

I am on summer break so I currently I am not in martial arts classes. I want to take either kickboxing or judo over the summer except I need to raise about 200 dollars to cover the expenses through August. Martial arts are excellent for keeping the heart active. It also makes me more flexible and agile. Even though I sometimes barely lose any weight, I feel the martial arts are more than just an exercise--it's like a life path of self-discipline and self-awareness. To accept physical pain as a daily routine can have emotional benefits as well. I learned to cope with stress by working out and focusing on my partner. But I digress...

So anyways, I am still fat. It has been 2 and a half weeks of summer break and I still have not made the scale budge at all. Usually, it takes only a week to see a pound come off. For me, three pounds disappear over night and then promptly return 3 days later. It is a vicious cycle.

I monitor my eating. Sometimes my mother brings home hamburgers and yes, I eat that. I then punish myself by eating even less the next day, but then she brings home pasta for dinner and yes, I eat some. She then gets very mad when I sleep eat during the middle of the night. I have this odd habit of half waking up in the middle of the night, feeling insatiably restless, getting out of bed, and going into the kitchen where I rummage in the dark and feast on whatever I can find. The past few weeks I have eaten this stuff:

2  pears one night
3 packets of graham crackers another night
1/2-1 cup of cold rice out of the fridge another night
1 bag of pre-popped popcorn that I didn't eat while awake but stuffed into my mouth at 3 a.m.
1 bottle of Ensure which comes with a whopping 300++ calories per bottle

On average, I eat 200 calories for breakfast, 300-500 calories for lunch, 400-600 calories for dinner, and an extra 300-500 calories in a sleep eating binge. No, this is not the ghastly 3000 calorie diet of other obese people. You have to understand that once you lose more than 20 pounds your body resists losing anymore weight. Once you eat less and successfully lose weight, you are doomed to restricted calories for the rest of your life! I can never go back to eating 2000 calories per day, which is the healthy requirement for other women. Having dropped from 194 pounds to 150 pounds in a span of a little more than a year, my body will gain weight if I eat more than 1500 calories or more than 1700 calories on a day of extensive exercise. If I eat more than 1400 calories I do not lose weight, I just don't gain any weight. I am trying 1200 calories per day with exercise but these nightly binges wreck my daily discipline. Currently, on a bad day, I eat 1800 calories a day, which is like 2500 calories for a normal woman who has not lost more than 20 pounds in the past 2 years. I still have not adjusted to the fact that I am not a normal woman's weight and that I can not ever eat like a normal woman. I have to work hard just to maintain this level of fatness. To be thin, it will take even harder work, obsessive diet control, and excruciating amounts of butt-busting exercise. Even with that control over my life, I still won't see results for a while.

I am drinking a Starbucks coffee with splenda and creamer. I already know that the creamer has about 50-70 calories in half and half. That is why I can only have a packet of instant oatmeal for breakfast, so that I have about 230-250 calories for breakfast. My snacks will include non fat half and half stirred into coffee and tea. I get quite a bit of calories from half and half stirred into caffeinated drinks. I don't know if that is a better option than eating a pear. Not that it matters, I don't have any pears lying around. Lunch...hmmmm...lunch will most definitely not be the left-over pasta from last night. Maybe I will have some boiled cauliflower, sauteed in olive oil and Indian spices. Plus, a raw tomato with olive oil and black pepper splashed on top. Or maybe I will just have some turkey with mustard on flat bread. For dinner? That's hard. A bag of popcorn as an appetizer, maybe 3 corn tortillas with melted slices of pepperjack cheese, and endless cups of tea with non fat half and half. For middle of the night--nothing. HA! Like that will happen. I have realized if I don't decide what to eat ahead of time I tend to eat things like the cold rice out of the fridge. I guess I should wean myself off nightly food by eating smaller and smaller amounts. So, for tonight, maybe I'll take a measured portion of popcorn to my room. Not the whole bag, just a little cup of popcorn.