I was feeling so good...

...I ate lunch with a couple of friends (at a Mediterranean restaurant - ate very sensibly!) and got some stuff accomplished I had been putting off. My friend and I decided to go to a job fair tomorrow in Columbia and I was actually feeling a little ok about it. Then I started looking at the websites of the employers who would be there.

Nothin'. I'm either not qualified or overqualified. There's nothing I'm looking for.

I decided to press on, go ahead and pick something out to wear anyway, I'd go get some exposure, maybe leave my resume with some hospitals and organizations. I'd make the best of it.

Then I went to my closet.

The things I had in mind that I *could* wear.....*DIDN'T* fit. It's been almost a year since I wore interview-wear, and the jacket doesn't fit. I don't even have button-up business shirts that fit. I might've lost a tiny amount of weight since August, enough to make my current jeans fit differently, but that doesn't help the weight gain I obviously suffered between last March (when the stuff fit) and August (when I bought my current jeans).

So now I'm uber-depressed and uber-pissed, contemplating not going tomorrow since no matter what I scrounge up to wear won't look "right" since it wasn't the professional outfit I had in mind. But for a split second in the throes of anger, I had this backlash emotion where I wanted to take all that anger and use it as motivation - the wrong kind. I wanted to stop eating until the clothes fit. I wanted to go out and run circles around the block until my ankles gave out or I fell unconscious. Even thinking of that stuff is unhealthy, but the unhealthiest part is that I sometimes really wish I could do that sort of thing. I know, eating disorders are nothing to take lightly, and I really don't wish I had one. I guess I just wish I had the self-control some others do.

I'm angry that I've let myself go. Even in March when I bought the suit jacket and pants, I thought to myself, "you look like The Fridge and nobody will want to admit you/hire you if you can't even take care of yourself. FIX IT." Yet that obviously didn't work. I can't blame myself too harshly because I was still battling crippling depression and a thesis to boot, but I can't play victim either.

The hardest part of this weight loss thing is having patience. It was easy to put this weight on, and it's going to be murder to get it off. I did this to myself. I'm to blame. But I can't punish myself so that I'll deem myself unworthy of effort - and that's what I'm starting to slip into. I've waited my life away. I've turned away opportunities because I was too fat. I've been too scared to live for so long because I was afraid of looking stupid in front of others. Fat girls don't have any place on ski slopes. Fat girls have no business on boats. Fat girls don't deserve to go out with skinny friends. Fat girls play wingman - they make their skinny friends look better by comparison. My entire life has been full of self talk like this. I have to realize I'm worth saving in order to put effort into saving myself. I don't want to waste any more of my life waiting until I lose weight. I always say "I'll do that when I've lost the weight" - for close to 20 years I've been putting off my life "until I lose the weight" but there's obviously been something missing because I never got around to losing it.

My goal for tomorrow, whether I make it to the career fair or not, is to do a Week 2 jogging podcast from my Couch-to-5k program. I did 3 days of Week 1 (though not all in one week) and that was a week ago. I'll try Week 2 and see if I can handle it, then start back up from there.

I feel like there's a merry-go-round spinning in front of me, and I am trying to get on even though it's going too fast. I need to lose weight. I need to get a job. I need to get back on my feet in order to crawl away from this depressive "oh woe is me" trap. It's a cycle of no job - too fat - depressed - sit in my room not exercising or looking for jobs. I desperately want to help myself get better (job-wise and weight-wise) but I'm standing there staring at this carousel going way too fast. I know it will hurt to jump on - I'll run into something and bang up my knee - but once I'm on it won't be so bad.

The more I thought about that metaphor, the less it made sense, but fuck it...that was the first thing that came to my head, and I'm tired, and I need to go to bed.

Trying to jump-start myself

I don't want to let this blog fall through the cracks! I need to get better about posting, and I want to start taking pics of my food too (how many times must I say that before I actually put my ass in gear and do it??). There's something strangely voyeuristic about seeing what others eat during the day...I'm not sure others feel the same way, but I'm subscribed to a couple of blogs that do that and it makes me feel a little more human to see how others eat.

I'm on an egg kick lately...I made a killer omelette this weekend and bought some Better'n Eggs on Sunday at the store to try out more things. This morning for breakfast I had a sandwich with scrambled eggs, green peppers, and pepperjack cheese (2 slices because I overestimated the amount of egg mixture I had, and I get weirded out by a high egg-to-cheese ratio).

I went to weigh in last night at WW, but my friend couldn't go and I'm too big a pussy to stay by myeslf, so I just weighed in and left. I lost 1.6lbs last week (or so that's what she told me...they often subtract wrong, and I haven't yet been back to check over her math). Even though I lost, I still cried on the way home...I have these little mini-pity parties every so often where I say things like: you'll never break the cycle; you've got well over 100lbs to lose, what's one pound a week? it'll be over 2 years at this rate before I'm to my goal; all my friends are getting married and having kids and I'm not even dateable because no man wants to give a second glance to someone who looks like me...talk like this is exhausting and not helpful, but I do it to myself all day. After talking down to myself for probably close to 20 years, it's a terrible habit to break.

My goal for this week isn't to eat X amount of calories or do X minutes of exercise...it's to stay positive. Small habits created one change at a time will amass to huge paradigm shifts...I can't just wake up one morning and expect myself to run 3 miles and eat everything "right" all day. Oh and my other goal is to pay attention to the blog more :D

Nasty Noodles

I had heard buzz floating around about these 0-point noodles (40 calories for the whole package of 2 servings) and actually found it in my podunk grocery store! I was so excited about these noodles, endorsed by Hungry Girl (has this site scared anyone else away with its navigational ineptitude?), and had such high hopes. They were dashed when I read the instructions:

That's right....Cook "to reduce the authentic aroma." Yeeeeah, it smelled like fish. Or old mushrooms. Or Bradford Pear trees when all their blossoms start festering and fermenting. That's EXACTLY what it smelled like. I couldn't get past the smell - I drained it, nuked it, nuked it some more, drained it, nuked it again with tomato sauce on it, poured parmesan cheese and salt on top.... I tried to eat it. I really did. The texture is that springy rubbery texture that so many of those tofu macrobiotic protein products have (which isn't so bad), but I was already too far gone from the smellage. Several days ago I made "meatball" subs with these meat-free meatballs, and their texture/taste is a little off, too. On the hoagie roll laden with cheese they weren't so bad, but nestled lovingly in fishy tofu noodles brought out the worst in the leftovers, so I just had to give up. Instead I nuked a staple, Lean Cuisine's Butternut Squash Ravioli. Good stuff.

First Post!

Yeah, the title is campy, but hey - it works. I need a place to vent, bitch, and brag about my steps toward weight loss that will actually make me accountable. I've been writing in a journal, but even I don't go back and read the entries later. I've got a private co-blog with a few friends from Weight Watchers but know that a few other friends are on this journey also, though they've chosen a different route. I subscribe to an insane amount of blogs on Google Reader (most of them are wedding planning blogs though I'm not engaged or even dating anyone) and read a fair few of "dieting" or "weight loss" blogs. So call me self-centered or not easily satisfied, but here I am making my own.

I've just finished Week 1 Day 2 of Robert Ullrey's Couch to 5K podcasts...it was harder than Wk1 Day1. Are my muscles still fatigued from two days ago? I went super slow and it super sucked, but I still did it. Because I'm having a hard time with Week 1 (i.e., walking faster than I "run"), I'm thinking about repeating Week 1 twice. I'm gonna go on the interwebs now and check some message boards to see if other people have done this or if I should just stick it out and move on to Week 2.

Here's what I've eaten today:
(I might get all crazy and start posting pictures of what I eat, a la Melissa's Journey)

• (Blogger's note - I woke up ridiculously embarrassingly late and can't eat for awhile after taking my Synthroid, so...yeah, I skipped breakfast and went straight on to lunch) Baked sweet potato with spray butter, cinnamon, and Splenda brown sugar - 3pts
• Bird's Eye corn/asparagus/baby carrot mix - 1pt
• Dole Perfect Harvest Salad - This is the illinest stuff EVER. Dole has all these awesome new bagged salad kits...check 'em out! - 4pts
  
• PB & honey sandwich + milk - 7pts
• Roasted potatoes - 3pts
• carrots - 1pt
• veggie relish stuff my mom makes (excellent) - 3pts
• beer x2 - 5.5pts
• dessert/nightcap - frappuccino + kahlua - 8pts