Holding myself accountable

[porkkchop]

Binged two days ago and yesterday too, using stress as my excuse even though I know it’s not a good one. Can’t even remember exactly what I ate. Didn’t get to that so full I’m in pain point, and none of the food was that enjoyable after a certain point either. I think I’m just comforted by the habit. 

 

Today was better. Probably only because I’m still full from yesterday. And as I’m writing this I’m thinking about sneaking food before I get to my boyfriends place. Bad. I know that I’ll feel guilty the whole time I’m with him if I do. 

 

I’m struggling, and I guess I’m still writing as a little proof to myself that I’m not giving up yet. If I did I really wouldn’t admit any of this. Don’t know how much lower I can really go, which is good news. 

[porkkchop]

Spent most of the day in break down mode. A big bit of that was because of my eating as well as some other life events, the fact that I really don’t like myself. 

 

Understanding that I have a lot of stuff to work through and I’m seeing that will need to work through that if I want to fix my eating, given I use food as such an emotional crutch. 

 

Basically had to ‘confess’ to my boyfriend my bad eating and purging attempt which brought up a lot of stuff because he’s been with me a lot and put a lot of time into working with me and trying to help me love myself. Gotten to a point where I’m not sure how much I’m willing to give up for food because it is undoubtedly having an effect on my relationships. 

 

Didnt overeat though, 15 min jog, better than nothing. 

[aramis]

On 6/7/2019 at 10:59 AM, porkkchop said:

I’m struggling, and I guess I’m still writing as a little proof to myself that I’m not giving up yet

 

9 hours ago, porkkchop said:

Understanding that I have a lot of stuff to work through [etc]

 

9 hours ago, porkkchop said:

had to ‘confess’ to my boyfriend my bad eating

 

All of this doesn't sound good, but for me, there is hope for better behind those sentences. 

9 hours ago, porkkchop said:

Didnt overeat though, 15 min jog,

And this is a gem. 

 

Just do your best for a good day, everyday. 

[porkkchop]

8 hours ago, aramis said:

Just do your best for a good day, everyday. 

Thank you. That’s the goal at the moment, just pushing with a goal of positive, positive, positive. 

[porkkchop]

Had a couple of days to re-evaluate a lot of things, including both mental and physical health. Going over calories almost every day but not binging. Making the effort to exercise more and working on feeling good and healthy for a little while before I refocus on my body 

[porkkchop]

Spent the last week or so in an average emotional state. And when I say average if I’m honest, pretty bad. Working on positivity and putting a lot of life matters on hold, my health and fitness being a big part of the self esteem issue. Staying within calories and exercising a lot more. Things are feeling like they’re on the upward path and I’ve had a couple good days in a row. 

 

Making the commitment to post more regularly getting back on it with my accountability. Days not over but calories will be roughly 2200, with 105 mins treadmill walking (doing work on my phone because I don’t have unlimited hours in the day), 30 min jog and 2 hr cheerleading training. More than comfortable going over calories today. 

[porkkchop]

Around 2000 cal yesterday, maybe a little over but nothing crazy. 60 min boxing class. 72kg. That’s still a little frustrating given I was under 60kg 4 months ago. Exercising a lot more and that’s helping me feel good while I’m keeping calories a little higher. Just got to be patient 

[aramis]

On 6/19/2019 at 10:58 AM, porkkchop said:

I’ve had a couple good days in a row

 

On 6/19/2019 at 10:58 AM, porkkchop said:

getting back on it with my accountability

 

4 hours ago, porkkchop said:

that’s helping me feel good

 

4 hours ago, porkkchop said:

Just got to be patient 

 

So happy to hear you are better. Great job on keeping your limits, and exercising/moving a lot

No significant change is instantaneous, but with goal in mind and accountability, the changes will come. And with proper mindset, you can keep them forever  

 

Cheers!

[aramis]

Hey, just dropping by to check on you. How's life? You seem rather silent lately. 

[porkkchop]

Been away for a little while dealing with some self destructive behaviours. 

 

Ultimately I’m aware that not being track with my weight loss has been a huge cause for a lot of the stress in my life amongst other things. I’ve gone over a couple of days here and there which hasn’t been great but I’m making a consistent effort to exercise around 60 mins a day because I know that keep me feeling better. 

 

Yesterday was a bad eating day, 2500cal but I did hold out on the urge to do a ‘crazy’ binge, the 4000+ cal type. This doesn’t happen often (when I’m able to stop myself) so I’m proud of that, evens if it’s minor. Given I didn’t eat from about 2pm onwards this morning I woke up around 3am and when I’m groggy my self control goes out the window. 

 

Wasted 400 cals and today was a bit of a back and forth with me telling myself that I shouldn’t give into old habits of black and white thinking. Used to saying fuck it and going mental on food but I’m tracking in at 1850 today after dinner, and I guess it’s proving to myself that I’m back on track. 

 

I think some part of me doubts every time I tell myself I’m on track given how much I’ve acted against my own word when it comes to food. 

 

I’ve also been fasting for the full day every Saturday with the exception of black coffee, tea, sugar free soft drink and stock. Things have been very up and down and I think almost 4 months now of digging my own pit of despair it’s about time I pulled myself out of it. 

 

Seeing a new psyc, even a fucking hypnotherapist for gods sake to deal with my self talk and relationship with food. So the rest is up to me. 

 

Last weigh in was 70.9 and the lowest I’ve been in the last week I’d 70.2kg. I’ve been as high as 73.5 in the last fortnight. It makes me a bit ill when I think about the fact that I’ve undone about 12 months and 13kg of work in about 3-4 months. But I’m learning a lot. 

 

I keep reminding myself that I can stay on track now, or feel even worse when I haven’t made progress by next month. 

 

This is is a littLe all over the place trying to give a recap of what I’ve been up to, but this is me, however delayed still holding myself accountable. 

[porkkchop]

On 7/9/2019 at 1:01 AM, aramis said:

Hey, just dropping by to check on you. How's life? You seem rather silent lately. 

Hey! 

 

I kind of took a break while I sorted out my life: work, family, relationships, mental health, all that fun stuff. Only got to a point recently where I’m admitting a lot of my shit is self inflicted even if I don’t realise I’m doing it. I guess I’m big on the accountability thing. 

 

I know there’ll always be excuses but I guess I keep coming back, because I’m going to have to fix all my weight along and health related things eventually, that is, along with improving other aspects of my life. But thanks for checking in and I’m excited to take a little step each day for the long journey ahead! 

 

I’ve definitely got a bit to catch up on and when I’ve got a little time it’d be cool to check up on how you’ve been going! 

[aramis]

Hey! 

Good to see you again  

 

With all this recap, I see you are doing helluva work to get back on your feet - and looks like you are doing great  

 

Keep it up, I'm crossing my fingers for you   

[porkkchop]

2000 cals today,  over my 1800 goal but I was starving from around 8pm onwards so it’s a lot better than the thousands of calories I was fantasising about consuming in my head. 

 

Finally dropped back to the 70.0kg today after hovering over 70 for a while. It’s a small victory but I can’t help but keep kicking myself that I could have bloody stayed at 60kg the last 4 months and it would’ve been a non-issue. But the damage is done and I need to stop dwelling and get on with it. 

 

Struggled to move my ass today. Earlier I thought about just going to the gym tomorrow but my boyfriend dragged me there and I did some HIIT intervals on the treadmill to get the heart rate up for half an hour. He just sat and worked on his laptop but it was all I really needed. 

 

He made a good point that the fact that I try and work myself to death every time I go to the gym might be building up some hesitation to actually go in the first place. So I might give myself a break when I’m not feeling it and go all out when I actually want to. 

 

Ultimately a positive step forward today. 

[aramis]

24 minutes ago, porkkchop said:

It’s a small victory

WOO HOO! Every step forward counts!

 

24 minutes ago, porkkchop said:

the damage is done and I need to stop dwelling and get on with it

Yup, look forward, not behind. All you can do with past is to learn from it, and use this to change future for better. 

 

27 minutes ago, porkkchop said:

He just sat and worked on his laptop but it was all I really needed

No matter he worked on his laptop. He was there for you. That counts. 

 

And his point seems very reasonable - if you push yourself too hard, you'll discourage yourself in no time. Smaller steps will lead you farther. 

30 minutes ago, porkkchop said:

Ultimately a positive step forward today.

So happy to hear that

 

[porkkchop]

Yesterday was my fast day. I woke up feeling a little unwell and grumpy at the thought of no food, so I gave myself permission to eat something if I really felt like it. Dinner I was in a rubbish mood so I had around 600 cal. 

 

No formal exercise but did a bit of walking with 17, 000 steps. 

 

This has lead me into thinking about the 5:2 diet. Given all the reading I’ve done about occasional fasting windows as a lifestyle. 

 

Today I realised part of reason I freak out about my weight having gone up, and why I worry about how long it’s taken for me to loose weight, is because I’m afraid of getting old. I have this sense that I’m running out of time to be slim ‘now’ in my physical prime while I’m young. I have this irrational notion that the time I’ve been chubby I’m wasting potential. 

 

I know thats a stupid fear. And in reality this time that I’ve been on my weight loss and fitness journey I’ve learnt a lot. It’s crazy when I think about giving up, because I get caught up in all the frustration. Because if I really take a second sweet and fatty delicious food isn’t worth feeling comfortable in my body, it’s just very easy to fall into the trap of emotional reasoning.

 

Getting on track has definitely been a very slow process and I’ve realised that I’m far more lenient than I used to be. I was super strict with calories to the exact number before. As a result my weight has been incredibly up and down, and haven’t been seeing a slow and consistent decline. So right now I’m trying to find the balance between staying on track and having reasonable expectations and leniencies for my psychological health. 

 

It’s all a valuable learning experience. 

[aramis]

Insight time 

[porkkchop]

On 7/21/2019 at 3:02 PM, aramis said:

Insight time 

Yeh it’s pretty crazy to think about what I don’t realise what’s driving emotions and thoughts sometimes until I take a step back and actually think on it. 

[porkkchop]

2000 cal today, kind of starving and thinking about eating more, weighing up the pros and cons because I want to have a ‘healthy’ relationship with food where I know how to limit myself but I also listen to hunger. I just can’t tell whether it’d emotional or genuine hunger a lot which makes things a little harder.

 

Actually ate dinner mindfully, which I almost never do. I know it’s probably an important step to me being better with my hunger, and binge eating. I just like being busy so sitting and focusing on my food can be torturous. I’m sure it’ll become easier with practice, and it’s definitely  something I need to do more of. 

 

Started a new weight based workout routine too, wanting to make sure I’m still building strength for performance based stuff while I loose weight slowly. (Sourced from my workout routine.com - recommended to me) 

 

Its personally a lot more fun and what I need to keep trying to do, make working out something I look forward to. 

 

UPDATE: ate another 700 cal. Mainly in the form of skim milk and hot chocolate powder. Definitely not the best choice. I think I’m the future I need more calories available in the evening because that’s when I’m hungry. 

[aramis]

19 hours ago, porkkchop said:

I just can’t tell whether it’d emotional or genuine hunger

To know if you are really hungry find some food you don't like and decide if you gonna eat this or not as your first thing to eat. If you gonna eat this - it's hunger, otherwise it's just gluttony. 

 

19 hours ago, porkkchop said:

 in the evening because that’s when I’m hungry. 

Take the test above - maybe you are just bored or acting out of habit of evening snack. If you are really hungry in the evening, just plan your meals for this - consume less during the day to leave some place for this late meal. 

 

Mindful eating is good, but lots of people can't really tell hunger from cravings. Or just can't focus enough on the sole process of eating. 

[porkkchop]

I don’t know how many calories I ate today. Was on track but in the evening I was having binging urges. I did a back and forth between about 3 different supermarkets on a trip home. 

 

Basically made the decision to get what I wanted but I had to do it mindfully. No distractions and I had to slow down. I’m used to wolfing down food anyway and binging feels like a frenzy. 

 

Id just chosen supermarket bakery items (4 slices of carrot cake), stuff I genuinely like and ready to eat curry with rice. 

 

The process was actually really frustrating, as every part of me wanted to switch off and pretty much inhale the food. I deliberately chose a sweet that would go down very easy. And I definitely was far more aware of the food become less and less enjoyable. Whereas when I deliberately switch off I could go well beyond the excess cake. Not something I’d deliberately do again but at least I gave myself the experience of binging ‘mindfully’. And I did say it didn’t have the same: ‘going crazy’ feeling. Which was a little bit of a relief. 

 

I decided to forego calories for the little experiment today. And I think I do need to incorporate mindful eating in more and more, with all my eating practices, even if it’s a bit of a chore sometimes. 

 

2 hours of cheer training and 40min strength training. 

 

Scatterbrained thoughts today. Just wanted to get some words out before bed 

[porkkchop]

On 7/23/2019 at 4:29 PM, aramis said:

To know if you are really hungry find some food you don't like and decide if you gonna eat this or not as your first thing to eat. If you gonna eat this - it's hunger, otherwise it's just gluttony. 

 

Take the test above - maybe you are just bored or acting out of habit of evening snack. If you are really hungry in the evening, just plan your meals for this - consume less during the day to leave some place for this late meal. 

 

Mindful eating is good, but lots of people can't really tell hunger from cravings. Or just can't focus enough on the sole process of eating. 

Definitely all really good advice, particularly with the test. It’s one I’ve heard but never tend to implement, and something I’m going to start to add to my ‘mental defence system’. Thanks for that! 

[porkkchop]

Had a bit of a meltdown about my weight today. Not like that’s new. Not feeling good, and I’m hideously impatient. 

 

Sometimes I worry about how much I let my weight dictate how I feel. Needless to say at the moment it’s not good.  

 

The fact that I’m less attractive to my boyfriend weighs on me a lot. Sometimes I think about it too much and I start to get panicked. Particularly because it’s not something I can change quickly. And then I’m not feeling good within myself which isn’t helping. 

 

I’ve got a new eating plan that’s a little more extreme in the calories deficit while I get to somewhere where I’m comfortable. Then I’ll go back to a more slow and steady method. 

 

Part of this scares me, because extreme habits don’t have a history of ending well for me. And I’m aware of that. If there’s ever a point where I don’t feel like it’s manageable I’ll raise calories again. 

 

I just know I can’t wait around at this weight. 

 

1600 cal today and the only exercise was walking up and down the single flight of stairs in my apartment for an hour or so. Right now it’s hard to focus on the positive things, and I think I make it worse by beating myself up for being self critical. Hah the irony. 

 

[porkkchop]

I’ve had a mixed week or so. Was on track, weight was going down and I was pretty excited about things. Had a bad day, and then another. I feel like I’m stuck in this cycle where I’m struggling a lot to stay on track. 

 

I know I have a lot to loose if I don’t get back on track in a consistent way but it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m having all these questions about whether I want this enough to actually put in the hard work or if I’ll keep making excuses. I guess I’m just unsettled and confused. 

 

Im having these thoughts that it would be easier if I just gave up with the weight loss thing. I’m getting really tired with the hope and the disappointment and the shame and the guilt. It sounds awful but if I just gave up and became resigned to being unhappy with myself I feel like it’d be more manageable than the up and down. 

 

I know now this is the mentality that’s made me fat. And keeping on playing out this sob story is really pathetic. Can feel myself spiralling with negativity at the moment. Need to turn it around. Need to be more consistent with posting, it’ll probably help work through things in my head. 

[porkkchop]

After three terrible eating days and +4-5kg in scale weight (I know it’s mostly food / water but there’ll be fat gain too) I’m doing the thing where I say I’m starting fresh. I’m recognising that this won’t be some spectacular 180 there’ll be bumps and hiccups and I’ll take it day by day, but after  wallowing in a bit of doubt and hopelessness for the last couple days I’m reaffirming that I’m still committed. 

 

Woke up early to hit the gym this morning, low cal low carb breakfast. I’m going to opt for lower carb options whenever I can because I get crazy hungry when I do have any sort of sugars. 

 

If I’m honest I’ve probably trained myself the last 4 or so months to eat whenever I get cravings, and always eventually give in. Undoing that will probably take a month or so of consistency to build new habits. It will suck so I’m making the effort to streamline choices as much as possible for minimal effort and thinking. I’m going to work really hard on being nice to myself to make this as easy as possible. 

 

 

[porkkchop]

1600 cal and an hour of exercise today. Pretty standard. I feel like my weight is bringing about lots of relationship issues. 

 

My boyfriend and I don’t have sex nearly as often anymore since I gained weight. That was probably in part due to my self esteem but he’s also not really attracted to me anymore. 

 

He’s very supportive of my weight loss, and incredibly empathetic, it’s just a little hard sometimes because it gets me a bit down and I know I struggle to eat well when I’m sad. 

 

Regardless today was a good day given I’m on track.