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| Unfortunate. But true. |
Trigger 1. The dreaded 'social life' and how to deal with it.
As my friends are hopelessly skinny bitches who are always game for sushi, bottles of dry white and glasses of draught such occasions cause me no end of anxiety. While some community-members are capable of exercising self-restraint in the food department - just ordering one plate of avocado maki and ceasing consumption - I am definitely NOT that girl! Which leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that I simply can't let one morsel pass my pale lips. Rigid? Yes. Slightly awkward-making? Absolutely. But doable? Certainly. For me, if I have one chip: Must. Suddenly. Consume. Entire. Bag... and then hunt down and devour all snacks, foods and pets in my path to the fridge. So it's that simple: "No, thank you" are words to use and use often. Before entering the restaurant or home of temptation; repeat "nothing is worth breaking my resolve", dwell on the image of Kate Moss, and proceed with an empty stomach and head held high.
[Afterthought. Yes, I could turn to my 2011 strategy of avoiding all social events. But being a recluse never benefited anyone. Also sometimes one likes to pretend one is not fuckingcrazy and also maintain the part-reality-part-fantasy of Idonothaveaproblem. Also; if I feel as though my will-power cannot and will not sustain me and I will instead dive face-first into a tub of lard at the soonest oppurtunity, well then FUCK Idonothaveaproblem. I'm stayin' at home with my fuckingcrazy self and a bottle of water!]
But - of course there's a 'but' - alcohol and I go together like Dolce and Gabbana and not only is it almost impossible to avoid but, ultimately, does one want to avoid something that transforms me into the wanton harlot we have all come to love and/or occasionally fear and regret. No. Why would it?
Alcohol is itself horridiously fattening; containing 7 calories per gram (barely beaten by the obviously titled 'fats' at 9 calories per gram). But this is only a preliminary problem. Yes; it gets worse.
Firstly; when I take in that luscious beverage - even if it's a thin for the win choice such as a spirit with a kilojouleless mix - it goes straight to my liver which then hurriedly pushes pause on its kilojoule-processing duties so that it can wrestle the alcohol into submission (by converting it from acetaldehyde into acetate). So I'm taking in morrrrre kilojoules while preventing my body from chomping them and other stored or consumed calories. Balls.
Secondly; alcohol - the little fucker - causes me to eat. Not only do I shed self-control like... I'm sorry control what? Leading to eating at said event. On top of this it also spikes my insulin levels (no, I'm not diabetic, this happens to all of us) which causes cravings for, wait for it, salty and fatty food. Christ. Hangover binge. Ergh.
Thirdly; do ya'know where the fat from alcohol (triglycerides) goes? Belly. That's where. Nothing like a paunch to make you feel sexy.
So, having established that a simple yet burdensome 'just say no' approach be applied to food with a 'but I simply can't say no' attitude to alcohol, how can I proceed. Choose alcohol wisely for a start. Observe:
Now it's pretty clear isn't it? I *heart* whiskey. Not only can it make you seem classy, lord knows why since it's the colour of piss, but it's high in alcohol content (43% gets the job done), cost effective (a cheap bottle is the price of a semi-decent bottle of wine but, since one generally uses a shot at a time, it goes a long way) and, mixed with water, a relatively low-cal drink is created. So you can be drunk, moneyed, superior and hydrated all at the same time! Now of course 55 calories is no joke. If you're trying for under 500 cals a day - which I like to when at optimal restriction - this can really screw you. But I like to rationalise it by saying that I'll burn it off dancing. Or, goddamnit, I'll just embrace the fuckingcrazy and ignore alcohol calories entirely. Wow. Now I feel empowered... and sober. [Note: I stopped drinking, due to the depressive effect of alcohol and my diagnosis of - uh - depression, in June 2012.]
Thus coping mechanisms - weak as they may be - established I can deal with...
I know myself. There are three reasons why I crave; tiredness, overconfidence or underconfidence. Now when I say crave I don't mean 'feel hungry'. I mean the feeling I get which is akin to addiction (I use smoking as my external reference point here) in which thoughts of food grip my mind as though an owl is roosting on my head and digging its talons into my brain: I'm transfixed. The clock ticks too loudly. Food. Food. Eat. Must. The kind of addiction that comes from having a messed up relationship with something as trivial as food. Yip. Sad. Silly. But that's why I'm here.
Firstly: Tiredness. Apparently tiredness naturally makes us crave carbohydrates. Maybe for that sleep inducing effect or because we humans foolishly think that the pleasure of food will distract us from our exhaustion? Regardless; I'm definitely a victim of this. having identified this problem it should be pretty easy to counter. Take a nap. Duh. Or don't eat because I know the cause and hence I know food won't fix it. Or get a good 8 hours to begin with. Psshhht obvious! [Note: Sadly I developed terrible insomnia in 2012. Therefore; problems.]
Secondly: Underconfidence - usually induced by a dietary loss of control and/or the lack of weightloss - is a tricky matter to deal with. But I have deviously devised a new strategy. My daily (once a day when not in a panic, up to about seven times a day when in full panic) weigh-in is the problem: highly motivating when I'm loosing, the opposite when I've gained or when weightloss plateaus. The deviousness is this: take scale, place scale on carpet in room thus rendering reading inaccurate. Why would that be a good thing? I'm so glad you asked. Because I can look for a decrease in number without fixating on how high that number is. It's the loss not the number that is relevant (because the number is not my actual weight!) Hah! This may be genius (if it works) or a really dumb plan. But at least I have a plan. [Note: Unsurprisingly this was a dumb plan. I also found that by July 2012, after a few months spent on anti-depressants, my body image changed and 'the number' mattered less. This change was not, however, positive. I merely feel that the number is now a 'lie', as I feel and 'look' gargantuan, and that I should focus on maintaining a consistent restrictive diet instead.]
Third and lastly: Overconfidence is the most ridiculous trigger! So stupid! It comes after I've been on a loosing streak and I suddenly think 'Hah! I can eat that!'. Which of course fails to take into account the fact that it should read 'Hah! I can eat that... piece of shit food that I don't need, which is totally outside my routine and which will make me crave more of its kind and which, because my diet is so limited, will make me gain like awholekilogram overnight... if I don't mind being a hideousfatperson for the rest of my life!'. So hopefully if I'm aware of this particular brand of idiocy I can avoid it. How? By only celebrating when I reach my UGW. Until then it's all slog and no happiness or self-congratulatory smugness. I just need to remember that just because I've lost a some grams doesn't mean I'm not a hideousfatperson and, unless my BMI is under 18, there really is nothing, and I mean nothing, to crow about.
"I eatta da sugar. I CRAVE more of da sugah. I eatta da chocalate. Must OHM-NOM-NOM more of da chocolate. I eatta da carbohydrate. GAAAAAAHH COOKIESCOOKIESCOOKIES." I am ridiculous. it's like a rollercoaster... that ends in a splash-pool of lard. Thus increased awareness of my stupidity coupled with some serious attitude-adjustment-type coping mechanisms should help me fight these three bitches off.
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| Yeah you did! Hottie. |
More coping mechanisms
1. Structure. Breakfast before 8am. Lunch at 1pm. Supper at 7pm. With as little deviation as possible.
2. Veganism. Look - it's not that I don't care about the animals or the environment - I do. But for the purposes of this blog and this diet I will acknowledge that any reasoning of that kind is essentially a public relations campaign to conceal the rigidity of my diet. Case study: 'No thank you, I'm trying to be as vegan as possible these days' as opposed to 'No thank you, I'm trying to be as anorexic as possible these days'. Mmm-hmmm. [Note: July 2012. After nearly six months of really life-ruining bulimia I finally seem to be getting-a-little-better on this front. This has led to me not wanting to eat many of my binge foods. These often included heaps of dairy products (like cheese, butter, milk, ice-cream). Now I rarely want to eat these foods because of their association with purging. As in: I see cheese. I don't think "mmmm, cheeeeese". I think of what said cheese will look like after I've vomited it back up. Not surprising that I'm off the diary. Which is not to say that I think veganism is only a milk thing. Eggs, gelatine etc. I'm sorry animals! I'm trying!]
3. The Triad. The Big Three. The Fallback. The Usual. When in doubt. No matter what. Smoke one times cigarrette, followed by drinking a fuckload of water whilst looking through some thinspo. Water. Smoking. Thinspiration. Wait out the hunger. [Why have I become so immune to thinspo? It's so sad.]
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| That's what she said. |
An Ideal Day [obviously life goes on inbetween but I don't care about that here.]
Up at 6am.
Consume 1/8th of a cup of muesli with water.
Drink a cup of black coffee while I down my vitamins and have a cigarrette.
Water-up until lunch.
Consume 2 rice cakes with cucumber and tomato.
More water and cigarrettes until supper.
Supper of small salad of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, soy protein.
Yes. Correct. It's damn boring. But also incredibly easy to stick to and relatively healthy.
Vaguely permissable additions.
Gum. Coke zero. Herbal tea. Pickles. Celery.
To be avoided at all costs.
This list could go on forever so I'm just including things that are in my house that I'm at actual risk of eating (not meat or pasta for instance)... obviously fast food and all the usual external bullshit goes without saying.
Fatty stuff: Butter. Mayonnaise. Peanut butter. Eggs. Nuts.
Dairy: Yoghurt. Milk. Ice Cream. Cheese of any kind.
Carby stuff: Bread. Oats. Potatoes in any form.
Sugary stuff: Fruit juice. Fruit. Nesquik. Chocolate. [I realise fruit is a 'good option' buuuut it just makes me crave sugar so it's out.]
Externally my indulgences would have to be: Sushi. Frozen Yoghurt. Pesto. Hummus.
So gonna have to try avoid those too... despite them luring me in with their 'healthy alternative' associations.
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| Thanks KM. Words to live by. |
