Ana-help!

This is a post that is a slight modification of what I sent my awesome of awesomest buddies Ruki. I thought it summed up how I'm feeling right now and so I thought you guys might want to read it. Just goes to show that everyone has bad times. I try to stay motivated but I think I'm allowed an off day.

I can't wait to weigh myself, I'm so nervous about how much I might weigh!

I haven't seem the handsome Mr D this week. I really miss him! I feel real sad that I can't see him anymore. this is bad because history would suggest that when I get like this, I tend to start emotionally eating. I'm already scared because this is the first time I've eaten so much since I started losing weight. Today I had 600cal which isn't much but in terms of volume it's quite a lot (or maybe my stomach is smaller) so I feel like I'm pigging out.

It's not a good week. I'm like, feeling so bad because I miss Mr D (and I also know that just because he was so special to me doesn't mean he'll remember who I am at all), I also feel bad because I know he won't remember me and it sucks because he kinda had an impact on my life. I'm sick and congested and I feel like crap health wise. I've doubled my calorie intake to 600cal and I don't think I'm losing weight at all.

I know I'm making progress but it's hard because I just don't feel like I'm close to what I want to be and it's frustrating because although I'm usually quite positive about it, today is one of those where it doesn't feel like I'll ever be that thin.

I look at my thinspo pics and I'm like, I don't think I'll ever look like that because I feel so fat right now.

Also, my eating habits, or rather my lack of them have attracted the attention of a few people. The other people in my training rotation group keep mentioning it. Well, I guess it's hard for them to ignore since we quite often have lunch together.

Right now we're all just joking about it but the thing is, even though it's all laughs I can already feel the undercurrent that they will step in if they ever feel like I'm not eating enough. That sucks. If that threat becomes more real then I'm going to have to start avoiding them somehow.

I dunno. But I'll do what it takes. I can't wait to reach my goal weight.

ribs X4

Now this may not be the biggest achievement to anybody reading this. In fact, most of you are probably thinner than this already. But today, when I was about to get into the shower, I was naked and I stretched upwards, you know, as you do at the end of a long day, and I caught sight of myself in the shower and I could very clearly see 4 ribs as I stretch. And that's without sucking my tummy in!

I've not seen my ribs for years and I've never been thin enough to see 4 ribs on each side so I'm pretty stoked! But of course, when I relax and stop stretching, that all disappears but I have to say that it's better than I've been in a long time.

I'm not saying that I'm thin, I'm far from it, but this is progress! I love the look of my ribs when I stretch. I want to look like that without having to stretch. I also want my hip bones to stick out a bit. They totally aren't right now so I've a long way to go.

A few of my friends and colleagues are getting concerned about my eating habits. I don't really care unless they try to intervene in which case I will be very angry indeed!

not fair

Oh the unfairness of it all!!!!

Just when I'm on a roll, just when I'm doing so well, I get sick! I hate this! My throat is so sore and I'm congested and I've got a headache. Sorry, I'm not painting a great picture here am I.

Bottom line, I feel like a pile of crap right now. I don't know how much weight I'm going to lose this week because I think number one goal is to get through the day without passing out. I might have to go buy some barley sugars after work today.

I'll let you guys know how this week goes but I won't be surprised if it ends up being a no weight loss at all.

one step at a time, one hope then another

I'm starting to think that my scales at home might not be the most accurate but anyway, they're what I've always weighed myself with so I guess they are good for tracking the amount of weight that I've lost.

So as of last night I am at 54.5kg!!! Yay! I've cracked the 55kg mark! It's amazing because I've not been this small for years.

I also think that even though I weight what I used to, I'm somehow a smaller size than I was when I was last this weight. How is that even possible? It's weird! But I only think that because I was trying on this top that I've not worn for many years now. It's quite stiff and I could never get it to button up, I don't even think I could button it up when I bought it. I've always worn it under stuff because it has nice sleeves.

But today! I could button it up for once and while it is still a little bit tight and so not the most comfortable of tops, I can wear it! It's an amazing feeling.

And also, my old favourite raspberry coloured blouse. I've not fit into it for literally 4 years. And now, I can! It just goes to show that 1. I put on a lot of weight in 4 years. 2. I never really appreciated my size 4 years ago.

Because, I mean, the size I am now feels so skinny compared to what I was before. I'm not deluded enough to think I'm not still fat, because I am still very fat and nowhere near as thin as I'd like to be, but in comparison, this is a huge improvement.

I'm feeling like I'm making leaps and bounds even though I'm so far from my goal weight, this is still very encouraging.

I've bought some 3/4 track pants today. It's the first time in my life that I've been able to wear them and not look like a complete and utter hippo. I still look a bit like a hippo, but not the biggest of hippos so there is progress!!!

Mr D is great motivation. Even though I won't see him again, the thought of him seeing me as a fat pig is plenty enough motivation to eat less.

So I will go forth with another week of 300cal a day meals and hopefully I shall continue to drop weight. I can't wait for my next goal weight of 49kg.

ANA LOVE!!!!

Today my clothes feel a bit loose. YAYAH!!!!!!! WOOOOO!!!!!

Obviously it's not my goal weight. But it's the biggest difference I've noticed in a long time. And when I sit down, there is still a big layer of fat but it doesn't podge out as much as it used to. I'm definitely feeling thinner.

My pants are sitting there they are supposed to instead of clinging to my thighs. My tops are doing the same. I'm fitting clothes that I haven't been able to wear for a long time.

I'm so happy!

Go Ana! I'm loving it. The whole 500cal a day thing worked so well. And the 300cal a day thing is working great. I couldn't be happier. And this is all without exercise. In 3 weeks time I will be on holiday and at home where I can start to exercise more, I hope I start melting off the pounds then. I hope I melt some more weight before then too!

If I can keep this up I will be at my goal weight in 17-18 weeks. Well, I've actually overshot there, I'm aiming to get down to 37kg and then I know I will be a rebound weight gain so I'm hoping to end up at 40kg.

I'm starting to really believe that I can actually do it!

you know you're in love when...

I feel that I must start off with a small disclaimer. I am not in love with a person. So I sincerely hope nobody was hoping to read about me falling in love with a boy.

I think the word "love" is bandied about like crazy these days. Everyone uses it and it's sort of lost it's meaning for me. I mean, I use it liberally. Maybe 10 times a day. And I just thought, if I use it that often, then when do I know when I actually mean it?

Anyway, that was a lame intro into what I really wanted to tell you about, and that was my day at work. See, to me, I know I love something if I lose sleep and appetite over it, if I'm spending more than half my day at it, if it exhausts me beyond what words can express, if it takes away my social life, if it places me in bad situations...and if at the end of all that it still puts a smile on my face and leaves me wanting more, then I love it.

I think you all know where I'm going with this. I've just started my surgical rotation. I've spent the past 16 hours working, standing, I probably sat for half an hour out of those 16. And for 4 of those 16 I spent with my team working on a patient who will die in the near future. My feet are so sore I'm limping. I now have to study to face my boss tomorrow. I'm facing a 12hour day tomorrow, and that's if I'm lucky.

I'm so tired I'm actually too tired to sleep. But I'm so happy. I love my job. At the end of the day, I'm not happy unless I'm in theatre. I need to be operating. That's where I belong.

But a happy side effect of all this is that I'm too busy to eat. And I'm "exercising". If standing all day counts as exercise.

For the past 2 weeks I've been on a 500-600cal per day diet. It's worked as well as I had calculated. I'm losing 1kg per week. Still, this isn't quite as fast as I'd like (not that I'm complaining, it'd just be extra good if I could go faster) so I've started a 300cal a day diet. This combined with surgery should make me lose more weight. That's what I'm hoping anyway. We'll see when I weigh myself at the end of the week.

But for now, I shall go and study my beloved surgery, or, or, I'll go to sleep and get up early to study.

thinspo quotes

If any of you are anything like me then there are times when Ana's voice just isn't as loud as it usually is. For me it's normally when I'm faced with a hash brown. Here is a collection of my favourite Ana quotes that help to get me through. I like to conjure up my chorus of voices. You'll find that I like to use positive means as opposed to negativity just because I find that works better for me.

There are a few self harm ones thrown in there just because I feel there are a whole lot of good self harm quotes out there. Just like to say now that I didn't write most of these quotes (some are mine though) and most are ones I've read online somewhere.

You're not defeated when you lose, you're only defeated when you quit! (let's face it, we all have a few slip ups every now and then, but getting back on the right track is what means something)

Food is the drug we must all quit.

The difference between need and want is self control.

Everything I want to be, I am, just buried under a layer of fat.

Perfection is easy, it equals not being fat.

Desire can be quelled by a single act of will.

Quod me nutrit, me destruit. (latin for what nourishes me, destroys me)

CALORIES CAN'T MAKE YOU HAPPY!!!!!!

Sometimes you need to run away to see who will follow you.

It's hard to answer the question "what's wrong" when nothing is right.

You say I'm always happy, that I'm good at what I do. What you'll never realise is I'm a damn good actress too.

Tired of living and scared of dying.

I'm not there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.

Don't let food control you.

I had a hole in my heart so I threw away my plate, because nothing filled me up no matter what I ate.

And, one of my favourites ever ever ever...

Nothing tastes as good as feeling thin.

Remember my lovelies, think thin. I like to think of all the people who taunted me about my weight and laughed at me and said that no guy would ever want me. Then I imagine myself thin, and just picturing the looks of disbelief on their faces is good motivation for me to not eat.

Fasting is like one of the most powerful things you could ever do. It's not hard and soon the empty feeling becomes a feeling of power, not of pain. And you will learn that when you are hungry, you are in control, you are powerful and you are in charge of your destiny. And it's then that you believe you are not destined to always be fat, and then you understand that one day you will taste the sweet victory of being thin.

cold comfort

With cold weather headed my way I am well aware that I have never ever lost weight during winter. Ever.

But if I am to keep up my schedule, I have to push through the bulk of my weight loss during the winter months. I don't know if I can do it. I'm already feeling the tug of hot soup and winter stew.

I will have to rethink my entire diet if I am to go through winter and battle my cravings.

attachment disorder

You know you have a problem when you catch yourself doing things that you know you shouldn't. And the operative word there is "catch". Because I get so focussed and caught up in doing whatever that it takes me a while to notice I'm doing it. This is sometimes what happens when I binge eat. By the time I notice what I'm doing, I've already demolished a huge amount of food.

However, the problem at hand isn't binge eating (as you might have guessed from the title of this post). This blog has somehow turned into the place where I dump all my problems, food and otherwise and so I shall continue to utilise it as such. I hope that it entertains some of you, even if you think I'm a freak, all food matters will recommence by the next post, if not later in this one.

Onwards! The issue here is one that I've suspected for a long time. Some friends have diagnosed me with an attachment disorder based on the strange way in which I distribute my loyalty. I can hang out with someone for years and still at the core of me despise them but I will also meet someone for the first time and lavish all my attention and care and loyalty on them. Now even I know that's messed up but it's not totally unheard of, and to be honest, if it stopped there, I would say that it meant I was a gullible and simple person.

The attachment disorder diagnosis stems from the type of person that I tend to devote myself blindly to. [I should note here that there is absolutely nothing dodgy about this, there is no sexual undertone to what I am about to say.] They are always older men, older as in, my dad's age group. They have no children of their own. They are my superior (as in, my boss). They are notoriously tough. They notice my appearance and compliment me on my appearance.

The pattern is that without fail, the only exception to that would be darling TS who is all those things except he isn't tough, well, not to me anyway.

My personal theory is that they are filling a void that my dad can't fill. He will never approve of my career choice, he will never approve of my current life choices of not wanting to get married ASAP and have kids ASAP, he will never tell me I'm pretty. So I somehow find people who are around his age who encourage me to do what I want to and tell me I'm pretty.

I'm actually incredibly lucky to have these people (by the by, I am talking about TS, SPM and Prof CNM) because I'm sure that most people in my position don't ever come across such people and suffer all the more for it.

It's just little things, like, noticing what shoes I'm wearing and how they match my outfit, or noticing how well I applied my nail polish, insignificant details to some, but they mean the world to me because these people are picking up on things that I desperately do in an effort to make myself valuable.

Despite all my ranting, deep down, I feel so worthless that wearing a nice outfit and painting my nails are all I can do to try to make myself presentable to the world. People think I'm well composed and a stickler about my appearance but that's not true. It's because I'm so ugly that I claw away at the only things I can do to make myself prettier. Well, the only thing short of plastic surgery.

So when someone notices, it makes me feel a little less invisible. It's almost a small personal triumph, like, yes! it wasn't all in vain. And those 3 people are experts at noticing. They notice whatever it is that I've put the most effort into without fail every single time I see them. And when they look me up and down and give me a cheeky little grin like, going to see someone special? in that moment, for that one fleeting second I feel pretty.

I know I'm just another student to them. On some level I know that I'm another name in their head, swilling around millions of other names and the only time they drag my name out of the archives of their memory is when I'm standing right in front of them. But deep down, they hold the key to my self esteem and actually increase my self esteem (even if only for a moment) that I would throw myself in front of a bullet for them without hesitation.

It's not like they're particularly nice to me at all, in fact, they only treat me like they would treat any stranger, but I'm so used to being beaten down that when I'm treated like a human, I feel like they are being oh so very nice to me. And then I hope (even if I know that it is in vain) that to them, I am more than just another person, and I pretend that to them, I am someone special.

And I have to pretend that, because I can't go through life holding onto the fact that I am nothing special and that no one would notice if I fell off the earth tomorrow. I have to pretend that TS, SPM and Prof CNM would at least pause for a moment, and see that I am gone.

But this is starting to get out of hand. Today I caught myself frantically going through a mall, searching for a new top. I caught myself rejecting top after top because "he must think I am an angel!"

And I don't mean angelic being, I meant it in the sense "she's my little angel". And when I realised what I was doing I wanted to crawl under the clothing racks and cry because I've never been anyone's little angel and I will never be anyone's little angel but for some reason, for a crazy hour or so, I had gotten it into my head that Prof might consider me as such.

Pathetic right?

i need your discipline, i need your help

That space and time in between being awake and being asleep is a weird place to be isn't it? Last night I was dreaming in that half awake half asleep state. I was madly surfing the net, looking at all the stuff on the McDonald's menu and the burgerking menu, looking up their calories and trying to see if I could fit any of it in my 500cal a day limit (as it turns out, yes I can. I can have one small burger and that'll be me done for the day).

Then I started thinking of excuses that would let me have something to eat on top of my 500cal a day, then I started thinking of all the McDonalds and burgerkings in town and which route I would have to drive to work that would allow me to pass one and go through the drive through.

That's when I woke suddenly, thought I must have heard my alarm and so went to check the time. It was just past midnight, I had scared myself awake. It was really scary, the sheer desperation was really scary. If it wasn't midnight and had actually been time to wake up, I probably would've left early for work, detoured to McDonalds and grabbed food.

Luckily for me it wasn't but I couldn't sleep, I was full of energy to go out and seek food. I made myself stay in bed and just tossed and turned until I fell asleep.

I woke up about half an hour before my alarm. (My alarm goes off at 6am so waking at 5.30am kinda pissed me off.) And I woke up thinking about Prof CNM. My childless supervisor who was tough but supportive, supporting me in a way my real father isn't capable of doing, even if he wanted to.

One of only 2 men in this world who will tell me that I look pretty, that's he's proud of what I've done. And then I felt ashamed for all my food desperation in the middle of the night. My 10week time limit is so I can be thin when I'm working for Prof. How could I sabotage that myself?

So I've decided to skip my 100cal breakfast. And see if I can have a 400cal day. I'm only working half a day today so I'm going to try do some exercise this afternoon. So much of my day centres around wanting to be thin, the rest of my day revolves around trying to make Prof proud of me. And to do something to further both those goals is great. So I'm going to come home and do pilates or yoga and some ballet practice. All in all it'll burn maybe 400cal, so not much but better than nothing. I'm saving the high impact stuff for the weekend.

Stupid scales at work say I'm 59.7kg. I was so depressed, the ones I have at home say 57.5kg. But I've decided that I'm going to go by my home scales since I've gone by those all my life. And I'm just going to use the work ones to monitor weight loss over the 2 weeks that I'll be at that office.

So now I'm feeling a little less out of control and desperate. My plan comforts me. I will have a good day today!

a new day, a new start

Someone once said that the only people who fail in life are the ones who quit or never try.

On that note, I have started a new diet. After working out my BMR and that I want to lose 10kg in 10 weeks (actually 1kg a week sounds kinda easy doesn't it?) I've worked out that I can eat 600cal a day and lose the 10kg and lose the weight without any other effort.

So I've aimed for 500cal a day to give myself a 100cal overdraught in case I need it. Today is day 1 and I'm learning a few things already.

The first is that 500cal is actually a decent amount of food. I've had a tiny apple, a can of sugar free V, a bowl of noodles, a sausage, a cup of miso soup, and half a cup of vegetables. And if I hadn't caved and had the 280cal noodles, I could've had a bit of muesli and some rice of those vegetables. So in terms of amount, it's heaps.

The second thing I've learnt is that fasting is much easier than eating a small amount. I mean, I'm full, not hungry at all, but eating that much has made me greedy for more. I could've saved 15cal on the miso soup but I'm really craving food and I could eat the rest of the vegetables which would be about 100cal so I think the 15cal is a good trade off.

Third is that I tend to eat everything in one big go, at dinner. I'm going to try spread out my food over tomorrow and see if that makes any difference. I so better be losing weight because of this. I'm going to kick my compulsive overeating habit this time.

I'm going to have a busier day tomorrow so hopefully that will distract me from the difficulties of fighting cravings.

I have to be 49kg in 10 weeks. I just have to. That's when I work for 4 weeks under Prof CNM. It's very important that I'm at the first goal weight by then. I've set myself a deadline, and I will make it. That's about 8.5kg that I need to lose by then. It will also be the lightest I've ever been. But considering my goal weight is 90lbs, which is just under 41kg.

I have a feeling that 49kg to 41kg is going to be very difficult, or at least much harder than 57.5-49kg. But like I've always said, one step at a time (one hope then another). But 49kg is what I will weight when I work for Prof CNM. Also, more importantly, I want him and other people to notice that I've lost weight. I've gone from 65kg to 57.5kg and nobody has noticed :(

But I'm sure someone will notice a 65kg-49kg weight loss. Or so I hope. I want people to think I'm thin.