On 8/1/10 I weighed about 170 and I wrote about how I felt in an awkward middle zone with respect to my weight - how ten pounds heavier, I felt comfortable in the fat-girl niche, and I expected it would take ten pounds lighter to get comfortable from the thin side. I think I was exactly right about that. It was about 160 when I started to feel like I was getting a nice shape and looking normal.
Now, I've been in an interesting headspace. I find all sorts of things to like and congratulate myself on with my body, on the one hand. I'm wearing size 6 jeans for one thing, and I can feel my hips and ribs when I lie back and see my clavicle. On the other hand, I feel like the fat that's there is more obvious, and the skin is looser, and I'd really like it to go away faster. I feel like I can look at my body and take it in, accept it fully without any mental blocking-out, but also be impatient to continue changing it.
I'm still about 5 pounds "overweight", but I feel like I'm now thin enough for worrying about my weight to be a luxury.
Today was a break-even day. I didn't go anywhere or do anything really, so I counted my activity as sedentary except for my little yoga break. My gooey peanut butter and Nutella sandwich pretty much screwed my calorie count by noon, BUT I finished the stuff thereby removing it from the house and instead of letting it turn into a 2500 cal junkfest like I have a couple days recently, I ate a "second lunch" to fix my blood sugar and had a small dinner with lots of veggies and no grains. I typed in the number 1830 and remembered how that was a typical number that came up a lot of times at the beginning of this effort. When I weighed 180, 1830 was an effective restriction. Now, at 155, it's maintenance for a lazy day. At my usual level of activity, I wondered, what weight would it maintain? By trial an error in my spreadsheet, about 125. That's not bad at all. By more experimentation, I get that if I exercise for 200 calories a day and eat 2000 a day, plus usual activity, my maintenance weight is about 120. That would be absolutely reasonable and easy.
I've got to get off my drugs though. I'm fairly good at resisting munchies, but sometimes they come through - I don't eat at a time when I wouldn't have anyway, but I eat, say, a PB & Nutella sandwich instead of a veggie scramble on toast (my original plan, but I guess I abandoned it because there weren't any good scramble vegetables). And even though I don't eat extra in between meals, I'm having to spend energy distracting myself from the thought of food. I keep forgetting to drink water lately too. I say munchies are 55% increased thirst, 35% increased appetite, and 10% increased hunger. Pot doesn't really make me hungry, just... bingey, I guess. But the other thing is, if I've been smoking too much and I have a bit of a tolerance... it'll just make me tired and unmotivated, and then I don't get out and do exercise, and I sit in one spot for hours and so I don't have energy for regular stuff either.
So it's pretty obvious why this is problematic. But coffee. Once I eliminate or reduce pot, then what do I do about coffee? I'll want to drink more, because you take away one chemical buzz and you want to increase the other ones. And coffee is a great appetite suppressant and a great focus drug. I mean, that's really the reason I can never get off it lately, is that I have to focus so much. I spend about 60 hrs a week between class and homework. If I don't get my energy and focus from coffee, I have to get my energy from somewhere else... like food, which is very inefficient. And of course the first thing a reasonable person wants to say to that is take a nap, but I get enough sleep. It's more of a focus issue. If all I had to do for 60 hrs a week was wash dishes or mend clothing or dig holes, it wouldn't matter - but the Fourier transform, the Machiavelli paper, the lab report aren't going to get done unless my mind is sharp. So I really have to do what I have to do. Yet if I drink too much coffee, I start getting tired all the time which makes me need more coffee to function and I just get totally strung out. Sometimes I think it would all be easier if somebody just confirmed that my brain's a little funky-wired, diagnosed me with ADD and anxiety/depression and then gave me some amphetamines and SSRIs, and yeah, I know, that's a dumb chemical quick-fix thought and yet, lately I'm not so sure ADD doesn't apply for me. But I'm rambling at this point and have wandered far from the initial point, which was:
I feel thin enough that fussing about my weight is a luxury.
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