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...weight loss

11.12.2006 // 6:08 pm

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I've chatted with a few people offline about the weight thing, but basically here's how I did it. Let me start by saying...

I DO NOT ADVOCATE ANYTHING THAT I DID TO GET WHERE I AM. MANY OF THE CHOICES I MADE WERE JUST AS PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY DAMAGING AS REMAINING OVERWEIGHT. IT STANDS TO REASON THAT ANYONE WHO ALLOWS THEMSELVES TO REACH THE WEIGHT I DID HAS SOME ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE DEALT WITH. I'M WORKING ON THAT NOW.

What started it all was a picture I saw of myself. Like most big folks I went out of my way to avoid the camera. But some pushy axx muvuhfugguh at my old job took a picture of me at a party. He posted it and all the others on the main server in a folder that said "party pics" and then sent out an email letting us all know the pics were up. No prob. They did that all the time at the job. I was always good at stayin out of the line of fire so I was cool wit it. Except this time, I opened the folder and the very first picture I saw was of me. At least I thought it was me... somewhere underneath all the flesh and the yards of fabric I used to try and camouflage it all. Back then I shared an office with four other people. One was absent, two were in a meeting and the other had gone to lunch. So I just sat at my desk and cried. I have never felt so horrible in my whole damn life. I went to my boss at the time, who could tell I had been crying and told her I felt sick to my stomach... and I did.

So I left for the day. I went home and decided that I was the most disgusting thing I had seen in my life and deserved every bit of pain I was in because I brought it on my self. The shyte I put up with from DC, staying at a job that I hated, half-assing my efforts as a makeup artist, waiting a million years to go to grad school... it was all because of my weight and I was the reason for my weight. I know now there was much more to it, but that day, that was the conclusion I came to. I had always had a secret obsession with anorexia nervosa. It fascinated me. How the hell could someone just stop eating and continue not eating until they were a friggin skeleton? Every movie that came on TV about it, I watched. Every Dateline, 20/20, 60 minutes or talk show episode about it, I watched. Not because I was Pro-Ana (that's what they call it) but because there was a part of me that admired their will-power. So...

STEP 1: I went online and started looking up Pro-Ana websites. I cut and pasted every tip and trick I saw into a word document and amassed pages and pages of tactics these girls used to starve themselves thin. The first one I tried was spitting and chewing. Not rocket science, but quite gross. Basically I would chew my food (chicken, fries, veggies, sandwiches, whateva) and then spit it out into a plastic cup. It was easier to do at home, for obvious reasons. But I did try it in public a few times. Like, if I was at McDonald's, I would get a large cup of soda (always cola becaus it's dark) and I would immediately drink half of it. I would eat a little while I drank just so it didn't look wierd that i wasn't eating. But once I halfed the cup, I would chew my food and then act like I was sipping when I was really spitting into the cup. It worked for a little while, but I just found it too frustrating. So then I needed to try something else.

STEP 2: I began to restrict my calories like crazy. I knew I would be hungry though, so diet soda became my best friend. The bubbles helped to fill me up when I was hungry. I would make a turkey sandwich or a can of tuna, or some pineapple and split it up into three meals. Yes. I said I would stretch ONE DAMN SANDWICH into THREE meals. In between meals, I would have my diet soda or water. I tried chewing gum too, but it made me hungrier, so I stopped. I wrote down every morsel of food I put in my mouth for about a month and the weight, literally, melted off.

STEP 3: I posted pictures of her, her, her and her all over the place. I had their pics in my organizer at work, on my desk top, on my cell phone, on the fridge... everywhere. They were my "thinsperation". Clearly they don't look anorexic, but compared to me, they might as well have been. Besides, my intent was never to become a bag of bones. I just wanted to like what I saw when I looked in the mirror. So I started workin out.

STEP 4:I bought this and this. I chose these because I didn't have to get on the floor (which I hate) and it wouldn't hurt my joints. I wanted to do one in the morning and the other in the evening, six days a week. But, I wasn't eating enough to sustain that kind of routine. Hell I could barely maintain a damn pulse. I knew I had to eat more, but at that point I was afraid to. I imagined taking one bite of something and puffin up like a the damn Michelin Man. I decided I would do Atkins. It seemed like the perfect diet because I could eat as much as I needed to and still drop weight... or that's what the claim was.

Well it worked. In about a year, I went from this...

to this...

I'm not done yet. I'd like to look like this...

I still record every single thing I put in my mouth. It's a bit obsessive, but it's better than being obsessed with eating. Plus, the new love of my life helps me keep all my data organized without everybody around me knowing what I'm doing. There's still a part of me that feels like I'll never be completely happy with what I see, but for now, I am okay with it. I'll try and put updates on my progress from time to time but if I don't and you have questions (or concerns) feel free to let me know. The only thing I ask, is that you not preach to me about the way I went about this. Not everything works for everybody and like I said, I know alot of this was very uncool. But one of the benefits of bein a grown ass woman is not having to justify your actions to anybody. This was a post for those who were/are interested. That's all. See ya.

xxoxo...md

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