I am failing...NOT GOOD

Well people I am not doing well with the weight loss and life changes. I am very discouraged as I have been looking for a job and applying every single day and have not received one phone call, UGH. Apparently a university degree and 10 years experience do not get you a job, it is driving me crazy which means I have been sitting around at home eating bad food. Such a horrible cycle. I also have not been going to the gym or going to the counselling that I said I was going to do. Lets just hope people are waiting to hire after the holidays and I can pull myself out of this bad rut I am in.
I am also a giant scaredy cat lol, my boyfriend has been working midnights which leaves me alone during the night and last night some guy knocked on my door a few times and was creeping me out. This lead to me not sleeping at all and staying up until 630 when my boyfriend came home, so now I feel like total crap!! I have always been this way, I get scared of things that should not scare me. When I was a kid I had horrible night terrors, the same dream haunted me every single night for years and turned me into someone who is afraid of the night. Not every night am I afraid just when things like that happen or I hear noises, but I have my kitties here to protect me (yeah right).
I have been keeping myself busy reading and cross stitching. I made my mom a cross stitch picture and am working on one for my boyfriends mom too, my mom will be so proud she is a very crafty lady and will be proud that I have made her something for Christmas. I have also started a new venture reading the top 100 books of all time. I am on the second one right now which is "The Da Vinci Code" which is awesome!! So i am almost done 2 out of 100 books, hopefully I can get this done before I die.
Right now I am trying to figure out what I am going to do with my life but it is hard since I do not find out if I got into teachers college until April 1st therefore my life is on hold. My plan right now is that if I get into teachers college then I will obviously go, but if not I am going to move to Vancouver, I have wanted to move there for years and 2 of my best friends are there so that would be nice and a good ole fun adventure. So hopefully April will come fast and I can make a plan because right now I feel like I am doing nothing with my life, my money is running out, no one is calling me for a job and I am feeling fat and depressed. So something better happen soon!!

Updates on Life

Well my friends it has been a long time since I have written and there have been a few changes since my last post. I am still trying to lose weight and I have been eating much better than I have in years. Making sure I eat breakfast and more often throughout the day and also trying to drink more water and not so much junk food and take out. I have been eating 2 or 3 slices of pizza a week which is nothing compared to how I used to eat but every time I eat it I get the worst stomach ache its like my body is saying NOOO I DO NOT WANT THIS...so I don't think I will be eating weekly pizza anymore, which is definitely a good thing but I will miss it. It sounds weird but it has been a big part of my life. I went through a depression about a year and a half ago after my then boyfriend told me one day he wanted to marry me and the next day left me in the middle of the night and told me it was over. I then proceeded to order Pizza Hut every night for 2 months...that is 60 straight days of a medium pizza or large pizza to myself, needless to say I had a stack bigger than me of pizza boxes in my apartment. Pizza was my drug of choice, it kept me company, i could eat my feelings instead of dealing with them, so trying to cut out these foods and eat better is actually emotionally challenging.
I have been going to the gym lately which is great however I really do not like the gym. At first I was getting really frustrated and almost cancelled my gym membership because I would rather do something that I really like instead of being in the gym which I hate. I used to be an athlete and play baseball which I loved which kept me in good shape so I want something like that to do so that I actually enjoy it and do not make excuses and never go. So I decided I would go to the fitness classes and use the pool at the gym and i enjoy it much better so I hope to see more weight coming off soon!!
My kitty Estelle made it through her surgery and is doing fine! She ripped out her stitches and lost like 3 teeth all within days after, poor girl but she is okay and is currently asleep at my feet!
We decorated our apartment for Christmas which was a lot of fun we got a beautiful tree and ornaments and stockings which i made some for our kitties with their pictures in them, they are so cute. We put a cute stocking on our apartment door about a week ago, then tonight we went out to get dinner, came home and our stocking had been stolen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am very upset about this!!! Who would do that? So many people on our floor have decorations on their doors and we are the ones who get ours stolen... not cool...i am sad about this!
I applied to teachers college so now I have to wait 5 months to see if i get in, I really hope so because I need to start doing something with my life, I am still unemployed and looking for a job so hopefully something thats right for me comes along soon!
Anyways thats all that is new, I stepped on the scale a couple days ago and saw 189 which I was soo happy about because I have not been out of the 190s in a long time, so hopefully tomorrow morning it will still say that, but I think it might have gone up again... SIGH!

Discouraged...

So my friends today was not the greatest day for me. I am not happy with myself today at all. I had a very bad night last night and I have let it effect me today. Last night my boyfriend and I got into such a big fight and I was so emotional and crying and upset which led me to not get up and go to the gym this morning, all I have eaten today is chips and some crescent rolls and I just feel horrible about it now. I love my boyfriend and he loves me and we have already worked things out which we always so, I am just upset with myself right now that I ate so badly today since I have been doing so well. This just shows that food really is a comfort for me, I was upset so I turned to bad food, the food I always turn to when I am heartbroken, sad, upset, frustrated, bored and depressed. Ugh. I just feel like I cannot do this. I am sitting here watching The Biggest Loser and seeing these peoples transformations I am just like wow I want that to be me but what am I doing? Sitting on the couch doing nothing about it. I can relate to what they are saying, about sitting on the couch being miserable, hating my appearance, not being happy with any part of my life which I am sure is a big factor of the fights I have been having with my boyfriend. It is sad because after I was assaulted I have dated cheaters and liars and jerks and been so attached to them but my boyfriend now is none of those things yet I am pushing him away. I mean of course he is not 100% innocent in our arguments that is for sure but I feel like my unhappiness is definitely contributing to them. I just have this mentality of "Why bother losing weight if everything else in my life sucks" but I have this mindset that is ridiculous and I bet if I lost the weight and committed to changing that I know everything else in my life will turn out so much better.
I am just sick of hiding from life, I am hiding here in my apartment not feeling worthy of even going out there and being with people. I see the workouts and challenges the people on the show are doing and I think " I cannot do that, I do not have Gillian or Bob screaming at me and telling me what to do therefore I cannot do it" excuses?? I just feel like I cannot do this...ugh...
In other news my kitty Estelle is getting fixed tomorrow but she has a serious heart problem which is very serious to have her put under for surgery. So I am very nervous about this and I will be devastated if something happens to her... so everyone just keep little Estelle in your thoughts :)
Kind of an un-motivational posting but I am feeling discouraged and upset and just like I am destined for this life...AM I?? Is this what is meant for me?

Why Am I Such A Procrastinator???

All I can say my friends is UGH!! WHY AM I SUCH A PROCRASTINATOR?????? I am very mad at myself right now for numerous reasons. First of all I am mad at myself because teachers college applications are due December 1st which is yes 8 days away (can you believe it? Christmas is in a month!!). So of course last night I was laying in bed talking to my boyfriend about if I even want to go to teachers college. Now is this because I am afraid? Is this another thing I am shying away from due to fear? Or do I really just not want to go or maybe I am not ready or maybe I just want to do something else with my life. I have always wanted to help people I have always debated between counselling or teaching so I am now having a hard time figuring out what I want to do with this December 1st deadline looming over my head. So I almost just said I am not going to apply...I actually got to this point because I am scared and unsure.
However I have decided to go for it, although I may be too late. I am hoping my transcripts from the school I did my undergraduate degree at get to the teachers colleges I have applied to within the next 8 days or else ... well I have screwed myself once again due to my procrastination and fear. So needless to say I am extreme paranoid that my transcripts will not get there in time and that I will end up wasting 400 dollars in applying with no point :( So cross your fingers for me!! I just hate not knowing what I want to do with my life. I know I want to help people I would love to get into counselling but that requires me to go get my masters which I probably do not have the grades for even though I have an honours degree I do have some bad marks on my transcripts which unfortunately brought my average down to a low B which does not get you into Graduate school. So I do think I would love teaching its just will I get there? Will I get in? It is notoriously hard to get in to teachers college where I live so there is a big possibility that I will not even get in. Ugh. I hate not knowing for sure what i want to do. I used to think that by the time I was 25 I would know what I wanted to do with my life and I would actually be doing it. But I have no clue and I am just sitting on my couch wondering what the heck am I doing with my life? *SIGH*
Another thing I am disappointed with is that I did not go to the gym today nor did I exercise or eat lots of fruit or veggies. I had such good intentions as I went to the fridge tonight and saw no food. Now that I have started eating better my groceries are not lasting as long because I am not ordering take out or eating chips for breakfast lunch and dinner anymore. So tomorrow I definitely have to load up on groceries AND go to the gym!!
I am currently forcing myself to watch the series finale of Jon and Kate Plus 8 just to see what the end will bring for them. However the show is about Kate taking the kids to a dairy farm and Jon yelling at his kids and acting like a giant D-BAG so I guess nothing on this episode is different than any other. It is sad that families can fall apart like that and to see clips of them really happy together and now they are in such a bad place...makes me sad for them :( No matter how much of a jerk he is made out to be or diva she is made out to be I cannot help but feel sorry for them. But I feel sorry for everyone and just wish I could help everyone, I guess maybe I should keep helping myself first!!
Well peeps have a good night and I will post again tomorrow with a hopeful weight in the 180s I am only .4 pounds away from 189 YAY I am sure my eyebrows are eagerly awaiting the 189 pounds celebratory plucking!

Almost In the 180's!! YAY

Alright friends (all 4 of you!) today was a pretty good day. I will start with the positives. I ate well today and reached my goal of drinking a lot of water. I had about 4 glasses of water today and a Diet Coke *mmm*, so I am pretty proud of that. This whole eating more often thing and drinking more water definitely helps to not be starving and therefore eat lots of bad food at once. This morning on the scale I was 191 which is 2 pounds lost since Thursday and today is Saturday so not too shabby at all considering I have only changed my eating habits and have not worked out. The negatives of today I would have to say are that I am still not eating enough and I did not have any fruit today I did however have vegetables so that is a good thing. Well I had a strawberry yogurt so there is some fruit just not quite enough.
Another thing I was proud of today was that I went out for dinner with my boyfriend which I was nervous about because dining out can always be hard when you are trying to lose weight. However I had a diet coke and water to drink, I ordered whole wheat pasta with Arrabiata sauce (the waitress brought white pasta by accident so I immediately decided to only eat about a third of the portion which was more than enough) and some white chicken breast in the pasta. I also had a large salad with oil and vinegar dressing mmm it was delish! So I was quite proud of the fact that I did not eat tons of bread at dinner, did not order anything deep fried, and did not eat my whole dinner! Aside from the annoyance of having to drive all the way across the city to one restaurant then seeing the wait time was too long then going to another restaurant with the same wait time to then proceeding to drive across the city again to another wait time...well it was a good night once we sat down to dinner anyways. There may have been a few lovers quarrels in the car ha ha you know how men are with making decisions!!
Why is it my friends that when we have allowed ourselves to gain weight we feel like we have let ourselves go? And we really do let ourselves go!!! I looked at myself today and thought "so when we gain weight that means we just automatically stop plucking our eyebrows or brushing ouR hair?" or is that just me?? (I hope not!) It is though I feel like I am not worthy enough to look pretty even though I have some extra weight on me. Am i not worthy?? I am not sure why I feel this way, its quite silly but I guess it goes with the lack of self confidence and self esteem. If the main thing I see when I look in the mirror is a chubby face, double chin, and lots of rolls then who the heck is going to notice by bushy eyebrows??
Well i vow to be in the 180's soon (have not seen those in a LONG TIME) and when I reach 189 I will pluck my eyebrows, I am sure my boyfriend will thank me for that!
I hope everyone has a great weekend and remember...If we pluck our eyebrows it makes us lighter!!

Why Am I On The Couch?

So today has been alright so far. I reached my goals so far of not eating with the blinds closed because I have not eaten anything I am too ashamed of today. I also have been eating more and trying to eat every 2 hours even if I am not that hungry. I am learning that eating more often even if you kind of have to force it makes sure that you are not starving at any point in the day. When this happens to me and I am starving I will eat ANYTHING in sight which is usually something bad because it takes so much less time to make.
The things I am not so proud of today is that I am still just sitting on the couch all day. I recently moved to a new city so I do not know anyone yet other than my boyfriend who is at work all day from noon until 10pm and I have not gone out and gotten a job yet. Why? I DON'T KNOW!!! I do not think I am being lazy because I have been working since the age of 14 and always have but I think I have fallen into such a rut in my life that I don't even feel confident enough to go out and get a job! I only need a job that will last me until next September when I will either be attending teachers college or college so I just need a hold me over type of job which should be soooo easy to get. I have worked in a grocery store for almost 11 years so I clearly have a lot of experience and could probably walk into a grocery store around here and get a job but I sit here and think "what if they are not hiring?", "what if I don't get it?" just stupid stuff! I might as well just go and apply. What is holding me back people??? HELP ME!
So i need to get off the couch and get a job maybe that will help me with meeting new people and making some friends in this new city. I would love to have a couple girl friends to hang out with here and just have some fun!! However I went to the YMCA today and got a membership so I really hope I do not give in to my fears and just go and get er done! I am sick of my gut being big enough that I can place my bowl of chips on it without it falling off!! NOT GOOD MY FRIENDS NOT GOOD!
I am also going to find my local Weight Watchers and start attending meetings again. I have joined 3 separate times gone for a few weeks and then never followed through always making excuses for myself saying "Oh I can eat this" or "I can not go to the meeting this week because ___" just ridiculousness!!!! I am always trying to make excuses for myself and it is absolutely amazing the things I can justify to myself and make them seem rational even though they are completely irrational and ridiculous!
So today I was down 1.2 pounds which is good!! A pound I hopefully will not be re acquainted with in the future!! My eating today was OK could still have some improvement. I again had waffles and apple juice for breakfast but also had a fat free yogurt. Then for lunch I had 2 eggs with 3 strips of low salt bacon (which for me is quite the difference since I used to eat a whole package of bacon EW!). Now dinner is going to be the challenge as normally Friday night is pizza night. I will not allow myself to completely give up the foods I like because then I will just binge one day. So my dinner goal is: PORTION CONTROL!!! hopefully I can make this happen!!
Until tomorrow...
my friends...use a table not your gut to put your bowl on and make sure it is full of celery and not chips!! :)

So Why Am I Like This?

So today went alright. I woke up not feeling too well today but I made sure I did not eat the way I normally would when I feel this way. Last night after I wrote my first blog I laid in bed and just thought a lot as to why I am the way I am, so this blog may be a bit dark and sad but its all things that need to be said out loud for me to continue on this journey. I think its really important to point out WHY we have turned out the way we have and WHY we do or in my case DONT do certain things in our lives.
There are numerous reasons and situations that have contributed to my eating getting completely out of control. I was sexually assaulted by one of my high school boyfriends when i was in the 11th grade. Therefore every bit of love for myself I had went with him and I lost a piece of me that I never got back. I confided in a few friends and no one believed me as this guy had a good reputation at my school and put on a very "all around nice guy, good student" front and ofcourse denied any accusations on my part. I decided not to press charges or tell anyone other than a few close friends because I was scared. I did not think anyone would believe me and I also did not want to ruin his life the way he ruined mine (which part of me has regretted all these years). Food at this point became the greatest friend I had ever met. It did not talk back to me, it did not say I was lying, it just gave me some minimal satisfaction and this is when I started sitting in my room and hiding my eating habits. My whole personality changed after this and this is when I had my first meeting with depression. It is sad when you are going through something like that and no one believes you, and people can be so cruel and high school became a total nightmare and place where I was made to feel like a total liar and many a rumour was spread about me after that, by him and his friends.
This was the starting event for me, since then I have dated many of the wrong guys and been treated poorly. I have been cheated on, abused, left in the middle of the night and so on...this is not meant to be a pity party just the truth. I feel like I dated these people because I just wanted the attention I felt like I had been so beaten down by the assault that I should take whatever male attention came my way. When in all these scenarios I let these guys walk all over me, I wanted them back, I forgave them...horrible I know and I want to be stronger than that and I regret it.
Lately I have been dwelling on these situations and I have a once close girl friend who decided she wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I did not do anything to deserve this whatsoever. I mean we all make mistakes right? I made a small mistake and apologized for it however she still completely ignores any contact I make with her. And what do I do? I beat myself up over this so much day in and day out. It is taking over my life!!!!! I need to get out and live my life and I am hoping by taking control of my weight and life that hopefully I will start to care less about these people who have turned their backs on me and to love myself more and really love life. I admire people who always have smiles on their faces and seem to love life so much and I have people like this on my facebook and I have to admit I am jealous when I look at their pages and wonder "COULD THIS EVER BE ME?". I sit here and tell myself I have no friends just because one girl has turned her back on me or a few exes have crazy girlfriends who have had me blocked from facebook. I do have friends however my best friends are all scattered across the country and province which makes me feel like I am alone without friends but deep down I know this is not true. So my friends I am hoping that by taking control over my weight I will gain happiness and self confidence and can move on from these issues and stop eating them.
So an update for today.
I ate some waffles for breakfast with some apple juice and had some chicken (white meat) and a small portion of potatoes and a bun for dinner with a diet coke. I definitely could have done better but it definitely could have been worse. So it is a start. My problem is that I do not eat enough throughout the day so my body holds on to fat. Goals for tomorrow: eat more and eat better, and exercise!
No chips No chicken wings No pizza and definitely NO eating with the blinds closed for me tomorrow!

Welcome All To My Journey

Hello all,
My name is Lauren and I am a 24 year old girl who is completely ready to change my life however I know this challenge is going to be long and very hard as I believe I have an addiction to food. Sometimes I wonder if other people feel this way, I wonder if I am the only one out there who feels truly addicted to food. I wonder if this is a crutch I use to justify the fact that I am overweight or if there is food addiction in actuality. Sometimes when I confide in people that I feel I have this addiction they look at me and say "oh yeah right" and proceed to laugh and poke fun at the statement I had just made. People think you have to be morbidly obese to have an addiction to food and just because I am not morbidly obese these people think I do not need help nor do I have a problem and this my friends has enabled me to continue to get bigger. Sometimes I feel absolutely crazy when I say out loud that I have an addiction to food and I believe that stopping these bad habits is like quitting smoking or drinking its hard and you sit there and constantly think about it until it makes you sick inside and you just have to go and get in your car and get to that convenience store or local pizza place to pick up your favourite junk. Mine is chips and pizza. Now I know that addictions come from somewhere and that we use our drug of choice (mine being food) to medicate feelings and emotions that we carry deep inside us and I myself am a definite example of this.
I use food whenever I am feeling lonely, sad, depressed, bored or restless. Food has this power of me that when i am sitting there eating a whole medium or large pizza to myself it feels good like I have company. Isn't it sad that I can say out loud that pizza keeps me company? Am I the only one who does this? But the hard part is after I have scoffed down that whole pizza I feel double as lonely and fat and bad about myself as I did before I ate it. It is such a short fix, a short lived high and it does not provide any sort of positive benefit in my life. When I was in high school I always enjoyed junk food but what teenager doesn't? However I was very active and a huge athlete back then and also was much happier until I hit a certain rough period which will be revealed in future blogs. Once this pivotal event happened in my life I held it in and felt so bad about myself and just started eating because that was the only thing I felt I could control. It's the same for people who are anorexic or bulimic it's just another type of eating disorder. When you are sitting in your room door closed, blinds closed eating chicken wings 5 nights a week and are hiding the garbage so your roomates don't see it...that is a problem my friends!
I started out university at 130 pounds and I now weigh 193 the most I have ever weighed in my entire life and I have never felt less pretty, sexy, self confident or happy. I have dealt with depression throughout my adult life however now I feel it has hit an all time high. I am not enjoying my life, I am not living my life and I vow to change that.
Why has it taken me so long? Why has it taken being overweight for so many years without me doing anything about it? Why have I not taken control of my own destiny? Why do I let myself get so brought down by other girls or friends that have turned their backs on me? Why do I make excuse after pathetic excuse as to why I have not done anything about this yet? I need to start loving myself again so that I will not be so effected by what others think of me and say about me to my face and behind my back. I need to take control of my life instead of watching it pass me by while I am sitting on the couch, blinds closed, eating horrible food wallowing in my own misery.
I have always been a huge fan of The Biggest Loser and of course I cry at every episode. I used to cry out of pure joy for these people who are dealing with so many emotions and obstacles and really going for it and taking control of their lives. But now I cry because I RELATE to them and I never thought this would happen. The latest episode when Rebecca (who looks fabulous) was voted off really got to me. The final 6 gave speeches to an audience about their struggle with weight loss and I found I could relate to so much of what they were saying. I was sitting on my couch bawling my eyes out saying "I'm that girl on the couch eating bad food watching Biggest Loser thinking I cant do it" but you know what? I CAN AND I WILL
I have turned into someone who is scared of everything. Scared to apply to new jobs, scared to confront people when they are rude to me or treat me badly, scared to really commit to lose weight, scared to take a fitness class infront of other people, scared to be intimate with my boyfriend because of my total lack of self confidence (even though he tells me I am beautiful every single day but it matters what I think even though I love him to death), scared of exploring the new city I just moved to, scared to do pretty much anything and it is holding me back in every regard of my life and my twenties are just floating by before my eyes.
This is my time and I am ready to take control. I know it wont be easy but I hope to really make my dreams come true and to love who I am on the inside and the outside. I will be scared, I will want to quit, I will want to go get me some All Dressed Chips and eat the whole bag, I will try to justify why I just bought those chips, I will be a huge brat due to withdrawal of said chips lol but I can do this and I hope whoever reads this feels a tiny bit inspired to do the same and maybe we can support each other in this hard challenge that is weight loss and the journey to self confidence!
i can do this