This is sort of one of those boring “getting it straight in my mind” kind of posts. Sorry.

There will be little to no snacking in evenings. Its hard not to snack, but once started its even harder to stop. I’ve moved my upper calorie limit down from 1600 to 1500. Since i havent changed it since i started, and now i’ve lost about 9.6kg (i dunno, 20ish pounds) its probable that my needs have changed. There will be exercise, and lots of it, as i get closer to the quarter marathon. I have three 50-60 minute runs planned, and there will be no skipping them. I also want to get back to my weights class, i havent been for a while and i miss it. I think it makes a real difference to my weigh ins too. My presentations are on tuesday and wednesday and once they are out of the way i should be feeling a lot less gittery. I shouldnt be too nervous anyway, one of them i have already got my final mark for (an A yay!) and the other is marked 40% on content and 10% on the presentation, and its in a class with nice peopel and a nice lecturer so it’s not even that frightening. I remember doing speeches in my German lectures, how i managed them i will never know! You had to give a speech and then have questions, in german, afterwards, making you think on the spot. These presentations should be a walk in the park compared with that. Should be.

Anyway, thats the basic outline

As a side note, sleep was crap last night again. I have no idea why, but i ended up getting my iPod and listening to Rammstein until i fell asleep. People who say Till Lindemann can’t sing have obviously never heard songs like Wo Bist Du, Seemann, Nebel, Ohne Dich, and Stirb Nicht Vor Mir. I dont care what anyone says, Till is the only man who has ever been able to sing me to sleep.

I must have had THE worst night’s sleep last night. I think i got about 3 hours sleep. Which means i probably actually got at least 4. But i fell asleep to the sound of birds waking up which doesnt bode well. Now I am awake, i have 20 mins to get my act together and get to the bus. And to make it even better, its raining today.

Why did i have such an awful night’s sleep? well, i weighed myself midweek. I really shouldnt do that (or should i?) its depressing. I am always up midweek, yesterday by 2kgs (this is probably for a variety of factors, such as the fact that its midweek so ive only exercised once, i weighed at night after a full day of food, etc).  Plus im probably feeling guilty because this week i have been really snacky in the evenings, and ive been indulging in that. Not on bad things, but on things like almonds, but i know it adds up. And i cant figure out why i cant stop doing it. I think im stressed and tired and i have two presentations to give next week, so im nervous. I’ll try harder today, see if i can crack it.

Yesterday at the gym I was asked how i was doing by a nice, young, lovely looking gym instructor. Well actually what he said was “How’re you doing? You doing ok?” which could be one of several things:

-”How you doing wink wink nudge nudge” Unlikely, but hopeful

-”Are you ok? You look like a stunned mullet, and are you sure you know how to use that machine, because you’re going really slow?” More likely, less hopeful

-”I’m insanely bored cleaning these machines, and you look funny, how are you doing?” -_- probably the most likely

-”You look like you’ve never been to a gym before in your life! Is your face always that colour? Why are you screwing it up like that? Are you ok?” Its my concentrating face, dammit! I have to concentrate so i dont get flung off the treadmill

I’m going to go with option (a)

Also, ive been quite off plan lately. Well the past week anyway. Eating has been border line, exercise non existant. Its because i didnt really feel well enough to exercise until midweek, and starting to be on plan midweek never works for me. So it’ll be damage control tomorrow, and back to it on monday.

I feel better ^_^ Its very odd, i went to the doctor, who  was very nice and said it was probably a viral infection but he could give me antibiotics if i wanted. So i took them. Im not medicine-phobic, i’m not really scared of taking too many medications. I understand the risks, i dont mix things i shouldnt, i always finish my courses of antibiotics, but i’m not someone who thinks that they would rather let nature take its course and battle it out myself. Life’s too short. And what a slap in the face of medical research Even knowing its probably viral, the antibiotics have helped. Could be for a variety of reasons i hypothesize- placebo effect (did you know that all drug effects are something like 40% placebo? very cool), i had bacteria that were hijacking my virus-weakened system, or it actually is bacterial. Who cares, it works.

Its kinda odd though, i feel hungry but i should have had enough. And my stomach feels empty but isnt growling. Maybe its low blood sugar or something. Or maybe i have just not been eating enough these past few days and now its paying me back. I tried to eat enough, but my intake dropped pretty significantly. Hey it was excrutiating to swallow, and i felt sick to my stomach, nothing appealled. I tried drinking milk instead of water, eating whatever appealled regardless of calorie content, just to get some kind of nutrition and energy in me. When i checked on friday, i had lost 1.5kg (3.3 pounds) in 5 days. Some people might think thats great, but given that i was sleeping all day literally and that i usually aim to lose 500g (1.1 pounds) a week, 1.5kg in 5 days is a little alarming.

Secretly though, there is a part of me that is pleased. I did nothing again and lost weight. Sure i had 800 calories on average per day, but i lost weight. And i’m horrified that i would think that. Thats not healthy, and i shouldnt be pleased at this boost towards my half way point. But i am. And i know that after my weigh in tomorrow i will report my loss (touch wood) with pleasure. It’s shocking that i think like that. That part of me says, sure it was unhealthy, but if we maintain that loss in a healthy way, then it doesnt matter right? We’re taking vitamins, we’re eating now, nutritional loss in minimised, weight loss maximised. I need to keep this part of me in check.

Surprising what you learn about yourself hmm?

Yesterday i was so tired. I managed to get out of bed fine, at 7am (must be those vitamins, thanks sterling!) and headed to meet my research supervisor in the city. That went fine but at about 10:15 i was feeling really exhausted. I almost felt like i had a cold, but without the cold symptoms, just the tiredness. I got home and had a rest, then headed out again to see another supervisor. And then i got home and had to have another sleep. My head was so sore, my ears were blocked and aching, and it was going down my jaw. My head hurt, and when i swallowed by ears crackled and my throat was sore. I was so exhausted too, i dozed from about 4 til 10pm, and then i went to bed. I think its my sinuses, maybe i never finished shaking off that cold i had a while ago. Today i feel better, but maybe thats because ive just been sitting here working on my assignments. Its very frustrating because i did want, and fully plan, to get back to the gym this week. I went on monday and did well. But if i dont get better then that will mean 3 weeks with little exercise. I know theres not a lot you can do, everyone gets sick. But still, its very annoying u_u

At least i written some of my assignment though. Thats a good thing. Its a pity i cant hear a damn thing though

Well, yes, yes i was. And as a result i binged on monday and tuesday, and didnt get back on track eating wise until thursday. And i went to the gym once. Well, at least i walked everywhere. But still, im up 200g (about half a pound-ish). Thats probably just fluctuation but still. Got to get back on track tomorrow. I just feel so unmotivated at the moment. I dont mean just about working out, and weight loss, i mean about everything. Its so hard to get up in the mornings at the moment. If i want to get up at 7, it will take me about an hour and a half after my alarm goes off to actually get up. Maybe i need some vitamins or something -_-

So i weighed in today at 76.6kg. Which comes to 168.4 pounds or something. Which meant that i had achieved my second goal, being below 170 pounds. I was absolutely stoked, i didnt think i would reach my goal for another 2 weeks. I always aim to lose 400g a week, knowing that i can usually pretty easily lose 500g, so i dont get disappointed. So there was no way i would predict a loss of 1.4kg! It was an awesome surprise.

I went shopping to get a reward. I hadnt decided before hand what my reward would be, because i figured i still had weeks and weeks to decide. I got a new jacket (its cute, very casual lounge wear sort of thing with three quarter sleeves and a hood) and a book called The Lunchbox Bible. I was just flicking through the pages and it had some really good, healthy looking lunchbox ideas with nice photos and simple recipes. Im not a magnificent cook by any means. Calling me a cook is a bit extravagent even. So the idea of being able to make a chicken caeser salad wrap that is actually edible and healthy is very exciting. So is the idea of being able to have something other than plain pasta and cheese for lunch, or an egg sandwhich, or rice. Not that i dont love those things, but you can only rotate them so many times before you get bored.

So now i’m super excited about trying the recipes and the jacket out Next goal isnt too far off- 75kg. That will mean having lost 10kg total (22 pounds?) and be half way to my “first” ultimate goal (i set my first ultimate goal just on the basis of what i thought was good, 65kg, so thats my first goal. When i get there i will decide whether i want to get down to 55kg, which would be a healthy weight for my body frame, which is apparently small)

I better start planning my rewards more timely!

Well i got sick. my sister got a cough, which developed into a rather nasty cold. I got a cough a couple of days ago and you can guess what happened after that. Particularly nasty is the cough which hampers your breathing but wont actually let you cough anything up. Grr. So i went to work out on thursday, managed to do a fast walk for 20 mins and an easy cycle for 10 mins and then i gave up. I thought it was just because i had a lot on my mind and couldnt settle down and focus on the work out at hand, but apparently the cold was gradually developing and on friday i felt awful. I feel better today, and tomorrow i will try going without drugs and see how i feel. I fully intend to get back into it on monday. My calorie intake this week has been a little lower than usual, around 1400 rather than 1500, so hopefully this will mean i have still lost weight this week, and not mean that i have scared my metabolism into storing every little thing as fat.

Tomorrow and monday are my weigh in days, so not long to wait until i find out what the damage is this week. Why do i have 2? Well, its because i used to only weigh myself on mondays. I would get cold feet the day before though and weigh myself to prepare myself mentally should it be likely to be a gain “officially” on monday. But i always tended to weigh less on sundays than i did on mondays for some reason. I think its because i do weights once a week only on saturdays or something. Anyway, so now i weigh myself on mondays and sundays and take the lower of the two as my official weight. I know some might consider this “cheating” but really, its not. I mean, i DID weigh the least amount at that time. And the sometimes slight loss is more motivating to keep going than a slight gain is. And anyway, i didnt ask anyone what they thought about whether it was cheating or not Im not sure what i will do for the 3FC biggest loser challenge though. I think i will just use my sunday weigh ins, since they tend to be lower. It probably doesnt matter as long as i am consistent

Anyway, onto more exciting things! I had a non scale victory today, the first of its kind for me. Sure, ive had increases in speed, strength, endurance, and a loss of inches as measured by the tape, but nothing more…superficial i guess. Anyway, today i was panicking because i had no jeans to wear. Well, none that had no holes, had been taken up, werent worn away at the bottoms, werent hugely too big, etc. Then i remembered I had a pair of black jeans in my wardrobe

A pair of black, nonstretch denim jeans

A pair of jeans that hadnt fit for quite a while (maybe…a year?)

A pair of jeans that are a size 12

I was dubious. I thought i might just be able to get them over my thighs but there was no way i was going to be able to do them up. But, out of desperation and ok, a bit of curiosity, i pulled them on. They slid over my thighs like full fat cookies and cream ice cream used to slide over my tongue. I pulled them up and they became snug. I did up the zipper and the button

The jeans. They fit. Oh my god. Its actually happening. I have this awful deep down belief that my weight loss so far is just fluctuation. I fluctuate a lot. I can fluctuate about 2kg up or down in a day (about 4.4 pounds). I know that it seems logically impossible that i could fluctuate 7kg though, but i still fear that. And now that belief is finally begining to be broken down

Ok so the title of this post has nothing to do with the post itself. Its just that ive discovered Rammstein’s album “Mutter” lately, and i really love the whole thing, in particular “Sonne” which is a sort of eery, energetic, sad, strong song. If a song can be all of those things at once. Its a very awesome album

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that today i started my running training plan for the Auckland Adiddas Quarter Marathon in November. I’ve never done anything like a quarter marathon, so im quite nervous, but i figured that 10.55km is a good place to start doing that kind of thing, and it gives me something to work towards. Im actually quite excited about it. Im not sure what size shirt i should ask for, they say that they are designed to be a tight fit so if you prefer loose choose the size up from what you would normally pick. But im not sure what i’ll weight when i get to november. I think i’ll just go with large, that should fit me now and i dont think that if its a bit too big by november that it’ll be a big deal. Better to be too big than too small right?

So i graphed my calorie intake for about a week and it was all over the place. I try to keep it between 1200 and 1600 a day, and while i kept it within those limits, i went from each end just about every day. So last week i decided to keep it at 1500 or there abouts. And i lost about twice as much O_O So there you go. Keep your body guessing with exercise to lose weight. But dont do it to your metabolism. It doesnt like it