The Thirty-Fourth: Measurements

Courtesy of C's Hong Kong Ikea paper tape measure.

Bust (lungs medium-full): 38.75"
Chest (lungs medium-full): 32.50"
Waist: 30.00"
Hips: 37.00"
Thigh (standing up): 24.25"
Calf (standing up): 13.75"
Upper Arm (hanging at side): 13.50"

This week I began eating better and exercising again/more, hoping to keep it up till I go home. I'll measure again right before I leave and see if I got anywhere.

The Thirty-Third: TWO MONTHS

I have only two months left in China! This has put so much pressure on me.

1) I have so much to cover with my classes, so now I have all this prep work I need to do IMMEDIATELY. And though I had a free day today...nada.

Gonna wake up really early tomorrow to get some stuff done. Gotta work all weekend now.

2) I NEED TO GET OFF MY DUFF AND STUDY CHINESE SERIOUSLY BEFORE I GO HOME. 'TWILL BE TOTALLY PATHETIC IF I NEVER DID IT EVER.

3) I promised A that I would quit biting my nails here, and while I've been better about it, I've not quit.

But what I am the most concerned about (sadly) is now really want to come home hot. This swelling (expanding, exploding) desire has derailed all my recent mental health progress where I was happy at my weight and just wanted to be in shape.

Maybe I didn't actually make that progress.

So:

4) My skin. I have been so mean to it, and I hope serious Retin-A applications can fade the scarring lickety-split.

I've become super-disciplined about keeping up my skin care routine and not touching my skin EVER. (With the no nail-biting either, I am CONSTANTLY yanking my hands away from myself.)

5) My weight! According to the Spaniard's hotel scale and my clothing/eyes, I have not lost ANY weight since I came here, and I am no longer okay with that.

I just finally started pilates today. Will start running again tomorrow. (I'm nervous about finally confronting all the conditioning I've lost.)

Being very serious about diet. Been waking up to eat a large cafeteria breakfast, then a small lunch, then whatever fruit I want for the rest of the day. No chips, no junk. Lots of hunger. Motivation wavers hourly, because dieting totally sucks, and I'm really tired.

I wish I'd put more thought into it/could calculate the calories, but there's no time and not a lot of options in China. I can't imagine it's much less than 1200 calories, if that, so I'm sure it's fine. Two months won't kill me. Even if I am really, really tired.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.


P.S. I like this for my wedding dress:

































P.P.S. And I might like this purse:

































P.P.P.S. And, in an insane twist, I can actually afford them!

The Twenty-Ninth

I don't have a very clear idea for this post. I just felt that enough things have happened that I ought to post. Those things are:

1) I had a fabulous morning on Friday, which put me into an insanely good mood in time for my daily lunchtime Skyping with A. My morning classes went fabulously--I explained things a little differently, and the kids GOT it. I had figured out a much better way to help Ryan (a student who asked me early in the year for extra help with her pronunciation -- we work for 20ish minutes every Friday lunchtime right after her class), so she left our session smiling very broadly (as opposed to totally disheartened, like last week). I also ran and showered before classes (something I wish I did everyday, but rarely ever do) and did a load of laundry and maybe even had proper food? I can't even remember. In any case, I felt like an extremely successful human being.

2) I had a totally horrible morning yesterday. Celebrations for the school's 100th anniversary were starting that afternoon, so the students had their minds on anything but English that morning. Teaching was like banging my head against the blackboard. My three classes painfully trudged through only a very small portion of my lesson, which means the schedules for those classes (on top of the ones that have been outright canceled because of the celebrations) are all screwy. Ordinarily, I can usually take such things in stride, but my patience was unusually short and my stress level unusually high for whatever reason.

Moreover, I was looking forward to my lunchtime chat with A because he has quite a relaxing effect on me, but it was then that my bloody (poor, ancient) computer decided its flirtation with dying (it had been having fleeting difficulties recognizing the power cord) had become a full-blown love affair. I had to trek back to the office to use the computer there and figure out how to set up Gmail video chat in effin' Chinese.

But it did eventually work, and I was aware that my evil mood was unreasonable, and talking to A did calm me down.

3) I did not run 40 minutes yesterday as I should have, because I was too tired and too scared. BUT, I did it today in the full heat of high noon in China. I. RAN. FORTY. MINUTES. That's SO many minutes! I even confirmed with A that that is significantly more minutes than either of us ever thought I'd run. Plus, plus, plus the students picked today of all days to take notice of me again (after the first flurry when I started running, they've been highly disinterested). First, one of my students hopped on the track and started running with me, but he didn't even make it a lap. I think it was partly because he didn't warm up or hit a stride, but mostly because he wasn't expecting me to turn around and run the other way mid-lap. (It was rather Bugs Bunny-esque how he went sailing on in the other direction.)

Then, when I had 15-20 minutes left, two Senior 3 boys stopped by and tried to talk to me whenever I ran past them. After a few times of waving at my headphones and saying, "I can't hear you!", they parked themselves in the shade and WATCHED me finish! And a workman and few younger students joined them!

When I did finally finish (I had a rough time at the beginning -- it was SO hot -- and again around the 25-30-minute mark, but I ran through it and finished feeling pretty good), the two Senior 3 boys came out to talk. They asked me about my shuffle

Me: My boyfriend gave it to me for my birthday.
Them [as if I'd said something MOST salacious]: OOoooh.

and how long I had just run

Me [all supercool and nonchalant]: Forty minutes.
Them: Wow, you are an athlete. How many years have you been training?

Then because I was going to stretch, they asked me to show them how. So I did that quickly (hilarious) and went inside to shower and crow to A.

The Twenty-Eighth

Tomorrow, I'm going to run for 40 minutes.

That's a lot of minutes.



I'm going to eat an egg first.

The Twentieth: Fitness Update Update

link

Rather unexpectedly, after I blogged yesterday I actually went out and made up the previous day's foregone run! It was the second time I had to alternate running quickly and jogging slowly/walking, and I was not. excited.

I seem to only have a "slow" setting. If I try to push it (because the training directions insist), I am overcome with pain and exhaustion and crippling side stitches and start thinking fondly of the sweet release of death, and yet I don't actually go any faster. And when I tried the alternating thing for the first time last week, it was my least successful attempt to run fast since the beginning of time. (Including every time I ever ran the mile in middle school under the watchful eye of my evil gym teacher Mr. Martin and his cat-o-nines*.)

But, oddly, yesterday was totally not that hard. I had a waffling stitch for most of the workout, so I just slowed down whenever it got stronger and sped up when it faded, but besides that I was running relatively quickly all the time that I was supposed to! As opposed to barely making it a few minutes at a quicker pace before wanting to collapse, coughing all over myself, and lurching through the rest of of the workout at the slowest pace possible.

AND when I finished yesterday, I wasn't dizzy or gasping. And today I'm not that sore! Go figure.

Of course, today it poured, so now I have foregone today's run...

____

*My emotionally scarred subconscious may or may not have added this detail.

The Nineteenth: Fitness Update

EXERCISE
The first part of my training directions is a 3-week pre-training program designed to take you from 100% couch potato to able to run for 20 minutes continuously (which is what the authors seem to consider the basic fitness level necessary to consider running a half marathon). The second part of the directions is the real training program.

Week 1: Completed perfectly!
Week 2: Completed perfectly!
Week 3: Completed perfectly!
Week 4: Sick, did nothing (rarg!)
Week 5: Completed perfectly! (Redid week 3's training to recoup conditioning.)
Week 6: Ran only twice, for 20 min. each. (Sleeping too oddly to train or do anything else correctly, so just tried to maintain that key 20-minute fitness level.)

This was all a little mentally agonizing because I was on the cusp of starting the real training for THREE WEEKS. Ugh! Sooooo close to being able to say, "I'm training for a half-marathon" instead of the significantly less awesome, "I'm training to run for 20 minutes". Fortunately, I rallied, and

Week 7: Completed perfectly!

Which brings us to this week:
--Monday-Thursday: Completed perfectly!
--Friday: Did not run due to work- and calorie-related exhaustion.
--Saturday: It's already 5:30pm, and I'm blogging instead of making up yesterday's run.


NUTRITION
We're just not going to talk about that. :)

(And maybe we'll get our duff up and go buy some food today, promptly four days after we ran out and began subsisting on steam buns.)

The Sixteenth: What I've Learned

This is what I've learned in my years and years of disordered eating, weight gain, and weight loss.

1) If someone you love is having these problems, shut up.

No, really. You're just trying to be supportive? That's a very nice sentiment. DON'T ACT ON IT. No, seriously. No comments, no encouragement, no questions, NOTHING. Despite many, many discussions about this, A just told me he's proud of me and that he can see more muscle, and now I have spent my day obsessing. THAT'S NOT HELPFUL. If that doesn't help, neither will your extremely misguided "hard love" or "telling it like it is" or "honesty". Your loved one is in serious trouble? Send them to a professional. YOU, YOURSELF, CANNOT DO ANYTHING, EXCEPT SOMETHING BAD.

2) Baby steps.

It is very tempting to go on an extreme diet/exercise kick because you see huge results in a very short amount of time. But, aside from being unhealthy, that is just really hard to do. Lots of discipline, lots of misery, lots of pain all of a sudden. Make changes really, really, really easy on yourself. If you keep derailing, keep reducing the change until you don't. I'm serious. Five minutes of exercising a day can grow. Forty-five minutes a day won't if you give up after two days.

3) Invest/Plan.

Be very, very realistic (this is key), and set yourself up from the beginning with anything you could possibly want/need. Change the plan if it's unrealistic (and be extremely honest with yourself about what you will and won't do). Anything you can get to make the experience more pleasant is WORTH THE MONEY.

Initially, I never wanted to invest in any equipment until I could prove to myself that I would stick with it. I never bought myself an mp3 player for running, because I felt I had never run long enough to warrant the expense. A bought me one for my birthday, and it is so, so, so much more pleasant to run now. And I run longer, faster, better.

Seriously, buy/do anything that will make your regimen easier/more pleasant. You will stave off derailment.

4) Eating disorders are unique.

Your eating disorder and all its attendant stuff is not going to be like anybody else's exactly. No one professional, no one book, no one website, no one diagnosis, no one diet is going to be the key. But, all of these things can help. Consult everything, and try everything. It will be a long, long process to find exactly what combination of things helps you. Good luck.

5) The public is deeply stupid.

Most people with severe weight issues have a very serious underlying problem, be it depression, compulsion, medical, or situational. THEY DID NOT SUDDENLY CHOOSE TO BE ANOREXIC OR OBESE OR CONSTANTLY FIGHTING 20 POUNDS OR WHATEVER.

You tell anyone doesn't understand how you "let" yourself get that way (as if you don't hate it, as if he/she actually put effort into his/her naturally good eating habits, as if he/she isn't a complete moron) to stuff it.

If you want to check my references before you follow my advice (or if you seriously love dense reading), here are my experiences with my stuff in full:

Exercise: Before college, I played team sports my whole life, but I never exercised during the off-season or anytime outside of practice. No one in my family exercised regularly (except for my sister, who was an accomplished college athlete), so I genuinely thought that people who went to the gym were complete health nuts who also chugged raw eggs and ate wheat germ while running marathons.

In college, intramural sports conflicted with my Italian classes, so I was almost totally inactive for the first three years. However, in that time, I observed tons and tons and tons of totally normal people going to the gym all the time and realized that the average healthy person works out several times a week.

The summer after my junior year, I started working out. I had a really unusual internship in the Florida Keys where the people I met went nowhere, got bitter, and died. There was NOTHING to do outside of my job. NO ONE who was at all interested in doing anything ever. NO PLACE to spend time that was affordable and interesting. Except this one beautiful gym. There, people cared about health, happiness, and the future. The gym was clean and new. It was a lovely, lovely atmosphere. I went every day at lunch time.

Senior year, I went to the gym sporadically, usually being very responsible and then very bad in cycles. After college, I did some intramural sports at my job and went to the gym and got some personal training sessions with A, but all of that did not amount to regular, frequent exercise.

This past summer/fall in China, I ran on the dirt road behind the school for several weeks until the administrators told me they were very, very concerned that I'd get bitten by one of the stray (and, admittedly, very aggressive) dogs that belonged the local farmers who worked back there. So I started doing the occasional workout video in my apartment, but nothing significant.

Five weeks ago, I began a half-marathon training program, currently running about 4 days a week.

Eating: Until college, I ate the healthy food my parents provided when I liked it (I am a very picky eater), threw away anything I didn't like (in elementary school, this was usually my entire lunch), and scavenged junk food from any available source. My success with the latter was moderated by my lack of funds and the limited generosity of my schoolmates, so I generally ate a mostly healthy diet with some junk food in moderation.

I had/have a massive sweet tooth, which my father was particularly worried about. His excessive restrictions turned sugar into an absolute obsession for me--I ate any available sweets, whether I was hungry or not, whether it was good or not, because I never knew when I was going to get another opportunity.

The summer before my junior year of high school, I slimmed down due an active, healthy lifestyle at summer camp and loved the results. I decided to continue avoiding junk food (which was not available at camp) and to eat well. That was a really busy school year for me (two AP's, soccer, and waterpolo), so I fell into the habit of eating the same thing every day. It was very healthful food, but not enough calories or protein to fuel what I was burning in waterpolo. Unfortunately, I had neither the time, nor the energy, nor the awareness to pay more attention to my hunger pains.

After my weight plummeted (and my period stopped), my worried mother took me to a nutritionist who put me on a weight-gaining diet. After ignoring hunger for so long, I was directed by a professional to ignore satiation, to eat no matter what my body said. To this day, seven years later, I still can't read my body's signals. To this day, I have a problem with overeating.

Freshman year of college, I developed a very serious problem with bingeing. I lived right next to the dining hall, all freshmen had the unlimited meal plan, and, for the first time, I had no parents restricting my junk food.

After the initial horror and a flurry of failed ambitious diets, I tried to focus more on learning how to maintain my weight and to understand my compulsion. This took the edge off the crazy. I began weathering the binges way better by making a point of giving in as soon as the cravings hit and reminding myself that it was temporary, that I would eat well afterwards (I tend to eat light, fresh fare when I'm not bingeing), that my simple goal of maintaining allowed for some binges. As soon as I stopped resisting/stressing about the binges, they became less frequent and shorter.

During the rest of college, by paying careful attention and trying a thousand different ways of eating, I figured out my own disorder. As my understanding of my triggers/neuroses/habits/cravings grew, my bingeing got less and less.

After college, I started eating a bowl of Grape-Nuts (what? they're good!) every morning. I had large meals once or twice a day (classic for those with hunger/satiation problems) at constantly varying times of the day (I'm disorganized), eating mostly healthful foods except during binges. Binges happened once/twice a week on average and usually took the form of a pint of ice cream, or half a cake.

This December, I finally succeeded (after many, many attempts since college) in giving up sugar, which is what I always binge on. This was largely assisted by the fact that I was in China, where there was only one tempting sugary item (Oreos), but I'm in the habit of no sugar now, so I can resist the temptations at home.

This week, I have just started eating small amounts frequently and at regular times. The food is almost the same every day. Sometimes (often) I eat until I'm good and full, which I know is past satiation, but I am not really bingeing anymore.

Weight: My weight was very normal most of my life. No problems before puberty. After puberty, I wasn't perfect with a flat stomach, but normal and stable enough that I really never thought about it much.

Junior year of high school, I slimmed down and had that perfect flat stomach, which made me very happy (even when I got too thin). Unfortunately, I think this is when I started to think about my weight all the time, even if it was all good thoughts at that time.

Later that year, I briefly followed the nutritionist's diet and started a steady, unstoppable weight gain that continued through the end of high school. I began college having just gained another 10 lbs. during a totally inactive the summer on the couch.

During my first year of college, I gained 40 pounds--30 during the first semester alone.

The following summer, I managed to stop gaining (I tapped out around 195) and maintained in the 180's, which gave me the chance to finally get used to my new, larger body. I faced buying new clothes (I had been living in pajama pants) and generally began feeling more attractive.

In the next 2 1/2 years of college, as I learned more about my eating disorder and my bingeing improved, I slowly lost 30ish pounds and then plateaued, hovering in the 160's for all of last semester senior year and for many months after graduation (about a year total).

In the last 1 1/2 years, with slight increases in exercise, I've been hovering in the 150's. I'm fairly happy with my body at this weight, and I'm not that worried about my eating, so my motivation to make anymore lifestyle changes is pretty weak. (I'm not sure what finally made me stick with giving up sugar -- low resolve derailed me half a dozen times before I really did it.)

Future: These days I have become more proactive about my health, which is causing some weight loss again. I began exercising because I am totally sick of being weak, and because I am going to hike across England with my mother in September, for which I need to build up some endurance. Plus, for my lifelong health (I've been thinking a lot about my future since A and I made a lot of grown-up future decisions), I should really be exercising regularly and getting enough Calcium starting now.

The truly shocking thing is that I just realized that my priorities have changed so much. No, I'm still not the vision of skinny perfection I've been dreaming about for seven years, but, honest-to-goodness (and contrary to an earlier post), I don't really care that much anymore. My weight's been stable for a long time, which is key -- I don't feel different in my own skin on a daily basis, and my wardrobe fits me all the time, so I'm not constantly triggered to think about my weight. And I'm lean enough that it is possible for me to look/feel hot when I want to.

What I do care about is that I ran to class the other day (I was late) and didn't get winded at all. And, two days ago I was most of the way around my first lap on the track when I realized that I was still breathing normally through my nose! I used to think about all the jaws I could drop and the insane first impressions I could make with my hot, hard-bodied self, but these days I am fantasizing about the day I can write an email home that says,


Dear Family,

Today I ran 10 miles.

Love, Molly


I mean, me. Ten miles. That's a lot of miles.

.....

That's the story for now.

The Fifteenth: BOOYAH!

_
Check me out! C and I went to the market on Thursday, and lookie what I bought!
















AND, I actually cooked and ate some!
















Thank you, thank you. You are too kind, but really, there is no need for applause.

:)__ :) __ :)

The Fourteenth: Fitness Update

I just woke up. I feel as if someone beat me up and poured me into my bed. My legs are tired, yo.

I wish the magical breakfast fairy would transport something directly into my stomach so it would stop complaining about my (extremely necessary) staying in bed.

I'm on schedule with my running if I go again tonight, and I'm doing fine food-wise, except ...still no veggies (and there was this one bag of chips...). I appear to be exceptionally bad at buying veggies in China.

Although, I guess if that is my biggest failing in the long run, that's not too bad at all.


P.S.

HA!

Look! There really is a magical breakfast fairy!
Look! There really is a magical breakfast fairy!















link


















link

I'd like a bagel, please. With PLENTY of cream cheese and maybe some of that bacon. And a glass of real honest-to-goodness nonfat American milk.

Sigh.

The Tenth: Fitness Update

link

I don't look like this quite yet.

HOWEVER, I did run for the first time yesterday since I got sick. I decided to redo the last week of my training, which I'm trying not to be too sad about (I had perfect compliance with my training schedule before I got sick) . Fortunately, practicality has its own rewards: the running yesterday was not too strenuous and therefore felt pretty good, so now I am not tempted to let last week's hiatus derail me completely. It was a beautiful day, too, and nice to be out in the sun. It looks as if I will be able to switch to shorts soon and leave off wearing my deeply silly spandex pants (they have bell-bottoms), and we're all very grateful for that.

The new food regimen is going okay. It's only two days old, but so far I've been conscientious about eating breakfast, lunch, and snacks as I should. Oddly, though I'm eating those things more frequently and eating better gonna-stick-to-my-ribs stuff at those times, I've been pretty hungry. Maybe my body's just adjusting? It's been a long time since I ate moderate amounts regularly instead of large amounts infrequently, so I suspect I still can't distinguish the finer points of hunger and satiation.

I still haven't bought any veggies (sleeping got in the way on Sunday morning and napping got in the way this afternoon). It didn't matter yesterday because I had a scrumptious (as E would say) dinner with the Spaniard&friends last night, but tonight I missed the veggies when I had only my hard-boiled egg to keep me company.

Done:
Bought/hard-boiled eggs
Bought bananas
Bought bread for the week (I hope it doesn't mold)
Asked Mom to mail more Grape-Nuts
Mixed up more milk
Chopped up more pineapple for easy noshing

Still To Do:
Buy veggies
Order granola so Mom can mail with Grape-Nuts
Run tomorrow
Ask Song to have two more yogurts delivered

Plan:
Order the granola tonight
Get up at 7am tomorrow to run and eat breakfast before 1st period
After 1st period, print/make copies for Special Class and buy veggies
Wait to ask about yogurt till later this week when go to make keys with Song (she's very busy now)

The Fifth

Bought eggs. One broke. Washed all the rest, put them in a new bag. Now have very clean eggs.

Also bought bread, chopped up pineapple, asked Mom to mail me more Grape-Nuts, bought wooden utensil that wouldn't scrape my teflon pan when I cook future veggies, bought desk lamp (only took me 6 months), picked up yogurt from office (but did not ask Song for more yet), and showered (only took me 6 months) (I kid).

Ate one yogurt--unusually delicious. Will buy veggies tomorrow.

Didn't run. Didn't lesson plan. Ate chips.

The Fourth

Okay, so I went to FitDay on the recommendation of a wedding blogger. The site is horribly put together, but it has served its purpose. It took forever*, but I dutifully plugged in all the nutritional information for the food I have access to here that I will eat and all the amounts of various things someone of my height and weight should consuming. Then I used FitDay's food log (which calculates total intake) to figure out a daily menu that I could potentially eat every day to do better.

IknowIknowIknow eating the same thing every day is not ideal, but baby steps, people! Right now, my diet is TERRIBLY unbalanced (picky/lazy + rural China = bad):

• I'm literally eating fewer than 10 types of food regularly (and two of them are chips and ramen).
• Not enough protein or veggies (both require a trek to the market AND cooking).
• Too much fat (half my diet is peanut butter, and the rest is porkfatty stir-fry or chips).
• Too many processed carbs (whole wheat does not exist here, and those damn chips).
• I thought I was doing okay calcium-wise (yogurt's decent, reconstituted powdered milk in my cereal, vitamin), but now that I've tallied it up, nope.

And then I'm doing a lot of indifferent bingeing on top of that, because that's what I do.

So, from now on (starting Sunday), I will eat

• Breakfast: bowl of Grape-Nuts and reconstituted nonfat powdered milk
• Lunch: peanut butter and banana sandwich, yogurt
  
• Dinner: steamed vegetables (3 cups, green, leafy), 1 egg
• Dessert: hot reconstituted milk with honey
• Snacks: fruit

...because that means (before snacks)

• 1179 calories, 40.1g fat, 59g protein, 1726.5mg calcium

...which (with my running) results in




















...which is pretty fly.


To do this, I must:

• Get up early on Sundays to buy the veggies.
• Walk faaaaaar to get bread/eggs once a week.
• STOP BINGEING ON THE FOOD I DO BUY SO I DON'T HAVE TO ACQUIRE FOOD NEARLY SO OFTEN.
• Ask Song to have the milkman deliver two more yogurts a week.
• Ask Mom to mail me more Grape-Nuts.
• Reconcile myself to eggs.
  

Wish me luck!



*I had to figure out all the Chinese words for English nutritional terms.

The First

Well, hello. Welcome, welcome.

I've just been reading NieNie Dialogues, which is so idyllic and wonderful that I am totally inspired. It seems that she (Nie Nie) has that effect on everyone, but now I am just brimming with desire to do craft projects and cook and decorate and have adventures and spontaneous, random, joyful moments.

I'm sure I could better follow her example by getting up and doing something, but instead I started this blog.

Today, I am sick abed, as I have been for the last three days. Since I missed classes yesterday and the day before and it was such a BIG. DEAL., I have felt honor-bound to stay in bed and get better, even though I am practically salivating over the thought of taking a run. Also, C threatened to beat me over the head if I tried.

I'm sure a run won't feel as nice as I'm imagining (even though the weather is perfect--all crisp and gray, and I haven't moved for THREE DAYS), and there will be students/townspeople/workman gaping at me, and I'll get a horrible coughing fit and need to stop early, and it will all hurt, and then I'll feel totally disheartened about how much conditioning I've already lost, but still...

look at this!

That's my view when I run! (Well, in one direction anyway--the track has buildings on the other side.) Can you imagine that glory while feeling all accomplished and athletic with your blood pumping under your wind-chilled skin?