new goodies for a new year

I am a testament to our consumer culture.

"I would be happier if I were thinner"
"I would be happier if I bought more stuff"

Well I prefer to combine the two, and purchase stuff laden with the alluring promise of weight loss. And I tell you what, it certainly makes me happier! My dears, I have shopped, and if this post were audible you would hear my squeals of delight.


First on the list was a new set of bathroom scales, complete with bioelectrical impedence body composition analysis. Ooooh excitement! I also bought 2 new types of diet pills. One of them is my standard caffeine packed pep pill. The other is a hydroxycitrate tablet that claims to help with lipid metabolism, but I suspect it's bullshit. My local discount pharmacy had a half price vitamin sale so I thought I'd splash out anyway... and besides, you can't beat a good diet pill placebo effect! I bought some other fun "supernutrient" tablets and some hair/skin/nails vitamins. I even bought bio-oil to try and kill my stretch marks (again, I'm sure it's bullshit).

I'm so excited to fill my stomach with crazy supplements and measure every inch of my body fat and its location... but I'm going to hold out until I wake up on new year's day. That is my big proper super special day 1, and I'm going to start off with a bang! It will be one hell of a shock of a bang, too, because holy moly I am the size of a house. Absolutely revolting. I'm trying to stay positive though - the more I have gained the more I have to lose. And I am GOING to lose it! And I love losing weight! So hell... I'm just giving myself more of what I love!

CAN'T
WAIT
'TIL
2010

Pasco xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yes, that is to be the plan...
New year, new ABC.

My pre-Christmas ABC was a trial run, and damn I did well! It is no big shock that I came unstuck over the holidays - probably the toughest challenge imaginable. But I have proven to myself I can do it and I will start it properly on January 1st.

in the mean time I am going to try and have a relatively normal and pleasant few days. I want to take care not to binge but it is neither essential that I starve. Just a little relaxation and resetting.

x

wwwwhoops!

Just to update you all, I never made it home from my parent's place and I never made it to the gym. Instead I continued to eat. Then I bought myself a glorious, gorgeous pink KitchenAid mixer and proceeded to make homemade pizza and pasta with mum. So I ate and ate some more and now I am about to go to bed stuffed. Honestly, I really haven't even contemplated throwing up. The food we made was too incredible and wholesome and amazing. I would feel terrible vomiting something created with such love and care. It was actually delightful. Mum and I poring over the bench, kneading dough and negotiating the pasta maker together. I'm bloated but for the first time in as long as I can remember I'm sort of enjoying the feeling.

So I've been thinking about how to progress from here. Initially what I was thinking was that I should retrospectively grant myself THREE days off for Christmas rather than one (an obvious underestimation of what I would need) then repeat day 6 tomorrow and continue from there. But I'm concerned I'll fuck it all up again, and if I keep on granting myself these concessions then I know that my entire ABC plan will fall apart. So I think what may be better is to hold out until the new year, and resume day 6 on January 1st. Then again, the ABC seems entirely pointless if it has these huge gaps in the middle of it - I don't want to gain a whole heap of weight in the mean time. So... what to do? I think I will sleep on it ans see how I feel in the morning. If anybody has an thoughts, I'd happily hear them.

Much love
Pasco x

Would you believe it?

I've already blown it!

I'm still at Mum and Dad's and there is just so much delicious Christmas food still lying around. The moment I got up I bee-lined for it. Despite my better intentions. I thought I'd just eat 300 calories worth and fast the rest of the day. I ate about twice that so now, if I'm to have any hope of resurrecting day 7, I have to go to the gym and burn off at least 300 more to make up for it. Shit.

Better that than giving in and admitting defeat though.

Break on Through

Christmas over
Boxing day (aka Christmas with the "other side") over

I had my freebie on Christmas day. Ate like a pig, and loved it. Managed to get away with one almighty spew in the evening and actually went to bed with a smaller than anticipated abdominal bulge.

Yesterday morning, boxing day, I ran. I ran and ran through the blistering Australian heat until my skin became cold, my limbs were tingling and my head began to space out. I didn't count my calories and I'm almost certain I went over my allowance, but I'm calling it a success because I ran so damn hard.


And now the worst of the holidays are behind me and I'm on the other side. I'm not sure if I made it to 55kg by Christmas morning and I'm going to give myself a few days for the weight to settle before I assess my progress (or lack of it). 300 calories today. Straight back in the game!

That goes for you girls as well :)
x

...and to all a good night!

I made it!
I made it I made it I made it... I made it through today!

I deviated from the plan a little. Didn't have time to go to the gym so decided to fast to make up for it. But then I managed to squeeze in a 40 minute run from my parents' house in the evening, allowing me 400 calories for dinner. I had a few prawns, then I baked Christmas cookies. Baking is my hugest challenge - I love it, but I always eat so so so much (of both the ingredients, the batter and the finished product). I managed to stick to 3 very small cookies, and overall came out exactly on par with my daily total. I'm so pleased and proud. I didn't think I could do it but I DID! 5 days, perfectly executed, no purging.

And tomorrow is CHRISTMAS! My free pass. I will try and be relatively good but if I fail it doesn't matter. It doesn't count. It is a day of fun and love and I am going to have the most fun and love I possibly can!

May you all have an absolutely magical Christmas!


Pasco x

tomorrowphobe

Another day down. A lovely day. More exercise. Eating slotted neatly and easily within my calorie allowance. Sanity, good. The realisation that I haven't thrown up for 4 days, fantastic!

One more day, then Christmas. My free pass. Free... free to eat, but hopefully also free from the horrible compulsion to binge. I hope to employ all your helpful strategies to have a lovely day without going overboard. And to get back on track for boxing day.

Christmas will be OK. Right now my largest fear is the "one more day" between now and then. Day 5. 100 calories. I will need to go to the gym and do some serious cardio to "earn" more calories, because I don't think I can stick to that amount. I'm going home to my parents' place to start setting up for Christmas. Their house is an enormous binge trigger and there will be family dinner, not to mention Christmas food aplenty. I'm feeling a little panicked about it. On the brink of giving up... I don't know if I can burn off enough! I don't know if I can control myself! I've done so well and I don't want to waste it! I wish I could just skip tomorrow, go straight to my merry little Christmas then the following days of amends-making.

I really REALLY want to stay strong and get through it. So bear with me while I ponder through a plan.


♦Wake up, open pressies with housemates (we won't see each other on Christmas day so we are having mini Christmas tomorrow)

♦Suggest we do not crack into the special chockies we bought for Christmas because it is "too early" and perhaps propose we split them and take them along to our respective Christmases to share with our loved ones

♦No breakfast, just diet pills

♦Hit the gym and try for an hour of cardio. This will be hard (felt faint at the gym today and barely made half an hour) but it is super important. If needs be, do four 15 minutes intervals with rest breaks. Aim to burn around 500 calories, allowing 600 calorie total intake

♦Come home, eat 100 calories of egg whites, take more diet pills and fill up with a buttload of metamucil and raw veggies

♦Pack handbag full of celery, carrot sticks and snow peas

♦Head for parents' place and attempt to survive the afternoon on zero-calorie vegie snacks and gum

♦Brave the family dinner, suggest something light like ham&salad, be careful to keep it under 500 calories, and "let's not have dessert because we should save room for Christmas"



Well... it SOUNDS doable...
I feel a zillion times better just having typed it out!

Would anybody be keen for a bit of a "surviving Christmas" tip share?

day 3 at peace

I slept really badly last night and have been so sleepy today. I decided to forgo the gym, which means I've only had 300 calories to play with and I have used them all up now. That's OK - it's 4pm and I think I'll have a quiet night in drinking peppermint tea before going to bed early.


The horrible mood of yesterday has lifted, and I feel hungry and tired

...but at peace

x

Labile

Two days of the plan effortlessly completed. I'm exercising, eating perfectly, not even getting hungry. An ideal start.

But my mood...
My mood is off.
This isn't good.
If I can't maintain my mental state I know I won't be able to maintain my diet.

I've been working like a trojan at the gym. It has been feeling great. Hard, but great. But several times I have almost burst into tears on the treadmill. I haven't felt upset and there have been no precipitants, but I've been getting these massive sudden surges of emotion. I guess it's endorphins, but this doesn't normally happen and I don't like it. And tonight I feel terrible. Looking around at my room and just being swamped by this immense guilt. Receipts and tags litter my floor from the shit I have bought that I don't need or really even want. Consumption. Fuck it's so gross. There are a couple of little gifts my mum has bought me and when I see them I want to hurl because I feel so completely undeserving. It sickens me, that she loves me. I am a leech. I owe her so much. SO much. I'm thousands of dollars behind in rent that she has been covering for me, and I don't even try to make it up. I continue to fritter away unearned cash on frivolous shit. Consume consume consume. I really fucking disgust myself.

I'm really really feeling it right now. Guilt guilt disgusting fucking self-loathing horrible guilt. It worries me. I don't want my mind to crumble under my new regime.

EMERGE

It is no use waiting for new year's resolutions. I have LET MYSELF GO. And I'm starting again. Right now. This morning's numbers were horrifying and eye opening. I'm at a crossroads on the the cusp of fat. My complacency has been my undoing. Who was I to think I could get away with not counting? Not exercising? I need strictness and exactness, measuring scales and nutritional labels. Be cruel to me, badger me, hold me accountable. I don't want to be fat. I'm not ready to give up. I need this. Here we go!

New Starting Weight
57 kg, 125.4 lbs, BMI: 20.4

Goal Weight
48 kg, 105.6 lbs, BMI: 17.2

GW 1 - 55.0 kg, 121.0 lbs
GW 2 - 53.0 kg, 116.6 lbs
GW 3 - 51.5 kg, 113.3 lbs
GW 4 - 50.0 kg, 110.0 lbs
FINAL GOAL - 48!

Now I cannot get there without rules. Hard and fast, no room for diversion, absolute-all-or-nothing rules. And I think the rules need to start with some structure- a tried and tested diet plan. I had great success with the ABC in the past. I only made it through about 10 days but I did beautifully well over that time and lost a lot of weight. It's a good place to start.

So here are the bare bones of it:

1: 500 2: 500 3: 300 4: 400 5: 100 6: 500 7: 300 8: 400 9: 200 10: fast

11: 150 12: 200 13: 400 14: 350 15: 250 16: 200 17: fast 18: 200 19: 100 20: fast

21: 300 22: 250 23: 200 24: 150 25: 100 26: 50 27: 100 28: 200 29: 200 30: 300

31: 800 32: fast 33: 250 34: 350 35: 450 36: fast 37: 500 38: 450 39: 400 40: 350

41: 300 42: 250 43: 200 44: 200 45: 250 46: 200 47: 300 48: 200 49: 150 50: fast

And here are my personal amendments and details:

♦I will deduct all exercise calories from my daily totals. I need to start exercising, and this is my incentive. The more I burn, the more I can eat

♦As always, I will not count calories in plain raw vegetables

♦Now this is a new one for me! I will not count calories in alcohol, but ONLY for spirits straight up, or with zero-calorie mixers. This being the last summer holidays of my life, I think I ought to allow for a little merriment!

♦I will be granted ONE free day for Christmas (I mean who am I kidding, I love Christmas!). So this means Christmas eve will be day 5 and boxing day will be day 6.

♦I will take care of my whole body, meaning supplements ahoy! Fish oil, fibre, calcium, multivitamins. None of these will count for any calories.

♦Finally...

I will not fail!

I hope to reach my first goal by Christmas morning. 2kg in 5 days sounds like a stretch, but I put in on very quickly and with any luck it will drop straight off. Then onwards and upwards into the new year and beyond. I will emerge victorious!


Pasco x

Secrets and Lies

My housemate (who I love and adore and am worried I'm influencing) told me a few days ago in a half-joking-half-serious way that she was "never eating again". Since then we have engaged in an obscenely open dialogue about dieting (starving oneself) and have been encouraging one another not to eat at all. I talk openly and laconically about my ridiculous restrictive phases and fasts of days gone by, and she talks openly about how perhaps we should be less open. It's the "everyone does it, in secret, so why not just talk about it and help each other" approach... with a little of the "but let's not tell anybody else just in case" approach tacked onto the end. The two of us, together, open.


But it is not entirely open. The purging cannot be open. I'm sure everyone probably suspects, but as long as nobody actually knows I can kind of live with the shame. Tonight I had the most incredible purge of my life. It has been a few days since the last time, and I have been doing OK, but the last couple of hours I've been home alone after a reasonably crap-food day. So I had some icecream and popcorn and cheese and chocolate, and it seemed that one second I was full and the next I was empty. I stepped into the shower to vomit and almost instantaneously the entire contents of my stomach came smoothly and easily upward and onto the tiles. It flowed out of me. Everything! I had taken a glass of metamucil half an hour beforehand, and I'm now considering conducting an experiment some time in the future to see of this was responsible for my success.

You see? I'm revolting! Some things can only ever be secrets.
But for the other things, I now feel I have a friend.

Pasco
x

I'm in hiding

I'm too scared to step on the scales and too fat to blog. I suppose it's denial. If I can't see the numbers and I can't see you all, then I can't be doing that badly.

So... I'll just be hiding away, waiting for a bit of impetus, a bit of change. I think I might take some dexies and clean my house. Clean home, clean slate, clean body?

Fingers crossed.

I look a myself in the mirror

How can I be so familiar
Yet unfamiliar
All at once?

Composure

I inhaled all of your words and I calmed myself down and had a couple of OK days. I was away in the country doing some work, and a lot of the eating was out of my hands. Constant company meant I couldn't go too haywire, and I made smart choices where I could. So yes, a couple of OK days. Not fantastic but calm, composed, and (thanks Lulu) sensible.

Then today I had a brilliant day. Fruit and salad. Plenty of both but not a thing more. I blatantly ignored the KFC my friends and housemates ate at dinner and stuck to my guns. So two OK days and one brilliant day makes three puke-free days and a little hope. Just have to stay sensible. Slow and steady wins the race.

Calm
Controlled
Composed

Furious

Fuck, I'm so angry at myself.

I can't sleep. I want to scream, or cry, or slam my head into the wall. But I've got nothing. I know the emotion is there, and I'm desperate to give it an outlet, but I can't actually connect with it.

I just really desperately want to punish myself. Somehow. I have that hideous feeling of frenzied panic, where my weight is steadily climbing and I'm COMPLETELY powerless. I hate myself for it. Get a fucking grip! Stop this! Stop it!


I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm out of time, out of control, out of options. Trying, trying, trying all the time. But am I really? Really? Surely not. Just feigning trying. Making excuses for myself. This can't possibly be the best I can do. I've done better before. What is so different now?

Momentum, that's what. The pendulum has swung. I'm terrified. How the hell can I try harder than this? There's too much inertia.

Oh god, oh fuck, how could I let this happen? I am so, so angry at myself. I know it isn't helpful, but it seems to be all I can really feel. Anger, a blurry grey mesh of hate and fear.

Puppet

I'm trying to keep positive
Trying trying TRYING

Every day I do well but every night I end up unable to stop eating and invariably throwing up as much as I can as quietly as I can before bed. It didn't used to be like this. I never struggled with night time eating in the past. I wish I could shake the habit. I HAVE to shake the habit. Otherwise no amount of positivity will dig me out of this hole.

It is just so hard to shake the habit when I feel as though I have no control over myself. I don't know how it continually happens. I am a marionette and I'm controlled by someone whose theory I understand but who I cannot connect with emotionally at all. Dancing the same stupid fucking dance, bound by the same endless fucking song.

But today I'm feeling more positive

I can't make my goal by Christmas.
Berating myself for it won't make any difference.
And desperately struggling to overcompensate for my failure is only making the situation worse.

I can get a grip. I can do OK. I can lose a kilo or 2 by Christmas no sweat, and I will feel better and stronger and healthier for it. Then there is a new year with new challenges and new opportunities to reach new and better goals. So I set this one a little too high. Accepting it and doing the best I can is the only step forward.

Besides,
It's summer.
And it's beautiful!


x

I'm not doing very well...

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that I'm not going to make my goal. I have been failing regularly and epically.

I want to give up. Often I think that I should just give up, maintain my weight where it is. Anise is right, this is all bullshit. It crowds us out of our own lives. I don't want that.

Then I remember that it is impossible to give up. Putting the disordered eating to bed and adopting normality sounds oh so very simple, but any time I ever try I just end up even more tortured. No sense of full or empty, just incessant desire to eat, never ever satisfied.

So all I have is starve or binge.
And while starve usually leads to binge anyway,
I suppose it's somewhat better than binge alone.

Defeatistly yours,
Pasco
x

life less

I am so utterly exhausted I can barely move.

Too early for bed, too tired to do anything. I've considered the video shop, but I doubt I could even concentrate on a movie. And there's always the lingering threat of bags of maltesers and microwave popcorn at the counter. All I can do is sit, and stare.

The plan I made last night was executed flawlessly today. Only I forgot how quickly starvation renders me entirely useless. I feel too accomplished to eat more now, although I think I probably should. Plan for tomorrow: protein bar for breakfast (150cal) then hit the shops all day and attempt to avoid all future meals. Salads if desperate.

Lovely Things

You lovely things. You lovely girls.
I take you for granted! I'm sorry.

You have diligently reminded me of my goals, and while I have sabotaged them significantly in the last week they are not yet out of reach. It will be hard work. But I can do it. I too can be a lovely lovely thing. Shimmering and svelte, an ethereal Christmas angel.


So the plan starts now!

Tomorrow I want to cleanse myself. Purge myself. Renew myself.
It starts tonight - laxatives then bed.

In the morning:
Diet pills
Caffeine pills
Vitamins
Tea

...then straight off to the...

Gym:
30 mins resistance
30 mins treadmill/eliptical
90 mins yoga
30 mins pool, steam, sauna

Sweat, cleanse, empty, purify
Water water water water
Replace, replenish, refresh, renew

This will take me through to mid afternoon. I will feast on a delicious salad of leafy greens harvested from my own backyard. Nothing more. Crisp, fresh, pure, perfect.

Then just bide my time until bed once more.




Thank you all again
Pasco
x

Alone

So alone

Somebody, anybody,
Say something meaningful.
Anything
I don't care

Just give me SOMETHING

So today I:

Wrote off my mum's car
Got horribly drunk
Ate lots of food

the end

Make Pretty

Feeling fat
Feeling ugly
Feeling like I can't be fucked even trying

Gotta make pretty
Hair
Nails
Skin
Gotta just get up, out of bed, just do it


Make pretty
Feel pretty

GET MOTIVATED

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

Or is it 1 step forward, 2 steps back?
I don't know yet because I don't know what I weigh.


When I woke on Saturday I weighed in at 53.8kg, meaning I'd lost my kilo for the week. All things going swimmingly that morning. The problem lay in the graduation ceremony that afternoon, which preceded an entire weekend of flowing champagne and reckless engorgement.

So, here I am waking up on Monday morning with a sore throat and swollen belly, recalling my chocolate honeycomb dinner last night and wondering how much of my good work I have undone in only 2 days. I shall never know because I vow to get back on track and not weigh myself until next Saturday. 5 more days. By then (fingers crossed) I will be strong and in control and somewhere around 53kg.

5 days
5 steps forward
0 steps back
Back on track



Eurghhh I feel sick

x

lament

I thought running would make my day easier.
So terribly wrong. I was a mess.

My mind was so fragmented and hyper-irritable, driven to raging, screaming madness by the tiniest noise. Any interruption to my rambling ruminating internal dialogue was completely unbearable, intolerable. Trying to contain it and not let it escape in bursts of hatred towards those around me. Fuming, distant, withdrawn. Holding on, holding it in. At the same time just so achingly exhausted. Unable to do anything, not wanting to do anything, but frightened by the depths of meaninglessness and boredom. Panicked. Nothing much went wrong but everything felt wrong.

Just biological. Physiological. This must mean I'm starving. This is what happens to brains when they start to starve. Burnt out and brittle and hungry.

And it says to me, over and over, EAT AND THROW UP
do it
do it
do it
DO IT and until you do it I will not remit, I will not relent

But I didn't do it and I'm hurting inside and outside from fighting it. I want this day to end. I have done "so well" but every ounce of my fortitude has been expended beyond all possible capacity to get here. Still I have resisted my helpful tablets but if I am to survive tomorrow I feel there is no choice. I can't go it alone.

This is HARD
I forget how hard this is

I did it!

and it was so easy!

You know those runs where you feel as though you're flying along and your breath moves through you effortlessly and everything is perfect.

But it is not so much about the run as what it means for the rest of my day. Back in charge. Calm and strong and powerful.

hiccupped, frowny face

Did brilliantly well all day, then was sabotaged by friends and booze this evening. I tried, reeeeally tried, to get out of it. Sort of.

The main culprits were red wine and chocolate. But I was able to end the evening early, throw most of it up in the shower, then head to bed where I now type this post. The damage is fairly nominal. the real damage will occur when I wake up tomorrow and all the motivation and power of the last 3 days will have evaporated and I will go "fuck it, why not binge and purge the day away like the ridiculous fucking bitch I am?!"

So really, what I need to do is wake up bright and fresh and keep going strong and not get derailed by a little bit of puked cab merlot. What would be really great would be if I got up at 6am and went for a run on the beach to compensate for my aberration and inspire a little progress.

The alarm is set. Wish me luck!

110110110110110 110!

So it would seem that so many of us have 110lbs in our goals and within our grasps! The ultimate Christmas gift, imminent and achievable!

Flushed,
See,
Farah,

50 for Christmas! 110lbs!
We'll keep each other accountable.

And Lulu, 115lbs by January, I'm keeping you accountable too my girl. Little Lulu ain't getting left behind, not ever!

x

Edit: Little dolls were the uppers and downers used by the glamorous darlings of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls

50 for Christmas - Little Dolls

By hook or by crook I'm going to get there!

The last 3 days I have eased into it. 400, 500 and 600 calories respectively. It has been easy, as it always is at the start of a fresh, new, motivated cycle. Although I don't like the way the numbers are creeping up. Tomorrow I will use pharmacological assistance to abolish my appetite and get in another splendidly low day. Plus a little housework. The two go hand in hand. I have enough pharmacological assistance to get me through every second day between now and Christmas, if I need it. But only if I need it. The last 3 days I haven't.

What's more, not a thought of throwing up. It is not on the agenda. Not on my mind. I hope it stays out of my mind for a while longer. If it worms it's way in, I'll cram it out again with my magic "little dolls".

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. I haven't blogged in so long! I've been so busy. But now just sunshine, curly straws and no responsibilities. And starvation, of course. So I weighed myself on Saturday morning and I was 55kg on the nose. It is bad, but better than I was expecting because I was a filthy horrible pig the preceding week. Still, I have over 5 weeks to love 5kg and I'm going to do it.

The plan?

Well, as above, my hyperactive friend has supplied me with my little dolls. Wonderful assistants, yes, but I'll need more than that. I've been meaning to come up with a proper plan since before I started restricting again on Saturday but never got the chance. I think for now a few bits and pieces to make up the framework. Ideas, guidelines. I'll see what I can form from them and etch out something a little more solid. So here goes:

• 500 calories a day, less where possible, 600 where necessary


• Eat 100 calories at a time, at 2 hour intervals


• Incorporate plenty of protein - egg whites, protein bars, lean meat


• Raw vegies still don't count as calories


• Drinks buttloads of tea - green, peppermint, dandelion, whatever...


• ...oh, plus hot water with lemon


• Vast quantities of weird supplements, psyllium husks and apple cider vinegar


• Caffeine pills on no-doll-days


• Stimulant-free stay-in-bed days for moderation


• Ease into running and enquire at new gym


• Feel pretty to pass the time - painted nails, face masks and moisturizer

I will not weigh myself until next Saturday morning to see if I have lost the necessary kilo for the week. And fingers crossed for a little more. Because who am kidding? I'm aiming for 50 by Christmas but if I can come in at 49 I'll hardly be disappointed.

Huge love
Pasco
x

fiftythreeandahalfkilos in a cage

53.5
That's OK
Steady and coming down

Today I have plans to study all day with a boy I studied with all day yesterday and the day before. I'm fairly certain he loves me. I have told him in no uncertain terms that nothing can or will ever happen. But I can see how he thinks he is breaking through me, unearthing my defense mechanisms and discovering something underneath. Winning me over. It makes me feel manipulative. I'm stringing him along because I'm lonely and I need a friend, and a friend who thinks they've cracked me will be endeared to me even more. But I told him... in no uncertain terms I TOLD him.

I often wonder if I should just start a relationship with him, because he has earned it and expects it, even though I don't want it. I hate that feeling of being owned or obliged, trapped. I won't do it, it's not what I want. Sometimes it just seems easier. I feel like everyone wants to cage me. And I am too compliant and tired to fend for myself.

Glimpses

This morning I can see little fragments of the life I want fitting together. Not much to eat for a couple of days. I cleaned my room. Immaculate and magnificent. Lying in my perfect bed, white linen and lace. Tiny fluffy white cat alseep on my legs. Balmy morning. Quiet, overcast but warm. Only noise soft harm from vintage fan, cool air across my face. No stress, no pressure.

All I Want For Christmas...

...is a beautiful reflection

53 days
5 kilograms

I will be 50 for Christmas

CLOWN

See this?

...

THIS is the face of a girl who wants desperately, DESPERATELY, to throw up all her halloween candy.

THIS is the face of a girl who cannot get away with throwing up anything right now.

THIS is the lipstick besmeared face of bitter fucking irony.

...

All you can do is laugh

Today I ate my weight in icecream...

My weight was nicely down this morning. Blessed hangover weight. But the scent of self sabotage was in the air and I filled myself to the brim with various confections. I emptied myself again, but never quite enough, and I'm sure I'll be fatter tomorrow.

Guess What?

I just had my last day of uni

EVER

that is, I am now pretty much a doctor.







I am also very drunk, as one tends to be when they finish uni and become a doctor. And I am surrounded by boys who are drinking and celebrating. And a couple of them just screeched away in their vehicle and from their window they yelled out at me "you are a fucking slut".

And they don't realise how much it stings. How could they? When I have spent every moment of my life deliberately and carefully guarded. Never getting too close or being too cosy or having anyone know me in case they see that I am not good enough. Yet despite my care and despite my distance I am a "fucking slut".

And I look in the mirror and even though I am drunk and my guard is down, all I see is fat fat fat. And I think that because I am drunk and because my guard is down maybe, for once, I will see a true reflection of myself and it won't horrify me. And all I see is fat fat fat.

Watching the Clock

8.54pm


Want to binge

I'm not going to though. I'm going to have a shower and go to bed. Today has been about 600 calories. My weight is plateauing something terrible at the moment but I just don't think I can go much below that for now. Still, 2 days and no chucking. It's a win.

Love you all my darlings. If not for your support I'm certain I'd never have made it.

Pasco
x

finally, beloved bedtime

I did it!
I CAN do it!

I held out and held out and by 7pm I reached a sort of tipping point. Where the space of time I needed to fill until I could go to sleep was small enough that I was confident I could get through it without eating. And once that confidence hit me, it was easy.

So now here I am, sitting in my bed, ready to lay back and shut my eyes and forget about the hunger growling away in my belly. A day without vomiting, a long time coming. And worth the effort.

Oh Blah!

I haven't had a good day in ages.

I keep starting off OK then as the day goes on it just gets worse and worse, building up steam, and I'm without fail puking in the shower every night before bed. I haven't had an all out binge in a while. Just bits and pieces creeping their way in until it's all just a wee bit WAY bit too much.

Every morning I wake up and think righto! Good day today. Never happens. Right now it's 4.14pm and I've already had 500 calories today and all I'm thinking is food food FOOD! Aaaah crap. I wonder if I should just go buy myself a big fucking bit of cake and a litre of icecream and get the fucker over with.

But then I know I just need ONE decent fucking day to lift myself out of this.


God fucking dammit.

ran

I wrote my previous post in a drunken stupor following a night I can barely remember. One thing is for certain, it wasn't literal. More a... forging blindly into the dark with branches whipping your face desperately escaping... sort of run. It was a good night though. So I'm told.

I really want to detox. 3 day water fast followed by 2 day juice fast followed by 2 days raw to round off a week. It sounds so magnificent and fantastic. I want to feel that freshness. Cool. Air, light and water. Sunset silhouettes and balmy breezes.


But it seems I'm never alone or in control enough to live out such a plan. And any time I'm steered even a little off course I do terribly. I just want my own little deserted island with nothing but swaying palm trees and bubbling springs. Dip in my toes. Juice a few coconuts on days 4 and 5. Maybe a mango on day 6.

what the fuck can you do except RUN

Existential Crisis

Who am I?

Tonight I am suffering. I can't get out of my own head. I don't know where all this comes from. I don't know how I can continue to function when I am so dysfunctional. Somehow I am supported, held upright, by all the structures in place around me. I have constructed this life around myself but I am completely lost in the middle of it. My feet don't even touch the ground anymore. The person I am is a lifeless doll propped upright by a tower of scaffolding. Construct construct construct, buy things, dress this way, make up that way, consume consume consume, accumulate.

CONSTRUCT

Building this life around myself from the inside out, a giant protective ball against some aggressor I don't even remember. Effective at first, then increasingly entropic and now completely out of control. Exponentially increasing chaos. Like the rat, continually pressing its button for a hit of dopamine until it dies. Quick, desperate, positive reinforcement. Now a rapidly spiraling, completely nonsensical set of behaviours I can't change.

AND I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHY

What was wrong with me? What was so bad that I had to bury myself underneath all of this? Who the fuck was I? Who am I?

hot summer nights

I calmly binged and threw up tonight. The pressure just kept mounting, the craving intensifying. I didn't feel too terrible or out of control, I just decided to do it and get it over with. I'm hoping the release will be enough to stave off the urge for a few good days. I certainly feel disgusting now that it's over. I generally do afterward. Groggy and ill. Stale. Stagnant.

All I'm craving now is hot summer nights and cold summer drinks.
Wooden floors boards, open windows, warm sticky night air, quiet and distance and breeze and strangeness. Sweat, humidity, contemplation. Stillness. Dark and stars.

Adrift

I've been battling, really battling, to stay afloat these last few days. I've been persistently wanting to binge and throw up. I made it through yesterday. Today I was doing well, throwing everything I had against the flood gates, but in the end I sprung a few leaks. A little low fat ice cream, a little more, a handful of nuts, a handful of muesli, gentle purging, acceptable calorie total. My flood gates cracked, but I barricaded those fuckers with all my might and they didn't crumble. I did OK.

I think normally I'm either strong, and suppress the urge, or I'm weak, and I give in to it immediately. At the moment, I'm not strong enough to push the feelings away but I'm desperately trying to resist them. It is really exhausting me. I'm feeling desperate. I'm dog paddling against the current and it's only a matter of time until I drown.

a kind twist of fate

I decided on a late night trip to the shop. I hadn't committed to anything... I was just bored and wanted the pleasure of perusing the aisles and imagining the possibilities. I decided to walk there, a fast paced 20 minutes away, to kill some time and create some movement. After significant supermarket meandering I settled on a roll of cookie dough and was deliberating around the ice cream freezer when I was confronted head on by a uni friend and his mates, out to buy post-weekend-bender juice. Gosh! The shock! While out shopping for a binge! I passed off the cookie dough as a moment of poor decision, replaced it on the shelf, and treated myself to the most expensive sparkling mineral water they had. 1 litre in a magnificent glass bottle for $6. Outrageous, but less than the cost of the ice cream and cookie dough I might have had instead had my plans not been interrupted. So all in all I stayed around 500-600 calories for the day, got in a bonus 40 minute walk to the shops and back, and now I'm going to bed purge-free.

Thank you universe

a day in the life: a day in the nest

Another night, another failure, falling to sleep midst silent promises of grandeur and accomplishment come morn. Another morning, another failure. This time of movement and motivation.

It was a delightful and guiltless failure though. Started with early morning waking and creeping sunlight, heat and sweat in rumpled sheets. Just a little blogging to start my day. Curling up drinking hot water and lemon. Laptop, cats and slow unraveling. One blog leads to another, one link leads to another, one silly BBC anorexia documentary leads to another leads to bulimia with Dr Phil on youtube. And let's not forget endless reams of celebrity gossip and scandal, diet secrets of the stars, fabulous detox programs to transform your life and hours of veritable weight loss delight.

And thus begins (with shout out to Anise) my day in the nest.


Finally some time late this afternoon I hauled myself up, scrubbed my face and went to the markets. I bought fresh fruit and vegetables then dithered around the bakery eying off the last minute Sunday afternoon sales. Huge trays of jam donuts and chocolate croissants being cleared out for next to nothing. To and fro. Would I or wouldn't I? I wouldn't. I used my money instead to buy flowers. Then I ate salad and fresh fruit in the sunshine.

I'm not out of the woods yet, though. Still I know I kind of sort of maybe want to. Just pop down the late night gourmet supermarket and pore over the muffins. Cake, warm with ice cream. Biscuits dipped in hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Ssshhh, Pasco

Have a cup of tea
And return to the nest

Power

Last night my skirt was short and shiny, my heels were high, my waist was thin and I felt awesome. Hungry and awesome and as I looked across the sea of bodies and faces I surged with power. I didn't eat and therefore I was better than them. I was electric.

Today was hot and delicious, but I was sent haywire by a chocolate doughnut I insisted on resisting. The fury of denying something I craved so intensely burned through me all day and I became irate and reckless. I ended up imbibing every form of compensation available to me - cheese, nuts, dried fruit, chocolate - then threw up this evening following dinner with my family.

The storm after the power surge. But where is the calm?

hmmm...

...maybe in Australia our doughnuts are just way smaller or lighter than anywhere else in the world. But averaging out all the brands I looked up, 300 was a reasonably high estimate... (not advocating doughnuts to anybody though)

Ate the jam doughnut
Looked it up - around 300 calories was right
Ate a small portion of the dinner my sister made when I got home
And some light ice cream.

But I stuck to my small portions, actually felt reasonably satisfied and did not allow thoughts of purging to even wash over my cerebrum afterward. For a tiny moment I glimpsed normal.

Finished up around 900 calories for the day
I'm pleased with that.

At War

Today has been hard. It is still being hard. I'm so tired. Bereft of any motivation. I can't stop thinking about food, and I can't be bothered doing anything so as to distract myself.

But I'm still battling on

It's 4.30pm. I had a boiled egg for breakfast, a piece of ham and some strawberries for lunch and lots of raw veg throughout the day. Trying to kid my stomach into believing it is being properly fed. Around 200 calories in total. I don't count raw veg calories. I'm of the firm belief that it is impossible to eat enough raw veg for the calories to make much of a dent. And I need the nutrients. Of course scary vegetables like potatoes don't count as vegetables at all. No siree, even I can't pretend those calories don't exist.

Still all thoughts on food. In half an hour I'm going shopping with my housemate. This will create a distraction. Unfortunately we are going to Ikea, and she has a "thing" for dodgy fatty Ikea food. I am going to be pushed into a jam doughnut I can feel it. Last time we went to Ikea I resisted and resisted and played the "already ate" card then stood around awkwardly while she ate. I won't get away with it again. If I call a jam doughnut dinner, hopefully it won't be much more than 300 calories and I can call it a day at 500. Then again, I'm sure it will probably be more than 300. May as well be a million. It is not part of my plan.

I could give myself the day off today, enjoy a junky Ikea dinner and be good tomorrow. But it doesn't work like that. You can't "enjoy" anything when you feel that hateful angry guilty twinge in the back of your brain. And once I've let my guard down I'll only go mad and eat continuously until I puke.

When you lose the battle
You may as well give up the war

Day 3 = Damn!

I'm going to call it partial fail.
200 calories
then gallery opening this evening
involving 3 glasses of red
then dinner
including another 2 glasses of red
plus dessert.

purged
IDIOT

but cut short the urge to binge "since I'd blown it anyway" when I got home...

so make of it what you will. I just need to make sure this doesn't turn into a whole lot of "why bother?" since I've already fucked up. Gotta ignore the set back and stick to the program.

Still tipsy and got a kitty begging for lights out and snuggly time.


Goodnight you incredible undiscovered wonders
x

2

1 boiled egg for breakfast
Broccoli and cauliflower for lunch
A nectarine
A kiwifruit
Salad and tuna for dinner
Diet jelly

Around 400 calories

Now an early night to make sure today ends without the threat of cake!


2 days
Fingers crossed for 3

Purge Free Days: 1

1 boiled egg for breakfast
Half a punnet of strawberries and cherry tomatoes for lunch
A carrot
An apple
Small chicken salad for dinner

Around 400 calories

...then...

Turned down the wine
Passed on the doritos
No thank you to curry

Couldn't get out of the chocolate cake

Perhaps another 400

DID NOT THROW UP
wanted to
didn't

Once upon a time...

...I could do this.

I could stop eating and weight would fall off me and I would feel airy and breathless all at once. My chest would flutter and my head would be light and I would float through my days, calm in the knowledge that I was getting thinner and prettier and the world was getting better.

I know the science and I know the statistics and I know that food deprivation tends to lead to binging and distress and loss of control. An inability to ever properly feel either hunger or fullness. I know that most anorexics generally become bulimics. But I thought, no, I have a mind, a consciousness, control. I know what I want. I won't cave in. I am not powerless.

so how did this happen? How can I be so irrational? How can this hateful beast inside me keep feeding me and then forcing it back out of me? This battle is awful. It's horrible. I hate it. I don't want to eat. So why do I? How can such tiny hidden hormone imbalances and neurotransmitters and blood sugar levels conspire so strongly to beat even my own conscious mind???

I don't know what to do! I want to stop eating again. I want to go back on a 500 calorie a day calories restriction again. Once upon a time 500 calories a day seemed enormous! But this thing inside me won't let me. I am throwing up ALL the time. I am bulimic. Actually really and truly all-DSM-criteria-met diagnostic fucking bulimic!

This isn't what I want but it is so SO hard to go back from this place to that place. I feel fat, vile and loathsome. I've been sitting around 55kg but I feel it creeping, nudging it's way upwards. I want to maintain. But I want to get back down to 50 first. And the more I push the more I am defeated. The harder I try the further I get from where I want to be. That is how this works. I know that.

You can't cure this.
This is hell.




Most of us end up here, at least for a while. I know you are feeling me. But fuck. Fuck it's hard. Sometimes you get out for a brief moment. Feel a glimmer of hope. But then you slide right back down.

This is hell.

OUT OF CONTROL

messy messy messy MESS
i cannot stop. i talk to myself out loud. i SCREAM at myself. plead with myself. PLEASE fucking PLEASE but no. no NO NO because still hand to mouth hand to mouth hand to mouth all fucking day.

hand to mouth
hand to mouth
hand to mouth
finger to throat
nothing
nothing nothing nothing
finger to throat
harder
faster
FUCKING THRUSTING
nothing
HARDER
NO FUCKING LETTING OFF NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT HURTS

hand to fucking mouth FUCK YOU

it really is like there is this part of me that hates myself so much. hears my pleas. please please just stop. and it looks at me sideways, crooked grin, winks at me, then grabs fistfuls of hate and rams them into my mouth.

hand to mouth
chew
swallow
throw up

and i'm still happy. kind of. in a miserable whirlwindy kind of way. i'm seeking people. i've lost satisfaction in isolation. the solace of sadness is gone. i want life but life kicks the fucking shit out of me.

i'm happy but i'm hurting more than ever.
fuck it. i'm not happy. this isn't happiness.

i don't know where i am
but i know i don't like it

all over the place

I think if you carried me up 18 flights of stairs, positioned me on the edge of a balcony and gave me a gentle nudge, my brain all over the pavement would probably still be more together than how it seems now.

I am all over the place but I still feel happy.

Everything is messy and disorganised. I'm still wallowing in my own filth. Still sleeping in an unmade bed I share with cats. I have one on my chest right now. I have been drinking much too much. Eating is bad. Disorder reigns. But I still feel happy.

On the weekend I got drunk and brought a boy home. He head butted me in the face and walked out on me because I wouldn't sleep with him. And possibly because he cottoned onto my insanity. It was more complicated than that, perhaps, and the headbutting was an accident. Still, now I'm all alone, rejected, abandoned, with a BLACK EYE and still... happy.

Ohhhhh but woe is me, why can't I have both? Why are happiness and skinniness mutually exclusive? I'm trying to think of a new plan. Something maintenancey... I'm not really at a weight I WANT to maintain at the moment, but I'm too rational in the head to talk myself into starvation.

Pasco x

Something is happening to me and I cannot stop it...

...and I think it is happiness.


It is very strange. It has been coming on for weeks. Maybe months. Gradually, gradually. That slow chemical neuron shift. I kind of realised it as I was coming down from the pills I took at the ball. And I felt that deep-down almost-catatonic misery. And it occurred to me that I used to ALWAYS feel like that. And now I don't.

And I can meter it by the infrequency of my blogging. I am light years behind. And I miss everyone but I don't NEED everyone.

This should be good. It IS good. Of course it's good. But it is so uncomfortable. The unfamiliar. My excuse and security blanket gone. I'm eating more easily, binging less, starving less, still throwing up quite a bit. Less distressed about food. I know that most of my emerging happiness is chemical and biological, but I think it is also contingent on being thin. I feel better, so I'm eating more, so I'll get fat, so I'll become miserable.

I just don't really know what to think. What to do. The sadness and obsessiveness that have gone hand in hand to make me thin have slowly backed off... I don't know how to live without them.

hearts and love and a snuggle puss

Oh you are all so immensely wonderful!
I've been self-defeatist and blog-avoidant lately. Haphazard eating and throwing up. Never really binging. Never really putting my heart into purging. Not sad. But not really living either. And when you're not really living, you may as well be getting skinny. One day I'll start living and stop caring, but while I can't live I suppose I must at least starve. I'll sleep tonight with a triple dose of laxatives and tomorrow and Friday I'll go hungry. By Friday night I hope to be hungry enough to feel pretty.

Your comments and well wishes mean the world to me. Silent strangers who are my most caring and understanding friends in all the world. Please don't go anywhere! I'll try to be more attentive! Lately things have been so blah. Everything just seems to be getting heavy, impossible to manage, crushing down on me. Claustrophobia. I need to shake it off my back again. You all help so much. I heart you all to bits.


Now my purring communist is telling me it's bedtime. He is quite persistent.

Lights out
Pasco
x

belle of NOTHING

I haven't been eating terribly since my weigh in Wednesday. Not toooo terribly. Perhaps I wasn't quite so starving as I should have been but I thought I was doing OK.

Sneaked a peak this morning... 53.5 kg... FAIL!

FAIL FAIL FAIL
There is no way I can be 50 by Friday unless I lop of a limb and therefore I FAIL.

Pasco will not be belle of the ball after all.
Just another ugly face in the throng of mediocre cows with their orangey spray tanned skin and body shimmer and tasteless up-dos.


Now I'm going to go nuzzle up against the lovely buttery softness of Marc Jacobs and let it soothe away my pain.

x

Beauty, Poverty

I am never eating again.
I cannot afford to.

I'm not sure what happened today, suffice to say all of a sudden I have no money and a Marc Jacobs bag.


WHOOPSY!

So, um, yeah. Never eating again. Ever.

Why would you pay for pizza you aren't even going to eat?

"So people think I'm eating it"

... So, you're one of those

"yyyyyeah"

on track to laze away another day

51.9kg - I lost the 2kg I needed to lose in week one, so to be 50kg for the ball I now have 9 days to lose another 2. Goodness... could it really be true that in only 9 days time I might see something in the 40s? My ticket is in the mail, my dress is all picked out, and my fingers are crossed!


Another nothing day today, wiling away the time and feeling horribly guilty about it. As much as I am loathed to repeat tacky pro-ana expressions, sometimes is makes me a feel a little better to think of the ol' faithful: Time spent wasting is not a waste of time. I just wish that the time I spent wasting was spent on other productive things simultaneously.

Oh well, I'm going to recline on my day bed, eat fresh fruit, paint my nails and try my darnedest to be guiltlessly indulgent. *sigh* c'est la vie

x