Day 20

Oh it feels good to write day 20. I'm writing from Utah, staying with my aunt. Almost home from a week vacation. Still abstinent mashallah.

Day 12

Breathe. I took my communications final and got an A! It is mathematically impossible for me to fail this class. That feels good. Now I've got to get ready to go on vacation! Yellowstone here I come. Going on a road trip with my mom. We're taking the camper so I can bring my own food; she's doing OA How so we won't be eating eachothers' food. And she's gonna grill! I'm excited. Now time to pack.

Another abstinent day yesterday mashallah.

Day five

I think I am an adrenaline junkie. It takes a massive amount of adrenaline for me to get things done. I wait until the deadline is coming and the adrenaline starts pumping before I can even get started. I always jump to the rescue for other people. Even when they say hurtful things like my friend did yesterday, I always rush to forgive and set myself up for the same hurt. I think that people simply cannot be rescued without me. I swoop in to save people from their stupid decisions and enable them to keep making stupid decisions in part because I need to be needed. Lord, thanks for pointing out all these character defects. You have promised to make us humble in our weakness and strong through You, so I trust in your promise to help me overcome these.

Day 1 take three

An abstinent day mashallah. My sponsor is great. I got the frontier phone list so I can call someone whenever. I spoke with a lady from Australia tonight using google voice. I called from my own cell phone and it cost 2 cents a minute. Muy cool.

Sister's birthday today. We went wedding dress shopping. It was really disappointing because the store didn't have hardly any dresses in her size. The ones they did have were not really her style. I guess she and my mom were dress shopping in a boutique in Sutter Creek and she fell in love with a dress that's $1,000. Neither my mom nor she can afford that. Anyway, she measured a size 16 dress. It was weird to think that my sister is my size.

We had dinner at my oldest sister's. When the cake was cut and served, I excused myself to the bedroom and made some outreach calls.

Tonight I really wanted to eat and it was too late to call anyone here so that's when I pulled out the frontier call list my sponsor email me this morning.

Now off to bed.

just wanted to add

Oh, and the idea of going wedding dress shopping I find really depressing, but the idea of being left out even more depressing. Don't look at wedding dresses online because I get even more depressed.

Start over

16 days. That's how long I made it. Why oh why did I take the bite. It didn't start with an intention to binge. I was just going to take some extra iron. And then take an omega-3 chew afterwards to get rid of the taste. So I started doling out the weeks vitamins and meds. And then I had an extra calcium chew. And then three chews. And it ended with eating my roommate's peanut butter. If it wasn't so late I probably would have ended up at the store. I felt out of control, like I couldn't stop. I seriously could not stop until I was so full I was going to puke. I'm glad I got rid of all the junk food in the house.

The signs were there that I was slipping and I didn't pull back before I fell.

I didn't make a single phone call today and only made 1 yesterday. I missed my face to face meeting yesterday and honestly was not paying attention at the phone meeting today. I didn't talk to a single family member today. I didn't call my mom or see my sister or call any sisters. I missed Lacey terribly and cried. I isolated myself. Even when my friend came over I ignored her and spent most of the time in the kitchen.

I am so tired. I've been burning the candle at both ends. Yet I can't sleep because of the freaking insomnia and stress and head spinning. I feel like I'm physically wearing thin.

I started feeling guilty at the missionary lessons this morning thinking of all the things that I've done that affect my future.

I found out I royally bombed the physics final. I got a 64%. But still managed to pull a B overall. Still that one B means I have to get all A's in order to raise my GPA to 3.5 by end of semester. How can I get an A in my comm class if I haven't even started the research paper due Monday? And I didn't work on it at all today. I read, relaxed, grocery shopped, and had a friend over.

I'm so broke I'm scared. I had to return pads because I can't afford the good ones and have to use the crappy ones I still have. I went over my grocery budget and if you count buying supplements then Waaaaaayyyyy over.

Ugh. Now I have to tell my sponsor in the morning. I'm dreading it. I know I promised to call before I took the bite and I didn't. I'm scared of loosing her as a sponsor because I don't know how to find anyone else who gets gastric bypass surgery. I need this program. I would eat myself to death without it. I just feel so guilty cause here I am healing my body and actually thinking hey I need to pay attention to planning for retirement cause I can plan on being around then and Lacey never will. Lacey never got better. How come my body can get better but hers couldn't? God, I'm trying to trust you that her passing was your will, but I find it rather difficult today.

Going to try to sleep now. Almost wish I didn't have to wake up in the morning. I feel like I can never keep up so I might as well give up.

Day 15

What a day. looooong. I finally got to nap for a about an hour.

Things that really made me want to eat:

1. money worries

2. stressing about comm test

3. stressing about physics final tomorrow

4. stressing about writing research paper by Monday

5. stressing about finding a way to make more money by the end of the month

6. totally filthy disgusting kitchen

Reasons to celebrate and not eat:

1. went to endocrinologist nurse practitioner for a squeeze me in last minute appointment and now I'm down to 1 diabetes medication!

2. getting an A on my communications test

3. getting my paycheck! no matter how small it was

4. getting to make a small payment towards paying off debt

5. finishing book that made me so grateful for what I have

6. Having another abstinent day mashallah

Day 14 - almost over

I am such a dodo bird. I didn't look at the changed syllabus schedule and the test isn't until tomorrow. I could kick myself with all the stressing I did today.

I was so tired from lack of restful sleep that all I thought about all day was sugar sugar sugar. I craved that instant energy boost. I made extra phone calls and did an extra phone meeting to make it through the day.

Today I am grateful:

1. That I still have at least one of my jobs

2. that I don't have to take that test till tomorrow

3. another abstinent day mashallah

Day 14

Ah! Bloody crazy day. Two hours of sleep because of low blood sugar episode and then couldn't go back to sleep (got to call the dr today about reducing meds). Flipped out at erroneous charge on bank account. Haggled with internet/cable company about not raising my bill (I guess some promotion expired even though I called last month to make sure it wasn't). Burnt vegetables.

Oh, and the worst of all. Since two hours of sleep didn't make for a functioning human being, I tried to take an hour nap before class and ended up sleeping through class. Crap. There goes that A. I so want to eat. Oh look, it's time for lunch.

Day 13

Things that made me want to eat today:

1. frustration that there's not enough time to get everything done

2. stupid paycheck didn't come

3. interview went well but turns out I can't even take the job

4. court went really badly for my parents trying to get my sister's stuff back from her ex-fiance

Reasons not to eat (not that I didn't want to anyway):

1. I got an 89 on my last physics test, added 21 points the one before that, and now if I get an 89 on the test on Thursday I can get an A in the class

2. I passed the 3rd CSET subtest! YAY! (ie huge future teacher test)

3. I got paid the parent fee from last month so I had a little bit of income.

4. I played chess with my wonderful niece

Another abstinent day mashalla

Day 12

Day in review -

Long day. Went to church twice. Grateful day. Full of blessings and being spiritually fed.

Note to self: medifast protein powder is like paste when mixed with yogurt. Pass if you don't want to barf.

Another abstinent day mashallah

Day 12 - weigh in

So I just weighed and it was 193.6!

At first I didn't know how to feel. The first things coming were negative feelings:

1. I lost some weight so now I can eat.

2. I'm about the same as I was when I came home from NAF

3. That's a 7.5 lbs weight loss; I've been in program for almost a month; shouldn't it be more? I mean the first time I tried program four years ago I lost like 15lbs the first month.

4. It's because I haven't been exercising my but off isn't it. I need to exercise more and go crazy with it (very bad thoughts for me, have injured myself over this many times)

5. Yay, I'm loosing weight, thus I should be getting on the scale every day to see my weight loss (no! don't want scale obsession again)

6. What is my sponsor thinking having me eat so much food

Some were positive:

1. OK, it's just a number I should be cautious of because of health implications

2. I trust my sponsor and this program that I am loosing at the right rate for my body

3. I LOST WEIGHT! 7.5 lbs! HECK YEAH!

4 and this one took me a while to realize, I'M FINALLY IN ONEDERLAND! (lol for those of you who don't know, "one"derland means under 200 lbs)

5. It's just a number, and a bad measuring number at that. Body fat % and blood sugar and A1c are all better indicators of how my health is doing.

6. Even my BMI is a better indicator and that is now 32.2 which is MUCH better than 40 which was my top weight

Not sure if negative or positive:

1. Relief that I have lost weight before my next surgeons visit. In fact, my last two visits I rescheduled and postponed because I was afraid of disappointment that I hadn't lost any weight. Nervous that it still won't be progress enough for the NP who does my 6 month consult.

Note to self:

I do NOT want to feed into scale obsession. I will turn around on scales at my doctors visits this month to avoid weighing myself until September 1st.