Yesterday and today were pretty much a total loss. I exercised yesterday but that's where the good news ends. It's not easy for me to get going right now but I won't give up. Yesterday my family all left the house for 8 hours and I was here all alone with very little to do, so boredom hit and you know how the rest of the story goes. Today they were outside doing yardwork and I was so down about yesterday that I didn't even try to do better. Yea, I'm in a slump. Just reading all of your journals shows me it is ok to slip up. That doesn't mean I have to give up. Just gotta pick myself back up and keep going.

I'm about to start reading Stephen King's *Dreamcatcher*. Since the weather has been so beautiful lately I want to take my book outside one day and just read while basking in the sun (using sunscreen, of course).

This morning my mom announced to everyone *she isn't eating taco bell now because she is on one of those big diets*. I know I should appreciate her support but sometimes it feels like she wants me to lose the weight more than I want to, and that in turn ticks me off and I end up getting that *I'll show you* attitude and I binge..lol. It just gets to me when I see others taking over and pushing me to lose the weight. On a positive note, though, they do tend to buy more veggies and fruits when they know I'm dieting.

Whether I get my act together tomorrow or the next day or whenever, I won't stop coming here like I have in the past. I find that all of you motivate me mentally, if not always physically.

One problem I have is meeting the 1000-1200 calorie mark. As much as I try to eat enough, I always fall short..then I lose energy, then I end up eating out of frustration. Its all frustrating, how weight control is all about ones mentality and how they view food and exercise and self worth, etc etc. Well, at least Oprah seems to have it under control.

Ugh! That reminds me, I missed her show today. She was supposed to have this guy on there who had lost like 300 pounds and she was to give him a Porche or something like that. Now if getting a sportscar doesnt make ya wanna lose weight, then I don't know what can motivate ya!

I'll see you all tomorrow. Take care...

First off, thank you to everyone who replied to my last entry.You guys are really supportive, sweet and just the kind of friends I need to be surrounded by. Never ever underestimate the power of what you say.

I gained 6 pounds in a week but I know most of that is water gain and will come off within this week. I won't weigh back in until two weeks from now. I get all obsessed with the scale if I allow myself to use it on a daily/weekly basis.

I'll check back in this evening to update this entry and to catch up on all of you. So far I did 1.7 miles (50 minutes) on the treadmill. It still feels like I have this mountain in front of me that I have doubts in whether I am ready to climb it yet...at the same time, it's either climb or sit at the base looking up and being miserable. So I'll just pretend there are rabid dogs chasing me or something. That'll get anyone going!

Have a great day and remember, however much or little you do to get closer to your goal is better than doing nothing at all. :)

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6:24 PM

Whew! I just brushed my teeth and have called it a day. I had planned on doing more walking this evening but honestly didn't want to push it. Seems when I do a huge workout one day and fall short the next day I feel guilty for it and get all bummed out and end up doing something foolish. So I'm content with my 50 minute walk this morning.

Wooo one good day complete. And with Easter leftovers still in the fridge that I didn't touch at all. If that isn't self control, then I don't know what is!

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Exercise: 1.7 miles treadmill (50 minutes)

Water: 64 oz.

I fell into a trap of my own creation. A friend of mine wanted to see a pic of me, a recent pic. I sooo didn't want to do this but I took out my digital camera and snapped off a few, downloaded them to my pc, saw how fat I really look and I just wanted to die. Some people think they are bigger than what they really are, others think they aren't as big as they really are. I fall into the latter catagory. At times. I've been in denial the past several months not wanting to see the truth. Those pics shot me right back into reality...and I caved in. Within a few hours later I felt overwhelming hopelessness over my size, over the fact Easter dinner is approaching and knowing I have not had enough time to settle into healthier eating, and then there's this huge coconut cake my Dad bought at the store that I tried to ignore for several days. It all came crashing down on me yesterday and I ended up bingeing.

I later told my mom in the afternoon how disgusted I felt with my weight and she said *well at least you're not as big as you have been in the past*. Compliment? Shoot me, please. She usually tells me that I look great and that I am not overweight. Not this time. In fact she hasn't said that in several months. Her favorite saying as of lately is *you're not BIG big*. Thanks Mom! So I'm just big, but not BIG big. Gosh, keep saying that word enough and it starts to look funny on the screen..lol. OOoh all that cake is messing with my thought processes now.

Anywhoo...I am committed to getting my act together right after Easter day (I hear an echo from thousands of others proclaiming the same thing right this very second)..but I mean it! I go through cycles where I take good care of myself for several months, exercising daily and eating right. Then I'll stumble for a day, get all miserable and there goes the past several months progress. Despite what lies down the road, I know my time is coming very soon to start giving a hoot again. When you're down to three pairs of wearable jeans, you have to get your stuff together whether you like it or not. Either that or start wearing Reynolds Wrap (ahhhh!! no).

Have a great Easter weekend everyone and here's hoping you have better will power and self love than I do right now! Take care..

Just as the sun rises each morning, just as the moon circles around the earth, just as what goes around comes around..I am back. And ten pounds heavier! Ugh. It's been over three months since I seriously tried losing weight. I feel like the typical yo-yo dieter. Down twenty pounds, up thirty, down thirty pounds, up twenty. Gets tiring and I wish I could get a grasp on the mental aspects of what it takes to lose weight and stay there.

Just a few weeks ago while I was doing my daily binge, it passed through my mind that it would take some health problem to get me to snap out of my latest binge cycle (these last for months once they start). So last week I somehow accidentally did serious damage to my stomach. It got to the point where eating anything or drinking anything would literally tear me up for hours. Felt very bruised. It would take a lot for me to go see a doctor, so I hung in there and gave it time. I stayed away from food for a day, that helped some. Long story short, this problem is still preventing me from eating right. The good thing is that the whole *be careful what you wish for* thing kicked in big time. And it snapped me out of that bingeing cycle. I'm getting better and want to slap myself for putting my body in this position. Just goes to show, you can know all the angles of weight loss, what to do and not to do, the reasons for doing whats right, the consequences of doing whats wrong, but none of it matters if you cannot get to that point within yourself where you've had enough self abuse. I don't know if I've reached it. Don't know if I ever will. Right now I just want to take it slow and do what I can to maintain not bingeing.

So many newcomers here now! Wow. Good luck to you guys and it's also great to see so many...umm, whats the term for the ones who have hung in there and are still here..? Well, great seeing y'all doing so good! Have a great day :)

I just finished watching episode one of MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge..yea I truly need a life! One thing about those shows is that they do get me worked up wanting to exercise. There's something maddening about watching a bunch of size 2 girls doing all these extreme sports activities that I know at my current level I couldn't accomplish one tenth of. I never cared to be a size 2, I just want to be healthy and not run out of breath at the slightest bit of exercising. So thats what I'm aiming for. To get back into my daily workouts and just eat healthy. None of that 200 calorie a day stuff..lol. Birds eat more than that. Thank y'all for your support. I'll be thinking of ya tomorrow morning when I drag my behind onto that treadmill :)

I sat at my desk for a while thinking of good reasons why I haven't been here in so long. Computer tore up. Aliens abducted me. Aliens abducted my computer, perhaps? Whatever excuses I could conjure up, they are just that..*excuses*. I can lie to my family or to my friends but not to myself. Not here. The past several months have been great and not so great. I've been as high as 160 and as low as 137. Heck, I was 137 just last week on Christmas Eve! Then came Christmas Day and all the foods and my lack of giving a %$@#. As of right now I am around 145.

At the present moment I have a pretty bad head cold and have the energy of a peanut. I admit that even though it's a new year and that my intentions were to begin a new exercise/eating regimen on the 1st, I'm not ready yet. It's hard to start over when you're sick. But I chose to come here and get some encouragement by reading up on how you guys have been doing. One thing I have learned from being here, when you fall you learn to pick yourself right back up and continue doing what you do. Thats what I envy the most about those of you who have been coming here for a while.

Well I'm off to bed. All the best to everyone here. Take care...

If I had gone straight to my pc when I woke up yesterday to see all the support you guys gave, the day probably would have gone differently. Maybe..lol. This is the first time period in my life where I communicate with others who know exactly what I'm going through. In fact, I don't know why there aren't hundreds of people coming to this site for support. Then again, I should be greatful there aren't hundreds..because if there were, it would be impossible for us to read and comment on everyone's journals. But anyways, I'm very thankful for each and every one of your support. Y'all deserve to get paid! :-D

The weekend was a total failure. I started out good until I opened the refrigerator to find a huge box of donuts my brother brought home from his job. He never brings anything home..til yesterday. Great timing, eh? I can't blame it on him though, for my second binge day. I should have the strength and self love to ignore a hundred boxes of donuts. Like y'all said, it's over and done with and guilt does no good.

As for today, I have done pretty darn good so far. As soon as I woke up, I remembered that I left the pushmower down in the field a few days ago..and it rained last night. So while Dad took the trash to the county dumpster, I rushed down to the field and got that pushmower back into the storage building hopefully before he realized it wasn't there earlier. Rain on a new mower..hmm, I wonder if anything on it can rust?..oh well, that too is over and done with. That's going to be my new motto, I tell ya..lol.

I have so much energy from all the stored up calories. I got in 80 minutes of exercise already. 40 on the bike and 40 on the treadmill. After a weekend like I had, a great long workout really helps to bring back that feeling of success. Now I'm about to go eat my lunch (veggies, meatless burger patty, some pretzels..and more water..water water water).

The weather where I'm at is finally cooling down to Autumn temps. Everyone get your bottoms outside to enjoy it..hmm, unless ya live where it's been snowing lately...even then, get outside! Have a great day and stay away from donuts! Evil things...so evil...(and I'll be glad when that box is empty!)

Ever choose to do something that you know is destructive and that you are well aware of your actions, yet you choose to continue because you figure it won't hurt in the longrun and that you have more control over the situation than you give yourself credit for; which actually allows you to let yourself off the hook at the moment just so you can continue the destructive behavior you are doing? Well that's what happened to me this evening. Here I was, sitting in my room, with nothing to do and too tired to do anything to begin with. I had already gotten in 40 minutes on my bike during the morning and I ate all my planned meals for the day. It occured to me that I have been doing a fairly good job at losing weight and not bingeing. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. Binge. I tried to get my mind off it. I even went so far as to go online and check out some pro-anorexia sites (even though I'm not anorexic and I would never want to be subjected to that form of mental/physical torture, at the same time I get courage from them to prevent myself from sabotaging my goals by bingeing)...but the more I sat here the more I felt I had to binge or else my head would explode or something. Before I knew it I had eaten a rediculous amount of food. I absolutely hate to admit what I ate because it's enough to feed several people. Six slices of bread, a slice of cheese, two veggie sausage patties, at least ten coconut cookies, a bowl of pudding (at least two servings in the bowl), and a bunch of bubble gum. Then later on my dad made up some red potatoes and beans, so I grabbed two servings of those along with some crackers..then two ice cream pops and more gum. Oh and not to forget a few servings of pita puffs (sort of like nachos but not exactly).

I know, I completely lost it today. More than guilt, more than a busted tummy, more than anything..I feel fear. Fear that come tomorrow I won't be able to get back on schedule. I almost never do one-day binges. They almost always tend to string along in three+ days. I soooooooooooo hope that doesn't happen. I can handle the damage that one day has done to my body, but to go longer would be suicide of sorts (not literally). Then there's that one moment in the morning when I wake up and it occurs to me what i did the previous day, then the guilt comes flowing in and I try my best to put it behind me..at the same time trying to fight off the newfound cravings that I fell for the day before. Aaaahhhh. What have I done?!

I'll get through it without bingeing. I have to. Bingeing won't do any good..but that's the last thought on my mind at the time of weakness. I hate this. I think I know how a non-smoker feels after they pick up a cigarette after quitting for some time. You say thats it, no more, but the memory of the experience replays in your mind and you want to throw all your cares and worries out the window and just do what makes you feel good, despite the damage.

I know I'm going on and on about this but that's mainly because my tummy is too filled for bedtime, so I'm trying to pass the time til it feels better. I know I am far from being the only one who does this sort of stuff to themselves. Heck, I remember back in the early 90's when Oprah Winfrey came out and admitted that she would come home from work and binge on anything in site. Sometimes eating a whole box of cereal along with a whole can of biscuits with syrup and other stuff. When she said all this, it was like I finally realized that I wasn't the only one who did this bizarre behavior. I always felt like a freak sneaking food into my room and creeping into the kitchen late at night for tons of food so that my parents wouldn't know what I was doing. And here was Oprah, on national television telling the world she was a slave to food. From that moment on, I have found myself watching her at times wondering if she had really conquered it all, because I sure as hell wasn't! Last year when I saw she had gained weight again, I just thought *I'm with ya, gurl*..aka making the connection wasn't happening for me neither, despite what that thin cute Bob Green had been proclaiming could happen. Grrr...if I had him as my personal trainer I'd work out every day of my life..heck, Mount Everest would be a pile of pebbles...ok maybe not.

Anywhoo...I'm going to take soccermom's advice and bribe those pesky dogs with a few tasty kibbles or something. Since we don't own dogs ourselves, I'll just wrap up some hotdogs in a baggie and carry them with me when I go through the field...and hope they don't get a whiff of the scent thinking I'm one big hotdog. Ahhhhhhhh again. I think the animal kingdom is turning against me. The neighborhood cats run and hide from me (they're weird anyways), the bees were more vicious towards me this summer than usual, and now those dogs won't even befriend me. I need to start carrying cat treats and bird seed and..whatever bees eat..pollen..in my pocket. Yea thats it. That'll either get them on my good side..or you'll find me lying face down on the ground being attacked by a swarm of bees, dogs, cats, birds and whatever else that's been out to get me all summer. Which reminds me, one day while I was out walking, a bluejay just fell out of our oak tree and hit the ground. I wanted so badly to help it, but I learned years ago that wild animals like that will die faster if you intervene, because they fear you and they'd just go in shock anyways. So I walked away from it, with tears rolling down my face hoping he would be alright. I think nature is getting back at me now for that. Let's just hope mother nature doesn't remember all the bees nests and ant beds I've sprayed with Raid..oh and all the slugs I've salted (cruel but necessary I suppose). Hmm...what do slugs eat? (Writing down a list of wildlife friendly foods..just in case).

Yea, I'm doing some serious rambling now..so I'm gonna get ready for bed and attempt to somehow forgive myself for what I did today...and pray that it was just a fluke. I'm hoping soo bad that I regain self-control. Acting on my impulses just makes me feel a thousand times worse than being overweight ever made me feel.

Hope all you guys are doing good so far this weekend..and please don't give in to serious temptation. You'll wish ya hadn't halfway through it all. And that's no way to spend your weekend. Huggzzz to y'all..

Guilt can be a nasty thing, I tell ya. I didn't get on the treadmill and it's eating me up with guilt. I went out shopping with my Dad and stayed gone for about 4 hours. Did a lot of walking but none of it was at that aerobic level. I ate really good up til about 30 minutes ago when Dad fixed me up a bowl of sugar-free fat-free pudding. I think it had about two servings in the bowl and I ate it anyways. Despite this, I still ate maximum 950 calories today (which is lower than I need yet I still feel bad about that pudding). Tomorrow there will be a flea market open that we go to every few weekends, so hopefully I will squeeze in some treadmill time before or after that.

I still have about 1/2 acre of land whose grass hasn't been cut yet. Out here in the country the neighbors let their dogs roam free and there is a suspicious pitbull and collie who come wandering up here every day. They don't growl nor do they wag their tails. They just stand there staring at us and they follow us around very sneaky-like when we walk through our field. I absolutely love animals and I would befriend these dogs in a heartbeat if only they would show some signs of friendliness. As for now, they scare me. I try not to go walking on the property unless someone is with me..and now I'm worried about even cutting the grass down there because the collie followed my dad around a few days ago while he was on the riding mower. Aaahh. I would call the pound (which I dont want to do to them at all) but their little *visits* are hard to predict..which does no good for the dog catcher's efforts. Normally I would even take several trips through the field..you can get a very good workout just making four circular trips around the land. But for now...it's all gone to the dogs, so to speak.

Anywhoo...hey soccermom, if ya miss that grass cutting, come cut mine ;-) We've had to cut every two-three weeks all summer. Here in Georgia it doesn't stop growing for anything. Pesky pesky grass!

Schmoopy (heartwarming-cheesy-sentimental) thought of the day...you just turn on your television for five minutes and you come across tons of sad disheartening news of events going on around us that is enough to make ya wonder what is there to appreciate in the world...but if you take that same five minutes to watch your children play or roll around on the floor with your dog (or cats, in my case) or gaze up at the sky at night to view all those beautiful stars that are usually taken for granted...you'll find tons of things to appreciate and get enjoyment out of. All ya have to do is make time for those moments.

Yea ok, that's a wrap on my moment of cheesiness..y'all take care and have a great weekend!

If I can get today to reflect yesterday then I'll be having a great day. I did an hour on the treadmill yesterday and I finally learned how to use the riding lawnmower. I would have settled for the pushmower since that burns calories like crazy..especially since we hace two acres of land. But the grass was so high that it would have killed the pushmower. So I spent about two hours cutting grass and keeping far far away from food.

I've been lucky lately not to get those binge cravings, miraculously. There are so many vegetables in the fridge that I'm busting my behind eating those just to make sure they don't spoil. That's been the main thing I eat every day. And I eat a pita pocket bread thingy (whatever its called) with the veggies and that makes up my biggest meal of the day. I don't think I will ever be able to eat three meals and two snacks per day. Especially when I'm looking after my weight. But as long as I'm feeling good and not weak or anything, I'm doing good.

I'm not going to weigh again until the 15th of this month. Otherwise, I have a bad habit of weighing every day, sometimes a few times per day...as if anything will change within a few hours! I know I'll be in my 130's by the 15th.

Hope everyone has a great day, do something good for yourself, take a few minutes to just appreciate all the good things in your life...and give someone a hug..