Running the numbers

***Disclaimer time--discussion of weight and BMI to follow***

Well, my mood has improved and the bingeing is lessening (funny how those go hand-in-hand) so snaps up for that. I have finally accomplished some shit that I had let slide for way to long. Certainly there is more to do, but at least I made a dent in the mountain.

My weight and exercise and healthy eating have not improved much at all. After those damn cookies threw me off I have been finding it hard to go back to the low-carb thing. I know it works, I know it is the best way for ME to lose and still feel satisfied, but I just don't have the desire to commit in the way you have to for it to work. It's all chemistry. A delicate balance that can be thrown off by a single sugary bite.

Starting tomorrow (after Valentine's waffles for breakfast) I'm gonna try old-fashioned calorie restriction. I'm hoping the spirit of Ana will come upon me and I'll rekindle my long-lost love of fasting.

History time: I was a chunky kid who slimmed down the summer between fifth and sixth grades when I read a book about an anorexic girl. (So cliche, classic cautionary tale leads girl to destruction...) Between my growth-spurt, avoiding food at all costs, and compulsive exercise I was a pretty successful starver with some once or twice a week purging episodes thrown in to take care of family dinners and such until my junior year of high-school. By then the starving shit had gotten old, I was working in a restaurant where I got free meals, and I had quit most of the organized sports cuz I wasn't that good. My weight crept up during my senior year and I was once again chunky as I accepted my diploma.

In college I quite purging but kept on bingeing as that is how I deal with stress. And boy, did I have stress. Paying my own way, working 2 and 3 jobs and graduating suma cum laude, and oh yeah fat girl why don't you try and have a social life too??? I graduated college obese. Seriously. My highest known weight (cuz I didn't weigh myself at all that I can remember during college) was 238. And I'm 5'2". So, that put my BMI at 43.5. (Wow, I was quite the lil' heifer... I had never figured the actual numbers until now.)

I graduated college with a full-time job lined up, so I made losing weight my priority. I exercised, ate reasonably healthy, and managed to lose at a slow but steady rate of 1-2lbs a month (yeah, a friggin month!!) for a few years and was down to around 175 when I really got stuck. It was close to my 10-year high-school reunion when I tried low-carb for the first time and got down to 161. Blew it after the reunion and gained it back, but managed to work my way down to around 146 for my trip to Hawaii a few years later. Then back up to 155-160 until I got engaged last year and decided to shot for the moon and get down to 135. See, 136 is the top weight for "normal" BMI for someone of my diminutives stature.

I didn't quite make it, sorry to say. But I got damn close at 138. I felt like I was the queen of the world, living the dream, hot and sexy and THIN!!! And then I saw some unflattering pics from the wedding. Fuck all. I ain't hot. I ain't thin. I have saggy skin and jiggly fat and I still look thick in the middle and have huge thighs!!!

So I have been stuffing my face and avoiding exercise and just generally punishing myself from the inside out for being so deluded for the past six weeks. I mean, what was I thinking?!?!? People who are 4 to 6 inches taller than me have 135 as a goal weight. To look thin you have to actually be thin unless you can somehow photoshop your image before it hits the retinas of anyone around you. I'm pretty sure my weight is back up to 150, if not higher, but I'm totally not stepping on the scale for a L-O-N-G time.

So, after much self-flagellation I have set a new goal weight. 119 pounds/BMI 21.8 or exactly HALF of what I used to be. And thus the name of this blog. (OK, if you run the numbers half of 43.5 is 21.75, but I'm rounding up a touch to make it work out nice and pretty.) That is right in the middle of the healthy range for my height, so when my fat relatives start moaning about my "unnatural thinness" I can justifiably tell them to stuff it. Please excuse me if my success blows your "we have fat genes" argument out of the water.

There is absolutely no reason I can't "find half" and be who I want. I just have to find the courage and strength to do it. I need to just Stop. Fucking. Eating!! and Get. My. Ass. Off. The. Couch!!!

Watch me world...I'll get there and I will ROCK!!!