tentative sgd, prep for nyc, bad foods

this is a preview pic from the modeling gig...I can't wait for the actual set!

Yesterday did not go so well. Breakfast was scrambled egg whites with kale and a pice of bacon (around 75 total) lunch was a two veggie spring rolls (120) and dinner was a bowl of fresh pasta with broccoli rabe (no idea, 400?). But then the drinking of red wine and smoking of pot and marathon of jeopardy began, and Oscar brought over bread with goat cheese and prosciutto. I ate a lot of it, culminating in my coming hme and eating a handful of nuts, a spoonful of peanutbutter/nutella, and a can of progresso veggie soup. Whoops~! I don't even usually like peanutbutter. weird. I also went rock climbing for an hour before my big meeting...I have a final passing date set: May 6! so I will be totally done by then. Eek!

thanks again for the comments, I thought I'd do a response:

Ariana- I was totally freaked, but me and my committee usually skype once a week to keep in touch, just never usually so early! But now I'm done with my writing, and I finished my defense for my other degree, so now it's just a matter of getting a few shitty errands done and I can be freeeee

Tai- I'm sure 60 pages will come. I've been actually working at an incredibly slow pace, I write about ten pages a wee and have taken a few weeks off. When you find something you love, there's so much to explain! It also helps that I'm doing a combination of academic and personal writing, so whenever I feel overwhelmed by the theory jargon, I can write a free form reflection and include it as an 'interruption' to the rest of the paper.

Mich- Well, I made sure only to buy enough lamb chops for one each. If there was a whole plate of them, there would be no stopping me. Strangely enough, I used to have a job where I slaughtered and butchered four lambs a week (disturbing? maybe) and I ate lamb chops or shanks about four days a week. "Terrible, yes, but great".

So in light of my apparent failure to keep myself in control without some fast rules, I've decided to tentatively scope out the SGD. I'm also doing so because I think I have really high sodium levels and hopefully SGD will help me kick some of that. Knowing how much I drink, I'm going to have to really stick to fruits and veggies in order to have enough calories for alcohol...that's a sad realization. But anyways, this morning for brunch I made myself a kind of mexican themed veggie steam that was pretty fucking good:

1 zucchini
1 leaf of kale
1 clove of garlic
1/2 small onion
1 mushroom (does this count as a veggie?)
1/4 green bell pepper
1 small tomato

steamed together with cayenne, cumin, oregano, fresh lime juice, and a splash of vinegar. Noms.

Now I'm planning n going to the gym, then hitting a few art installations around town, and then dinner! I really want to make french onion soup for everyone tonight before burlesque practice, and my thought process is that if I bake the whole thing in a large dish, I can avoid the cheese topping and breadcrumbs for myself and stick to the body of the soup, which is just sauteed onions, garlic, and beef broth. I'll serve a nice salad on the side too. We just have all these onions about to go bad, and then I saw there's gruyere in the fridge and stale bread in the cupboard...it would be a sin not to make this dish right now.

As to the 'bad foods' thing. I ate some moldy food last night before bed. Just a bite, but I knew these potatoes were past their prime before I put them in my mouth. So miss Adrian, you need to stop it! I thought it might help me to post the foods I don't eat, just to show myself that I do have control and that I don't need to rebel by eating nasty shit that's gone bad. Onward:

Never

Soda- never. not diet soda, not regular, not happening. Plain soda water is fine.

Juice- very occasionally I will use a tablespoon of juice as a dressing to fruit salad. I do not drink glasses of it, I do not use it to replace meals. About once or twice a year I break this rule, and always regret it. The only exception is when I feel a UTI coming on and then I pound back unsweetened cranberry juice.

Pizza- just not happening. the one exception to this is a homemade pizza, which I will occasionally try a bite of, but never make myself.

baked sweet goods like cake, muffins, scones- not where I'm spending my money or calories. Not things I eat. This includes waffles and pancakes. No. Something about fluffy, carby, sugary calories terrifies me. Also store bought cookies or brownies. If someone made it, I will try it. Otherwise, get it away.

milk and sugar in coffee or tea- stopped this years ago. I drink coffee black only. I tried some almond milk the other day, but no. If my tea needs a pick-me-up, I will have a slice of lemon

Rarely
these are foods that are pretty much never, but do happen from time to time:

cereal with milk: I love it, but I would eat it all. We have a fond, distant relationship.

peanut butter: this used to be a never, but over the last three months I've probably had it twice. So it's a rarely.

'fast food'- I could probably count every time I've had fast food in the last year: Taco Bell, twice, when I was stoned. McDonalds, twice, once when I was in Paris and needing something 'home'y, once when I was drunk. I think that's it. Fast food makes me really sad unless I am really fucked up. That food has no soul.

ice cream- very rarely, I will have one or two bites of someone else's. I cannot finish even a kid's serving on my own. And I like the taste, I just can't do it.

Actually, it's coming to my attention that I really personify my food a lot. Maybe it's from working on farms, or maybe it's a general ED thing, does anyone else do this? prepared food from a store or fast food chain is the worst. It has no soul, no life, no love, it cannot be eaten except in desperation. Restaurant food is alright, but not great, because it has a ritual and a pacing to it, but you don't know who made it. Food made by friends or myself is the only thing that is really 'good' because in some way, it's communion, especially if I eat seasonally. And I always get to know what went in to what I cook.

So how about you guys? Do you have things you've successfully or compulsively cut out? or some almost-never food? I'd someday like to cut out chips and candy bars. Maybe that's what I'll do for lent.

Be good, be better, stay strong!

-Adrian

okay the Internet isn't allowed in my life THAT much

Hey lovelies. Fist of all thank you SO much for your comments on my last entry :D

I was just lying here in bed at 11:30 (which is early for me, since I went to bed around 4:30) and I couldn't sleep so I decided to check your updates. Well, my computer stays logged on to skype all the time and my committee chairman decided that would be a great time to video-chat. I was seriously ass-naked in bed, messy hair, sleepy-eyes. I threw on a bathrobe and talked to him though. I think that's my limit of how much the internet is allowed in my personal life. I do not want my professors able to see me at any hour of the day. Ai! All he told me though was that he didn't have time to read my paper (go figure, I turned it in around 2:00 a.m.) and that he'll see me tonight for our regular meeting.

I just added up my total thesis pages so far and I'm at about 55 pages! Probably more like 60 if you include my original proposal and bibliography. Pretty neat huh? It's like I'm writing a real piece of work.

The eating and stuff yesterday went badly but well? Like, I feel guilty about how much I ate, but I know it was a healthy sustainable amount. I did not feel hungry and binge at all. I had for breakfast: two egg whites wth garlic and spinach and a piece of bacon. Then I went to the gym and ran 3 miles (which is a lot for me to do consecutively! 400 calories burned). Then I was feeling a little woozy so I got half a tuna melt and a cup of tomato soup. I shared it with Oscar though. And for dinner, we made small lamb chops (one each) with sides of green beans in lemon/onion sauce, carrots in ginger, and mashed potatoes made with plain yogurt. I chose red wine over beer.

So in all I think that was okay. It was weird to eat three real meals (although breakfast was under 100 and lunch couldn't have been 300), it's been a while since I did that. Today I'm going to make myself some breakfast and then head to the gym. Beast wants me to be in a video project they're working on and I actually have a ton of boring errands to run, but I might as well focus on my body first (Someone hit my car and I have to call my insurance company, but I can't do that until I get my tabs updated...ugh ugh ugh.) and then see where the day takes me. I'm basically hustling all day towards my 7:30 meeting, then I just have a few things to settle before I go on Spring Break.

God I want it to come. Traveling to NYC is usually pretty good for me because I'm so cheap. If I can resist buying mac n cheese at a bodega, I'm usually good to go because I skip a lot of meals rather than eat out at expensive restaurants, I'm walking and dancing all the time, and hell, I'm surrounded by beautiful, thin women. Speaking of which:

do well darlings, I'll check in with you all later!

-Adrian

sunday crackdown

I have a ridiculous amount of work to do today. I will be spending my entire day in coffee shops and the library. I have my last meeting before 'Spring Break' (if I get a spring break) tomorrow night, so I have to get my chapter to my committee today. ha!

As to Spring break, one of my best friends (Victor) from back in Seattle who goes to school in Maryland wants to meet up with me in NYC so I guess that's where I'll be next weekend. Traditionally Oscar and I have spent spring break in NYC at some point having ridiculous jaccuzzi-mimosa parties, so hopefully we can get that set up. Last time Oscar saw Victor they slept together, so we'll see if that happens too. But Victor is the kind of depressed hedonistic, alcoholic intellectual fag I adore. He, Oscar, and I make quite a pretentious and sloppy threesome. So it should be a blast!

Yesterday Oscar and I jogged to the grocery store (about a mile?) and picked up a ton of food, including some canned soup, green beans, spinach, lettuce, (I'm starting to slobber over here) kale, and lamb chops for dinner tonight. Then we walked (too many groceries to jog) to the far away bakery that we love and picked up a loaf of bread some wine and champagne, then we walked home (about 2 miles?) so it was a nice little walk and we got to spend some time alone together. 

Then we cleaned the house with tony (riveting, I'm sure) and I ate a half cup of pineapple with a handful of raw almonds. I've been trying to go lower carb, higher fat/protein to keep me full. Then I found out there was a potluck that the roommates wanted to go to, so I made a peach-apple cobbler for them (ha! I hardly ate any of it, just a few bites of apple). Since it was a big hippie affair, I managed to do pretty well on the eating: some roast sweet potatoes, some cabbage/carrot dish with quinoa, some roast duck, some homemade bread. I was really just tasting most of the spread. Opted for wine and champagne instead of beer like a good girl until it ran out. I ended up drinking Two beers, one at the party and one at the bar afterwards. We went to the bar where you can smoke indoors and played a few rounds of pool. I love playing with dude-bro strangers, because I totally play up the girly thing and then kick some ass. I won two games, lost one. 

Then Oscar and I took the long, long bus ride back home. A girl whose shirt had fallen down to her nipples got up at one point and vomited off the side of the bus. A boy with a 30-rack was loudly explaining that he 'liked' a girl but wasn't 'in like' with her, and that he didn't know if they were ready for facebook friending yet. Sometimes I'm really glad I don't actually engage in the college scene around here. 

I had a long discussion with Oscar about weight loss though, he was super supportive. Which feels good and bad. He said he didn't think I needed to lose weight, but if I want to get in shape he supports me, as long as I'm doing it to feel good about myself and not just because I'm bored and lifeless. He really hates the idea of people on treadmills in gyms: he calls them soulless and I can see that. There's something really depressing about the housewife burning endless calories staring into a screen, plugged into an ipod. But there's also something wonderful in that abandon. In just giving over.

Speaking of working out, in addition to jogging I also did a 40 minute workout with Tony- abs, cardio, and upper body. So that means that the week in total wasn't a loss.

high points:

got some sort of good exercise monday, tuesday, wednesday, saturday, and hopefully today. that's 5 days, not bad. 

stayed away from beer more than usual. Overall beers this week: 10. That's roughly 1500 calories in beer. Still, considering I was at 5 a night for a long time, I'm doing better

smoked only 3 packs of cigarettes. Down from a pack a day again!

low points:

binged on rotten food

ate the bacon cheeseburger

still drank too much

Okay sorry for the huge post. Last thing to report is food today: two cups of espresso, two eggwhites scrambled with spinach and garlic, and one slice of bacon. roughly 70 calories. yummers

modeling, bingeing, failing.

I've been doing so, so poorly this week. Just gaining, hardly exercising, eating like crazy. Actually no, eating like sane...I'm feeling really torn right now between wanting healthy weight loss and wanting to indulge in my crazy, drop pounds, count inches, take pills, etc. I'm just having a moment of rebellion, seeing the numbers on the scale this morning (138) was enough to whip me back into shape. This week I only really workout out twice...once in the gym and once at home. Other than that I had a two-hour dance practice one night and this modeling gig last night. Does modeling count as exercise? I was pretty tired during/after.


The gig is a pin-up themed drawing night at a bar. There's a live DJ and two models (yours truly and another woman) in themed costumes (this month was candy themed) posing for 2, 5, and 10 minutes while people sketch. There are contests, there was a whip cream food fight, there were free drinks. I only made $20, but I also had two beers and two vodkas, which is certainly worth another $20. Also smoked some hash in the bathroom and did some whip-hits off stage. What a weird little druggie moment, but I was getting up almost naked in front of strangers and being covered in chocolate syrup. I'll post pictures when they get put up, I hope they turned out okay.

One nice thing is that I got the gig because the woman who runs the show didn't have any girls 'petite' enough to fit in the shirt. I know what you're thinking, "Adrian, petite? ha!" but it's only in comparison to some of the other women around here. Maybe all the thin pretty girls don't want to take their clothes off. I don't know.

Leading up to the modeling gig I did well: grapefruit for breakfast, salad for lunch. But after drinking and modeling I had the ultimate sin:

Bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries. With a beer. Oh yes. you read that correctly. The way I'm about to rationalize it is fucked up, but here goes: I went to burgers with Oscar and Tony because we agreed not to go out for the night to the big campus party. That means at least 4 or 5 drinks I didn't have followed by a minimum 300 calorie late night binge. In this sense, I did pretty well because I chose a big dinner over partying. Blech, even I can't take myself seriously writing this shit. I failed.

the day before wasn't much better. I had egg whites for breakfast with a cup of pineapple, a side salad and cup of veggie soup for lunch, and a small portion of butternut squash risotto for dinner. Then I had too much to drink (four beers two vodkas) and ended up eating half a taquito, a peanut butter cup, a milano cookie, and some pretzels. And not getting my homework done. I'm seriously turning into a drunk bingey mess. Control. control. I will have it. I didn't have beer from saturday night until thursday night this week. That at least is huuuge improvement.

Okay enough whining, I'm going for a run and then doing my homework. Eating reasonably tonight. Going grocery shopping.

news from a cafe

There are two women sitting near me in the cafe. They are bemoaning that there is no community of queer women of color in this town. I'm shrinking behind my laptop. Physical heart ache leaping up while my eyelids drop lower. I surmise they've just met. They are pledging support to one another. They are finding comfort in each other's brown eyes. I feel whiney, inadequate, suddenly too large: an off-white elephant in the corner. What would I give to look brown enough or gay enough to be noticed?

Nothing! I've always screamed. And nothing, now, I repeat with bitter breath. I will not change my looks for race or sex. I will not dye my hair black or shave it into a faux-hawk. I will not wear beads and feathers, nor will I wear rainbows. My ethnic and sexual allegiances won't be worn on pins. So why do I feel like shit?


Oddly enough, I will shrink. This is one thing I can do. If not noticed, at least I can be consciously unnoticed.

just a quick awful update

sitting in the library drinking some iced coffee. I'm having a rough time. Yesterday I worked out, ran for 20 minutes and then rock climbed for an hour. Went home and made myself a big plate of kale and zucchini steamed, plus a boiled sweet potato with salt and cinnamon. I was doing so well, I was all alone, I was going to bed, and then everything went to shit.

I want to lose weight, but I do NOT NOT want the awful food issues I'd somehow forgotten about. They've started up again. Disgusting things. Because I won't let myself eat what I want, I end up punishing myself further by eating things that aren't food anymore. It is really disturbing, really gross, really really not okay. I ate a bunch of chocolate that had gone bad...the kind that is falling apart into powder because it has been heated and cooled too many times. I scraped days-old food off of dirty dishes and forced it into my mouth. I ate carrots that should have been thrown away (they were starting to grow hairs). I ate plain sugar with my hands. I ate the rind off of the cheese in the fridge. Somehow in my head, if food is really awful, no longer 'food' it becomes 'okay' to eat because I don't enjoy it. And the whole time that I did this part of my mind was screaming at me, horrified, powerless. It only stopped when Oscar called and said he was coming home. I'd been watching 'the truth about size O' while I ate raw kale stems and cheese rinds. Anyone seen it? It made me really worried that I'm losing muscle.

Anyways, I realized that I was acting like a crazy person. I used to eat chalk, I still eat paper, but eating food that's gone bad is somehow much worse. I then flipped and turned into a real-binge, eating two chocolate bars, a granola bar, two lollipops, and half a quesadilla. By the time oscar got home I was lying on the couch, stomach distended, in a lot of pain. I kept having acid reflux, would not let myself throw up.

No, no no no no. This is fucked up. This is exactly what I don't want to get in to. I need to find ways to eat REAL FOOD and exercise enough and not let this kind of shit happen.

So today I had a half cup of pineapple, two tangerines, and a cup of steamed kale with garlic with a poached egg on top. This is reasonable. I will eat dinner. I will work out. I will not starve and I will eat whole foods. I'm sorry if this is terribly uninspiring, but I really scared myself last night. There has to be a (mentally) healthy way of getting to my goal weight. I do not want to start bingeing on rotten food, candles, and nutella. That is crazy, and won't make me thin.

-Adrian

Monday, bloody monday. Oh and tuesday updates too!

first of all, yesterday I woke up feeling a little funky so I went and took a shower, hopped out, and looked in the mirror:

I am not sure why (read: I'm totally sure why) this happened, but whatever. It was more annoying than scary. 

So somehow this made me feel totally paralyzed. Does anyone else get this? I wasn't feeling that great, so I couldn't convince myself to exercise, which meant that I couldn't justify eating or leaving the house. All day. I missed my meeting with my committee, I didn't get my car taken care of (Tony broke the key off in the lock on friday and I ha to get a new key made), in fact I didn't do ANYTHING but drink black coffee. Eventually I went out and did a little homework at a coffee shop with Dorian around 6:00, played a couple rounds of pool, and came home where Oscar made Ratatouille with quinoa. I ate a small portion around 10:30 pm, my first meal of the day and almost all veggies (we were almost out of quinoa). I also had a little bread and cheese though, and later I had a couple spoonfuls of Nutella dipped in unsweetened coconut. I don't know why I've had this intense sweet tooth, whatever. It needs to stop. So yeah, no exercise but walking around (also doing abs while I watched the Daily show and Colbert Report) and probably 800 calories in food. Oh and some wine. Paralysis like this is THE WORST, because of course it makes me binge at night.

Also I started to go a little artistically nuts last night...have I mentioned that I am partially an art major? Yep, and lately I've been feeling likewise bottled up, numbed, I'm sure you all know the spiel. It's one of the things that makes controlling my body so important, satisfying, sanitary. Anyways, I wrote some thoughts down I think I'll share in case I need them later or someone else does:

There's something so closed off that I forget about it, and when I remember it's sore and sharp and angry. It comes bursting out tooHot and saltysweet, too floral and sweaty. It's the thing that makes me cry at the good, the bad, or the mundane stories from Indian Country when no one is watching. It's the scab that keeps me silent when strangers bring up my home.


 Sometimes my friends will give me strange looks later on. 'that person said they were Indian' or 'that they had been to a rez' or 'that they had read a book'. 'why didn't you say anything?' Because my heart was busy breaking of course, same old shit. Because I can only smile and nod so many times before my neck goes stiff and my hands go cold. And it's a privilege, I know, to choose to disengage. It's my light coloring that allows me to drift out of my body in these moments and not be called back by name. Usually.


I assume everyone else is feeling these oppositional pulls of anxiety and guilt. I have no illusions of originality in this sense. It's one of the only convictions, in fact, that keeps me sane, that lets me believe in anythning: a commitment to doubt. But the callouses doubt builds start to chafe. When it seems like the only real things are secret joys and sadnesses, the unspeakable, it makes for a long, lonely horizon. Can we truly share a half-truth? half-secret? a doubt? a silence? I'd rather you taste my salt, but maybe that's the same thing.


And if that all seems too ambiguous, I'm planning on holding a reverse cannibalism potlach in a few weeks. Yep, just me going crazy over here.
-----


Today has been much better. Saner at least. Woke up hungover and went with Tony to get the car keys...success! picked up my car and immediately went grocery shopping. I am grocery-obsessed, seriously. It's not that okay. I bought asparagus, zuchinni, garlic, a pineapple, an apple, green bell peppers, carrots, celery, and kale. Nommers. Told myself I could have the apple for breakfast, but haven't wanted it yet.

then I came to the college and started setting up my study space, had a meeting about the second degree I'm getting at the same time as my current one (it's like an honors degree from one of the other colleges in the area). Now I'm going to eat this apple and go hit the treadmill then settle into some more work. I think Oscar wants to go swimming tonight, so that would be a nice extra workout. I have been totally slacking on the weight-loss front and I want it god damn it! I need it! motivate, motivate, motivate! (I sound like I'm casting a harry potter spell there).

Do well everyone, and hello to my new followers! Elara, I was so excited when you commented, because I'd just been reading through some of your archives. The Boston rally should have been bigger, I'm really always surprised when an event goes like this...I guess it's just planning. Still, I get a little ticked off that Dorian can pull in more people to a club on a friday night than will show up to protest to protect our own civil rights.

Lots of love,

Adrian