Black Coffee

The tornado I talked about last night missed my house by 15-20 miles, so I'm safe, but a lot of other towns were destroyed :(  My heart goes out to those affected by this awful storm.

Today was the second day in a row I drank my coffee black. I used to put in fat free creamer and Splenda. About six months ago, I weened myself off the sweetener, and over the past week I have used less and less cream until I used none. Finally, I can drink coffee with no calories!

While looking through my room for a missing article of clothing, I found a pair of summer pants I loved to wear in high school. I tried them on. I couldn't button them. When I can fit into them again, I know I'll be skinny enough. I'm thinking just 10 pounds down and they'll look good!

I've added a couple tabs to the top of my page - I'll keep track of my weight and food intake on a separate tab, and I also put in a tab of the eating rules I follow. Let me know what you think!

xoxo Cara

Rachel Zoe - my fashion & body icon

Tornadoes

Woohoo, a huge tornado is moving straight towards my area. Neat-o. Good thing I have a basement.

In good news, despite my erratic eating this past week, I haven't gained any weight. Now, hopefully I can start losing soon. No more bad eating days, no more missed workouts.

Wishing you all good weather.

xoxo Cara

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore...

'Totes the best hun-cal fro-yo.

I don't know about you all, but I love sketch comedy. I love stand-up comedians and silly YouTube videos. This video, part of a series where the gender roles of the characters are hilariously reversed, particularly makes me laugh:

While it's certainly amusing to watch men parody female stereotypes, this sketch also says a lot about the way many women view eating. Even if not classified as "eating disordered," a lot of women worry about what they eat, how much they eat, and how they look in comparison to their friends. Notice that none of them want to eat alone - they all want to share something so that they are all partaking in the same weight gain caloric intake. They even ask about the others' eating history to make sure they haven't eaten more than their besties. All while watching a show about extreme weight loss, "The Biggest Loser."

Aside from that serious social message I just rambled on about, I think my favorite line has to be "How does she feel, and what is she thinking about how she feels?"
Or maybe "We're besties with testes." Hahaha.

Anyway. Today, I ate like a normal person. Well, not really like a normal person, since a normal person would not hate herself after every bite she swallowed. But, my intake was somewhere around that of a normal person (~1,500 calories, GROSS). I did run 3.25 miles, and hopefully my hardly eating anything yesterday will offset today somewhat.

I'll just keep running, running, running 'til I get where I want to be.

xoxo Cara

Abs like these? Yes, please!

Happy Easter!

First of all, Happy Easter to everyone who is celebrating! I hope everyone (celebrating or not) was able to spend quality time with family and close friends. Nothing can replace the happiness of being around loved ones :)

While Easter sure is a joyous time, wow, what a tempting time as well. This morning, my mom presented me with a basket of candy - Reese's, Whoppers, M&M's, and other chocolaty, fatty, chewy, sticky treats. After church, my family and I went out to Easter brunch, where eggs benedict with cheesy grits and french toast smothered in maple syrup beckoned to me from all across the table. Finally, my dad made us dinner of grilled veggies and bleu cheese burgers with avocado. Oh, and did I mention we still had lots of the cake I made left on the counter, staring at me all freaking day?

Why must all celebrations revolve around food? Can't we just enjoy one another's company, without gorging ourselves? After each meal, every single person in my family complained about being too full, from eating too much food for their own comfort. Why do people do this to themselves? I can't say I'm immune to such a feeling - I have definitely overeaten before - but I hate the feeling of fullness so much that I restrain myself.

I was almost sick watching how much food everyone around me ate today. Somehow, even though I was presented with so much temptation, I managed to get through the day only eating about 8-9 bites of food. Small bites, at that - I felt disgusting eating anything bigger than the size of a fingernail at once.
                     I'm simultaneously proud and scared.
Proud at my willpower in the face of such gluttony. Scared at the hold my hang-ups about eating have taken over me. But, at the same time, it's comforting - that thing, that ED that has a hold of me, it's not strangling; it's hugging, rocking, soothing. I'm feeling so many contradictions and can't decide if they cancel each other out or just confuse me further. I don't even know if this makes any sense.

I suppose, for now, I am happy; I feel like I'm on the right path towards my skinny girl goal.

Happy Easter Sunday, loves. God bless.

xoxo Cara

I'm walking the thin line between
the opposite edges of my feelings.

Quote of the Day

Me: "Stop pinching my arm fat!"
Boyfriend: "Silly girl, look, I can almost wrap my fingers all the way around."

What he meant: "Your arm is skinny. There is no fat to pinch."
What I heard: "...Almost. Almost means not quite skinny enough."

Dazzling, darling.

After I eat, I feel sick. I feel sick to my stomach, sick at myself, sick at the calories my body is absorbing. I feel anxious. I panic at the thought of my stomach expanding, my feelings of fullness. I feel weak. I feel weak of mind and spirit, weak from food weighing me down, making me lethargic.

I enjoy the feeling of hunger. Not the painful, stomach in a knot, I want to eat my hand I'm so hungry hunger. I enjoy the light growl in the tummy, the tunnel vision and lightheadedness when I stand up, the punch-drunk high on the addiction to nothing hunger.

I resent having to eat more because I'm around my parents. I resent them watching me eat, asking what I've eaten, commenting on the food still left on my plate. I didn't want that slice of the cake my mom asked me to bake, but I didn't want her to suspect anything if I refused to even taste the fruits of my labor.

My belly is full of food right now, and I'm freaking out. I don't like it. I can't handle it. I want it out out out. But I won't let myself throw up. It's not worth the damage to my body, not worth the risk of discovery.

I want to be a different person. Je voudrais être française, living in southern France on wine and teeny-tiny bites of cheese. I want to be an adult, not in this limbo of my parents' child transitioning to an independent woman. I don't want to hate myself for every little flaw I see.

Et alors, I must accept that which I cannot change, and have the will to change what I can. Or something.

xoxo Cara

Être maigre est être eblouissant,
sans effort.

Lost in my head

Do you ever feel jealous when one of your friends is on a diet? A girl I know told me the other day that she's doing that lemon juice/cayenne pepper/maple syrup cleanse, and I felt that green-eyed monster rear its ugly head. I don't know why. Maybe I'm afraid that she'll get skinnier than me, or have more control than me. For some reason, reading all of your diets and seeing your heights and weights doesn't have the same effect - I guess its the anonymity. I like expressing myself anonymously (as I assume the rest of you bloggers do, too), and I like receiving anonymous, non-competitive support.

Also, I can't understand how she just casually mentioned that she's been deliberately starving herself. I would die before saying that out loud. 


A similar situation happened to me in high school. My best friend realized I wasn't really eating, so she decided not to eat, either. I hated sharing that with her. Not eating was my thing. I suppose I was fighting for my individuality, but...

...by trying to make ourselves perfect, aren't we all? 

We want to be perfect, but we want perfection to be our thing. 

To be the only one people think of 

when they hear words like "skinny" and "beautiful."

Anyway. Random Cara thought for the day.

Today, I got 10 stars!  9 more days to go, 90 more stars to earn. I did an hour of yoga instead of going to the gym, and I rediscovered how much I love yoga. It's a workout, and it's calming, and it works every single muscle in your body. Plus, what's better than a taught, slim yogi body?

What are y'alls favorite workouts? Mine are definitely yoga and running.

I'm home for Easter weekend, and I'm a bit worried about the food situation. I'm going to have to only eat in front of my family so that they think I'm eating normally. And probably lie. A lot.

                   I hate lying.

                               but I need to be thin.

xoxo Cara

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, 
but when there is nothing left to take away." --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

GLEE GLEE GLEE!!! Whee!

Tonight, there's a new episode of Glee!! I'm so excited. Watching it makes me wish I could sing. In fact, if I had a genie grant me one wish, I would wish for a beautiful singing voice. (Or world peace...?) What would you wish for, if you had one wish? I would say losing weight would be a close contender, but I can control that with diet and exercise. My singing voice, on the other hand, is genetically doomed (thanks, Mom and Dad), no matter what I do.

I'm currently watching The Biggest Loser as Glee records (I told my roommate I'd wait for her to get home to watch it). I can't believe how these people let themselves get as fat as they once were. It's also amazing to see how much weight they've all lost so far. Are there any other shows about weight loss and/or eating disorders that y'all like to watch? For some reason, I really enjoy watching them! If a 400+ pound person can lose enough weight to look good, then so can I!

Starting with my diet for tomorrow:

Breakfast:  fat-free yogurt (100) + green tea (0) = 100

Lunch:  1 cup spinach (10) + 5 sprays salad dressing (5) + 1/2 cup steamed broccoli (15) + 1/2 small tomato (8) + fat free cottage cheese (70) = 108

Dinner:  1 whole-wheat tortilla (110) + 1 tbsp whipped cream cheese (35) + 1/4 cup chopped cucumber (5) + 1/8 cup spinach (2) + 1/2 small tomato (8) + 1 oz turkey (25) = 185

Snacks:  1/2 medium apple (60) + sugar free hard candy (6) = 66

Total:  459 calories, 0 servings sweets, 2 servings dairy, 1/3 serving meat, 4 servings veggies, 1/2 serving fruit, 1 serving grains

And exercise plan:

40 minutes elliptical + 20 minutes running = 60 minutes cardio

200 crunches throughout the day

Wish me luck! I've gotta get bikini body ready, stat!

I'll let you know tomorrow how I did.

Enjoy your nights, loves.

xoxo Cara

Me, in a bikini (one day...)

Debauchery

This past weekend, I was at a music festival and probably drank my body weight in liquor. Not the best idea, calorie-wise. So, fresh start! I'm re-starting my 10 day star diet, because I want to do 10 days in a row. I've also decided I'm not going to drink for those 10 days to give my liver a rest (and because, with only 500 cal/day, I really don't have room for anything "extra" like alcohol).

Since I've been in party mode for the majority of the past few days, I also need to catch up on all of your blogs. I'll comment soon, and update y'all on my progress ... promise :)

xoxo Cara

Home is whenever I'm with you

Bit the Bullet...

...and finally weighed myself.

121.4

That's about what I expected, but still... yuck.

Baby, You're A Star

Lately, it seems as though all of my friends are upset with me for one reason or another. The problem is, I don't know what any of those reasons are, and I don't want to bring it up and make them more mad at me. I'm non-confrontational to the extreme, and I try to always be nice to everyone, so I can't think of what I could have done to make them act so cold.  Sigh.  I hope everything will be back to normal before we graduate and go our separate ways.  At least my boyfriend is coming to visit me this weekend, and I know he still loves me.

But, I will distract myself for now... I followed my planned dinner and snack yesterday. Yay! Today, day one of the 10 day points diet is here.  I'm changing it a little for me, though.  Instead of points, I'm going to use gold stars (I'm visual that way), and I'm placing more of an emphasis on calories in (because that's what I care about most... and, 10 stars sounds like a better number to me than 8, for some reason).  So, here's the breakdown of how I can earn up to 10 gold stars each day:

After 10 days, the ultimate goal is to have earned 100 gold stars. Hello again, kindergarten.

I'm a nerd. And a perfectionist. Go figure.















How I Did:
Sleep  9 hours (2 stars)
Water  2.5 liters (2 stars)
Exercise  60 minutes (2 stars)
Food
     Breakfast:  coffee and milk (20)
     Lunch:  black bean soup (110)
     Dinner (planned):  spinach (10), turkey slice (20), 2 tbsp. salsa (15), 1/2 cup broccoli (15), 5 sprays dressing (5)
     Snacks:  fat free cottage cheese (70), banana (100), fat free yogurt (planned - 90), sugar free jello (planned - 10)
                 total = 465 calories (4 stars)

For a grand total today of... 10 GOLD STARS!

By the way, thanks to PollyAnna, Rowan, and A for commenting. It's good to know this blog isn't just me talking to myself like a crazy.

Hope you all are having a better day than I am.

xoxo Cara

"All very well to write, She felt sad, or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things." Ian McEwan, Atonement

Come On, Skinny Love...

I love this song by Bon Iver.  It's so emotional, but it makes me feel ...strangely calm.

Do you have a song you can't stop listening to?


I'm feeling a lot better about today.  I feel like I have control again.  I've also kept busy - a schedule helps me keep to my food goals, and it makes me happy to have lots to do.


Today's food:

• Breakfast:  nothing (0)
• Lunch: 1/2 sweet potato (100) + coffee & skim milk (20) = 120
• Snacks/other:  sugar-free hard candy (6)
• Dinner (planned):  spinach (10), 5 sprays salad dressing (5), 2 tbsp salsa (15), 1/2 cup broccoli (15), laughing cow cheese (35) = 80
• Late snack (planned):  fat free yogurt (100)

Total:  306 :)

Today's exercise:
      No formal exercise today, but I did babysit an infant and a toddler for 5 1/2 hours... that's gotta burn something!


Tomorrow, I plan to start the 10 day points diet (photo stolen from Count Down To Skinny).

I'm a sucker for markers of achievement.  Gold stars in elementary school?  Loved them.  In high school, I recalculated my grades and overall GPA for practically every grade I got back in a class.  When I was running regularly, I had to have a weekly mileage goal that I worked up to.

In short, this diet fits perfectly with my personality.  I love the idea that I'm working up towards some ultimate goal (80 points/day) through smaller, mini-goals, that I get rewarded for (even with intangible "points") when I achieve them.

Maybe I'll change it to be gold stars for me... 10 points = 1 star? I like it.

What helps keep you motivated?

xoxo Cara

I tell my love to wreck it all...

Greetings, Bloggers!

Hey y'all.

Confession:  I have a problem with food.

Since I was 14 years old, I have been restricting food on and off (mostly, on).  Right now, I am on a restricting kick.  I started off about a month ago eating 1,200 calories a day with exercise, a legitimately healthy diet and exercise routine.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately, since I do want to be thinner!) counting calories triggered me into restricting more, again.

For the past week, I have eaten ≤600 calories per day, and I have tried to exercise for 30-60 minutes a day. I thought I could do it on my own.  Today, however, I broke down, and over-ate.  After reading a lot of your blogs, I was inspired by your weight loss struggles and successes.  I can only hope you will also accept me into your weight loss community - I know now that I really need people to keep me in check as I attempt to lose this weight!  I need an anonymous community, because I know my friends and family would just worry about my behavior.

It's hard for me to say what my lowest weight at this height (I'm just a hair over 5'6") was, because I was super skinny without trying in middle school - like, 92 pounds skinny.  Since I've started restricting, my lowest weight was 106 pounds while in high school, and 114.8 pounds while in college (last September, actually!).  I'm graduating from college in about a month, and I would like to weigh ≤110 pounds by then.  I'm not sure how much I weigh right now, since I'm afraid if I weigh myself I will become discouraged, but I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere between 120-125 pounds (my highest is 126).

So, I guess I'm just asking - will you all help me as I post about my eating and weight loss journey?  I hope that I can support you, as well!

xoxo Cara

My ultimate thinspiration :)