And All That Could Have Been...

shortcake19 @ 2006-07-14T12:50:00

2006-07-14T19:54:01Z

Thursday
- 2 salads: 60
- ½ grapefruit: 50
- ½ apple (22) tbsp almonds (14): 36
- Cup of grapes: 106
- Banana: 100
- Apple: 45
- Orange: 50
Total: 507

Exercise: 1.5 hours walking - 339
Total = +168

Today was official weigh-in day. Last friday I was 110. I got up this morning and I was 109.5. Half a pound in a week?! That's it?! So frustrating.

shortcake19 @ 2006-07-12T14:26:00

2006-07-12T21:41:32Z

I'm at a major plateau. I eat about 800ish calories/day, and haven't really been exercising, but I started up again and am getting really into it. But I've been 110lbs for about a month now (after gaining up from 100) and it's not GOING DOWN!

Yesterday I only ate raw foods (except my 6 cups of green tea, and some dijon mustard and soy sauce in my salad), so I want to try and last for a week of only raw foods. And I think it's defined as eating at least 75% of your foods raw, which I'm definetly doing. I don't want this to only last a week, I want this to be my lifestyle but I'll just do a week to start and see how it goes.

So here's the Break My Plateau Plan.
1. Only eat raw foods, except for condiments (mustard, soy sauce, salsa, etc) and green tea.
2. Minimum 6 cups of green tea per day. (Which I already do so not too hard)
3. Minimum 2 litres of water per day (obvious one)
4. 90 minutes of this cardio class I'm doing, 3 times/week
5. Min. 200 crunches/day
6. Actually post everything I eat/work out on here everyday.

Will start now; here's today:
- Salad: 60
- 1 cup of raisins and pecans: 530 =/
- 4 cups green tea
- 1 litre of water
Total calories = 590

Workout:
- 90 min cardio class: 500???
- 1 hour walking: 226
Total calories burned = 726

Total: -136 calories!

Edit:
Add to above:
- Salad: 60
- Cup of grapes: 106
- ½ apple: 22
- 2 cups green tea
- litre of water
Grand total = 778 cals

And I did 200 crunches = 100 cals burned; total = 826 cals burned
Which means -48 cals for the day! I realize that's not a huge deficit but oh well.

shortcake19 @ 2006-07-10T23:35:00

2006-07-11T07:02:28Z

So I've been looking into it and I realized I really want to start eating only raw foods. It's the next step from veganism, and when I went vegan, I said it was because it was the next logical step from vegetariansim; raw-foodism is the next logical step from veganism. And after raw-foodism is fruitarianism, where you only eat fruit and a little bit of nuts/seeds. On a raw food diet, it's pretty much impossible to be fat. How do you get fat from fruits and veggies? Unless you eat nothing but avocados and nuts or something but that's obviously not gonna happen. I want a perfect body, but I also want to be healthy. If I eat very little, but I eat good things, like fruits and vegetables and raw nuts and seeds, live, natural foods, I'll be much better off, and I think I'll lose more weight anyway. And I'm finally getting back into exercising, after being stuck in a non-exercise rut for about a month and a half.

So today I ate about 777 cals of fruits, veggies, and a tiny piece of chocolate cake (ack!); burned about 726 cals so I almost ran even.

shortcake19 @ 2006-07-07T00:08:00

2006-07-07T07:08:28Z

I don't know what I want anymore. When it comes to food and weight loss, it's like I have a.d.d. or something. I'll spend a day with my (naturally) super thin friends, and just being around them, I won't eat since it's such good inspiration. But then the next day, I'll be at home and I'll look at myself and say, "yeah, I have some fat on me, but that's normal. I don't care anymore; pass me another cookie!" Then LITERALLY five minutes later, I'll see a model on tv or something, and I'm like "no more food, I want to look like that." And it just goes on like this all the time. I have absolutely no willpower. I don't know what to do. Tonight, I'll say, ok I'll go on a fast, I'll start majorly working out again (which I used to do a lot, but haven't in about a month), I'll get back on track. Tomorrow will come, I'll wake up and start the day off with a super unhealthy breakfast and it'll just go downhill from there. I won't bother working out since I've already ruined the day; I'll eat more since I've already ruined the day.

Why can't I just have more will-power? Am I going to have this fat fat body for the rest of my life? I don't have skinny genetics, no one in my family is bone-thin or anything, but why can't I just prove them all wrong and FINALLY be thin?

The worst part of it is that I'm VEGAN. Vegan's are supposed to be thin, since we don't eat fat-filled meat or cholestoral-filled eggs, but I'm living proof that you can be vegan and still be fat. There are still tons of bad-for-you vegan foods, like desserts and nuts and raisins (my absolute weakness) and all sorts of things. Just being vegan doesn't mean one eats ONLY fruits and vegetables. I wish I could, but I don't have the WILLPOWER.

If I had a wish, it'd be to wake up tomorrow and have willpower, to be able to say no to food. To survive on water and nothing else, because food just ruins my body, it sits inside of me, rotting, and making me feel ugly on the inside and look uglier on the outside.

shortcake19 @ 2006-07-03T10:06:00

2006-07-03T17:11:29Z

So my fast lasted 46 hours. I was trying to go for at least 48 but around 6pm on Friday, I felt like I was going to pass out, so I ate a little bit. Just some fruit, salad, and bread.

And then on Saturday morning I weighed 109! FINALLY! I haven't been able to get under 110 for at least a month. Anyways on Saturday I didn't eat for the rest of the day; had a handful of raspberries, that was it.

Sunday morning I weighed 107! Haven't been that low since... May? But of course I had to ruin it. I ate:
- 4 cups grapes: 248
- 1 peach: 31
- ½ nectarine: 30
- 2 salads: 120
- TONS of crackers: 450
Total: 879

And this morning I woke up and I weighed 110. WTF? I didn't gain 3lbs in a day. That's just so frustrating. I can starve myself for 3 days, eat EIGHT HUNDRED calories the next day, and just gain weight. I hate how my metabolism is so messed up.

fast

2006-06-30T19:00:04Z

Haven't eaten since Wednesday at 8pm. Let's see how long this can go on.

Thursday:
- one berry slushi, one drink w/ juice and alcohol = ??? calories
- at least five hours of walking, probably more = 1130 calories burned

40 hours into the fast.

shortcake19 @ 2006-06-26T10:43:00

2006-06-26T17:50:49Z

Ok this is ridiculous. It's bad enough the government does everything in its power to read our minds, but now computers can do it too? It's really reminds me of Minority Report, where the advertisments were speaking directly to people, using the readings from their eyes. Just when you thought the world couldn't get any worse. What is it coming to?

Horrible binge day yesterday. But luckily... no gain. I'm stuck at 110.5lbs. I just want to get under 110, I haven't been in so long. It's just so damn hard. Instead of it being super easy to gain weight and so hard to lose it, why can't it be the opposite? I mean, not so much weight that you die, but say if you eat something, it fills you up, like food is supposed to do, but you don't gain weight. Ever. You can only lose weight (to a certain point), and you do that by, I don't know, like five minutes of exercise. And it would just be so easy. But then, if it were so easy, everyone would be thin, so it wouldn't be a big deal. And then, since it's so hard to get fat, being FAT would actually be considered attractive. I'm just rambling now.

Back to horrible horrible studying.

shortcake19 @ 2006-06-25T10:19:00

2006-06-25T17:27:52Z

Not much to post; just that food-wise, yesterday was pretty good:
- 2 peaches: 76 calories
- Cup of fruit: 50?
- Cooler: 200
- 2 potatos: 200
- Piece of bread: 70?
Total calories: 596

And then I walked around the beach ALL DAY... let's say at least 4 hours? So 904 calories.
So -308 calories for the day! And I was down half a pound this morning. I started taking my diet pills again yesterday, so I don't know if that helped or not. I've been taking Xenadrine EFX, they seem to work pretty well, and a lot of people seem to be taking them and like them so hopefully they'll help me again.

Today is going to be a boring boring day. It's so nice and warm outside, like 26 degrees or something, but I'm stuck at home studying for a philosophy midterm on tuesday. But, hopefully I'll get tons of work done so I don't have to study that much on monday.

volunteering

2006-06-24T17:40:40Z

So yesterday I spent 9 hours at the World Urban Festival volunteering. It kinda sucked, because it was one of those things that you volunteer for, but you're not all THAT needed, since there are so many other volunteers, and not that much to do. It got me thinking. This isn't the first time I've volunteered in that kind of thing, not really feeling needed, not really feeling like I've made any sort of difference. I mean, there are a lot of causes that I care about: environment/global warming, animal-rights, human-rights, world poverty and hunger. Because there is so much to do, I feel like I can do one of two things: I can either spread myself really thin, and help each cause only a little bit, or I can pick one cause and totally devote myself to it. But if I spread myself really thin, I'm barely helping any of them; if I devote myself to just one, how do I pick? And then I'll just feel guilty that I'm not helping the rest. I want to start volunteering for something long-term, something like PETA or Greenpeace, or Amnesty International or Oxfam or something. But which one?

shortcake19 @ 2006-06-22T22:51:00

2006-06-23T06:03:35Z

Food-wise, not a good day. Grade-wise, such a good day.

Ok let's get the bad out of the way. So today was my "first day of only fruits and veggies week". I went to class in the morning, and had nothing but a cup of black coffee until I got home at 2:30. And then I BINGED. Here's what I ate (for the rest of the day):
- Cup of soy chocolate "ice-cream"
- Handful of raisins and pecans
- Rice cake with salsa
- Cup of pasta w/ steamed veggies and soy sauce
- 2 pieces of vegan toast w/ TONS of organic peanut butter
- Salad: tomato, cucumber, avocado
- 2 cups of tea w/ splenda

I feel so disgusting. How am I ever supposed to lose weight if I just keep on binging? Tomorrow, though, I'm volunteering from 1-9pm, so I should be able to stay away from food all day. I'll bring some veggies with me, and maybe have 1/2 a grapefruit in the morning and it'll be my first all fruits and veggies day. I want eventually ONLY eat RAW fruits and vegetables forever, but it'll take awhile (I'm vegan, so I'm almost there).

Anyways, on to the good news. I got political science midterm back today, expecting a C+, maybe, since I was pretty sure I bombed it. But I got a B+ (one percent away from an A-, hate that!), so not too bad. And then I got my communications paper back right after that, and I got an A+! That just made my whole day!

Ok, tomorrow WILL be a good food day.

survey

2006-06-21T19:51:36Z

I *heart* surveys! Thanks Kristi!

Name: Natalie
Age: 19
Location: BC, Canada
Weight: 110
Height: 5'1"
Goals: lose 15 pounds (what am I doing about that... NOTHING), be a better vegan, go to law school
Typical daily eating patterns: (Plan) = (Reality) = Everyday I say "today I'll only eat fruits and vegetables for a week, starting NOW"... reality: any kind of vegan junk food (vegan cookies, cake, "ice-cream")...ahhH! And I'm a coffee ADICT! That's the one thing I can't quit, but I have cut back to one/day.
Are you a vegetarian: I'm a vegan
If so, why is that a lifestyle you’ve adopted: I can't support the slaughter of animals, especially since all we (as a species) need are fruits and vegetables to survive
What is your week typically like: Normally I have 4 or 5 days of school, but it's summer semester so I only have school Tuesdays and Thursdays. Other days I study, volunteer, have fun.
What is your favorite thing about your life (when it happens): Knowing that I made a difference (whether it's in the environment, politics, in my school, or just in someone's day)
Are you single / dating / engaged / married: single
Are you happy about your romantic situation: not really
Do you have kids (yes, that includes pets): My dog Roxy and my cat Rishu
Is there a particular ethnic / cultural / religious / gender-specific group that you identify with (not that they are interchangeable): Hmm I don't know... my friends are my friends, we all have different beliefs and ethnicities and such but it's not like that matters
Do you (or have you ever) done drugs: I did pot in high school
If so, what were your favorite and least favorite ones and why: Didn't like it
Have you gone through a period in your life you would consider promiscuous: no
What in your life are you most proud of: I'm proud that I made it this far academically.
What are you most ashamed to admit: There are a lot of things going on with me that nobody knows about. I guess I don't admit those things. I wish I could, though.
Have you been sexually or physically abused: no
If you could go back in time and talk to yourself about something you have perspective on now, what would it be: a former relationship
What super-power or magic powers do you wish you had: To be able to work off all the calories I eat by doing nothing, and thus weighing the weight that I want to.
What food do you wish had no calories so you could eat it all the time without guilt: vegan cookies
What one luxury item would you bring with you if you were stranded out in the jungle: my alba cocoa butter lotion
Are you happier being alone or with others in general: sometimes I think I'm happier alone.
Do you feel like anyone has ever really understood you: Not to sound like an angst-ridden teenager, but no
What movie can you watch over and over: Love Actually
What kind of music do you like: Rock
What is your greatest fear: That I won't get into law school, that if I do, I won't get through law school, that if I do, I won't get a good job after law school...
What do you hope your children will do differently than you did: I think I went through all the things I did for a reason. Not in the "fate" kind of way, but because every experience I've had shaped me, somehow. I think it's important to go through certain things, and if I had children, they would need to experience those sorts of things, too.
What is the most important value you hope they adopt in their lives: Treat others the way you want to be treated.
What is your best physical feature: My upper back. I think backs are super sexy.
Best personality trait: I'm driven and a good listener
Are you tired of this survey yet: No... I heart surveys
If you could blink your eyes and be anywhere right now, where would it be: Australia, on the beach
What is your favorite subject to learn about: political science and law (my major =))
What have you learned (good or bad) from your parents that have affected you in some profound way: They're really good at forgiving people. Even after just petty fights... I know it's stupid but I'm SO stubborn, so it's really hard for me to be the one to make up after a fight. I'm still working on that one.
Do you masturbate: no
If not, why not: I don't know
Is Kristi getting too nosy and personal yet again: it's all good...
What time in your life do you wish you could relive again and why: anytime I was on vacation (hawaii, mexico, etc)
Have you ever been or do you plan on being married someday: I haven't been, but I hope I will be, around when I'm 25, when I start working.
What is your favorite coffee drink: Trying to quit drinking starbucks but anything from there (with soy): cappuccino, vanilla latte, white chocolate mocha... I love their frapps but you can't get them with soy :(... anyway that stuff's packed with calories (and is pretty pricey too) so I'm trying to stop.
What questions would you like to ask me (if any): I think you've used up pretty much every question in the history of the world ;)

An Inconvienient Truth

2006-06-20T22:08:05Z

Last night I saw "An Inconvienient Truth".... such a good movie. If you haven't seen it yet, stop reading this and GO SEE IT NOW! Hopefully the movie will be seen around the world and something will FINALLY be done about global warming. Honestly, I never really knew too much about it and this movie really made me want to go out and make a difference. Go to www.climatecrisis.net to see what YOU can do to help control global warming. (I should be in ads!)

So I've been vegan now for about one and a half weeks (I realize that's not a lot, but I was vegetarian for a year and three months first). I've actually been doing really well; I thought I would cheat a little bit but the more research I do into the horrors of dairy and eggs (not to mention meat, obviously), it makes me never want to go back. It's kind of frustrating because no one seems to support me in this. My dad said he thought I was taking "the whole diet thing too far"! As if that's what this is about! My friends say I'm crazy to be switching all my beauty products and things to vegan-friendly ones... "you're doing so much already, you don't need to change everything". I think everyone just thinks that this is just a phase I'm going through or something. But then again, that's what they thought about my going vegetarian... over a year later. So hopefully they'll FINALLY get used to the idea and just leave me alone. That's another reason I'm tempted to move out on my own (I live with my dad) but I doubt I will. I'd have to get a job at some slaughter house... ahem I mean mcdonald's... and I'd really rather not do that.

newbie

2006-06-17T19:33:58Z

Whoo finally made a blog! This is the first blog I've ever had (up until now I've been pretty old school with my little journal on MS Word... or just lazy). I don't have too much time right now since I'm supposed to get ready to either go to the beach or see "The Inconvienent Truth" (depending on the weather) so I should probably go get ready for that. Just wanted to test this out.