The temptation to give up.

Hello again all. It's been the better part of three weeks since I last wrote anything here and this has been for several reasons. The final few weeks of the summer term at university took up a great deal of my time and I procrastinated on the consistent recording of my feelings and successes (or failures-as the case will be further on). I'm now home for the summer and thoroughly committing myself to getting the best results I can achieve in this window.

As an update, here's my beautiful face at the summer ball. I finally found a dress!

The other main reason that I didn't want to write is purely and simply the fact that I had a blip.

Two weeks back I wandered into a meeting on the Thursday afternoon, knowing full well that preparations for the summer ball and general end of term stress meant I hadn't been tracking as well as I could. I'd gained a pound. That one pound to me felt like nothing. I could rationally understand it. I decided I would simply pick myself up again and keep going and that is what I've done. Two weeks and 5lbs later I have lost that pound and got myself to another important goal for me- the loss of 25lbs. But still, that gain meant more to me than I was allowing myself to accept when I first got off the scales. That pound could easily have been the end and the next day, when a friend made a foolish comment about it, it nearly was. I simply didn't care anymore. I felt like a complete and utter failure and I just wanted to pack it in, put away my new (semi) active lifestyle and eat a burger, three cupcakes, two bags of pick n mix and all of the cheese strings I could manage. I moped for the next two days in my self loathing feeling like this was the beginning of the end. The next week I'd get on that scale and, as has happened before, I wouldn't go back again after the (presumably) shocking result. So I did something (arguably) even worse. I didn't eat. I made myself unwell with a cheese string as all of my daily sustenance and 32 hours of sleep out of 36. I sobbed and sobbed and begged to go home early because I was so unhappy with the state of affairs.

Here comes some background information: I've struggled the last 6 months with depression and there has been more than one occasion where I simply don't want to get out of bed. Losing weight has, at times, been my only source of feeling in control and I didn't realise just how initially devastating this gain would be for me. As the days went on I felt totally out of control and it wasn't until Monday when I finally pulled myself out of my cave and went to sushi that I started to feel like myself again. (BTW the prawn katsu, fewer calories than the hairy prawns and yum-highly recommend) Most of the week I was dreading getting on the scales at the next meeting. I didn't want to see the damage. I had to be practically pushed on to the scales by Lucy and only after a final series of jumping jacks (apparently to burn off any final calories...), and the removal of all superfluous clothing, would I get on the scales. When I saw the number go down it was like some kind of outer body experience. I stood there, jaw to floor, flabbergasted and completely incapable of coming to terms with the fact that not only had I lost that pound I'd gained but I lost another two for good measure. And it was right there that I realised the one piece of advice I can give anyone is simply to keep going. It's so easy to be beaten down, whether by yourself or someone else, and to just want to mope in your own little hole but it's just then that you need to show the world what you're really made of. Obviously, this relates to more than just weight loss and is a good guide to life. To quote Buffy 'the hardest thing in this world, is to live in it' but if you don't keep pushing forward and trying, what's the point?

A girl's gotta have a Vampire slayer idol. . .