Polish me Happy

  

Every season has its popular nail polish colors.  What's hot this season?  Pale blues, grays, pinks and yellows.  These light, almost neutral, colors are wonderful because they go with pretty much everything.  It's a little pop of color that adds interest to any outfit!  And lets not forget that pale colors look amazing with summer tans ;)

  My favorite polishes are usually red or pink.  But I decided to branch out a little.

  What are your favorite polish colors this season?

Hello Tuesday :)

 After being near 90 degrees for weeks and weeks, it was a mere 65 today!  Which was great because I could pull out a little jacket and scarf and jazz up my outfit.

  =)

Scarf and tank top- Forever 21

Jacket- Express

Pants- Ann Taylor Loft

Shoes- Kohls

Jewelry- Macy's

Watch- Tissot

On a Serious Note

  

  I know that my past few posts have been fluffy, fashion-y, and fun.  So this is a somewhat heavy post to balance it out.  I haven't made an ED or eating post in about a week.  So here goes.

  I have lost weight.  Last time I weighed myself (on Friday) I weighed 111, which is 2 pounds lighter than I've been the past 6 months (recovery, eating, etc).  I think I may have lost a bit more than that.  It feels like I lost about 4.  How did I do it?  Restricting a bit and exercising.  I am not eating peanut butter sandwiches anymore everyday.  I am not having a hearty breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  My lunches and dinner have gotten much smaller.

  And I can't lie, I love the way my body looks and feels.  I feel like myself.  I missed feeling light, small, and dainty.  This is the body I've had for the past few years, but even better because since I started working out in January, my legs and butt have gotten firm.

  My stomach had gotten used to the feedings every 3-4 hours.  So doing this, cutting down on food, has not been easy.  But I just cannot deal with looking heavy (for me) on my wedding day.  I just can't.  With all of these events coming up, I need to feel like I look my best.

  So the real question is "How important is being thin?"


  For many years, being thin is the one thing that has been a no-fail goal for me to achieve.  I can always win.  When everything else is up in the air, when everything else is changing, one thing is almost completely under my control-and that thing is my weight.  To me, one of the worst things that I could ever do to myself is let myself go.  That's why it hasn't happened since I was a much bigger years and years ago, as mentioned in this post.

  When I am thin I feel beautiful, confident, and composed.  I feel like I have my shit together because I look like I do.  I love when I pull a pair of pants up from the ground and they glide effortlessly over my legs and rest on my hips.  This feeling is one to be savored.  And my clothes just look so much better when I'm a couple of pounds lighter.  It's as if I bought new clothes.

  But the thing is, I'm still 1000% for body acceptance and for female empowerment.  I guess I just have difficulty accepting my body the way IT wants to be.  I want it to be what I want it to be.  I wonder if I will ever accept it for what it wants to be?  What will happen when I have kids? ...

  I know that I have diverged from my original goal of normal eating.  I just have a mental need, at this point (wedding, tons of events, activities, pictures), to be thin.  I cannot psychology handle feeling like a I'm living in somebody else's body.  Plus, it's not like I'm trying to lose tons and tons of weight and look sick.

  The truth is, my body wants to be at 113 pounds.  I have discovered this fact in these past few months of normal eating.  I, however, like to be at 108 pounds.  What this means is that I am constantly trying to defy the laws of nature.


  So, the questions that I have for you are:

>>Is it bad to try your hardest to stay at a certain weight?  What if that weight is below what your body would normally want you to be at?


Did you know that Audrey Hepburn vowed to herself to never weigh more than 103 pounds.  And she never did.  Now I realize this is a bit much because the fabulous actress was 5'6".


>>Do you know what your body's set-point is, and do you try to fight it?  If you do, do you win?




  Please tell me that I'm not the only person who finds extreme enjoyment and a mental high from thin limbs, a hard stomach, and long lean leg lines...

Lots of Love,
Crazy Yasi

Love can be Blue

  Let me start off by bragging about my wonderful fiance a bit.  I have been looking for a pair of colorful shoes to go with this dress that I posted about a couple of days ago.  So while shopping with J, I dragged him to Macy's so that I could shoe shop.  I gotta tell ya, the man's picked up on what I love in clothes and accessories because look at the shoes he picked out!!

Jessica Simpson shoes

  So I tried on the shoes when I got home to see if they matched the dress and noticed that they matched this fantastic headband that I got a little while ago.  

 I actually pinned the headband down b/c the feathers were a bit much for a wedding reception (I'm wearing this ensemble to my friend's wedding). 

  Anywho, I absolutely adore how the shoes look with the dress!!  And I love love love the headband.  However, I shared these pix with my mom and she thinks the headband is too much for a wedding.  But this headband is totally representative of my personality... 

  So now I pose this question to you, my fabulous peeps, is this headband too much with this outfit for a wedding?

  I'm not sure if the comments will or will not affect my decision, but it would be nice to get some feedback from others.

I think Pirate loves the shoes just as much as I do!

=)

New Look- What do you think?! And an amazing cottage.

So I spent a big chunk of the day completely re-vamping the blog.  I was tired of the dreary and serious look of it.  What do you think of the new look?  I hope you like it!

On another note, I read an article today that made my jaw drop.  This was the article published in the NY Times.  The woman mentioned in the article renovated and completely furnished this little cottage for $3,000.  Three thousand dollars, people!

Here is the link to the pictures:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/23/garden/20100624-chic-slideshow.html

It wouldn't let me directly upload them on here.  Boo.

And as you can see, it's like a Victorian dream.  ***Mmmm I feel so warm and fuzzy on the inside***  This is seriously my dream house.

Girls like Boys

  As you know, I went shopping yesterday and got a few fabulous things.  This blazer and the necklace found their way into my hands and they were simply BEGGING for me take them home.  So, being a generous person, I adopted them so that they could play with the other clothes in my closet! ;)

  The blazer, necklace, and pants are all from Ann Taylor.  The men's shirt is from Forever21.  And the hat is from... one of my Persian dance performance outfits.  Haha!

  And when your brain suddenly instructs your hands to pull all of these pieces from your closet and put them together, what do you do?  Play dress up!!

  BANG BANG!

P.S.  This blazer was a GREAT buy.  It was like $40ish dollars (@ 40% off).  And I've been wanting one for like a year and a half.

P.P.S.  Do you think the hanging monkey adds to the gangsta-ness of the last picture?  =P

Black dress

If you've read some of my posts you would know that I'm obsessed with fashion.  And lookie lookie what I found today!!  It's so beyond awesome and I'm going to wear it to my friends wedding in August.

What do you think?

=D

Thank you =)

Thank you everyone for your kind comments about my last post.  I was feeling so intensely overwhelmed. I cried for 3 hours straight!!!  And then I took a nap and woke up and felt better.

J and I resolved our issue that day, and my mom called me later in the night and our conversation was normal to good.

As for the body issues, they are still there.  I really do think I that want to slim down a couple of pounds for the wedding because I just don't feel like I look like myself.  I'm not starving myself at all.  I'm just going to continue going to the gym and I'm going to watch my portion sizes.

It's just that if there's one day that you want to look and feel your best it's your wedding day.  And if being a couple of pounds thinner will make me feel better then I think that's ok.

I realize that this looks like a slippery slope.  But I really need to do this for my own sanity in the next two months.  J knows that I'm doing it and we're discussing it and he's watching me.

I kind of feel like I'm letting you guys down a bit.  But as I said before, this is going to be the most captured day of my life and I just want to feel like myself.

The good news is that during this transformation I have learned how to eat really well and have learned to eat nutritious food (instead of keeping myself functioning with carbs!).

Again, thank you for all of your kind words.  They mean the world to me.

Sadness

This post is going to be very scattered and I apologize in advance.

Do you ever have those days where you're just sad?  And no matter what you do you can't get out of your funk?

Today is one of those days.  I am overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and sadness.  There are so many things changing in my life and sometimes I don't know how they are happening so fast.

In 2 months I am getting married, moving in with J, moving to another city, finishing up my thesis, and possibly looking for a job.

I am moving away from the city I've lived in for the last 15 years.  I'm moving away from familiar faces and places.

I'm lonely.  

I ate chocolate chip cookies and ice cream last night.  And I felt as if I was going to bust out of my jean shorts.  

I browsed other peoples wedding pictures.  They all looked so skinny and perfect in their dresses.  

I looked at my pictures from when I was skinny.  I look so happy.

I am not happy now.  I don't like the way my body looks.  I don't feel like myself.  I feel like I am stuck in somebody else's body.  I don't recognize my girth or the way my clothes fit.

I need to lose 5 pounds.  I just can't do this right now with the wedding right around the corner.  I am so stressed out.  I can't try to recover when I hate how I look.  I don't want to hate how I look on my wedding day.

I just over plucked my eyebrows and I'm freaking out a little bit.  I was just trying to get them to look equal.  I hope they grow back in by the wedding.  My face looks bare and ugly.

There are too many things going on and I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face.  They won't stop.  As if there is an endless well of tears somewhere deep in my body.  It's as if my body is trying to get rid of my sadness by letting the well run dry.  But I don't think it will.

God, I have issues.

I have no family here.  And almost all my friends have moved away in the past year or 2.  

It's just my cats and me.  And when they see me they just see a walking bag of cat food and a litter scooper.

Guuuuh.

I'm sorry.

But this blog is about being honest.  And this is honesty.

Suckage

Above are pictures from last night.  We went out with some of J's work friends to celebrate his departure from the company and also his new job.  Before this recovery journey I adored my thin limbs and usually felt pretty slender when I went out.  I did not feel this way last night.  I felt healthy and I felt hefty.  I was no longer a thin body that floated around the bar.  My body felt obtrusive.

Today is one of those days where I just feel like crap about my body.  It really doesn't help that I just got my period and that I haven't been to properly move my stiff neck and my upper back in like 2 weeks.  I'm just uncomfortable.

I feel pudgy and I feel gross.  And it's really hot here which makes me feel like I'm simply expanding with the humidity.  My boobs are swollen.  Everything is just puffy.

I've been eating very regularly, which in theory is good.  I'm enjoying food, which is also good.  But goddammit why do I have to look fuller?  I hate it!!  I mean I like that I'm eating food like a normal human being, but every summer before this one was spent restricting so I never felt round or pudgy.  Well, that's a lie.  I did feel round and pudgy, but when I look at pictures now I totally wasn't!!

But now I look healthy.  In pictures I don't look really thin.  I just look normal.  And as every person with an ED knows, you don't exactly strive to be normal.

So yes.  I'm a total grump today.  And I apologize that you had to hear me bitch.

End Rant. :)

Apologies for absence! =)

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to write you all a quick note to let you know that I'm still here!  Haha.

J and I are actually in the process of moving to another city and finding a place to live.  That, and wedding planning, of course- which is NUTS right about now.

Anyway, I will blog soon.  Promise!

*Have a great day/night!*

The Beach

  The above picture was taken at my friend's cottage this past Saturday.  Wanna know what my first thought was?  "This is a good picture, but OMG do I have back-fat rolls?!?!?!? WTF. zoom zoom zoom. IS THAT A ROLL?"

  So now that we have established my level of crazy, let me tell you that this was a great travel weekend for me ED-wise, even though the above story doesn't make it seem like it was.  This was the first weekend we went up to the cottage after my ED-recovery and lifestyle change that I started this past January (It's been 6 months!  WOW!!).  

  Before the lifestyle change my eating during the week consisted of restricting, and my eating during the weekend consisted of gorging myself like a big fat pig.  Well, it makes sense because that's what happens when you're starving half the week!!  So when cottage weekends came up, I would restrict even more obsessively during the week and then I would stuff myself like a Christmas Turkey when we were at the cottage.  I would eat completely non-stop, no matter if I was full or not.  

  And when you really think about it, this makes absolutely no sense!  Because when I'm at the cottage I'm in a bikini 1/2 of the time, so why would I be stuffing myself when I'm exposed to the whole world? I have NO idea!!  But I do know that I would skinny-fy myself for the cottage, and then when I got there I just couldn't take it anymore and I'd eat anything in sight.

  Well guess what?  This past weekend was the first time in a really long time that I didn't do that!!!!  I ate more than I would eat on a normal weekend, because cottage weekends revolve around the cooking skills and grilling-wars of The Guys, and we eat what they make.  And they make A LOT of food.  But even though I ate all the meals that were provided, I stopped eating when I was full.  In addition, we usually go to a little store and pick up alcohol and other things we forgot to bring to the cabin.  This trip usually consists of me ransacking the store for s'mores fixings or some other huge bag of chocolate.  But I didn't do that this weekend!!!  I picked up an ice cream bar b/c I was 'preparing' myself for my crazy late-night cottage chocolate cravings, but then I realized that I don't need to 'stock up' just to fill my needless craving later, so I PUT IT BACK.  I didn't want ice cream at that moment, and well, tough luck for me if I started wanting it later.

  So all in all, a great trip.  We got some sun, and I didn't feel absolutely disgusting in my bikini.  I know I look bigger than some other trips to the cabin, but I look more fit now.  More fab than skinny flab.  

  =)

**Questions for you:

When you travel, do you eat out of control?

Do you restrict your eating before taking a big trip?  Especially one that involves bikinis/swimwear?

No motivation for meal preparation

  Do you guys ever get in a food rut?  Because I sure as hell am in one right now.  I'm just NOT motivated to cook.  I don't even want to think of what I'll have for dinner until like a half hour before the hunger monster takes over.

  Before this crazy ride I had no problem just cooking some pasta or rice or some form of an all-carb dinner.  It was quick, easy, and satisfying enough.  But now I'm trying to look at having more 'balanced' meals which for me means less carbs.

  

  And from my previous posts you know that I love eating my 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with cream cheese in the morning.  And most days I have some sort of a sandwich for lunch.  So for dinner, I've been trying to ease up on the carbs.

  Because of my lack of motivation to cook, I tried to come up with a fun quick meal tonight.  However, my meal = FAIL.

  I boiled chicken with onions, melted some American cheese on top and dipped in BBQ sauce.  And I ate it with a side salad.  It was so bla that I only ate 2 of the chickens and the salad.

  And because of my failure to plan my meals, I consumed a very small amount of calories today.  Since I haven't done a food log lately, I'll do one for today:

Breakfast:

-2 slices of 100% whole wheat toast with 1/3 fat Philly cream cheese and tea

(~300 cal)

Lunch:

-strawberries

-14 raw almonds, handful of carrots, 1/2 small turkey sandwich (wheat bread, turkey deli meat, tomato, lettuce)

(~280 cal)

Dinner:

-2 small chicken breast strips with 2% american cheese, side salad (lettuce, tomato, carrots, garbanzo beans, raspberry vinaigrette dressing)

(~200 cal)

Snack:

-Lavashak  (basically a Persian snack that is pressed out dried berries)

(~50 cal)

Grand Total: 830 cal

  I wish I had a personal chef so that I wouldn't have to eat boring food.  Ha!  Right.

=)

Ridding myself of size 0 mentality- Out with the old, in with the new

  Getting ready for work this morning left me annoyed.  It was 80 degrees out and a lot of my work appropriate shorts and pants just didn't fit right.  My ass was being squeezed into a cantaloupe shape by most of the pants.  And there was some very unwanted stretching of pant fabric going on around the nether-regions.  NOT good.  It would be an understatement to say that I was pissed and frustrated.

Yes, most of these pants were size 0.  Yes, most of these pants had fit me for the past 4 years.  But I'll be the first to admit that they are not fitting correctly anymore!  So I thought:  "eff this.  My body has changed and I'm just going to have to admit it and deal with it."



In reality, trying on pant after pant after pant only to realize that my thighs and my butt have gotten bigger was sad.  I haven't had my pants not fit me correctly in YEARS.  I have a closet full of different types of pants that look like poo on me now.  And I refuse to walk around looking like poo when I'm not.  Even though it's difficult to cope with all of the body changes, I am glad that I did this lifestyle transformation and that I'm exercising and eating correctly now.  Yes, my body has gotten bigger and more muscular and I'm not skin and bones anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't look good in clothes.  Maybe I just can't look good in my old clothes.

And this little thought developed into a 2 hour shopping extravaganza for work appropriate summer pants and shorts.  In addition, I came to the conclusion that I should just start taking size 2 pants into fitting rooms because I am just not a size 0 anymore.  And that's that.

 Right after I post this I will be raiding my closet and getting rid of any pants that I don't feel are up to par.  God knows I need to get rid of clothes.  I'm a clothes hoarder.  My only excuse is that I'll always wear it later!  And I always do.  However, my body is probably not going to change back and be uber thin.  So it's my clothes that have to change.  No reason to stare at size 0 pants that make your bottom resemble a large fruit.

Here are the pants that I bought.

1.  Khaki cargo shorts from Anne Taylor Loft
2.  Cropped skinny chinos from Anne Taylor Loft
3.  Dark denim washed bermuda shorts from Forever 21

Also, I'm usually a flats type of girl.  But I own a gazillion pairs of heels that I really need to get more use out of.  And I have really long limbs for how short I am (5'2").  So when I wear heels I like that they make my legs look lanky.  I need to start putting my heels into action!!

Anyway, here are the pix.  What do you think of the pants/shorts?

Questions for you:

Do you have a certain size mentality?  Is a certain size the holy grail of sizes for you?


Do you often throw out/donate old clothes or do you keep them around for years?


Do you throw out/donate clothes that don't fit you anymore or do you keep them around for that 'one day'?