I finally got my first issue of Today's Dietitian in the mail! And I recently bought the water bottle (20 oz., stainless steel) and the wallet, both of which feature my favorite thing ever: dandelion seeds! You can also see my nike plus account on my desktop and a glimpse of my Jillian Michaels wallpaper (from FHM magazine). The wallet has dandelions AND owls so it really just needed to be bought. I'm not sure what my obsession with owls is. Owls are cool and I've always been a night owl? Dandelions, I think I have explained here, scatter on the wind and remind me of freedom, hope, and all those good things. Plus they're pretty and you can wish on them. And they pepper my first ever running trail. I heart them. I have decided I will get a tattoo of dandelion seeds scattering across the back of my shoulder when I have reached my 100 pound weight loss goal.

Spring Break is almost over. :(

I get paid to go to Atlantic City with my peeps tomorrow. LOL.

I was messing around with MyHeritage earlier. You know, the thing that analyzes pictures of you and tells you which celebs you look like. Lance Bass popped up several times. I am amused. I did get Monica Bellucci several times too, though. RAWR. I wish I looked half as sexy as her!

Quickly, before I go off to take this test and sit through a lecture after it (I hate when professors do that, argh).

April is a hard month for me. So is May. On the one hand, these are the months of renewal and lightness, when I feel the heaviness of the winter literally drop off me, but...on the other these are hard months because my father's birthday is in April and his deathday is in May.

My cousin's wedding was beautiful and I was very happy for her and I, of course, love when people compliment me for looking like a completely different person...but it was very hard to watch my Uncle Mike give her away, and even harder to watch them dance the father-daughter dance. It made me remember that bitter pang I felt when I graduated. It was a week after my father died, and though I spoke to him on his birthday and he told me how proud he was of me that I was going to graduate...there was an obvious absence on the day I actually did. And when my uncle gave my cousin away I realized that should I get married, my father wouldn't be there to give me away either.

Anyway...sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I've been kind of down lately. I am stressed out with my classes and need Spring Break in my life.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4cdw9i

The Decemberists Live in SoHo. So good. Oddly enough, my mother got me into this band.

I've been thinking lately...I kind of downplay what I am capable of. A lot. I'm not sure if that's smart or lazy. Maybe it's both...?

Lately I am terrified that I will quit in the middle of taking all these hard science courses and spend the rest of my life working where I work..which, actually, wouldn't be a bad thing because I could work my way up into a position with benefits and retirement and be pretty comfortable, but I do not want to settle and I do not want to quit on what I want to do...I'm just scared that I'm not smart enough. I am, after all, taking what are pre-med courses and every semester will only get harder.

Because my animals are the cutest ever. :)


I love when they get along/ use each other as pillows. XD


So cute I squeaked!


And, randomly, my ultra cute flats. So girly.

Lately I feel pretty and strong. I hope that feeling lasts! Now that I am a science major I get to talk to a whole lot more people. It still feels weird that I am in a sciency field, but it's cool that I am working in a field where I get to use what I learn. We recently had a meeting about diabetes and nutrition and I got to show off. :) My classes are hard and involve a lot of work, but I am keeping my head above the water and working on top of it, plus I get up before the sun rises 4X a week to exercise, not to mention the times I bike to the two schools I go to and to work. I have a lot to be proud of. I just have to keep it up! This morning I saw a number on the scale that I never really imagined myself getting to. I am almost out of the "obese" category. Exciting!

I forgot my Shuffle in the pocket of my workout hoodie from Saturday and fucking WASHED it. Now, of course, it doesn't work.

Fucking balls. Oh well, I'm just going to get a really cheapo mp3 player for my runs, then. Same shit, cheaper than a Shuffle. The thing that sucks is that my mom got it with her work discount from her old job and she put the inscription "Run Sarah Run" on it. I hate attaching sentimental value to things, but I do it a lot. I have a hoodie from 8th grade that I've held onto even though the zipper is sort of broken (and it fits like it fit in 8th grade now, whoo) and I have kept a Renaissance Faire t-shirt that my father got me when I was eleven. It's been a little hard to part with some items of clothing as I've lost weight and they've gotten too big for me....I still have the dress I wore to my father's funeral/graduation, but I did give up the pants that I bought in Spain. I loved those pants, and even though they were a size 22 I wore them until I was a size 16 even though the fabric gathering at my waist from the belt cinching was ridiculous, LOL.

Giving away clothes is a fairly recent thing for me, as I was the same size for a long time. I started gaining weight in the middle of 8th grade and by the middle of 9th grade I was a size 20 and remained a size 20 until a few months before I went to Spain. I lost some weight accidentally in Spain and then when I got back I gained 50 pounds the last two years of college, mostly due to stress eating and severe depression...and that's when I became a size 24. Actually, I stopped wearing my 22's and wore sweats and knew I was probably more than a 22, and then when I had to get a dress and pants for my father's funeral that's when I became aware of how big I was, compounded with the fact that my family was utterly shocked at how big I had gotten. But anyway...yes, the point is that material things shouldn't be a big deal but they sometimes are, which is a bit sucky.

I get my first paycheck on Thursday. 200 of those dollars goes to Cintia for paying for the trainer for both of us and a haircut for my sister at the same salon I went to (she paid for mine last week and our deal was she would pay for mine and I would pay for hers). The rest will go to a watch my mother has been lusting for and refuses to buy for herself. It feels really good that I can do things like this now!

The other day I went to Bagelicious, a deli I go to on the weekend to get bagels for my mother and sister. I happened to be there with my sister and Cintia, and one of the guys behind the counter takes a look at me and starts asking me how much weight I've lost, because he said he was enjoying watching me lose it, which was a little strange but I was flattered I guess so I told him how much I lost and Cintia tells him how much she lost (it was pretty empty in the store).

I never know what people are going to say. This guy...I KNOW he meant well, but he told me, and I quote, "you were a real dumbo."

Ok, I know I was really big and now I'm not so big, but does that really give you license to say that? It really offended me for some reason. I know I shouldn't care, especially because I'm not that size anymore....but...I don't know...I don't think people really understand what it's like to have been that big. People say things all the time--little things--that rub me the wrong way about obese people. I'm still obese, and I'm right there...be a little more sensitive. I feel like people really believe that they have a RIGHT to treat overweight people like crap. I'm sorry, but I am 20X healthier than most of the "skinny" people I know.

So I just finished playing two rounds of Wii Bowling with one of the house residents tonight and he goes to hug me, which I am fine with I guess, as some of the women hug me too, but then he kisses my head and....RASPBERRIES MY NECK.

MY NECK.

RASPBERRY.

My reaction was: "O-O okay I'm going upstairs now."

I kicked his ass and he complaining that a girl had beat him, so...clearly the next step was raspberry. The developmentally disabled brain at work...

This job certainly keeps me on my toes.

I'll tell you what's sad. When you go to buy yourself a pick-me-up and that purchase is a pencil case. I have been a little down lately, mostly because of the session with the personal trainer combined with the feeling that no matter what I do to eat right, my own brain wants to sabotage me. I realize it's okay to treat yourself after a really tough week filled with 5AM wake ups to go to the gym, but it's not okay to consume an extra 300 calories a day and then binge on the weekend. This is why I am maintaining and this is why I basically look like a doughy mass.

I guess I just never thought I'd be one of those people who exercises a ton and then screws up on the nutritional intake. I would have figured it'd be the other way around.

But anyway, my pencil case has "Sunday Dream" and a key on it, a little reminder to myself that I basically hold the key to my destiny, which is a corny thing to say but I believe that. I also do my long runs on Sunday (6 miles is the minimum), so I do a lot of dreaming and planning on Sundays.

My runs and my workouts are what make me feel alive. It's a block of time where I revitalize my limbs and heart, but also give myself a mental check. I shouldn't need to put junk in my body.

Shit's gonna change.

Why is it that when I come back from walking in Manhattan I smell like smoked bacon? *scared*

Anyway, I am grateful to the people I have in my life who believe in me. You guys have no idea what a motivating factor you are in my life.

I am terrified about starting work tomorrow. I really am. And I already don't want to go to class tonight. Night classes make my brain hurt. I literally sit there thinking about what's for dinner the whole time. Sad.

Just came back from my gym + running Sunday routine. It was switched to Saturday because me and Cintia were getting our free personal training session.

So I had my body fat assessed and the trainer went through some stuff with us and assessed our levels, etc.

I was shocked to find out that my body fat percentage is 38.5 (it might be a little higher or a little less, but I know it was 38 point something). He showed us a chart after that to assess where we need to be and he said that the chart was based on the average American and so our body fat percentages were actually even worse than what was on the chart, or rather...farther away from where we ideally should be, since it shouldn't be a goal to be average...but...that basically put me off the chart.

He also said that, from what he could see, my lack of tone and loose skin came from not lifting enough and not doing it right, so now I'm going to have to work even harder than normal to shed body fat.

Just when you think you're healthier...you're told you have the body fat of the person you were before you started losing weight. It was hard to hear, but it's the truth....and so I needed to hear it. The reality just sucks. I've worked so hard, and for what? I guess I'll pay for a few personal training sessions and see where it leads me. I need to go back to square one with food again, but that will be good for me. No more fattening food. It just goes straight to my stomach and apparently huge thighs.

This could be what I need? We'll see. I'm not doing a good job of losing weight on my own lately.