WHY DO I KEEP FAILING

Fo' real. I went to McDonalds today. McDonalds! What?? I never go there. Alright, it was B's idea, but I still went. Had a McChicken sandwich. AND ate dinner. Even ate BREAKFAST because my sister started jamming on about how it's the most important meal of the day. It was essentially a day of normal eating. The 400 will commence tomorrow and I'll be back on form, I swear.

Finally sorted out NYE plans. B goes to uni in a town quite near we live so we're heading there as the nightlife is pretty good, and some of her uni girls are out (who I've met before, and who all seem perfectly nice) so it won't just awkwardly be the two of us. I've heard clubbing is DEAD on New Year's Eve but it saves sitting in and doing nothing. It kind-of frustrates me that last year NO-ONE had plans but this year everyone has separate plans. Ah well, at least I can welcome in 2011 in style! Hopefully dancing with a hot guy...

Oh, and the hair job's back on, tomorrow! I'm excited but nervous. I hope I can pull off the colour. I said to Mum this morning, "I'm going to check if the hairdresser's open" and she was all "NOOO it won't be hang on let me phone them," and quelle surprise, it's open! I knew it would be - surely the run-up to NYE would be a peak time? Loads of girls want new 'dos for the big night. Went in and had an allergy test this morning. They stuck a bit of cream behind me ear. Made me a bit paranoid that it'd mix with my hair, but it just sank in. Well, that or a random section behind my ear might be dyed red now.

I got an outfit today as well. Yes, MORE shopping. I'm terrible. Today I went for B and she was looking for nice clothes too, but she said she felt so fat she couldn't feel good in anything. Which is sad. That's the weird thing - I never feel fat when I'm clothes-shopping. Ok, bra shopping I do because I can SEE the gross flab on my body, but clothes hide it... the only time I get depressed is when, say, a size 10 doesn't fit me. I'll never feel fat IN the clothes, though. Maybe I kid myself that I don't look that bad. I don't know.

I think my legs are getting flabbier, though. Lack of dancing, argh!

Until tomorrow... fingers crossed for the hair!

Q x

Mums are psychic

So the hairdresser's is closed. Mum reckons it'll be closed until the new year. Whyyy? I wanted it all red and cool-looking by New Year's Eve! Not that that night is anything to look forward to these days. There's never anything to do! This year we all wanted to go to a nightclub, but now me and B are the only people still willing to go, and it might be a bit weird just the two of us. Especially if the club is quiet. OH WELL. I'm still excited for NYE just because it brings the wonder that is 2011 - I'm going to make sure it's a good year!

Had a lunch binge today. We'd gone shopping and I was STARVING so overdid it when I got home. Dammit! Avoided dinner. Pretty snazzily. Told Mum I was too full from lunch to eat (she had watched me binge so it was plausible, and heck, it was TRUE) then tackled it later. Prepared it, sat at the table with it, casually slid it into a napkin, mouthful to mouthful. There was no-one in the room, but I still sat there just in case someone walked in. Will be surprised if I kept the day in the 600 category, though. Probably didn't. UNTIL TOMORROW THEN. 400 calories - I'm gonna try and pick on max 100 through the day and leave 300 for my evening meal with the family, which is unavoidable. Then I'll pick at that (though thank god for small portions!) and hopefully stay in 400. I'm going clothes shopping again tomorrow, so that should be motivation enough!

I feel like my mum is on to me or something. She always gets like this. It's like some weird instinct mums have. One time I woke up in the middle of the night and wasn't feeling too great and she just randomly called out "Q, are you alright?" I hadn't even made a noise. It was about 3 in the morning. How did she KNOW? When I've got all weird and foody before, even though I hide it like an expert, she always KNOWS. She'll insist I eat in front of her. Today she begged me to take my dinner into the sitting room and eat in front of her. I didn't, of course. Imagine! The other night we were lying in bed and she was all jokily going "Oh Q, I worry about you." So I said "why?" And she said "You don't eat enough." And it was all joky and I was like hahaa good one Mum but thinking STOP USING YOUR MUM INTUITION. It freaks me out.

Does anyone else's parents get like this?? I wonder if I'll get all psychic if I ever have kids.

I went bra shopping today. I HATE bra shopping. It was the same old story as usual - look at myself in those horrible 360-style unflattering mirrors they have (they actually manage to make it look like I've got cellulite on my stomach - what??) and cry at the sight of the disgusting fat that's STILL on my body. Generally lurking around the midriff. What I would do to make a little hole then suck it all out with a hoover! I know that's probably the deal with liposuction but they charge a pretty massive amount... seems like a rip-off, somehow. I thought I'd feel good about my body as this morning I weighed in at 9 stone 2. Oh man! So so close to being under 9 stone! I cling to that moment every day... only 3 pounds! COME ON Q.

Rick is watching me every day and he laughs and I think FUCK YOU RICKY, I'll be skinny soon.

Huzzah!

Q x

Hair we go again

Ok, so my 800 aim today was a bit of a flop because when I happily had 349 calories left to consume as an evening meal, my mum insisted on ordering PIZZA. I only had 2 slices, but one probably had about 400. Bah, pizzas! We were watching ET at the time (a film I haven't seen since I was a kid and it SCARED ME SHITLESS) and the alien sort of put me off my food... huh, who knew?

I'm still going to go for 600 tomorrow though. I don't want to faff around on such a huge number as 800. And tomorrow the exercise is coming back! Not as good as the gym, but at least I can unearth the workout DVDs...

I've been doing a little exercise in the mornings to tone up my back. After HORRIBLE pictures I've decided my back is a target zone. Here's an easy one called the banana: lie on your stomach, stick your hands by your ears (the way you would if you were doing a sit-up) and raise your upper body off the floor. Hold for 2 seconds, lower, and repeat 20 times. I'm doing it every day and hoping for results! It's great, as if you take your hands away from your ears and put them on your back whilst you're tensing, you can really feel your back muscles working! Makes me fantasize about having a perfect back... random, eh?

I've been thinking more about the hair colour, too - Ariana had a good suggestion, maybe dark red will look pretty, and others have been suggesting that too... hey, worth a shot! If I hate it I can always dye it back. I'm thinking Cheryl styleeeee. Check it:


Oh man, she's too hot. All my bloke mates are obsessed with her. Shame about the accent. Never been a fan of those dulcet Geordie tones (big up my Newcastle-rs if, err, any are reading, you know I love you really!)

Anyway, the colour's what I'd like. I think I'm just gonna go to the hairdressers and say 'I want it dark red like Cheryl Cole has.' I'd love to take that pic with me but there's no way of taking it with the colour coming out that well on print. I can only hope they can recreate that without having to bleach it. The idea of bleaching it terrifies me... not least because I have Asian hair, so it'll go a horrible pale ginger colour!

I'm going tomorrow, hopefully. Or soon. I would upload a picture but I have no idea how to do it given I have no camera (and I'd have to blur out the face for anonymity purposes.) But fingers crossed it'll look ok!

Just had a really frustrating conversation with my mum about it.

Mum: "So how do they dye your hair?"
Me: "They'll put like a cream in it, then leave it for a while, and it dyes it."
Mum: "Like a toothpaste?"
Me: "Well, like a cream. Like shampoo or something."
Mum: "When they do my highlights they put foil in it and do the roots separately..."
Me: "Yeah, that's highlights, they just stick cream in and leave it for complete colour."
Mum: "Is that half-head or full-head?"
Me: "Full-head, Mum they're not highlights, you don't even have those options."
Mum: "So haven't you dyed it before? How do you do it?"
Me: "Yes, I put a cream in and leave it!"
Mum: "So how will they do it?"
Me: "They put a cream in and leave it!!"
Mum: "Alright, I was just asking!"
Me: GDLSJFDKSJFSDJ

Bless her.

Q x

I got 99 problems

... But a bitch ain't one.

Hit me!

Sick of bitchy girls... how to deal with them?? Got some girl all up in my grill about the way I run things. It's too much of a long personal story to explain, plus it would bore the hell out of you, but don't you hate the haters?

Damn, I gotta stop listening to American hip hop. Ah no, play this Jay Z track one more timeee!

So, went sale shopping today. Success! Got 3 tops and a jumper. Why do I always stick to the top half when it comes to clothes shopping? I need to get more shorts and leggings and downstairs parts. Got some nice jewellery though. I'm gonna start a collection.

I actually felt skinny, too. When I tried on the clothes. One top I even got into and it was a size SIX. OK, it was MASSIVE and floaty, so it would have been even bigger on a real size 6 girl, but it was still my moment...

Thanks for the comments on the last post :) love having your support! Ariana, I've dyed my hair dark red in the past and it's looked really nice, plus it's coming back into fashion... could be something to consider! I always thought it brought out the colour of my eyes, too (they're brown but have a really red tint to them, which sounds weird, I know. Sort of chestnutty? I don't know.) I'll see what my hairdresser says!

And Amy, I do completely agree, people need to stay true to themselves. And I am thankful that my personality can shine through more than my appearance. After all, me and M talk and say we'd hate to be looked at like the Pretty Skinny Crew are looked at, as in, having to stay true to this constant perfection... what would happen if one of them sneezed grossly, or burped, or tripped over, or did anything remotely human? They'd be shunned. It isn't pleasant, I guess. But being girly isn't going too far from me. I used to be the sort of girl who wore all kinds of jewellery and always painted my nails, but as I went to uni, I got lazy and stopped bothering. I still wear pretty clothes and do my hair but I don't put as much effort in as I did, and I miss that. So my New Year's Resolution is to go back to making the effort. And sometimes a little bit of change can be for the good! I never had many interesting shoes (not for the daytime, at least) so a bit of variation might be an interesting and welcoming change to my wardrobe. I absolutely adore fashion and clothes and the idea of changing the way I look just by some simple accessories fills me with glee! Tragic, eh? I just need to get that effort back.

And we WILL stop picking our skin! We'll do it together! Woo hooooooo!

You know what's rubbish about Christmas? You think, it's ok, I'll pig for one day, but then there are the LEFTOVERS. Stupid amounts of food just chilling around your house waiting to be eaten. So much chocolate! Arghh. I can't wait until it's all gone. And then the New Year will come and it's definitely going to be a brand new start.

I need to get back on track with the 2 4 6 8 deal. I'm glad it's brought me down to 9 stone 3 so far. I've heard it's good at breaking people through plateaus. Could it get me to below 9 stone?? What I would do to be back in the 8 stone category... it can only get better from there! You know what I like about today's thinspo picture? That girl is the same height as me and has a similar starting weight (I was 144 when I decided to lose weight, in June this year.) And look at her now! I can only hope I'll look like that soon. Roll on 2011.

Q x

Happy Christmas! Belated...

Alright, it's Boxing Day, but Father Christmas might still be stuck down your chimney so let's stay in the Christmas spirit.

As I mentioned (did I?), I wasn't going to let my food issues clog up my Christmas day. I helped my mum with the massive Christmas dinner and we enjoyed it. Mind, we're a bit of a small-stomached family, so after the starter we were full (or I was at least - Caribbean bread with pate and salmon and dips, mm) and had a bit of a break before the main event, where we were all still too stuffed to truly enjoy the lamb, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, sprouts, stuffing and pigs-in-blankets. Oh, and my homemade Yorkshires. But hey ho. It wasn't until hours afterwards that we tackled dessert - cheesecake, trifle and MY homemade mince pies, which went down a treat. It was still a really lovely day, and I got everything I could've hoped for!

I don't feel too bad. I weighed myself this morning and I was still 9 stone 3, so at least the massive amounts of food haven't done too much damage. I think the illness helps, though - it really gets rid of your appetite. We're going sale shopping tomorrow and I'm going to squeeze into some gorgeous clothes if it kills me.

I hope you all had lovely Christmases too, if you were celebrating!

I have another New Year's resolution. Be more girly. Basically, I've been feeling a bit depressed about the lads recently. There's this gang of girls, I might've mentioned them before, who me and M call the Pretty Skinny Crew. They're all gorgeous and incredibly skinny. One of them is anorexic and she's still thought of as ridiculously hot. They're shallow, vain and have no personality between the four or five of them, but they're still admired like they're queens of the earth. Particularly from my housemates and neighbouring boy mates. I feel like... like the boys and them are trying to establish some sort of attractive gang. My housemates aren't bad looking and the neighbouring lads certainly turn a few heads (well, a few of them do) and the pretty girls beg them to death, and of course, the boys love it, and it's an endless charade of attractiveness. The boys do anything for them, treat the girls like they're princesses, even pay for taxis when they haven't got any money. Myself and M? They'll happily abandon us (separately) outside a nightclub if there's no room in the taxi (hey, they've done it many a time.)

The real straw was when one of my housemates texted me this morning saying "happy christmas mate." OK, us Brits say 'mate' a lot, and I say it to my girl friends sometimes, but it's generally something boys say to each other. Girls aren't mates. Girls are babes and huns and sweets and whatnot. He called me mate! Alright, so it was probably a mass generic text he sent to loads of people (and loads of boys, no doubt), but I highly doubt he sent it to one of the Pretty Skinny Crew. The thing is, I hate being seen as one of the lads. I don't WANT that. I want to be a GIRL. I'm going to become more of one. I thought I was already quite girly, but I can get more-so. I'll paint my nails and do French Manicures and wear lots of jingly bracelets and jewellery all the time. I'll wear prettier clothes and skimpier ones for clubbing, and I'll get thin and dainty so I look better in said clothes and can even COMPARE to one of the Pretty Skinny lot. I'll walk better, speak more softly and wear sexy underwear under everything. I'll groom myself to death and exfoliate my skin. I'll wear my dental plate every night so my teeth are straight and buy one of those home-whitening kits to bleach my teeth. I'll get better mascara and apply it the way my sister does so they're darker and more gorgeous than ever. I'll have a huge array of various bags and shoes and I'll look amazing all the time. I'll blowdry my hair and wear gorgeous make-up and will always have carefully plucked eyebrows and will STOP biting the skin around my fingers.

I'll be soft and attractive and I won't dare be seen as one of the boys. I'll do it!

I'm going to get a hair revamp soon. Get lots cut off and change the colour. I'm not really sure what to, though. I have very very dark brown hair so it doesn't give me a lot of scope - sometimes I dye it black for a dramatic turn but it normally fades quite quickly. I'll ask the hairdresser for tips.

In 2011, I WILL be perfect. You wait and see!

Q x

Wheat intolerant?

Been attempting to track down the bloating. Been getting it generally after I eat bread or pasta (from memory.) Does that mean I'm wheat intolerant? Or just that my digestive system doesn't agree with wheat that much?? I REALLY HOPE SO.

Went for a birthday lunch on Wednesday - the restaurant the birthday girl chose happened to be Pizza Express, which tends to only serve pizza, pasta and the odd salad. So, what does that leave for the wheat-avoiding self? Salad! Yes. And it wasn't even like I could cave and order a pizza or something instead, because I'd pay for it. Not just mentally, but bodily! The salad I chose did have a bit of bread on the side, and I ate that, and got bloated. So maybe it is a bread thing. HOORAY.

I bet most people would be pissed off to find out they couldn't eat bread or pasta as much as they used to. To me, it's heaven.

Ricky: "Aight, good news for ya, 9 stone 3."

THANKS RICK.

Funny, last time I weighed this low I felt so skinny all the time. I just looked in the mirror and felt good about myself. I put on size 8 clothes and felt good about how they could fit. Now I'm still sceptical about fitting into size TENS. I went out last night and it was such a melodrama getting ready because whatever I put on, I felt disgustingly fat in. Doesn't help that the friend I was going out with is gorgeous and skinny. But my legs did look good. I'll say that.

Ugh, I forgot being back home means B is SMOTHERING me all the time. She was so distraught at the fact she couldn't see me from Tuesday to Thursday (the horror), she demanded to 'steal' me on Friday. And she wants to do expensive things, like go to the cinema, which include expensive buses there and back (if my parents can't give me a lift, which I hate asking them for.) Plus, it's Christmas Eve. What if the family had nice family stuff planned? We might be having a nice meal, I don't know. I just hate having to spend pointless money. Just because SHE gets about £5000 free per year because she's poor and clever (bursary and scholarship combined), doesn't mean we all do. I have a £1000 overdraft and I'm currently sitting at about -£800. Yeah. She wants us to go on some mega holiday the summer of 2012 too, to Orlando in Florida - I really want to go to Harry Potter land but she wants to go to ALL the theme parks at Universal, and flights alone can go to £1000 each! I'll have finished uni then, I'll be chasing job prospects and be horribly in debt and she's expecting me to jet off to Florida. I wanted to save up to go travelling. But god forbid I tell her any of this as she's too sensitive. And she's still my best friend, and I still hate making people feel bad. I'm as pathetic as all. Sighhh.

I just hate having a best friend who thinks our friendship should be as nurtured and secluded as a relationship. I'm rapidly losing patience with it all. Without wanting to sound awful, I think she'll be one of the friends I'll drop over the years from lack of contact. I don't think I could have that hanging on me for my entire life.

Ok, done with ranting! Done with talking too. Kudos to you if you got through that, if anyone still reads this any more, I don't know. Nice to get it off my chest anyway!

Enjoy your evenings/mornings/whatever time of day it is in your part of the world...

Q x

I don't reckon that was 200 cals, muppet.

I feel better today, thankfully, but still pretty rubbish.

What have I eaten today? Hmm. A coffee. A few crackers. Half a houmous+veg wrap. A CHOCOLATE BISCUIT. That's only SO FAR. I don't think that even sticks in the 300 calorie range. I've decided - I'm only going to continue the 2 4 6 8 diet if I can continue it successfully. I.e. I didn't hit 200 today (I know I said I'd only go to 300, but I want to get down), so I'll try for 200 tomorrow, and only after I successfully do it I'll move back up to 400. And so on. I'm going to a friend's house tonight for films and she said she's having chocolate and stuff to snack on, so I'll tell them I'm too ill to eat dairy. Which is true. Even so, I don't know if I'll succumb...

NO. I WON'T eat chocolate or ANYTHING. I'll be GOOD. I've written "IMYS" on my hand (for those of you who don't know, that stands for 'it'll make you sad' - it makes me realise that eating all this junk food will only make me feel sad, not satisfied - really works!) and I'll glance at that whenever I need. Plus, B will be there, and I know she's trying to lose weight or wants to be skinny and all, so if she eats, I'll feel better for resisting. And if she refuses to eat (which she might, if she sees I'm not eating), I'll be spurred by the competition. Win win!

I need to take myself back to the days I had amazing self-control and could just watch my friends pig out and happily resist. I remember that night with J (Boy) and he even brought me a PLATE and I still resisted. SUPER WOMAN. Super Q.

You know what's weird? I have a friend, a really tiny dancer friend, who says she's a size 12. I always look and her and say girl, try a size 10, if I'M a size 10 you'd certainly be one (she's smaller than me, IMO.) But she's all "oh Q, there's NO WAY I'm getting into a size 10." But I look at photos, and she IS tinier than me. It's not just my eye - if I got a ruler and put it against the computer screen, she would be smaller! Strangely though, I even said to M, "she's daft - she's so tiny but thinks she's bigger than me." And M said, "no, I can see that, she's got big hips."

She's got smaller hips than me. And a smaller waist. Yet M thinks it's bigger? And she wears a bigger clothes size? I'M SO CONFUSED.

I don't understand my body. I don't understand myself.

Anyway.

I haven't had any time to exercise this week, at least not in a healthy state. B wants to spend the day together on Friday but I might insist we do a workout DVD. I can't stand not exercising. I already miss the gym. Workout DVDs were a godsend to me in the summer-of-losing-a-stone (that's how I like to remember it - definitely the biggest weight loss I've ever consciously made!) and even though I've rinsed them a bit, I'll keep doing them until they have no effect. Right now they still get me hot and sweaty and tired, so it's all good!

I was watching Glee, and there was a bit where Rachel said she gets up every day at 6am and gets on the 'elliptical' by 6.10am. (I think an elliptical's a cross-trainer.) Man, I wish I had a treadmill by my bed to just jump on in the morning! I'm madly jealous. Maybe one day, when I'm silly rich... I'll have my own gym room! Haha.

I wonder what Ricky thinks about all this? Won't have the chance to weigh myself on him by Friday at the earliest (I have to do it in the morning, before I've eaten anything.) I'll book him in on Friday morning.

Ciao,

Q x

I feel like poooo

Think it's the flu. Hey, that rhymes! Mother Dearest has it as well. She's been confined to bed all day, whilst I've been up and about, albeit groaning on the sofa and killing my time watching terrible, low-budget Christmas movies.

Not toooo sure if I stuck to the 400 cal day today... maybe? Ish? I'll admit - I picked at the leftovers from yesterday a bit. Picked at a bit of goose. Had a roast potato. Feel incredibly guilty. This illness has made me want to eat for strength, but at the same time, it's making me feel too sick for food. Those annoying food adverts that take over the telly near Christmas-time have only been making me feel queasy. Win win!

Still, I've picked, and the only proper food I've eaten today have been a 100 cal pot of Muller Rice and a couple of crackers with cheese. Oh, and some clementines. Desperate for the Vitamin C. My sister claims she warded off a cold in 2 days by drinking constantly and eating clementines like they were peanuts. Seeing as I normally have a cold for MONTHS whenever I'm unfortunate enough to get one (which is basically all the time), I'm all up for tips.

Plus, because Mum's in bed, she's leaving us to sort out our own food. So Dad's all "ooooh what shall we eat?" and I'm just "I'll sort myself out, Dad, I'm not feeling too great anyway." Eeeaasy.

Tomorrow I might be busy enough to avoid food successfully - maybe even get in the 200 calorie zone! I'm going Christmas shopping with my dad in the day (I know he'll insist on food, so I'll try to eat lightly and get all my calorie intake from that) and in the evening my friend is having a little post-birthday get-together at her house, so I'll tell my parents we're eating there. Then, when I get there, I'll say I've already eaten and am feeling a bit too queasy for snacks. Oh yes, PLAN.

I get bloated quite easily, so I'm going to do what a health article suggested and document what I eat and whenabouts my gut feels like it's doing the Tango. The article said "you could find you're intolerant to things like wheat or chocolate." Imagine! Oh no, I can't eat bread or chocolate any more, what a shame, this'll really hinder my weight loss efforts...! Ha. I think I might be a bit funny about wheat, to be honest. Every time I eat pasta or a lot of bread I get 'the carb aches' (stomach ache and headache - when I tell people, they find it hilarious.) So we'll see.

Had a look at those photos from the dance show a couple of weeks ago. Oh man, my body's WEIRD. You can tell how awful and disproportionate it is. My thighs and bum are fairly small, my shoulders and arms are fairly small, but the middle is just one big flabby mess. It looked disgusting. Talk about thinspo! I've got the pics on my pc, so I'll look at them whenever I need a bit of motivation!

Speak tomorrow,

Q x

Yesterday was a horrible day

I'll try and nutshell it. How to put it... basically, I live in the South of England, but I go to uni in the North. Meaning whenever I want to get home, it's a bit of a trek, but that's alright. Plan of yesterday - get coach down to a town 2 hours away from where I live, get parents to pick me up from there. Hope they arrive promptly - it's a teeny little coach station and it's not particularly warm, which isn't pleasant in winter.

Of course, then a blizzard hit. And, as always, the country went to pieces. My parents set off at 9am (as did I, but luckily the North was snow-free, so I made it down in 4 hours) only to find my parents stuck on the motorway. Hmm, ok, might have to be waiting around a bit longer than I thought.

9 HOURS. 9 HOURS I waited whilst they braved the stock-still motorways and treachorous conditions. Whilst it was BLIZZARDING, and I was shaking violently from cold non-stop. It even got to a point where the people threatened to kick us out for 'health and safety reasons' and I thought I'd have to wait directly IN the blizzard. The coach station was indoors, but surrounded by automatic doors, so it really wasn't any warmer than outside (though a bit less snow and wind, obv.) I tried to get a taxi to get to a hotel and stay the night. No taxis. I tried to get a coach out somewhere (even tempted to go back up to the North.) No coaches. Pondered finding a way to the train station. No trains. Stuck, STUCK in this tiny little coach station in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard surrounded by grumpy Southerners and creepy men, with a shitload of stuff, freezing my arse off. What a day!

I had hoped to have an 800 cal day, but as I froze softly, I had to keep running up to the cafe counter to buy hot food just for some warmth. Started the day nicely with a coffee and a packet of crisps when my stomach was aching with hunger (came to about 290 calories ish, on track); ended up eating (in total) a sausage roll, some potato wedges, half a mince pie and a hot chocolate. When my parents arrived, they gave me chocolate and took me to McDonalds to cheer me up (not something we do very often.) Hmm, not sure that day was 800 cals. Ended up getting home at 4 in the morning, 20 hours after I'd departed from my uni house, and about 14 hours later than I'd have liked. DAMN SNOW.

Today was better, though, for a 600 cal day. I average out my food intake as this:

A coffee (semi-skimmed milk, half a sugar): 30 cals
Dinner with the family: 500 cals (it was a big dinner - I'm guessing here, I hope it didn't go over)
A clementine: 35 cals

Total - 565 (ish)

Said hello to Ricky this morning (old-school, original Ricky!) and I'm 9 stone 5 lbs, which isn't too bad. My sister is conscious of putting on weight recently so we've agreed to do lots of exercise in the holidays. What can I say, sounds good to me! Hopefully the snow will bugger off soon and we can go for a jog.

Alright, I'm tired of dwelling on my rubbish day. It is WONDERFUL to be back at home, though. Mum's cooking! She cooked a goose today and I got to carve it, which was great fun, though probably would've made a vegetarian scream and faint (ripping apart the carcass... apologies to my vegetarian readers!) Feel a bit rubbish now, though - reckon it's yesterday's hypothermia catching up on me.

See yaaa

Q x

2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate!

You know what's rubbish? When I go out and get raucously drunk, as I do practically every other day apparently being the shitty student that I am, the only thing that stops me getting a hangover is eating late at night. So either way I'm going to feel crap the next day - either because I'm stupidly hungover (and thus end up eating loads that day), or depressed because I ate so late at night. Which to choose? Tricky call.

Was meant to go to the gym today, but I'm too hungover. Tragic. I better not let lack of exercise get to me over Christmas without dance. Speaking of, how fitting is the picture? Reminds me I'll look MUCH more elegant and gorgeous when I'm skinny. The photographer's professional photos of the dance show came through and whilst they're generally AMAZING, I look far too fat. WHY AM I CURSED TO BE A FAT DANCER. Or at least look it, next to my skinny gorgeous dancer friends...

I'm going home for the Christmas hols tomorrow. I really can't wait, but I am nervous about the food. I'm going to have to start eating, well, NORMALLY. And while this will be a blessing to my body (I bet my skin will get better, I'll stop feeling cold, my, ahem, digestive system will be much better), my weight will suffer. All I keep thinking is, MAN, this is going to be HARD, but I have to remind myself; I lost over a stone at home over Summer. I got to uni and I just put some of those stinking pounds back on. Maybe being home is a good thing?

I don't drink as much, certainly.

I'm debating starting the 2 4 6 8 diet. I've been reading into it and it seems to GUARANTEE decent results. Thing is, I really don't know if I can do 200 calories... I might turn it into the 3 4 6 8 diet. 300 calories was HARD when I was on the SGD for a little while, but I'll have to man up a bit. I won't count Christmas day, of course!

If you're not sure what it is, it goes a bit like this:

Day 1 - 200 cals
Day 2 - 400 cals
Day 3 - 600 cals
Day 4 - 800 cals
Day 5 - 600 cals
Day 6 - 400 cals

Etc. etc...

It's meant to trick your metabolism and send it into overdrive. To make it easier you can start it at 800 and work down then back up again. Gemme?

Might be something worth trying over the holidays. Could give me a bit of a focus. I'll start it tomorrow. The day I head home! Quite handy having a calorie counter app on my Blackberry too... at least I'll never be left uncertain!

Better go and pack now... can hardly wait.

Toodles,

Q x

Long time

Oh geez, it's been over a week since I posted! Woops. I need to get back on the ball.

Right, so at the moment... well, my eating's kinda rubbish. I wouldn't say I'm eating normally, but I'm eating far more than I should. I've been going to the gym every day as of late (now dance has stopped, I need SOME exercise fix) so I'm hoping that'll pay off... I haven't weighed myself in a little while. The last time I did it was 9 stone 6.

I'm dying to get back to my lowest weight on this journey, which was 9 stone 2. And then to get under 9 stone. That's my current massive goal.

Is anyone else madly excited for New Year's? January, time to make fresh starts! Real motivation. I've got loads of New Year's resolutions that I'm going to stick to. Here are a few:

- Get skinny. IT WILL HAPPEN. I'll be sure of it. Get back into the 8 stone category, at least. The other day a boy mate lifted me and said "blimey Q, you've put on weight!" and I know he was only messing around and all that but I wanted to die. I want them to be saying "blimey Q, you're getting lighter!"

- Stop chewing the skin around my fingernails. And grow my fingernails too. And just generally have nice nails.

- Keep my room tidy. I'm such a naturally messy person, it's annoying to live in a constantly messy environment. I'll hoover it every other day, as well. My floor gets covered in shit straight away. And clumps of hair. I have such dark hair that the clumps often look like spiders on my carpet.

- Be more open with boys... last year's resolution too, which worked, but the crushing blow from Boy has made me a bit more scared. In New Year's I'll get over that and get back to being forward, as it gets me where I want to be. Saying that, I don't want a boyfriend. This sounds awful, but I want a fuck buddy. Someone who can give me just a sex fix without all the commitment. I don't have time for commitment. But I do miss sex.

- Stop getting so ridiculously drunk... seriously, I need to control that!

- Exercise more. Exercise loads every day. Get more workout DVDs and do them inbetween gym sessions. I need exercise. It's what got me down to my lowest weight, and it'll get me further from now on.

I'm going home in a few days, and whilst I'm excited, I know home will bring a lot more food... I'm prepared for that on Christmas Day (I'm ready to PIG OUT) but the days surrounding it will be more tricky. I'm really going to have to exercise the self control, but I'm sure I'll get through it. I WILL BE SKINNY.

What are your resolutions?

Q x

The walk to uni is a dangerous adventure

No kidding. The snow's still around, so now a road we all have to walk through to get to uni has been squashed flat by millions of students' feet... meaning it is just a sheet of ice. Even walking at about 1mph clinging on to a friend's arm can't prevent you falling. I've stacked it twice now. In two days. And that's not even that bad. Oh, the bruises!

Look at this girl's stomach. Is that not the perfect stomach? Dammit, I'd kill for that.

Liquid fast has been a bit of a fail. Well, it was going GREAT yesterday. All was on track... until it got to about 5 o' clock, when I was in dance class, and my stomach started to ache with hunger. And it got worse. And before you know it, I was practically crumpled over, clutching my stomach. SUCH PHYSICAL PAIN. And it was only hunger pains! What kind of loser am I? I've never had that before. I was so desperate to make it go away I ate a cereal bar, but you know, once you've opened the gates... nom nom BINGE mm CHOCOLATE mm CRISPS. And then more cakey shit when I got home. TERRIBLE. Of course that paid off horribly, as yesterday morning I weighed myself and I was 9 stone 5, this morning I'd gone to 9 STONE 8. How incredibly depressing.

I went out last night too. It was actually quite a hilarious night. It was some media event at the uni (so the newspaper team, radio team and other stuff like tv lot all get together and have a bit of a rave) and I've got a good friend who does promotions for a lot of it, who absolutely BEGGED me to come (and bought me a ticket), and I thought, hey, I've written for the paper, I've been on one of their socials, I'll get along alright. Plus I want to get into the radio side and you know, it's all networking... did I ever mention when I did pub golf with the newspaper lot? Haha, it was full of geeky/quiet writer boys and I made a bit of an impression... I think they were half fascinated but half terrified of me. Friend who invited me along says it's because I'm a dancer. But whatever.

Anyway, I thought I was on it that night with the blokes (I didn't move to it with any of them as I'm not really into random hook-ups) but turns out I didn't know the HALF of it - Friend told a lot of them last night that I was coming and some of them I'd thought incredibly stuck up at pub golf actually turned out to be distant admirers. They'd even clubbed together and been looking through my Facebook pictures in secret. ??? They were saying things like "don't tell her I do computer science, she'll think I'm a loser!" They actually cared what I thought. NO-ONE ever cares what I think. As if I'd think anything anyway! Friend kept dragging me round to 'seduce' half of the blokes into doing stuff for her!

I know it sounds really vain, me talking about all this. But I'm not indulgent about it - I'm just confused. I NEVER get this kind of attention from so many blokes. I never get told I'm 'beautiful' or whatever. How ...??

But whatever, bit of a self-esteem boost.

On a sadder note, the other day, a friend recorded me and a couple of other girls dancing. I looked at the video (it's on my phone) and my god, I looked HORRENDOUS. Not at dancing, but in FATNESS. Talk about motivation. Whenever I cave and go to eat a lot of food, I'm going to watch that video. It's so, so disgusting. I wanted to cry when I saw it. I didn't think I was that bad.

Why do I even deserve to eat at all??

On another brighter note, I've got my laptop back! And my pictures! Yessss!

On another lesser note, I'm still waiting on my straighteners and make-up. They might turn up... eventually.

Bored of this to-and-fro. Catch you later!

Q x

Liquid fast

I've got a dance show coming up a week tomorrow. There'll be cameras. Cameras add half a stone (a professional photographer told me that.) I need to look BUFF. So I'm liquid-fasting from tomorrow onwards.

Rules: can consume one (small) piece of solid food every other day, but the rest of it has to be in liquid form. Coffee, smoothies, diet coke, soup, whatever. Oh, and nothing can be consumed past 3pm.

Let's hope I'll stay motivated! I'll try to update this every day.

Today was going well with the no-eat-past-3pm thing, but I caved this evening and ended up eating pitta bread with houmous. Alright, it's not exactly naughty, but it still made me feel rubbish! I feel like I've forgotten what it's like to feel starving but also fragile and delicate, and have people tell you how skinny you've gotten. I want it back!

You'll be proud to know as well that I went out last night and whilst all of my friends got takeaway afterwards, I resisted. Scooore! Though I did snaffle a couple of their chips. I don't think it really counts...

Leave you here... not much more to say!

Love you long time,

Q x

Why does food even have to exist?

Oh man, I ate past 3 o' clock. I was on the right track then my friends insisted we go to Greggs. Oh, Greggs. You are devient, you are. Ever had a sausage, bean and cheese pasty from Greggs? Heaven has touched my mouth.

Bugger you, Greggs.

It was maybe half 4 when I ate...?

Craperooni.

That whole bloody body fat thing came up again, from the gym, if you remember. We were chilling in the living room and the boys were going on about girls being fat or not being fat, and they started joking around, saying a girl with over 7% body fat was gross. I didn't know they were joking, though, and started arguing in, then blurted out, "I'm 30%!" They said they were joking. But I bet they thought for a second, "christ, fat bitch."

The normal percentage for a girl is something like 20 - 25 %...? Ish? I AM fat. This I know. I just don't understand how I can be SO fat... at the time that was calculated, I was 9 stone 2 lbs and at the low end of the healthy BMI. These days, my legs are entirely muscle. And I was wearing size 8 - 10 clothes. Like, I dunno, that's still too big for me because I'm striving to be tiny, but that's not that big, is it? Is it? I don't even know any more!

Ah well, it's still TOO big. For me. For others it's fine, for others it might be small, but for me, it's too big.

Bloody hell, I'm getting all repetitive. That was about 2 months ago Q, get over it. Still, I wish I hadn't eaten anything today.

Oh, and you want to know something else? When I went home for a while, I came allllll the way back to uni (it's quite a trek - takes about a day of travelling) and realised I forgot my straighteners and make-up! Arghhh! My mum promised to post them to me, and she has, but because of the snow, the post isn't really running. F. my. life.

Boo hoo! Woe is me! Crank out the violins...

Q x

You know what's rubbish right now?

Life. Well, only at the moment. Well, even then, there's not that much bad stuff going on. But allow me to rant for a moment.

SNOW. The snow's so bad here right now. Soooo thick, and of course the entire country goes into complete collapse at the sight of it (we don't get it very often.) Uni was cancelled today, which was nice but I had lots of important things to do that day and it kind-of wrecked my plans. Ok, I spent a nice day building snowmen with M and girl mate G and going for lunch and chilling with hot chocolate at G's house... but I had to sacrifice a lot for moments of leisure.

The snow makes you want to eat as well. I had the BIGGEST lunch today - some massive chickeny thing with chips and then some toffee appley thing as well. You WANT it in your stomach to beat the freezing cold, yet I always seem to be feeling the cold a lot more than I used to (I asked my mum and she said, "you're probably not eating properly." Ha!)

I've told myself I won't eat past 3 o' clock, and for the past couple of days I haven't, but I've been eating such massive lunches it doesn't feel right, you know? I don't get the hunger pangs, I just stay full, and whilst this should be bliss, it feels wrong. It feels like I'm cheating, like this won't make me thin.

It's funny, I got this pic from a thinspo blog (thinspiration-pictures.blogspot.com - check it out, it's amazing!) and the title of the blog post was something like "you may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." Too true right now! I feel like I'm starting all over again, starting afresh. I've been looking at pics from nearer the start of term, from when I was about 9 stone 2, and I NEED to get back there. Christmas could make things trickier, but after Christmas comes New Year, and what a better New Year's Resolution.

What else sucks? Ah, the Plague. Well, it's a stomach bug, but a nasty one, consisting of 24 hours worth of vomiting and diarrhoea. We've affectionately nicknamed it the Plague, and in my house, 7 out of 8 of us have had it. We'd been putting bets on who'd get it next. There's only one person left to get it, and guess who it is? Only yours truly. My immune system is terrible but I can't AFFORD to be ill right now, so I'm praying it won't hit me. Pray with me, readers!

... Though one of my housemates did say he lost 12 lbs in one day from it. 12 lbs!! Alright, it's fake weight loss really, but still... imagine! If I lost that much, I'd drop to... 8 stone 8 lbs? My god, I almost kind-of want it now...

Terrible malarkey!

Oh yeah, more rubbishy things. I was hoping to take the new laptop into the uni today so I could get the hard-drive swapped so I could have all my old files and whatnot back (including all my thinspo pics, which I dearly miss!) but of course, it was closed... if it's closed again tomorrow I might have to wait until Monday. Which would be crap!

On the plus side, I've recently been home for 6 days, and on coming back, have noticed all my food's gone off and must be chucked out. My fridge smells fantastic. Still, nothing for me to snack on! I better get a healthy food shop going on...

Still trying to figure out the new laptop. Keep accidentally somehow zooming in on my Facebook page and not entirely sure how to zoom out.

Alright, gym tomorrow?

Q x

Wahey!

NEW LAPTOP BACK TO BLOGGING GETTING THIN AGAIN YES YES YES!

Earlier than I said. What a cheeky surprise for you all.

... I'll have to ruin that surprise though by saying that after tomorrow night, I'm nipping home for the weekend so won't be writing again until Tuesday night... and then after that, probably Thursday evening. I won't bore you with the details. But let's say I won't have my pics back until that Thursday evening as well (booo.)

I'll try to get back to writing as regularly as I can. I NEED this blogging. Oh mate, I've really fallen off the wagon without it. You want to know my current weight? You don't. Let's just say I've actually reached 9 stone 9 (!) without this blogging... and without the effort. I think I'm swinging aruond 9 stone 6 at the mo. Looking at that little bit in the corner and seeing 'CW: 9 stone 2 lbs' makes me nostalgic.

No worries, I'll get back there. Though today was NOT a good example. My parents came up to my uni and insist on taking me out for about a million pieces of food - my mum took me shopping and I was having such a fat hormonal day (meaning all the clothes looked rubbish) that I burst into tears and said I was too fat and didn't want to eat again. Luckily she's pretty chilled about that so panic bells weren't ringing, she just assured me my blood sugar was low and I was feeling down and made me eat a sandwich. Then we went out for dinner in the evening... alright, bangers and mash are amazing (that's sausages and mash for any non-Brits) but probably not particularly low-fat. Bahh.

Tomorrow... it's back on. I don't deserve to eat like I'm thin or something. I'm already stupidly frustrated that my weight seems to fluctuate SO much if I don't have COMPLETE control over what I eat. Does anyone else get that?? I swear, one day I'll eat, say, 800 calories, yet if the next day I eat 900 calories, I'll have put on about 3 lbs. What's up with that? I read once that a pound is equivalent to 3500 calories. How does eating 100 calories more (and still way less than what I burn in a day) mean I put the equivalent of 3 x 3500 calories on?

Bloody weight. So unreliable.

I'll probably have to get breakfast with the parents tomorrow, but I suppose it's better to eat a lot earlier in the day than later in the day. I'm introducing the whole no-eating-after-3pm for a while, until I get back to 9 stone 2 lbs, at least. Annoyingly I'm going to visit my sister over the weekend (hence the lack of blogging) but I'll do my best to stay as low-food as possible. Luckily she's a poor student too so there won't be many fancy nights at restaurants, though she's actually got a job (lucky bitch.)

Apart from all that, my life... is busy. That's all I can say. Lots to do, all the time. Nothing really interesting going on. No love life, shame. Starting to wonder if I'll ever get a PROPER love life... like a relationship. Is that even possible for me?

Alright, I'm out. Ta-ra!

Q x

27/11/10

... is the date I will OFFICIALLY be back to blogging.

Hopefully sooner!

Bear with me guys, I love and need you all!

See you soon,

Q x

Halloween's a pickle

Yesterday was a flop, so I've been extra strict today.

DAY TEN - 400 CAL ALLOWANCE (Sort of Day Three... seeing as I plan to extend it a week)

Food:
1 bowl of shreddies with skimmed milk - 200
1 small cheese salad - 70 (for the cheese)
1 Muller Light yoghurt - 95
1 square of Bournville chocolate - 36 (Cadbury's dark chocolate... GORGEOUS. I had to buy a whole bar to break open a tenner but it was upsetting throwing the rest away.)
Bowl of brocolli and cauliflower florets - 0 (that count towards the total, at least)
Diet coke - 0

Total - 401. I'll forgive myself for that 1 calorie over the limit. I probably burnt that off just from typing!

Exercise:
1 hour of ballet - 50 cals burned

Not baaad! I've got a massive food shop delivery arriving tonight so I can only hope I'll keep up the self-control... I'd better, it's weigh-day tomorrow. Ooer.

So hungry right now. Got that horrible malnourished feeling...

So clueless about what to do for Halloween. Remember I said I wanted a Medusa outfit? Well SO MUCH is going on this year (club nights galoooore) but no-one seems to be up for doing ANYTHING so I might go for something a bit simpler... I could just end up at some lame house party. The costume'll probably be last-minute, too. Bahh. Why are my friends so rubbish?

Nothing else really going on with my life right now... I'll leave you here! Should really be writing an essay, sigh. Until tomorrow... (hopefully)

Peace out

Q x

I suck

... At regular blogging. DFSLKFJSKDJF. I won't rant about this tiny pc as I've ranted enough, and I'm sure you'll all want to give me a good smack in the chops if I start off on one again. So we'll leave it at that.

Week one of the re-start SGD hasn't gone as well as I've liked. It started well, but a few days in it became increasingly hard to monitor how many calories were in each piece of food. I think I stuck roughly to the set amount, but I'm not 100% sure. Because of this, I might extend it a week to compensate. Humm.

Today's been alright though... so far!

DAY EIGHT - 400 CAL ALLOWANCE

Food:
1 cup of coffee - 10
1 small Morning Glory (I'm addicted) - 150
1 grilled sausage (185) with a slice of bread (55) - 240
1 small chicken salad - 50 (the salad doesn't really count, so I'm only counting calories for the chicken)
Diet coke - 0
Water - 0

Total - 450. 50 cals over... good thing I've got dance class to burn it off!

Exercise:
2 hours of tap - 100 cals burned

(I'm going to estimate that an hour-long class burns 50 cals... could be right, could be wrong, ah well!)

So, not bad at all. Tomorrow will be difficult (I hate Tuesdays!) but such is life.

Ricky told me 9 stone 3 lbs this morning... not too shabby, though I'm definitely going to surge to get under 9 stone! Christ, feel like I've hit a block.

I do feel terribly guilty about the lack of blog love I've been giving as of late. I've been using a friend's laptop since my one broke but I'm far too paranoid of going on this site on that in case it somehow shows up and she finds out. Hence why I'm having to do everything skinny-related safely on my notebook. I'm hoping to have my new laptop by the end of November and I promise to be on top of my game by then! And I'll have a good catch-up of all of your blogs... I feel like I'm missing out on all the fun!

You all make me so proud. And I'm sorry for being so shit. I hope you can love me regardless.

Also BIG LOVE to new followers. I really do appreciate all the support I get, and every comment means the world. You're all SO AWESOME.

C'est tout.

Q x

Freshhh

So, back to blogging, because I NEED it. And I've decided my blog looks laame without pictures, so I've snagged a few from some thinspo sites and will work with these! I miss the beasty collection of pics I had on the other laptop but I'll get them back eventually (thankfully, the hard drive could be saved).

I've decided to start the SGD from fresh. I was genuinely curious as to whether or not it'd work and it bugs me that I seemed to give up on it halfway through, so it's beginning again! I'll be more hardcore with it this time, and I'll try and post every day. Again, I'm not including alcohol, though.

Won't have a chance to post later so here's my plan for today WHICH I WILL STICK TO:

DAY ONE (400 CALS)

Food:
Bowl of Shreddies with skimmed milk - 200 cals (d'oh - ate this already without knowing how calorific it'd be)
Regular Morning Glory smoothie (if you remember those bad boys) - 200 cals
Diet coke - 0 cals

Total - 400 cals

Exercise:
Dance class - 2 hours of Tap (no idea how many calories it burns!)

So, er, yeah. That'll be my day. Was planning to weigh myself every Monday morn but I have no idea what I weigh today, so I'm gonna say 9 stone 4. How much can I drop in a month? Stay tuned...

You may be happy to know I can now get to 30 mins straight running on the treadmill - HURRAH. Determined to push myself every time I get on it. Tried to do 32 mins yesterday but got to 25 and wanted to throw up (damn flu) so gave it a rest... but I'll be on 32 next time!

Catch y'all later

Q x

I owe you an update

My laptop is frazzled, so I don't know when I'll be able to post with pictures again... maybe not until January. Argh! I've really fallen off the wagon without all the blogging - I seem to want food all the time. I'm going to start blogging regularly again to get back into the mindframe, but probably not as often as before, as this tiny keyboard is really frustrating. I really can't stand typing on it.

WHY OH WHYYY HAS MY BEAUTIFUL LAPTOP LEFT ME.

My life has been decidedly shitty as of late, but perhaps I can pull my eating together and still get skinny by Halloween. One thing I am is BUSY. Dancing every day and squeezing in my studies around it all is making things pretty manic, but it's exciting at the same time. I love having lots to do.

Speaking of Halloween, I want to go as Medusa. Planning to get a black bed sheet and turn it into a toga but I have NO idea how to make the snake hair. Nowhere seems to sell toy snakes! Debating making them... but how to make snakey hair that looks awesome and convincing? Definitely need to get my thinking cap on here. Any ideas? Let me know!

Saw a picture on the side of a bus yesterday - it was an advert for a weight loss program, and the hook was 'love your scales'. Set my mind on a ramble as I envisioned loving Ricky whilst he showered me with adoration, praise and tiny, tiny numbers. We'd make a happy couple.

Shame he's still a dick.

Fluctuation away from the SGD has set me solid at 9 stone 4, which could be worse, but I'm DETERMINED to get to under 9 stone by Halloween... off to the gym!

Love to you all,

Q x

Blogging hiatus

My laptop's broken. I'm writing on my tiny little notebook right now but I couldn't do this all the time. Plus I have none of my pics. Bahh.

You wanna know how it happened? Tis a tale of woe and horror. Brace yourselves. I had a dancer mate of mine round last night... she's never crashed at my house before but she did last night. We were both pretty drunk. We went to sleep... I wake up and she's wandering around my room opening windows and stuff. Seems pretty out of it... talking complete nonsense. Then she hoists herself up on to my desk and is sitting on my laptop... then I hear the unmistakeable noise of PEEING. That's right, she PISSED on my laptop. When I asked her what she was doing, more gobbledegook. Eventually she went back to bed. Sleep walking, I suspect. She's NOT a person who would do that at all. I get up to mop it up, and it's everywhere. All over my beautiful laptop. She wakes up properly, gets up to help me and realises what she's done, and begins crying miserably. Mortified! Once we clean it up... AHFJHD WHY WON'T IT TURN ON NOOOO. I love my laptop! And now it's gone... because of one drunk girl's sleepy and disgusting actions.

Told you it was bad.

I'm not allowed to tell anyone really as she's so embarrassed and promises to pay for all damages or a new laptop... but I don't want a new laptop. I want mine! And I don't expect her to pay, they can cost up to 600 quid these days. We're students. We're poor.

Took it to the repair man... PLEASE FIX IT MR REPAIR MAN PLEASE PLEASE.

So I won't be blogging until I have it back. Can't say when that'll be. Right in the middle of the SGD, bah humbug! I'll still check up and support all your blogs when I can, I just find it frustrating typing so much on this tiny keyboard. Hopefully won't be too long!

Keep up the work, promise to be back soon!

Love you all,

Q x

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

Said by good ol' Walt Disney. I got a poster today packed full of inspirational and memorable quotes said by inspirational and/or memorable people. Quite a jolly read.

I guess that's what I'm doing, talking... and not really doing.

Alas, today wasn't that much better than yesterday. I'm rubbish at monitoring calorie intake. I daresay I'm unworthy to even blog at this point! The main culprits of today... a bowl of branflakes (95 cals) and a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce (probably about 200 cals). So in total... 295 cals. If that had been it, that would have been fine! But what else did I consume? Quite a bit of chocolate soya milk... someone a while back recommended alpro soya milk, so I grabbed some of that during my jaunt to Tesco, and it's definitely much less calorific but tastes good... so thanks! But I had about 3 glasses today, probably. Plus a few rice cakes with houmous again. What are the calorie totals? Who knows... arghh.

Ariana, you asked about houmous... if you're American or from some other country you might know it as 'hummus', but it tastes AMAZING. It's made out of chickpeas (which I also love) and you can use it as a dip for breadsticks or cucumber sticks... or, in my case, rice cakes and crackers! Yummy.

You also asked about what kind of dance I do... currently I do ballet, tap, modern, street and lyrical, but I've been known in my lifetime to do ballroom, Latin American, classical Indian, contemporary, jazz, African and probably some others which I can't remember. I loooove to dance.

Anywho.

So my food isn't too spiffing, AND I didn't have time to go to the gym today, but tomorrow shall consist of a hardcore workout! The dancing is at least getting me sweaty, so that's a good sign. We'll see how it all goes.

I WILL STICK TO THAT 400 CALORIE LIMIT TOMORROW IF IT KILLS ME. I'll plan it now. I'll just have a coffee for breakfast, that's only about 15 calories. At lunch I'll grill some chicken and eat it with salad... the chicken and mayo will probably come to about 200 cals (sadly), so that's 200 out of the way. Then... hmm... maybe some crackers whenever I feel like snacking. I've run out of houmous now (boo) but I can still have them with a bit of butter. I'll invest in some more diet coke too. I see all that being in my 400 cal limit! Topnotch.

Now, must get back to reading bloody Jane Austen... I hate Victorian literature, but it must be read for my course. Dammit.

I'll do this for you, bloggers! Bloody hell, I need to step it up before I crash and fail at life.

Q x

I feel like I'm going to explode

I've eaten SO MUCH today. What the hell? Where did the SGD calorie allowance go? I'm going mad. It was a promising start... I had a Morning Glory smoothie, was set to have coffee when I got home and then get a choc shake from the Union before dance... but then I ended up going food shopping. Bad idea. Grapes... ok. Rice cakes with houmous... hmm. Bit of potato salad... right. Then the choc shake. But then I was so knackered from dance... a kit kat! And a packet of crisps! NO. Then crackers and houmous... then a bowl of branflakes!

WHY AM I RUBBISH.

Can't even fathom how many calories that is. Don't want to think about it! I NEED THE GYM.

Me, M, A and housemate T are having a chilled night in... and now the three of them have gone to get takeaway. Dammit! Why? If they offer me some... hopefully this full-to-burst feeling will mean the food isn't in any way tempting to me.

Fat chance. Emphasis on the 'fat' there.

On the plus side, at least dancing's started up again. So with that and the gym, exercise is set to be good. Definitely going to the gym tomorrow, either before or after my midday lecture. And then dance in the evening. S'aaall good.

Blogger was weird to me yesterday. Tried to write my post and then it asked me for the date and time... it said 10 past 12 or something, but it was 10 past 8 in the evening UK time, so I changed the time, hoping it would say that on the post. But then it said it would post it at 10 past 8, and wouldn't even let me post it immediately! So that post went up 8 hours after I wrote it. Weird.

Fanks for all the supportive comments. Definitely feeling optimistic, especially now a new academic year is beginning.

Let's see how it goes. I promise I'll be back to my good self-controlling self tomorrow! Don't lose faith.

Q x

Return of Ricky.

Err, hi, Ricky...

"Sup, bitch? Long time... all that drinkin' is messin' you up, bloody alcoholic. Still, got good news for ya..."

9 stone 2 lbs. I hadn't even used the loo yet. THANKS RICK. It's only a 2 lb loss... but that's 2 lbs closer to the 8 stone boundary!

Had the most mellow day of my life. After the gym (which was crap - could only do about half an hour cardio, bloody Freshers Flu) I've just been chilling in my room with the lights turned down, working on my novel a bit, listening to the likes of Mumford & Sons, Florence & the Machine, The Temper Trap, Regina Spektor, Doves, Feist, all that... oh mate, so chilled. Perfect way to spend a Sunday.

Sadly, the food hasn't been great. I had a small bowl of branflakes for breakfast (95 cal) and a wee bit of pasta for lunch (I'd average it to about 200 cal), but I got a bit happy with the tinned salmon + mayo on toast in the afternoon. Ever had that? Sounds bizarre, but actually tastes pretty good. In a crappy student meal kinda way. I had about 3 slices of that... I can only pray it wasn't over 350 cals, but I'm pretty sure it was. Hello again, gym.

It's nice having a 650 cal allowance on the weekend... but the week starts again tomorrow, and I am not looking forward to Tuesday! It was definitely the most difficult day of last week, as my other SGD girls might have experienced too, so I'll just have to stare at thinspo pics and blog whenever I find the time to stay motivated.

I hope it's going well for all the others too! And I hope all my followers' lives are peachy. I've been feeling quite optimistic today, actually. If my experience with Boy taught me anything, it's that if I want a boy, I have to make the effort to get him. And whilst this fling didn't go well due to extra emotional baggage, maybe the next one won't have that setback. At least I know blokes are willing to give it a try. Boy had a lot of girls on him, but he gave it a shot with me... maybe he saw potential. Characteristics in me that he thought he might be able to love. Sadly, he was still hurting far too much from his last relationship, but it doesn't change the fact those characteristics were there. So it's a self-esteem boost, sort of. Other people might see those characteristics and WILL be able to love them. They'll be able to love me. My 2010 resolution was to be much more open with guys... and it's been a success so far. The right one will come along, maybe sooner than I think.

Chin up!

Q x

How could you be so heartless?

Where did I put my violin?

Oh, talking to Boy was a bad idea. No, it was a good one. I just heard some SHOCKING stuff. You know what he said? "I haven't felt ANYTHING for ANY girl at all since my ex. I haven't felt anything for 18 months. I'm going to need a good few years to get over her."

Oh man, I wanted to punch him. I was even wearing a knuckleduster ring, it would have hurt... though it said 'love' on it so that's a bit ironic. But anyway. 18 months.

"I do like you... as a friend."

I guess it's hard for me to explain as I only briefly summed our fling up... but I was in deep. I'll say that. Hearing this hurt like a mother. My poor ears. They hurt to hear those words.

WHAT A TWAT.

Feel like shit now. Could happily never see him again to be fair... might even get away with it. Annoyingly we have a similar friendship crowd, but we're only connected by certain people, and I'm not super close to any of those people, so I don't see him regularly - I only see him on nights out these days, so if I just run away at the sight of him, I can successfully avoid him forever. Deleted him on Facebook, deleted his number and all his texts, deleted him on Skype. Yeah, you're welcome to leave my life. Need a hand getting out? I'm sure I could spare you a shove.

Food... well, I feel like I've gone over the 650 cal limit already with some massive wrap thing I ate at lunch plus breakfast, so I'm just gonna sip diet coke today. You'll be happy to know my last session with my PT at the gym wasn't bad at all, and he showed me a well good tricep exercise that actually BURNS. So bye-bye, bingo wings!

Dance starts up again on Monday. I'm so glad to have it - I'm a very, very important part of organising it all and our events (let's just say I run the show) so it's amazing to constantly be keeping busy... takes my mind off things.

Life is not a barrel of laughs, but all I can do is keep plodding on, eh?

Stay strong, bloggers.

Q x

Bloated.

Sorry about the lack of update! You know what - yesterday was pretty awful too. I'm getting back on track today, but yesterday... I went to a VIP thing at a club with free champagne because I'm clearly that awesome and they had CANAPES. They were... nice. I ate... a few. A lot. You know what though? My body punished me, and I MUCH prefer the feeling of being malnourished and starving at a club than the feeling of being ridiculously bloated. At least with the former you feel skinny. So yeah. No no no not a good idea again.

What's the limit today? 450? I've already had a 95 cal bowl of cereal so 355 left for the day... I'm thinking a cereal bar before I go to the gym at lunchtime which is 61 cals so then I'd have 294 left... awesome.

Got my third (and last) PT session at the gym today. Pray for me.

The blokes on the last couple of nights out are ridiculous. I know Fresher boys are notoriously pervy but I wanted to punch a lot of them last night. Felt quite flattered the night before, though - we had to dress up in a beachy theme so I had denim shorts and a bright coral-coloured top and of course lots of Hawaiian flower necklaces and flowers in my hair, and I got a lot of head turns. HURRAH. Apparently I need that pathetic self esteem boost. Even Boy - sorry, J - remarked that my outfit looked great. Of course, M ruined it when we got home. We were talking about weight loss and losing weight over summer, and I said casually that I'd lost quite a bit but it wasn't really noticeable. Her and G told me it was noticeable, and M was all "yeah... stop there." I was like huh? She then started looking at pics and going "my GOD, Q, you look SO THIN. It's disgusting. You look like you're starving yourself! Look at your arms in that pic... that's so anorexic!"

Well, that's rude. I mean, sure, I sort-of am starving myself to be skinny but where does she get off saying I look awful? If I turned to her and said "Good lord, M, lose some weight, your flabby arms look horrific!" she'd be horrified. Yet it's ok for her to say I look gross.

What a self esteem crash. I know she's just jealous.

(I'd like to stress - I do NOT look anorexicly thin, I'm still about 130 lbs for christ sake, but in some photos I looked a bit thinNER, and this apparently displeased M.)

I'm worried now she'll notice if I don't eat a lot and start forcing me to eat. I'm gonna do the ol' trick of talking animatedly about all the nice food I'd just eaten before she got here (aka lie) to fend her off.

You're gonna hate me, but I want to talk to J tonight. After the other night when he was floating around me a lot but didn't try anything on I'm frustrated and confused. And I hate this confused feeling... so if I see him tonight, I'm getting it out of him - what he actually thinks of me and why he's being such a dick about it. If he says he doesn't like me (which I'm fully expecting) I'll at least have closure and won't have to be so stupidly hopeful all the time. I'll get my bloody answers if it kills me!

Dance starts up again soon... 2-3 hours of dancing per night? Yes please!

Adios,

Q x

Today has been hectic

It really has. I set my alarm for 7am so I could leave the house at 8.30am and it didn't go off... so I woke up, looked at my phone and it was 8.30AM EXACTLY. I think I just screamed "SHIIIIT!" and jumped out of bed. The thing at uni was reeeally important and went on all day (I won't specify as I'm so funny about staying ambiguous) but I just pegged it and got ready in about 10 minutes then ran to uni. The rain didn't help things. Why is it so bloody miserable these days? I hate the North.

Now, because of this, FORGIVE ME BLOGGERS, I haven't been able to monitor my eating very closely. At all, in fact. I'll go through what I can remember...

- A 'morning glory' smoothie (pahah) so about 150 cals again?
- Half a chicken mayo sandwich with lots of salad. That thing was HENCH so I bet it was mercilessly calorific. But it gets worse...
- A chocolate and banana milkshake. I KNOW. I used to drink them from my favourite smoothie bar and I've just noticed it's reopened... had to. Had to.

Didn't even hit the gym today - no time and I'm exhausted! Been on my feet running around all day, so hopefully that burned some cals.

Total - who knows? I'm going to HOPE it was under 400 but I reckon it was closer to 600. AGH. Definitely gonna hit the gym in the morning and run like there's no tomorrow!

Why are tv shows and movies filled with FOOD? Yesterday at G's ALL her housemates were eating, and really good food too - baked salmon with veg, that kind of thing. And every advert on TV seems to be about food. There's this one that KILLS me - I think it's Delia Smith or someone like that cooking, and the food looks SO GOOD. If I find it on Youtube I'll stick it on the blog, but watch it after you've eaten, as on a hungry stomach it's torture!!

I'm glad Day 2 is over... don't think I've ever felt so malnourished. Day 4 looks kind.

I'm going to wait til Sunday to weigh myself, but I honestly don't know if I'll have lost any weight because of all the alcohol. Can't be good, can it? Guess my SGD malarkey won't be that accurate. Should've waited a week to start it.

Hey ho.

Q x

Old Blighty

Another miserably drunken night. I don't remember a whole lot, but people have been telling me things. I wasn't fun-drunk-Q last night either... I was weird-drunk-Q, where I wander around a lot on my own and ditch people. Confusing memories.

Don't really know what to do tonight... major dilemmas! C, party housemate wants to throw a party, but I have to be up at 7 tomorrow for uni... crikey. Really wish I could crash somewhere else tonight but it's impossible to find anywhere. There's also another house party going on but it doesn't sound like it'll be a load of fun, and J (Boy) will be there... any encounter with him these days just ends in him ditching me and me feeling like poo. Last night I think he said "I'm gonna go find some other people". OH CHEERS MATE. So I might just go to Girl Mate G's house and chill with movies or something.

Day 2 is bloody hard, isn't it? I've been feeling so malnourished all day. Went to the gym earlier but I was rubbish - only did 10 minutes on the treadmill. My god, went on the rowing machine and discovered there's a game you can play called Fish or something, where a little fish appears on the screen (that's you) and you have to row faster or slower to vary the height of said fish either to eat smaller fish (for points) or avoid being eaten by bigger fish. WOW. My hands literally have blisters I was having so much fun with that. Every machine should have its own game!!

Alright, SGD.

DAY TWO (300 cal allowance)

- A small bowl of branflakes. According to the packet, a small bowl of branflakes with semi-skimmed milk is 100 cals. I drink skimmed, so I chopped off 5 cals.
- A mini muller rice pot (YUM) - 100
- An Alpen bar - 61
- A slice of ham (I was snacking and bored) - 8
- A whole load of mayo (eaten with sweetcorn) - 40

Total - 304 cals. Dammit, 4 calories over!! Why did I eat the ham? Ah well, won't be too hard to burn off at the gym tomorrow.

Extras:
- 2 apples
- A bowl of sweetcorn, with the mayo. Weird combo, I know, but I was starving and it was literally all I had. I did hunt for lettuce but none of my housemates are very healthy, it seems.

So today wasn't too shabby. Get to weigh myself in the morning - hello, Ricky, we meet at long last!

Wow, check out all the comments on my last post... cheers guys! You lot are corking. Ariana, you asked about British culture. I can honestly not compare it to American culture as I've only been to America once (New York, sighhh) and that's such a touristy place I expect it's not a good representation of bog-standard America. I mean we Brits have a good idea of American culture because of the ridiculous amount of American shows and films and songs to grace our lives, but it's hard to know how realistic that is - because England is NOTHING like it's represented in the media. Well, not NOTHING like it, but you know what I mean. England's a pretty crap country, actually - hardly any of it is actually attractive aesthetically and it's full of chavs, which are rough tracksuit-wearing often unattractive people who hang around car parks and shop fronts smoking and generally being abusive to the public. Mostly teenagers. I think every teenager hits a chavvy stage in their life, but chavvy adults are just embarrassing. You see a group of chavs - cross the street! Also known as pikeys, though that term is debatable these days.

The England accent isn't universally nice, either. We don't all sound like Hugh Grant, charmingly English. I happen to sound quite posh, actually, so I think Americans would like my voice - but chavs sound GROSS. Awriiight bruv, init, wha you sayinn, fuck off you twaah." (that was meant to be 'twat', but chavs don't pronounce their Ts.) Everyone has a hint of the chav in their voice, and at my age, you're ridiculed if you sound too posh. I often am! But at least people don't wince at the sound of my voice.

M happens to be textbook definition of chav... she's getting better, but the voice is going to take a lot of work! It shows, though, that they're not all awful - M's amazing and comes from a good background so I guess friend influence turned her into one. Shame.

I love most Brit music but some of it is annoying. I looove the whole underground grime industry. I think any foreigner who doesn't know what it is would hate it, though - it is pretty shitty, admittedly (I'm such a rhymer) but it's getting better these days.

What's awesome about England is the fashion. I truly think England has the most daring and interesting fashion in the world. Every other country or place I've seen (even New York!) just doesn't compare. In fact, NY was downright disappointing given its fashion status! I am proud to call myself English for that. I love fashion, though it's hard to be fashionable when you're poor.

The chocolate is fucking amazing here.

... And yes, we do all drink tea. All the time.

Peace out!

Q x

XOXO

Look at Leighton Meester, looking all buff. Is anyone watching Gossip Girl? I've only caught the first episode of the new series and it was pretty naff, but I'm still hooked... can we get more screentime for Nate? And Chuck's looking increasingly yummy...

Didn't drink that much on the 2nd night of Freshers Week. There you go, liver - a break! Got some weird compliments last night. Put on this dress that USED to make me look skinny but now makes me look like a frump, and M goes to me "Q, you're becoming one of those girls where I feel ugly standing next to you". Is that a compliment? Think that was weird - a random drunk guy in the club looked at me and went "you're strangely attractive". I raised my eyebrows and said "strangely?" and he went "not in a conventional way, you know".

I actually feel quite insulted from that one.

Let's see what tonight brings... I warn you, this week's worth of blogging is seriously going to be me ranting on about nights out. If I were you, I'd steer clear for a week!

Oh, and of course, HELLO SGD.

SGD - DAY ONE (400 cal allowance)

- A smoothie from the Student Union called 'Morning Glory'. Ha, that's embarrassing to order! I ordered a small and it consists of strawberries, banana, milk, honey and porridge oats (tastes RIDICULOUSLY good). I can't really work out the calorific intake. Does the fruit even count? I averaged it out to about 150 cals. That'll do.
- A ham and cheese salad, also purchased from the Union. According to the packaging, 206 cals.

Total - 356 cals

Extra:
- An apple
- A handful of green and red grapes

Wahoo, I'd call Day One a success so far! I will be consuming alcohol tonight but I'm not counting that towards my calorie allowance as it's impossible to ignore alcohol in Freshers Week. C'est la vie... it'll be short-lived, and hopefully I won't be drinking that much tomorrow night as we're not going in, just going to various house parties.

Tomorrow's gonna be tough, only 300 cals allowed... I guess I'll make it through. If any of the other SGD girls (or anyone, really) have good tips for low-cal but filling foods, lemme know!

Hope it's going well for the other girls too... AAOS, Ariana, lovelybones and ana, you've got my support! Hurrah for our, er, pentagon of love.

Until tomorrow then! Day 2...

Q x

Dammit.

Hi there, I'm Q, your resident alcoholic/student. I got hammered last night. No denying it. And apparently being hammered gives me the munchies with no boundaries. I ate a burger. And chips. At 3am. We were kicked out of the nightclub early because of an emergency alarm being set off, and I truly realised the peril of living so close to a string of takeaway shops when you're drunk and with hungry friends.

WHY. WHY OH WHY. Never mind - the SGD starts tomorrow so I can buck up my ideas then. Tonight is another night out (hey, it's Freshers Week) but there will be NO late night food consumption - I SWEAR to you, bloggers. I'll be thinking of you if my mouth even goes near any food.

I have no food in this house to consume, anyway. Just found out I've gotta share a fridge with a housemate who's just arrived today (T - remember him?) which means I won't get my own fridge any more, boo... but my fridge is BARE so it's not like it makes a difference. I'm thinking an elevenses bar for breakfast, maybe something involving baked beans for lunch... and that'll be it, until the mass alcohol consumption that'll occur tonight. And then the SGD starts! Thank god.

This thinspo photo is to remind myself that my boy mates keep picking me up and throwing me around... and it'll be so much easier for them once I'm super skinny! So you're doing them a favour, as well as yourself, Q. Hey, I'm not entirely selfish!

Way too scared to face Ricky. Gonna stay away from him til I'm going strong on the SGD, methinks.

Aight, said everything of actual value... tatty bye!

Q x