Relief!

I stepped on Rickster this morning with some trepidation - but he said 9 stone 6, which sounds pretty normal to me. Cripes! I nearly passed out with relief. I'm starting to wonder if that was some EXTREME water retention last night... I heard somewhere that water retention can sometimes affect your weight by like, 20 pounds? But still, I've never seen that on the scales before and I don't wish to revisit it. I'm never getting on the scales again unless it's morning and I've just gone to the loo.

Thanks for the supportive comments gang! Always appreciated, a lot.

Despite the more normal scales, I've still intended to head for as low as possible today. 300 seems a bit hard to manage with my mum hovering out constantly feeding me, but I'm trying. I ate a small brekkie (about 100 cals) but ate a cookie for lunch, doh, as it was the only thing I had at work. I don't know how many calories one is but I've avoided eating after that, and as for dinner tonight, I'll just aim to chew on as little as possible. And I'm about to crack out the exercise. If I work hard this summer, I might just see the glories of 8 stone something on the scales! Ah, the dream...

SDR2, we're on!

Did anyone see Bey at Glastonbury last night? It might not have been on tv in other countries, but I watched it live on BBC and jesus, that woman is a goddess. I don't think there's ever been a pop star I've appreciated more, with the looks, the voice, the dancing skills and the sheer performance skills all rolled into one. I love that she throws everything into every performance and seems to be so flawless, yet humble at the same time. I've never wanted to be Beyonce more, especially right now, on the aftermath of the biggest gig of her life. That's saying something as I've wanted to be her for about 12 years now. Facebook and the internet has been going mad with reviews and admiration this morning. I wanted to get tickets to Glasto 2012 (prepared to start saving up now), but because of the stupid Olympics, it's not on! And god knows where I'll be in 2013... well, goddammit, I might not be as young and reckless and festival-ready in 2013 but I'll still be 21 (and hopefully have a decent job) and those tickets are mine!

Oh my god, I've discovered the wonders of Photoshop. After a quick tutorial from a friend, I've worked out how to make yourself look perfect - and MUCH skinner - after a few clicks. Depressing as hell, especially when you 'skinny' yourself then look at the original photo. But still... goodbye, fat rolls in photos!

Leavin' but lovin',

Q x

So, broken scales, right? Right???

So I get home from some crazy weekend moving out of my uni house and as I'm lugging my luggage up the stairs, I see the scales in the hallway. I think, hey! What a laugh, let's step on them for a joke. I was curious as to see how much I weighed.

And they showed... 11 stone??

That's 154 pounds.

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but is it POSSIBLE to put on 2 stone in 2 weeks? When your diet hasn't changed at all and you're exercising fairly moderately (but could probably be doing more)? And you haven't had any alcohol or done any weight training in absolutely ages?

I googled it. I was shit scared. I still am. The closest thing I could find was some girl complaining she'd put on half a stone in 2 weeks (7 lbs) and someone simply replied 'impossible'. As in, that's too much weight to gain in such a small space of time.

My clothes fit exactly the same. I LOOK exactly the same. As far as I can tell. No one's seen me and thought 'my god, she's put on a few!' And my sister tells me if I put on a few. My boobs aren't any bigger. I mean, I read an article today about a woman who was size 18 and she said she was 12 stone. How can I be a stone less yet wear 8/10 clothes comfortably? Cheryl Cole is a size 8 and she's like 8 stone max.

This isn't making any sense at all.

My mum called up to me, as I stared at Ricky in horror, 'Q! Make sure you try on your black trousers for work tomorrow and see if they still fit.' Oh yeah, I finally have some work! But anyway. I tried on my black size 8 (US size 4) trousers. They didn't fit at the start of last year's summer (10 stone 4). They fit when I started to shed the pounds. It was such an achievement for me, to be able to fit back into them. I just tried them on. They fit fine.

So it's GOT to be broken scales, right? As this makes NO sense. None at all. I tried putting other objects on the scales to see if they looked suddenly super-heavy, and they all looked about normal-weight for their size. Ooer. But this isn't right, in my case.

Yeah, yeah, it's broken scales! It has to be.

But still, I'm scared. So it's 300 cals a day (or as low as possible) after today, and exercise every day. And I'm weighing myself every morning. Because if by some, weird, magical reason, that IS real weight, it needs to GO. Pronto.

I think I might start drinking diet coke again. Even if it does make you retain calories, yadda yadda yadda. It's good at beating hunger cravings.

I'm sort of screaming 'arggggggghhhhhhh' inside my head. No more joking around. Even if this is broken scales, I feel like this is a sign. Like God or someone is laughing and saying 'this is your warning. Pull yourself together, or you're going to be even fatter.'

Yeah, pull yourself together. Yeah, it's a warning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Q x

Sigh.

Oh Gossip Girls, show me the light! Pre-3rd season, though. It all went downhill from there.

I'm living in a bit of a trance at the moment. I'm just stuck in the house, on my own, every day. I have no money to go and do anything and no car to get anywhere. I should be preoccupying myself with exercise, but instead I seem in this mundane, low state of mind. And I boredom eat! How awful. I'm going to set myself calorie limits to pull myself out of it. Maybe 2 4 6 8 again (post-breakfast).

I'm pretty sure I'm getting fat. The next week looks a bit more promising, though. My friends are finally returning from uni, and I have all sorts of things planned with the family. Perhaps being forcibly pulled off of my arse will encourage me to do it by myself more often. And things will go back to normal. Sadly, right now, me and the sofa are best friends.

SDR2, I haven't abandoned you!

Seriously though, it's getting embarrassing. I need a job, desperately. I need a life again! I've only just embarked on the summer holidays and already I'm willing to go back to uni. I seem to have more of a purpose there. And more of an incentive to be skinny - because right now, it's hard to care THAT much when you're faced with the prospect of summer solitude, and no-one admiring your efforts. I need my motivation back!

Doesn't help that it's grey and rainy every day, too. Call this summer?

Oh dear, see? Bloggers, I have so little to post about that when I DO post, it just becomes a drivelly little whine about my poor and sorry life. I'll try and keep the posting to a limit until something exciting happens.

I read my horoscope and it (weirdly) said something along these lines: 'you need to suck up the stuff in your life and start ACTING, because if you continue as you're going now, things will get much worse'. I read this as 'you're lying around and eating too much, you need to get up and MOVE, because if you continue as you're going now, the paramedics will be rolling you off that sofa.'

Now, I don't normally think too much of horoscopes, but that one's hard to ignore! Gemme?

On the plus side, my abs don't hurt any more! After about 4 days...

I'll write again when my life is back on the traintrack!

Q x

Not so fABulous.

So I haven't been able to do my ab workout for almost 2 days now - because they flipping HURT after the first time! Which is good but not good if it stops you doing them again. I know it's build-up of lactic acid and I should have cooled them down and all that... but with every muscle, I know how to cool them down. How the hell do you cool down your abs? Normally it's light stretching, but how do you stretch our abs? I might just sit in the cobra stretch for a while. But then there's the obliques. Doh.

If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear 'em. Must get on Google.

Amber - yes, Twilight Princess, that's what it's called! You HAVE to get it if you love Zelda. I was completely addicted. It's one of those games where I really cared about what was going to happen next, like a really, really good film. If you get it... man, I'll be so jealous. If ever I'm rich and living on my own, I'm getting a Wii and that game, even if by that time it's an old, long-gone thing!

Nice name change, btw. Was a little confused when I signed back on post-holiday but I'm with ya now. ;)

Yesterday was a pretty rubbish day - I ate loads and forgot about exercise. BAH. I mean, for lunch I had TWO bagels. TWO. Who the hell eats two? Me, apparently. But today will be better! It's getting close to lunchtime so I'm planning to have a coffee to halt my appetite for a while, then snack on some crackers if hunger comes back. Then I'll try and eat as little of dinner as I can get away with. I'll just say I'm stuffed. C'mon, SDR2. You will be successful.

My life is pretty boring these days. Which is why I have nothing to talk about. Hooray, blog!

Q x

Summer Diet Round 2 (ding ding)

I don't really like calling it Summer Diet Round 2, as it sounds like Summer Diet Round 1 (last year) was a failure. I lost 16 pounds, dammit! And as of today I'm 2 pounds over that. I came home from a holiday of CONSTANT FOOD (and no exercise) and fully expected to be about 10 stone, but luckily Ricky came up trumps - I'm 9 stone 4, which isn't bad considering I expected to be so much fatter. It'll be a good starting post.

I saw in Cosmo some Tracy Anderson exercises, and I'm focusing on the ab ones. It's for a 14 day bikini boot camp, but I'm making this long term. Supposedly gives you abs like J Lo. Mannn, they're hard! I did 20 reps yesterday and this morning my abs HURT. Which is a good sign!

My holiday was nice and fun. I fell asleep sunbathing and now I am TANNED. I don't promote that technique, mind. I was a bit red too at first.

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance and it's inspiration to get abs, as one of the women on it was quite big (well, for a dancer's standard) at the start but she got BUFF by the end. Ok, she was training like hell 7 days a week, but she still did it! Makes me want to be a better dancer too. But everything does.

I'm at this weird state at the moment, where I don't really know what I'm doing. I could be sorting out paperwork, I could be revising for my exam in August, I could be reading books and preparing for my next academic year, I could start choreographing, I could write, I could be exercising right now. But weirdly, all I want to do is play a video game. You know, the kinda stuff you get on the Wii?

A couple of summers ago I got completely addicted to a Legend of Zelda game on the Wii. My sister's boyfriend left it at our house all summer (we don't own any kind of games console) and I got really addicted to this game. Can't remember what it was called... Princess of something? It was a really cool game, where half of the time you were a bloke (that blonde guy, whassisname, Link?) and the other half of the time he was turned into a wolf, so you had to be a wolf. Ahh, I'd do anything to get that game back now. I was so into it, though I had to have the online walk-through up most of the time. Legend of Zelda can be a bit of a puzzle. It probably wouldn't be the same, playing it now, but it was awesome.

Leave you here... will keep you updated on my SDR2 progress! Oh yes, it gets its own acronym.

Q x