Beyond Willpower

Well, this week has gone well. I've done my PT I believe every day for the last week. I'm feeling better, work is still difficult on days longer than 4 hours but it's not killing me. I can do a 6 hour day, but I think going back to an 8 hour day would probably cause serious problems, sleep disturbance, depression, etc. I've finally lost a couple lbs, the past week I've been on plan and feeling great. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds myself constantly asking, "Why don't I always do this? I feel so much better when I do." EVERYTHING IMPROVES. My mood, my sleep, my overall productivity. I frustrate myself. Why do we all do this to ourselves? Pigging out tastes good but is it really so worth it? I feel gross, bloated, I start to feel down, I get lazy and my life revolves around my next meal and nothing gets done. WHY!? But, I think it's safe to say I'm officially back in the game. Also, I did not complete nano, too many health

So my mom bought me a cookbook called: Vegan Fire and Spice I made my first recipe from it tonight. It's separated by country, and I had Nigerian Peanut Soup. It was amazing! The flavors were just...bold. That's the only way I can think to put it. Fabulous! I also made the blackened tofu from Appetite for Reduction . Here's some crappy blurry pics from my phone, ha.: I was talking to someone today about how beautiful colorful food is and how it's so healthy. When you eat a lot of prepackaged crap, we were saying -- it tends to just be brown. Blackened tofu ready to go into the broiler: Blackened tofu and Nigerian peanut soup The soup was truly the star of this show, but I think maybe the tofu didn't come out as well as it did last time because of my own error in prep. Anyhow, I can't wait to check out more recipes from this book, lots of yummy looking things, I recommend checking it out.  Also all the recipes in both of those books pretty much serve 4.

So, a few months ago I had gotten myself pretty much 'over' hunger. I allowed myself to feel hungry without it making me cranky or it being the end of the world. I didn't have to eat asap and pig out, I could come home, absolutely ravenous, cook a nice healthy meal and then eat it and be fine. Today, things are different. I've gotten unacquainted with hunger and it's time I got acquainted again. Now, I get hungry and I feel like I have to eat, even if it's something unhealthy or downright BAD for me (Fried/includes dairy or gluten) because I need to make that feeling GO AWAY. Well, enough of that. I've done it before and I can do it again. Today at work I was hungry. I had a protein shake for breakfast and it was black Friday so there was no going for a break to grab a banana and some nuts, which I normally do around 1ish.  (It's a total waste of calories). If I would just wait until I got home a measly two hours later I'm sure I"d be fine

There are some things in my life that were once priorities that have been put on the back burner. I feel like due to this medication it's pointless to try and lose since I can't seem to. But that is ridiculous because I need to be healthy whether I'm losing or not. So I need to get on track with the gf/vegan eats and exercise in a big way. (I've eaten dairy some lately and it's ADDICTIVE. No joke.)  So starting today, gf/vegan all the way. I need groceries, but I'll just eat tons of rice if I must just because I can really FEEL a difference in my body when I eat gluten. It aggravates the living hell out of my fibro, I've been feeling so inflamed lately that even just sitting here has been burning my legs and back. I need to exercise. I KNOW that it helps my fibro. Like my pain doc says, if you don't use it, you lose it with fibro. It's a vicious cycle. You lay down because you're in pain but in the long run laying around just causes more p

I was debating whether or not I wanted to do a thankfulness blog or not but figured I have plenty to be thankful for so I might as well. My friends and family Lets get the obvious out of the way first. I have some really great people in my life, family,  friends who are family to me. Some new, some old, and I appreciate and am thankful for all of them. I'm a people person, and over the last year I lost a lot of friends, so it feels good to have people back in my life again. Especially awesome people.  "Families are like brownies, sweet, with a few nuts." Spot on. My jobs I feel thankful every day that I have two jobs that I absolutely love. I work in high end fashion retail sales. I love people so it's absolutely perfect. I very rarely have those days where I just don't want to get out of bed and absolutely dread going to work like I have in the past. The discounts don't hurt either ;) I know with today's economy people can't be picky, and I was h

Well yesterday I had a feast. We did thanksgiving early here because joey works and my friends were available for dinner so we just had it yesterday. I made a nut loaf (Unfortunately I haven't been gluten free for a few weeks because of financial issues making it hard to afford the gf stuff), homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, corn and pumpkin pie. Unfortunately my sister and her bf couldn't come, but I am thankful for my friends being there. I had fun. :) It. Was. Fab. Everyone loved it and we were all stuffed, sleepy and happy when it was over. Today is a new day though, my weight still hasn't budged, and I had to cancel my study appt, so I can't lower my dose until I see the doc again, but I've decided to try my hardest until I see them again. Even if I only lost 2 lbs at this point, I'd be thrilled. I am still struggling but it seems like every day is a little easier. My pain levels have been bad lately, I'm not doing my pt ver

So my weight is still the same. I thought I had lost but it jumped back up. Oh well. The doc said we can reduce the abilify again in two weeks, so that's the week after this one. Anyhow, a little life update that has nothing to do with food or weight loss. I've decided to attempt to get into cosmetics. I'd love to be a make up artist at sephora or ulta. I have someone who does photography who offered to help me with my portfolio. I also made a tumblr for makeup pics. Now, so far there isn't anythign fantanstic on it, just some old pics where I thought my makeup looked cool. I also took a few newer ones today, two different colors/styles without my glasses on. I feel like I look funny! Anyhow, you can check out my tumblr at: Unabashed Glitter Girl

So last night I went out with a new friend I met online. We were talking about my area where I live, and how people will yell stuff at me. I once had someone throw a half eaten apple at my head as they yelled "Fat bitch!" He said I need to move. ha. That would be admitting defeat! :P Anyhow, a friend of mine recently had a similar experience. Mind you this girl is a healthy weight, downright thin now, she's lost a good bit. She texted me pretty furious that some girls said something like, "Can you believe she left the house in that? Look at that spare tire." She was wearing a winter coat and jeans so something tells me that she heard the wrong part of a conversation unrelated to herself and internalized it. BUT...that doesn't mean that people don't still say rude things to thin people.  I am so over wanting to lose weight for other people, or so people will see me in a certain way. I don't care. If someone called me a fat bitch today, that

A lot of people comment here, or they tell me privately, that I am brave for writing this blog, or they tell me that they love how honest I am, that I go in to the good and the bad. I'm not here to sugar coat things. For awhile, I wasn't blogging very often. I wasn't doing well and I felt like every time I blogged I was saying the same thing, wow, I'm off track, trying again tomorrow. I felt like such a let down to all of you, but I know I'm not the only one going through this. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that we're not alone, there are some people who make things look so easy, and really, to me, it's just not something I can relate to. I have a friend who said he lost weight and there's no excuse for anyone because it's easy. This has been one of the more difficult things I have ever done.  I forget sometimes that this is forever, this is never going to be easy. EasiER at times, but never easy. Not for me and probably not for most

Tonight's Nanoing was a success! Over 2k written in just over 2 hours. Yay!