Fast Food Poisoning and Three Hundred Prompts

So, guys, it's been a while. I really appreciate the kind words I got on that last blog post as well as the words I got off the actual post. I let Erik read it and he was absolutely amazing. Have I pulled myself out of that rut? Well, no, not really, but I'm feeling a lot better most of the time. The house is in great shape and we're doing a good job keeping it that way, too. I applied again for Medicaid and I missed the appointment, but I called them and left a message so maybe I can get back on meds soon. Evers' coverage lapsed and I have to get her back on, so it's not something I can put off this time.

Oh, also, Ev has become more clingy toward me. She wants me now, instead of being a total Daddy's girl. Sometimes, this is not always a blessing after all... haha.

In other news, but slightly related because I mentioned food in that post, I recently got horribly, unbelievably sick after eating at our closest McDonald's and it ruined yet another St. Patrick's Day (two years ago, I was about two weeks shy still of my twenty-first birthday, and last year I was pregnant). Later, I learned that my dad was briefly ill, and I think maybe someone in Erik's family, too, so it probably wasn't the McDonald's, but I still feel a repulsion toward it and I'm super excited to say that for almost two weeks now (since the fifteenth) I haven't had one bite of fast food. I think I've only had soda once (the other day at Costco with my mom) I think, not including the gingerale we bought to settle my stomach and I only drank maybe a liter of that total. I have not craved fast food since and have no desire to return. You should all be super proud of me (and of Erik, especially). Of course, that means we had a lot of Hot Pockets, Pizza Rolls, and Eggo so far, but it's progress! Baby steps!

Moving on to something else. Some of you may know about NaNoWriMo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month (November) and it's a huge international thing. I participate each year since 09, although I've never "won." Well, there's also sometimes a "Camp NaNo" in the spring or summer. Last year I think it was August it was June, this year it's April. I decided about an hour ago that I'm going to go for it. As I've never done it, I don't know all the details, but I know you sign up and get assigned a cabin if you want and can pick your own word count. I'm going for 25k. I'll up it to 30k depending on where I get through the month.

My plan is not to write a novel, but just to write. I will be using 300 writing prompts I once created while I did play-by-post RPGs. I will write short stories, scenes, and poetry, based off each one and how I interpret it. I will be posting them here, too, to help get motivation and keep myself accountable. Please, keep in mind that these will all be very rough first drafts, there will be typos, and I'm self-conscious. I will put that actual table in a separate post because of the amount of coding and the fact that I will probably need to tweak it because of the blog settings. Also to keep things looking clean.

I appreciate your support!

The Three-Day Diet

I bought grapefruit today.

I don't like grapefruit.

I love Pinterest. I have to tell you that. It's incredible for sharing things you'd never otherwise find. My favorite are recipes. The more chocolaty, the better. Between a blog I found through Facebook and all the stuff Pinterest has to offer, I have Christmas covered, guys.

Now, I have a couple boards for several things, covering most of the Pinterest categories. Even tattoos, and they only just made that an official category. One thing I don't have, though, is a board for weight loss. Maybe I should. Weight loss tips and exercise routines keep popping up in my stream, or whatever it's called on Pinterest, but I don't usually care for many of them. Anything I do like goes onto my "other" board. Maybe I should try to find some things I do like and finally make that fitness board? Maybe.

I would have to start with the three-day diet. Apparently, in three days you should lose up to ten pounds. You could lose, potentially, forty pounds in a month. I did weigh myself last Friday (no pictures, though) and I was 239. Yikes. My best weight was around 160 by Spring of 2011. I have gained all that weight back and then some since having Everleigh. I'm heavier than I've ever been in my life. But I could potentially lose eighty pounds in two months and be back at my favorite weight if I did this diet.

You're supposed to follow it for three days in a row (I would pick Sunday, Monday, Tuesday due to scheduling) and then eat like normal, but not in excess (you don't want to gain it back), for four days. Then you do it again. Thus, forty pounds in four weeks.

The original poster said this was shared with her by a military man that attended her church. They sometimes use it to lose weight quickly. It is supposed to be a safe and effective diet. I believe someone calculated it at about 1200 calories a day, which is fine, at least for a woman. I think it's also okay for a man, especially if it's only three of seven days each week. The concern is hypoglycemia. I am actually very prone to it, but it's not severe. It was bad when I was pregnant, but I know how to keep from having anything happen and don't even usually have to think about it. If I have a sugary breakfast I sometimes get weak, but that's it for the most part. The original poster said she only did it for two days because of hypoglycemic symptoms and still lost five pounds. Two of her friends did all three and each lost eight.

I'd be happy losing eight pounds in a week.

I asked Erik if he would do it with me and he said yes. I showed him the diet and I know it'll be harder for him than me. I eat less than he does. He's a big guy, and I don't just mean his waistline (which really isn't bad, he's just gained weight since we got together; he's still my sexy man). I don't know where he got that build, but there's a reason he's been hired as a bouncer before.

I love it.

Anyway... I even got him to agree to let me take pictures of him like I did me. I say "got him to," but it was as simple as, "Would it be okay if I photographed you when we did it?" "Yeah." "...For my blog?" "Yeah." "That means showing off your weight on the internet." "Yeah, that's fine." I love him.

Sidebar: I fucking love him. He's unbelievably supportive of anything I want to do. There's never a "no you can't" or resistance. He even said he'd consider letting me paint the ceiling purple when we have our own place. (Or maybe he didn't say that, but I've decided that he did. That's another reason I love him. I get to be a brat and he thinks it's cute. Sexy even. So maybe there's something wrong with his brain, but why fix it? :P)

So I'm going to copy the diet in here. I put the link to the original post, but I don't like her formatting. It's difficult to read, especially when she lists each day's meals. However, it's good to read the comments if you want.

DAY ONE:

• Breakfast:
• 1/2 grapefruit
• 1 slice toast
• 2 tbs. peanut butter
• coffee or tea
• Lunch:
• 1/2 cup tuna
• 1 slice toast
• coffee or tea
• Dinner:
• 2 slices any type of meat (about 3 oz.)
• 1 cup green beans
• 1/2 banana
• 1 small apple
• 1 cup vanilla ice cream

DAY TWO:

• Breakfast:
• 1 egg
• 1 slice toast
• 1/2 banana
• Lunch:
• 1/2 cup cottage cheese (or 1 slice cheddar cheese)
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 5 saltine crackers
• Dinner:
• 2 hot dogs (no buns)
• 1 cup broccoli
• 1/2 cup carrots
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream

DAY THREE:

• Breakfast:
• 5 saltine crackers
• 1 slice cheddar cheese
• 1 small apple
• Lunch:
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 1 slice toast
• Dinner:
• 1 cup tuna
• 1/2 banana
• 1 cup vanilla ice cream

So the big rule, I guess, is you're not allowed to substitute anything. I do not like tuna (day one, day three) and I will not eat it. Knowing full well it may damage the success of this diet, I will find some other protein around the same amount of calories to eat. I know that's cheating, but I can't do it otherwise. I do not like cottage cheese (day two) either, but luckily they gave an alternative already. Cheddar isn't my favorite cheese, but I do like it, as long as it's not sharp cheddar. (I like mild, my mom buys medium to compromise between me and my dad. I can deal with that.)

You can use salt and pepper, but no other seasoning. On the first day you're allowed coffee or tea, but you're only allowed to drink water at any other point. It sucks cause I'm a total crack whore for milk right now, but I'll live. Erik will have a harder time, I think, cutting out Coke Zero. I don't think he's developed a caffeine addiction yet, but it may be close. But he can drink it the other four days, so that's fine.

Oh, and no eating between meals.

The comments say it works. It works better if you're active, obviously. It is a military diet after all. We're going to try it. I don't care for grapefruit, but I'll eat it. My mom says she knows how to make it less bitter and that's without sugar. She's gonna teach us how to properly eat a grapefruit.

We'll see if this works. I'll post starting weights and pictures when we start. The grapefruit is in the fridge, so it'll probably be this coming week.

Oh, and if it doesn't work, I found a more liberal (or it appears to be, without reading it that thoroughly yet) version here that promises the same results, numberswise. We'll see what happens.

Wish us luck!

Creature of the Night

First thing's first. VAMPIRE BEBEH!!!

When they wake up at 4:30 in the morning, you gotta do what you can to make light of the situation. For the record, the original picture is here. Isn't she adorable? My friend Dani told me she looks "derpy," though, and she kind of has a point lol. I love it. She can be totally ridiculous sometimes. I can't wait til she's older and can pose. Brooke (over at The Circle Married the Line) has a three year old and I love the sassy pictures she's got of her. I was a pretty cute kid, too, and my mom has some pictures that make me hope my kid's as adorable. XD That sounds really self-centered, but I don't mean it that way.

So while we're talking about me... I did not remember to weigh myself on time this week. However, I stole one of my mom's new cute shirts to go to a party Saturday night and it looked great. A little bit snug, but you couldn't really tell. My boobs looked fantastic. I actually got compliments. (My friends are not shy.) My mom's smaller than me right now, so I like being able to occasionally steal her cute clothes. I talked her into buying them anyway.

Hopefully I'll remember to weigh in next Thursday. Maybe I'll even post a photo. I think it'll have been a month, right? So nervous. I do not look any better.

Subject change entirely. The aforementioned Brooke and I have created a collaborative blog to craft and bake and be ridiculous in. We have named it Two Broke Women Doing Random Shit. The username "doingrandomshit" was actually available, so duh. We had to pick that one. There's a link in the tabs on the top of my blog. So far we haven't done anything but format it and write a test post, but when we finally get around to doing anything, I'll post about it. I want to try making Oreo Brownies with a mix I have in the pantry, and I also volunteered to help my mom make photo coasters based off these photo blocks as a super touching gift for her best friend's fiftieth birthday. She's the last of the four of them to turn fifty. My dad just did in June and she does in August. They're the babies. She and her husband got my dad a super sweet (and hilarious, and raunchy) Shutterfly book of pictures from their friendship together since we met them fourteen years ago.

Holy crap, I feel old. Just last night I realized I'd been friends with two of the people I was partying with (one being the host, my BFF Katie) since I was 13. I'm 22. Nine years. Nearly a decade I've known these bitches lol. I guess that's why I still put up with their crap. Glad I do, too, or I wouldn't have met Erik. He was into Katie when I met him and I was about to move to Colorado to be with my now ex-fiance. Crazy stuff, right?

Okay, she's been asleep an hour now and I think she actually really is going to sleep. I wonder if I should risk moving her to her bassinet. She doesn't like laying in it very much and I don't know why. But she's hogging the bed lol. She's, like, twelve pounds or something (I really have no idea right now) and yet manages to hog the king-sized bed. She's like my Shih Tzu Randi. Jeez...

Well, for one reason or another, I'm ending this post and going to try and get some sleep. OB appointment this afternoon. Night! And morning!

Weight, Writing, and Brains

Yesterday afternoon I weighed myself and I was 237.5, but this morning I was 235.5 so I'm not sure which it is. I'm just going with it. If I go with the lower one, I still keep gaining a pound a week. I don't know why. I'm not really trying hard or anything, but I'm not binging or anything either. I barely eat thanks to Ever. Maybe that's the problem. I need to try to eat better and get some sort of breakfast in. I found a pin for salad in a jar that doesn't go bad for a week. If I can convince my mom to buy a vacuum sealer (fat chance, but I'll give it a shot) I might be able to do it. I love salads. So does Erik and my dad, so that might help convince her.

New subject, I've started a blog for a series of posts for a story I've had in my head. I don't know if I'll keep up with it for very long, but I wanna try and update it once a week or so to keep the story going. It's called Project White Wing and the link is in the top tabs on this blog.

More random. My little chubs keeps wanting to eat and eat. I've gotten used to it now, but I keep having to make new bottles and then she tops herself off with a little more and so often I forget to refrigerate the leftovers. Ounces of formula at a time go to waste that way. My brain is completely crapped out. I need more sleep. And to get better at remembering to put the bottles in the fridge.

By the way, Erik's new job is the full time position. :D

Socially Acceptable

Two things tonight:

One, who thinks cubic zirconia (high quality cz, of course) is a perfectly acceptable alternative to real diamonds? I do. I don't like the conflict inherent in diamonds, and I don't like the price whether they're the conflict-free variety or not. I also like pearl or white sapphire, but a nice cz? Why not? I'd wear it. Am I crazy?

I like this one, though I might prefer a plain band:

Two, I totally forgot to say it before, but I weighed myself Friday on my home scale, the scale I got the previous week's weight on, and I was actually only at 234.5. So the WIC scale may be the correct weight, but I only gained one pound. Since the home scale is the one I'll have access to each week, that's what I'm going with. Plus it's a much nicer weight.

Fingers Still Crossed (Update)

He had his interview yesterday. Apparently it went very, very well. He's moving on to a second interview with the big guy. Also, because of his prior experience working nights at FedEx for eight years, the guy said Erik is their first choice - for the full time position! I'm pretty sure that would guarantee benefits - and a shiny ring. :)

And as yesterday was Thursday, there's another update I'm supposed to give. I got WIC set up for Ever and her formula and they weighed me and I was 237. A gain of four pounds. No good. But not gonna beat myself up over it. No pictures this week. I don't think I'll do those weekly, but I will try to weigh myself every week.

The end!

Excavating My Real Self

This is me. Or it was last May when Erik and I first got together. On the right is actually our first date and the day we became an official couple. Please ignore my ridiculous bird impersonation.

I was cute (or at least I felt cute and Erik likes curvy girls). Maybe I would get a nose job if I won the lottery, but I really have come to terms over the years with my wide-bridged schnauz. When my weight is down (I was around 140 in these pictures), my face thins out and even my big Polish nose seems to get a little thinner. I look and feel much, much prettier. Then I find a good hairstylist, a good box of hair dye (I love the newish Jon Frieda foaming stuff you can do yourself - the colors last so well, even the reds!), and a new wardrobe off the Kohl's clearance racks. Ninety percent of looking good is feeling good and I felt amazing.

These are my inspiration pictures.

I want to get back to my happy weight. 140 for me is amazing. I have a muscular, curvy build. I could lose a little more at that point, do some toning especially, but really it was great. Fitting into size ten jeans was incredible. I finally wore a pair of shorts that weren't knee-skimming bermudas and I looked cute. I want to have the body I had when the man I love fell in love with me.

He's great, don't get me wrong. He's never made me feel bad about my weight gain (which honestly started before I got pregnant, after I moved back to Memphis [I had been living in Colorado for the previous ten months which is part of how I lost so much weight to begin with] and was less active because it was summer and horrible) and he'll tell me out of the blue, "You look really cute today in that shirt." He's still massively turned on by me, even with my empty belly overhang, horrid stretch marks, and c-section scar. We made it a whole twelve days before I sent him for condoms and lube and we did the deed again post-partum. It was supposed to be six weeks? Oops.

Still, I want to feel sexy again with my clothes off. I want to get back into my small tops, all packed away in my mom's attic in a bin. I miss my red tube top and cute sundresses. Simply put, I want to be me again, the real me I found out I can be. The real me I'd been covering up with chocolate and carbs because I never felt good about myself. The real me that I didn't know could exist until she ran away and broke out.

It took living with a hot-headed ex that bordered on abusive (definitely manipulative) to make me feel so bad I needed to stop eating, then leaving him and feeling so good I just didn't need to comfort eat and got out more. I was a fat girl all through school and then I managed to lose that. Now it's here again and I will not let Fat Jaclyn win. Fat Jaclyn is not a happy person, not a healthy person. She's not who I want my daughter to grow up with. This time it won't take a bad ex to get myself in shape. Now that I know I can do it, I have a much better inspiration: I want to be able to chase my little girl around, to be a hot mom (I'm only twenty-two for Christ's sake!) and not some frumpy thing who let herself go when she had kids.

So now that I've rambled again, let's get to the bottom line of this post. Every Thursday (since I had my daughter on a Thursday and therefore that marks another week post-partum) I will weigh myself and take pictures of my progress to post on here. I weighed myself yesterday, but fell a little behind and only took the pictures today. Oops. Here it is:

Two things before I continue: First off, my underwear looks so ridiculous because I'm still wearing granny panties after my c-section and I scrunched them down to get the pictures. Second, please refrain from mocking the stickers on my mirror. This was my room growing up and they were all added between ages 13 and 15. We're living with my parents right now.

So I was wrong on my weigh in of 233. It's 233.5. Oh well. I'm still pleased, even if it's 4.5 pounds lost and not five. I'm eating much less than I used to and much, much less than I was while pregnant, so I think it'll help me have a good weigh in next week, too. I actually was very naughty and went in the pool today and swam around, so I'm starting to get more exercise. I think I'm not actually supposed to do that until I'm six or eight weeks post-partum, but I'm healed up really well and I've actually stopped really bleeding, so I said fuck it and hopped in. Totally worth it. It felt so good. Memphis in the summer is hell.

One more thing to wrap this up. Each week, in addition to posting my weight and some pics, I will force myself to find something good to say about my body. So here it is. The dark line that hasn't left yet looks like a cool birthmark or tattoo. Some women don't ever lose theirs, and I think I could live with that.

Rise From the Ashes

Hello, no one.

So I know no one's reading this, but I have delusions of grandeur so I'll try to be interesting. It's 1:48 a.m., so I'm officially three weeks post-partum after having my daughter. I had a c-section after a very strange and easy but unproductive twelve-hour labor. Her name is Everleigh Nicole and she was seven pounds, fourteen ounces, and twenty inches long. She got dark brown hair that has now turned medium darkish brown instead and we have no idea where she got it from because Erik and I are both natural blondes. He's got all sorts of strange colors in his beard, though, and my hair got much darker with age, so I guess if her hair doesn't change colors it's not too weird.

And here I am being weird and rambly.

You'll find I tend to do that a lot. Or you would if you existed. And if you existed I would tell you that I weighed myself today and I was 233 pounds. I was 258 when I went in to deliver her, so so far so good, but I've got a ways to go. My happiest weight was around 140 to 150 early last year before I got pregnant. On the bright side, I'm down five pounds just since last Thursday at my two week check up. I'd say that's something to smile about. And then reward myself with a donut for.

Okay, I'll be good. (And if I'm not, you'll never know because you don't exist, and even if you did you'd live in a computer so I could lie and you'd never know. Take that!)

I'm going to try to record my weight loss on here (if I manage any) with stories and numbers and pictures. Even if you don't exist and I'm talking to no one, maybe it'll be good to have a record. However, this won't just be some super boring diet and exercise journal. First off, I don't diet and I don't exercise. I limit the size fry I order at McDonald's (diet) and work retail (exercise). But I want to develop some healthier habits and keep track of them, so we'll see. Second off, that would be super boring, as already mentioned. I will also be sharing my obsession with super cool Pinterest crafts and what happens when/if I try any (I'm currently excited to find my mom's old stash of broken crayons and the canvases I got last year so I can try this) as well as any experiments and adventures in baking. I love baking, even if I'm just baking homemade dog cookies. (Pretty awesome shit according to my five dogs.) It may go against the whole weight loss thing, but I'm not sure I care that much. What's life without cookies?

So, no one, it's been good talking to you, getting this whole thing started. I'll see you in three weeks when I get lazy and stop posting because I forget I have a blog. Or not. Maybe I'll keep up with this one. I hope so. Delusions of grandeur, remember?

PS - I sign off with this image, found on Pinterest. I figured it fit.