Uh oh, spaghetti-o!

Quite literally, uh oh spaghetti-o! 

I have had SO many carbs in the past 8 or 9 days it's not funny. Scroll through my food diary on MyFitnessPal. See, carbs. Carbs, carbs, carbs.

My body has been doing all kinds of strange things (and before anyone asks, no, I'm not pregnant!) in these 8 or 9 days, but thankfully it will all be over in the next 48-72 hours. Uni assignments suck. Last Thursday, I was at uni until 23:30, and didn't get to eat dinner until midnight. MIDNIGHT! The only choices were McDonald's or the likes, or something in Chinatown. We chose Chinatown.

We meandered aimlessly from RMIT through Chinatown. Our favourite haunt closed at 22:00, we were devastated and didn't know what to do. All the places that were open on Little Bourke Street either didn't cater to our fancy, or to our budget. Our meandering lead us to Russell Street. We were headed east along Russell from Little Bourke and found that we still had no idea of where we would eat. The walking and indecisiveness was doing nothing for our seemingly insatiable hunger. In a fit of dire straits, we turned around to venture back down Little Bourke. In doing so, we saw that Noodle Kingdom on Russell was doing a bit of a good trade, so headed in. We were seated quickly, along with menus, which we poured over in an overwhelmed state of hunger. Our order was a little slow in being taken, and with two hungry people this was not ideal. 

We settled on spring rolls (because I wanted something to start), Beijing Style Fried Noodles and Combination Seafood Fried Rice. And, of course, a pot of jasmine tea.

Oh. My. Goodness. Seriously, could this food be any tastier, bigger or more budget-friendly?! Granted, the spring rolls were pretty ave. - A ate one and I ate a quarter of one and left them to the side. The noodle and rice dishes on the other hand were GARGANTUAN and just as nommy as they were gargantuan. So gargantuan in fact we could not eat it all; we took the leftovers home! Winning! We walked out, or should I say rolled out, with dinner for the next night. $26 for four meals - bargain, I say! 

Apologies for lack of imagery again, I really ought to get with it and provide the pics, but when one has been staring at assignments without much food, all good reasoning and thoughts fly out the window.

Part of said university assignment (Friday afternoon, possibly even the morning)

Anywhoo, back to it. So yeah, we ate, and arrived home around 00:30-ish. Yuck. Absolutely disgusting. I got into my pjs, hopped on the couch under the Genya-blankie (the toasty warm wool blanket that belonged to A's great aunt) and settled in for an all nighter with my study buddy on the other end of the computer (it was a group assignment). We were doing pretty well, until I started dozing off somewhere between 02:15 and 02:30. I woke at 02:45, promptly went to bed and slept until just before 07:00. Up and at 'em, this assignment from hell was due in 10 hours. I made it with 10 minutes to spare, despite having finished it 3 hours before it was due. Once I'd showered and dressed and all that jazz, I went to Officeworks to use the awesome multifunction Xerox machines. The printing and collating process took about 30 minutes, leaving me an hour and a half to get to uni. AN HOUR LATER, I finally reached uni. What is so significant about this hour? I live 9km from uni. Yep. You read right. 9km last Friday afternoon took me one hour. Hopeless. Oh well, what's done is done.

This week hasn't been much better food and sleep wise. More assignments and more carbs, though I'm trying to avoid the carbs now, despite having one more assignment to submit.

One thing that helps me constantly in anything is visual aids. I'm a huge list fan. If I could have lists on the walls in front of my desk, I would (we live in a rental and although it's possible to hang stuff on the walls, it's not entirely practical). I have four planners on the fridge (although, I admit, right now only one of them is in use but once uni is done (roll on next week!) they will all be in action again): a weekly planner, a meal planner, a chore planner and a to do list. Then there's the changeable whiteboard monthly calendar hanging on a hook that was already in the kitchen perpendicular to the fridge. Also let it be noted that I have a day-to-a-page diary and my phone calendar in operation too. OCD much (where the O is replaced with Organisational)?

My love of lists flows into the bathroom, where I have a whole bunch of numbers and lines printed on a sheet, blue-tacked to a bit of cardboard which is then blue-tacked to the wall. This one is the most important of them all: it's my weight loss chart.

I didn't really have a goal in mind when I made the chart, it just kind of started at 100 (being 100kg) and went to 60 (because it was a nice, round number). In April, 60kg wasn't really my end goal.

 

Weight loss chart and scales

Now, you might be fooled into thinking that I am some 7 ft giant taking this photo, but I'm not. The reality is that I'm 5'2" (156cm, given that I am in a country that uses metric) and I had to stand on the bath and toilet edges (seat down, of course) and hold the camera at ridiculous angles to be able to capture both my $10 K-mart scales and my weight loss chart.

This weight loss chart has helped me get to where I am today just as much as changing the way I eat, what I eat, how much I'm exercising, etc. etc. etc.

For those of you who do read my blog, you'll know that Weigh In Wednesday is the important day of the week for me. Why Wednesday? It was the first time I weighed myself after the loss of my very dear friend (10 days before), and the first real day of my weight loss journey. Wednesday 18 April 2012 was the day I took a stand for myself. Pretty sure Gary would be damned proud of me (love you, Brian!). I didn't do this for Gary, I did it for me because I was sick and tired of it. There was the never-ending feeling of hatred because I couldn't buy clothing that suited a 27yo female, there was the feeling of embarrassment because I felt like I was a burden to A, and then there was the fact that I have a very serious back injury and people would constantly tell me that I couldn't do things and that I needed to take care of my back. In the end, I just thought f*ck it, I am sick and tired of being told I can't do something. So I started. I haven't looked back. Don't think that this has been an easy journey - goodness knows it hasn't. You'll see in the next picture that there has been lots of dates not recorded. I didn't want to record gains, I didn't see the point, I only wanted to record the losses. Nobody wants to be reminded of a gain (unless of course they are trying to gain, or are having a baby (even then it's debatable about gaining!)). It's now in the wee hours of Friday (in Australia, its currently 00:18). I had wanted to write this blog post yesterday (with yesterday being Wednesday given that I am yet to go to sleep) and talk to you about my Weigh In Wednesday for this week.

Weight loss chart close up

Remember how I said I'd had heaps of carbs and not a lot of sleep and so forth? That was reflected evidently in this week's weigh in. I PUT ON EVERY SINGLE KILOGRAM I LOST THE WEEK BEFORE. I was devastated, though I was not surprised. A week out from my September/October challenge, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Oh well, duly noted, onward and upward.

This chart keeps me real. There's no cheating with this. When the scales show me the numbers, the date goes up. If I gain, nothing happens with the chart, but I keep looking at it to remind myself to keep going. I'm actually really tempted to get A to hide the scales from me and only put them in the bathroom on a Wednesday morning before he leaves for work. I've gotten really bad and have been weighing myself a few times a week. Seriously, that's really bad.

Right now, I should be sleeping. Don't quote me on it, but I'm sure I read somewhere legit that the more sleep you get before midnight, the better off you are. It's no secret that sleeping helps with weight loss. I'm almost certain that my awesome losses are because I've had amazing sleep patterns and have been guzzling water like it's going out of fashion. Oh wait, it is going out of fashion. Don't forget to conserve water people, it's a finite resource and we kind of need it to exist. Along with my awesome sleeping and water-guzzling habits going out the window, so has my daily recording on MFP, and reading of French Women Don't Get Fat. Clearly I have been French in the lead up to last week, but this week I'm back to being an Aussie! Need to get back into the French mindset.

So, for now, because I'm starting to babble on a touch, I'm going to end it here. I know I keep promising photos of clothing and the sorts, and perhaps I will once I've finished uni. I'll even share some Polyvore stuff (or just click on the Polyvore icon up top right there). 

Sweet dreams, it's sleep time now!