So. It’s been nearly a year since I updated this, which is pretty nutso. Overall it’s been a great year — got a job (!!!!) in DC (!!!!) in journalism (!!!!), still with my awesome boyfriend (!!!!) and most of my college friends are still in town (!!!!). But while I’m pretty proud of myself as far as transitioning from college to “real life,” I haven’t been all that conscientious about health stuff.

I could give lots of excuses about why that is, but what it really all boils down to is that I haven’t made it a high enough priority. And I’m ready to change that.

I finally bought a working scale and got up the nerves to weigh myself this morning. I’m currently clocking in at 148, which isn’t all that bad given how little effort I’ve put into my health lately. But it’s not where I want to be. So, now I’m heading out for a walk. Later today I think I’m going to put together a more comprehensive plan for how I want to get back on track with health stuff. But for now, walking.

So. Last night, as promised, I got drunk. I drank shitty beer and cheap champagne and sugary mixed drinks and danced a lot. It was a good time.

You know what was also a good time? Posing for pictures and not worrying about positioning myself at the exact angle that would make me look somewhat skinny. Also, people I hadn’t seen much this semester coming up to me and drunkenly telling me that I look awesome. That was a good time.

And it also made me realize that the effort I’ve been putting in to health stuff has real consequences, and that’s super. I’m really liking what I see when I look in the mirror. BUT. I’m way less fond of what I’ve been seeing on my erstwhile goals chart. Because, I really haven’t been putting much effort into my health or weight loss. And that’s been reflected in my weight, which has been hovering between 140 and 142 for the past weeks.

The question, I guess, is what incentive do I have to rededicate myself to health and further weight loss. I’m happy with how I look overall, I do have other serious time commitments, and I’ve already lost about 25 pounds, which is a pretty impressive accomplishment in and of itself. And I think that really the heart of the problem is a motivation issue. So, before I can really reboot, I need to figure out what my motivation is going forward.

I took some time to look at my first posts, and what stands out is that I had a real medical motivation to lose weight. I was careening toward “obese” territory, and given that I have a history of back problems that can be aggravated by excess weight, this didn’t bode well for me. Now I’m down to about where I need to be to technically be considered a healthy weight. But, I do think that my body naturally functions best at around 130-135. I really believe that that’s the ideal weight for me—low enough to be comfortably in the healthy range and low enough that I’m not going to be putting excess stress on my back. So, I do think the medical issue still pertains somewhat.

But right now I think my big motivation has to be a drive to finish what I started. I got into this hoping to be down to 135 by the end of May (ideally before my graduation, which is May 21). And I want to accomplish that. So I am going to.

And given that I only have 5-10 pounds to lose before I’m where I want to be, I want to really focus on how the habits I’m setting for myself can be sustainable and really integrated into my daily routine.

OK. So. Refocused on my motivation. Next up: tackling the specific issues I’ve been having lately:

1. Too much snacking. Yes, I’m snacking on somewhat healthier things than I was before, but it’s the same old pattern. If I’m going to snack, it needs to be something that’s going to give me the energy to get through the day and it needs to be substantial enough to keep me full. That’s not what I’ve been choosing for snacks lately, though.
2. Unwillingness to do full workout sessions. When I have been managing to make it to the gym lately, a lot of the time I’ve been only doing one component of my elliptical-swim workout. Partly it’s because I’m time crunched, but mostly I’m just being lazy. That needs to stop.
3. I haven’t been cooking substantive meals. Now, I can’t tell if this is because I’ve been eating more large lunches and small dinners (good) or because I’ve just been lazy (bad). But either way I don’t feel like I’m spending enough time or effort on making healthy meals for myself.
4. Not enough salads. This really has to change, because if anything salads are a good indicator of whether or not I’m willing to do something that doesn’t come easily to me in order to be a healthy person. And lately the answer to that has routinely been no.

So. Those are my issues. How to solve them? I think I’m going to have a 5-6-7 rule. FIVE full workout sessions per week, SIX salads, and no more than SEVEN meals that I didn’t personally prepare. As for snacks, I’m going to be banning myself from buying any junk food from the campus convenience store, because that is where pretty much all of my bad snacking decisions emanate from. I realized pretty early on that “pretty much the biggest factor in my weight loss has been replacing trips to my school’s convenience store with trips to the gym.” I need to get back to that paradigm.

OK. I feel good. I feel like good things will happen if I stick to the plan. Five full workouts, six salads, seven meals out. No convenience store snack food. Finishing strong. In point of fact: off to the gym now!

Adventures in being in a major funk continue.

Good news: I have a sorta-kinda temporary job lined up for the beginning of the summer and, because my parents are awesome, I’m gonna get to stay in D.C. Which is a huge, huge relief.

And yet. And yet…

For some reason I’m still feeling like crap. I don’t know if it’s shark week hormones or  general anxiety about graduation or rejection-related blues or what, but I just cannot get myself in a good mood lately. I’ve totally been going through the motions with school and work and health, and then I’m getting pissed when I’m not getting effusive praise for my very mediocre efforts. Which, yeah, makes zero sense.

I don’t even know. I feel like I should take some time to center myself, but life just kind of keeps on moving so briskly that I can’t seem to get grounded before some other mini-crisis sweeps me away. Maybe this weekend. Which, of course, is what I said last week.

Anyway, tonight is the big end-of-the-semester party night for the newspaper I’m on. I should be pumped, because this is a huge tradition and I have a lot of awesome memories connected to it. My freshman year, it was the first time one of the older staffers told me I was going to be the future of the paper. Last year, it was the first time my wonderful boyfriend and I finally got up the balls to say I love you. And in general it’s always just a really fun time. And yet. I’m so not pumped right now. This semester I’ve been way less involved in the paper. While I still contribute, I’m not an editor anymore and I’ve chosen to devote more of my time to my thesis and trying to find a job and being lovey dovey with the boyfriend. And basically tonight just seems like a kind of inconvenience that’s gonna ruin my productivity for the week and unnecessarily up my calorie count.

And God, typing that sentence just made me sound like the ultimate buzzkill.

OK. This is ending now. Tonight I am going to have fun. I am going to have a glass of wine and then I am going over to the newspaper office to enjoy my last final production night party. I am going to get drunk and enjoy it, because I fucking deserve to have a little fun. And then, TOMORROW, I am going to take some time to reflect on what I want to do with the month or so I have until graduation.

Off to get drunk. We’ll talk more tomorrow!

So, truth time here. As awesome as I felt about reaching 140 on Friday morning, the rest of the day was not so hot. I found out that afternoon that I got turned down for yet another internship I was hoping to have this summer… bringing the total number of jobs I was rejected from last week up to three. And that was pretty shredding as far as self-esteem goes.

So basically this weekend was devoted to me having a series of breakdowns about not being employed/employable and feeling too stressed/self-indulgent to make good health decisions. It wasn’t awful, but it certainly wasn’t good. And while I was hoping to use Saturday to reflect on and reboot my health goals, I ended up just moping and thinking about career stuff instead.

When you add to that the fact that this week is supposed to be shark week and there’s going to be a big middle-of-the-week newspaper party, this seems like not the ideal time to embark on Operation Perfect Week. So that’s being pushed back to next week. In the meantime, I’m going to be focusing on staying on top of school work and feeling better about the job hunt but also trying to meet my minimum goals for health stuff.

So. This morning I finally weighed in at 140. Which means I am finally back in the “healthy” BMI range! And, oh yeah, also means I’ve officially lost 25 pounds.

Do I understand how this happened after I weighed in at 142 yesterday? No. But how do I feel about it, you ask?

In short: really. fucking. happy.

Awesome way to start the day.

10 pages in one day! Huzzah!

And only an hour after I’d hoped to finish! Yahoo!

Tomorrow will involve: waking up early to do some basic editing of said 10 pages, because I’m fairly sure there are some very ungrammatical parts; six hours of work; serious workout and swim sesh; jambalaya party with friends.

So happy this round of thesis stuff is done. Can finally refocus on what’s important.