Holy Hell

 ... I can't even begin to describe the clustercuck that is my job right now.  I'll put in about 60 hours this week, easy.  I held one of the clients in a physical restraint for HOURS yesterday (incidentally, that was my day "off").  She's currently in restraints now after kicking and biting other staff.  And that's the easy part.  The hard part is the official state investigations into alleged abuse by two of the staff who have worked at the house.

Shoot me.  Shoot me in the face.

The REALLY hard part (ha) is that I have literally been unable to maintain the ability to count the calories that go into my mouth.  I am physically not capable of being bitten, kicked, slapped, and punched WHILE holding a full-grown woman who has no concept of self-preservation in a physical restraint without eating.  So I've been eating, and occasionally puking.  (Don't tell anyone I said this, but hot damn do I wish mechanical restraints were legal in the residential setting.  Physically holding someone who is very combative is HARD work, yo.)

But I guess it's hard enough work that I'm burning off the calories that do end up staying in my stomach, because the scale has been rewarding me. Not in leaps and bounds, but in decent enough increments (a few tenths of a pound a day) that I'm not completely freaking out... yet.

I imagine some people might consider eating vegetable soup with saltines and then going outside and puking it up in the woods "completely freaking out," but of course it's not.  It's entirely rational and not disordered whatsoever.

Speaking of being not disordered whatsoever...

Today I was standing in a drugstore attempting to rectify a payment issue for one of the clients, and it was taking ages.  The woman behind the pharmacy counter told me I could have a seat and wait until she called me.  Teh interwebz tell me that standing burns more calories than sitting, so I chose to stand.  After ten or fifteen minutes, I was completely zoned out, standing utterly motionless at the very end of an isle, right near the pharmacy.  One hand on my hip, the other hand behind me with my thumb tucked into my back pocket.  I was slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, I'm sure.  An elderly woman walked up the isle and didn't notice me until she was fairly close.  She jumped a little and said, "You look like a model, just standing there!"

Instantly, I felt very, very, VERY fat.

Because that's normal.

P.S. - While typing this, I got a call from the executive director of my company, as well as my program director being all OMG CAN YOU FILE REPORTS RIGHT THIS MINUTE SO WE CAN PROMPTLY IGNORE THEM UNTIL MONDAY?!!?  Fine.  Yes.  I can.  Dipshits. So I'm heading back into work shortly to file restraint reports.

FML.  F all our Ls.

An Apple a Day... Apparently Doesn't Do Shit

For background: I work for a company that provides in-home care for people with disabilities.  The house I work in has three residents and ten staff. We staff 24/7 at a 1:1 ratio. I'm the Program Manager, which just means I'm the boss in the one house.

So, today I worked 3pm-9pm, and by 5pm I was sitting pretty at 165 kcals.  I'd eaten cereal with unsweetened almond milk (150 kcals) and pickles (15 kcals... Well, okay, the jar said 0 kcals but it was clearly lying to me, so I'm estimating 15 kcals).

A member of the nursing team for the house (the highest-up one) was doing a site visit and I was talking to him about our medication delivery that had just come in.  I was crouched down, loading bottles of meds into the bottom of our med cabinet and I stood up too fast.  My vision went black around the edges and my knees got weak.  Instinctively, I grabbed the top of the cabinet to keep myself upright.

Being a nurse, he noticed and surmised the cause.

Goddammit.

He told me to sit down. --- I did need to sit down, so I did.

He told me to eat something.  --- I blanched and agreed with a smile and a laugh.

But I didn't make any moves to get any food.  I was hoping he'd forget.  Being a GOOD nurse, he didn't.  And two minutes later, he said, "Chloe, get something to eat now.  Before you pass out. You won't be any help to anyone if you're on the floor."

Great.  Just great.  Guilt trips suck.

So I heated up a container of veggie soup, and ate it in front of him.  I felt like a fucking child.  A guilty, irritated, embarrassed child.

By the way... I blame this on being tall.  I have decided if I were short (I'm not; I'm 5'11"), blood would make it to my brain fast enough that I wouldn't be at risk for passing out so easily when I'm not eating much.  Yup, that's right.  It's not the food intake, it's my height.  SEE HOW THAT WORKS, DAMMIT?

In any case, I then came home shortly past 9pm, and watched a DVR'd episode of Iron Chef while swallowing the massive amounts of saliva my mouth was producing.  God, I'm hungry.  

Also, I have decided I have a crush on one of the Iron Chefs.  Michael Symon does it for me, in a really odd way.  He's this kinda goofy, 41-year-old bald dude who is positively in love with foods I despise, like offal.  In fact, he loves offal so much, he wears t-shirts that just say "offal" on them.  Like so:

Offal, in case you were wondering, is "a culinary term used to refer to the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal."  Yeah.  Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah. 

So I'm an eating disordered vegan with a quasi-crush on a professional chef who gets jazzed when he thinks about cooking entrails. Match made in hell, I assure you.  

(I'd still do him.  Just sayin'.)

Uh, so, where was I?  Food today.  Bring on The List!

• High fiber cereal - 130
• Unsweetened almond milk - 20
• Pickles - 15
• Vegetable soup - 145

Intake: 310 kcals

(The scale better not have shit to say about that tomorrow or I'll kick the thing until it begs for mercy. Which it will not get, 'cause I'm a bad ass motherfucka, ya hear?  *throws gang symbols*)

Pop Goes the Weasel

Another long day, work, idiocy at work, blah blah blah.

Today would have been an even 900 kcals.  (Which I blame on the 420 fucking calories of vanilla and pomegranate cashews I ate.  Fuck those things, seriously. Minus those two packets of nuts?  I'd have been at a respectable 480 kcals for the day.  I could have been proud of that, happy with that... But noooooooo.  I just HAD to eat the fucking cashews.)  

In any case, I would have been at 900 kcals...But then I was overwhelmed by how that was TOO MUCH FOOD OMG, and decided puking was the better option.

I'm not proud of that. I didn't want to resort to throwing up.  I just... I need to be more careful.  I need to be more realistic.  Under a 1,000 calories is still a caloric deficit, I should still lose weight, and there was no need to go and puke.

Are you convinced yet?  Yeah, neither am I.  It was way too much food... "Realistic" can suck my dick, I want to delete myself.

Feh, meh, bah, etc.

I didn't have time to post yesterday.

Sunday's intake was 661 kcals.  Not hideous, compared with the day before.  But when I got on the scale this morning, I found I was down a whopping tenth of a pound from when I weighed in on Friday morning.  *grumbles*

I suppose it's better than being UP, but still.  I was fucking disappointed.

I'm planning a few recipe posts in the next couple days...  Be excited!  (Jesus, not that excited.  Calm down.  Put your pants back on, weirdo.)

So far today, I'm at 290 kcals.  I'm going to attempt to eat one of my patented Normal Looking Meals so my roommate won't notice I've gone off the deep end started restricting again.  I just have to figure out what it's going to be... It will most likely involve onions and kale, all fancied up so they look like a planned, balanced, and normal meal.

I'm a big fan of my Normal Looking Meals that are really low-calorie and part of a larger plan to eliminate my fat ass.  Part of this battle is convincing people I'm losing weight in a healthy way.  Then they won't bother me until I start getting really tiny. (Please, please, please get really tiny. That would rock.)

Or when they start noticing I'm weighing onions so I know the exact caloric value of them. 

Whatever.

Bless me, Father...

Today was fairly miserable in terms of food.

I started off slow - I worked the awake overnight, cleaning and not sleeping the whole time without eating.  Then I came to visit my dad, which I've had planned for a while.

I napped, so by 3:30pm I hadn't eaten a thing. 

Then, I went to fucking town. I ate a bunch of crackers with natural peanut butter and jelly, and a 100-calorie bag of popcorn. The crackers were HORRIFYING.  I intended on eating two.  I was so hungry I ate probably fourteen of them. *kicks furniture*

THEN we went out to dinner.  I ate part of a personal-sized flatbread pizza (red sauce, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, and black olives) and drank a glass of Riesling. Oh, and I made myself soy chai when I got home, because my dad was eating ice cream while we watched a movie and I passed on buying coconut milk ice cream at the store saying I was going to have chai instead.  Also, because I'm a lardass. God, I'm depressed about this.

After googling endlessly, and frantically estimating, I have decided I ate a stupidly large number of calories today. (See below.)

I'm going to... I don't even know what.  I guess I'm just going to pretend it's somehow good for my metabolism?  Yeah, I don't believe it either.  Then I'll restrict the hell out of tomorrow.  Which shouldn't be too hard - I have to work from 9am-9pm.

But, Jesus, did I eat a lot today.  

In cooler news, my dad got me a birthday present this afternoon.  It's a newly released iPad 2! Black, 64GB, with a Smart Cover. Fuck-to-the-yeah. I'll have an iPhone AND an iPad.  Who wants to try to out-douche me now?  Huh? Huh? It's ON, bitches. I am the douchiest douche who ever douched! (I've never actually douched, come to think of it.  Who the hell does that anyway?)

I looked at the full moon tonight, too.  It's something like 14% bigger and 30% brighter than usual. The Algonquins called the full moon in March the Worm Moon.  

But tonight I learned that another name for it is the Death Moon. Well, fuck me running, tonight is the EMO MOON! Hahahahaha! To get fully into character, please join me for a discovery I made tonight while researching the full moon...

Other Fun Moon Fact:  My mother went into labor with me on the night of a full moon - February 27th, 1983.  Want to know what many of the Native American tribes from my area of the U.S. called it?  The Hunger Moon.

*puts on black glasses, scribbles crappy poetry, dies alone*

(Editor's Note: I simply cannot believe it took me 28 fucking years to figure out that little piece of trivia. How have I gone this long with an eating disorder without a gem of twat-fodder like "I was born under the Hunger Moon" in my repertoire?  I've missed out on some awesome opportunities to be a gigantic asshat over the years.  I may never forgive myself for this.)

Intake: 1,895 kcals (estimated)

Friday Friday Friday

Today was lightheaded and buzzy and woo!  

I've got to head into work tonight, to do an 11pm-10am awake overnight shift and I'm VERY worried about eating and/or binging there. I'm scared.  Terrified.  If I can stay under 580 kcals, I will be under 1,000 kcals for the day... If I can eat nothing, I might actually feel decent about myself, maybe.  

I think I'll bring some Jolly Ranchers along with me to suck on if I get desperate.  It should fight off some cravings, if I'm lucky!

I have eaten so far:

• 1 serving of garlic mashed cauliflower and potato - 141 kcals
• 5 vegan meatless balls - 150 kcals
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce - 50 kcals
• 160 grams of lettuce - 39 kcals
• 2 Tbs balsamic vinaigrette - 30 kcals

Intake: 420 kcals

I'm calling my intake for today since it's past 2:00am. (Still at work, and I've been cleaning all night!) If I cave and eat something, it'll count on tomorrow.  So today was a decent day.

RECIPE: Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Cauliflower

Got a craving for yummy mashed potatoes, but don't want to break the calorie-bank to eat 'em?  Try this recipe for garlic mashed cauliflower and potatoes!  

It's not quite as creamy as straight potatoes, but I think it's darn tasty. Serving size is large enough to fill your tummy without making you feel too guilty.  

Plus, you get around 6 grams of fiber and protein and all of your vitamin C and for only 141 kcals and under 2 grams of fat! 

Compare that to the EXACT same serving size of straight mashed potato, prepared the EXACT same way, and you will see the difference...  That has less fiber, less protein, only a third of your vitamin C, and it will cost you 276 calories and over five grams of fat. Yikes!

I'm sure you could get creative with it and add/remove things to your liking, but sometimes I just want plain old garlic mashed. Mmmmm!

Ingredients:

• 1 (16 oz) bag of frozen cauliflower florets
• 11 oz potato, peeled and cubed
• 1 Tbs minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbs Smart Balance Light

Directions:

1. Bring water to a boil in a medium sized stock pot
2. Add potatoes and cook until they are about halfway done. Then add cauliflower and cook until everything is mash-able.
3. Drain the potatoes and cauliflower and let them hang out in the drainer.
4. Into the still-hot pan with the burner still on, put the Smart Balance Light and the garlic and saute until the garlic is soft and aromatic.
5. Turn off the heat and add the cauliflower potatoes back into the pan. Add the salt (and pepper if you want - I had run out - and any other spices you might like) and then smash the crap outta everything!

Yields 3 servings.  

PLEASE NOTE: Nutritional information is for one serving.  All recipes seen here are 100% vegan.  Because I suffer enough when it comes to eating my food - no other living, breathing, feeling creature needs to suffer as well, ever.

Welcome to my Thursday Blues

Hi... You can call me Chloe. 

I'm a vegan

I have an eating disorder

I also happen to be fat fat fat fat fat

I'm going through a non-messy but totally devastating breakup

I'm planning on disappearing, physically.  It will be a long haul, because I am pretty damn fat at the moment.  I'll be posting all about my weight-loss, vegan recipes, and the crap that comes with an eating disorder and a breakup.

Feel free to watch the show. 

Today I've eaten cauliflower and potato.  I've drank/eaten some Fruit2Day.  And I ate a 100-calorie packet of raw almonds.  

Intake: 720 kcals