Weight Loss, the Ravellenics, and More!

Hi again, dear readers!

So the Ravellenics has kicked off and I am so excited to be part of it.  The cowl I started last night for it looks so beautiful so far.  I didn't know I would be so excited by the yarn.  It's Amazing by Lion Brand yarn, in the colorway Ruby.  So awesome.

My weight loss is coming along.  Back in April I weighed by heaviest: a whopping 217 lbs.  That's way too much on a build like mine.  My doctor recommened a few weeks ago that I go on a 1500 calorie diet.  I've been taking her advice and have been using an app on my phone to help me keep track of my calories each day.

It's amazing to me how quick the calories add up when you eat junk, but how much food you can eat if you eat good stuff.  Like, five of the gummy apple rings I love so much are 120 calories.  But for 120 calories, I can have half a cup of cottage cheese and almost half a cup of cantelope.  Mind boggling!

So far it's been working though.  I am happy to report that as of yester day, I weight 207.8 lbs.  My boyfriend has helped by motivating me as well.  As soon as I lose ten more pounds, I'll weigh what I did when we met.  When I get there, he's going to get me all the stuff to make this, somehting I've been wanting to make for a while.  He's also going to take me to a nice dinner. :)

Finally, I'm working on hammering out the kinks starting my own business.  It's got a ways to go, but I think the first step is going to be doing consignment this fall with my mom.  We're going to see about sell our yarn crafts at a consignment store.  I'm starting to stockpile at the moment.  (My cowl for the Ravellenics is going to be one of the things to go in.)

As you can see it's been very busy here.  Couple that with working five days a week, and I just don't have the crazy energy to blog.

I will do my best to keep you posted as things continue to work out, though.

~Meaghan

Battles and Victories

Hello again, my dear readers.

I have just had a whirlwind of a week.  My graduation party was Saturday and was amazing, I might add.  My cousin came in from out of town and we totally hit it off - I see her now as a best friend/family/everything kind of person.  Which is good because a lot of my current friends are AWOL or morons or just unavailable.  (Busy lives makes it hard.)

I'm on the downswing, though.

The current battle is one with my moods and weight.

My moods are in the gutter.  I'm tired and I just feel like crying all the time for not good reason.  I don't feel motivated to do a lot of stuff.  It's the onset of a depression curve and I need to kill it before it pulls me under.

Then there's my weight.  Age 21 and 1/2, 5'5", and 215 lbs.  Not good.  Not good at all.  My new summer goal is to lose 25 of those pounds by August.

I'm scared though.  What if I'm going to be fat forever?  What if I can't win this battle?  What if I die young because I was stupid and kept gaining weight??? 

So those are the battles.

But there are also victories.

Like my cousin being completely awesome.  And the fact that I got a job at JC Penny.  And the writing set I got complete with pens that have to be dipped in jars of ink, a wax seal, and beautiful stationary. 

My boyfriend loves me.  My family loves me.  The few friends I have love me.

These are good things.

So we'll see how the next few weeks and months progress.  I want to be super aggressive about everything.  I want to be healthy and me.

Until next time,

Meaghan

Blogging from the Fitness Room...

...because we still don't have internet at home.  Which is fine.  I've been a lot more productive the past three months with things like knitting, designing, and, well actually I guess that's about it.

Homework is a joke.  I hate saying that.  But it's so true.  I honestly can not bring myself to do it.  I hate it.  I'm ready to be done.

Katie got a job.  She loves it.  Today is her first day, and she's currently working.  (She worked a split shift, so that's how I know she loves it.)  I worked today too, greeting people at the front of the store for six hours.  Fun times.  I had a purple skein of sock yarn for Trevor's socks in my pocket with the needles sticking out.  My mom was incredulous, but after the week I've had, I find the yarn to be comforting.

Any yarn and candles at this point are comforting.  I can't unwind without one or both. 

Starting a new diet plan.  It's not technically a diet.  It's a food journal.  I'm so tired of being tired, overweight, and at a risk for all sorts of heath problems.  By writing down what I eat, maybe I can kill my love hate relationship with food for the final time.  It's time for it to stop.

No more binge eating, no more stress eating, no more sad eating.  No more eating alone, and no more eating in front of the TV.

Instead, pick up those needles and knit.  Aggressively. :)  I can do that.

I guess I could write, too, but school has nearly killed my love and passion for it.

And that's the update from the life of Birdie.  Enjoy your weekend, dear readers.

~Meaghan

The War is On.

I'm waging war against the bathroom scale.  I have been for a long time, but now I'm finally seeing some results here.

Here's the deal.  It's not that I'm unhappy where I am.  Truth be told, I'm actually very happy where I am - I am successful at school, my writing is improving by leaps and bounds, my family and I get along great, my sister and I are talking about getting a place once I get out of college, and I look great for what I weigh, even if that may not be a size ten.

The only reason I want to lose weight is because of all the medical stuff that runs in my family.  Heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes, clogged arteries, etc.  I haven't ever had a problem with those things, but I want to make sure I don't have a problem with those things.  If that makes sense.

Basically, I want to stay healthy.  This year has been pretty good so far.  I've only been sick once and it lasted about a week and a half.  My asthma has been killing me, but that's pretty normal for spring.  (All the pollen, budding trees, and temperature changes kill.  But I still love spring.)

In January I went on this huge health thing where I was trying to work out and cut back on what I was eating.  It was slow progress that I'm not even sure was progress.  I ended up stopping it.  I started taking the elevator at school because of my lungs and how heavy my backpack is, I stopped actively working out, and I started eating whatever I felt like.

For the record, if you listen to your body and eat what it tells you to eat, you can't really go wrong.  The human body is awesome in that it knows what you need and will guide you to it.

So, I got on the scale this morning.  I'm at the lowest weight I've been at in over a year.  I feel like doing a victory dance.  And to top it off, my clothes are fitting better.  And I can see a waist actually starting to come back on me.  I'm getting my figure back.

I have no idea what I'm doing, though.  I eat what I feel like - which includes carbs, sugars, and lots of chocolate - and I'm not excercising that much.  I think what it may be is that I'm not as stressed as I was last year.  The semester is running a lot smoother even though I'm taking more classes.  I'm getting a lot more sleep and my body is adjusting to it beautifully.  (Even on days where I stay in bed to think, I am usually up by seven at the latest.)

So it's exciting.  It reinforces my thoughts that good things are coming my way. :)

On a different note, because everyone loves tangents, I'm writing a new story for creative writing.  It's about this woman who can only skip.  It's not from a spell or anything, it's just a freak medical condition.  Her boyfriend's cat (Or maybe it's her room mate's cat? I haven't decided yet.) is always bringing her dead insects (the most recent one being a cricket) and she's had enough.  So she's skipping angrily down the sidewalk, thinking about things, and ends up in the shadow of a steeple.  She goes inside and starts to cry for things she doesn't fully understand, and at the end, she hears crickets chirping outside the church.

I was thinking boyfriend, cause then maybe he could be cheating on her which would explain why he's never around to witness the dead insects.  But if it's a room mate, then maybe the room mate could be a huge partier and basically leaves the main character to take care of the cat. 

Ah, things to think about.  What do you guys think?

(Also, please don't steal this idea.  I've seen enough episodes of CSI and CSI:NY as well as read enough Stephen King that I know how to find you; and no one will find the evidence, either.  So please.  Don't make me come after you, readers.)

Maybe when I'm done with it, I'll post it up here.  We shall see.

Alright, I need to go write that story.  Homework doesn't wait for anyone, you know.

~Meaghan