Sleeping is Not My Thing

Alteast this weekend sleep isn't my thing. Since Friday I haven't gotten more than 8-9 hours put together. If it's not me just being wonky one day, it's the damn wind making a racket because of a pressure change. So here I am 4:30 awake, and none to happy about it. In fact I'm about ready to cry. I have to work tomorrow, an 8 AM class on Monday, and I can't get a decent nights sleep to save my life. I feel horrible and that makes it easier for me to fall back into old habits, like hating my body.

I have too much going on right now to be losing sleep, and I don't have time to recharge. When I'm not at work, I'm in classes, when I'm not in classes I'm trying to study, and when I'm not doing those I'm being nagged at by people who I once considered really close friends. Oh and of course my college if retarded, we don't get a fall break fall semester. We go clear from early September to mid/late November with no days off. But then in the spring we have something like 4 weeks worth of vacation. I wish they would take those days right before finals that they give us "spring mini break" and shove them in the middle of October, but no, they have to be jerks.

*head desk* I just want some sleep and a day where I can curl up in bed and cry or do something that doesn't involve, school, work, or anything else that has kept me too busy lately.

34, 30, and No You Can't Have My Measurements

Has nothing to do with age! XD Nope this have everything to do with everything due or happening on the same days when you're in college and a special event that's coming up. Tomorrow I have 1. a test in my bio class that I have to study for and 2. a 34 pg. reading assignment about Homer that we will be discussing in my Ancient Greece class. Now sometimes I don't mind reading assignments...but this is one of those times where I want to smack my professor. You see, it's taken 20 minutes to load this document that I'm supposed to read, and then I have t print it out, oh and parts of it are in ancient Greek. Lovely.

Ok, I'm gonna drop that before I get on my soap box.

Now on to the good news. In 30 days, my boyfriend will be here. This will be the first time we've met in person due to his job and my schooling. (He's in the Air Force, I'm in college obviously)

So do you ever wonder where the hell they came up with the perfect measurements for women? I do, I honestly think it's ridiculous for people to be judged by a number on a measuring tape. Now I know how important these measurements are to people who sew clothing and such (I sew so I've used my own and other people's measurements). But to go on and on about how this or that woman has the perfect body shape or measurements is just as bad as going on about the number on the scale. So unless you are having clothes made for you, are making clothes for yourself, or not sure about size when ordering over the internet, don't measure your waistline, don't measure your bust. *steps off her soap box and hides it under the bed again*

Food is Not the Enemy

So food really isn't the enemy for larger men and women. It's their lack of self confidence. Now mind you at the moment I'm having problems with a picky stomach, but food isn't the enemy. Understandably people believe that food is the root of all their problems when they're fat, but truly it's not. Over the past few weeks I've been following what is called "Intuitive eating", basically I eat what I feel like when I feel like it. I want ice cream I have ice cream. I want an orange I have an orange. It's whatever sounds good to me at the time. And I've slowly begun figuring out what my body is wanting from me.

For example, late last week I bought a pizza, just plain cheese, no topping or anything. I have yet to eat more than three slices of it because everytime I think about eating it, my stomach turns. But the instant I think about eating some of that meatball soup I have in the freezer, my stomach grumbles at me. Or if I make a quick tuna salad sandwich m stomache is relatively happy. So at this point my body doesn't want greasy, oily foods, it wants things that are light. And for the past few days I've been craving food from this wonderful italian place but I really don't need to spend the money on going out. So I'm stuck trying to make do with what I have. So far I'm not so sure how well that's worked out. But I am learning. And I've found now that I've started enjoying my food and what it tastes like, I've stopped really thinking about what other people have to say or what they think about what I'm eating. And the truth is other people really don't care unless they have no life of their own.

Of Corsetry and Boffers

So my boyfriend almost got in trouble this past week. It all started with a new guy at work wanting to start up a LARP (Live Action Role-Playing game) group over on the Osan Airbase. Well the rest of the guys in his shop were all of the opinion that people who play LARP's are...uninteresting. Now I play a LARP. It's called Amtgard. We hit each other with padded PVC pipes, padded bamboo, and padded graphite cores. So he feels the need to speak up and say something about this. So he does. Well his MSgt was there at the time and asked him, "How the hell do you know someone in Montana when you've never been there?!" to which my boyfriend replied, "Well Sir, there's this thing called the internet..." Fortunately his MSgt has a sense of humor and laughed.

So this lead to a conversation about corsetry. Now, since most of the game I play is based in a fantasy/medieval type world, corsets are fairly common among the ladies that play. Yes we go beat on guys with sticks wearing corsets. It's fun, you should try it some time! We count boobs as distraction armor. XD So today as I was playing I brought my camera along and took photos and let other people take photos, and got some good ones for him to show these silly men what LARP's are all about.

Alright now on to the main event of the day! I finished "Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere" yesterday. Awesome read, I'm gonna suggest it again to anyone who reads this. These ladies are so right in their thinking. It makes so much sense what they have to say.

Death to the Diet! Hello Cupcake!

So, I picked up "Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere" by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby and I'm over halfway through it. Now what's one of the first things they have to say to their readers. Diets don't work. Yep it's true, science has shown that starving yourself or going on specific diets that tell you to cut out certain types of food do not work. After 5 years most of the weight women have lost through the diets comes back.

Anyway I love this book. It's all about learning how to be self-confident and treat yourself right regardless of your size. They talk about intuitive eating and finding exercise you enjoy doing just because it's fun, not because you want to lose weight. They also rag on the media for showing mostly thin women and for airbrushing the photos we see so much that they don't even look like themselves.

But yeah I'm not making much sense today with this. Go buy the book or borrow it and read it. It's absolutely fabulous. Also check out the two authors blogs and all the resources they put in the back.

Back in School and Surprisingly Happy

I started back for fall semester this week. Normally I cringe whenever I walk down the halls at the sight of all these size 2 girls draped over guys arms, and doing the whole giggle and be shallow routine. Mind you not all the girls are like that, but it just seems like I see so many of them. Well that was last year. ^_^ This year I walk down the halls and am able to ignore them. Why? Because someone calls me beautiful, and I believe him.

Last year I'd sit and feel miserable at tables in the cafe as all around me it seemed like all these girls, who I thought were prettier than me due to the fact that they were all thin, had someone that thought they were desirable. Mind you I wasn't envious of any one of them in particular over any one guy. I can honestly say I haven't seen one of these girls with someone that I would like to be involved with in any way. I just felt terrible over the fact that they seemed to be able to find a person who was interested in them while I was stuck in a corner.

This year, I really don't care. It very rarely crosses my mind to be unhappy while I'm on campus anymore, because I know when I go home I have something to look forward too. And this semester especially I have something to look forward to as my boyfriend is coming to see me in October over my birthday. So more often than not I'm not thinking about how these skinny girls are all prettier than I am, I'm thinking about when he's coming to see me or just thinking about him in general. So I usually end up walking around between classes with a goofy grin on my face.

So yeah this isn't exactly about weight, but when someone says you're gorgeous and you can believe them, it's a good feeling and can change your entire outlook. It gives you the confidence you need to lift your head high and basically tell society's idea of pretty to shove it.

Recent Devlopements

So, just last week my boyfriends mom made some comments about my weight based on a photo he sent her. Now, she's never met me in person and the photo was 4 years old back before I was diagnosed with PCOS. So I look larger and not very feminine in the photo. I was also in Germany at the time and running around in partially in ruins castle. So I was in comfortable clothes rather than nice ones. But still this got to me and I started thinking in the back of my head that I wasn't good enough for him.

Now mind you my boyfriend has no idea his mom has said this and I'm not gonna tell him about it because it would cause tension. His brother is the one that told me about it, but he's always been very supportive of our relationship. In fact as he put it, I'm good enough because I've been able to get his brother to fly halfway around the world to see me. My boyfriend is in South Korea right now with the Air Force.

Anyway I was able to talk with his brother last night about my doubts since I'm not supposed to talk about it with his fiance (my best friend) or my boyfriend for obvious reasons. And he helped me through it a little bit with the previously mentioned schpeal about my getting his brother out of his shell. But he also assured me that their mom would love me once she met me. That she was just worried about her son finding someone he could grow old with.

But I did talk about this with some of the ladies on the PCOS group I'm a part of and one of them pointed me towards her fat acceptance blog along with several others. I read through it and found that I have felt or am feeling a lot of the same things these other women like me are feeling. So it's prompted me to start up this blog to kind of write out my journey towards acceptance of myself. I'll probably end up venting on here on and whine and just be an all around pain in the neck, but I can hope that it'll help others or even just help me if no one else reads it.