Just needed to blog

I don't officially start back on SBD until tomorrow but I felt like I had to blog out some feelings. I went to bed last night at 1:30 a.m. (don't ask!) and woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. So I've barely had 4 hours of sleep and I am so tired. I'm also feeling nauseous because I woke up with a headache and took an aspirin without thinking about the fact that it was on an empty stomach, which always makes me feel a little sick. I am just so unfocused right now and feeling so down on myself.

I'm also feeling so frustrated about my weight. I am now exactly at the weight that I was when I started my first LC diet back in 2002 (153). The 30 pounds that I lost 3 years ago have all come back. I recently decided to try an experiment (since I'm vegetarian and wanting to eventually be a vegan) - doing what I call the "anti-Atkins" diet . Meaning, very high carb (all good carbs, though, whole grains, beans, etc), no added fat at all (I think I was at about 4% fat total in my diet), lots of veggies (which is the only thing that isn't anti-atkins here). I decided I'd try it for 10 days to see how I would do both in terms of heath, mood, and weight. My mood was good - not through the roof energy, but not exhausted either. I was ok with what I was eating, not feeling hungry at all (but then I eat 5-6 mini meals a day). I thought I was feeling some kind of weight loss, although I didn't weigh myself.

I weighed in yesterday, expecting at least to have lost a few pounds. The scale showed a measly 1/2 pound loss!!! I couldn't believe it! I should have known it, after having done so much reading on insulin and carbs and all that when I was LCing, but I guess I was still thinking along the lines of "well, I didn't add any fat, I was eating low calories (around 1200-1300), I should be fine". And this was with exercising 30-40 minutes of brisk exercise a day!

At least it settled one thing in my mind - a high carb low fat diet doesn't work for me. So I've been poking around and I think that SBD is going to work better for me than low carbing. I've tried low carbing as a vegetarian and I always seem to either eat too much dairy (in an effort to try and avoid too many processed veggie proteins) or too much processed veggie protein (in an effort to avoid too much dairy). Since SBD allows a little more leeway with the beans, it gives me more options to work with.

I want to set some goals here, since I do have some right now. I have a job interview on July 31 and I fly out to San Francisco for it. I don't have too many expectations in terms of weight loss - I'm not looking for a "quick fix" here. But I would like at least to be able to stay on SBD without cheating and binging on junk food until that time (starting tomorrow, when I can go shopping). That's going to be a major milestone, since weekends have been my downfall for a while. If I can lose a few pounds and/or inches, great. I won't feel like the fattest person in the room then .

Beyond that, I would like to lose as much as possible by October. I know I won't be able to get to the whole 30 pounds, but even 15 would be awesome! Why October? Because right now I'm trying to get my financial and job situation stable enough to be able to finally move out of where I am now (which is a nice place, but not where I want to be) and move to San Francisco where I'll have much more support and a lot more activity and life and I won't feel so isolated. Nothing is set yet, but I'm hoping by October I will be able to make the move. I would like to be down in terms of pounds, inches, and also feeling much more stable in my health and mood to be able to feel good about taking on the new challenges.