I have a skewed self veiw

I am so tired of being fat. 

And... I am not just eating whatever I want and sitting on my bum all the time either. I am eating pretty healthy small meals and trying to stay under my calorie count, but nothing seems to really work without making me bitter towards it or nauseous just thinking about it (eggs...ugh). 

You see, I have PCOS which is pretty much a hormone disorder that has all kinds of symptoms that are oh so frustrating to the women who have it. I got pretty lucky on some of the symptoms like acne and skin tags that have never been a problem for me. But I do have several of the other symptoms like cysts on my ovaries, super fast hair growth everywhere, insulin resistance and major difficulty losing weight. 

That last one is the most difficult one to live with day in and day out. Mostly because the other symptoms would become less evident if I could lose weight. 

Ugh.. Its just a Vicious cycle where there isn't much hope.

I also have a gluten sensitivity that I'm still trying to figure out and work my way around... but thats another story. 

back to the main topic...

I have a skewed self view... but its not in the typical way. 

Many girls/women OVERESTIMATE their body size, meaning what they see in the mirror is bigger in their minds than in reality, but I'm the opposite. 

I think i'm smaller and thinner than I really am. That girl in the mirror doesn't look half bad and she's not that big, and she's pretty cute. I realized this what not actually the case after seeing some photos from a friend's birthday party... I looked HUGE! I didn't even recognize my body in the photo at first... and I was appalled that that is what I actually looked like. 

This may be a hinderance in my weight loss journey because I feel like I don't have that much to lose when I look in the mirror. That is not the case. I have 100 lbs to get off this body to be in good healthy condition. Some girls would love to have this problem, feeling smaller than they are, but its working against me I think. 

A skewed view is a skewed view no matter which way it is skewed. 

So, I'm gonna work on getting a realistic view of my body and my goals so that I can figure this thing out and get / on my way to a smaller less focused-on-weight me. 

Just needed to share!

Until Next Time

Chels

NIGHT GOWN PAR-TAE!!

I feel like a Woo girl everytime I say it! I Love Nightgown party!

Some of you already know about it but here is a little history about our most anticipated party of the whole year!

When we first moved to the amazing town of Starkville, MS 4 of us girls lived in an apartment all together. And we went big that year on the decorating front... all fully expecting to be living together for at least one more year. (This did not happen, all 3 of my roomates were engaged by easter and 2 of them married by the start of the next school year... oh how differently that turned out! haha) One of our roomates really really REALLY loves to wear nightgowns and we found super cute ones at Wally World and bought them, then we decided that it would be fun to wear wear our nightgowns the night we exchanged gifts.( I think that year we all bought everyone a gift... oh the carefree spending of those college days!) So we did and that was the first Nightgown party!

Now every year it has evolved a little more, rotating homes of its participants. Allowing for the coming and going of growing families and picking up a few along the way. Some sort of dirty santa happens, along with food and some sort of game and lots of catching up. 

This year it was my turn. It was the 5th annual nightgown party so I knew I had to do it big! and I did! 

Since I live in a dorm room I decided I'd need to rent a house somewhere, I looked at several in Starkville but then We decided it would be fun to take it on the road somewhere. Our options were Birmingham or the Beach and through some discussion and reasoning, we determined Birmingham would be our location! I went to VRBO.com and looked for our party house and I found it! This lovely little house in Avondale was just perfect! We had a hiccup with the cleaning when we got there but through it we got to meet a sweet little lady named Celia who came and fixed us up right away!  It was such a lovely house and perfect for our needs and I would recommend it to anyone needing a get-a-way thats not too far from home! Plus the Owner is a MSU Alum as well! Go Bulldawgs!

link to rent this home: http://www.vrbo.com/360863 

Then sweet K helped me set up using the decorations I've been collecting over the past year and some of the containers there at the house. She did such a great job!

 I made little signs for the food, punches and where to put the presents out of some festive invitations I got super cheap from a closing stationary store and $1 clear photo stands from wal mart. This became very helpful in people deciding which punch to try first and putting the food they brought in the right place so I wouldn't have to go behind and move things.

For a little party favor/ happy I put an ornament (made by the wonderful Jennie Bird), a jar of my Easy As Pie Personal Hot Cocoa and one of my favorite Lindor truffles on each girl's bed.

Then the other ladies arrived around 7:30 that night and we got to partying! 

We went shopping the next day and stopped by to see the city from Vulcan Park on our way back to get ready for dinner.  I'm sure most of K's photos looked like this because we aren't very good photography subjects. 

Dance party with Vulcan!

We had a great time and I think that we are going to have to make this weekend get-a-way part of the Nightgown party tradition. 

We got all gussied up to go out for dinner at 5 Bar on saturday night... very yummy food and a good time, just go before 8 pm or you'll be there all night!

I Hope you enjoy the photos and a big thank you goes out to K for bringing along her camera for the weekend... I was way to focused on having fun to take photos. :) Also we didn't even get a single photo with us in nightgowns... thats ok.. we know we all wore them. I can't wait until NEXT YEAR!! 

Until Next Time!

Chelsea-Lou

Some secrets about me...

So I have been thinking lately about some of my pet peeves and how kind of ridiculous they are, but... they are still mine and I wanted to share them with you.

1. The sound of any kind of fluid sloshing against itself. 

Bath water, dish water, pool water and chewing are the big 4. If I'm sitting in a room with you and there isn't any other sound going on and I turn on music or leave the room rapidly, its probably because I'm about to snap if I hear one more slosh. Just ask my parents.. I really do snap and like tense up if its not rectified quickly enough. Its really weird as much as I love being in the ocean or a lake on a boat but there is usually talking or motors running that cuts the sound of the slosh. Therefore, I rarely take a bath, cook or wash dishes without the TV or my iPod playing in the background... and now you know why :) 

2. Getting awakened from my sleep or a nap before my alarm goes off. 

I always set an alarm, even if I don't have to get up in the mornings I set an alarm for some point in the morning so I'll be in a good mood if someone happens to wake me before I get up myself. This has happened alot lately and its usually within minutes of my alarm going off. I don't know why it drive me crazy or why those last few minutes are so important but they are.. Just ask KB who woke me up  the day after Thanksgiving from a nap just 20 second before my alarm went off.... I could have slapped her had I known she wouldn't have retaliated 20 fold. (sisters.. gotta love them) I'm usually a pleasant person but if you wake me up before my little harp sounds do be prepared for a grumpy pumpkin. 

3. Not having my nail painted. 

This is a new one and I'm trying to break it but it just seems to be getting worse. I used to never paint my fingernails except for special events and weddings, but this summer I went with my sister to get a manicure with the shellac polish that stays for like 2 weeks and I got used to it. I took it off when I started coming off in places and then something new happened. I started feeling self conscious about my nails, even though they were just a soft pink when painted I noticed a huge difference so I decided I needed to just keep them up myself. A couple of weeks ago I went to get the shellac done again before TG week and the nail tech convinced me to go more bold with OPI's Cajun Shrimp which I usually use on my tootsies. So I did and now I can't go back to the clear polish on my nails... its crazy... I don't hate it but it does take a lot of time to do myself or a lot of $$ for someone else to do it. 

So there are some secrets about me that I just felt like sharing with the world today!

Thanks for reading!

Chelsea-Lou

being heathly in a dorm is hard

Hello there friends!

Its been one crazy whirlwind of a weekend. I was on duty this weekend which means from 7 am friday to 7 am tuesday, i have to be on campus or with in a few miles of campus available to come back at any point at the drop of a hat.. thats kind of stressful for me since I'm such a free spirit and all. Also it was winter formal weekend so we were open and dealing with students 2 hours past our regular curfew time on weekend... I was quite tired and grumpy yesterday morning. But I took a nap at lunch time and felt much better. 

I've been trying to keep under my calorie count this week and have only succeeded one day out of the last eight. I've only exceeded the calorie limit by about 115-200 calories a day, but just imagine my progress if I could just cut those 1000 calories a week out. 

I've been eating alot of frozen meals and visalus shakes. In part it has to do with the fact that I have lost my ID so I can't get into the cafeteria to eat something fresh, the other is I'm still stuck in lazy mode and its a lot of work to go to the kitchen 5 floors away and take all your ingredients and cooking tools and everything with you and bring it all back with a cooked meal without dropping anything. I see why the Freshman 15 is true. I've got to find the energy/ put out the effort to got to that kitchen so far away and cook healthy meals for myself. 

One thing that I've been struggling with, particularly since trying to get back on track after being lazy those weeks around thanksgiving break, is that I can't stop thinking about food or eating. Not sure what this is about. Probably just and old habit dying hard as the previous weeks were pretty much just instant gratification. Because I'm in this crazy almost binge like mode now its hard for me to keep from eating any food that is in my dorm room so that gallon of milk that should have lasted me 2 weeks of shakes only lasted from friday to monday, and all those frozen meals that should have lasted me a week as well  only lasted the weekend. Mind you I haven't been just going crazy but I wake up in the morning and don't stop thinking about food or what I'm going to eat until I go to bed, which lately has been anywhere from 15-17 hours of thinking I'm hungry. 

Pray for me this week as I work on my mind to correct this disordered thinking so I can get back on my road to getting thin. I've even put up a couple of more encouragement signs around. One is on the background of my phone and another in my car so when I'm traveling I can see it and be motivated to choose my food wisely!

I just realized I didn't do a count down for you guys last week so I'll try to do the math right now :) 

Weight Loss this week: 2.2 lbs

Total Weight Loss: 6.2 lbs

Total Loss To-Go: 101.8 lbs

Days without soda: 49 of 365

Thanks for coming by!

This weekend is Nightgown party! Stay tuned for photos!! 

I love Nightgown Party!!

-Chels