Counting Down Depression and Stuff

There is so much going on. I almost wish it was July 19th so that there will be so much less for me to do.

According to the countdowns I have going on Facebook right now I have :

~Only about 92 classes left to teach (and some will be cancelled, and some will be parties)
~28 days until my wedding (26 until I'm legally married though)
~About 42 until we are in the Philippines (Maybe, we won't buy our tickets until Monday, so something could change, but I hope not)
~And 63 days until we fly back to Portland

Of course, I can't forget to mention Cody's Birthday party tomorrow, and that next month sometime we will finally be able to ask Cody's Aunt to file our taxes for us and we can both get back quite a big chunk of change from last year, yay!

Of course, I am not looking forward to trying to get a job back home, or finding a place to live, but I am looking forward to starting my diet and exercise regime that was working so well for me back home. I've lost some weight while I have been here, but not as much as I hoped to lose in the past year. Some of it has been excuses I know, but some of it has been the problems I have run into here. It's so hard to keep try of calories or points here (I did a little of both back home), it's also hard to enter my food into my sparkspeople page because even if bibimbap is listed, or kimchi, it's something that someone has entered in themselves, and you just never know if they were correct, of if the adjumma who made your bibimbap put that extra 300 calories worth of sesame oil in when she added that extra shake she thought would make it better.

It's frustrating also not to have my 24 hour fitness to go to and my pool. they do have gyms here, but women aren't as frequent and you get stared at and laughed at when your a women using the "men's" equipment. there is also not as much of a variety of equipment. The gyms are also horribly expensive here. It's about 7,000 a visit when you don't buy a membership. You can buy a member ship for 3 months, but typically that's 150,000 - 200,000 won for the member ship. That's about $50-75 a month, and most of them do not even have a pool, and the pool isn't included in the membership.

I also miss pools and swimming. before I came to Korea I was starting to get back into my old swim team habits (to try and get my Varsity swim team body back, hehe). and I was up to swimming about 1200 or more yards in an hour. For those who aren't in the know, that's 24 laps in a pool. I think one day I did more than that, but I often just zoned out and got into the rhythm and lost track of whole lengths of the pool, so who knows. I know there are pools here, but I just never made it. Partially because it took me months to even hear of a good, swimmable pool, partially because I couldn't find a swim cap (And you must have one to swim in the pools here, and I hate lap swimming without one anyway, it slows you down, and just feels wrong), partially because I couldn't afford the fee per time with all of our budgeting right now, and partially because I was lazy.

Like I said, I do have to take some credit for my problems, but I can't wait to get back as i'm starting to feel extremely huge again. I know I'm quite a bit smaller than I was, my cheekbones are back, and I don't have as much of a second chin, and my clothes are much smaller, but i need to get better. My wedding dress fits pretty well luckily, but I ordered wedding lingerie and it doesn't fit right, even though I ordered what torrid recommended for my measurements. I think it's partially because it was a cheaper set than most of them, and it fits everywhere except my waist, which sucks. If I hike it up a tiny bit, it works, but otherwisde it doesn't, and it also looks funny on my boobs. Oh well, the underwear fits perfectly. i'm going to try and lose a little, even an inch to make it work, but we'll see, if it doesn't work it's not the end of the world, I have more to worry about right now than my stupid wedding lingerie. It will work out. And my wedding shoes did come, so that's great.

I just have to keep track of the good things. When I finally realized I had become obese and found the will to change it I clocked in at 285 pounds. That's not good, even for a girl of my height and bone structure. I realized I was still reating the same way I did in high school while on the swim team when I has to load up on calories for meets and practices.

Since then I have lost, and kept off so far, 35 pounds. I will lose more, my goal is the 270-285 I was in high school. I also wish to fit into a size 16 pants again. I am already down to a 20, and maybe an 18 if I am lucky. I used to wear only 2x shirts and some 3x when it came to sweaters and jackets. Now some of my shirts are 2x, but i have at least one xL that fits well, and I found a large that fit well in Seoul, so who whows where I'm at, but I'm definitely smaller, and most of my clothes are wat too big, even the size 20 jeans my dad just sent me.

I'm feeling fat, but feeling very motivated to get home and start moving again. Let's hope I keep this motivation and always remember my reasons for getting skinny again. My family used to tell me I should be a model. I want someone to tell me that again. Friends used to joke and call me a muscular barbie because I was thin and my arms were huge from swimming. I didn't believe them at the time. now I look at pictures of myself, and I believe them. I will get that way again, and I think it will be in the very near future.