Hello to the blog that no one follows, lol.  I love to check back on this for personal reasons though, it does let me glimpse into the past.

So, I've been back from Kuwait for 2 years now, and struggling, truly struggling, with my weight since then. I'm at an all time high in weight and size.  It's making me very unhappy, but my response lately more than anything has been just to binge more.

A dear friend recently recommended a book to me that is resonating a lot.  I'm only on Chapter 4, but I am learning so much about binging disorder. It's "Food: The Good Girls Drug". In the mean time, I decided to do a reset.

Mind you, I made fun of my coworkers for doing this, and now I feel a little bad, lol.  It's called Eat Your Heart Out.  Now, mind you, I have never been a fan of fad diets and have always kind of felt disdain for them. However, I did some research and haven't heard anything terrible about this one.  It was hard, but I feel that it set me up to feel good about whole foods and it really brought to the front of my mind my incredibly harmful relationship with food. I think about it constantly. Not in a healthy way AT ALL.  I dealt with some pretty upsetting things during this week that would normally  have sent me running for the cheeseburgers, chocolate and wine.  I powered through, and I'm proud.

Most people mention losing 10+ pounds on this diet.  I cannot tell you how much I lost because I cannot bear to get on the scale.  I didn't take pics, but I will for my continued progress. I know that my belly is smaller.  I feel 1000% (no typo) better. I feel ready to take on truly healthy eating, minus the ten million cookies I will eat on Christmas Eve, but I will move on from that and be happy, lol.

The first day is all the fruits you like. Easy for some, hard for me.  I don't particularly care for fruits. I ate the presliced apples and grapes mostly. I did do my bootcamp workout.  I was a little worried because it seriously kicks my ass on a good macro day, but I did just fine.  Lots of water, tea and coffee. I know that coffee is not recommended, but hello!  I did also have some cabbage soup because I misunderstood the directions.  When my coworkers did it they could have the soup all week.  In this version I guess you just eat it on Day 7.  I only had the soup at lunch, and I do feel it helped.  Something hot made me feel better.

Day 2 is all veggies and a baked potato.  All of the blogs say it is the best potato you have ever eaten, and that is NO LIE.  Fucking amazing. I ate carrots, cucumbers, the cabbage soup, and then some roasted carrots, brocolli, cauliflower and the baked potato for dinner.  Yum!

Day 3 was veggies and fruit.  Relatively easy.  No soup today, but not really on purpose.  Because I forgot to pack it, lol.  I was supposed to work out again today, but was feeling crummy and my daughter needed treats for her teachers for Christmas, so no workout. I did scarf half a bag of SmartPop popcorn,so cheated, but justified it by saying corn is a vegetable. Gah.

Day 4 is milk and bananas.  This is literally my worst food nightmare.  I hate bananas. I'm lactose intolerant.  You can sub yogurt.  It said WW yogurt, which I couldn't find, but found some Greek yogurt that was 100 calories and fat free, so I went with that.  I had 3 bananas and 4 yogurts.  I had a headache and was very, very cranky by the time I went to bed that night.  Too much sugar, and I just wanted something crunchy to eat!!!!  I was a mess.

Day 5 is chicken and tomatoes. I had shredded chicken in the freezer, so I thawed it and ate that and a tomato for breakfast.  December is not a good time for tomatoes.  :-(  We ate pulled pork for lunch, so technically cheated again, but not major. I had more chicken and organic tomato soup for dinner.  Not bad, but not 100% compliant.

Day 6 is chicken and veggies.  I kind of blew today, but am okay with it.  Carrots for breakfast and went to BWW or lunch with my old Army buddies.  Ate naked tenders and a salad as my meal (sauces not compliant)and potato chip nachos (completely not compliant). FAR better than what I would have done before this.  A few glasses of awesome red wine...

I'm not doing cabbage soup day.  I am ready to move on the HEALTHY eating, mostly whole 30 based.  I hope this is what I needed to get me started on the right path to a healthy body.

Merry Christmas all!

This is the part that gets hard sometimes...

One of the hard parts about a deployment is leaving friends behind.  And friends leaving you behind.  It takes me a long time to make friends, so this usually starts happening for me towards the end.  We've got less than 30 days to go - WHOHOO - but that means important people are leaving me too.
In the last month, 3 of my favorite Crossfit coaches have left.  Courtney was a civilian contractor whose main job was to coach Crossfit here at Camp Arifjan.  How cool is that?  I will keep in contact with her through Facebook. I routinely check her blog, and you should too!  www.petiteathlete.com

Josh and John are Soldiers, but also Crossfit coaches.  Amazing dudes that I will keep up with through Facebook, and that I hope to catch up with while we are at Fort Hood.  They are stationed there and will hopefully have some free time while we do.

I'm not going to miss this place even a tiny bit.  It has been an "easy" deployment in that I'm not being shot at or in any real danger whatsoever.  The mental stress has been pretty significant, so I'm waiting for the days when I can just relax.  And sleep in.  And eat what I want.  And have a beer, or 6 or so ;-)  I will, however, miss the gym and the friends I've made through it.  Say what you want about the cult of Crossfit, it's a powerful way to connect.

I remember being completely despondent when people left in Afghanistan.  It was incredible mix of joy that the people I loved were going home, completely safe, yet sadness that I would not see them every day anymore, maybe not ever.  I was truly lost without my team once I got home.  It won't be the same for this deployment.  I  haven't built the same bonds with anyone in this unit.  I will miss my immediate coworkers.  We've developed new friendships and have a great deal of camaraderie.  My roommate and I joke all the time about how we're not sure how we're going to function without knowing where the other one is at all times!   At least I will see her when I go back to work!

My office

Since I can't really talk about what I do specifically, I'll just show you where I work. We're not really allowed to take phones/cameras into the work place, but there's nothing classified going on in my office when I took these, so all is safe.

My tent...

My name plate with my office mates.

My desk!

Things that don't suck ;-)

So, I tend to be negative. This post is my attempt at being positive!

Even though it feeks like  it some days, I don't work 24/7. Hell, some days it's just like a regular job, I put in my 8 hours and get out!

I've filled most of my off time with sleep and homework as I work towards my MBA. If I'm not at work or doing homework, I'm probably here at Crossfit Arifjan.

This weekend has been a lot of fun. I took advantage of some afternoons off since I didn't get any time off last week, and honestly, last week sucked balls, so I needed a break.

On Friday afternoon, I got my nails done. She also conned me into a facial, which will NEVER happen again. Basically,  I paid for her to dig painfully into my face for an hour. No thanks.

Anyway,  on Saturday, I went with friends to see Transformers 3! A little long, but fun to get out and do normal things.

Today I went to the Starbucks for coffee and chatting. Then off to the pool! Loads of fun. If it's going to be hot, at least we can enjoy it!

Then I came back and wrote the paper I've been dragging my feet on. Next week is the last week of this class thank goodness!  Although I'm not sure I'm ready for accounting...

Ode to indoor plumbing...

Indoor plumbing, how I have missed you. Let me count the ways:

One: This is the shower/latrine trailer. On the positive side,  they are cleaned by lovely third country nationals who are usually quite friendly ladies. Although sometimes it's males, so then the latrine is closed. Always when I have to go!!! LOL.  There is AC too.

The shower curtains are an abomination.  We have even made up a funny little interpretive dance for when it touches your bare skin and you freak.out.  I would love some cold water and to be able to shower by myself.  The water is held in a tank outside, so when the ambient air temperature never drops below 90 degrees,  there will be no cold water. There is a bit of overcrowding going on here right now, so there's always someone wanting that shower.

Two: This gloriousness is affectionately called a hot box. Ummm, because it's hot. And no AC. And a tiny little box that is a glorified portapotty.  They do have a sink. Also, I don't have to clean those either, lol.

Three: The portapotties.  These do have a regular toilet in them, so that is nice. They are also hot as balls. They also generally have some amusing artwork. I find there are some trends with portapotty graffiti. The drawings are nearly always in the male accessed latrines. The ones designated as female only never have drawings.  They are also almost always dick pics.  Very accurate and detailed. When they attempt to draw female body parts, they fail miserably. This leads me to believe those that draw graffiti on bathroom walls are young, shall we say, inexperienced males.

There are a few places with indoor plumbing. That is an exciting experience! However, even the indoor bathrooms require that you not flush anything other than bodily functions, so, um. Gross.

I can't wait to be able to stumble directly from my bed to the bathroom in just 5-10 steps in whatever clothes I want...or don't want, lol, instead of waking up at 3 am and trying to negotiate with my bladder!

Who loves coffee?!? This girl!

LOL.  Starbucks is open 24/7. We have 2 on post. Green Bean is on post too!

Dunkin donuts is at Camp Patriot. I found a Caribou Coffee in Faalaha too! 

#yummy  # spoiled

It's Saturday Night

And I ain't got nobody...

OK, it's not Saturday night anymore. I just finally figured out how to get my phone to translate from Arabic,  lol.

Anyway, not long ago, Rachel was at a sleepover and Mike was over at a friend's house. I'm doing the same old thing...get ready to go to a meeting , and getting ready to go to bed, so that I can do it all again tomorrow.  Yay.

I feel deserted. Disconnected. It's hard to know that life goes on without you. I know it's also hard to be the one left at home...the ones left struggling to find a new normal.

This is where problems happen. "My alone is more alone than yours". Where hurt and anger build up - disappointment and resentment.

A downfall to being "strong" is that no one thinks it affects me so deeply. Hell, sometimes I can even fool myself. But, the truth is, I'm so fucking lonely. So sad and yet irritated that I'm surrounded by people constantly.

How can you be lonely surrounded by people? It's simple. I didn't pick these people. I don't even like most of these people.  Yes, I have friends here,  some are even good friends, but they aren't my people.

I'm jealous that my people at home still have each other. They still have their favorite places, their favorite things, their freedom to do what they want.

And yet I know what they want is me. They want me back home. It's still hard to deal with an empty spot, especially for Mike and Rach.

So - I work at being happy that they are having fun and continuing life...what choice do they have? I work at keeping my big mouth shut when I want to be snarky and say something stupid.  I remember that while my hubby is out having fun with his friends, he'd rather be at dinner with me, and while Rachel is having a blast with her friends, she wishes I was snuggling her to sleep instead. I don't want people to not tell me when they're having fun.

I just hope they understand why my voice sounds a little sad when I say, "that sounds so fun", or that they have some patience if my snarky comments sneak out, or I Debby Downer their FB post. I hope we can all learn from past mistakes. At least this time I know it happens, that it's normal and that we can work through it with some patience,  understanding, and love. Night all!