So, last week was bleak. Facing the reality of losing my $500 set off my anxiety, badly. My sleep has suffered ever since, with me either lying awake half the night or waking up an hour or two early and feeling incredibly anxious and panicky. I’ve had a handful of near panic attacks thinking about the money, something I haven’t had more than a couple of times in the past two years.

Maybe because of this, maybe because of my period, I have also been feeling pretty crappy about myself. I have lost weight and inches, my resting heart rate has dropped and my blood pressure has improved but I look in the mirror and see the same body I saw before I started the challenge.

Not to say I don’t like that body… I almost always like my body (especially naked). But I don’t see anything different about it (anymore — before the mid-point weigh-in, I really did).

And I am starting to see some of the disordered thinking creeping in. I’ve mentioned before that I am pretty confident in my ability to resist this, and I still am. But my god, I can see this being so harmful to so many people who were/are at risk or have a history of disordered eating or working out or any sort of body dysmorphia.

(BTW, as I write this I am *cheating* with my second cheat apple of the day and also a cheat dish of two tbsp of nut/seed butter because goddamn if I ain’t starving and I’m too grouchy to sit here and suffer any more.)

For one thing, I’ve started to notice myself judging other people’s bodies. Thoughts like, “Wow, he must be so unhappy with himself, how sad.” OMG!! I don’t think that way! What is happening!

I also find myself feeling anxious when I think about ending this diet and going back to regular eating, because I’m worried about eating the “wrong” things. Again — I don’t think this way! I know I’ll overcome it easily as I have a solid foundation in healthy eating and thinking but it’s disturbing to feel this creeping in. Also it doesn’t feel good.

AND ANOTHER THING! Today and tonight I am hungry! And I’m so damn bored with eating chicken breasts! And I don’t want to meal prep!

I just want to eat an avocado and some almonds and some salmon. <sob>

Annnnnnyway. I met with the trainer last week after my disastrous weigh-in (READ: only disastrous relative to the goal SHE SET FOR ME — by my own goals and standards, I’m doing great! I’m getting stronger! My heart rate is dropping!). She confirmed that I have been following the plan *perfectly.* She even looked at my food log app and couldn’t find one thing wrong. She had no suggestions aside from that I should start drinking a gallon (AN IMPERIAL GALLON) of water each day. That’s 19 cups. Which I’ve been doing, no problem actually, and haven’t seen any difference.

So how’s that for a negative post? Haha. I’m just bein’ honest. Only nine days left! I don’t know if I’ll make it through tomorrow eating like this. I AM SO BORED!

We’ll see how my final body fat measurement goes… as that’s the only metric that matters for the challenge. I will post my overall results as well next weekend or the last week in November. Just wish me luck sitting with this anxiety until then. It’s unpleasant.