The unrealistic goals... and the realistic ones.

In 2005, when I was in the depths of struggling with my anorexic EDNOS, I really thought that if I could be skinny, then all of my problems would disappear and I could do anything I wanted in life.  So long as the fat wasn't holding me back, there was nothing that could stand in my way.

In 2015, currently in the depths of struggling with my binge-eating EDNOS, I really think that if could just be done with the EDNOS, there isn't anything I can't do.  If I can recover, truly recover, and learn how to keep my EDNOS under control, there is nothing that will stand in my way.

There are some definite parallels to these thought processes. 

This is something that I will address with my therapist. 

However, I do believe that my new attitude is healthier than my old one. 

It really is true that more doors will become open for me once this eating disorder is under control, or even completely behind me.

But I will still have to work hard for things that I want to accomplish.  There will be no magical happily ever after ending to this tale if/when I get a normal relationship with food. 

I will still have to take the GRE and go through the challenge that is applying for grad school.

I will still have to work hard to earn a promotion at work.

I will still have to work hard to maintain a solid relationship with Stacey.

I will still have to work hard to improve my credit score, save money, and one day buy a house and have a family.  All of these things are not guarantees just because I want them, and I have recovered from an eating disorder.

But they will be more manageable goals once I don't have the ED distracting me constantly, and once my depression and anxiety are under control with medication and therapy. 

So, in summation:

unrealistic goal:  Life will be perfect and everything will be easy once I'm recovered!

realistic goal:  First of all, there probably isn't an "I'm recovered now" moment in my future.  I will likely have to always keep my ED in check, as I will likely always have the ED, much like "once an addict, always an addict" and much like my depression and anxiety, which can be managed but are never really gone.  Secondly, life will be better, but not perfect.  Thirdly, many things will be easier, but most of the things that I want out of life will still require hard work.

xoxoxo
P.S.  I am going to do a giveaway soon!  It will likely be recovery-based, since that's where my mind is at these days.  Maybe a cool body-positive piece of artwork, or a book of your choice along with a fancy journal?  I will keep you informed.

I need help with my B.E.D. and to get out of the ED cycle!

I have decided to reach out to some local eating disorder specialists.

It's time for me to ask for help again. 

After a decade of recovery, I am going to have to return to the beginning stages again.  I have reached rock bottom of my binge eating disorder.

Last night, I actually had an episode of bulimia.  I purged after I binged.  It was terrible.  But at least it was rock bottom.

Sometimes you have to hit that rock bottom before you realize you need help.

I know now that I need more help than I can provide for myself with internet searches, self help books, and positive thinking.

This is bigger than me.

I need help.

I hate that I'm back to this point, needing professional help with an eating disorder.

But it's important that I take these steps now, before it gets worse.  I need to get out of the cycle, once and for all.

It definitely is a cycle, and I'm back at the VERY beginning again.  This is an epiphany that I just had today.  Here are all of the stages of the cycle so far:

1) Age: 17-19
Weight: 170-230 lb
ED: BED

My main disordered eating began at age 17, with binge eating disorder (undiagnosed and untreated, but I know now that is what it was). 

I hated my life, and hated myself, and large amounts of food helped me to smother those thoughts and feelings away.  I gained a lot of weight, going from my high school norm of about 170 pounds to around 230 pounds by age 19.

2) Age: 19-21
Weight: 230 - 130
ED: EDNOS (anorexia with "normal" weight)

I felt like total crap at that size, and just wanted it gone ASAP.  So I did some research, and actively chose to behave like an anorexic.  I chose anorexia as a diet plan.  It was a conscious decision in the beginning...

Within a year, I weighed 130 pounds.  But at that point I was so woozy and ill that I had to get help.  So, I enrolled in an intensive ED treatment program.

3) Age: 23-25
Weight: 140 - 220
ED: yo-yo dieting/binge eating cycle

By age 23, I thought that I had it all figured out, and that I was completely recovered.   This is when my weight started to creep back up.  I was overeating and not very active, but I didn't really feel like I was binge eating very often at the time.  By the time I was 25, I was over 220 pounds again, and it felt like it had happened overnight and without any true ED.

The reality is that I had become a binge eater again.  I tried desperately to cling to my EDNOS weight, because the doctors that I worked with while recovering all told me that was a good weight for me (I still think that was pretty shitty of them.  I was on the low end of a "healthy" BMI, and you could see my ribs and hip bones, but yeah, super healthy weight!).

This was a time of yo-yo dieting and binge eating.

4) Age: 25-27
Weight: 220 - 144
ED: none! (so I thought)

When the scale showed 220, I had had enough, and decided that it was time to lose the weight again.  I was determined to do it in a "healthy way" "this time".  So I joined Weight Watchers, and followed it, plus a few other programs, for a couple of years, and got down to 144 pounds. 

I felt on top of the world, like I had FINALLY solved my problems with food.  Like I could really live now, and that my ED was in the past, where it belonged.

5) Age: 28-30
Weight: 144 -265
ED: BED


So I started gaining weight again, this time a bit slowly.  I was back up to 165-ish by 2012, and realized in May of that year that I could easily maintain that weight.  Perhaps it's my "happy weight" or even the weight that my ED counselors from years ago should have told me was okay to be, so that I wouldn't have been so obsessed with 135 for years.  Anyway.

Then Mom died, shortly after my 165-is-A-OK epiphany. 

And I allowed myself to take comfort in my old friend, binge eating.  It all happened so quickly this time that I didn't even realize how disordered it was this time.

I gained weight so ridiculously quickly.  The binges were worse than ever before.  I went from 165 to over 200 pounds in a little over a month.  That is NOT an exaggeration.  Then I gained 60 more pounds over the next year and a half, all the while trying desperately to get back to where I was before Mom died.  I was out of control.

That's where I'm at now.  And looking at it this way, it's easy to see the pattern, and that I still obviously have an eating disorder.

It's not normal for my weight to have gone up and down such extreme amounts over the years.  It's just not.  And each time, it has been more extreme than the last.

I'm not beating myself up over this.  It's clearly a problem, and it's always served a purpose.  Sometimes, the alternative was worse.  I'm ready to admit that I still have this mental illness.  I still have the ED.  It just changes every couple of  years.

I need help for it.  I feel pretty shitty that I was not able to get out of this on my own, but it is what it is.

I need help with my binge eating disorder, and to get OUT of this disordered eating cycle.  Let's let it end this time, instead of my going back to extreme yo-yo dieting or anorexia or bulimia, or continuing the  misery of binge eating until I weigh over 300 pounds (all very real possibilities if I don't get help).

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for being here.  I love you guys.  More updates soon...  For now,  just know that I am going to get some real help.

xoxoxox

I still have disordered eating thoughts.

**TRIGGER warning, for those of you struggling with an ED.**


I am more determined than ever before to not let any weight loss obsession enter my mind. 

I don't want to go back to my ED days. 

But the truth is, sometimes I still have very disordered thoughts about food, exercise, my weight, my body, etc.  Some of those thoughts include:

 

Maybe I should just do what I did a decade ago.  It didn't kill me, and I lost 80 pounds in a year.  Maybe this time, I wouldn't need to be treated for anorexic behavior, because I will be able to

control it better.

 

Maybe I should just throw up that bag of chips I just ate.  One time wouldn't kill me, and I would feel better about myself than I do now, post chip-binge.

 

Maybe I should start doing 2 hours of cardio a day, like I did back then.  One hour at the beginning and one hour at the end of each day.  

 

Maybe I should join My Fitness Pal again, and edit the calorie number so that I will definitely lose 3 pounds every week.

...and so on.

I am fortunate that these thoughts are extremely fleeting, and that they are also extremely rare.  But they do pop up sometimes.  And I hate that they do.

I wonder how many years it will take for these thoughts to stop completely, or if, like some people say, once you have an ED, you will always have an ED.

I don't believe that though.  I know that it's been a decade since my "recovery" and I still have these thoughts, but I also know that they happen less often with each passing month. 

Time heals most wounds, and I believe that some take longer than others, but that doesn't mean that the healing isn't happening.

My ED will one day be truly a thing of the past. 

But for now, I still (very) occasionally have to deal with these thoughts.  And so long as I don't act on them, or give them any attention whatsoever, I believe that they will continue to happen less and less often until one day, maybe next year, maybe by the time I'm 40, they will vanish completely.

Today, I am focusing on loving myself and my body.  True, I am still working on losing weight, but I'm choosing to not make that a central focus in my life.  It's just a small part of it, and doesn't have anything to do with who I am as a person.

xoxoxoxo

ED thoughts can KISS MY ASS

Anyone who has had an eating disorder knows what I mean when I say "ED thoughts".  These are the thoughts that sneak into an otherwise healthy mind, telling the person that they aren't good enough to eat, or aren't good enough to stop eating, or that they are shit because of FAT.

I have been hearing those old ED voices again.

Lately, I've been having a few too many "I need to lose a lot of weight by the time I get married or else I'm shit" thoughts.

I've been thinking stuff like "I can at least lose a pound a week, right?  RIGHT???!!!"

and "WHY AM I SUCH A LAZY FAT FUCK?!"

My ED thoughts tend to be all caps, and also profane, so I apologize for any offense.

Anyway, I think that I have made a lot of progress with my EDNOS, despite these thoughts.

Here's why:  I recognize them as ED thoughts.

I realize that it's not true. 

I'm not a "LAZY FAT FUCK". 

I can lose a pound a week, sure, but it's not "THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER  and if I don't lose weight before the wedding I'm SHIT OMG!!!". 

I'm a strong, intelligent, beautiful woman who deserves nice things and nice thoughts.  I deserve happiness and health.  I deserve to not give into these ED thoughts.  I deserve to continue to choose recovery over dieting, time and time again, no matter what the scale says.  I deserve to not worry about my weight or my pants size. 

And I know these things.

So, I'm going to recognize and acknowledge these old ED thoughts, and I'm going to breathe. 

I'm going to accept that I still have these thoughts, and I'm going to breathe.

I'm going to love myself, and live my life, and I'm going to take comfort in the thought that as long as I don't give into the ED urges that these thoughts are trying to give me, eventually the thoughts will stop.

Goodbye, calorie counting websites

I am working towards full recovery from my EDNOS. 

What does this mean for me?

Basically, I want a life that is centered around living, not around food+body+exercise thoughts.  In order to accomplish this, I'm taking steps towards it.

The first step was realizing that calorie counting and food planning/logging in general no longer seemed important to me.  One day, I realized that it had been several days since I had logged my food, and I was okay with it.

Also in this first step was realizing that I am not okay with exercising to eat more.  When I start a regular exercise routine again (hopefully soon), it will be because my leg and ankle are feeling better.  It will be to get my left leg back to normal.  And then, hopefully, it will be to train for a marathon.  But it won't be because I ate Pop Tarts this morning, or because I want to eat pizza tonight.

The second step was realizing that I cannot follow steps towards recovery anymore.  This entire process needs to be day by day, and intuitive.  Why?  Because every time that I have assigned steps to myself, I ended up failing, and giving up, and going back to what I know (dieting, tracking calories, exercising to burn calories, body hate, etc.).

One thing has become clear to me though:  I need to step completely away from all of those calorie-counting and dieting websites.

I am going to step away from those sites, which will hopefully help to discourage me from going back to my safety net of food logging.

If there was a site that allowed me to track my food but not any macronutrients, I would probably sign up, just to keep that security blanket for a bit longer, while I sort though my emotional eating issues.  Like a food log that tracked feelings instead of calories. 

A place to recover from emotional eating habits, and from disordered eating in general.  Perhaps I have just found a need and should start creating a site like this?  Hmmmm...  Or maybe I should start to keep a real paper journal again, with real feelings written down, along with an emotional eating journal for as long as I need one.

Anyway, I'm going to start by removing all of the links anywhere on this blog that are about anything "diet-y".  The next step will be to deactivate my multiple My Fitness Pal accounts (which is deserving of its own blog post, in my opinion, because that will be a huge step for me).  I'm planning to deactivate my MFP accounts (I have at least three) on Saturday.

I am also going to stop following any diet pages on Facebook (as myself.   I won't unfollow anyone as my blog page, because I hardly use FB exclusively from the page).  I will continue to follow the people who don't trigger me, but if your page makes me want to hop back on the diet bandwagon, then I'm sorry but we have to part ways for now.  I love you, I get it, and I am not saying that your page is bad or that you are doing anything wrong.  I'm just saying that I need to fully recover from my EDNOS and seeing posts about calorie burning exercise challenges and how only organic food is food, is not helpful to me right now.

Sorry for no pictures, but I'm posting from work (slow morning, thank goodness.  Monday and yesterday were CRAZY).  I may come back in here later and add some pics. 

Intuitiveness and not caring...

So the last couple of days I have been trying to listen to my body and mind, and to respect myself.  

I have tried to be an intuitive eater several times in my life, so I'm not going to try again.  Instead of giving myself that "intuitive eater" label and preaching about the benefits of "intuitive eating" and following steps,  I'm going to instead just stop thinking about it.

I just don't care anymore.  Not in a "giving up" kind of way, but in a "eating is a part of life but it's not the most important thing anymore" way.  I am beginning to think that my disordered thoughts about food may actually be disappearing.

My attitude about food now is that it just is.  I eat when I'm hungry and when I feel like eating.  Usually these are the same things, but sometimes they are not.  I try to avoid emotional eating, but I'm not obsessive about it.

I've been obsessively trying to avoid emotional eating for years now, and that has not resulted in the behavior ending.

My new theory is that if I stop caring so much about my eating habits, they will eventually end up in that intuitive place, and my weight will end up where it's supposed to be.  I will still lose weight, because I won't be obsessed with food anymore, which will lead to less binges and more healthy decisions.  It may not be a fast paced weight loss.  I may lose 20 pounds a year or less.

But that's okay.  I have about 70 pounds left to lose to reach my goal of weighing what I weighed before Mom died. I truly believe that I will reach that goal (if it remains my goal, that is).  It may take a couple of more years, but I will reach it.

I also believe that along the way, I'm going to let go of my EDNOS completely, run a marathon, do a pull-up, go to law school, get married, and do anything else that I set my mind to.

I will have to figure out what to blog about, if not food and exercise.  Maybe I will take a break from this blog.  Maybe I will find a way to write more about my EDNOS recovery.  Either way, please know that I'm doing very well right now when it comes to this area of my life.

selfie in Central Perk

Back to recovery

As I alluded to in my last post, I'm going to try to move this blog back towards EDNOS recovery and away from dieting.

I started this process about a year ago, taking the first three steps towards permanent recovery.

I revamped the blog and really started to focus on recovery again, by writing and following my own path, which started with letting go of the guilt, total body acceptance, and intuitive eating.

This time around, (hopefully the last time), I'm going to be more intuitive about the entire process.  No more road maps, no more plans.  Just working on letting go of the EDNOS, one day at a time.

It will be a struggle, because I do want to lose weight, and I don't want to be a fat bride.  These are two thoughts that I need to weed out of my brain.

How many times do I have to learn that more than anything, I want happiness and health, not a skinny body no matter the cost?  Apparently at least one more time.

I have a few thoughts about what recovered me will be like.

1. I will love my body, inside and out
2. I will eat whatever I want, whenever I get hungry, and just kind of naturally stop when my body is done, except on rare occasions 
3. I will naturally gravitate towards qualities and quantities that are  healthy for my body and mind (which sometimes is whole foods, and sometimes is milk chocolate kisses)
4. I will train for races with no secret weight loss goal.  The only goals will be to enjoy the movement, and to beat my last time.  I will also walk a lot, because it feels good and I enjoy it.
5. ... and most importantly: Most of my life is spent pursuing goals, accomplishing things, and enjoying things that have NOTHING to do with food, exercise, or my body size.

All of these things are very important to me, and I know that once I'm truly recovered from my EDNOS, my life will be better.  Not perfect, but better.  

P.S. I had a blast in NYC!

looking inward

First, a brief report on The Color Run:  I had a terrible cold, but decided to race anyway!  It was Stacey's first official 5K, and he rocked it, finishing in 30 minutes.  The race course was only 2.83 miles, and I finished in 39.  I ran a lot of it, and really enjoyed myself.  The color didn't feel good in my sick lungs, though, so I stayed away from it as much as possible.  My team was called "Mopey Zoo Lion" and this was our second run together.  We all decorate our own T-Shirts with mopey lions, and here is the back of Stacey's:

Now on to today's topic, which is looking inward.

Knowing my body as well as I know it these days, I have noticed that I have gotten a little bit bigger lately.  My size 18's are a little snug, and my stomach is a bit pouchier than it was last month.  In several of the professional racing pictures of me, I noticed that my hips and thighs have gotten quite large again.

My hips don't lie!

I'm not freaking out and hopping back on the diet bandwagon.  Instead I am looking inward to figure out why I have been turning to food for reasons other than hunger so much lately.

Some of it is emotional eating.

Sadness: The "holidays" are here again, which is a sad reminder of how different life is without Mom.
Stress: This semester is stressful as I try to improve my GPA and study to retake the LSAT and prepare my law school applications.  My life is in transition right now, as I am so close to the next step in my life, which will include planning a wedding (not officially engaged, but Stacey and I have discussed getting married before law school) and planning a move, along with planning for law school (hopefully!).

So I know the triggers for my emotional eating, and I'm glad that I've come to know my body so well that I have caught this emotional eating before it got too out of hand.

So what am I going to do, now that I've noticed this unwelcome change in my body?

I'm going to stay away from the scale and the diet books.

I'm going to take care of myself as I recover from a terrible cold.

I'm going to browse the Intuitive Eating community forums.

I'm going to work on eating more vegetables and fruits to give my body the natural medicine it needs to get well.

I'm not going to weigh myself, google the best way to lose weight quickly, sign up for Weight Watchers for the 10,000th time, make a hardcore cardio exercise plan and force myself to stick to it NO MATTER WHAT, or feel badly about myself in any way.

I love myself, and that includes my body.  I even love myself and my body when I am heavier than I'd like to be.  How revolutionary!

I will get back to a more comfortable (for me) size as soon as I am supposed to.  There is no rush.  I will be an intuitive eater who does not eat her emotions one day.

Today I have learned that I have made progress towards that goal, by simply being in tune with my body more than I used to be.  As I said in an earlier post, I am no longer avoiding mirrors or posing for full body pictures.  I am no longer scared of my body, nor do I  hate it.  This is progress.  So I'm proud.

I'm not blogging about this to admit to a failure, and to hang my head in shame at having gained weight, to give a report on how I'm going to fix it.  No siree.  That is not what this blog is about anymore.  It's about getting healthy and happy.

I am blogging about this to share an interesting part of this recovery journey with you all.

10/30/2013 - feeling encouraged!
(and rocking my half marathon tee!)

Some possibly helpful epiphanies...

The last few weeks I have had several little epiphanies about my EDNOS/Diet Addiction Recovery Plan.

I thought that I would share some of those first, and then end this post with a vent about how scared and excited I am for this weekend's half marathon.

Okay, so here are some of the epiphanies, in no special order:

1) In my dieting days, I always thought "Exercise more to eat more!" and I'm realizing exactly how backwards I had it.  That approach motivated me to exercise using food as a reward.  For me, that did not help me gain a healthy relationship with either food or exercise.

the ole' "twinkie on a plunger" trick...

 I realized recently that I've stopped thinking that way since stopping tracking those things.

Now I exercise because I want to, not to earn food rewards.  Also, when training for a race, sometimes the opposite of that rule is true, and I need to "Eat more to exercise more!"  That isn't the new rule, because if I made that a rule then this would be too diet-y, but it definitely has been a pattern, and helpful.  For example, if I try to run 10 miles at 2 in the afternoon when my relatively small breakfast was at 9 in the morning, for example, I'm going to crash and burn around mile 3.

It improves my exercise greatly when I eat more.  Of course, it improves even more when I eat more healthy foods, but my performance is improved with ANY food, even if that food is a leftover slice of pizza and a poptart.  The point here is that I'm finally understanding that age old adage about how food is fuel.

Any fuel will work, of course premium is best, but energy is energy.

2) I was hanging out with my 11 year old cousin, and he lied about having already ate dinner so that he could continue playing video games with his friends.

I'm not condoning the lie, but just to imagine a life where food was so unimportant that I would rather play with my friends than eat dinner was liberating.  I used to see eating that way, too.  Sure I had favorite foods, and enjoyed eating sometimes, but eating was not my top priority when I was a kid.  It didn't even make the top ten list.

Sometimes I need to remember to listen to my inner child.  This is especially true for me when it comes to recovery, because that was the only time in my life when I didn't have a messed up relationship with food.  My inner child can remind me that there are so many things in my life that are more important than food.

(Of course, obviously food and eating are very important things, but I'm sick of focusing on them so much!)

Hmmm...  okay, I guess that is only two.  I know that there is a third, but I can't remember it for the life of me.  So, I will go on to the second part of this post.

I'm so freaking excited and terrified about the half marathon that is happening in three days!!!!!!!

I became a runner in January.  I had noble intentions to be able to run most of this half marathon.  At this point, however...  I'm running a mile at a time.  I take a walk break every mile.  I'm cool with this for my first half.

My new running mantra:  Finishing is winning.

I'm super excited for the beginning of the race.  I imagine that the crowd will be exciting, and Chattanooga looks really pretty in pictures.  My first time there, and I chose to go running on  their bridges.  :-)

Please send me strength on Sunday morning!  I can't believe that the half is finally here.

the medal that I'm going to get!!!

So I'm excited but scared.  I know that I can do this, but I also know that it won't be easy.  I'm mostly looking forward to it being over!  That finish line is going to look GOOD.

I have a new audio book that I plan to listen to during the race.  I love listening to music while I run, but lately I've found that when I'm going a long distance, I'd rather listen to podcasts or audio books.

I need new shoes, but I have been warned to not get anything new right before a race, so I will keep these guys around for a bit longer.  It's amazing how quickly shoes lose their support when you run a lot...

Anyway, my next post will be after the race, so I will be a new woman.  Seriously, I do expect to be a new person after this race is over.  What an accomplishment!  I am proud of myself for signing up.  I can't imagine how proud I will be when I finish.

Three Steps towards recovery...

Remember the first two steps of my EDNOS/diet addiction recovery plan?  They were No More Guilt and Total Body Acceptance.  (Please check out the links for the posts regarding these two steps, if you missed them!)

I'm happy to say that I'm doing fantastic with both of these things now.  They are actually just my new normal at this point.  I (almost) never feel guilty about food or exercise decisions, and I (almost) always love and appreciate my body exactly as it is.  I say "almost" because I'm not perfect yet, but seriously it's rare when I feel food/exercise guilt or have negative self-talk about my body.

What progress that is for me!  When I wrote those posts, I was still engaging in both of those behaviors all of the time.  Practically every time I made a food or exercise decision, I would regret it, and beat myself up over it.  Every time I looked in the mirror at my body, I cringed, and dreamed of a day when my body would be smaller and therefore better.

I'm  super happy to say that this is no longer the case.

It really did just take practice to master these two steps.  

For "No More Guilt", just a constant reminder whenever I started to feel guilty about food or exercise to step back and remember that those decisions are MORALLY NEUTRAL and that they should elicit NO GUILT and to in fact feel guilt about those things is DISORDERED THINKING. 

 Eventually, I believed those things, and now I don't assign moral values to food or exercise.  Food is food, exercise is exercise, and no amounts or types of either define me as a person.  Really, they don't!  I'm so much happier without that constant guilt hanging over my head.

Some random self-love at Walmart!

For "Total Body Acceptance" I just started to love my body more.  In order to do that, I spent more time with it.  I did things like take baths without bubbles, walk around the house naked sometimes, pamper my body by always keeping it clean and moisturized, and being in more full body pictures.  I stopped avoiding mirrors and cameras.  I really learned my body.  After spending years avoiding body acceptance, this has been extremely enlightening.  

I also bought plenty of new clothes to fit my body.  Cute stuff from my new favorite clothing store: Torrid.  (sidenote: If you are a plus size woman who does not like her body and has refused to believe in the possiblity of cute plus size clothes, please do yourself a favor and check our your local Torrid!  I hope that you have one.  I adore mine.)  Cute clothes that fit my body really helped me in this step.

Just stopping avoiding the reality of my body's appearance and feel has made me love it.  Seriously, I used to be disgusted with my body when it was this size.  Disgusted.  Like, I would cry when I thought about it, and get angry when I saw pictures of it.  It was really messed up, how much hate I had towards my plus-size body.  Really.  Messed. Up.

I accept my body now.  And it feels great!

Now, all that being said...  Even though I'm no longer guilty or body-hating, I still recognize the need to change my eating habits and to lose some excess weight.  But these needs do not need to be met with guilt or body-hate.  Really, they don't!  Those two things have NEVER helped me to eat healthier, exercise more, or lose weight for the long term.  So I gave them up, and I won't be getting them back.  

The third step in my recovery is Intuitive Eating.  And I already told you guys a couple of weeks ago that I'm working on it again, so step 3 is on its way.  This third step will be broken down into several tiny steps.  So let's say that my EDNOS/Diet Addiction Recovery Plan is an outline, it would look like this:

I) No More Guilt.

II) Total Body Acceptance.

III) Intuitive Eating

        a) Eat only when hungry

        b) Stop eating when satisfied

               i) Stop eating when full

               

I'm at IIIai right now.  It's always been very difficult for me to stop eating when satisfied, so for now I'm going to do baby steps and stop eating when full.  To me, these are two different things. Once I'm "full", I know that I've gone past "satisfied" a bit.  But it's an easier sensation to recognize.  So I will start there. 

My next entry will be about the half marathon training!  

               

Let's try this again!

By "this", I mean intuitive eating.  I'm ready to give it another go.

The difference this time is that I am not going to be strict about it, and also that I am officially using it as a technique to get beyond my EDNOS.

I have always known that the day would come when I would need to go back to intuitive eating.

Since I have gone back and forth so many times, and shared pretty much every experience with my eating behaviors right here on this blog, I'm not too embarassed to let you all in on my return to IE.

I have tried and failed at Intuitive Eating several times.  Why have I failed?  Hmmm.  For many reasons, but I'm going to talk about the biggest reason for now.

I was looking at IE as another diet plan.  The "Eat When I'm Hungry, Stop Eating When I'm Satisfied Diet".  When I got sick of doing those things, or when I wasn't losing weight (or even when I was gaining it!), I would either give up on the IE "Diet" completely and lose myself in the world of binge eating again, or I would go back to tracking regularly so that I could eat until stuffed so long as I tracked it, and could still lose weight if I stayed under a specific calories or Points number.

Intuitive Eating should not be looked at in this way.  It is not a diet.  It is not a "lifestyle change" (which is really another word for diet in my opinion).  It is just listening to my body.  Giving it what it wants: no more, no less.  It is asking myself these questions before I eat:  "Am I hungry?" and "Is this what I want?" and giving myself  unconditional permission to eat when the answer to those two questions is "Yes!".  And of course, asking myself those same questions every few bites in order to figure out when to stop eating.

But even that ONE rule is enough to send me spiraling into a diet mentality sometimes.  

Like "Fuck you, Intuitive Eating.  No, I'm not hungry, and no this is not what I really want, but it's here and I want it, so I'm going to fucking eat it.  Stupid IE, making me only eat when I'm hungry and only eat what I really want, and then WTF making me have to stop every few bites and ask myself those same questions again?! Ridiculous."

Because I know this about myself and my past attempts at Intuitive Eating, I'm going to be gentle with myself regarding this rule.  I am going to think of it as a  healthy guideline, not a do-or-die absolute must RULE.

And I'm going to assume that if I practice this skill for long enough, eventually I won't have to be all "Okay, Self.  Are you still hungry?  No?  Okay then, pack it up until you're hungry again."  Eventually it will come naturally.  And that's when I will have fully recovered from my weirdo dieting behaviors once and for all.  But this will be a process.

There will be times when I binge.  There will be days when I wake up after a night of binge eating when I decide to track on My Fitness Pal for the week, the day, or even just for breakfast.  There will be times when my pants feel tight, and times when my pants feel loose.  As long as I can accept these things, then I truly believe that I will be okay with continuing on the path of becoming an intuitive eater who is recovered from EDNOS.

It may take years.  I can accept that.  I'm done with quick fixes.  All of the quick fixes that I have tried have exactly one thing in common with each other:  They didn't work long term.

Meanwhile, I still have many other way more important things going on.  One of which I have to get back to right now!  Time for class.  :-)

I hope that my random midday rambling about Intuitive Eating made sense to you guys.

Have you ever tried intuitive eating?  Why or why not?  

Did you like it?  

Are you still an intuitive eater?  

Please let me know in the comments, or on my FB page. 

EDNOS recovery while losing weight update...

Yes, I am still working on writing my very own diet addiction recovery plan.  And yes, I am still trying to lose weight.  And yes, I am still a recovering EDNOS-er.

And I recognize the fact that these three things don't always mesh.  Really, when one is struggling to recover from an eating disorder, the last thing that one needs to be focusing on is weight loss. 

But I am not a newbie to recovery.  This is not my first rodeo.  And every time that I have recovered from my disordered eating in the past, I have not fully recovered from the addiction.  I have been recovering from this since I was 19, and now I'm almost 29. 

And yet I still don't have a grip on my addiction.  My relationship with food and my relationship with my body are two parts of my life that I still struggle with daily.  I am working on this constantly.

I'm working on becoming a "normal" eater, whatever that is.  I have had many ideas of what that meant in the past.  Right now, I just want to focus on getting rid of my disordered eating thoughts.

Every time I eat or drink something right now, I ask myself "Is this something that I would eat or drink if I never had an eating disorder?" And likewise, before every workout, I ask "Is this how I would exercise is I never had an eating disorder?"

And because I will never truly know the answers to those questions, I just guess.

Here are some new recovery goals of mine:

1) Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.  Make these meals substantial.  Make them exactly what I want to eat at that moment.  Actually MAKE them sometimes.  No judgments about the quality or quantity of these foods, just be sure to eat them and enjoy them.

2) Before every food, drink, or exercise decision, ask myself if I am making the decision that a non-ED person would make.  If the answer is "yes", go for it.  If the answer is "no" think about it further.  If I'm not sure, the answer is probably "no".

3) Challenge myself to take risks.  Eat foods that scare me sometimes.  Drink a real Coke or a real pumpkin spice latte every once in awhile.  No judgment.  Just enjoy it.

4) Get off the treadmill if I start focusing on the calories instead of the distance.  It is so much more satisfying to accomplish distance goals than it is to burn calories!  The half marathon is coming up fast...

5) Track only when or if I feel like it.  It is not a requirement.

So as you can see, I'm still focusing on my EDNOS recovery.  I'm sick of being in this rut, with thoughts about food, exercise, and body hate taking up so much space in my brain.  My brain space needs to focus on more important things, like school...

How am I going to lose the weight while recovering?  I fully believe that I can lose weight by just being more aware and enjoying my foods fully.  I believe that if I eat what I really want at meals, I will snack less.  I also believe that focusing on non-weight loss goals in the gym will help me to lose weight as a side effect.  And I believe that it's okay to lose the weight slowly this time around.

Meanwhile, I'm still loving my body.  I love it for what it can do.  I love it for the way it looks (yes, even though I want to lose weight, it is not all about appearance!).  I love my body for how it feels.  I love it for everything it has brought me.  Mostly, I love it because  my mother gave it to me.

Thanks for my pear-ness, Mom.  :-)

Cravings...

All I want to eat these days is junk food.  And I'm conflicted about whether or not that's okay...

I know that I'm trying to not feel any guilt about food or exercise (or lack thereof).  So I'm not really feeling guilty about my days that begin with toaster pastries and end with ice cream.

But...  when am I going to start craving healthy stuff?  I am in that beginning phase of intuitive eating where I'm eating whatever I want without worrying about nutrition, so long as it's only when I'm hungry...  but...  but...  my desires for junk food are not getting any smaller.  (And I know all about the addicting chemicals within my processed garbage frankenfoods; that is not what this post is about.)

I'm wondering if I am truly giving myself permission to eat.  Perhaps I'm scared that some day soon I will go back on another diet and have to stop eating chips for lunch and pizza for dinner forever.  That's how diets work:  they suck me in, I truly believe that I will eat that way FOREVER, and I mourn the loss of eating my favorites of pizza and chips.

Then again, why choose?

So perhaps the reason that I am not craving healthy food at all these days is that I'm scared that some day soon, I will ONLY be allowed to eat healthy food FOREVER.  Like when I did the New Sonoma Diet.  Or maybe I'm scared that one day I will only be allowed to eat so many calories or fat grams or carbs every day, and that when I look at my food diary I will realize that chips and pizza aren't worth the calories/Points, like with My Fitness Pal or Weight Watchers...

Anyway...  I am just that by writing out what's going on with my eating, I will be able to identify and fix the problem.  I'm pretty sure that I have hit the nail on the head.  The problem is:

I'm not giving myself permission to eat.  

I'm not entirely convinced that I will never diet again.  

I know that dieting isn't the answer for me. However, I've been on so many that it's hard to believe that some day I won't realize once again that I hate my body and that the only answer is to restrict by monitoring my food and exercise with another diet.

I don't know how to fix this problem.  It's definitely not a quick fix.  If it were, then I would have done it already.  I suppose that I will continue on my path, and will hope that eventually I will trust myself around food, and truly give myself permission to eat, knowing that there is not another diet around the corner.

another bathroom selfie!

Meanwhile, I'm still working on total body acceptance.  Today I feel pretty cute.  And I know that I don't look thin.  I know that I look like a cute plus size woman.  And for the first time in awhile, I'm okay with that.  So that's a start there.

TOTAL body acceptance.

I am writing my own diet addiction recovery plan, based on personal experience, research, professional help that I have received since my EDNOS recovery 8 years back, and Mom's words of wisdom ringing in my ears.  I have figured out the first three steps, and have already blogged about one:  End food and exercise guilt.  Now it's time to talk about the second step.

Total body acceptance.

This is much easier said than done.  What do I mean by "total body acceptance"?  

It means that I have to put weight loss on the back burner.  I have to love my body EXACTLY as it is right now.  I have to appreciate it for not only what it can do (YAY I can walk, and not everyone can!  YAY I can see, hear, process information easily, dance [no skill, but I can try!], run, lift weights, play with my dogs, etc.).  But I also have to appreciate its appearance.

In all its glory.  Every inch. Including the hips that I currently loathe and the pimple on my chin.  Okay, maybe not the pimple, but everything else!  

And this is really tough for me.  But I am beginning to understand this part of Intuitive Eating (the book).  There was a chapter about accepting the body that you currently have, and throughout the book it says that in order to be an intuitive eater, you must be willing to put your weight loss in the back of your mind.

That totally makes sense to me now.  Every time that I have tried to follow IE in the past, I have still been mentally counting calories, and beating myself up when I wasn't engaging in diet behaviors.  I tried to push those thoughts away, but I just couldn't, and every time I did IE I would end up not losing weight quickly, which would get me back on a diet.  I hated my body and wanted it to change as quickly as possible.

I want this painting now.  Thanks, Google...

Maybe the ticket to getting the body that I want is to love the body that I have.  It's that whole "have what you love, love what you have" thing. Of course, if I ever truly love the body that I have, then I don't need to change it anymore at all.  And being an intuitive eater doesn't always lead to weight loss.  I may have messed up my metabolism so much from all of this yo-yo-ing around to the point where my body wants to be a size 18.  I don't know.  

I kind of doubt that, though.  Really, I believe that if I start loving my body, I will treat it better by feeding it healthier things and moving it around more, and that will just naturally lead to a bit of weight loss.  I believe the Intuitive Eating book where it says that my body will naturally get to its healthy weight eventually (which may or may not be considered "normal" per the BMI scale, but is healthy for ME - I highly suspect that I will still be a little overweight by those standards).  

However, total body acceptance means RIGHT NOW I need to accept my body, without any secret hopes for weight loss.  It's basically answering that age old question:  

If you knew that you would never gain or lose any weight and would always look exactly like this no matter what, 

how would you treat your body?

I'm getting better at total body acceptance.  One day at a time.  One of the things that I didn't like about being so big was that no clothes looked good on me. 

But I figured something out recently by shopping at Torrid:  There are clothes out there that make me feel beautiful.  They are expensive, though.  So one thing that I do need to work on is getting more money.  Oh yeah, I'm in school!  One day I will have a job that will let me buy whatever clothes I want (well, within reason.  But way more money than I currently make, which is zero).  So maybe the focus shouldn't be on getting smaller so that I can fit into cheap clothes, maybe the focus should be getting more educated in order to make enough money to buy more expensive clothes.  Sounds like a win-win to me.

Anyway...  I guess that I should wrap up this ridiculously long post.  I'm excited to begin the journey of total body acceptance.

Starting over tomorrow...

Confession:  This entire week, I have been telling myself that I will start over tomorrow with better eating and getting to the gym.  I just told myself that again a few minutes ago.

Why am I still engaging in this extremely diet-y behavior?  I guess out of habit.  I keep eating "bad" food, like pizza, chips, and chocolate candy.  I keep on skipping the gym.  And because I don't feel guilty about those behaviors, it's hard to motivate myself to stop doing them.

This is definitely new territory for me, knowing that I am trying to be completely done with dieting and food/exercise guilt.  I think that my inner "diet rebel" is emerging, trying to test me.

It's hard to find a balance, and hard to find motivation to do healthy things without the guilt as motivation.

This is a journey, as lame as that may sound to some, I truly believe in the word "journey" for many situations.  Recovery is a looooooooooooooong journey.

As ready as I am to be "normal" around food, as ready as I am to be an intuitive eater, as ready as I am to be at peace with my body...  I'm not there yet.  And that's okay.

I need to be kind to myself as I figure out what is next for me.

I need to figure out how to get the motivation for healthy habits back WITHOUT guilt.

No More Guilt

Guilt can be a good thing.  When one does something bad, then guilt is what makes one realize the error of his or her ways, and also what usually prompts them to apologize and make things right.

It's an important emotion for kids.  When this happens so many times, a child will realize that guilt sucks, and that the best way to avoid guilt is to always try your best to do the right thing.  Guilt can help make people do the right thing;  it can be a powerful motivator towards goodness.

Mom was the queen of guilt.  (She was great at reminding me about how guilty I would feel if I didn't go visit my grandparents, for example.)  I used to resent Mom's guilt tactics.  Now I'm thankful for them, because I often choose to be selfless because of her instilling that behavior in me when I was young.  

Two things that Mom never guilted me or my brother about:  Food or exercise.

She never once told us that we would really regret eating that cookie, or really regret not getting on the bike for an hour.

Nope.  Not once.

You know what gave me the stupid idea that I should feel guilty about how much I eat and exercise?  The dieting industry.  And whose advice would I rather take, Mom's or the dieting industry?  I'm going to go with Mom.

So for my first step in getting over my diet addiction, I am going to work to end the guilt.  No more guilt about eating or exercising.

I have no food rules right now.  I am not focusing on anything other than "no guilt".  I am trying to not overeat, and also trying to eat  healthy foods every day, but those are not my primary focus right now.  On the occasions that I overeat, or eat junk food, or on the days that I skip the gym and heath food completely, I am trying to not feel any guilt.

It may seem stupid to give up the guilt, because I'm quite overweight right now.  If I don't have guilt urging me to put down the donut, won't I eat all 12?  If I don't have guilt urging me to go to the gym, won't I stop exercising for weeks at a time?  If I don't have guilt telling me to track every single calorie I eat and exercise, won't I gain even more weight, and won't I definitely never lose weight again?  

Honest, I don't know.  It scares me to give up the guilt, because I can't remember how it felt to live in a world without food and exercise guilt.  I know that I didn't have this guilt until age 11.  I'm trying to listen to my inner child.  And also, asking myself this question: 

Where has guilt over food and exercise gotten me?  

It has brought me to where I am today in regards to food, exercise, and my body.  It has made me unrecognizable in pictures every 6-12 months, constantly ballooning up and shrinking down.  It gave me an eating disorder (or three...).  It made me hate my body.  It made me think that there is nothing more important in this world than getting smaller.  It made me crazy...  and that ain't right.

I'm ready to move beyond the guilt and to learn to truly trust myself to make my own decisions about food and exercise, based on anything other than guilt.  Maybe deciding to eat oatmeal for breakfast because I like it, and because it makes me feel good.  Maybe deciding to go to the gym because I like the way running makes me feel.  Maybe deciding to eat a bag of chips because they taste good.  Or an ice cream cone because it is so freaking hot outside.  Or broccoli because I am hungry and it's about to go bad.

How does guilt affect your eating and exercise?

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a number is worth NOTHING.

wearing a mask to protect my lungs
from the color bombs!

So a couple of things happened today.  They related to each other AND to the message of my blog, so I just had to share.

The first is that the official pictures for the 5K that I ran on Saturday came out.

The second is that I allowed a nurse to weigh me at a doctor's appointment.  Usually I refuse to be weighed. But today I decided that I would not let the number bother me.

When I saw the above picture of myself, I didn't see an overweight/obese woman.  My eyes didn't automatically go to all of my flaws.  All I saw was a strong woman.  I saw my muscular thighs.  I saw my running stance.  I saw a woman who was running, working hard to get to that finish line.  I saw real beauty and strength in this picture.

When I saw the number on the scale today (218), it didn't bother me.  I refused to be defined by that number.  I was startled, because I don't think that my body looks like it did the last time I weighed this amount.  Maybe it's the running.  Maybe it's my attitude.  It's probably both.

So what if I'm ridiculously close to my original "start weight" of 220.  When I look at this picture, I don't see that.  And when I run, I don't feel that.  I don't feel jiggly fat, I feel muscles.  I don't feel fat, I feel strong.

There are still parts of my body that I wish I could magically change, including my hips, my upper arms, and my ass.  But I cannot change these things overnight.  They will change as my training gets more intense and my eating gets healthier.  Or they won't.

I'm trying to accept my body exactly as it is today.  Which is back over the 200 pound mark, and a size 18.

I told Stacey about the high number on the scale, and he asked me if it was going to motivate me to eat healthier and exercise more.  And the answer to this question for the very first time is "NO!".  I refuse to be motivated by something like my gravitational pull.  I will continue to use the same motivational tools that I was using before knowing my weight:  a half marathon in October, health/longevity, and Mom.

This is an important step in my EDNOS recovery process.

My recovery plan, 8 years later...

I entered treatment for EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) eight years ago.  Doctors, therapists, and nutritionists saved my life, along with my super supportive mom and brother.  Yes, I was released from treatment.  But I honestly feel like I have never fully recovered from this disorder.

I have gone through many phases in this disorder, and the latest is diet addiction.  For the past several years (since beginning this blog),  I have gone from one diet to another, and lost and gained over 150 pounds.

I realize that I have a problem.  I also realize that the biggest scares are behind me, as far as disordered eating goes.  The remnants of EDNOS that I still have are nowhere as severe as the anorexic behavior that I suffered from years ago.  I was diagnosed as EDNOS because I was a "normal" weighted anorexic.

I'm just sick of still having an obsession with food and exercise.  I believe that my obsession with dieting is leftover behavior from my EDNOS days.  And I know that I can recover fully this time.  I'm done with dieting for good.

I'm back in "recovery mode", which is where I was several years ago when I realized that I had a problem with food 8 years ago.  The differences this time are that (1) My life is not in danger, and (2) I am going at it alone, with no professional help.

But I feel like I have learned so much in the last 8 years, from the professionals who have helped me, books that I have read, experiences and experiments of my own, and from friends and supporters like those of you reading and commenting on my blog and Facebook page.  From this knowledge, I am going to be writing my own recovery plan this time around.

I will try to blog at least weekly with how I'm doing in my recovery, including any steps I've made.

The first step that I'm making is to stop feeling guilty.  No more guilt about food or exercise.  I will write more about this step soon.  I don't know what the next step will be yet!