Body "identifiers", and acceptance of the change

If you would have told me a year and a half ago that I would allow myself to not be as thin as I could possibly be, I would have laughed and not believed you.  The mere thought of not being super skinny would leave me completely panicked. 

I was so absolutely obsessed with "thin" as my identifier, that I could not imagine myself happy in any other way.  At that time, my body defined who I was.  If I was not "Yasi, the short, skinny girl", then who was I?" 

Nobody.

(Or so I thought.)

I truly, and deeply, believed that I would not, and could not, be happy if I weighed anything over 109 pounds.  And if my weight climbed over that number, then I was damned, doomed, and done for!

This is why I did absolutely everything in my power to stay slim, and to stay under that number.  Unlike some girls who deal with ED's, mine did not involve exercise.  The reason for this is because I simply did not have the energy to complete my daily activities, let alone exercise.  And, I knew that when my activity increased my body would throw a complete shit-fit and I would lose control of my restriction.  If I did anything more than my normal routine, I would need more fuel (food), and that was a no-go.  So, my simple solution was to never be more active than I really needed to be.

What this meant was that as I lost weight (and did not exercise), I became super skinny up top, and skinny but squishy in my lower body.  My body had no definition.  I absolutely dreaded wearing bikinis, and really disliked my nude form.  I was not proud of my shape when it wasn't draped with clothing.  In clothes, I liked the fact that I looked thin-- my collar bones stuck out, my arms were waif-like.  Without clothes, I was just a squishy skinny person-- NOT that attractive.

After working on recovery for the past year and a half, my body has completely transformed.  I gained some definite weight (~10-12 pounds from my lowest weight, and ~5-7 pounds from the weight that I tried to maintain for the last couple of years before recovery).  I have also gained a lot of muscle, and some major definition and shape in my body.
Not only do I look very healthy, I am very healthy.  I am now much more active than I was-- I work out about 3x a week and I'm always up for walks, hikes, or other fun things. 

And, the reason that I can do all of these things is because I consistently feed and nourish my body.  My goal is not to be as thin as I could possibly be, it is to be fit and healthy.

In fact, I no longer identify with "thin".  But, I do identify with "athletic".  This is a huge stride for me.  Before recovery, I cringed at the word "athletic" as an identifier.  Because to me, it was almost a nicer way of saying "stocky" or "masculine", and I was terrified of being any of those things.  But, now, I don't mine describing myself as athletic, because that means that I can be as active as I want to be, and that is exciting!

This Friday, I even went on a 2.5 mile run at the gym, did strength training for a half hour, had lunch with my best friend, and an hour later went on a 2.7 mile hike with her.  A year and a half ago this would have been nearly impossible for me!

In addition, this year has been one of the first years that I've really felt comfortable with my body in a bikini.  My level of comfort has actually gone up since I first doned a bikini this Summer, so that'a a plus. :) 
And my comfort has nothing to do with looking thin in my bikini- because I don't.  I look athletic and fit.  I look like I eat normally and I work out.  And somehow, through all the positive self-talk, I've come to see 'athletic' and 'healthy' as positive descriptions.

I've actually never had as much fun during a Summer, as I have had this year.  And I attribute all of that to my recovery, and my life-style change.  Hoorah!!! :):)

♡Yasi

How I came to be able to eat the left-overs (and the road to intuitive eating)

My left-over Blimpie from last night. 

Ugly, but yummy!

I used to say that I hated to eat left-overs, particularly for lunch.  I would say it with conviction, and I would back it up with reasons ranging from "I hate old food" to "I'm just not that hungry at lunch time".

But it was a lie.  The truth is, I was terrified of eating left-overs.  Eating left-overs (along with eating any 'real' food) for lunch and not knowing the calorie count in what I was eating was a non-option.  It was some weird complex of my disordered eating ways.  I figured, if I knew the exact amount of calories that I consumed for breakfast and lunch, and controlled them and kept them low enough, then I could relax a little on counting calories for dinner.  Therefore, in some twisted way, eating left-overs for dinner was peachy keen; but for lunch?  NO WAY.

What I did allow myself  to eat did not even begin to resemble a real lunch.  In my mind, I could eat anything as long as I was sure of the exact calorie count. That 'magical count' was 300 calories.  This left me eating delicious and fun (completely kidding) things like: 1 orange (100 cal) and 1 Nature Valley bar (180 cal), or 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds (160 cal) and 1 apple (100 cal).  My brain had actually become a Calorie Count Encyclopedia of some sorts, and I knew the exact number of calories in many foods, right off the top of my head. 

The problem, though, was that I didn't know the calorie counts of any 'real' foods.  Like, the number of calories in a pasta dish/rice dish/other food that I made.  So, I decided to make things easier for myself by completely avoiding foods that I didn't not know the calories of.  This made for the least interesting (and healthy) lunches on the planet.  They were boring, not very yummy, and repetitious.  But, somehow over the years I had convinced myself that I actually enjoyed these lunches and that I hated to eat real lunch food.

Recently, though, I have progressed to eating left-overs for lunch-- and I cannot tell you how exciting this is for me.  It's as if my body says to me, enthusiastically :  You mean we can eat the sandwich that was left over from dinner last night?!!!  PARTY CITY!!!! (Ooh Ooh!)

Even though I am beyond the moon about this new development in my inuitive eating, I do want to take a moment and point out that getting to this place did not happen over night.  The path that worked for me actually started over a year ago--by forcing myself to eat a home-made sandwich for lunch every single day (with a yogurt, and carrots).  Boring, yes, but it was a good stepping stone as I could still count the calories that were in the simple sandwich and accompanying snacks.

In the Summer and Fall, my 'real lunch' eating habits waned, and I had a few disordered eating set-backs.  Over the Winter months, I somehow, miraculously, got very tired of all of my ED habits.  I was completely  exhausted from the constant fighting in my own head, and I decided to give intuitive eating a chance.  What could I lose?

I began to eat when I was hungry, and stop when I was full.  Simple, right?  Yes, and no.  While the concept was very simple and worked very well at times, my body was so used to being controlled with numbers and what I should or shouldn't eat at a given time, that my intuition couldn't always be trusted.  Sometimes I binged and felt awful afterwards.  Sometimes I restricted.  But, the beauty of it was that I wanted so badly to eat intuitively, that when I did 'fall off the wagon' I picked myself right back up.  I learned to forgive myself for slipping.  I learned to take every little scrape and bruise as a lesson.  My body and mind learned together that when I stuff myself full of chocolate and pizza it makes my stomach hurt and it feels awful.  I also learned that when I restricted I was hungry and unhappy.

Now, months after starting to eat intuitively, I can say that it is much easier.  I have began to trust my intuition.  And, remarkably, I can now enjoy the left-overs for lunch. :)

Sidenote:  I really wanted to end my post with the above, but knowing that some of you may have questions about weight, I decided to add this in.  My number one reason for not trying intuitive eating sooner was because I was afraid that if I gave myself the option to eat anything I wanted, I would frantically gain weight.  Well, I have some great news, eating intuitively did not make me gain any weight.  I weigh about the same now than I did before.  The only thing that has changed is that I now trust my body and its needs, and as I posted here, I even feel more attractive and at peace with myself.

Please feel free to send me any questions here on my blog, or @ triumphant.yas@gmail.com.

I would absolutely love to help any of you along in this journey in any way that I can.

=)

Being OK with being 'average' & countering negative body-image thoughts

Recently, I've felt pretty good.  Stable, at peace (most of the time), and happy with my body.  In fact, I wrote a whole entry about it here!

However, as I wrote in the aforementioned post, I still have slip ups.  The key, though, is to quickly counter these negative thoughts and to make myself feel better about my body and the way I look.  

I have to be honest, there probably is not one time that I look in the mirror and think "wow, I am so thin-I look GREAT!".  The reason for that is because I don't look very thin anymore.  I look average.  I am not fat, I am not chubby, but I'm not uber thin.  And for so long being the thinnest I could possibly be was one of the top priorities in my life.  Having an 'average' weight was absolutely not an option.  Being 'healthy' looking was not good enough.  I wanted to look extremely thin.  I wanted to look a little malnourished, because to me, that was attractive.  >WHAT?<  

Yes, it's true.  I thought that the thinner I looked, the better I looked.  The less 'average-sized' I was, the more proud I was of myself and my drive to 'stay thin'.  I even felt like a better and more accomplished person when I was very thin.  "No, I don't want to eat lunch, I'm not hungry at all."--even when I was starving.  

What's even more sad is that recently I have been peaking at pictures of myself throughout the last few years.  I remember the exact body-image feelings that I held in almost every single one of those pictures.  And in almost 80-90% of them I remember feeling utterly disgusted with my 'fat, chubby body'.  I remember how I berated my body while getting dressed for every single event.  I recall the excruciating hate that I single-handedly peppered myself with (daily, if not every time I caught my own reflection in a mirror).  My getting dressed and feeling terrible about myself, and constant state of hunger, left me in a terrible mood almost all of the time.  I tainted every single experience I ever had with horrible and ugly thoughts about my being.

I cannot describe to you how sorry I feel for my former self.  I wish I could go back in time and shake myself and tell me that I am absolutely insane if I think that 107 pounds is fat.  But, alas, it probably would not make a difference--as I hadn't yet learned all of the lessons I needed to learn to get to the place that I am now.

My point, though, with this post is to tell you that I still get those ugly thoughts in my head when I get dressed, or when I look in the mirror.  But, now I have learned that I cannot trust my own initial reaction to the way that I look.  If I thought that I looked disgusting and fat when I was obviously so thin, then, clearly, I have a warped way of viewing myself.  

What I try my hardest to do now is to dress in clothes that make me feel good about myself.  If I don't like how a pair of jeans is fitting, then I change into another pair that make me feel better (or I wear a dress or a skirt).  

Then, if I still look in the mirror and get terrible "I'm so fat-- I need to lose 5 pounds NOW" thoughts, I remind myself that I thought those exact things even at my thinnest, and that losing weight will NOT make me feel better about myself.  I remind myself that I look healthy and that's a great thing.  I'm not hungry all of the time.  I can enjoy food with everyone, without having to worry about calories and weight.

But, in order to get to this place, I had to do one thing:  I had to learn to be OK with having an average weight.  I'm sure I am still considered 'thin' for someone my size, but to me, I am just average now.  My ultimate goal is to prioritize my life and my self-worth to revolve around my experiences and not the number of pounds that my body weighs.  And if that means that I look not-as-thin, but can go out and have a good time with my friends and family and not constantly worry about food,weight, and how thin/fat I look in my jeans, then it's absolutely worth it to me.

 =)

When food loses its power

Yay!!!  Cheers all around!

Ladies and gentlemen, I never thought I would write this post.  In fact, I've attempted to write this post three times today already--Each time, writing one sentence, and closing out the page.

So, here goes...

After 1 year and 2 months of working on overcoming my ED-thoughts, and intuitively eating (more recently) and exercising regularly, I believe that I have in fact gotten 'THERE'.
Where is there?  THERE is the place where I eat based on hunger, where I enjoy foods that I'm craving, where I exercise when I want, where I look at my body and like how it looks.  The reason that I was so hesitant to write this post was because I still have days when I feel 'fat', days when I'm down, days when I look at pictures of 'skinny' me and wish that I was thin again (because I looked soooo much better, right?  WRONG!).  But, I finally decided to write the post anyway, because most of the time I am happy with the way I feel and look.  Most importantly, though, I am writing this post because I have finally gotten to a place where I'm not afraid of food.  WHAT?!?!?!?!?

I am not kidding you when I say that I can't believe I actually wrote the above words.  How can I not be afraid of food?  How can I not fear the calories that are in everything?  How can I not constantly be thinking about food (because if I'm not constantly analyzing my intake I will gain 1,000 pounds and DIE.  Right?  WRONG!)?

Well, somehow, through all my trials and tribulations, through all the ups and downs, through all the crying and skin-tugging, through all the stress of gaining 5 pounds of healthy muscle, I made it here.  Let me tell you this:  I have not restricted in months.  I have eaten consistently without restricting my intake.  And in the last couple of months, I have practically stopped counting calories.  Sure, if a menu shows calorie counts, I'll browse over the numbers.  But, now, it may or may not affect my choice-- I will still order what I'm craving.  The brilliant part, however, is that I've somehow learned to keep eating until I'm hungry and to stop eating when I'm full.

So, basically, in my 26 years on this Earth, my eating habits have reverted back to childhood-- when everything was instinctive.  Bravo!  BRA-VO, Yasi!!  


The most wonderful part, though, is the dissolution of the control I just had to have over my food intake.  I used to literally freak out if I ran out of my usual 'safe foods'.  If I didn't have the breakfast foods that I was comfortable with, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.  Same with lunch-- if we didn't have foods that I had deemed 'okay to eat', I just wouldn't eat.  Now, somehow, miraculously, food has lost its power over me.  Instead of planning my meals out way ahead of time, I now have the attitude of a 16-year old boy (again, much age-reverted improvement on my part ;) ).  It's more: open the fridge, "What do we have to eat?  I'm hungry!".


If I was British, this is where I would say: This is bloody brilliant!!


Getting here was NOT easy.  It sucked.  It sucked a big one.  I had to gain weight.  I gained about five pounds, and hated every one of them.  My body shape changed completely.  Instead of having a small top and a 'squishy' bottom, my body evened out.  My skinny arms got bigger, and my legs toned up.  I had to buy new pants because I went up a size.  Even the shape of my face changed!

In the beginning, I had a lot of binges because I didn't know how to control myself.  I didn't know if my body really wanted/needed something or if I was eating something for the sake of eating.  And I'll say it again, gaining those five pounds SUCKED.

But, overtime I have learned to like my bigger, more firm, healthy body (most of the time!).  I had to learn to like the way I looked, and somehow this improved my self-confidence.  A funny fact is that when I was in the throes of my ED, I felt ugly if I wasn't wearing make-up.  Like, HIDEOUS ugly.  In the last few months, I've grown to appreciate the way I look, even bare-faced.  I now only wear make-up when I feel like it, and wear much less of it. =)

On top of all that, a couple of months ago, I got a terrible haircut which prompted me to cut all my hair off.  I really think that my hair was the last security blanket from my 'ED days'.  With my long hair I kept comparing myself to the 'skinny me'.  Like, gosh I was so pretty and skinny back then with my long hair.  Well, my hair's still the same, so I technically *could* look that way again if I just lost a few pounds.  Chopping my hair off made me look entirely different.  With my hair way shorter (and cuter, I think!), I didn't look anything like the skinny/ED me.  It really was a final push to separate myself from my ED-ways... almost like a reward.
With my new hair, I even started changing up the way I dressed to fit my healthier body.  I was (am) inspired!  And inspiration can only lead to great things.
Overall, I'm not sure how important a 'new look' is for other Recoveries, but it really helped me embrace the new 'healthier me'.

But back to the reason why I finally decided to write this post.  To be honest, the reason that I decided to write it was because I wanted to show you guys that it is possible to get to a place where you're happy with what you're eating, and happy with how you're feeling and how you look.  I feel like I sound like a self-help book, but recovery is possible!  Full happiness is possible!  

But, even as I write this, I know that I'm still going to struggle on and off.  And you know what?  That's OK, and it's very normal. :)


I love you all so much, and couldn't have gotten to this place without all of your help, your kind words, and your support. <3

~Yasi

Accepting and shopping for a healthy 'new' body

Please be aware that this post discusses clothing sizes and may be triggering for some.  If these topics trigger you, please do not proceed.  =)

I was just catching up on your new blog posts, and I read Lily's and Kelsey's posts on how difficult it is to shop and outfit a new and different, curvier, and healthier body.  I've posted about this a few times before, but, I think it's an issue a lot of us recoverers have to deal with, so I'm going to write about it again.

The honest truth is, one year ago when I decided that I was going to get healthier, work out, and eat better (and not in an ED-way), I didn't fully realize what I was getting myself into.  I wasn't aware of the emotional, difficult, and frightening road that was ahead of me.  And most notably, I did not even fathom that gaining weight and possibly not-fitting into my clothes was going to be an issue.-- this probably speaks to how completely unaware I was of suffering from disordered eating.  I thought I was just 'watching my weight' and making sure I didn't get 'fat'.

What brought on this post is that I had to go shopping for jeans this weekend.  Being a fashion-loving gal I desperately 'needed' a pair of jeggings that fit me correctly.  I had spent the past year wrestling, kickboxing, and playing tug-of-war with my size 0 skinny jeans.  I would pull them on, and they would want to spring off my muscular thighs and ass like a cheetah after a meaty antelope.  Sometimes I would  wear the jeans even though they were uncomfortable.  Why?  Because they were a size 0 and I despised the fact that my jean size had gone up.  DESPISED.  It made (still makes) me feel like a failure.

Now, my jean size is ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE.  I cannot tell you how aggravating and challenging this is.  I can no longer go into a store and pick up a size 0 knowing that they will most likely fit (picking up a size 2, just in case).  I now have to grab anywhere from a size 0, 2, 3, and 4 for my curvy and healthy body (Oh no!  NOT a FOUR!!!!  What the hell does size FOUR mean, anyway?).  Yesterday was one of the days where I had to not only face a size 4 jean, I actually bought them because they looked nice on me.  However, just because I bought them doesn't mean I've stopped berating myself for 'getting fat enough' for a size 4.

What's really sad about the ordeal is that I *know* that women's sizes are complete bullshit.  This completely ridiculous bullshit concept was even proven to me in the same Express dressing room that I decided to buy the size 4 jeans.

I had grabbed a handful different types of skinny jeans in sizes 0, 2, and 4, and I had it narrowed down to a jean called the Stella, and another similar style called the Zelda.  They fit very similarly, but the colors were different:  the Stella was a dark inky wash with gold stitching, and the Zelda was a dark black wash.  Oh, and the other thing that was different about them was that the Stella that fit was a size 2, and the Zelda was a size 4!  Imagine my annoyance--two nearly identical jeans, that fit almost exactly the same, but in two completely different sizes!

Why, why , WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Knowing that I liked the black-wash (size 4) Zelda's better, I was faced with a difficult, but rather absurd, decision.  Do I buy the Stella's because they were a size 2, or do I buy the Zelda's in a SIZE FOUR?  Do I succumb to my sad state of 'fat-ness', or do I buy the jeans I like less because the size tag makes me happier?

After much debate I finally decided that I liked the black-wash Zelda's.  I even changed out of the pinching size 0 skinny jeans that I had worn to the mall, and pulled on my new big-girl jeans in the dressing room (after paying for them, of course!).

I wish that I could tell you buying the cute Zelda jeans made me realize that it's ok for me to be a size 4, and that I had some huge epiphany.  But, the truth is, I didn't.

Even though I know that I could fit into a size 2 in a similar jean and I'm not a fat-ass, and even though I generally like my new healthy and fit body, I still hate that I have to buy a bigger pant size.  I miss feeling like a dainty little thing.

That night, I put on my new jeans and went out and had drinks with J.  What else could I do?

I even took pictures of myself in a mirror to prove to myself that I look fine, and that I'm not 'fat'.  I took the pictures because I knew that I could look at them later and realize that the crazy was all in my head, and not reality.

So, tell me...

Have you ever had a similar experience?

What did you do?

If you are recovered or in recovery how do you deal with shopping for your healthier body?

5 Pounds of Love

Hello my Loves!
  How have you been?  I haven't written in a little bit and I missed you all.

If you've kept up on my posts you would know that I had a really rough few weeks with my eating disorder flaring up.  But then I somehow miraculously came to my senses when I realized that restricting my eating and being obsessed with losing a couple of pounds was making me down right MISERABLE.

In short, I was a bitch.  I was constantly hungry, annoyed, and short with people and the only thing that made me happy was getting on the scale and seeing my weight drop from 113 to 111 to 109.  I was completely preoccupied with making the number drop and doing everything to make sure that it at least stayed at 109.  And I know this is random, but my nails were constantly chipping.  Which meant that I wasn't get the right nutrition.  When I was eating correctly, my nails were beautiful and strong and NEVER chipped!

I went to Chicago for the 4th of July with J and I spent the entire time figuring out ways to consume the least amount of calories possible while still having fun (I really DID have fun though, so that's good!).  We went to the Taste of Chicago which is this little fest where you can buy tickets and get tastes of all kinds of different foods from a variety of restaurants in Chicago.  And I ate as little as I could while still trying to be normal and 'taste' things.  Mehhh.

And you know what sucks?  Coming home drunk and knowing that eating something would make you feel SO much better b/c you don't feel good, and sitting there agonizing over of the number of calories in a Nature Valley bar.  Because OBVIOUSLY eating that would ruin you.  Obviously.

We came back from Chicago on Monday and guess what I did that night?  Semi-Binged.  I had freaking starved myself for 2 weeks and I was hungry.  I was supposed to leave for Virginia to visit my best friend on Wednesday and on Tuesday I came this this realization.  I realized that I didn't want to spend my entire vacation in Virginia worrying about what I was eating or counting calories.  And thank God I came to that conclusion when I did.  Because it helped me have a hell of a great time with my best friend!!
We went to the gym or did some sort of physical activity every day.  And then we would lay out or go to the beach.  I also ate completely normally and it was GREAT.  I had a freaking blast!!

I have gained back the weight I lost in the two weeks I spent miserable.  But I'm ok with it.

Boy, have I come a long way since a 7 months a go.  5 pounds heavier, but much happier.  And you know what, I think I wear these 5 pounds well.  These are 5 pounds of muscle, 5 pounds of good times, 5 pounds of NOT starving, 5 pounds of not being a bitch, 5 pounds of not freaking out about what I'm going to be eating, 5 pounds of having meals with my fiance and not skipping out because "I'm not hungry".  These are 5 pounds of Love.

I have my 2nd wedding dress fitting this upcoming Thursday and my bachelorette party is next Saturday.  I am SO excited.  People in my life love me for me, not for how thin I am.  I love me for me, not how bony my arms look.

I was walking out of work today and it was one of those days where I didn't have a lot of time to get ready and I felt like my outfit was a little off.  As I was walking a man said to me "Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you that you are a very beautiful woman."  Verbatim, that's what he said.  I was so shocked and happy that I just looked at him and said "Thank you SO much!".  What a wonderful person he was. More people should give each other compliments.  I try to as much as I can.  I should try harder.

Little things like that go a LONG way.  I definitely spent the rest of my day feeling wonderful.

=)

So, tell me, what's new with you all?

I missed u!

I have one thing to say...

FUCK U Ed.  Fuck you and your treacherous ways.


I went to Chicago this wknd and really watched what I ate.  I came home yesterday and was starving so I ate a bunch of stuff including chocolate.  I went on the scale today and was at 112.  Apparently I gained 3 pounds while watching what I ate attentively.

I crumbled on the inside.  Then I went on the treadmill and realized how strong my legs had gotten from working out.

Ed, I will literally kick your ass.  I will physically beat you up.  You weak little piece of shit.


Fuck you.

I'm going to Virginia to visit my best friend tomorrow and I'll be damned if I restrict myself.  I had all of these plans of how I was going to forgo food and bla bla.  Eff that.  I'm going to enjoy my vacation.  Read:  I'm not going to stuff my face, but I'm not going to starve myself.  I'm gonna eat right along with everybody.

I have my dress fitting on July 21st.  I will eat normally up until then.  If I feel like a cow while trying on my dress I will consider restricting my eating 2 weeks before the wedding and losing a couple of pounds.

But this is not sustainable.  I love working out too much.  And I like being able to enjoy food with everybody.  So much of life revolves around physical activity and food.

Anyway.  I am going to enjoy my vacation in 100 degree Virginia.  I will live in my bikini and like my strong thighs and body.

I refuse to starve.  I want to have fun.

Love u all.

Will write soon =)

Thank you =)

Thank you everyone for your kind comments about my last post.  I was feeling so intensely overwhelmed. I cried for 3 hours straight!!!  And then I took a nap and woke up and felt better.

J and I resolved our issue that day, and my mom called me later in the night and our conversation was normal to good.

As for the body issues, they are still there.  I really do think I that want to slim down a couple of pounds for the wedding because I just don't feel like I look like myself.  I'm not starving myself at all.  I'm just going to continue going to the gym and I'm going to watch my portion sizes.

It's just that if there's one day that you want to look and feel your best it's your wedding day.  And if being a couple of pounds thinner will make me feel better then I think that's ok.

I realize that this looks like a slippery slope.  But I really need to do this for my own sanity in the next two months.  J knows that I'm doing it and we're discussing it and he's watching me.

I kind of feel like I'm letting you guys down a bit.  But as I said before, this is going to be the most captured day of my life and I just want to feel like myself.

The good news is that during this transformation I have learned how to eat really well and have learned to eat nutritious food (instead of keeping myself functioning with carbs!).

Again, thank you for all of your kind words.  They mean the world to me.

Sadness

This post is going to be very scattered and I apologize in advance.

Do you ever have those days where you're just sad?  And no matter what you do you can't get out of your funk?

Today is one of those days.  I am overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and sadness.  There are so many things changing in my life and sometimes I don't know how they are happening so fast.

In 2 months I am getting married, moving in with J, moving to another city, finishing up my thesis, and possibly looking for a job.

I am moving away from the city I've lived in for the last 15 years.  I'm moving away from familiar faces and places.

I'm lonely.  

I ate chocolate chip cookies and ice cream last night.  And I felt as if I was going to bust out of my jean shorts.  

I browsed other peoples wedding pictures.  They all looked so skinny and perfect in their dresses.  

I looked at my pictures from when I was skinny.  I look so happy.

I am not happy now.  I don't like the way my body looks.  I don't feel like myself.  I feel like I am stuck in somebody else's body.  I don't recognize my girth or the way my clothes fit.

I need to lose 5 pounds.  I just can't do this right now with the wedding right around the corner.  I am so stressed out.  I can't try to recover when I hate how I look.  I don't want to hate how I look on my wedding day.

I just over plucked my eyebrows and I'm freaking out a little bit.  I was just trying to get them to look equal.  I hope they grow back in by the wedding.  My face looks bare and ugly.

There are too many things going on and I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face.  They won't stop.  As if there is an endless well of tears somewhere deep in my body.  It's as if my body is trying to get rid of my sadness by letting the well run dry.  But I don't think it will.

God, I have issues.

I have no family here.  And almost all my friends have moved away in the past year or 2.  

It's just my cats and me.  And when they see me they just see a walking bag of cat food and a litter scooper.

Guuuuh.

I'm sorry.

But this blog is about being honest.  And this is honesty.

Suckage

Above are pictures from last night.  We went out with some of J's work friends to celebrate his departure from the company and also his new job.  Before this recovery journey I adored my thin limbs and usually felt pretty slender when I went out.  I did not feel this way last night.  I felt healthy and I felt hefty.  I was no longer a thin body that floated around the bar.  My body felt obtrusive.

Today is one of those days where I just feel like crap about my body.  It really doesn't help that I just got my period and that I haven't been to properly move my stiff neck and my upper back in like 2 weeks.  I'm just uncomfortable.

I feel pudgy and I feel gross.  And it's really hot here which makes me feel like I'm simply expanding with the humidity.  My boobs are swollen.  Everything is just puffy.

I've been eating very regularly, which in theory is good.  I'm enjoying food, which is also good.  But goddammit why do I have to look fuller?  I hate it!!  I mean I like that I'm eating food like a normal human being, but every summer before this one was spent restricting so I never felt round or pudgy.  Well, that's a lie.  I did feel round and pudgy, but when I look at pictures now I totally wasn't!!

But now I look healthy.  In pictures I don't look really thin.  I just look normal.  And as every person with an ED knows, you don't exactly strive to be normal.

So yes.  I'm a total grump today.  And I apologize that you had to hear me bitch.

End Rant. :)

Body part persecution- arms

  Sometimes I feel like a broken record.  Above is a picture from last night's sushi date with a few of my friends.  I love taking pictures and I always have my camera with me for fun events.  The real problem comes when I look at the pictures later at home.  

  I analyze the shit out of pictures that I'm in.  

"Do my arms look big?  OMG they DO look big!!!"  

"Do my legs look flabby?"

"Do I look big?"

"Do I look chubby?"

"Do I look like I've gained 5 pounds?"

"Am I fatter than the other people in the picture?"

"Do I have face chub?"

.

.

.

FUCK.  The above picture from last night really got to me.  I'm in the middle.  The two girls beside me are TINY I mean like bone-thin.  No, I don't expect to look like them.  However, before I started exercising, my arms and upper body were very thin.  I carried my weight in my upper thigh area.  And now that I have gained a few pounds (of muscle I think/hope), my weight has redistributed everywhere.  My arms and upper body are bigger.  And my skinny upper body was something that I really liked about my body before.  And now it's gone.  

I know I don't look fat.  I know.  It's just so difficult for me to accept that the one thing I really liked about my body is pretty much gone.  

Maybe the fact that my thighs and butt are much more toned now could make up for my long-gone skinny top.  But most pictures are from the waist up, ergo not documenting my toned legs and butt.  I hate feeling like I look fat in pictures.  They remind me of my high school senior pictures in which I looked like a wooly mammoth.

Oii vey.  I have serious body image issues.

So tell me, is there a particular body part that you love/hate?

Am I completely crazy?

:)

The significance of 113.

Hi everyone!  I hope that everyone is having a pretty good week.  We are 2 days away from the weekend, which is always a good thing.

This post may or may not get long as I will attempt to explain my obsession with weight numbers.

I weighed myself for the first time after a month.  And I weighed the same as I had a month ago: 113.

113.  This is the number that I have had in my head the past few months.  113 is the number I must not go over.  Because in my head once I go above 113 there is no stopping the weight gain.

Now you must remember that the first eating disorder I developed was Binge Eating Disorder.  What I can remember is that I was a happy, healthy, skinny teenager and I weighed 113 pounds....and then I was a fat, unhealthy, and depressed teenager at 142 pounds.

So you can probably see why 113 is a holy number to me.  It is the last weight I remember being healthy and happy at.  When I was 13 years old, my weight was 113 pounds.  113 meant nothing to me.  It was just how much I weighed.  So, what?

Once my eating disorders developed I was obsessed with the damn number on the scale.  In my anorexic/restricting phases I would weigh myself 3-5 times a day.  I.kid.you.NOT.

I could gain and lose up to 10 pounds a week by bingeing or restricting.  I was chained to the scale.  I NEEDED to know what my weight was at all times.

A little while before my 21st birthday I moved out of my parents house.  In my new apartment I did not have a scale and my obsession with the weighing was somewhat broken.

About a year after being on my own I restricted very heavily.  I was ~106-107 pounds for 2 years.  For the last 2 years I had been around 108-109.  Slooooowwwwly creeping up.  But I was OK because it was under 110, which was less than my teenage 'happy' weight.
My goal for the past few years had been to keep under 110 because maybe I wasn't as thin as I should've been even at my 'teenage happy weight'.

Well guess what folks, with this whole healing process since January, I basically had to kiss 110 goodbye.  I haven't been 110 pounds for over 4 months.  Am I ok with it?  Yes and no.
No, because obviously I HATE, yes hate, the fact that I weigh 5 pounds more than what I have weighed in the past 4-5 years.  No, because what if my weight keeps going up?  No, because I'm not rail thin anymore.  No, because 108 had become my supposed 'happy weight number', and now I'm 5 pounds over that.
BUT Yes, because I am eating.  I eat all 3 meals with healthy snacks in between.  I'm not starving myself.  I eat really healthy food and I binge much less frequently.  I enjoy grocery shopping and eating much more because I'm trying to not constantly worry about calories, but more about nutrition and fuel.  I feel healthier.

And then there is this dilemma that I have had.  I know I have gained somewhere between 3-5 pounds.  But where the hell did the weight go?

When I look at myself, I pretty much like how my body looks.  I look pretty fit.  I don't look fat.  I don't look super skinny, but I think other people would say that I am 'thin'.

5 pounds ago I had more insecure thoughts about my body than I do now.  WHY?  why?why?

I don't understand.  I saw more flaws with my body when I was thinner than I do now.  I don't get it.

Maybe it's because I'm more toned now.  Or maybe it's because I've accepted the fact that I should start taking in a size 0 and a 2 pant in with me into the fitting room, because the 0s may not fit me.

But what I don't get is that when I was 108  and bingeing and restricting, and I gained 1 or 2 pounds I felt it immediately.  I felt it in my clothes, I felt it everywhere.  Now I weigh 5 pounds more than that and I still fit in my clothes.  They're more snug, but most of them fit.  I really don't think I look that different than when I was skinnier.  But five pounds is a LOT!!  I'm confused.

So why the eff was I so hard on myself when I weighed less?  And why/how am I less hard on myself now?  Maybe my self therapy is working and it was all in my head.

But the question really and truly is:  Where the fuck did weight go?  How can I still fit in my (skinny) clothes?

I mean I'm not complaining.  But it just makes me sad that I was so hard on myself when I weighed less than I do now.

So, 113.  That's what I've been for a while.  I'm almost 26 years old and I weigh the same as when I was 13 years old.  I guess that's something to be 'proud of'.  But somehow my disordered mind still taunts me with 'but you were able to get down to 107 for almost 4 years!  What is WRONG with you?  DO IT AGAIN!'

But I don't think I can.  Well, I can.  I don't think I will.

I'm ok.  I'll be ok.

This change needed to happen.  I really wish I didn't have to gain weight.  But at least I still look alright.

This is good.  This needed to happen.  I'm alright.

Here are some pictures from 3 years ago, and now.  I tried to find pictures that were similar in angle.   Even *I* realize now that I was too thin 3 years ago:

2007

2010

Yup, this turned into a long post.

:)

Sunday night post

This is my 2nd post of the day, but I guess I just feel like blogging.  I ate very healthfully today.  I had J take all my left-over Easter candy and my miniature Dove chocolates and Hershey's kisses out of the house.  Here is what I ate:

Breakfast:
-2 slices of 100% whole wheat bread with 1/3 fat philly cream cheese + tea

Lunch:
-1 pita bread and 1/2 cup of hummus

Dinner:
-a good sized salad: lettuce, tomato, carrots, avocado, 1 hard-boiled egg, with salt, pepper, and fat-free raspberry vinaigrette dressing
-1 vanilla Light & Fit yogurt

Even though I ate really well today, I've felt nauseous for a good part of the day.  In fact, I'm feeling nauseous as I type.  I feel like the salad and yogurt are swimming in my stomach and it just feels EWW.

  I'm really feeling the pressure to eat better and not be pudgy.  Graduation is in less than 3 weeks and I don't want to look like Pudgy McFatface in all my pictures.  I'm also scared shitless of what I will look like on our wedding day.  Sometimes I think that I'm crazy for wanting to go through this healing journey now.  Every bride wants to look their skinniest and most beautiful for their wedding day.  And here I am, having gained 5 pounds since last Fall.  I haven't gained 5 pounds in 4 years.  What the eff am I doing?  But then I think that my body looks more toned and I've probably just gained muscle.  I actually like my butt and my thighs, I'm not embarrassed of them like before.  Before, even when I was 107, I felt like my thighs were squishy.  Because they were.  We'll see what this whole cutting-out-junk does for me.

  On top of that my mom, who is always on a journey to lose weight, has a goal weight of 110 for the wedding, which is 2 or 3 pounds less than what I weigh now.  I know how stupid and ridiculous this sounds, but I can't believe that my and my mom's weight is so close right now.  She is 115 and I'm 112/113.  I mean I know she's ~ 2" shorter than me, but still.  I, the daughter, am supposed to be the skinnier one!  I totally feel awful writing about this, but it is how I feel.  I told my mom I felt this way, in jest, and she was like "well, you'll lose those 5 pounds the week before the wedding anyway with the stress." And all I said was "I hope so".

  Okay, that's all for now.  P.S.  I didn't eat any junk today =)

Thighs, schmighs!

I have always been uncomfortable with my thighs, mostly the upper-outter thigh-ass (thass!  Hee!).  One of the most vivid memories of my thigh problems is from when I was around eleven.  We were at the mall and I was begging my mom to buy me bellbottoms.  My mom was getting a little annoyed because these pants were all the new rage and they were EXPENSIVE.  No I mean, really, they were very expensive for '96.  I'm talkin' like 60 bucks people!  We tried on a few pants and after a little while my mom said the most horrid thing you could say to an 11 year old.  "Those pants just don't flatter your thighs.  Your thighs and butt are too big for pants like this and these pants don't look that great on you."  *Collective sharp inhale*  And ever since that day, I have always been self conscious of my thighs and my butt.

  But in all reality she was partly right.  I have an hour glass, sometimes pear, body-shape that does not look like your typical 'American girl' body.  Oh and that probably has something to do with the fact that I'm Persian, and not American.  I do not have a pencil shape to my body.  There are curves.  And since most of the clothing here in the States (and really EVERYWHERE) is made for straight body types, I have always battled with the way my thighs/butt look in clothing.  Now, I am not saying I have a big badonkadunk- because I don't.  But my thighs and my butt have never been really 'in shape', which is probably because I was never really involved with sports or any activities that were, well, active.  

  And until this January, I have never really been one to exercise (well except for those 4 mile runs every morning at 6 am when I was 19.  But that's a story for another day!).  So throughout my weight loss and weight gain and weight loss (...) my thighs and butt remained this non-toned area that I always hated.  Even at my thinnest, 106 pounds, I still didn't like the way my thass looked.  For some people it's their stomach, but for me my thighs and butt has been the area that make me feel fat.  

  So, you ask, why am I rambling on about my thighs and butt?

  I am rambling on about these particular lower body areas because my issues with my thass have significantly decreased since I began working out.  As I said in a previous post, my body shape has changed since I began eating well (as in eating at all meal times and not restricting myself) and exercising.  I have not lost weight.  In fact, I have gained somewhere between 3-5 pounds.  But to be completely honest, my body looks better than it's ever looked.  Where before, I was this frail bony person on top with a semi-shquishy thass, I am now a bit bigger on top (YAY arm muscles!) and my thighs and butt have firmed up (see pix ^).  I'm no longer extremely self-concious of my thighs.  In fact, I like wearing shorts now because my legs look toned and puuuuurdy.  =D

  Now, I am not insanely *thrilled* that I gained weight.  Some days I get really down about it (hence the 2 previous posts).  But days like today, when I stare at my body in the mirror (You know you do it too!), I think "wow, my body looks solid.  I look toned.  I actually look healthy.".  Not, "my body looks frail and skinny, but uggh my thass still looks squishy- oh well, at least my top is super duper skinny and I look thin".  Today I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw because I looked like a healthy 25 year old who takes care of her body.  I didn't look emaciated.  I didn't look squishy.  I just looked healthy.  And when I looked in the mirror, I just liked the way I looked.  I realized that I didn't look extremely thin, but I didn't look fat either.

  On another note, all of my clothes still fit--they just fit differently.  I do think that a lot of the weight that I have gained has been in my thighs and butt and in my arms.  But my legs and my butt aren't fatter.  They do, however, take up more room in my clothes.  Like, my jeans fit tighter, but they don't look bad. Because my thighs look toned and my butt is raised and toned.  My shorts fit tighter, but they don't look bad, because of the same reasons.

  And another thing--I know I said in my last post that I'm going to try to lose weight for the dress fitting, but I'm not really sure if that's a priority anymore.  My priority will be to go to the gym consistently and to be fit and toned, not to lose weight.  Honestly, if I really think about it, even with a 5 pound weight gain all of my clothes still fit and look good.  So what if I gained a few pounds?  As long as I'm still fitting into my clothes (even if they fit a bit differently) I'm a happy camper!

  So, I think that was a really long post, but I had sort of a break-through, and it's always important to post about those!

  So tell me, have you had any break-throughs recently?

The history

First off,  I promise to never have a post as long as this.  But given the fact that I have been dealing with disordered eating for over a decade now, an in depth history is a must!  I will be chronicling my journey to really overcome my disordered eating and I'll try to post every day =)  Happy (long) reading!!  Oh and please comment if you'd like--  I'd love to read your thoughts!

I have been admitting the fact that I have an eating disorder (s) for about 8 years now.  But in reality, I've been dealing with disordered eating and body image issues since I was probably 14 years old.  I'm not really sure what triggered it.  It could have been a slue of things.

I'm Persian, and like all Persian women I have naturally bigger upper thighs and butt.  I went to All-American schools where everyone was tall and lanky and extremely thin.  I always thought, why does my body not look like that?  But before I was in high school it wasn't a HUGE thing.  I was too busy being a kid to really worry about my body-image issues.

To boot, I have a mother who is very body-concious, and has been for as long as I can remember.  She is a very petite, beautiful, and thin woman, but she was/is never thin enough for her own liking.

So once high school started, I realized just how different my body looked from the other girl's.  They had legs that were long and thin and beautiful, and mine had stopped growing in the 8th grade.  Mind you, I was always a thin girl, but being 5'2" doesn't leave much room for loooong skinny legs.

During freshman year of high school I joined the softball team.  Everyone would bring and eat lots of unhealthy snacks.  We were 14.  That's what we did.  But for some reason, other people could stop eating junk food, and I just couldn't.  I would get around ritz crackers and cheese and keep eating until I was too embarrassed to eat any longer.  Why?  I have no idea.  It could be the fact that around this age my mom told me that if I ate a lot of bad snack food I would get fat, so I should only have a couple of cookies.  But it's not like she physically tore me away from the cookies.  So yes, that's when it all began.

I remember, at 14 I weighed 113 pounds.  And after a while I started feeling like I was so fat.  In my mind, I was way past 'normal eating' and wanted to have control over my body shape and food intake.  I split food up into 'Good' and 'Bad' foods.  Good Foods were things like carrots, bananas, and jello- very low calorie, very unsatisfying!  The Bad Foods list was much much longer.  It includes things like cookies, chips, cheetos, ice cream, chocolate, and many other things.  And every time I got around 'bad foods' I got so excited and freaked out that I felt like I was fighting an urge to 'go in for the kill'.  I saw these foods as the evil that was tempting me and keeping me away from my lanky legs and non-existant American waist.  And the more I resisted, the better and more awesome-er I was.  God it felt good to look a box of ice cream in the eye and put it back in the freezer.  But then an hour later I would find myself on the couch with a bag of cookies, two bags of cheetos, and a couple of bags of chips.  You see, once I ate even one cookie (a BAD food), I had RUINED my eating habits and my 'goodness' for that day.  So I might as well have eaten whatever else was in the house.  And if I had something sweet, I then wanted something salty, and then I wanted something sweet again.  And man, did I inhale the food.  I ate so fast that I didn't even taste most of what I was putting in my mouth.  And I wouldn't stop shoveling all kinds of crap into my mouth until my stomach hurt.  I would also hide food and eat it when others weren't looking.  It was so sad.

So, you can kind of see the predicament that I was in.  Obviously I couldn't control myself around Bad Foods,  so I had to keep as far away from them as possible.  But it's so hard when it's all around you.  What do you do???

After a couple of years of secretly doing this, I realized that something was really wrong, I had gained 30 pounds!  And I HATED food.  But if I hated it, why did I shovel it into my mouth like it was going out of style?  So, I did what most people would have done and googled my symptoms.  It turned out that I had an eating disorder (duh!) that was called Binge Eating Disorder (BED).

Once I figured out that was suffering from BED, I tried to think of ways that I could fix myself.  But it was just so hard.  And the other hard thing was that no one in my family believed that I had an eating disorder.  They just thought I had a lack of will power.  And when I explained to them that I honestly could not control myself around food, they just laughed and said I was being dramatic.

Basically, my life sucked.  I was so tortured by thoughts of food- of eating it or not eating it.  I thought about food about 85% of the time that I was awake.  I kept food journals and recorded my feelings and what I ate that day.  I tried a gazillion different diets to try to lose the weight and get my 'will power' back.  Nothing worked.  I stopped going out to eat with my friends because I knew that I couldn't control myself around food and I didn't want to ruin a 'Good Eating Day'. And then sad part is that this was all before I was 18.  During 'Good Weeks' I could lose up to 10 pounds!  This was usually done when there was a big party or something coming up.  I would eat extremely restrictively.  And during 'Bad Weeks' I could gain up to that amount.  Apparently along with my eating disorders I had also become Elastigirl!  I could get big or small at the blink of an eye.   I would weigh myself at LEAST 3 times a day.  I was absolutely obsessed with food and with my weight.

Once I turned 18, I started college at a state university.  My parents, being Persian, had me stay at home (woohoo!  Not really). The summer after college I went overseas for ~3 months and realized that so many of the people that I knew were thin.  And I wanted so badly to be thin.  So I started eating very very small portion sizes.  I lost 15 pounds in 2 weeks.  I felt amazing.  I came back to the States feeling GREAT and in control.  I was awesome.  I was thinner.  I was a Super Star.  And that was the start of the Anorexic part of my eating disorder(s).

Over the next few years my weight fluctuated depending on how I ate/didn't eat.  I still binge ate, but made up for it by eating hardly anything.  At 20, my parents moved across the country and I had to move out on my own.  I also met a boy, J (my soon to be husband!!).  Very early on in our relationship I told J about my eating disorder.  And he stayed by my side while I cried and told him the deepest, darkest parts of my disorder.  It was sad, it was beautiful, it was freeing.  7 months later J went to S. Korea to work for 6 months.  During those 6 months, my restrictive dieting was heightened.  I went from 115 pounds right when he left to around 106 when he came back.  I felt FABULOUS.  I was beautiful, I was thin, I was on top of the world.  I didn't care that I was hardly eating dinner.  I had pushed food out of my mind and wouldn't really eat unless I was STARVING.  And even then, I was eating very very little.

It's been 4 years since J came back, and I've fluctuated ~107-109 pounds for the most part.  During this time, I loosened up on my eating, but still counted calories like my life depended on it.  J and I will be getting married in less than 6 months and I decided that I wanted to look really fit for our honeymoon.  Well, being 108 pounds doesn't necessarily make your body fit and attractive when you're in a bikini.  My body didn't have the definition I craved.  So I decided that I would start working out and I would once in for all try to have a normal relationship with food.  I would try to eat a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and not make myself feel guilty.

Since January 2010, I have been working out 4 times a week and I LOVE IT!!  It's amazing.  I have definition in my legs, my stomach, and my butt.  But guess what?  When you work out, you get hungry and eat more. And you may gain muscle.  My weight has gone from 108 pounds to 111.  I have gained 3 pounds.  Now, to some people that may not be a lot, but to me it is!  I haven't gained 3 pounds since I started packing on the pounds back in high school.

And guess what?  This weight fluctuation has led to my feeling bad about my body (I look FULLER) and the way I look, and on the days that I don't work out, I am very vulnerable to binge-ing!  Oiii vey.

But I'm not going to stop working out.  I love it.  It's amazing.  Before, I was eating too little to even have the energy/drive to work out.  So, that's where this journey is going...

My goal is to achieve a normal relationship with food, to not skip any meals, and to make my body strong with physical activity.  My goal is to get over these eating disorders that have haunted me for the last decade of my life.  My goal is to look at this as a 'life style change' and not just a ploy to lose a couple of pounds.

In reality, I could lose those 3 pounds in 2 weeks if I started restricting my calories.  But, I like the gym, and I like the definition in my muscles.  I just need to find a good balance so I'm not binge-ing on the days that I don't have a structured gym regimen.  I also need to come to terms with my 'fuller' body.  I am no longer just skin and bones.  I have muscle.  Weird.

I haven't really binged like that badly in about a year, and I think the reason that it's happening sometimes now is because of the change of lifestyle.  My mind/body are having a WTF moment or two.  I just hope that sticking to this will actually make my life better and make me happier.

Ok, I'm going to end this post now (after rambling on for an hour!) by thanking J for suggesting that I share my journey with the world (or whoever is reading this) by writing a blog about it.  If you or someone are suffering an eating disorder I would highly suggest seeing a counselor or a nutritionist (I did both), and I really hope that my blog makes you realize that you are not alone.

:)

Here is to the healthy-living journey's of all of you (and me)!!