What it feels like to NOT want

Hi guys!
  First off, I want to tell you that something's been going on with my Blogger for weeks now-- I can't comment on anyone's posts.  :(  It's a bummer, but I am reading them!

  My post tonight was inspired by how I've been feeling lately.  In a nutshell, I feel... unrestricted.

  It's been almost a year and a half since I began this journey, and even though I have had set-backs, it's amazing how far I've come.  The Summer has always been an extremely stressful time for me.  BBQs, parties, and beach-getaways are basically protocol for every weekend.  To some people this sounds absolutely amazing.  To me, it's usually disastrous and leaves me full of anxiety for three months straight. 

  The reason for my anxiety is this... for over a decade my lovely and very thoughtful (not) eating disorder called the shots on when I got to have to fun, and when I didn't.  My oscillations in food intake and my body image dictated the things that I *let* myself do.  For example, maybe I was starving (from the non-stop restricting) on a random Thursday and it led to a huge binge.  After the episode, I would feel like such crap that I would basically sit and home all weekend trying to recover from the 'fatness' that resulted from my eating.

What if there was a party on Saturday that all my friends were going to?  Well, most of the time, I would miss the party.  Because it was more important to me to feel good about my body and my restriction, and feel 'confident and thin', than it was to enjoy the company of my friends.  In fact, if I felt fat, I felt almost 'unuitable' for other people-- as if, I was too disgusting to be around my friends.  If I somehow was convinced of going out, I would feel so terrible about myself the whole time that I completely expected to have another binge at the party.

Actually, even the parties and get-together that I felt 'good enough' to attend were messed up by my ED.  Through out my ED, I meticulously planned my intake around big events so that I was 'allowed' to eat like a normal person.  I would restrict myself the entire week so that when my friend's wedding (for example) came up, I could eat all the yummy foods.  The problem was, every time I got in these situations, I ended up gourding myself until I felt absolutely terrible.  So, my desire to be normal always ended up being very abnormal. 

I never knew how to enjoy food when I was out.  I just got so excited about all of the foods that I didn't allow myself to eat, and I had to have them all- right then and there.  Because I knew when I got home I wasn't allowed to eat any of those things.  And usually, after I returned from the parties, I would feel so awful about what I ate, that I binged for a few days afterwards (and restricted until the next time I was 'allowed' to really eat).

The funny thing is, looking back, I think that I spent more time in my head, thinking about what I could/should/would consume, than actually having fun and enjoying my time with my friends.

Sad.

But, I am happy to report, that things have changed.  It's weird, but completely right, at the same time.  It's weird because I can't remember ever enjoying my Summer weekends this much and not having my intake be the #1 thing on my mind.  It's so, so, right because this is how life should be, goddammit!!

Lately, I've been finding myself being extremely care-free with what I eat.  This, coming from the girl who always had a fit about which restaurants shw was comfortable enough to eat at; the same girl who didn't even TASTE peanut butter (fat fat fat fat) until she was 21 years old because she was afraid she'd love it and want to eat it all the time. 

However, since I threw all my 'eating rules' out the window, I literally have no restrictions.  When someone asks me where I'd like to eat, I don't freak out and try to pick a place with low-cal options.  Instead, I lean toward "whatever everyone else wants".  WHAT?!  Shut the front door!

I have never been a go-with-the-flow person when it comes to food.  I was always the picky one.  The one with the annoying eating habits that everyone else had to plan around.

Well, that person is no more!  And even more interestingly, I hardly ever binge at parties, or spend entire weekends thinking about food and my intake.  Now, I don't feel the pressure of foods choices because I allow myself to eat sensibly and fully at all times.  If I want chips with my sandwich, I eat them, but stop when  I'm full.  If I want dessert, I have some, but don't gourd myself on it.  This way, when the weekends come up, I'm not SO excited and obsessed with the food that I'm going to be 'allowed' to eat, because I'm always allowed to eat that food.

The point is, when we stop making food such a BIG DEAL, we take away its power.  This concept is almost child-like in it's simplicity.  When we stop making lists of foods that are off-limits or restricted, those foods aren't as appealing anymore.  (I even left some ice cream in the fridge for a week because I forgot about it.  This would have been nearly impossible a year ago because the icecream would haunt me and tempt me until I ate the last bit of it.)

Somehow, through this year and a half of ups-and-downs, I've learned to not be controlled by food. 

And it should be no big surprise that I now enjoy every one of my weekends having fun and not worrying about what I'm going to consume.  And even better?  I've grown closer to my friends, and my fun factor has hugely increased. ;)

Lots of Love, and I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

♡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.

=)

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

Sickness and its role in increasing ED behaviors

This was me on Saturday:

Dance Party!!

This is me today:

Pity Party!! 

If you guessed that I'm sick, you would be correct.  The good news is that I don't get sick a lot (anymore).  However, up until a about a year ago (when I began my healthy eating/exercising regimen) I used to get sick all the time.  I would always catch whatever cold, flu, or what have you, that was going around.

This is a little embarrassing to confess, but, I actually enjoyed being sick.  I would even get a little giddy (secretly, of course) when I felt a cold coming on.  It meant that I had an excuse to not eat much, and it was technically O.K. with others because, well, I was sick, right?

It didn't matter that being sick also meant that I was exhausted and couldn't go out and do fun things.  All that mattered was that now that I might actually not have an appetite during the illness, I could eat as little as possible, and come out of it a little thinner.  When everyone was saying "Aww, it sucks that you're sick", I was thinking 'What sucks about not having an appetite and losing weight?!'.

The wonderful thing is that I no longer get excited about being sick.  When I woke up this morning coughing with a congested chest, I thought 'Ohhh man, I can't be sick!  I need to hurry up and get better so that I can go skiing next weekend!  I don't want to lay around the house doing nothing!'.

Now that is the healthy reaction to an illness.  Because in all (healthy) reality, who actually likes being sick?!  It's sick to enjoy being sick.

So, today instead of trying to eat as little as possible, I grabbed my blanket, some orange juice (which I never used to drink because I didn't want the liquid calories), and ate some deliciously thick bean and noodle stew that I made.  

And I promise you, I cannot wait to feel better!

So, tell me....

What is your initial reaction to a sickness?

What's your best remedy for getting over a cold?

<3

  

Pre-wedding parties, food, and how I'm handling it all

Hi everyone!
  I haven't posted about anything ED/Food related in a bit, but here goes.

I have been severely, SEVERELY, challenged by ED this past week or so.  But I think I've managed to come out pretty OK.  My mom came to Michigan and has been staying with me since one week ago.  We have been spending every waking second together-- 'nuff said.  I love my mom, but I reeeeally also like my alone time.  And I've gotten, like, zero alone time the past week.  So, that's been stressful.  The only alone time I've gotten is when I've gone to the gym a few times.

On top of that, my mom has eating and body issues.  However, she completely acts like she doesn't.  The woman barely eat ANYTHING.  It's so frustrating trying to recover from an eating disorder when your mother brags about her size 2 pants to you and takes four bites of a salad and says "OH MY GOSH, I'm soooo full!! I ate SO MUCH!".  When I'm around my mom and her eating behaviors I get very agitated and it makes me want.to.restrict.so.badly.because.obviously.i'm.a.fatass.if.my.pant.size.is.the.same.as.my.mother's.

Oiii vey!

On top of that, she's constantly telling me to eat.  Eat eat EAT!  Which just confuses and annoys the hell out of me.  It's like "how dare you tell me to eat when you eat barely anything!".

Anywho, with all of the wedding activities that have been going on, I knew that I was going to be challenged with many many many ED thoughts these last couple of weeks before the wedding.  There are so many parties and get-togethers and food to eat and dresses to fit into!

I have been scared out of my freaking mind that I will somehow gain weight and not fit into my skin-tight shower dress or my wedding dress.  Well, my wedding shower was today, and I fit into my dress just fine, so WHEW!

To top it all off, I've been doing wedding stuff non-stop and it's that time of the month, which makes me  hungry all the time.  And I've been eating some sort of dessert every single night.  Whether it's a bit of chocolate or a chocolate chip cookie, or something else that is delicious and bad for my assets.

So basically, I've been deathly afraid of gaining weight for the wedding because I'm in so many food-consumption situations that are out of my normal routine.

I don't really know how I'm dealing with it.  I'm dealing with it well I guess because I haven't restricted.  I've gone to the gym three times this week and my body feels tight and firm.  I just feel guilty when I eat because my head is constantly yelling at me "What the fuck are you doing?!?!  You have your fucking wedding in one weekend and you can't keep your damn hands off the feeding fork?  What kind of a bride are you?!!  You need to LOSE weight you loser, not eat".

I guess my only coping mechanism has been that I've been so busy that I don't have time to sit around and feel super guilty about what I ate.  And to eat when I'm hungry and stop eating when I'm full.

But anyway, my 1st bridal shower was today and it was absolutely beautiful!!  It was about 20 of us ladies and we had so much fun.  I got my hair done (yay!), the place was amazing, the food was fantastic, the guests were great, and I got lots of presents for our kitchen!  Oh yeah, and I fit in my dress- Thank God!  So, there is hope for my wedding dress!!!

Here are some pix:

J's aunt gave me a cute apron to put on!

Food is food is food

Today I ate a pop tart.

And it was grand!!

Ever since I got back on the recovery wagon I make sure that I'm never really hungry.  I carry fruit or some other form of food with me to make sure that I don't panic about what or when I'm going to eat.

Today I had breakfast around 9:00 am, then a snack of watermelon and wheat thins around 1:00 pm, and by 2:00 I was going to go to the gym.  I figured I didn't need a piece of fruit to take with me because I was going to go to the gym and I wasn't at all hungry. I'd just eat after the gym.  Well, I actually ended up leaving around 2:50 and I had to run some errands before the gym.

By the time I got to the gym it was 3:45 and I was full on STARVING!!  I started cursing myself for not grabbing a low-calorie snack of some kind to eat before the gym.  And I actually turned my car around to go home to grab something that I deemed "healthy/low cal/non-guilt".  But something in me, I'm gonna call it my ED-Rambo, did a swift roundhouse kick to my brain and knocked the non-sense out of me.

I was going to drive 15 minutes home and 15 minutes back to the gym just to grab a nectarine???  WTF, Yasi?!!

So, I decided to attempt to be normal--drive straight to the gym and get something out of the vending machine.

Now, there are a few questions:

1.  Why would you have a vending machine full of chips and cookies at the gym?  Why isn't there a healthier option?
2.  Would I dare eat one of those 'unhealthy' options?  Was I desperate enough?  Was I brave enough?

The answers are:

1.  Blame BP.  Because they deserve it.
2.  Yes, I dared to eat snack food out of a venting machine because food is food is FOOD.  It is fuel.  I wasn't going to let myself go hungry and pass out on the treadmill.  Yes, it's 400 calories and not very nutritionally dense, but I could easily burn it at the gym.

So, I opted for a cinnamon and brown sugar pop tart.  I sat at a little lounging table in my gym clothes and very excitedly ate my vending machine food.  It.was.THRILLING.  I felt like I was doing something wrong and dirty in front of everyone.  I was a BADASS.

However, that doesn't mean that I didn't feel guilty afterwards.  I did.  I thought about that pop tart and the fact that I just willingly ate it.  But you know what?  What counts is that I DID eat it.  I took control of my body's cues and fed it fuel.  Because food is food is food.

I feel like I just ran a 5K under my usual time.  I feel like I accomplished something-- by eating a pop tart.

Ohhhh man, writing about recovery is hilarious (sometimes)!

=)

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.

No motivation for meal preparation

  Do you guys ever get in a food rut?  Because I sure as hell am in one right now.  I'm just NOT motivated to cook.  I don't even want to think of what I'll have for dinner until like a half hour before the hunger monster takes over.

  Before this crazy ride I had no problem just cooking some pasta or rice or some form of an all-carb dinner.  It was quick, easy, and satisfying enough.  But now I'm trying to look at having more 'balanced' meals which for me means less carbs.

  

  And from my previous posts you know that I love eating my 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with cream cheese in the morning.  And most days I have some sort of a sandwich for lunch.  So for dinner, I've been trying to ease up on the carbs.

  Because of my lack of motivation to cook, I tried to come up with a fun quick meal tonight.  However, my meal = FAIL.

  I boiled chicken with onions, melted some American cheese on top and dipped in BBQ sauce.  And I ate it with a side salad.  It was so bla that I only ate 2 of the chickens and the salad.

  And because of my failure to plan my meals, I consumed a very small amount of calories today.  Since I haven't done a food log lately, I'll do one for today:

Breakfast:

-2 slices of 100% whole wheat toast with 1/3 fat Philly cream cheese and tea

(~300 cal)

Lunch:

-strawberries

-14 raw almonds, handful of carrots, 1/2 small turkey sandwich (wheat bread, turkey deli meat, tomato, lettuce)

(~280 cal)

Dinner:

-2 small chicken breast strips with 2% american cheese, side salad (lettuce, tomato, carrots, garbanzo beans, raspberry vinaigrette dressing)

(~200 cal)

Snack:

-Lavashak  (basically a Persian snack that is pressed out dried berries)

(~50 cal)

Grand Total: 830 cal

  I wish I had a personal chef so that I wouldn't have to eat boring food.  Ha!  Right.

=)

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)!!