biting anorexia

this is inspired from the book biting anorexia.

anorexia has taken:

my identity
the trust of others
my trust in myself
my friends
my confidence
my ability to feel "good enough"
my brain
my ability to believe in myself
my trust in others
my control
my health
my self-esteem
my energy
my honesty
my self-love/respect
my freedom
my tolerance
the good things in life
my patience
my ability to have fun
my ability to be myself
my social capabilities
my ability to speak up

Yesterday was kinda weird for me. It was getting close to four, when Ben gets out of work and I decided to put a t-shirt on because it was pretty hot out. I put the shirt on and I just couldn't do it. My arms looked like skeletons again. I must have diddled with the shirt for a good twenty minutes, looking in the mirror to see my arms, fixing the sleeve to make my arms look bigger and so on. I got so angry and upset that I just put my jacket back on. I know I have lost weight and when I do, my arms are the first thing you notice looking smaller. I was upset because the las time my arms looked like this I didn't wear t-shirts all summer (which was super painful due to the heat). I was semi mad/sad the rest of the day which then led to being frustrating with other aspects of myself like my hair and stomach and so on. I think it's more of a confident issue though. If I just wore the shirt and was confident in myself and didn't care about what others thought, maybe it would have been better. I don't know.

The other thing that kind of worried me was the fact that, although I am doing really well with eating when I'm hungry, I'm not getting nearly the same as when I was counting calories. When I counted, I had a set number that I'd get every single day. But now, since I have no clue the calories I'm consuming I tend to not eat as much in fear I'll eat too many calories. It also has to do with the fact that I don't get hungry all that often. I think it's just one of those things that takes time and maybe I'll lose weight at first but then everything will settle out in the end. I don't know either.

so proud

I am very proud of myself! My goal at the start of the day was to listen to my body and eat what I wanted when I was hungry. And  did it! It wasn't easy, there were temptations and voices telling me to just go back to eating everything in order to get it out of the way, but I kept reminding myself that this is how normal people eat and that I could do it. The other big thing that I'm proud of myself for is the fact that I didn't count any calories! I just allowed myself to eat the foods that I felt like eating and not to worry about the calories. This wasn't easy either, as before, all I was doing was counting every calorie that I put in my mouth. I have to admit, there was a lot of silence in my brain, as I wasn't constantly obsessing over the calories and what I was going to eat next. There were times when I almost fell back into the trap of counting but I reminded myself that it wasn't worth it and that I didn't want to do that anymore. I know that I won't always feel this good about eating this way, as some days will be harder than others, but it's not supposed to be easy, like I would want it. I have to work at it, challenge myself, push myself. There's no quick fix. I have to want it and work for it. I believe, for once in my life, that I can do this.

What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?

I would speak up; use my voice
I would tell people my opinion
I would open up; let people in
I would let people think what they want about me
I would take more risks
I would do the things that I really want to do
I would nourish myself
I would love my body
I would love myself
I would tell people things
I would believe in myself
I would feel
I would stand up for myself
I would take care of myself
I would tell myself I am worth it
I would stand up for others

I keep failing every time I try to eat normally. It's so frustrating. Since all my thoughts revolve around food and what I am going to eat next, I end up eating all of my allowed calories before 2pm. I never let myself get hungry, until, of course it gets to be 7pm and I'm starving, but won't let myself eat because I've already used my calorie allowance for the day. It's a vicious cycle and feels almost impossible to stop. 
All the books I read and articles about eating healthfully tell me to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. To listen to my body. This gets frustrating because I no longer have the ability to tell when my body is hungry or when it is full. I only feel hungry at night, but I can never tell when I'm full. This tactic scares me as well because I fear if I let myself just "feel" when I'm full, I'll just keep eating and eating and won't ever stop. I feel like I would never feel full.
I think the hardest part about going about this challenge is that I think about food all the time. It's kinda hard to go throughout the day without thinking about food when it's all I think about.
For the next couple of days, I am going to try my absolute best that I can to feel my hunger and see what happens, and maybe I won't be ready for this mindful eating strategy yet. Maybe I have to relearn and regain my ability to listen to my body in order to be ready. We'll see, but I'm gonna try to stay as positive as I can and not be too hard on myself if I slip up once or twice. I have to remember that it's not going to be overnight and that this kind of thing takes time and hard work. I know I am capable of it.

Goals for this week:

1) no sparkling water-replace with lemon water or plain water
2) add in more leafy green vegetables such as swish chard, kale, broccoli, and bok choi
3) really try to listen to my body and feel when i'm hungry and eat: focus on how it feels to be hungry and focus on what i feel like eating

Sometimes it's just so hard to put words to how you are feeling. I feel sad, I know that, but why? When I feel sadness, I feel it deep down in my stomach. It's like my heart has sunk to the bottom of me and is now weighing me down. As much as I hate feeling this way, I think I like it. I can't seem to pull myself out of it even when I try. But then again maybe I'm just meant to be sad for that time period and just let it run it's course. I haven't figured it out yet.
I feel sad, I think, for a couple reasons. One, being that my mom has a new boyfriend, thus making me feel a bit forgotten. Whenever she's not working (which is rare) she's with him. It used to be just me and her. Always. But now I'm in the background.
I started feeling sad when I thought about college as well. I suddenly realized just how terrified I actually was about everything. I'm scared about the classes, the people, the distance between Ben and I, can we make it work? how much are we going to get to see each other? and so on. Also, I'm scared of all the feelings that I could feel at college and the fact that I'll have to face those feelings without having someone there to comfort me.
Then I started to think about how maybe I am fearful of the future. I always look to the future for hope, for change, for something better, but sometimes when I realize that the future isn't going to be any better than this moment, I get scared. I get scared that this is all my life is going to be. Scared that I'm always going to be me. I'm always going to be the person that I am. And then I realize that I've been running from myself for as long as I can remember. I look to the future and imagine some other person as me. Some, always happy, out-going, beautiful girl. But that's not me. I don't even know if I'm making sense. God. I think sometimes the reason why I do some of the things I do, is because I'm afraid of myself growing up. I liked who I was when I was young. I liked myself in third grade, fourth grade, sixth grade. I feared the future in sixth grade because I didn't know if I'd like who I would become, so I tried to stop myself from growing in order to stop myself from being someone I didn't want to be. I still do that now. As much as I can't wait for things to happen in the future, like get married, have kids and all that stuff, I am scared. I fear who I will be then, and so I continue to stop myself from getting there. I picture myself as I want to be then, but then I realize that I'm still not that person who I see and I get scared. I get scared that I'll never be that person that I see when I think about who I want to be. I get scared that I'll never be anything more than who I am now. And that is very scary.

Control

The other day while I was at the gym, I realized something that made me think. There was this trainer lady working with a guy while I was biking and I couldn't help but notice how obnoxious she was. She came across as over confident and full of herself and way too happy. I then found myself making myself feel better by comparing her body to mine saying how, well at least I was smaller and at least my thighs weren't as big and so on. I realized that I do this when I feel less than someone else; I don't think I'm as good as them in terms of personality so I turn to the body to feel better than them. It's control for me. I feel like I'm in control of myself and others by being thinner than them, like I can at least be smaller than them if not anything else. It's really messed up but it makes sense to me.

I'd still like to thighs the size of my calves, but the difference is that I'm no longer willing to compromise my health to achieve that. I'm not even willing to compromise my happiness to achieve it, or for the thought of my thighs to take up valuable space in my mind. It's just not that important. And while there are things that I don't like about the look of my body, I'm very grateful to it for what it does. I'm grateful that it doesn't restrict me from doing my job the way I restricted it from doing it's job. When I sit quietly and silently thank the universe for all the blessings in my life...I thank my body for not punishing me for what I put it through and for being a healthy vessel in which I get to experience this amazing world and the beautiful life I am living full of love.

Unbearable Lightness-Portia de Rossi

Fear Foods

peanut butter
pasta
ice cream
cake
cupcakes
oils
chocolate
pizza
mac and cheese