Excuses, Excuses

Excuses. We all have ‘em. They can be a convenient way to get out of something we don’t want to do. But sometimes, they can really hold us back from doing something we want or need to accomplish.

I admit it, I’m an excuse-maker. I make excuses about small things, like why I didn’t clean the bathroom. But excuses I make about my health and well-being are a lot more important and unfortunately, I make them all too often.

Excuse #1: I can’t eat as much as ____ or I’ll gain weight…OR I can’t eat ____ without being unhealthy.

I’ve thought these things to myself a LOT throughout my recovery process, especially lately as I’ve been sharing my struggles here. It’s all really a comparison game for me. I see people in my real life and online who either do eat more than I do, or at least claim to eat a lot, and I always think “Well, good for them that they can eat that much and have an amazing body and life. Too bad I’d balloon up if I ate that much.” I know I’ve gotten countless comments on here about how I eat so little but it’s so hard to see for myself when it seems normal or even healthy to me. Four years ago, when I was at my worst, I was eating only a few hundred calories a day. Now I’ve finally gotten away from obsessively tracking every morsel that enters my mouth so I can’t say for sure how much I am eating but I know it’s way more than I was. I also know that it may not be enough, especially since I do workout pretty much every day. And I know there have been many success stories of people maintaining or even losing weight eating more than they used to, so it’s something I do want to ease into myself. It still seems crazy to me that I could be eating much more than I am now and still be the same size.

I might be eating more variety and incorporating more fats, but I still might be lacking in calories.

Excuse #2: I don’t look ‘sick’ so I must be fine.

At my worst, I was a good 15-20 pounds lighter than I am now which is definitely unhealthy, even for someone who’s only 5’1. I didn’t see it then, but looking back at pictures from 4 years ago I can see a definite difference and it makes me sad. Now, I’m at my highest weight ever and honestly, it scares me. I’ve never been in the triple digits so being so close to it is really scary to me. I always rationalize that I ‘need’ to be underweight to look halfway decent because I’m so short. I think that’s just how my disordered mind sees my body, though. I certainly don’t think I look underweight, or sick, or in need of help. But maybe I still am. And there are a few, rare days where I look in the mirror and actually think I look good, or maybe even a little thin, but those days aren’t often. Because I see myself in this distorted way, I tell myself that it’s okay to obsessively eat clean and rarely take a day off from exercise because if I don’t, all hell will break loose (aka I’ll gain weight). But you don’t have to look sick, or be at your lowest weight to need help. You can still be sick while barely underweight or even at a normal weight.

I may not think I look too skinny but maybe I am…

Excuse #3: I need to workout everyday or I’ll lose my fitness.

I always praise other bloggers for taking rest days when they need them, but when do I take a rest day? I’d say once or twice a month. It doesn’t matter if I have a headache, am feeling a little sick or am really busy, I will squeeze in exercise almost every day. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is when I don’t listen to my body. And it’s also not good when I feel guilty for not exercising. Take this weekend, for example. I’m heading back up to my apartment with my parents to load up all the bigger items I couldn’t get on my trip home Wednesday and cleaning out my apartment so they can lease it out for the summer. I’ll be gone from Saturday afternoon til Sunday afternoon, and besides running errands and taking things up and down the stairs multiple times, I won’t be getting in much traditional exercise. I’m already stressing out about it. Not good. However, I’ve reached my breaking point with this. I’ll be busy this summer with my internship, a 4 week online summer class and just wanting to have fun. So I want to plan out 1 or 2 rest days per week, so I’m not a ball of stress figuring out when I can work out. And taking a day or two off won’t just not kill me, it’ll also benefit me and my energy levels.

I still want to play a lot of tennis this summer, but I won’t stress out when I take a rest day (even if it’s unplanned).

Have you ever made any ‘excuses’ that you ended up tossing out? 

The “O” Word

…And no, it’s not that ‘O’ word. Get your mind outta the gutter people Today’s post is brought to you by the new ‘it’ term of the blog world, orthorexia. Thank you, Alexandra, for bringing this issue out of the dark and letting bloggers feel okay with talking about it. And now I’m going to talk about how it applies to my life.

I first heard the word orthorexia when I was diagnosed with anorexia 4 years ago. It was tossed around by my doctor and parents, who believed I was at least somewhat orthorexic, along with being anorexic. Now while I won’t say I’m fully recovered from anorexia, I am doing so much better on that front than I was in high school. But the orthorexic part of me has gotten worse, and it’s taken some honest reflection and blog reading on my part to admit that.

Orthorexia fed into my anorexic tendencies. I cut out things based on what I heard and researched was ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’. First it was fats (particularly saturated fats), and then I started seeking out sugar free and low sugar items because of the unhealthiness of sugar. But obviously, most sugar free products (other than those that are naturally sugar free) are filled with all sorts of scary chemicals and whatnot. So I was attempting to be healthy, but wasn’t necessarily choosing the healthiest items. Case in point: during the worst of my ED, I lived off black beans with white rice, and sugar free Jell-O. Neither option is really healthy (other than the black beans), but I ate them because I was told fat and sugar were bad for me.

I used to consider this healthy, just because it was low calorie and whole wheat.

As I entered recovery, I still looked for the healthy option wherever possible. My fear of most dairy products lingered, so I never ate anything but fat free Greek yogurt and skim milk. A lot of foods I ate prior to my ED were out the window, never to be eaten again. That’s not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it was definitely orthorexic. I never ate a white carb, stuck with lean proteins like chicken and shrimp and still avoided most fats. I ate almond butter by the teaspoon, if at all.

Fast forward to a year or so ago. I made the decision to be vegan, which sadly was partially fueled by my orthorexia. Finally I had an excuse not to eat cheese, or meat, or ice cream, or any ‘unhealthy’ food. Up until recently, I still eschewed a lot of fat, eating minuscule portions of nuts and avocado and counting my calories like it was my job. But then, I had an epiphany. Not one that made me give up my orthorexic tendencies, but instead focused them in a different direction. I became completely obsessed with macronutrients and ingredients lists on products. No longer was I solely focused on the calorie count–now I wanted to micromanage my protein, fat, carbs and the ingredients I’d allow into my body. I totally bought into the ‘eat clean’ movement.

But I think I’ve started to take it a little too far. Over the past few months, I’ve eliminated more and more from my diet, based on what’s in the item in question. Weird-sounding ingredients like soy lecithin and maltodextrin have gotten the side-eye from me and been placed back on the shelf. Even products with simple ingredient lists have been tossed in the trash. I used to love quinoa pasta–made from just quinoa and corn–but it has OMG so many carbs. Enter kelp noodles as a replacement–sea veggie based and almost no carbs or calories, but full of minerals. An orthorexic’s dream! It takes me forever to get through a grocery shopping trip because I have internal debates with myself regarding the ingredients and nutritional value of products. And after hearing countless success stories by people who’ve tried paleo, I’ve adopted some of it–not the meat-eating, of course, but the eliminating of most grains from my diet. I used to love whole grains like quinoa, oats and sprouted bread…now I fear them. I make my baked goods with almond, coconut and buckwheat flours now. I’ve gone for several days with no grains in sight, and I start to freak out if I eat two servings of them in a day. I’m not saying we need 9 servings or whatever the USDA says we do, but why have I demonized grains, even the gluten free ones that I love? Why have I become hung up on balancing my macros perfectly, and feeling like a failure when I don’t? Why have I started to fear food, even though I worked so hard to overcome so many fear foods (including coconut, which I love now)?

Now most of my meals are grain free, like these almond flour pancakes, because I’m scared of grains.

Honestly, I just wanted to come clean and say that I’m not perfect. Behind the fun food pictures is a huge fear of most foods, even some healthy ones. I do want to say that I truly love eating healthfully, and being a produce-loving vegan. But I’ve taken the clean eating thing a little too far, and I don’t know what to do. Some of you may have already noticed my orthorexic tendencies from my blog posts or comments, but even so, I wanted to come clean and admit my issues. There’s nothing I appreciate more than honesty, and I think there needs to be a little more of that in the blog world. Everyone has some kind of issue, and it’s okay to admit to them. People will respect you all the more if you do.

And as for my orthorexic issues, I’m starting to work on them. I’ve stopped tracking my meals on MyFitnessPal, because I was just using the numbers and percentages as an unhealthy competition with myself. It’s really scary to me not to know exactly what my calories and macros are, but I need to give up the obsessive control. And I’ve decided not to do WIAWs for awhile, just to relieve the pressure on myself to have a ‘perfect’ day of eats. Other than that, it’ll be a slow process to figure out where my fears and anxieties are stemming from, but I’m willing to work them out to have a truly healthy relationship with food for the first time in 6 years.

Have you ever struggled with orthorexia or the pressure to eat clean? 

 

When Less Isn’t More

Hey ladies, happy Sunday! It’s pretty happy for me because it’s my spring break! I’ve already been pretty busy, and I’ve only been home for two days. I’ll share some of what I’ve been up to in a later post, but for today, I want to touch on a serious subject. It’s one that’s pretty hard for me to write about, but I think it needs to happen.

You may or may not have noticed that over the past couple of months, my WIAW posts have been kinda…lacking. I’ve actually recently gotten a few comments about it that really opened my eyes to the issue–thank you to those of you who commented, because I really appreciate the honesty and concern. But anyway, I want to say that while I don’t post everything I eat in a day, I know that I’m still not eating enough. And it’s not a good thing.

It all started at the beginning of this school year. Over the summer, I was eating a decent amount and maintaining my weight. Now, I’m a small girl and don’t have a huge appetite but if I had to guesstimate how much I was eating then, it would probably be around 1400 to 1500 calories. However, once I got back to school, I was on my own, had a whole dorm to myself and I decided to take advantage of the fact that I could ‘get away with’ eating less. Despite the fact that I’ve been recovering from anorexia for almost 3 years, I still have a lot of body image issues and at that time, I was determined to lose 5 pounds, to get back to my pre-ED weight. Of course, I knew (and know) that this isn’t healthy–the weight I was at was deemed healthy by my doctor, but it wasn’t in the medically healthy weight range. I know BMI is a load of sh*t, but I was technically underweight. However, I didn’t see myself this way (and still don’t) and was desperate to lose some weight. So I started cutting back, to about 1000 calories a day, which quickly became less and less as the months went on. During this time, I didn’t weigh myself so I honestly thought I wasn’t losing weight, but instead of doing the smart thing and eating more, I was scared to eat more so I continued to eat less and less…and work out more and more.

A delicious dinner--Amy's veggie burger, half a Sumo tangerine, hummus and guacamole--but is it enough? Probably not.

I wouldn’t say in any way that my exercising became extreme–besides walking from my dorm to classes (for 30-60 minutes, depending on the day) I would do cardio workouts in my room for 30-45 minutes per day. So nothing big…but the problem is, I never gave myself  a rest day. I was determined to burn at least 200 calories a day through working out, so I had to do something active every single day. I told myself I didn’t deserve a rest day because I barely worked out compared to some people. I have not completely rested for a whole day since at least October…not a good thing! Of course, I had some days where I just didn’t want to work out, because I was exhausted from being out all day or I had a headache but I pushed through anyway. While I like to be active in some way everyday, there were definitely some times where I should have just taken a break, because I know my body was screaming for one. But I didn’t listen.

The bigger issue is the food, though. When I came home for the weekend right before finals last semester, I hopped on the scale, curious to see what it would say. I had dropped 3 pounds from the last time I was weighed by my mom in mid-October. Now, definitely not a huge amount, but considering I already was underweight, it wasn’t good. Needless to say, I was ecstatic (or should I say, ED was) so I decided to continue my restrictive eating. Over Christmas break, I somehow got away with eating less and by the time my break ended, I weighed myself again and I had dropped another 1 or 2 pounds. By this point, I was hovering right around my ‘goal’ weight–so was I happy? Heck no! Just like in my worst days three years ago, I wanted to see an even smaller number on the scale. Never mind that my BMI was now 16–I needed to make it lower.

Second semester so far has been stressful, to say the least. My classes are all upper-level courses, which means they are pretty demanding. I have spent way more time studying and reading this semester than I have so far in my year and a half in college, so I think that’s caused me to eat even less. It’s scary, because I’ve become obsessed with the numbers–I track my calories religiously on a tracking app, and seeing the numbers just fuels the fire. At this point, I would actually love to eat more, but I feel stuck in this rut. It’s become routine for me, which isn’t good. Whenever I eat an extra handful of anything besides a fruit or veggie, I freak out. Obviously, all these signs point to something really bad.

A snackplate--homemade vegan Caesar kale chips (recipe to come), tablespoon peanut flour paste, handful Whole Foods kettle corn, dried fig, 1 square Chocolove orange peel dark chocolate, handful PB & chocolate Puffins. This looks like, and seems like, a decent-sized snack, but maybe I'm struggling with portion distortion.

So here’s where I ask for advice. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and it’s the first time I’m meeting with this specific doctor, so she doesn’t really know my ED history, but I’m scared to death to see what the scale reads, because my mom will be there. I honestly don’t want her to make me go back to eating dairy and meat–it’s not because of veganism that I lost weight, but because I’ve been eating less. I know it’s possible to eat enough on a vegan diet, I just haven’t been doing it. And I want to eat more, but I just need the encouragement to do it. I feel like unless someone tells me that I really should eat more, that I can’t make myself do it because it’s become such a habit. I’m also scared that I’m going to have to gain the weight back, and I remember all too well how horrible that process was in the first place.

The thing is, I feel good eating the way I do now. Not the amount, of course, but I have opened my mind up to so many foods I used to fear, even just a few months ago. Now I’m okay with eating a square of dark chocolate every day, or other nuts besides almonds or higher calorie vegan things like tempeh and tofu. It’s just that I need to eat more of it. I’m just stuck on how to do that, and feel okay with doing that.

My first time trying a Chocolove bar--so good! I love the little bars because they're so cute, and the flavor combos all sound amazing. I'm glad I'm not scared of chocolate anymore.

Well, thanks for sticking with me through that monster of a post. I really hope it wasn’t triggering or anything, I tried to use as few specific numbers as possible while still being honest. I promise I’ll be back on Wednesday with a happier post, filled with tons of new foods I’ve tried and some recipes. For now, I just needed to get that out there, and be honest with y’all, since everyone is so supportive and since a lot of you have struggled with similar issues, I thought I’d reach out for a little advice.

I got my hair done (partial highlights and bangs) today and I love it! My hair is definitely one of my favorite features.

Have you ever struggled with not eating enough? What’s the most fun thing you’ve done this weekend?

My Story: Part 2

In part 1, I left off with my first day in recovery from anorexia. Part 2 is my recovery journey up til today!

 

From March until mid-May, my parents were pretty much the only ones in charge of my eating. I had a few checkup appointments to make sure my weight wasn’t slipping drastically. Those first couple of months were so hard for me, physically and emotionally. For the first several weeks, I was uncomfortably full after every meal and snack. I had never had to eat portions that large, especially not during the depths of my ED. I don’t know the exact number of calories I was eating during my early recovery, but it was a far cry from the maybe 500-600 I had had a month or two prior. My parents were pretty good at enforcing the eating rules–if I refused to eat something at dinner, they would sit there with me until I ate a sufficient amount. They didn’t push me way too far out of my comfort zone by making me eat really high-calorie things; they tried to work with me to find things I’d like, but they couldn’t be clearly disordered choices, and I had to eat enough of them to meet my needs. However, I can remember several times that I sneakily slipped some food into the trash when they weren’t looking–and they never noticed. I actually did this quite a lot over the first several months of my recovery, and I regret that I did that, but it happened. I was still struggling a lot with the disordered thoughts, and still occasionally had outbursts concerning my food and my body.

Summer 2009. Working on recovery.

A week or so before school got out in May, I started seeing a dietician. I really hated her from the very beginning, and looking back, she didn’t help me very much. See, I knew a lot about nutrition, I had just taken it to the extreme–I didn’t need someone who was mostly specialized in helping people with diabetes telling me that I needed to get in a certain number of servings of grains or whatever. She just basically gave me the same rough meal plan every time I saw her, and she got super-pissed when I dropped a few pounds a couple of times. That just made me feel like crap, because I was honestly trying to eat more–it’s just that when you’ve been eating so little and suddenly you start eating a lot more, your metabolism speeds up like crazy and you can lose weight even when you’re eating a lot. At the end of the summer, I stopped seeing her for good.

In June, I was scheduled to go on a mission trip with my church’s other high schoolers to San Francisco. I was so excited, but my mom said if I didn’t keep my weight up, I couldn’t go. That really made me push harder and resolve to eat more. I ended up being able to go, and I can honestly say it was an amazing experience. Okay, so I was still only making “safe” food choices and I know I probably did not eat enough on the trip because I didn’t feel comfortable with a lot of the food, but I didn’t use the trip as an excuse to purposely restrict and try to lose weight, and I’m proud of myself for that. Working with impoverished people in the Bay Area (specifically little kids) taught me that others have it so much worse than I do, and I should be thankful for what I have.

Golden Gate Bridge!

This awesome huge cross we saw on a hike (San Fran was very cloudy when we went).

Right after I got back from the mission trip, my family flew out to Wisconsin to visit my grandparents, and then soon after that we had our yearly trip to Estes Park and then I went to yearbook camp. So it was a crazy busy summer! My eating was pretty good in Estes Park–I was surprisingly mostly okay with eating out for dinner every night–and also at yearbook camp, since I was just there for the day and had most of my meals at home. Wisconsin was, well, a different story, kind of. My dad’s side of my family are all really big into red meat and stuff, and even though I wasn’t veg at the time, I still hated red meat and any milk that isn’t skim and that was a lot of what we had there. We ended up going to the store and getting a bunch of stuff I like, but I still felt like my choices were being judged by everyone. Luckily, when we stayed with my mom’s parents, they were way more understanding of my healthy food preferences, because my grandpa has had heart problems and now eats really healthy. It was a fun trip, but exhausting for my ED.

At the pool in Estes Park.

 My senior year started, and I also started seeing a therapist. The first few sessions, I didn’t talk much, and I almost always ended the session in tears. But as the months went on, I opened up more and tried to share my feelings and struggles. I also made a lot of strides with my eating. I had a “partial” every other day, which basically meant no class, so every other day after my 3rd period class, I’d drive home for lunch and the rest of the day. I could have used that as an opportunity to restrict, because no one was at home, but I didn’t. I kept eating a substantial amount. I’m not quite sure where my weight was at that time, but I’m thinking it was around my original 85 pounds. I was fairly comfortable at that weight…but my “goal weight”, as determined by my therapist, was 90 pounds. That was (and still is, somewhat) such a scary weight for me, because I had literally NEVER been over 85 pounds. But I’m a naturally petite girl, so I think the 90 pound goal weight was taking that into account. And really, it’s only 5 pounds over my original weight, but the number was so scary to me. Okay, I know that 90 pounds is technically underweight for my height, but that was the weight my doctor and therapist suggested. Maybe it was meant as just a starting point, but unfortunately, I have held tight to that number throughout my recovery.

My favorite senior picture

 

September 2009. Getting ready for talent show my high school put on every year. My senior year, I was in 5 acts!

 

Also, I had NEVER gotten my period…ever! Not even before my anorexia. I think it has to do somewhat with being a late bloomer, and then when my intake was restricted, I had no chance to start my period. So my therapist started pushing my parents into making me take birth control to jump-start my periods, and build up my bone strength. I was so dead set against this, basically because I was terrified of the weight gain I’ve heard goes along with taking it. So I didn’t start taking it until January 2010.

Everything was going pretty well–until Thanksgiving of 2009. My grandpa on my dad’s side came to visit, and he brought along his “girlfriend”. This already made us kinda uncomfortable, because his wife (my grandma) had passed away in 2007, and we all still really missed her. She was such a beautiful, compassionate, intelligent woman and no one could ever replace her in our hearts. But he brought this new woman just the same, and we tried to make the best of it. However, little did we know that she, um, likes to speak her mind…particularly when it comes to eating and bodies. Two of the things I was most uncomfortable about. She made several comments regarding people’s sizes and then one night after we had a nice dinner out, she said that we had all eaten so much and we should weigh ourselves to make sure we hadn’t gained. This comment really set me and my mom off. When we got home, I cried so hard and I was also screaming because I was so mad at her. My mom was also really mad but was trying to get me to calm down. But everyone had already heard everything, so they basically knew I had an eating disorder. I definitely did not want to tell them, especially her, but there was nothing I could do. The damage had been done. I felt even worse, because my dad was blaming me for upsetting them, but I think everyone was just upset and angry and confused.

Being crazy on New Years Eve.

 

Christmas and New Year’s came and went. I started taking birth control towards the end of January, at the prompting of my therapist and parents. At first, I wasn’t too thrilled to be taking it. I mean, I’d gone the full 17 and half years of my life without getting my period once! But once I got used to it, it wasn’t too bad. My periods were always on schedule, without too much pain or anything. They became routine and normal for the most part. When we went to Phoenix (my hometown!) for spring break, I unexpectedly got it (and for the next two weeks following!) but we assumed that was because I had attempted to skip it. I know that a lot of people disagree about using BC to jump-start periods, but I think it was a good thing for me, simply because I was so far behind in getting my period. If I hadn’t gone on it, I might have never gotten my period. I’m not sure if it helps with restoring bone density, but I plan on continuing to take it until I experience problems with it.

Spring break 2010. With my sissy by a hot tub.

 

My favorite picture I took on the trip. This makes me want to move back there.

 My senior year was winding down fast. Before I knew it, it was my senior luncheon. Around this time, I had started to restrict a little bit again. I thought it wasn’t noticeable, but apparently I dropped a little bit of weight and my parents started getting more strict about my eating again. It made me feel like I was a little kid again–here I was, a few months away from being a legal adult and going away to college, and my mom and dad were making sure I was eating plenty. I think it motivated me to keep going with my recovery–I didn’t want to be treated like a baby who had to constantly be monitored. I also stopped seeing my therapist around this time, because she wasn’t really helping me progress anymore. In fact, my parents thought she was giving up on helping me!

 

Class of 2010 baby!

 

Graduation came and went, and my summer started. It was fun, but mostly uneventful. We went to Estes Park as usual, and my mom and I drove up to the college I was going to go to in the fall for a freshman preview. Towards the end of the summer, I started getting pretty anxious. I was worried about what I’d be eating, how I’d get along with my roommate, how hard classes would be, etc. I knew it would be so so hard leaving home for the first time, but I was pretty ready for it.

Can you spot me (haha)?

A lot of my worries were for nothing, though, which was good. While I didn’t really like the dining hall food, I’d found other options–sushi and frozen vegan burritos from a mini convenience-type store in the dining hall near me and getting groceries to prepare in my room every time I’d go home for the weekend. I still got to see my parents every other weekend when I’d go home. I made a few friends in classes and in my hall. Classes weren’t ridiculously hard. But…I did not get along AT ALL with my roommate. At first, we’d go to the dining hall together, but over time, I realized what a toxic person she was. I wasn’t vegetarian at the time, so she acted like she was superior because she was. She would make fun of me for my healthy choices (despite being veg, she mostly ate junk food). She was constantly in the room, but she would rarely talk to me, she was always on her computer. She went to bed super-late (like 1 am) even though she had morning classes, but would sleep in til noon on weekends so I couldn’t turn on the lights or anything. She was just an overall anti-social person who had awful hygiene habits. I really began to dread going back to my room, because chances are, she was in there. My roommate experience really kind of soured my freshman year of college, but luckily I had my family and friends to support me. I went out to eat with one of my new friends a lot, and we really bonded, plus I became more comfortable eating out with people I didn’t know really well. So overall, my freshman year was pretty good.

Despite my roommate issues, I was still usually pretty happy.

However, sophomore year so far has been so much better! I’m now in a single suite, and loving it! I love having a bathroom I only have to share with two other girls, and having a room all to myself. I can do whatever I want in here–sing out loud, take a nap, workout and even dance to Lady Gaga I do have to deal with a floor of loud freshman, but it’s not as bad as last year at all. I wish I had a car so I could be more independent and not have to rely on my parents to buy me groceries, and I feel a little weird for being one of the few upperclassmen still in the dorms, but the dorm I’m in is so nice–it’s like a hotel.

Recovery-wise, I have struggled a little bit more than I did last year. Without constant supervision, I’ve found it all too easy to slip back a little into restriction. It’s nowhere near what it was during the height of my anorexia, but it still isn’t good. I still have a long list of fear foods, but I’m gradually expanding my “safe” foods list. I’ve found that going vegetarian/mostly vegan has helped me discover and love new foods I’d probably never try if I was still eating meat. But I’ve found that I’ve been relying a lot on the groceries my parents buy. There’s nothing wrong with that, because I’m eating way better than most college kids and I’m pretty well-stocked, but the fact that I’m sort of scared to eat dining hall food (besides the salad bar) isn’t good. I’m working on trying to eat there more so I can face my fears of all the “fattening” food there. I know they have healthier choices, I just have to take a leap and check them out.

Happy and health(ier) in 2011.

So that’s my story, in a (big) nutshell. I’m so appreciative of the comments you’ve all left, and while I wouldn’t wish an eating disorder on anyone, I’m glad so many of you can relate. It makes me feel less weird

 

My Story: Part 1

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the well wishes for my foot! Unfortunately, I went to urgent care on Friday night and the doctor there told me I have plantar fasciitis. I’m so so glad it’s not fractured, but there isn’t much that can be done for PF. I did buy some gel inserts for my shoes and am planning on icing it and trying a new pain reliever, but the pain might become a chronic thing that only gets better with steroid injections. I hope it starts to feel a little bit better soon, though! I’ll be recapping my weekend on Wednesday (WIAW time!!!!!!) so be sure to check back for some amazing recipes!

Today I wanted to share my eating disorder story with you. This is a hard post for me to write, but it feels right and I know that much of the blogging community is so incredibly supportive, not to mention a lot of bloggers have also dealt with EDs/disordered eating and can relate.

My anorexia really began in the fall of 2008, but it’s safe to say that I started engaging in disordered eating a couple of years earlier, when I was a freshman in high school. I was in a required health class at school, and of course, we learned all about nutrition. I learned that fats are “bad” and you shouldn’t eat too much, or anything deemed unhealthy. Well, I took that information and ran with it. I was never a  junk food eater but I started actively seeking out fat-free products at the grocery store. I wasn’t really restricting or anything, so my parents didn’t notice the small change in my eating habits.

9th grade. Before my ED, but I still felt insecure in my body.

In the fall of my junior year, I started looking at Yahoo Answers, which is basically just an online community where you can ask questions and get answers from other users. It started out innocently enough–I was just asking for school and fashion advice and answering others’ questions. But for whatever reason, I really became dissatisfied with my body during this time. I’ve always been a small girl, one of the shortest and most petite of girls my age. I’ve also been teased a lot for my size, and I’ve never had much self-esteem because of it, plus I’m fairly shy. Not to mention, my best friend since third grade and I were slowly drifting apart and I found myself distant from the close-knit group of friends I’d had since elementary school. I started feeling like if I could improve my body somehow, my life and relationships would be so much better. So I started asking questions about if I was skinny enough, how to lose weight, etc. At that time, I was 85 pounds at a height of 5’1. So definitely not fat at all; in fact, that’s pretty thin. And honestly, my ED didn’t start out with a desire to lose weight. I just wanted to improve myself, so I started trying to eat super-healthy.

But it wasn’t that healthy. I started out being focused on cutting out fats. I was eating mostly fat-free products, which aren’t too nutritious. I really liked this one Lean Cuisine meal with shrimp and noodles because it was really low in fat and pretty low in calories too. I also would eat plain black beans and plain rice for dinner…that was it, and it wasn’t even a serving size. Around that time, I’d discovered almond butter, and I loved it, but I was so scared of fats that I would only eat maybe a teaspoon a day, if that. In February 2009 or so, I started cutting back on carbs too after reading about people’s weight loss success on low-carb diets. At this point, my eating had definitely become restricted, not only in variety, but also amount. I would have a slice of light toast with half a teaspoon of almond butter and “hot chocolate” made with Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder and water for breakfast, a sugar-free Jell-O and a jelly sandwich made on one slice (cut in half) of light bread for lunch, a sugar-free pudding or a small handful of pretzel twists for a snack and then a miniscule amount of the dinner my family was having. I thought I was being so healthy, and I thought I’d be satisfied with my shrinking body, but I wasn’t. I saw myself as fat and ugly every single day. I was freezing cold all the time, my feet were constantly purple, I was losing hair, my skin was dried out and it hurt to sit down for any amount of time. I used a tape measure every day to measure my arms, legs and waist to see if they’d gotten any smaller, since we didn’t have a scale I could use. I tried to convince myself I was happy this way, but I wasn’t.

February of my junior year. Almost at my worst point, but I couldn't see how sick and skinny I was.

My parents started really catching on in March. I was continuing to eat a tiny amount, while also working out in P.E. class every day for 45 minutes. Almost every day after school, I’d come home and sleep because I was so weak and exhausted. My mom showed me an article from Seventeen about a girl who had anorexia and she said it sounded like me. Of course, I denied it, but I knew deep down I had a problem–I just couldn’t stop. Slowly starving myself gave me a high, it made me feel good…at least for the short term.

Then came the day that I had to go to the doctor. I don’t think I was scared at all, because I honestly didn’t think I’d lost any weight. Then I stepped on the scale…76 pounds. I’d lost 9 pounds in the matter of a few months. I know that sounds like such a small number, but keep in mind, I was already pretty underweight to begin with. I’d lost 12 percent of my body weight, which is a lot.

The next day, I woke up thinking everything would be normal. But it wasn’t. My parents sat me down and had a long talk about my anorexia. They knew I’d been asking for advice on Yahoo Answers and they knew a lot of other stuff I thought I’d been hiding well. After the talk, I cried pretty much all day. My parents also started forcing me to eat–and it felt like a LOT! I felt so full, disgusting and fat that entire day and many more to come. That night, my dad made me eat an apple and I was so mad that I threw it at him and said I hated them so much. I really regret saying that now, but I know my mind was in such a sick place back then that I couldn’t see that they were trying to help. I just thought they were trying to make me fat…

April 2009. The beginning of my recovery.

 

Part 2 coming soon!

 

Sweet 16 & A Half?

Happy Friday, ladies! Yay, another weekend is upon us! I am so excited for this weekend–it’s another one at home, which is always fun and busy. This one involves grocery shopping , possibly making dinner and…oh yeah, a trip to urgent care. Say what? Yeah, my foot still hurts when I walk or stand on it, and since I didn’t have time to get back home today to get it checked out, I have to go into the urgent care tomorrow to see what’s up with it. Probably won’t be the funnest way to spend a Saturday morning, but I wanna get it taken care of, whatever the problem is.

Sweet, I'm 16 again. So why do I have all these college-level classes?

 Ummmmmm so yeah, according to RealAge, I’m 16 and a half. Right on. I must be doing something right. Except, honestly, when I was 16 1/2, I wasn’t that healthy. That was actually the height of my eating disorder–so I was starving myself and my mind was in an awful place. So I’m psyched that my “real age” health-wise is two and a half  years younger than my actual age, but I’m glad I’m not actually 16 1/2, or I’d be so messed up. I know I haven’t talked much about my anorexia on here, but I’d really love to hear your feedback on whether or not you’d like a post or two on my ED history. I know a lot of you out there struggle with it (or have struggled with it) too, so maybe you’d like to hear my personal story. Just let me know, k?

Anywho, this is just a super-quick update before I head home. I’ll let you all know about the foot situation, what I made (fingers crossed it turns out amazing) and what else went down this weekend. Oh yeah, and it’s totally Homecoming weekend here which is ironic since I’m going home Last year the HC festivities were fun and all, but this year my parents couldn’t make it up here so I decided just to head back down and spend the weekend at home. But…go Rams at the game tomorrow! We will be kicking some San Jose State butt…hopefully

What are you up to this weekend? Would you like to hear more about my eating disorder story?

 

Vegan?!

If you’ve read my about me page, or even just seen my new header, you’ll know that I eat a primarily vegetarian diet. This is an ethical and also personal choice I made a few years ago–I just don’t really care for the taste of meat. Up until this past year, I still ate chicken, lean turkey and seafood more regularly (I haven’t eaten red meat or pork in years), but considered myself a flexitarian, or someone who eats a plant-based diet with meat on occasion. Being away at college, I could eat whatever I wanted and because I didn’t like the dining hall food, I pretty much ate a vegetarian diet, except for when I was at home and poultry or fish was being served. But this summer, I really realized that A) I can’t stomach meat anymore and B) I don’t want to exploit animals for my enjoyment (erm, or lack of enjoyment). So I started turning more and more to vegetarian sources of protein. I also discovered that I don’t like dairy much anymore, aside from Greek yogurt, froyo and gelato.

Favorite. Overnighters. Combo. Ever. Mint chocolate gelato topped chocolate oats. Dessert and breakfast in one.

Before this point, my parents were dead-set aga inst me going vegetarian, let alone vegan. Because of my history with anorexia, they wanted me to be getting as many nutrients as possible, especially protein. However, I’ve convinced them that eating a mainly-vegan diet actually makes me feel a lot better and is helping me in my eating disorder recovery. So my mom discussed it with me, and she thinks it would be okay for me to go mostly vegan, as long as I keep some source of calcium. I’m still going to eat Greek yogurt (I can’t disown my beloved Oikos–I feel perfectly okay about eating it because it’s organic) and drink fortified soy milk. I’m probably going to end up taking a calcium supplement along with a B12 vitamin, just so I don’t run into any deficiency issues. And…I’m going to make a huge effort to increase my healthy fat intake. I’ve been scared of fats ever since my eating disorder, but eating enough fats is essentialto health. So I’m gonna up my nut/nut butter intake (I so wanna try the Archer Farms Almond Cashew Peanut Butter!) and hopefully that’ll help. I also really like Clif Mojo bars and Pure bars, and those have a lot of healthy fats in them.

I love me some carrot cake...oats that is! Raisins and crunchy almond butter really make this shine.

However…I think while I’m still at home for a couple weeks, I may still have to eat meat on occasion. But honestly, I just don’t like meat at all. Period. Not even seafood as much.  I’m actually really excited to be eating a mostly vegan diet. It just feels so much more natural to me.

Don't worry, yogurt messes, you're not going anywhere anytime soon! Superfruits Greek yogurt topped with Bear Naked Fit and bloobs, soy iced coffee on the side.

[DISCLAIMER: I am not claiming to be 100% vegan. I would say that I am a vegetarian eating vegan a lot of the time--I still want to include Greek yogurt and the occasional frozen yogurt or gelato. But honestly, I don't really like labeling--labels are for cans, not people. Also, I'm not trying to promote a specific diet--I think different things work for different people, and this is what works for me!]

If you’re vegan, what kinds of foods do you eat to get enough fats?

BIG News!

So this weekend is gonna be filled with a few “firsts” for me! Tomorrow is my first day volunteering at the library for the kids summer reading program. I went to the brief training the other day but I didn’t really learn a whole lot about what I’m actually going to be doing, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m excited but also kinda not. It’s from 12-2 every Saturday until the end of July, and while it’s not a huge deal to be giving up 2 hours of my week, I just wish it was during a different time block. I’m a little strict when it comes to meal times. I usually eat lunch between 12 and 1, but obviously that won’t be happening since we’re not allowed to bring food with us. There is no way I’ll be hungry before I leave and by the time I get back, it’ll be close to snacktime, so I’m not sure if any lunch will be happening these next 9 Saturdays. I’m okay with that, but my parents are another story. I’m still recovering from anorexia (it’s been 2 years since I was diagnosed) and they still tend to watch my eating kinda closely. They trusted me during my first year of college to eat on my own regularly, but since I’ve been home I feel like every bite I put in my mouth is being monitored. I’m pretty sure they’d freak out if I went without lunch, even if it’s just for 9 days. We’ll see…

Sunday is even more exciting, because my dad and I are registered for our first-ever bike race! I’m not sure if it’s exactly a race, but it involves a lot of other riders and it supports a few charities, so it’s not just an impromptu ride like we usually do. We signed up for the 7-miler, which was the shortest distance, because the next-shortest one (25 miles) seems a bit too long. I think the most we’ve ever ridden is 10 miles, so the 7-miler shouldn’t be too hard. Based on my lame informal training plan, I’ve been consistently riding a little over 2 miles in 10 minutes, so if I keep up my pace of 13.5 mi/hr than the race should only take about 35-40 minutes. Well, I guess that depends on if I’m riding behind someone who’s slow

I’m just hoping for nice weather (aka no wind) on Sunday so the ride will go smoothly. I rode two miles up and down my street (1 mile each way) today and I was planning on riding 3 but the wind was too much, plus I was dehydrated, my butt hurt (stupid bike seat!) and it smelled like smoke outside because of all the forest fires in the state. It wasn’t my best ride ever, but I think I’ll be fine on Sunday.

A goofy picture of me, just because

Q: What are you up to this weekend?