Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Ideal Eating Disorder Recovery Vision Exercise

The above title is directly from the Help for Eating Disorder web site.

The article discusses creating an Ideal Vision of your eating disorder recovery.

Here is the exercise:
  • What does it feel like?

  • What are you doing?

  • What are you telling people?

  • Are you maybe helping others?


  • You are supposed to answer them in the present tense, as if these things are happening right now. Kind of inspiring and motivating! Ok, here we go:

    What does it feel like?
    I feel great, confident, and comfortable in my body. I feel at peace and less anxious. I feel like I have succeeded.
    What are you doing?
    I am eating intuitively and mindfully. I am moving my body is a loving way. I am taking pride in my appearance and being considerate to my body, taking time to acknowledge and appreciate the things it does and can do regularly.
    What are you telling people?
    I am NOT talking about weight loss, dieting, concerns about my weight, or "feeling fat". I am talking about the joy of food, exercise and other more important life matters. My interactions are more genuine and less distracted.
    Are you maybe helping others?
    Yes! I am stopping diet talk and negative body talk. I am offering suggestions for healthier body image and discussing HAES and intuitive eating. I am also helping others by my improve attitude and providing more positive interactions with them.

    Monday, November 28, 2011

    The Holidays.

    Sigh.

    The Holidays. Yes, it deserves to be capitalized. They can be such a bear for folks suffering from disordered eating.

    Fear of overeating. Fear of bingeing. Fear of observation and/or comment by others. Fear of gaining weight.

    Feeling fat.

    For me, the biggest triggers are fear of being impolite by not eating enough, having people comment on my food choices, and feeling fat afterwards. I just tried to focus on my own food and enjoy my choices and the holiday season, understanding that even if I overeat/feel too full, that is okay.

    What are your holiday relapse prevention tricks?

    Wednesday, November 16, 2011

    Normalizing food.

    In IE and HAES, food is not really supposed to have a value: good, bad, healthy, unhealthy. It's just food.

    Well.

    Anyone that has a history of dieting or disordered eating knows this can be very far from where we are. One practice is to simply eat the foods until you don't want them anymore (not necessarily gorging yourself but just eating them regularly until they lose their appeal).

    I have been doing this lately, and it's terrifying.

    Your irrational mind tells you that you will never stop eating it and you will get FAT.

    Nevertheless, I kept on doing it. Every time over the last week that I have wanted candy or soda, I have had it.

    I didn't gain weight.

    And now, I am disinterested. I also do know that if I become interested, I will have some.

    But, wow.

    Thursday, November 10, 2011

    Journal Entry

    I think it's high time for another journal entry!

    8:30am Woke up with hip pain, take Motrin. I have to eat something carby to avoid nausea with Motrin. I am not really hungry but decide on a flaky biscuit with a little grape jelly. Yummy! Unfortunately, this drives up my blood sugar a little high; I have discovered I do better with more protein than carb in the morning.

    9:30am Definitely feeling the need for protein, decide to stop at my neighborhood Bojangle's for some chicken strips. I also decide to get a soda. I had "sworn them off" again but decide to break that habit and get a Dr. Pepper. When I get to work, I devour the majority of the strips. It came with a yummy biscuit and I eat about half of that. I get full and leave half a biscuit and one chicken strip.

    11:30am Feeling a little hungry. Finish my breakfast foods. Wanting a little sweetness, grab a snack pack M&Ms (there is always candy around the office). Fight some feelings of guilt about the candy but try to consciously enjoy their chocolaty goodness.

    1:30-2:00pm Getting hungrier for lunch. Have had kind of a grazing day. Workday much busier so eating bits of lunch as able (chicken, broccoli, brown rice). Eat about 1/4 of it at this time.

    4:00pm Post workout, definitely hungry. I have a protein shake planned. Bleh. It's sweet and I don't want to waste it so I'll drink that and go from there. Although I did grab another snack size candy on the way down the hall as a backup. :)

    4:15pm I finish about 3/4 of the shake and throw the rest away. I bought the protein powder during my "relapse" and it's just depressing me to drink. I complete my snack with a snack size box of Milk Duds. Nom nom.

    7:00pm Hungry for dinner. Egg salad sandwiches and chips planned. Eat 1 sandwich, a handful of chips, then off to baby duty.

    I had a sweet craving later but baby duty called. I wasn't really hungry anyway so no dessert tonight.

    Wednesday, November 9, 2011

    Consequences of Dieting.

    Disclaimer: this is all my personal opinion. I am not a doctor and this post is based on personal experience only.

    I have a lot of odd little medical conditions.

    Irritable bowel. Heart murmur. Hypoglycemia. Hiatal hernia. I had Gestational Diabetes while pregnant.

    Sometimes, I wonder whether a lot of these could be attributed to years of dieting and disordered eating.

    My mother, who dieted most of her life, has severe osteporosis and degenerative back problems. She also suffers from almost every single condition I listed for myself.

    It really makes me sad to think I could have damaged my body in this way. Even worse is the thought of still wanting to alter my eating habits despite any potential consequences. I'm really afraid to end up like my mom who, at almost 60, still restricts her eating (although she'll tell you she eats "healthy") and is in almost constant back pain.

    It's tragic how much we abuse our bodies in the name of thinness.

    Tuesday, November 8, 2011

    Wanting to lose weight. Losing sanity instead.

    I may have said some of this before but it seems like it needs repeating for me.

    I am actively trying to lose weight. (Shame!)

    I am 5 months postpartum and about 10lbs heavier than my prepregnancy weight (I know, so not a big deal) and about 20-30lbs heavier than what I would like to be my ideal body weight. A lot of the weight remains in my belly area; this is where I typically carry any extra weight and is an area I am very insecure about. Rationally, I do understand this is not a lot of weight. That does not make it seem any less significant.

    I just rejoined the gym at work (go, discount fitness! $30 for six months, woohoo) and am trying to plan out a workout routine. I think this is where it all started.

    I started researching workouts. I wanted to find something to improve my functional strength and endurance. Unfortunately, I ended up getting linked to a bunch of web sites more focused on diet than exercise. I got drawn in to one site that strongly touts its eating plan, although it does have a pretty good looking workout regime. There are pages and pages of archives. It was all downhill from there.

    While talking about working out, eating habits, etc to my husband and mother-in-law last night, he made a comment about me "being on one of [her] health kicks". This really struck a chord with me. While he didn't mean it in any kind of negative way, "health kick" sounds like something temporary to me. Like a diet.

    Fail.

    I think I need to make a relapse prevention plan. A diet relapse prevention. I really need to get a hold of my warning signs and triggers. Might as well start somewhere!

    Relapse Signs
    • researching diet and exercise routines
    • change in mood (particularly feeling depressed)
    • trying to drastically alter my eating habits
    • restricting
    • not eating intuitively
    • comparing myself to others
    • judging others' eating and exercise habits
    It's really a shame how much of a cycle this becomes and how much of my life it can consume when there are so many more important things to focus on. Today, I am purposefully skipping the gym and going to run errands with a coworker to work on self-care instead of focusing on my body today.