inhale exhale sigh

I think I am creeping slowing into a mild depression. I think a slight fog has settled into my mind lately. I just can’t seem to shake it.  I usually go through this sort of thing in the middle of winter, when everything is gray and sad.  But I don’t understand it happening now.  It’s summer. I love the sun and humidity. 

I guess I just don’t love myself right now?  I really don’t know.

My husband asked me today what I would do as a career if I didn’t have to worry about how much money it paid.  I had no answer. It made me sad.  I am incredibly lost. I really don’t think I know anything about my true desires and needs. 

I spend almost all of my time worrying about others. Helping others. Listening to others.  I don’t mind that actually. It keeps my mind busy.  I suppose today I realized I don’t know much about myself, since I focus so much time on others. 

Even now I feel guilty thinking about my own feelings.  writing such nonsense. 

I’ve been a bit under the weather too.  My stomach and digestive system have been completely out of wack. I have IBS, or so I’m told. So sometimes when I eat certain things, my intestines spasm or something, and I suffer through great pain. I try to keep a list of what food triggers this drama, but it never seems to make sense.  I ate a salad yesterday, 30 minutes later I was doubled over in pain, wanting to never eat again.  

I’ve consulted many doctors, done all the tests, and have been told to just eat bland foods when I have flare ups.  Gee, sounds like they have no idea what to do for me then.  

So I eat crackers and drink water.  The good thing is after these stomach episodes, the crackers no longer become a trigger food. I am fearful that the stomach acid brought up from my purging will cause worse pain, so I abstain.  

Luckily it’s been more than a week since I have purged anything, so I’m doing good. 

I’m feeling out of it still. Maybe it’s the stomach issues, maybe it’s a touch of depression. I don’t know. At least it’s keeping my mind off what I am eating and what I look like in the mirror.  So maybe it’s a blessing in disguise?  

who knows.

crackers and gum

Another ‘normal’ day, thankfully.  I hate Mondays the most, so these are usually my most tempting issue days.  Work causes me constant stress, I hate going every single day.  It’s a very secure job and I make a nice paycheck, and unfortunately there isn’t any wiggle room for me to just up and quit and take time to figure out another job.  RIght now I must work, our mortgage(s) are killing us, and this is unfortunately my only option for this pay.  So I go, everyday with a headache and lots of forming frown lines.  How many years until I can retire?  It’s like looking forward to death.  

So after work I wanted crackers. Soft saltines with just a sprinkling of salt, straight from the sleeve.  On particularly stressful days, if alone and if I have crackers in the house, I will polish off a sleeve or two.  I am very specific how I eat them too. I take such care and tenderness with my beloved saltines.  Slowly eating off the brown bubbly parts first, then precisely splitting the cracker at it’s seams to split it lengthwise. I then slowly nibble the two paper thin pieces. Dry, salty, crumbly goodness. Repeat until one or two sleeves are done. It always soothes me. It takes quite a while to get through an entire sleeve with this method of eating, but somehow it calms me.  Man I wanted some crackers today.  

Luckily I know better, and I NEVER keep them in the house.  

I chewed some sugarless gum instead.  Not the same, but somewhat of a release for my mind. Unfortunately I have some issue with gum too. Always bubble gum flavor and always 10-15 pieces, one right after the other.  I chew hard and fast, as soon as any flavor is gone, I’m on to the next one.  My jaw aches and frequently I chew an entire pack in a sitting. 

Then I forced myself to go to the gym.  

Again, like a charm. My nervous tension was tired out after 45 minutes on that annoying elliptical machine. Oh I hate that thing.  I calmed down enough to eat a salad and sliver of grilled chicken for dinner.  A small portion, but a normal meal to most people.  The salad didn’t make me feel gross like heavier food does, so I was fine.  No food thoughts came back. 

Whew, it’s exhausting somedays. 

I wish I could find a new job, career, passion. I really thing that would give me something else to focus on. Other than food.  I wonder if I will ever figure out what I am really supposed to do with my life?  

goodness I hope so.

normalcy

i have found that the key to having a ‘normal’ day is exercise.  when i work out my mind changes a bit. I feel strong and healthy. I feel like I need calories to keep going, I feel more like a machine. Instead of something much worse.

If I work out early enough, I can keep this mindset all day long.

I know I must work out. I know I must keep moving.  It’s the only way to keep ahead of the food maniac monster that lives inside me.

but sometimes I just get lazy and give up. I let the darkness win and I remain on the couch, in front of the TV.  As the channels turn so does my mind.  I start feeling unhappy with my appearance, my thighs and my stomach. Nothing good enough.  the stress level rises and I start snacking.  the cycle begins.

so I have started limiting my TV consumption as well. it only pushes my negative thoughts further along.  So why bother?

Anyway, I spent about an hour in the gym today, and spend the rest of the day like a normal person.  I ate lunch and dinner, as normal portions, with my husband.  

when I’m in the other mindset I prefer to eat alone and never regular meals. 

after dinner, I started to feel a slight twinge of guilt for eating a normal portion. I begin to feel the food in my stomach and it starts my stresses.  To avoid over thinking this feeling, I went for a walk instead.  

Outside in the warm air, with the company of my husband.  We chatted about the weekend and the plans for next week.  Food thoughts left my head completely. 

I was normal once again.

I prefer normalcy.  If the key to it is movement. I must force myself to keep moving. 

I can’t stop.  I can’t. 

My goals for this week is to move everyday. Exercise of some kind everyday. I can’t talk myself out of it anymore.

cheesecake

We went out to dinner last night at Cheesecake factory, probably one of the worst places for someone like me to go.  The menu is like a novel, with thousands of options and the desserts don’t stop.  Cheesecake is something I consider as completely off limits.  I will never allow myself to eat it, because I know just how much fat and crap is in it. Now, I love cheesecake, when I was a child I would eat it all the time. Just one day, perhaps with the eating issues surfaced, I decided it was off limits. So needless to say I was very nervous going to this restaurant knowing my family would wonder what was wrong with me if I didn’t eat any of the famous cheesecake.  

Luckily, I was able to find a reasonably healthy menu option, the Thai lettuce wraps appetizer.  It was mostly raw vegetables and some grilled chicken and it looked beautiful. The plate was huge, so it looked to everyone that I was eating a ton of food.  I was happy.  Of course I decided I wasn’t going to eat the chicken or at least very much of it and I kept moving things around on the platter so it looked like I was eating much more than I did.  Usually I would just eat the food normally, but I was preparing for the inevitable, I was going to have to eat cheesecake.  My family kept talking about it.  There was no getting around it. 

I did order some cheesecake and I did eat almost half of it.  I was perfection I must say. So creamy and densely flavored, it was clearly the highlight of my day.  I was happy I ate it and I was happy that I allowed myself to enjoy it.  I probably could have eaten the entire piece but I was trying to practice a little restraint. Besides hubby took care of it quite quickly, so don’t worry, it wasn’t wasted.  

My MIL leaves today, I will be glad to have our house back to ourselves.  After a few days with house guests our places feels quite small and it gets a little tense for me.  I guess its because I am used to living alone and being by myself a lot.  Before we were married I lived alone for about 8 years and I’m not much of a social butterfly, I tend to be a loner. So too many people in one place can be a little overwhelming at times. 

The weather is nice out, I hope to get some sort of workout in after we drop MIL at the airport.  I am trying to move more, but sometimes it’s very hard.  Or maybe it’s just that I’m incredibly lazy when it comes to working out.  I know if I worked out more I could focus on my diet a little less, because I would be burning more.  But I just can’t seem to get in a good exercise routine.  3 or 4 days I am ok then I take a day off and all of a sudden the day off turns into 2 weeks.  I clearly lack a consistency gene somewhere.

Well, I better get moving the day is wasting away.  

Feliz Sabado!

independence day

so welcome to my spot in the blogosphere.  I’ve decided to start blogging about my food related issues and whatever else I feel the need to. I hope this will help me to internalize less drama and live a more authentic life.  I have a lot of food baggage and other nonsense I am trying to clear out, and hopefully talking about it will move the process along. What a perfect day to start too, Independence day!   

Anyway nobody who knows me really has any idea about my food issues or eating related disorders. So in a way this is my coming out. Ok, so I’m anonymous here but still my verbalizing anything remotely close to my eating issues is very big for me.  I never acknowledge my issues. I hide and act like nothing is wrong. When clearly there are some issues going on.  My husband has some idea, as I have shared a bit with him..but he has no idea the real extent of things.  I honestly am too embarassed to share it all with him. I fear he will judge me or possibly stop loving me.  I realize this thinking is unhealthy and probably silly, but hey welcome to my head. It’s a mess in here. 

Anyway, my MIL is in town this week, so food has been even more stressful. We must have the standard 3 meals and eating out is almost a daily occurence.  One of my greatest stressors is eating out at restaurants. I am dealing as well as I can.  Planning ahead what I wll eat and attempting to stay away from trigger foods. Certain soft, comfort foods seem to trigger binge urges for me.  Then that starts the cycle of a binge/purge followed by a day of abstinence from food or an anorexic day, as I call them. It’s like punishing myself or something.  

I have been in this crazy eating disorder phase since I was 25. I have no idea why it came on so late, but it’s still here, 8 years later.  It’s a bit late to pick up an eating disorder and it’s hanging around a lot longer than it should.  The good news is I have gone through months even a whole year at a time without having episodes. Tricking my mind into thinking I am perfectly well adjusted and ‘normal’ again.  Then out of nowhere one little bit of pizza (huge trigger food) and wham! the illness is bad with a vengence.  

I have spoken to many therapists and doctors about my issues for help and guidance. According to the definition of specific eating disorders I do not fall into the category of ‘diagnosable’ eating disorders. Since my episodes are more infrequent than the books indicate is a problem.  Apparently if you make yourself throw up less than 5 times a month you don’t have a problem?  What. If I force myself not to eat less than 5 days a month I don’t have a problem either. Now coupled together I have about 10 days of problems each month, but no overall problem that is diagnosable = treatable. So I am an odd bird. I don’t fit into the picture painted by previous research, so I am on my own for help.  I actually had a doctor tell me I was probably just bored and I needed a hobby to ‘get past all this.’  Like it was some little habit I had picked up, like biting my nails.

Meanwhile I have spent more money replacing my teeth (from all the decay the puking has caused), than some spend on a new car. I am incapable of eating anything without worry about calories, fat or other craziness.  I have never enjoyed the taste of food for what it is, rather than what it will do to my emotions.

On the outside I look like any fit person.  Nobody knows I have food issues. People assume I am ‘lucky’ that I can eat what I want and never worry about fat. Ha, if only they knew.  If only they realized everyone has their own demons. Food just happens to be mine.  So just because the blonde is a size 2, don’t hate her, she may actually be killing herself to remain there.  

Anyway I am trying to get past this. i am trying hard to be better with my mindset about food and recreate the way I think about things food related. I am confident I can do it, because I have had many months without any issues and almost one year of no problems. So that shows I can do it, if I just put my mind to it.  

So perhaps blogging about it will help me through the tougher times and get me out of this cycle once and for all.

Join me on my journey if you like.  

Please be kind to yourself, and those around you.

xx