Tag Archives: binge eating

Food Scheduling (or Trying Out New Things)

Posted on May 31, 2018 | Comments Off on Food Scheduling (or Trying Out New Things)

I’ve written about it so many times on here, but food issues are my biggest ones. It’s been a lifelong struggle and I’m guessing that it will be something I struggle with the rest of my life. I do hope that it will get easier for me one day, but I’m realistic in the idea that this will never go away completely.

I’ve struggled with what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat. And when I started taking Vyvnase, the struggle of when to eat became bigger than ever. When I started taking it, I could go a very long time without remembering to eat and then it would backfire. I would realize that it was already dinnertime and I was starving. Forgetting to eat was a new issue for me and I really didn’t expect it to happen. So planning to remember to eat became very important to me.

For the past year or so, I’ve had an alarm to go off to remind me to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it’s been very useful, especially to remember to eat lunch when I’m working. I don’t always eat full meals (especially for breakfast or lunch), but at least getting something into my stomach helps me not feel famished when I do remember to eat.

But when I was sick recently, I was barely eating. For most people, when they are sick and not eating they lose weight. For me, somehow I gain weight. I’ve never been able to explain it, but that’s how my body works. But because of this, I’ve always been fearful of not eating enough in a normal day and causing a weight gain. I know it’s crazy because I’ve done a super low calorie diet before and lost weight, but it’s still a fear in the back of my head.

When I was better, I assumed that I would want to get back to my normal eating schedule. But I was having issues with it. The biggest issue was eating a small breakfast before my morning workouts. I’ve always had a half of a banana or some peanut butter before a workout because I felt like I needed it to keep me from feeling nauseous. Lately even that much food was too much so I had some chocolate milk before a workout and that seemed to be fine. But now even doing that doesn’t feel right to me. So I’ve been doing my morning workouts on an empty stomach.

I know there is a lot of debate on if you should work out on an empty stomach or not. I’m not too worried about the studies because I need to do what is right for me. Some people say they can’t work out as hard if they don’t eat something first, but I’m still working my way back and rebuilding my endurance so there is really no way for me to know if it is affecting me or not. All I know is that I’m not feeling worse without eating right now.

I do try to eat something as soon as I get home from a workout, but I’ll admit that I don’t always do that. But even if I do, I’m basically eating 2 meals a day right now (there have been a few days where it was 1 meal, but I know that I ate too much). I’ve never thought that eating less would be ok with me and not trigger something, but at whatever phase this is of my life it does seem to not cause any issues.

I have friends who do intermittent fasting and love it. I don’t want to commit and say that this is what I’m doing, but I do know that most of my eating is taking place in a 6-8 hour period which does fit into the intermittent fasting plan. I’m starting to do a bit more research on it and how it works with eating disorders because the last thing I want to do is have this backfire soon and make things worse for me than what they were before. If it looks like this will be trouble, then I will go back to making myself eat the 3 meals a day. But I really hate to make myself eat something when I’m not hungry just because of what time it is.

There is a very good chance that this is just a short phase, like all my other food things have been. But I do just have to keep on trying what seems to be more natural and simple for me and hopefully something will work and stick soon. But I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned from all the different things I’ve tried is to not feel like I need to stick 100% to any plan or to feel like I’m stuck doing something. I have to allow myself to be flexible because that is the only way to figure out what I will be able to do and maintain.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Food And Budgeting (or Combining The Two Things I Often Struggle With)

Posted on April 10, 2018 | Comments Off on Food And Budgeting (or Combining The Two Things I Often Struggle With)

I’ve written several posts about my struggles with food. And I’ve also written a lot about issues with working on a budget that is manageable and will help me pay down my debt. Both of these things are things that I struggle with a lot and it seems like whenever I get a handle on things, something changes and I have to start from the beginning again. I know there is a connection between addiction/eating disorders and debt, but the connection for me is just starting to register.

Since food is something I will always need to buy, I have to budget for it. But things change week to week on what I need so I’m much more flexible with my budget in that category. I try to stay within a budget that I set for each week, but if I have to buy food and I’ve already hit what I wanted to spend that week I still have to get food. I know that some of this extra spending is due to lack of planning, and I’m working on that. I also have realized that I’ve been letting food go to waste if I forget to eat it and that adds to my expenses. So I’ve been working on fixing both of these problems at once.

Recently my dermatologist put me on an antibiotic that I took twice a day for 2 weeks. I had to take the medication with food and I couldn’t take it at the same time as my morning medications because of issues with the antibiotic and a multivitamin. So I planned on taking it at lunchtime and dinnertime each day since that would work with taking it with food. At that same time I started working out at the Culver City Orangetheory location, which meant lots of early morning workouts. And I can’t really eat too much before a morning workout, but at the same time I can’t work out on an empty stomach. So I had to start experimenting with what I eat and when I eat.

This can totally change (because like I said, things always change when I think I finally have a handle on it), but right now it’s been working to drink a little bit of chocolate milk before my workout and then having a meal around 11am (brunch?) and then dinner. While I know that I should be eating 3 meals a day at least, this plan has been working for a bit for both my weight loss and my budget. When I only have to think about 2 meals a day, somehow it’s easier for me to meal plan. And it’s almost more like 1 meal a day because I eat pretty much the same thing each day as my mid-day meal.

I know that for some people this is a no-brainer. Eating the same thing every day is a weight loss strategy that works for many people. Having a lack of variety does work for some people, but it’s never really worked for me before. The only exception to this was when I was doing the UCLA diet when there was no variety as I had the same thing 6 times a day. But when I could choose from whatever I wanted, having a lack of variety would lead to me doing last-minute grocery store runs to get something else to eat because I was bored with the plan I had.

I don’t know if it is timing or doing the morning workouts, but the lack of variety is working for me. The number on my scale is slowly going down and I’ve been able to limit how often I need to go to the grocery store. I still have some wasted food, but it’s significantly less than it was before. And I know that if I work on planning things out a bit better, I can improve on the budgeting even more.

Even though I’ve known that my food budget was a bit out of control, things just finally clicked with me recently that I needed to work on this. It’s one of the few areas in my budget that has flexibility and I know that it is possible to eat what I need to while spending less money. Hopefully having this plan will not only keep my budget in a better place but will continue to limit how often I have to confront what I want to eat. If I don’t have to think about it, I can avoid grocery stores when I know that I am just looking for junk food to eat.

Just like every other time I think I have things worked out, I am hopeful that this may work but I am also realistic that this could just be something that is working temporarily. But I hope that whatever skills and tricks I learn while this is working are things that I can keep using even if I can’t keep up the current plan.

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Default ThumbnailTime For Some Planning (or Trying A Challenge Again This Month) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track) Default ThumbnailBudgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier) Default ThumbnailFood Scheduling (or Trying Out New Things) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Better Food (or Finding My Own Balance) Default ThumbnailStill Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?)

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A Quick Vyvanse Update (or I Guess Forgetting Helps Time Pass)

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 1 comment

I’ve been on my new dosage of Vyvanse for a couple of months now. Even though I built in a transition period to the new dosage (as well as taking all my medication in the morning instead of splitting it up), I struggled for a long time with the dosage. I was feeling some similar symptoms to what I had when I started like a racing heart rate and some light-headedness. And when I had the phone call check up with my therapist, we discussed these issues since I was feeling a bit concerned.

My therapist encouraged me to keep taking the new dosage because I might just be having a longer adjustment period than I’m used to. While I’d like to say that I trusted her opinion, I felt pretty certain that she was wrong and I would need to go back to a lower dose. But I told her that I would give it until I needed to refill my prescription before I judged anything too much. I wasn’t that far into my prescription when I had that phone call, but I also knew that there could be an adjustment period and I had to see what would happen. Because I am monitored while taking Vyvanse, I knew that even with the side effects I might be feeling I wasn’t doing anything harmful to my body. I just had to see if things would eventually feel right again with me.

The other day I finished the first pill bottle and moved on to the second (my prescription is split into 2 bottles because of how many pills there are in a single refill) and I realized that I’m halfway through trying this dose before needing a refill. And I haven’t had any side effects for a little while either. It’s so weird because I really can’t remember the last time I felt my heart race issues unless I look at my workout blog posts and see when I wrote about it. Time just kind of went by and I didn’t even think about it.

I do think that maybe some of this could be because I’m not working out in the afternoons anymore, but at the same time that doesn’t necessarily make sense because I take my medication in the morning. But maybe since those morning workouts are even earlier, the medication might not be totally in my system yet? I don’t know and I also don’t know why I’m trying to justify anything. I should just be really happy that I’m feeling more normal again.

I think I was so focused on the side effects for so long because I was paranoid that I really didn’t think as much about how much this might be helping me. Of course, I am reminded of that whenever I have a day I don’t take it (like if I have the rare chance to sleep in). It does take the edge off of things and I still have days where food is the last thing on my mind. I struggle on those days to remember to eat even though I do have reminders to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But it’s all baby steps and I’m working on it.

I’m really so happy that the adjustment period seems to be over now. I didn’t express on here how worried I was about it and how often I wondered if I was making a mistake changing things up the way I did. I had so much trust in my old therapist and it was tough to give that much trust to someone new. And having issues with my medications was making that trust even tougher for me to give. But even without fully trusting my doctor, I had to just suck it up and believe that eventually it would get better and she knows what is possibly best for me.

Thankfully now I know that she was right (even though she was willing to admit if she was wrong and readjust things for me if needed) and that I’m over the hump I was dealing with. I want to get back to trying to run but I also know that I’ve lost so much progress over the past few months. I probably will need to start over with my running with running for 30 seconds to a minute at a time. But I know that I have built up my running endurance in the past and I’ll be able to get back there again eventually. And hopefully with the stress of the side effects out of my mind now, I can focus on other things in my life. There are more important and more fun things I’d like to have occupying my mind and now I can do that again without feeling like I’m being fake and ignoring a possible issue.

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An Easy Therapist Check-In (or Virtual Appointments Make Things Easier)

Posted on February 8, 2018 | 1 comment

Yesterday I had a check-in with my new therapist. This check-in was mainly to see how I was doing with the new medication dosage. I explained how I had been taking the increases slowly and that I am still adjusting to the new dosage, and she seemed to be pretty happy with the plan. It’s hard to tell what the correct dosage will be, so it will be a lot of trial and error. This is a different process than what I was doing with my old therapist, but I do like this new plan. I feel like it is more collaborative and that we are more of a team than a doctor telling me what to do.

This appointment was so much easier than what I’m used to because it was a phone call appointment. Yesterday morning, we had a time that my therapist was going to call me and we were going to talk over how things went. Of course, if I felt like I needed to meet in person I could have done that. But my therapist suggested a phone appointment for a check-in because it is easier to schedule and wouldn’t take up as much of my time. It was nice not having to drive to and from the appointments and being able to get it done early in the morning before I started work. I felt much more relaxed while talking because it didn’t feel as formal.

I don’t know why my old therapist never suggested phone appointments. I know that with him, he was much more into seeing if there was any more talk therapy that I wanted to do. Even though we came to the conclusion that I don’t really have issues to work through, I just have some sucky circumstances that I need to not rule my life. But those circumstances aren’t things I need to figure out, we know what they are and what they are doing to my mind. But he still liked to talk things through much more than this new therapist. This new therapist understands that in a way I only go in for appointments because I’m on a medication that requires it. She understands that talk therapy might be something I want in the future, but right now it’s not the priority in getting me into recovery. It’s a very different mindset, but I’m glad I had my old therapist in the beginning and this new therapist now.

In my phone call, I did discuss my issues with my workouts. It is frustrating to not be able to do cardio the way I want to, but I also need to give myself a decent amount of time to adjust to things. We did discuss brining my medication back down to a lower dosage (either what I started on or the middle dosage I was doing), but we both agreed that I haven’t had enough time yet on this new dosage to see if it will allow my workouts to get back to normal. I do like how I am feeling on this new dose and I feel like the medication is working much better, so I want to give it as much of a chance as possible. And I do have options if I need them and those won’t be going away so I can take my time.

My next medication refill will be in about 2 months. I will need to call or email my therapist to request the refill due to the restrictions on the medication. And at that point I think I will know what dosage I want to be on. And my therapist seems to agree that the timeline sounds good to her too. Of course, if in 2 weeks I feel like I need to step down to a lower dose, I can call in and she can write me a new prescription. But my plan is to try to take the next 2 months to see how I feel in all aspects of my life. If my eating disorder is significantly better but I can’t run, that might be a sacrifice I want to make. While my workouts are important, my recovery is more important and the priority in my life.

For my first phone appointment, I think it went really well and it reinforced the idea in my head that this is the therapist that I need now. She is much more scientific about things and that is really what works for me right now. My next appointment with my therapist (not counting in 2 months when I get my medication refill) will be in 6 months. I’m on the same appointment timeline as I was in the past, which is nice since I wasn’t sure it would be that way with a new doctor. But the next appointment is going to be unique because it’s going to be my first time ever doing a video chat appointment with a doctor! I’m actually pretty excited to have that option too because again it will save me the time of driving back and forth!

I know that not everyone likes technology, but I love that I have options to do virtual appointments with my therapist! It really helps to make appointments fit into my schedule better and I think that it will give me more options for when I can make appointments in the future. All of these things are good things and make me really hopeful that I’m on the right path toward recovery!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

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New Year New Therapist (or Not Starting At Square One)

Posted on January 12, 2018 | 7 comments

I’ve been seeing my therapist for a little while. At first I was going more often, but more recently it was only twice a year. In therapy, I talked about some of the issues that may have helped to lead to my eating disorder, but in the end we really came to the conclusion that I just had the genetic code that made me extra susceptible to having some sort of addiction issue and that food ended up being what I turned to. I do have some self-confidence issues with people being verbally abusive to me in my past, but I know that what they said about me isn’t true and I just have to work on reminding myself that.

It was nice that I had gotten to that point with my therapist. It’s not too common that someone prescribing you medication wouldn’t make you do as much talk therapy, but he knew that I really wasn’t needing it anymore. While I’m not totally in recovery, I’m probably in the best mental state I’ve ever been in for my entire life. I’m so happy that I’ve had the breakthroughs that I have had and I know that my therapist was proud of me as well.

But before my most recent appointment, I found out that my therapist was no longer working for the medical offices (and he may not be working at all in LA anymore). I was originally randomly assigned a new therapist, but I ended up calling and making sure that I was set to see someone who works with those with eating disorders. I knew that this appointment was more of just a meeting and if I didn’t like the therapist I could ask for another appointment with another doctor, but I also nervous. I know that not all doctors would be as relaxed about things as my previous therapist was, but I hoped for the best. I went into my appointment with as open of a mind as possible.

And I have to say that I really lucked out. My new therapist really did take the time to review the notes my previous therapist made in my chart (I’m seriously so curious what he had written about me). She knew my progress in therapy and with medication and was pretty educated on my medical history. And I was blunt and honest with her about how I wasn’t really seeking as much talk therapy as I was when I started because I felt like I had reached the pinpoint of my issues. I knew that telling her that was a risky move because the medications I take are a controlled substance and I didn’t want to sound like a drug seeker.

But she completely understood where I was in therapy and why I didn’t feel the need to talk things out the way I did in the beginning. Of course she gave me the option to talk things out if I felt like I needed to, but I told her that my only fears were about if she was going to change my entire treatment plan. She is going to make some changes in my medication. She actually thinks my dosage is too low and we will be making increases to how much I take over the next few weeks. And we will be doing a follow-up phone call in a month so she can know how I’m doing. That’s much easier than me coming in again and I appreciate that she is giving me that option. And if everything goes as well as she thinks it will, most likely I will go back to twice a year appointments.

As my therapy appointment ended, my therapist noticed that the rainstorm that had been happening earlier that day had ended and that there was an amazing double rainbow right outside. I took it as a good sign that this new therapist is going to be a great member of my medical team and that good things are on their way for me.

While switching therapists wasn’t what I was planning on doing, I’m so happy that it went as well as it did. In the past, I had some therapists that I didn’t feel connected with me and that I wasn’t getting anything out of the appointments. It’s not easy to find someone who you want to work with and I’ve been lucky enough to get two therapists back to back that seem to be the right people for me. And hopefully with the new medication plan I will see more progress in my recovery. But if I don’t, I know that this therapist will be able to work with me and we will figure out what I need to do.

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Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

Posted on December 29, 2017 | Comments Off on Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

I can’t believe this is my last blog post of 2017! It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing my goals for the year. This year definitely wasn’t what I expected it to be, but that was mostly for the best. But because of things not being the way I thought they would, some of my goals didn’t end up happening the way I thought. For some goals I totally surpassed what I expected and for others they didn’t happen. But even with the non-successes (I don’t consider them failures), I learned a lot.

My first goal I had for 2017 was 181 workouts. When I set that goal, I expected to be out for a little while when I had surgery so I thought it might be a bit of a stretch. I tried to make up for the time I thought I would be missing by doing more weeks of 4 workouts a week. That ended up being my new normal which was pretty exciting. And then I didn’t have surgery so I didn’t have to take the time away that I thought I would. But that didn’t slow me down and as long as the last few days this month go as planned I will be ending the year with 196 workouts!

I was pretty shocked when I looked at my total and saw how far over my goal I had gone. I knew I was going to be doing more than I thought, but I didn’t think I’d be 15 workouts ahead of my goal. That’s pretty amazing and even if every workout wasn’t the best one, consistency is so important and I think I’ve proved to myself that I have that.

My next goal I had for the year was to get through my liver surgery as easily as possible. I’ve got a history of having an easy time with surgeries, but this was going to be the first time I would have to stay overnight at the hospital and it was a much more extreme surgery than any I’ve had before. Well, as you all probably know from all of my posts about it, I didn’t have surgery. So technically there was no way for me to accomplish this goal. But I reframed it in my mind to be more about getting through this entire situation about my liver with less stress. And I think I did accomplish that. I think that I will always be a little nervous before going in for an MRI because I don’t want the tumors to grow, but beyond that time I really don’t think about my tumors that much at all. I do think about them once a day when I do visualization, but after that I try to not focus on it.

Next was to work on my recovery and hopefully reduce my binge episodes. I’m torn on how I did on this goal. I think that I have made some big strides in my recovery and there was some time where my binges were the most infrequent they have ever been, but that didn’t last. I don’t know what I need to do to keep that momentum, but my awareness is higher than ever and I consider that a win. I think this past year I’ve also become more aware of how long this recovery journey may take and that even if it doesn’t feel like I’m taking steps forward I am. I wish that some of my progress was more obvious and the results could be seen, but I think I’ll just have to wait a bit on that. But it’s a good thing that there isn’t a deadline to be recovered.

Next was a money related goal. I wanted to reduce my debt to be at a number that I had in my head. That reduction would have been about 25% of the debt I have and would have been amazing. I didn’t quite make it to that number, but I did get my debt down about 19% which is better than I have done before. This is also after getting a major reduction in my hours at one of my jobs. I went from 12-15 hours a week to 4 which cut my income down a lot. So to be able to reduce my debt that much and re-budget my life with the reduced money coming in is a big step. I wish I could have done more, but I also know that the circumstances weren’t easy and to reduce the debt at all took a lot of work.

I also set a goal to have a new PR in my 5K race. That worked out pretty well for me since I had a new PR at the one 5K I did this year. I had that PR on the course with the hills which usually slows me down. But because I had my running intervals longer that made up for any decrease in speed I had on my hills. To PR is awesome and I’m so happy that I was able to do that. But I was sad that I only had 1 race this year and that I didn’t have another chance to try to improve on that PR. Next year will be weird because neither of the 5Ks I usually do will be happening, but at least I know that I hit my 2017 goal for my races!

And my final goal for this year was to have more fun. I think I totally succeeded in this! I had so many Disney and Universal adventures with friends. I went to a lot of fun parties and just tried to have a lot of fun with the random things of life. And even though dating can be crazy and stressful at times, I’ve been having fun with that too. It does help that I’ve been turning all the bad stories into stories for my book so whenever I have a bad date I think about how funny it will be when someone else reads it. I haven’t gotten serious about anyone yet, but to have fun with dating is something that hasn’t really been in my past before and I’m glad that’s kind of my experience now.

Overall, I think I had more wins than non-successes with my goals. I might not have achieved everything I wanted, but that’s not really what goals are about. If they were all easy to reach then I didn’t set them high enough. I need to be striving for things and not reaching my goals does motivate me to do better. Look at my workouts as an example. I missed my goal in 2016 but far surpassed it in 2017. Missing that goal last year motivated me to do even better this year.

My next few posts will all be about what I’ve got in mind for 2018. I’ve got some big goals again that I’m thinking about and I’m excited to share them next week. But for now, I guess that’s a wrap on posts for 2017! It was a great year for me and I’m so grateful for you all following me on my journey! Have an awesome NYE (and please don’t drink and drive!) and hopefully we all have an incredible start to 2018!

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Posted in Celebrations, Dating, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Saving

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I Know The Holidays Can Be Tough (or Trying To Give Support To My Friends)

Posted on November 17, 2017 | 3 comments

When I was younger, I was diagnosed with depression. At the time I thought that the diagnosis was correct even though no medication was helping me. Now looking back, I’m pretty sure it was a misdiagnosis and my depression was more of a side effect of my eating disorder, panic/anxiety disorder, and mild OCD. But even with it being a misdiagnosis, I understand how helpless things can feel at times. But fortunately for me, I can get myself out of that mindset before things get too bad.

But that’s not the case for several of my friends. I have many friends who have depression and other mental issues that lead to depression. I’ve had friends attempt suicide and have been the person that someone calls in the middle of the night to hear a voice of reason when things seem impossible. I’m more than happy to be that person for my friends because I don’t want to see someone harming themselves because they don’t think anyone cares or can’t get a hold of someone. I sleep with my phone on and next to my bed so I can be available for calls in the middle of my night. I’m fine sacrificing sleep if it helps someone else not do something that cannot be reversed.

Like many other mental health issues, I think depression and suicide are getting more attention in the media and that it is becoming less stigmatized. If you haven’t seen last week’s episode of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (spoiler alert), the episode is themed about this. I think that this episode was so powerful and that they will continue to be as sensitive about the subject in the coming episodes. But just because something is being discussed publicly more often doesn’t necessarily make it easier for those dealing with it.

I know that depression can hit at any time of the year, but I also know that for some of my friends it can be worse during the holidays. If you are used to being with your family and can’t do that it can be tough. If you are surrounded by happy people and you feel like an outsider, it can be tough. Anything can be a trigger and it doesn’t have to be for a reason or make sense. But when depression hits and you feel like there is no escape it doesn’t matter what else is happening in the world. You just feel like you need out and that isn’t always the right thing to do.

I’m posting this now because I’ve recently had a few friends try to kill themselves. I’m glad that all of them were unsuccessful in their attempts so they are still around and are able to get help. But it’s still hard to think that someone I love that much felt like they were unloved. And no matter how much I try to support them, I know that depression is a personal battle and they have to work on it on their own. But not everyone has the same support that my friends have and I want to make sure that everyone knows where they can get help.

One of the best ways to get help if you feel like there is no other choice is to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

There is someone you can talk to 24/7 and help is free and confidential. They can guide you to resources to get help and will listen to you without judgement. And if you are a friend or family member of someone who is suicidal, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can help you too. There are resources so that you can help someone else. I have used those before to help my friends. And I’ve also used their guides on how to report suicidal posts on social media so you can help someone who you may not know in person. Sometimes people joke about suicide and it’s tough to tell if they are being truthful or not. I’ve reported people who weren’t being serious on social media, but I’d rather be more cautious than to think someone is joking when they really are reaching out for help.

Hopefully if you are feeling helpless or know someone who is that you know that help is possible. I know that it doesn’t always seem that way, but it’s true. And when you talk to someone who has overcome depression they will tell you that there is hope and help when you need it. And once they are on the other side they are so grateful that they didn’t do something that they couldn’t come back from.

I know that for my friends battling this that many of them have a long way to go. But I love them so much and want to support them in any way I can. And I’m in it for the long haul with them. They are with me with battling my eating disorder and know how wonderful it feels to have someone supporting me on my best days and worst days and isn’t wondering how much longer it will take me to get over things. So by doing the same thing for someone else (even if it is about a different mental health issue), I’m just trying to pay forward the support I’ve been so lucky to get.

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Default ThumbnailIt Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends) Default ThumbnailFriends Helping Friends (or Not Being Afraid To Ask For Support) Default ThumbnailFinding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine) Default ThumbnailJust Wanted To Say Thank You (or You All Help Me More Than You Know) Default ThumbnailI’m So Glad My Friend Called Me (or Forcing Someone To Get Help) Default ThumbnailTesting My Running (or Holidays and Friends)

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I Guess I Am Doing Some Cutting Back (or My Willpower Is Coming Back)

Posted on November 9, 2017 | Comments Off on I Guess I Am Doing Some Cutting Back (or My Willpower Is Coming Back)

I’ve been trying to work on getting my food back on track and it’s not going the way I was hoping. I want to get back to how things were last year but it seems like things are preventing me from doing that. Or at least that is the excuse I have been making to myself. I really want to work on this but it’s not easy and I know that the more frustrated I get about things the harder it will be.

Since this has been so difficult, I’ve wondered if I have lost the willpower I’ve had in the past. It’s never easy for me to have willpower and I know that it’s not something that I can get back easily. And of course, I know that willpower isn’t necessarily real, but it is nice when things are going easily for me and that I don’t have to think about food. I don’t think it will ever be easy for me and it’s been tough to understand that reality. But I think that knowing it is a step forward.

But while I’ve been in a bit of a funk about my lack of willpower about my food, I’ve realized that I haven’t totally lost my willpower. While I’m not a huge clothes shopper, I do like to shop and when I find things that fit and are a good price I usually get them. It’s not too often I find things that are right for me so I feel a need to get them if I do find them. I know that this is a problem and I’ve been trying to be better about not buying more stuff. I’m trying to go through my closet to see what I already own because I have rediscovered things that I forgot I owned. But there are still times that I can’t resist an amazing sale.

But yesterday I was looking at the Nordstrom Rack Clear The Rack sale online and found a bunch of things I’ve been thinking of getting in the sale. There are some dresses I’ve looked at that are down to almost $10 (they were $50 previously). I looked at a bunch of stuff and had a lot of tabs open with what I was thinking of buying. I was just trying to decide what I wanted and what I could skip on getting.

But the more I looked at what I was looking at, the less I wanted to get it. I have been wanting to get a lot of these things for months so I don’t know what changed. Maybe it was the money I didn’t want to spend (even though getting 6 things was going to only be about $60) or maybe I didn’t want to buy things until I lost more weight. But whatever the reason, I closed all the tabs with all the things I was looking at and didn’t buy anything.

It was a bit depressing for a minute thinking that I was no longer interested in things that I have been wanting for a while. But then I realized that not buying this stuff was a bit of willpower. Nothing I was looking at was something that I needed. It was all fun stuff that I liked but could live without. So by not getting them I was resisting spending money that I didn’t need to spend and getting clothes that I don’t need.

I know I’ve mentioned before that I wish my willpower could be transferred from one area of my life to another. I’m good at having willpower for things that aren’t too important, but when it comes to the big things it’s not always there. I don’t necessarily know how to find it again and it’s a mystery to me a lot when I do have it. But maybe being aware of having it in an area of my life that I’m not expecting it I can use that to try to find it where I need it.

I know that being on the right track with my food now is a tough thing. I have lots of things coming up that are going to make it easy to fall into bad habits that I’m trying to avoid. I have the holidays coming up and all the parties that happen this time of year. Again, I don’t want to use these as excuses, but I’m aware that allowing for things to not be as structured as I’d like will help in the long run. I don’t want to feel like I’ve screwed everything up and will try to start another time. I’m not putting off getting back on track because then I will never do it. But I need to find the balance I need to have in my life and the willpower that will help me not go off the rails like I have in the past.

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Default ThumbnailGetting Out Of A Food Funk (or I Need To Get Back To My Good Work) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track) Default ThumbnailCounting Every Calorie (or Seeing Things In Black and White) Default ThumbnailHonesty Time (or Going Backwards) Default ThumbnailNot Letting A Slip Up Be A Set Back (or I Splurged Again) Default ThumbnailCutting Out My Favorite Drink (or Goodbye Diet Coke, Diet 7-Up, Fancy Water)

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Another Attempt At Mindfulness (or I Think I Need To Work On This Until I Figure It Out)

Posted on November 1, 2017 | 2 comments

I’ve tried to work on mindfulness multiple times and it has never seemed to stick with me. But it keeps coming up in my life and I feel like that is a sign of something. So I’ve been inspired to try mindfulness again and the timing is perfect since it’s time for another monthly challenge! But first, time to recap last month’s challenge.

Last month, I challenged myself to work on doing daily speed cleaning. Ideally, I would spend 5-10 minutes a month focused on a small space in my house to clean and organize it. I wanted to do this because I had felt like my cleaning was getting overwhelming and I didn’t know where to start. So I wanted to take away the pressure from doing a big cleaning in my house because that seemed to be what was stopping me. I set an alarm to work on this each day and I tried my best to do what I could.

I wasn’t totally successful with this, but it went better than I thought it would. There were several days that I couldn’t do cleaning because either I was gone all day (like during the Convention) or I had no energy because I was sick. But when things like that weren’t stopping me, I really did accomplish a lot. And by telling myself I only had to do one small cleaning thing allowed me to just do it and not worry about not having time to finish it. There were some times that I did a really small cleaning job like using a new multi-hook hanger to put all my tank tops in one spot (it also saves room in my closet). And then there were other times where my small cleaning job ended up getting me motivated to do a bigger cleaning job. But it has gotten me into the habit of spending a bit of time every day working on this so that I don’t feel overwhelmed again.

Last month went well and I’m really hoping this month will too. Mindfulness has been a struggle for me each time I’ve tried to work on it. I’ve found little things that have worked, but they aren’t enough. I want to be more aware of so much in my life. This isn’t just a food thing because there are days where it seems like the entire day slipped away without me knowing what happened. I want to avoid days in a fog like that if possible.

The book that I’m reading as my 10 pages of a recovery based book right now is all about eating mindfully. I actually wish I had read this book when I first started trying to be more mindful because it’s pretty great. Each section has a lesson along with some action steps to take. And so many of these action steps are things that I haven’t done before or thought of doing before. I actually think I need to go back and start reading from the beginning to take notes on things because I haven’t been doing that. And that is part of my challenge for this month.

I want to go through the book again and other resources I can find and start finding action steps to take to work toward mindfulness. Maybe the reason why it has failed to stick with me before is because mindfulness is more of an idea and less of something I can do. If I had steps to take and work with, that would probably be better for me. I need something tangible or to check off on a list to work with and I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this before.

This month’s challenge won’t necessarily be about putting mindfulness into practice right away. I’ve tried that a bunch and it hasn’t worked. But instead, this challenge is going to be about researching action steps and ideas to put into use over time. I want to devote time every day to re-reading the book I’ve been reading as well as looking online or in other reference books to make a list that I can use moving forward. I want to make mindfulness work for me and it’s not something that I can just turn on right away. I need to work toward it and I have failed at doing that before. Because other challenges have come to me so easily, I assumed that this one would too. But I am learning and have realized what I hope will be the missing step to be able to implement this into my life in the long-term.

I know that this seems like a much more passive monthly challenge than others have been, but this is what I think I need to focus on this month. And there are only so many things I can add to my life with these monthly challenges, so having one that is more of a reflective thing is probably going to help me not get burned out on them. And I totally don’t want to experience burn out because I just got my 2018 Volt Planner so there will be another year of monthly challenges next year!

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Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Update Time (or One More For 2017) Default ThumbnailNot Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailA Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme) Default ThumbnailA Dapper Day Attempt (or Trying To Make The Best Of An Afternoon) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On Myself (or More Reflective Challenges)

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What Will Be Sobriety (or A Friend Making Me Think About What I Want)

Posted on September 15, 2017 | Comments Off on What Will Be Sobriety (or A Friend Making Me Think About What I Want)

I was in the car recently with a friend of mine. This friend and I can have some pretty serious and deep conversations and we are pretty honest with each other. While in the car, we started talking about books which led into me talking about how I read 10 pages of a recovery based book every day. And that discussion led into talking about my eating disorder.

We talked about how I feel pretty certain that this is something that I was born with because I remember episodes from when I was a toddler. I doubt it is learned behavior when it starts that young. And we talked about the progress that I’ve been making and trying to make to get myself into recovery. And then we got into a pretty interesting discussion about recovery means.

I’ve said in the past that having an eating disorder/food addiction is so different from any other addiction. This is something that you will have to confront multiple times a day for the rest of your life. When you are an alcoholic, you can go the rest of your life without alcohol. But you cannot survive without food. And I know I’ve had some feelings of almost jealously over friends who have recovered from other addictions because they can just avoid whatever they were addicted to. It seems so much easier than what I’m going through (although I know that it’s not the case).

When I attended the OA meeting with my friend, they talked about the idea of sobriety. Sobriety is a personal thing for anyone, but in OA it becomes even more personal since everyone has their own idea of sobriety. Obviously, you can’t be sober from food. So you have to pick the things around food that you want to avoid and doing that creates your sobriety. For some of my friends, that has meant no eating after a certain time, not eating a certain food, or only eating when it is on a plate and not out of a container.

When I was telling my friend about that idea, he asked me what sobriety/recovery would mean for me. And honestly, I don’t know. I know what I’d like to have my relationship with food be like but many of the things I want are not realistic. For example, I’d love to never have a binge or overeating episode again and to always be in the right calorie range. But everyone has a time every so often when they overeat. When you go out to a restaurant you can easily overeat.

But maybe I can change how I view those episodes. If I don’t let them bring me down and just view them as a normal part of life and can move on, that could be good. I don’t want them to affect me the way that they do now and if that happens maybe it could become a rare occasion instead of something that sets me off.

Beyond the idea of never having a binge episode again, I’ve never really thought too much about what sobriety would mean for me. That’s all I’ve wanted. But because of my conversation with my friend I did start thinking about habits I have or had and what I can change. And one of the biggest ones that I thought of was how I have not ordered delivery food in over a year and a half. Well, technically occasionally I order Chipotle from Postmates, but I don’t consider that delivery food as I can order exactly what I would have gotten if I went to get it myself (unlike when you order Chinese food or pizza and have to order more than what you know you can eat).

For a long time, I thought I’d never be able to be delivery food free and I have managed to do it much longer than I ever have as an adult. And I don’t really even think of getting delivery food when I’m hungry and don’t know what I want to eat. It’s nice having that out of my head and not an issue any more. So in some way, I think that since I’m able to get over delivery food (which felt like it could never happen) that I could also get over binge episodes. But at the same time I don’t want to put that pressure on myself.

I still really don’t know what my version of sobriety means to me. But realizing that I don’t know this has made me understand that I can’t get into recovery until I really figure this out. I need to sit down, set some goals, and make some more concrete plans. Even though I have been working on this, having this idea in mind is an entirely different game and I think it can only benefit me by working on it.

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Default ThumbnailNational Eating Disorder Awareness Week (or Not Talking About It Is Part Of The Problem) Default ThumbnailHaving To Defend Myself (or My Eating Disorder Isn’t Taken Seriously By Others) Default ThumbnailAnother Therapy Check In (or Someone Sees Progress) Default ThumbnailBinge Eating In The Media (or More Help Might Be On The Way) Default ThumbnailFinding My Way Back On Track (or A New Balance) Default ThumbnailA Speedy Friend Visit (or Making The Most Of 24 Hours)

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