Tag Archives: recovery

Recovering At Disneyland (or A Never-Done List)

Posted on October 27, 2016 | Comments Off on Recovering At Disneyland (or A Never-Done List)

After going the hospital last week, I spent several days not really doing much. I worked from bed, I rarely left my house, and I tried to make myself get better. I wasn’t getting better as quickly as I wanted to, but I was finally noticing some improvement toward the end of the weekend (during the headshot day). And it’s a good thing that I was getting better because I had a Disneyland day scheduled for Monday and I didn’t want to cancel it!

My friend Michelle knew that I was at the hospital last week and what was going on with me. She was checking in with me to make sure that I still wanted to go to Disneyland. I knew she’d be ok with me if I had to cancel it, but I was feeling like I could do an easy day there (no crazy roller coasters) by Monday and around lunchtime we headed down to Anaheim.

On the way, we picked up one of Michelle’s friends who also has a pass for Disneyland and has Mondays off like we do and we were at the park by about 1:30 to have a low-key day. I’m glad all of us have passes because there was no pressure to get a ton of stuff done and I didn’t feel too guilty about being limited in what rides I was ok with going on.

Since I am on a soft food diet right now, I knew my food options at Disneyland would be limited but there was plenty that would be ok. And one of the first things we did in the park was to go get a Dole Whip!

dole-whip

It turns out that Michelle’s friend had never had a Dole Whip before, and as soon as I found that out I decided we needed to figure out what else she hasn’t done at Disneyland before so we could check things off of her list of never-done things! We ate our Dole Whips during the Tiki Room show and then were off to our next ride!

I was limited in what Halloween things I could do, but the Haunted Mansion is a smooth enough ride that I was totally ok riding it! I love how it is decorated for the holiday season and every time I ride it I notice more and more stuff. And it was a gloomy day outside with lots of clouds so it seemed like the sky matched the ride.

haunted-mansion

Our next stop was the Jungle Cruise (another smooth ride) and we had a pretty fun skipper on the ride. Lots of good cheesy jokes and there were a couple of jokes that he said that I had never heard on the ride before! We were trying to figure out what other rides would be easy smooth ones, and we saw Buzz Lightyear and headed over to that. Michelle and I have been battling each other on that ride since we started going to the parks together. This time, I was beat but I have a feeling I’ll have a comeback soon.

buzz-lightyear

Next was another never-done thing for Michelle’s friend: the Nemo Submarines! None of us are huge fans of going in the submarines (they are a bit tight inside and sometimes they don’t smell very fresh), so we watched the video in the alternative viewing room. The video is just as good as the ride, plus since it was a grey day outside I knew that the stuff in the water wouldn’t have been as nice and bright as it is in the video.

We then tried to ride the monorail (riding in the front of it with the driver was another thing on the list), but the monorail ended up breaking down in the station while we sat on it. It was unfortunate, but we figured we could walk over to California Adventure to continue our day. But right when we were ready to ride the monorail, it started to rain pretty hard! None of us were prepared with umbrellas, so we just tried to walk as quickly as we could across to the other park.

We wanted to ride Radiator Springs Racers, but it was closed before of the rain and possible threat of lighting. And by that time, we were all feeling a bit hungry (Dole Whips aren’t that filling). And all I really wanted to get to eat was soup in a bread bowl. I hadn’t had one in a while and was really craving it. Plus, it was a soft food that I could eat and I knew it would fill me up! We found a table out of the rain near the bread bowl place and sat down to enjoy our dinner.

By this time, my stomach was starting to hurt a bit again. It may have been due to hunger or walking more than I was used to, but our dinner break really helped to get me feeling almost normal again. After dinner we were headed over to the Little Mermaid ride (another thing on the never-done list) and realized that after the rain stopped there was a gorgeous sunset right behind the ferris wheel!

mickey-sunset sunset

The last 2 rides of the day were going on Little Mermaid and then Soarin’ Around The World, but we weren’t done yet! We were getting ready to head over to the Animation Academy to draw a bit (another never-done thing) and we decided to look around the stores a bit to see what they had. Sometimes there are some really cute things and even though my budget didn’t really have extra money, I was happy to check out what was in stock.

One of the things I love checking out are the Dooney and Burke Disney purses. They are limited edition collections that are released from time to time. There have been a few patterns that I love, but I never have been able to get it because all the purses were sold out. So we were totally surprised to discover a new pattern in the store that was Disney villain themed that we had never seen!

birthday-purse

It turned out that pattern was released that day and there were still a few purses left in stock! Michelle was celebrating her birthday the next day (which is why in that picture you see the birthday button) and decided that the purse was going to be her birthday present to herself! It’s such a cute purse so I’m super excited for her! And to know that we happened to be in the park during the first day of the pattern release made us say that it must have been fate for her to get that purse!

Our final stop of the night was one more thing from the never-done list for Michelle’s friend: the Animation Academy. We ended up doing the last 2 classes before park closing. The first one was drawing Sally from “Nightmare Before Christmas” and the second one was Winnie The Pooh. I think that my Sally looks much better than last time and my Winnie The Pooh wasn’t too bad!

sally winnie-the-pooh

My Sally is the big one on the right and my Winnie the Pooh is the one in the middle.

After drawing, California Adventure was closed (Disneyland had one of the separately ticketed Halloween parties so we couldn’t go back) and we went to the trams to get back to the car.

I’m so glad that I didn’t skip going to Disneyland. I think knowing I had this coming up helped me get better and kept me motivated. And I was able to push myself to see what my body was able to handle and realized that while I’m still not 100% I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. I’m glad that I had done the earlier trip to ride all the Halloween rides since I only got to do 1 of them this time. But even with doing the easy low-key rides, I still had an amazing time with awesome friends!

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Default ThumbnailA Speedy Disneyland Day (or Getting My Halloween Rides In) Default ThumbnailMy Return To Disneyland (or Being Lazy And Enjoying Air Conditioning) Default ThumbnailEnjoying The Lack Of Rain At Disneyland (or Buzz Lightyear and Electrical Parade) Default ThumbnailDisneyland Bucket List (or One Last Visit Before The Summer Blackout) Default ThumbnailCelebrating Villaintine’s Day (or Getting Something Checked Off My Disney Bucket List) Default ThumbnailGuardians and Ladies Who Lunch (or A Fun Summer Day At Disneyland)

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Not Letting Stuff Define Me (or Controlling My Emotions)

Posted on September 16, 2016 | Comments Off on Not Letting Stuff Define Me (or Controlling My Emotions)

I’ve realized lately that I’ve been having some serious up and down swings in my emotions. I don’t like having such wild swings in my emotions because it really takes a lot of time and effort to calm down when I’m feeling depressed or anxious and when I’m super excited I crash really hard later. I’m not sure if this has been going on for a while and I didn’t notice it, or if it just started. But either way, I want to get some things under control.

I’ve been making some really great strides in my eating disorder recovery lately. The number of binge episodes per week has been down the past few weeks and I’m steadily losing weight. I’m finding new ways to distract myself when I’m having a tough time and I’ve added in extra physical activity into my day (yoga plus the extra running) which not only is a distraction but helps to balance out the calories on my bad days.

I’m really happy with the steps I’ve made and I know that the results are showing by the number on the scale and a few friends noticing as well. Seeing things going the right way is extra motivation for me to keep going and the momentum has been really nice. This wasn’t something that I set out to start, but it happened naturally and I think that is one of the reasons that it has been working well.

But then the other day I was doing a weigh-in for a fat loss challenge that is going on at Orangetheory. I know that I won’t be winning because it is tough to make drastic fat loss happen at the weight I’m at. But since it was free to enter the challenge, I figured why not go ahead and do it.

For the initial weigh-in, I told the person who was running the scale that I want to do blind weight. I do this for all doctors appointments and any time I have to weigh-in somewhere that is not my controlled environment. I know how crazy my weight can fluctuate through the day plus every scale is a little different. So I only weigh myself on my scale at home (which I do first thing in the morning) and I don’t look at the weight on any other scale.

The person running the scale looked at me like I was a bit crazy, but I explained that I’m working toward recovery from an eating disorder and this is how things are best for me. He covered up my weight but since I wanted to see what my fat percentage was he didn’t block that with his hand. It was a number that is lower than I know it has been in the past, but still higher than it should be.

When I did my second weigh-in this week (for the mid-point of the challenge), I did blind weight again. My fat percentage went up even though my weight and the pounds of fat I have went down. This is part of the issue with losing weight when you are as heavy as I am. You don’t always lose it the way you want to. I did lose some muscle as well (but that has to happen because the pounds of muscle I have now is not a number I can have at my goal weight) and that’s why the percentage went up.

Before I stepped on that scale, I was feeling pretty amazing about myself. After stepping on it, I was feeling miserable and like I wanted to go eat a bunch of crap food since I didn’t feel like my efforts were paying off. It made me feel like I’ve been wasting my time with all the work I’ve put in (which isn’t true in the least) and that I might as well not try.

It’s not just weight issues that are making me have such crazy swings in my emotions. Someone I respect said something pretty hurtful to me. I don’t think they meant to say it or put it the way that they did because they apologized soon after, but it still upset me. I was obsessed about thinking what I did to deserve it or why they wanted to say that to me. Even though they said they didn’t mean it, I still felt like what they said must have been the truth and that stuck in my head.

Unfortunately, having that happen to me did cause me to binge. It sucks, I feel awful, and I wish I could go in time to change it. But what’s done is done and now I’ve been working back toward where I was before and getting on track again. I know that setbacks are a part of recovery, but somehow they are easier to accept when I don’t know what causes them versus when something I can pinpoint triggers it.

I need to find a way to let go of having such strong reactions to things that may or may not be in my control. I can’t control what a scale other than mine might say or that my weight loss might not be happening in the most ideal way (which would be only losing fat but gaining or maintaining muscle). But I can control how I react to it and that’s what I’m trying to work on now. And hopefully whatever is making my emotions swing so much will be under control again soon and I’ll be back on track and kicking butt!

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Default ThumbnailMy Love/Hate Relationship with the Scale (or Can I Drop Kick a Scale without Hurting Myself?) Default ThumbnailAttempting To Go Scale-Free (or A Personal Challenge) Default ThumbnailNot What I Want To Weigh (or About A Month To Go) Default ThumbnailKeeping My Emotions In Check (or You Are Not Your Brain) Default ThumbnailNot Letting A Slip Up Be A Set Back (or I Splurged Again) Default ThumbnailHeat and Hormones (or Not Letting Cravings Take Over)

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More Eating Disorder Research (or Reading About HDE)

Posted on September 13, 2016 | 3 comments

I’ve been keeping up with my monthly challenge to read a book about recovery every day. I’m pretty much doing the 10 pages a day (sometimes a few extra pages in a day) so that I’m not overwhelmed or feeling like I need to do a ton of reading each day. I think this was a really great challenge to set for myself and I’m happy that I’m not finding it too difficult to continue doing it each day. I think that it can only be a positive thing for me and I’m excited to see what I’ll learn with each book I read.

At the rate that I’m reading, each book takes a little more than a month to finish. So I’m getting close to finishing my second recovery book now and I’ve been learning quite a bit. The book I’m reading now is called “How To Have Your Cake And Your Skinny Jeans Too”.

hde

I’ll admit that I didn’t love the title when I saw it the first time (I’m not a fan of gimmicky books), but there was something about it that caught my attention and it was on sale as a Kindle book so I got it. Since each book is taking me so long to read, I have to buy them instead of getting them from the library (I only get 3 weeks with library books), but I’ve got quite a few that I’ve already bought and I’m sure that buying 1 book a month or so won’t be too expensive.

When I started to read the book, I wasn’t quite sure where it was going with how it was going to discuss achieving recovery. But after a few days of reading and getting into it I discovered that it is all about hunger directed eating (or HDE). The idea of HDE is that you will eat what you want because if you don’t it may turn into a binge later. If you deprive yourself of something for too long you will go crazy when you have a chance to eat it.

The idea of depriving myself and then going crazy with the food is not a foreign concept to me. I’ve had that happen and it’s not fun at all. But the idea of eating everything that I crave and want is terrifying because I know that when I do that in the short-term it ends badly for me. But the idea of HDE is that while the short-term may be a lot of “bad” foods, eventually you will get sick of just eating those and your body will start to crave the foods that you should eat and your diet will have more variety in it.

Following HDE does seem like it could be something for me, but like I said the idea scares me so much. All of my fears are things that are written about in the book, so that does make me feel a bit better. Nothing I’m afraid of isn’t discussed in one of the chapters with a solution or explanation of how it will work out. So since it seems like I have totally normal fears of HDE I’ve been testing it out a little bit.

I’m not going 100% with HDE yet because I don’t want to have the days of endless eating of foods that I crave. Those will cause my workouts (and probably my work at my day jobs) to suffer and I can’t afford that right now. But I’m trying to follow my cravings more than I normally do and see where it takes me. Along with those cravings, I try to meal plan around it so that I can get my 3 meals in for the day but staying as close to my calorie goals as possible.

It’s not going too badly. Once I started to plan around the cravings I have, I’m starting to see how they can fit into my every day life. The issue I’m still having is the volume of the foods I’m craving that I eat. This is something discussed in the book and it is similar to the mindful eating that I’ve been working on. I need to start paying attention to how I feel while eating things (and not going into a trance) and see when my body is saying that it is ready to be done with the food I’m craving.

This is something that is going to take time and I don’t know if HDE is going to work for me in the long run. What I do know is what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working and I need to start trying other things (even if they scare me or seem like it could never work) to see what will work and what will be right for me. I’m just glad that I’m at a point in my recovery that I can try things out like this and not feel hopefully when I have a set back and just view it as a learning experience.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Having Bad Days (or Did I Make Myself Sick)

Posted on August 25, 2016 | 1 comment

This week, I was supposed to attend the book launch for “Tacocity”. I was so excited to go and I really do love Rob’s book! I haven’t seen Rob in person for a while so this book launch was going to be my opportunity to see him in person and catch up somewhere else than online.

But of course, things don’t always go as planned and the night of the party I got sick. I’ve been pretty lucky with not getting sick too often. I was much worse off before my tonsils came out about 8 years ago (I was getting strep throat 2-3 times a year) and I’m grateful that my health is doing much better now. But when I get sick, it seems to take me down quickly and harshly.

I ended up skipping the party and I know that Rob totally understood. Nobody wants me to be there when I’m sniffling like crazy and look like I should be in an insolation room. But it still made me a bit mad because I was wondering if it was my fault that I got sick.

The few days leading up to the party were some pretty horrible food days for me. It was a bit out of control and I was trying to find a way out of the eating disorder hole that I felt like I fell down. I was trying everything I could, but I couldn’t stop it. I gained back all the weight that I lost last month (although I’m still hoping some of that weight gain is water weight and will go away quickly) and I’m just feeling really horrible about myself.

The sick feeling I get when I’m in an endless cycle of my eating disorder is completely different from the sick feeling I was feeling when I had to skip the party. On the day of the party, I felt like I had a summer cold and just couldn’t shake it. The sick feeling I get with the eating disorder is more about nausea and feeling shaky. But even though those feelings are different, I still wondered if my eating disorder incidents caused me to come down with the cold.

I know that when you are eating better your health is better. When you are getting in the nutrients you need, your body can fight off bugs better. So by eating crap (and I was eating crap), your body doesn’t have what it needs to fight off things. So there is a chance that because of my poor eating I did cause my body to come down with this cold.

And I know that there is a chance that it’s just coincidence that these things happened back to back. I’m not sure if thinking that the eating disorder caused me to be sick would help me in any way in my recovery. The day after missing the party I was feeling really down on myself and having horrible guilt about what I did. I know those feelings aren’t helpful in recovery so I tried to focus on just having a better day than the days I had before. It’s not easy when you feel so awful about yourself, but all I can do is try.

I know that recovery is going to be difficult. Most people don’t have to encounter their issue 3-5 times a day to stay alive and that’s what I’m forced to do in order to live. I have to find a way to create a healthy relationship with food and I’m struggling with it today. Maybe tomorrow will be better, and I hope it will be. But so much of recovery is me learning how to get through the bad days, stop blaming myself, and moving forward.

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Default ThumbnailA Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick) Default ThumbnailAnother Sick Day Post (or Sorry For Two In A Row) Default ThumbnailYup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me) Default ThumbnailBeing Sick (or Feeling Off) Default ThumbnailAnother Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine) Default ThumbnailJust A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good)

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Going Back To Normal (or An Early End To My Birthday Adventures)

Posted on August 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Going Back To Normal (or An Early End To My Birthday Adventures)

I’ve had a really great birthday this year. I loved having dinner on my birthday with my birthday twin and my birthday party was really one of the highlights of the year so far. I feel so loved and I’m so grateful for the amazing friends that I have in my life. I am so lucky.

Normally, I have a ton of smaller birthday adventures leading up to and following my birthday. That usually happens because when I have a birthday party a bunch of people can’t make it. So I end up meeting them for dinner or drinks on another date to celebrate with them.

But this year, my birthday party had such an amazing turnout that I’ve gotten to celebrate with almost everyone who I wanted to celebrate with at once! I’m not used to having everyone in one place (and it was so much fun watching everyone meet each other and make new friends), and it was really just perfect.

But because of that, I’ve realized that my birthday celebrations are basically over. I still have to pick up a couple of the birthday freebies that I love and I might get birthday pie with a friend, but I’m done with planning birthday outings beyond that.

It’s not a bad thing that I’m done celebrating my birthday. I’m totally happy to have just one celebration and have that be that. It’s just weird when for so many years I’ve pretty much planned a birthday month and I feel like I’m missing or forgetting something now. But then I remember how amazing this past weekend was and I feel like I got all the birthday I needed in that one night out.

It is nice to be getting back to normal so quickly. I over ate during my birthday and I want to get the scale moving back in the correct direction. I need to focus on my health and recovery and birthday adventures are not the best time to plan that (I’m aware if I go for birthday pie that I will have to not focus on recovery for that moment).

I’ve been able to really pay attention to what I’m eating and what my behaviors are like. I got into some bad habits last week and it’s tough to break them but I know I can do it again. I’m working on remembering what I was doing earlier this summer when things were working really well for me and doing those again. And hopefully I will be back on track again within the week and if not, I know I’m making steps towards that.

I’ve got some big goals in mind for the next month or so, and I’m glad that I will be able to put my attention toward those. One of my biggest goals is with my next 5K race, which is the first weekend of November. I know that it will be here before I know it, and I want to make sure I take the time to do what I want to do. Things are going well so far, and I want to make sure that continues and things only get better!

While I’ve loved having a birthday month to celebrate my birthday, keeping things short may be the best thing for me right now. I need to focus on “real life” and not celebrating and going out for lots of meals that are splurges. I’m not eliminating the idea of a birthday month again in the future, but for right now this ended up being the perfect thing for me.

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Default ThumbnailSo Many Birthdays and Anniversaries! (or A Month Of Celebrating And Remembering) Default ThumbnailAlmost The End Of A Decade For Me (or The Birthday Countdown Has Begun) Default ThumbnailBelated Birthday Dinner (or We Don’t Mind It’s Not Totally Free Anymore) Default ThumbnailBirthday Countdown (or Taking Suggestions On How To Celebrate) Default ThumbnailAlmost Free Birthday Dinner (or Spending My Birthday With My Birthday Twin) Default ThumbnailA Quarantine Birthday (or Just A Normal Sunday)

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Another Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges)

Posted on August 2, 2016 | 1 comment

With July being over already (it really just flew by!), it’s time to recap my July monthly challenge. This time, my challenge was to read 10 pages of an eating disorder recovery book every day. I set this as a challenge because I’ve been having trouble finishing any recovery books and I thought breaking it into smaller chunks would help.

I’ll admit, this challenge got off to a rocky start. Since I do almost all my reading on my Kindle, I was finding it tough to switch between the recovery book and whatever fun book I happen to be reading at the time. Fortunately I solved this problem pretty quickly. I have my fun book reading on my Kindle, and my recovery book is read every day on my iPhone on the Kindle app. I don’t love reading on my phone for too long, but this works for the 10 pages I read (which usually only takes a few minutes).

There were a couple of days where my 10 pages were done at almost midnight, but I did set an alarm on my phone right around when I go to bed to remind myself to read my pages. Most days, I ended up doing my reading right before of after dinner so I got them done pretty early. And even though I knew I could read more than 10 pages a day, I didn’t want to get myself burned out like I have in the past so I tried to keep myself to that limit (I went over a bit when I was close to the end of a section or chapter).

By reading my 10 pages a day, I got one book finished and I’m about halfway through another one. I have several recovery books that I’ve purchased over the years on my Kindle, so I’ve got a ton of options for future reading. And since it seems to take me about 3 weeks to read a book this way, I could also get Kindle books from the library (the e-book rental period is 3 weeks so it would be cutting it close). I’m not going to worry about my book choices until I read everything I already own, and that’s going to take me a while.

Just like all my previous monthly challenges, I plan on continuing this one. It’s a good habit to be in and I don’t see how I could have anything but positive results. And because of my reading, I was inspired for my August challenge.

This month, I challenge myself to start practicing mindful eating. This is something that I read about in one of the books I read and I know it will be a challenge for me. While many people who practice mindful eating pray or say grace before eating to get into a mindful mentality, since I’m not religious that’s not really going to work for me.

Instead, I’m going to use the self-meditation timer on the meditation app I’ve been using for my daily mediations (my June monthly challenge that I’ve kept up). I can set the self-meditation timer to be as short as 1 minute so I don’t have to worry about it being too long. Eventually I’d like to be at a point where I am practicing mindful eating before every meal, but I know I need to ease into this. So I’m setting a goal to practice mindful eating for at least 1 meal a day.

This isn’t going to be easy for me. For my first day, I struggled to even try to do this before most of my meals. I was able to do it before dinner, but I had to force myself and it felt like the least natural monthly challenge I’ve given myself. I know this will be a good thing and I need to be pushed to do this, but I hate feeling like this is tough. I don’t give up easily that often, but when I’m really struggling it can feel useless. I even debated changing the monthly challenge but that’s the moment I knew I needed to do this. If I wanted to give up, that meant it was a good challenge that was pushing me to a new place and that’s the entire point of this.

I’ve got a couple of ideas for the monthly challenges for the rest of the year, but I also have to see what inspires me along the way to do. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish this year and I feel like I’m making some great strides toward all my goals. I love how successful this year has been so far and I just keep reminding myself in my down days that overall I’ve been doing so much better than before.

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Getting Back To Normal Again (or An Off Week)

Posted on July 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Getting Back To Normal Again (or An Off Week)

After a weekend of fun and travel, once I got back to LA it was time to get back to real life. I was pretty exhausted on Monday evening after traveling for 13 hours to get home, so I didn’t get too much done. All I really did was unpack my suitcase and sit on the couch watching some shows my DVR recorded. I tried to stay up until 10pm so that I wouldn’t wake up too early the next morning, but I didn’t accomplish much more than that.

I didn’t really plan much for my week besides doing errands, working, and working out and I’m pretty glad about that. I was feeling really jet-lagged on Tuesday and it really surprised me. I didn’t feel any jet-lag on the flight there and I was feeling pretty good on Monday after getting home. But Tuesday was just a very off day for me and I couldn’t seem to get things back on track for me. I eventually just had to accept the fact that the day was going to be off and hopefully Wednesday would be better.

Fortunately, Wednesday and Thursday were much better. But I still ended up being pretty lazy at home. I don’t know if I was dealing with post-vacation let down, realizing how much I did miss my family and wished I could see them again, or just was feeling off but I wasn’t having the best days this week.

I got all my work done and it was easy enough to get back on track with work and workouts. But my food and mental health were off. I was doing so great before my trip and even on my trip (I did gain 4 pounds on vacation but that could be due to a lot of factors other than bad eating). And I’m aware that off weeks are to be expected in life, even when I’m fully recovered. But they still annoy me and I get a bit depressed and upset about them.

I’ve been trying to get food and stuff back on track but it’s not happening for me yet. I know that it’s important for me to keep trying and it’s going to stick again soon. I can’t be too upset with myself because this is normal. This is what recovery is about. This is what my life may look like for the rest of my life.

I’m working on a checklist for myself to try to get things back on track. I’m breaking things down into the smallest steps so I can feel accomplished as I check things off one by one. It’s going to take time to get back on track, but I want to be able to be proud of myself for doing things step by step and not doing things stupidly in a way that cannot be maintained like I have in the past.

I can’t do much more for myself than to try. It’s not easy to be patient with myself, but that’s something I’m working on and I know that this is a test in patience for me.

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Default ThumbnailGoing From So Much Excitement To Normal In A Few Hours (or Life As An Actor) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailCan 4 Workout A Week Be My New Normal? (or Pushing Myself Beyond) Default ThumbnailFinally It Feels Like Things Are Normal (or A Week Of Various Self-Care) Default ThumbnailAnother Normal Workout Week (or Getting Back To Everything Feeling Routine)

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With The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend)

Posted on July 13, 2016 | Comments Off on With The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend)

Overall, my weekend was pretty amazing. I had so much fun shooting “Single Parent Date Night” and even though the night shoot was tough, it was the greatest time ever! It’s been a long time since I’ve had to be up all night (and even longer since I’ve had to do it to act), so planning out my weekend was a bit weird and I really did try my best.

Even though I had to work early Saturday morning, I went back to bed after work to get some extra sleep in. And I made no real plans on Sunday because I wasn’t sure how I would feel or if I’d get any sleep. And I also readjusted the medications I take each day to plan for the all-nighter.

I was able to take most of my medications as usual. But I skipped taking Vyvanse on Saturday because I didn’t want to take it in the morning since I wanted to go back to bed after work and I didn’t take it in the afternoon because I honestly forgot. And since the time I got home on Sunday was the time I usually take my first Vyvanse dose, I skipped that one too. And since I skipped the morning one I skipped the afternoon one too on Sunday.

I know I’m supposed to take a break from Vyvanse from time to time, but this was different. I didn’t take the break because I wanted to, I took it because I needed to for the weird schedule I had over the weekend. I thought I had prepared myself for taking the break, but the planning wasn’t enough. And it actually backfired on me.

Saturday and Sunday ended up being 2 of the worst food days I’ve had in a long time. I honestly can’t remember the last time my food was as bad as these days were. I’m not sure if Saturday was also bad because of stress and Sunday was also bad because of exhaustion, but it doesn’t matter. And it didn’t help that our dinner break for the shoot was at midnight and we ate pizza (I was hungry otherwise I would have skipped it). Fortunately I didn’t feel too sick on Saturday, but Sunday felt like a food hangover all day (and continuing to eat “bad” foods didn’t help that feeling). The one good thing with all the bad food choices was that I really wanted to get delivery food on Sunday for dinner, but I managed to resist that and went to the grocery store for a better choice.

I don’t want to completely blame the lack of Vyvanse on these bad days, but I did feel a difference in my body even mid-day on Saturday. I wasn’t feeling as strong as I’ve felt recently and I just wasn’t able to focus properly (Vyvanse is also an ADHD medication so I guess it’s been helping me focus and not just helping me with the eating disorder). I really hated how I felt and I wanted to be in a positive mindset because of the filming that night. I think the excitement of the filming did help a bit, but it still wasn’t quite right to me.

While I’ve been wanting to believe that the Vyvanse was helping me, I never was 100% sure about it. I knew that there was a bit of difference in my life, but I’ve also been doing a lot of self-improvement work lately so I thought it could also be that. But spending the weekend off of Vyvanse really did prove to me that it is working and that it is the right thing for me to be on right now.

I was back to my normal medication schedule on Monday and eating did get better that day. I think now I’m back to being on track but of course my scale is reflecting my bad choices and that stinks. I’ve been making so much progress lately and it does feel like a giant step back. Eventually I’ll get back to where I was and I just have to be patient with myself.

Even though this was a really bad weekend with my food and recovery, the good really did outweigh the bad and I wouldn’t change anything about my weekend. But I did joke to my co-star (and writer of our film) that the next collaboration we have needs to be something that shoots during the day because the night shoot was so crazy for me.

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Default ThumbnailJust A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good) Default ThumbnailA Year On Vyvanse (or Help Is Expensive) Default ThumbnailOver A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist) Default ThumbnailFollowing My Doctor’s Instructions (or Days Off From Vyvanse) Default Thumbnail1 Week On Vyvanse (or Hoping To Answer Some Questions) Default ThumbnailA Quick Vyvanse Update (or I Guess Forgetting Helps Time Pass)

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Seeing My Therapist (or Building Habits)

Posted on June 23, 2016 | 2 comments

I saw my therapist earlier this week. This was the first time that I had seen him in 6 months because he has been feeling like I’ve been doing a pretty good job lately. So he trusted me to be ok with a 6 month gap between appointments but let me know that if anything changed I could see him sooner if I needed to.

I had been feeling pretty good about this appointment lately. After my interview for the audition recently, I have really realized how much progress has been made and I knew that my appointment would be filled with positive news.

I had brought a couple of things with me to my appointment. Usually, I bring my happiness checklist, but I’m now using an app to track that so I made sure my phone was charged so I could show him if he wanted to see it. I also brought my Spark Planner with me. I’ve been tracking so much stuff in there lately and I wanted it to remind myself of anything as well as proof to show him if he wanted to see it.

The first thing discussed in my appointment was how I was feeling about Vyvanse. I think I’m doing pretty well on it and there was only one minor concern about things. I’ve been taking my larger dose in the morning and smaller dose at lunch, but I feel like maybe those should be switched. There is more time between lunch and bedtime than there is between breakfast and lunch. And since I’m not having sleeping issues with Vyvanse, I’m not worried about a slightly larger dose at lunchtime. My therapist agreed with me completely and my new prescription bottles will reflect that (for now, I just take the afternoon medication in the morning and visa versa until I’m using my refill).

After that check in, we discussed how I’ve been doing with my happiness checklist and other things. I told him how I had been using an app for the checklist since it’s easier and I always have it with me, and I think his biggest surprise is that I’ve continued to keep it up. He wrote down the name of the app (HabitBull) so he can tell other patients as well, so that made me feel pretty awesome.

And then we talked about my Spark Planner. I told him how I had been tracking a lot of stuff in there this year and I was showing off the various sections of it. I showed him where I can track my annual goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals and I think he was impressed that there is such a big focus on goal setting. It’s good for me to have goals to reach toward, so the more I can focus and have to think about my goals the better.

But what my therapist was most impressed with were the monthly challenges that are within the Spark Planner.

30 Day Challenges

I showed him the monthly challenges I’ve been doing and let him know that I’ve basically had 100% success with keeping up each challenge even beyond the month that I set the challenge for (the only one that hasn’t been 100% has been weighing myself in because I can only do that at home and I was in Santa Barbara for Rayshell’s wedding without my scale). And I know that I can’t do 100% perfection with all challenges for the rest of my life, but even if I only keep them up part-time these are all good habits that I’ve been building and that’s just awesome.

And habit building is exactly what my therapist wants me to focus on over these next 6 months. The more I build positive habits in my life, the more likely that recovery from my eating disorder will become a positive habit eventually. While the individual habits are sometimes recovery related, even the non-recovery ones are helping me get into a better space in my life and to build my habit building muscles up so that I can use them for whatever I need to.

I knew when I bought my Spark Planner that it was going to be a good thing for me, but to know that my therapist thinks that this is what will help me get to recovery one day is amazing. I’m still figuring out what recovery really means to me (and that’s something I did discuss with my therapist), but I’m feeling even better that recovery is in my future one day.

At the end of my appointment, I felt incredible and on cloud 9. My therapist even said that in some ways, I’m doing better than he is and he needs to get better and doing some things like I’m doing now. For me, so much of my habit work is having something to remind me to do it. I have so many alarms/reminders set on my phone so I know to do something. If I didn’t have that, I would easily forget and that’s what life was like before. There’s no shame in needing to be reminded to do something, but for some reason I was not willing to do that before.

But now that I’m fine with the dozens of alarms on my phone, I’m making sure I’m getting my new habits done and I’m excited to see how I’ll be doing in 6 months when I see my therapist again.

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Default ThumbnailA Good Therapy Check In (or Focus On The Good) Default ThumbnailMay Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation) Default ThumbnailAn Easy Therapist Check-In (or Virtual Appointments Make Things Easier) Default ThumbnailOver A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist) Default ThumbnailAnother Therapist Check In (or Showing Off My Happiness Checklist) Default ThumbnailI’ve Made Progress (or I Think My Therapist Will Be Proud)

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Finding My Way Back On Track (or A New Balance)

Posted on June 9, 2016 | Comments Off on Finding My Way Back On Track (or A New Balance)

I have been doing pretty great with my food lately. I’m cooking a lot at home now. Most of my meals are pretty boring, but I’m ok with that. I’ve found that with the boring food (like veggies and a turkey burger) I don’t get as bored with the food as quickly as I do when I make fancier things. I’m not sure why that is, but I can totally eat a turkey burger every day without issue when I can’t eat 3 days of leftovers. I’m aware that I might be in a bit of a rut and I’ve been trying to remember other things that are easy to make (and I can make 1 serving of) for other meals, but I’m pretty good with how things have been going for a while.

But then last week, I got off track pretty badly. Fortunately for me, being off track now is not as bad as it was before. I’m still not ordering delivery food (although I was craving Chinese food the other day) so if I want to eat “bad” food I have to go out and get it. So those bad days are not as bad as I know they could be. But they are still pretty bad and I’m still having issues coming back from them.

This time, my bad days lasted a couple of days before I was able to pull myself out of it. Ironically, it was the meal at the Hollywood Bowl that got me on track again (even though that meal wasn’t that great). I’m not sure what triggered me to get back to what I should be eating, but I am grateful that it happened. It did have an effect on the scale, but because I’ve been doing better lately my bad days were a weight that was my good day weight in the past. I’m almost back down to where I was before the bad days, so that’s a relief for me.

I know that it’s totally normal to have good days and bad days and that they have to be balanced out. That’s totally normal for everyone, but since I’ve never really had normal eating habits it feels really weird to me. I’m trying to remember that slip-ups are a part of life and they don’t have to make the rest of my day/week/month just as crazy food-wise. It’s a new system that I’m trying to figure out and it’s still very foreign to me.

Sometimes I do wonder if living alone makes things tougher on me because I don’t have someone to use as an example, but then again when I had roommates I actually had worse eating habits than I do now. With roommates (and none of them that might be reading this are the ones I’m talking about), I found it almost impossible to cook or use the kitchen. There were never clean plates or dishes and the kitchen was such a mess that all I wanted to do was grab my food and get out of there (again, any of my past roommates that would read this, know that this isn’t about you). At least now, all the messes in the kitchen are my own and I try to do my dishes every night (or the next morning if my evening gets too full).

I’m trying to keep myself accountable for my food choices and I’m doing ok with that. Even on the worst days, I’m still maintaining 100% food tracking accuracy. I’m not always tracking where I can see the calorie counts, but I’m writing down everything I eat in an app that allows me just to write the food and track any feelings I want to put down. I’m not hiding from what I’m doing like I’ve done in the past. I have to confront exactly what I’ve done every time I have a bad day.

Finding the balance between eating foods I’m craving but still staying on track is tough, but each time I find a new way to keep myself accountable helps and makes me feel like recovery is possible. It’s also made me think about what recovery will actually look like for me, and I’m finally letting go of the idea that recovery means no more bad days or cravings. That’s not ever going to be my reality, and letting go of that idea that has been in my head for years (and decades) is tough. But it’s also made me much more hopeful for what my recovery will look like and the idea that I might be closer to it than I thought.

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Default ThumbnailThe Good Outweighing The Bad? (or When Will I Get Back On Track?) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Better Food (or Finding My Own Balance) Default ThumbnailFinding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time) Default ThumbnailFinding A Work/Life Balance (or Preparing to Not Be Unemployed) Default ThumbnailTrying To Keep All My Good Habits (or I Need To Get Back On Track) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track)

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