The annoyance of “by the skin of my teeth” and “close shave” successes

It’s been almost two months since my last post.  I’m guessing that lack of posting generally signifies one of two things:  either 1) great success at the moment (no impetus to post) or 2) lots of struggles at the moment (no desire to post).  I suppose there’s also an Option 3) extraordinarily busy (not enough interest to post to overcome time impediments).  Happily, I’m falling into the first category.  It’s almost scary to write this, as I know the dangers that befall a person when success is high — so too is the risk of complacency or freaking out into self-sabotage.  But indeed, I am experiencing a degree of recovery as never before, and God willing, I have every intention to keep that going.  Definitely not without challenges.  It amazes me, how long it can be since I ate certain foods, and I can still have thoughts about them.  But I deal with those thoughts with a perpetual, “Not for now.  But I can revisit my food list later, and maybe add them back then.”  How funny, the mind games we must play!

Of course, recovery encompasses — and is happening because of — so much more than just the food management, per se.  If anything, I can see how so many will say, the food management is almost more the byproduct of other actions and measures, rather than one of the tasks in itself.  I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but I will definitely concur that it’s because of all those “other things” that  I have made the strides that I have, and not because, say, I found the “perfect” food plan or am taking a particular “magic” supplement.

To say I’m grateful doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of my happiness with my recovery.  But there’s a nitpicky annoyance that has been with me all along, at least ever since I first began to pursue recovery from my eating disorder, lo so many years ago.  And that’s my perfectionist mind’s kneejerk rejection of those days in which success/abstinence is kept “by the skin of my teeth.”  Probably anyone who has worked on recovery from either compulsive overeating or some other eating issues knows what I’m talking about.  There are those days, thankfully, in which I am graced with an abstinence and fluidity of conduct that feels very solid, very natural, like a well-oiled machine.  I work my program, do what I need to do, and prepare and enjoy my meals with great ease and satisfaction.  Days like that feel like, “Yes, boy, have I made progress!”  Then there are days like yesterday, and into today.  Drove husband to the airport over the weekend for a business trip.  Woke up yesterday morning to a flat tire.  Stress-stress-stress.  I’ve never had to take my car in for repair; normally my husband gets the honors.  On top of that, it was an exceptionally busy work day.  I also had some very positive, exciting things happen to me, concerning my work and accolades from it.  In other words, a very, very intense and hectic day.  I knew such a day is just ripe for feeling triggered, and in the past it almost certainly would have culminated in a huge binge, to take the edge off my adrenaline.  But I worked the tools of my program more intensively than ever, and managed to emerge from the day unscathed — meals went as planned, my recovery and abstinence intact.  What a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that was.

But I also knew that today would be tough.  I had a much lighter schedule, would be working out of the house much of the day.  Dangerous, because this represents the “day after” a hyper-frenetic day like yesterday.  And living up to its promise, it was a tough day to stay on task.  I believe that the day will finish on a positive note — another abstinent day, and if it does, I expect tomorrow to be much easier, as I will not only be busy (as in, out of the house, away from isolating busy), but by then it will be two days removed from Monday’s unexpected twists and turns, which means probably things will calm down to their normal levels for me — “things” being my emotions, my body’s physiology, my focus, etc.  So I just need to get through dinner without picking up extra food.

So good news, assuming this all goes as planned.

But it annoys me.  It annoys me that today was as hard as it was to get through.  If I had a dime for every time I had a thought that involved the desire to eat “out of today’s box,” I’d be able to retire right now.  God willing if I make it to bed abstinent, it will not be a gracefully abstinent day; I will be abstinent “by the skin of my teeth.”  I don’t like this, even as I realize that this is simply the way life works.  Some days are effortless, some are effortful, some in between.  That’s progress, I suppose.  At one time, I would have had a meltdown for sure, dismissing a day like this as “inauthentic,” as if the fact that it involved shades of white-knuckling, means that it doesn’t “count,” that it’s not “real” recovery but just me proving that I can hold on for dear life under duress.

But I realize, even as I type this, that all that matters is that I remain abstinent.  For today, it doesn’t matter how “close” I came to eating out of order, it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t a smooth sail.  All that matters is that I remain abstinent.  Sure, I can continue to work my program, work the steps, pray to my HP, work the tools, and hope that in so doing, I strengthen my recovery so that days like this aren’t as intensely challenging, or at least that the frequency is reduced, but I have to accept that there may continue to be days that surface such as this, which means in order to stay recovered, I just need the willingness to deal with the discomfort and accept that my abstinence “pearls” will not always be silky smooth or rock-solid, that they will sometimes look quite “messy” or feel rather choppy.  But I have to assume that it’s in dealing with these very days that I will make the greatest growth.  So I must embrace them the way I embrace those lovely, practically-on-autopilot abstinent days.

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Riding the waves of triggers; must they be so constant?

I think one of the more frustrating aspects of dealing with my eating inclinations is that no matter how much progress I make, there are still those days in which a map of my brain would probably look like an EKG:  lots of spikes and drops.  In fact, scratch that, I think my brain is wired so that MOST days entail that.  It’s in my nature, which I actually think is one reason I have such a high capacity for joy, passion, enjoying both life’s big successes and those little pleasures of the day.  But the flip side of that coin is that my brain’s chemistry can skyrocket “just like that,” leaving me with the task of slowly bringing myself back down.  That’s when I can be ultra-vulnerable.  Now thankfully, I have developed a much-greater ability to anticipate those peaks and waves and ride them out without acting on them through food.  A huge key is in being able to wait.  If I wait just 15-30 minutes and busy myself with something else, the worst of the trigger will pass and I can start to think clearly enough to get back on my original plans for the day. 

But even so, these ups and downs still occur, often without any warning.  Take this morning.  I had arranged to finally have a much-overdue phone chat with a close friend of mine.  I reminded myself of the call as a final thought as I went to bed last night.  Yet it wasn’t until about 20 minutes after our scheduled call time — as I sipped my coffee and wondered “what am I forgetting” — that I realized I still had my cell phone on silent ring, and had completely forgotten about the phone call!  And sure enough, upon racing to the phone I discovered a missed call from my friend.  I tried calling her back, but only got her voicemail, which made sense as our window wasn’t expected to be too long.

Suffice it to say, I felt devastated and apologized profusely.  But remember those spikes I was telling you about?  Well now I’m practically circling the moon.  As I walked back into the kitchen, my head was literally spinning.  I found my mind just wanting to numb out and for that one moment, all I could think of was diving into a particular food we have in the house at the moment, and dealing with the consequences “later.”  Thank GOD I have enough experience with that kind of impulse to know that I need to hit the pause button and just give myself a nice cup of coffee, let myself come down from that peak, before “finalizing” such a decision.  And thus far, I’m fine.  The crisis has passed, I expect the rest of the day will unfold as planned.  WHEW.

But it wasn’t EASY.  In fact it was still so HARD (yes, pull out the violins, I’m whining like a sugared-up toddler on a tantrum!).  It’s still hard now, though none of this is as hard as it used to be.  Seeing my body at a very comfortable weight, liking what I see in the outfit I’m wearing, feeling a calm stomach, knowing the rest of the day has not been “blown” (I don’t care what anyone says, even if you stop after a morning binge and go about the rest of the day, it’s never the same as it would be had you not binged)…..all of this helps tremendously.  Especially knowing that I actually stand a chance at accomplishing all my planned work tasks of the day, since I won’t be in a food fog.

I might not be as annoyed if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve had times in which, for whatever reason things are really “clicking” for me, and I don’t feel the food calling and I don’t even notice those spikes as much.  But I’m starting to think that those are mere gifts, little reprieves, but not representative of what most of the day-to-day management of this will be like.  I suppose the sooner I accept that the price I pay for having this serenity, for having a body I’m comfortable and happy with, for feeling good about my becoming a mature, contributing adult…..is to accept having to deal with these triggers for the long haul.  I guess I can live with that!

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The serenity of binge-free living

As you probably have deduced, I’m not using or updating this blog very regularly these days (how’s that for a fancy way to say I’ve been completely MIA?).  Truth be told, I find that my ability to benefit from such an outlet fluctuates; sometimes I do better by actually distancing myself from any focus — blogs, books, message boards, etc. — on anything that has to do with eating disorders or weight or food issues.  By shifting my focus away from those things AND surrounding myself with a lifestyle and people who represent anything BUT those things, it’s almost as though I “forget” to have such issues.  Sometimes I think there’s a danger in all this self-help via interacting (or lurking, anyway) with others, because doing so can “normalize” what is otherwise very unacceptable behavior, IMO.  For example, certain behaviors or perceptions may not even OCCUR to me, yet in an environment in which people with weight or eating issues are discussing their problems/recovery, I may encounter individuals who engage in these things.  And while at first I may read with a sense of detached curiosity, you read it often enough and suddenly it doesn’t seem so odd, and suddenly you find your own mind is actually absorbing some of these things, and it starts to pollute your own thinking.  By cutting loose and instead only conversing with people who have never had eating issues, I remind myself what “normal/healthy” looks like.  I realize my own version of “normal/healthy” may not ever be quite there — my history brings with it some realities that I ought not be naive enough to ignore.  But who knows?  Time does great things, and through repetition, it’s amazing how much a person can change, to where there’s not even a hint of a resemblence to their former self or way of thinking.

Ha ha, I’m making it sound like I’m desiring such a dramatic change!  No.  But do I think I benefit greatly from getting out of any “ED recovery” environment or mindset?  Yes, absolutely.  Where I’ll ultimately go….again, who knows?

Anyway, but I’d had a recent turn of events that threw me into a bit of turmoil.  Happily, that turmoil is being resolved, but out of the crisis an interesting lesson was illuminated for me.

I have often lamented (tongue-in-cheek), particularly when I’ve prepared for my various athletic events, about how well nutritious eating “works.”  Meaning, by golly, when I’m forced to eat absolutely cleanly for a long, unbroken stretch of time, usually because I’m training much more intensively and have ambitious goals for a given athletic event, I not only see the influence of properly chosen foods and supplements on my body and athletic performance, I also experience a remarkable, almost unbelievable, release from all my cravings.  Whereas I normally can navigate the ebbs and surges of my appetite and cravings without too much problem — they’re there, but with good nutrition and other tools in place, I can ignore and/or work with them effectively, during these extra-clean eating times, it goes even beyond that; I literally lose the cravings.  Eating my planned meals is effortless, I lose my hunger and yet have boundless energy.  It’s not the most “fun” I’ve had with my eating — the foods are typically not the kind that hit people’s Top 10 list of favorite cheat items, but it feels a small sacrifice when compared with the reprieve it gives me from the daily challenge of appetite management.  Why, you wonder, do I ever stray from such synchronicity?  Like everything, little by little, I let “things” chip away at the oh-so-well-oiled-machine, and while my weight pretty much remains the same, I gradually find myself back to the usual m.o., which includes clean eating, just enough “non clean” eating to satisfy my perceived cravings and to stimulate some new cravings of their own, with willpower kicking in to keep things from moving in the direction of those cravings.  I know, deep down, that if I bring myself back to that more simple eating arrangement, I will probably go back to a craving-free existence, but there’s a reluctance that’s hard to penetrate if I don’t have some overarching motivator, such as an athletic event to prepare for.  Perhaps one of these days things will “stick” more than they have thus far.

With that in mind, recently I had experienced a “mysterious” weight gain.  Now hear me out, I’m normally a person who rolls her eyes at the notion of “mysterious” weight gain.  There’s no mystery; you took in more calories than you burned.  Simple as that.  And this, I believe, is still true.  But considering I’m as vigilant as I’ve always been about weighing my food, measuring my food, tracking my daily calories, recording my food intake and my exercise…… the sudden (as in, over a couple of months’ time) weight gain and notable change of body composition truly had me baffled.  By weight gain, I mean relatively small; about 5-6 pounds over my norm.  But on my frame….it looked AWFUL!  But worst of all, I just couldn’t find a good reason.  If anything, my eating and exercise were even tighter than they were in the preceding 6-8 months.  It was baffling and frightening.  It took a long time for me to get to the level of management of my eating (and the ED) that I currently have, and the thought that I might have to make additional tweaks was overwhelming me.  It didn’t help that I was emerging from one of the hardest and harshest winters our area has ever had.  Clearly Seasonal Affective Disorder was a factor in my dispondence.  And while the extra weight may not seem like a big deal, it was just enough to not only force me out of most of my clothes, but to feel….compromised.  I know at what weight range I look irrefutably at my personal best, and this wasn’t it.  I looked bloated, puffy, definitely imbalanced.  I had been at this weight many years before, but back then it was somehow healthier, more fit, even if it still wasn’t my goal weight.  This?  It didn’t even look like me.

I’ll spare the details of how we finally figured out what the problem was — or at least, what we believe the problem was.  Suffice it to say, we did resolve the problem, and I have taken most of the weight off.  I’m now up by a pound or two and can expect the rest to fall into place soon enough.

But the “why” isn’t really the point here.  My point is what I experienced while trying to deal with the mysterious problem.  Because I had no idea what was going on, only that I was gaining weight mysteriously, one of the changes I had to make was to further shore up my eating.  I needed to make certain that I was truly being accurate in my intake and consistent in staying within my allocated caloric boundaries.  I also figured that darn it, if I was gaining weight now, while eating so cleanly, there was no telling what awful consequence would befall me if I dared stray from my eating plan.  So no cheats.  For a long time.

And that is why I make this post.  Because admittedly, as I have referenced before, I had become accustomed, over the years, to a management strategy whereby I would eat cleanly and exercise regularly, enough so that my metabolism could handle a (usually) once-a-week cheat.  Good enough, except that these cheats were often quite grand in scale — cookies, pizza, cheese, chocolate, eaten to the point of discomfort.  It’s been hard to curtail this one remnant of my ED (which at times didn’t look particularly ED’d, more just the kind of nibble fest people often experience on a Saturday night), as it would often take a good 2-3 days for me to feel recovered from the consequences of my splurge.  And while I didn’t always turn to such decadence on a weekly basis, I would still allow at least 2 days each week in which I’d eat way, way more than my body needed of even “healthy” food, such as trail mix or apples or sugar-free pudding.  And while my weight somehow remained consistent despite these occasional flights of fancy, the cycle of dealing with the added quantity of food on my gastrointestinal tract….the distress it would cause….was awful.  Part of my challenge over these last several months has been to work on lessening the severity.  I say “lessen the severity” because I don’t necessarily think I can nor should abolish these occasional deviations from my food plan.  But of course, there’s a huge difference between having an extra helping of a treat food or cooking a particular recipe in its “full fat” version but otherwise leave the day’s eating the same….vs. what I was doing, which definitely went beyond where it should be.  But….old habits die hard.  Choose your poison, and all of that.

So imagine the unexpected “gift” this recent dilemma gave to me.  For while I was decidedly unhappy with my situation — that is, I was annoyed with what was happening to my body and consumed about trying to figure out what the heck was going on,  I found myself, on a particularly difficult day, taking note of one shining light:  the serenity of being away from bingeing.  Because of my body’s apparant rebellion, I had vigilantly kept myself away from eating outside of my meal plan, and for a long stretch of time.  In this case, it had been weeks since I’d last strayed, and prior to that stumble, a few additional weeks still.  Altogether, I had had almost a couple of months without bingeing (my term for those Saturday and/or weeknight cheats), and I have to tell you….. it was wonderful.  While I was still struggling to find outfits that fit me, I could at least feel the serenity that comes when the body hasn’t been inundated with excess food.  My mind was cleaerer, my energy levels more even, my digestive tract at relative peace.

Well, happily, the few changes that I felt were needed, that I felt may provide the relief my body needed from what appeared to be going on….did finally start to take effect.  I began to see “my” body re-emerge, which was a huge relief, indeed.  I had a few athletic events come and go as well during that time, and found the problem to be almost 100% resolved.

So you know what happened next.  Of course!  Problem solved, success at my athletic events, which means it must be time to celebrate!  Mind you, I’m not out of the woods yet, especially since the whole point is to bring myself back to where I normally MAINTAIN myself, not just some bottom-end extreme from which I can then promptly rebound.  But sure enough, at the first opportunity (read:  where I had a day of down time afterward, allowing me to become cave-dweller and digest quietly out of the radar of most humanity), I merrily high-tailed it to the store, picking out all the sugar-fat-kitchen-sink delights I had so steadfastilly kept myself away from for so long.  It was almost head-spinning — literally — to experience these foods again, like switching on a bunch of neuro-receptors that had become dormant (not unlike what I imagine it’s like to smoke a cigarette after having quit for a while).  A couple of hours and a distended belly later, I couldn’t believe I had once again let myself fall into that bizarre, pre-binge amnesia, where I seem to forget how truly horrible the aftermath is — much more horrible than any pleasure obtained from the taste of the food.

So okay, a trip, stumble and fall.  It happens.  Move on.  Only…. I’ve had a couple more since.  So now I’m back to shoring up my eating and be more guarded on what behaviors and foods I allow over the next week or so.  Having had some blissful reprieve from my last binge, I can once again taste that serenity that I recently experienced, and I’m anxious to return to that place more solidly.  It’s fresh in my mind, and I’m grateful to have been, albeit through strange circumstances, forced to rout out some remnant destructive behaviors so as to let me catch a glimpse of it!  I don’t want to forget it anytime soon.  Talk about realizing how ready I am to be rid of those remnants, once and for all! 

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Update, and may take a break

It’s been a strange month.  With only one stumble, I’ve managed to stick with my initial goal — that of not allowing a separate, “special” trip to the grocery store should I make the decision to binge.  In other words, if I feel the need to eat beyond what I’d planned, it must be foods that I already have at home; no special “treats” or normally “forbidden” items.  The idea is, I wanted to see what would happen if I removed any sense of allure to the binges, at least in terms of WHAT they would entail.  There’s not nearly as much enjoyment from them when they’re simply comprised of foods I’m already including on my food plan!

But I also did make that 90-day challenge for myself, one in which I wanted to see how long I could be abstinent (abstinent, in this case, referring primarily to not bingeing).  Not wanting to evaluate the wisdom of issuing such an ambitious challenge until I gave it an earnest shot, my behavior these last  few weeks has been quite interesting, to say the least.  I would call it a mixed bag, in terms of success.

There have some very distinct differences in my current eating patterns than my norm.  True to the goal, I have not “binged” in the same sense I normally do.  Normally, if I decide to binge, along with the glee I feel in allowing myself access to certain “treat” foods, I typically throw any sense of calorie-counting or even hunger checkpoints out the window.  Basically, I eat until either the foods I’m interested in are gone or until I’ve “had my fill,” which almost 100% of the time means by the time I stop eating, I am extremely uncomfortable.  HORRIBLY uncomfortable.  That, actually, has been among the leading incentives for my wanting to change these days.  I feel mournful, sorrowful, and quite scared, at the awful abuse I inflict on my body by this behavior.

But in the place of the “normal” binges has been a sort of hybrid creature, and I’m not liking it.  In some ways, it’s “good” in that, I have yet to eat completely out of control or to get to that “horrible discomfort” point.  What has happened is, in between days of clean eating, I have days in which I, after dinner, decide to eat extra food.  The big differences are, I’m choosing foods that offer no more enticement than my food plan:  soup, apples, microwave popcorn, etc.  AND I’m still counting my calories meticulously, so that at least I know what the damage is.  And while I still end up eating more than I want, I do stop well before I would normally do so.  Clearly, these strays are not serving quite the same “release the pressure valve” purpose offered by most of my binges.  But I still consider them binges.  They still render me way beyond an amount of calories I need, though nothing like the devastating calorie blitzes I’ve been guilty of inhaling in the past.  And predictably, it doesn’t take nearly as long to recover from these deviations; I find much less “aftermath” to suffer and start to feel like myself again sooner than I do under normal “post binge” circumstances.

But the mind is tricky, and with these changes — I actually worried that this would happen — I’m straying from my food plan more frequently than normal.  This is disturbing  me greatly.  I worry that if I keep at this, I may be looking at the formation of a habit that will be tough to break.  A habit that could turn disastrous if my momentary “relative” self-control with these eating splurges should ever spiral back in the direction of my regular binges.

So my instinct is to say, this was good, it served its purpose, it helped me swing my eating habits back (overall) to a more healthy schedule, it gave me good insights — insights I would not have had if I had kept my same-old, same-old m.o., but now I need to let it go.  Do I think I could keep going for the full 90 days?  Actually…..yes.  But I’m not sure this is what I want.  If I stop it now, I have a much better chance at breaking this pattern before it has a chance to really become habit.

But how’s this for a monkey wrench?  So far, it seems my weight has stabilized!  Not to where I usually like it — I’m still about 2-3 pounds above my normal weight (I’d gained about 4-5 from the holidays this year, more turmoil than usual, part of the reason for my doing this month experiment).  But, if I’m to believe my weigh-in of a couple of days ago….and a few days before that…..yeah, it appears possible that things aren’t deteriorating on the weight end.  MAYBE.  Two or three weigh-ins are hardly enough to see a trend.

So….. I have some thinking to do.  I’m not afraid to abandon either the 90 day challenge OR the January challenge (actually…..I won’t abandon the latter as there are only a few days left of the month, and I do think this is a good break from certain food habits I’d developed) if it turns out to be not what I feel is what I want.

I also may take a break from this blog (hey, it IS called the *part-time* bulimic, isn’t it? my attempt at humor).  I have so much going on with my work and I worry that concern about blogging is actually taking my eyes off my eating “steering wheel” at the moment.  Then again, maybe I’ll discover I benefit more by keeping the blog going than in taking a break.  I just wanted to let readers know what’s up if I suddenly drop off the face of the earth.

We’ll see!

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Rant: Nosy clerks when buying “cheat” foods at the grocery store!!!!

OK, time for some levity.  I have a bone to pick, and it involves nosy clerks at the grocery store.  I suppose this one can be filed under the same category as the embarrassment one might feel (though oddly enough I generally don’t) to have to get tampons rung up by a male cashier, or (gasp!) if you’re a MAN having to buy your sweetie her feminine protection supplies.

Sad but true, there have been those times — more times than I care to remember, when this hungry dieter has decided that she didn’t want another dinner of fat-free Boca Burgers and bag-o-steamed veggies, she wanted cake (dammit).  Or cookies.  Or brownies.  Or some really good, soft, chewy bagels with honey nut flavored cream cheese.  Granted, lately I’ve been working on turning to less damaging choices — foods that may or may not be part of my diet, but at least aren’t so calorie-packed so as to necessitate numerous days of extreme “fitness atonement” to undo the aftermath.  But this rant is about those instances in which I’ve caved in to the “to heck with 100-calorie packs and fat-free this or that, I want the REAL stuff” urge, and set out to the grocery store, where their bakery section is head-spinning; “over the top” doesn’t even begin to describe it.  So insane is the selection there, it makes me wonder if this is part of the reason it’s so tough to give up such foods.  If the local grocer had only a “meh” selection of baked goods, would I find myself so enticed?  I don’t believe so.  I think of the grocery store, for example, near our vacation home.  They have nowhere NEAR the fantasy creations we have in our home town (I never even CONCEIVED of a peanut butter turtle fudge brownie cream pie until it made its appearance in their refrigerator case!), only the rather run-of-the-mill apple pies, chocolate chip cookies, and blueberry muffins you’ll find just about anywhere.  And not once do I feel tempted to explore those offerings when staying at that house (and it’s not like I never strayed from my normal eating while there).

Anyway, getting back to my story.  I’m sure some of you can relate to this even if you don’t have an eating disorder.  There are times in which you’re buying or ordering or eating decadent food, when you just don’t want to have lots of attention drawn to you.  I’m better than I used to be, but there’s still a fair amount of sensitivity in me regarding people watching/commenting on my eating.  Which means there’s always some anxiety (guilt?) involved when I have decided to do a big-time cheat on cake with massive twirls of whipped cream frosting, or those frisbee-sized chocolate-macademia chip cookies, or some other eye-poppingly rich treat.  This makes for a strange dichotomy of emotions as I stroll the aisles of the store; on one hand, I find myself feeling a certain relief, partly due to the mouth-watering anticipation of the treat ahead.  At the same time, I’m feeling dread, mostly for the likely upset stomach that will follow, but also even for when I have to get rung up at the register.  Why?  Because inevitably, the cashier will say something about it.  “Wow!!!  This looks tasty!” or “Heh, heh, this sure doesn’t look low-calorie!” usually followed by, “What’s the occasion?”  Maybe this doesn’t seem so bad, but at that moment, when all I want to do is pay for my guilty pleasure and be on my way, the last thing I want is to have the spotlight cast on me and my wayward purchase.  But moreover, what I find rather annoying about this otherwise innocent exchange (and I’ve been in line often enough to confidently confirm this), is that the cashiers never seem to make such comments to anyone else.  And while I realize it’s not very PC of me to speculate on the following reason, considering that a majority of customers at the store I shop at are overweight, often significantly, I can’t help but wonder if the fact that my being thin has anything to do with it.  If you’re overweight you may have a hard time realizing this, but thin people do experience their own reverse discrimination.  People will readily make comments to us that they never would even *think* about saying to someone who is visibly overweight.  So I have to ask myself, would a cashier dare to say something about my selection of fattening bakery goods if I were fat?  My husband used to hear me rant about this, but assumed I was exaggerating at least a little bit.  That is, until he began to accompany me more often on these grocery store runs.  And sure enough, we watch customer after customer get rung up, often with the same kinds of items in their cart, and not a peep from the cashier.  But along comes our items on the belt and suddenly it’s open season to inquire.  God bless my husband, he’ll usually good-naturedly step in and say something like, “Yep, my favorite dessert.”  But I still think it’s silly that he even has to do this.  For pete’s sake, nothing I buy is new or unusual; you know these people see these items numerous times a day.  What’s up with this need to make a remark about something the cashier sees all of the time?

Probably the funniest of these exchanges was when my husband and I were returning home following a concert.  It was around 11pm on a Saturday night, and we still felt hyper, so decided to watch a DVD movie once home.  We also decided that, after a couple of weeks of clean eating, we both wanted a late night snack, and not just the usual light microwave popcorn.  We stopped at a different grocery store than usual (due to it being en route from the concert venue), but all they really had was a selection of birthday cakes — you know the kind:  round, with that icky-sweet buttercream frosting, and colored trim and either balloons or flowers on the top, with the words “Happy Birthday” scrolled on the top.  The kind we have all seen a million times.  Reluctantly, we picked one up, hoping it wouldn’t be dry or overly sugary.  We also grabbed a couple of other grocery items — we were out of fruit, needed some yogurt, etc.  Maybe 8 items altogether.  We made our way to the cashier, who rang us up while a another clerk bagged.  “Oh!  This looks good!” exclaimed the bagger as she lifted up the cake, turning it around as though inspecting it in detail.  I thought it odd, especially since she said it as though it was the first time she’s ever seen a birthday cake.  My husband and I chuckled in polite agreement.  But she continued.  “I’ll bet it tastes good.”  We continue to nod.  But she still wasn’t done.  “What are you buying it for?”  At the time, I had never been asked such a question by a cashier, no less about a basic birthday cake.  What the f***?  What does she think it’s for?  Before I could come up with an answer, my husband swept in with a ready reply:  “It’s my brother’s birthday” (the first of many times he would use that line).  Once in the car, we couldn’t help but shake our heads.  What are we buying it for????  Who asks this of a basic birthday cake?  Or any food item, for that matter?  For starters, what’s it to them?  Moreover, why do we owe them an answer?  Mind you, we both hate to be at all impolite or confrontational, so we’ll always humor the person and play along nonchalantly.  But I still find it annoying.  I’ll happily chat with the cashier about ANYTHING, but please, mind your own business and stop asking me about my grocery selections!  My husband joked that the next time I’m asked, a quick way to end any further probing would be for me to say, “I’m going to feast on this to my heart’s content when I get home, then spend the next three days exercising and eating carrots to work off the calories.  Why do you ask?”  But yeah right, like I’m going to say that.  But it would be interesting to see the reaction!

Rant over….Add this to the stockpile of reasons why I just as soon would like to do away with this behavior!

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I knew I was done with eating disorder message boards when… (+ bonus recipe)

Well, I knew for a while now.  As I’ve said in my “A little bit about this blog” page, I don’t fit the mold of the typical eating disorder, at least not based on the posters I encounter when surfing for message boards.  As much as I’m okay with tackling this thing (by and large) by myself, it would be nice to find people who are in my situation, my situation being that I keep my weight within “normal” ranges, I binge but don’t purge, I otherwise keep myself on a diet that works well for me, I am happy, with a successful career and no “smoking gun” in my history to speak of (i.e. never abused, no sexual abuse or rape, no major traumas, parents didn’t divorce, no addicts or alcoholics, etc. etc. etc.).  Honestly, I just think for the most part my situation can be summed up as, I’m an intense, Type A personality who has used the crutch of binge-eating (and subsequent recovery measures to minimize the damage to my body) as a stress-release valve for many years, so that by now it’s a firmly entrenched habit.  When I let certain aspects of my personality run amok, the bulimia flares up.  When I proactively manage my personality and take steps I know to be uniquely helpful to me, the behavior fades greatly.  But not being willing to completely let go of the security blanket of maintaining my fit body under my current program/approach, I realistically have assessed that I probably won’t be fully rid of all remnants of an eating disorder anytime soon.

 OK, so that’s where I’m at.  And finding others whose situations are similar is like finding a needle in a haystack.  I don’t know if perhaps there are many of you out there and it’s just not PC to talk about eating disorders this way, or if I’m in a category all by myself.  Either way, I’m having a harder and harder time extracting any points I can relate to on most message boards, and it’s irritating me.

But perhaps the final straw came the other day, as I lurked one of the few boards I have visited semi-regularly over the years.  The host website, which offers a number of different message boards covering different eating disorders and related topics (there’s one for bulimia, anorexia, compulsive overeating, etc.) recently added an advanced recovery message board, for those who have reached such a point in their progress.  Great!  Thinks I.  Perhaps this will offer something more than the “same old same old” posts I see popping up on the bulimia and compulsive overeating boards (I must admit, what I often see on these boards are people who spend way too much time analyzing themselves to death, without taking the steps to actually physically make changes in their behavior — the proverbial “sh** or get off the pot” dilemma).

And sure enough, there have been some interesting posts from women who are recovered to the point that you can detect their multi-dimensions.  It’s so good to see, as I hate the notion that your eating disorder (“ED”) is all that defines you.  I like to keep “ED” in its rightful place, which is to say well below the scope of my other interests.

 Anyway, I was excited to read a poster start a thread about their favorite foods.  One of the respondents said she bought some goat cheese, and roasted it with portobello mushrooms.  Some other mentions included a salad of salmon, mustard, and greens; good quality yogurt, and mangoes.  I found myself feeling happy at the celebration of good food, the pleasures of taking the time to prepare a flavorful meal — especially since these were neither the kinds of foods one would associate with common cravings or “over the top” decadence (i.e. sugar, butter, cream), but nor were they foods that immediately screamed “diet!” (fat-free cottage cheese, butter spray, egg whites, etc.).  Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those extremes, but the fact that people were talking about those foods that fall between the two…..made me smile.  Eating disorders are so often about seeking two different extremes and ignoring the vast world of delicious foods in the middle of all of that.  To see this exploration of that very “middle ground” was energizing, encouraging…..and gosh, it made me hungry — but in a good, happy way!

Well, it came to a crushing halt when the moderator came in and said that mention of specific foods was still specifically forbidden, so the only way she would keep the thread open is if people shifted to discussing their FEELINGS surrounding their favorite foods.  Otherwise the thread would have to be yanked.

OK.  I GET that there are people who are still in a very fragile state with their ED.  I’ve been there, I understand.  And indeed, this website is very protective of not allowing anything that could be triggering to individuals, to provide a safe place to discuss these issues.  I get that too.  But this is an ADVANCED RECOVERY message board.  Why create it if you’re not going to allow more latitude with people who are at a point where they can start integrating certain “normal, non-eating-disorder” behaviors and thoughts with their current recovery program?  If anything, it seems the perfect place to allow this.  After all, sooner or later we (“we” being people with ED’s) have to deal with the real, outside world; we have to navigate our day and learn how to weather the stresses and bumps and joyful moments and mean people and all that comes with life without turning to behaviors we wish to keep out of our lives.  What better way to prove that you’re making progress with this than to talk about happy, normal things with a group of others who are in the unique position to know exactly what you’re going through, because they’ve been through the same thing?  If there are people who worry about feeling triggered at such threads, well guess what, they’re not ready to participate in or read the advanced recovery board!  Are we not all adults who should ultimately be the ones to hold ourselves accountable for our actions and where we put ourselves?

Anyway, that’s when I knew I was done.  I’m sorry, I don’t want to live in a world where you can’t be dealing privately with your eating disorder and still happily talk about the joy of your favorite recipes, maybe exchange some so that others can share in your joy.  That’s NOT the way I wish to heal my bulimia!  Suppose I never am rid of it?  Suppose I put such things as talking about recipes on hold for all those years, when I could have instead at least enjoyed myself while still working on my private struggles?

So….in the spirit of working on my own path to healthy living without avoiding all potential “scary” triggers, I offer you The Best Winter Stew Recipe Ever!

The Best Winter Stew Recipe Ever

• 1-1/2 Tablespoons olive oil 
• 1 can pumpkin
• 1 14-oz. can chopped tomatoes
• 1 onion, halved and then coarsely sliced
• 1 small zucchini, chopped
• 1 small yellow squash, chopped
• 1 portobello mushroom, chopped 
• 2 cloves of fresh garlic, finely chopped
• 1-inch cube fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 cup vegetable broth (canned or a reconsituted bouillon cube)
• 1 cup dry pasta (I like to use pappardelle, just because)
• 1-2 ounces good quality parmesan cheese, freshly grated (don’t even think about buying the kind in a shaker!)
• About 4-6 fresh basil leaves, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

In a large soup pot, heat 1/2 Tablespoon of the olive oil, and saute the onion with a little salt until it begins to soften.  Add the mushrooms and some black pepper and cook for another minute or two.  Add the ginger and garlic, and keep stirring to avoid burning the garlic.  Add the zucchini and yellow squash and another 1/2 Tablespoon of olive oil, and cook until the zucchini starts to soften (I usually go about 5-6 minutes, but your miles may vary).  Add the pumpkin and the final 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil, and stir for a minute or two.  Add the tomatoes, the dry pasta, and the vegetable broth.  Mix well and bring to a boil over medium-high heat (stew will be thick, but add a little more water or broth if you find it needs to be thinned out a bit).  Once it boils, reduce to low/medium heat and cover, and simmer for around 10 minutes or until pasta is cooked.  Remove from heat, add the basil and the cheese and stir well.  Add additional salt and/or pepper if desired.

Makes 4 generous servings or 6 smaller portions

Enjoy!

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Challenging common thoughts surrounding eating disorders and eating disorder treatment

There are many aspects of traditional eating disorder “recovery” that I do not agree with.  Just the same, there are those philosophies and approaches that I feel are quite valid.  Nothing is black and white.

For starters, be it right or wrong, good or bad, I find my weight is best managed by avoiding certain foods on a daily basis.  On a normal diet day, certain foods are off limits for me.  Unable (more like unwilling) to eliminate certain “treat” foods from my life completely, I instead give in to periodic splurges that almost always go well beyond the point I would have preferred to stop eating.  Most of you reading this will probably immediately think, “That’s wrong.  If you just stop dieting, you’ll stop such extremes in eating,” or, “See, this is why dieting is bad.”  But I respectfully disagree.  I have found that the alternative — to stop restricting and instead allow smaller amounts of all kinds of foods on any given day (in other words, the typical “wisdom” in most weight management and/or eating disorder programs) — to be the perfect way to gain weight, with any attempt at “bodily acceptence” to be just an exercise in epic denial (and woe be to you when that “I’m still happy with this body” bubble bursts).  Call me superficial, but I just can’t reconcile the larger body for myself.  It may look and work okay for others, but not for me.  Honestly, I would rather accept that I will probably always have a skewed relationship with food, if it means I can maintain what I believe to be my ideal physique.  I know that’s not PC but it’s the reality of my mindset.

Mind you, life is too short to not enjoy delicious, decadent food.  But decadent food has no place in my daily eating.  If anything, I personally enjoy it MORE when I DON’T allow it in my regular diet.  And oddly enough, the more I impose certain restrictions on my daily eating, the more creative I get with my cooking.  I love exploring the use of fresh herbs, unusual fruits and vegetables, of making minimal use of fattening ingredients and searching out lower-calorie substitutes.  It forces me to appreciate the more subtle tastes and textures of natural, minimally processed food, in ways I miss out on if I allow certain foods to be options in my daily diet.  My eating habits are NOT about deprivation or virtuousness.  On the contrary!  But I have very specific preferences with regard to my figure, so I’m constantly trying to find ways to strike a balance between those two aspects of myself.

Now I don’t for one moment profess perfection, or to suggest that this method of eating is the best arrangement.  I still get mighty cravings for extremely fattening, sugary foods, and when those cravings hit, as long as I have calculated that I can “afford” the pound or so weight gain that will ensue from the splurge, I allow myself to eat unsensored for a whole evening, and the end results are not pretty.  In fact they’re pretty awful.  I never emerge without huge regrets, and a renewed resolve to “stop this insanity” once and for all.  There’s no doubt in my mind, I still have far to go in striking the right balance for myself.

But I still remain unconvinced that my own personal path to “sanity” is through intuitive eating or related approaches, in which no food is off limits on any given day, with the notion that sooner or later these foods will lose their allure and you’ll find yourself eating very “naturally,” gravitating towards healthier choices as a matter of instinct.  Sorry, not in my case.  I tried that on repeat occasions (and for sufficient periods of time, in one instance over a year), and whatever emotional freedom or “relief” I felt in stopping the cycle…was eclipsed by my misery in having a body that I no longer recognized — that wasn’t “me” anymore.  If I’m going to continue to chip away at my undesired behaviors, it’s going to have to be through another means.  It may take longer, it may mean I never fully extinguish the cycle of extremes (I can live with it if the frequency and intensity continues to go down!), but I’m just not willing to compromise my body, my fitness, at this time.

I make no apologies for having these preferences, but up until now, I have never let on that I even have them, out of fear of coming across as either insensitive to others or somehow in denial.  People love to do that; if you so much as allude to any version of the above, they dismissively say, “Oh that’s the eating disorder talking.”  Is it?  Well then fine, I may just always have some aspect of that in play.  I no longer care how others characterize it.  But definitely this is NOT a judgment against others and their approach or philosophy; if most people feel a better peace of mind by ridding themselves of the behavior while accepting the adjustments their body makes, more power to them.  This simply doesn’t appeal to me, having tried both sides of the fence.  And mind you, I don’t kid myself that this isn’t dangerous or destructive behavior.  Hence, this blog.  I have made great strides in managing the behavior in myself over the last several years, and I plan to continue to do so.  But extinguish it altogether?  At this point I don’t necessarily think it’s possible.  So “minimizing” is the modus operandi here.

What surprises me, considering how many people there are in this world, is how hard it is to find someone else in my specific situation.  When I search out forums and blogs on the subject of eating disorders, I tend to find two groups:  either the set of younger, mostly high school and college-aged girls who are struggling with anorexia and/or bulimia….or I find (mostly) women who are struggling with binge-eating disorder (or compulsive overeating, whatever you want to call it), whose recovery is centered largely on healing their emotions and attitudes — both relating to food and outside of it — while working on steadfastily eliminating any thoughts of desiring a thin/fit body.  Well, that’s fine, but what about those of us who are either far further along in our “recovery,” or who never had that bad an eating disorder in the first place, or how about this:  who work in an industry in which, like it or not, our bodies are part of our career success?  Beyond our personal preferences, some of us can’t afford to have a certain body shape and still retain our job success, and therefore have to figure out a way to make as much amends with our eating and underlying issues, while maintaining a certain physique.  Surely I can’t be the only one in this category, and yet to search the net you would think so.

But even outside of career considerations, it just plain annoys me, the kneejerk reactions to anything that resembles an eating disorder.  If you have bulimia, you’re automatically supposed to want to be rid of it.  This annoys me at times.  Let me see.  I eat extremely healthfully (typically) 90 percent of the time.  My daily diet includes apples, yogurt, cottage cheese, salmon, tons of veggies, rice, peanut butter, and oatmeal.  About once a week, I break out of that mold and open the gates to eat whatever I want (usually sweets — I love bread and dessert!), and almost always go way past the point of fullness when I do this.  I then snap right back to my normal diet, spending the next couple of days drinking tea and watching my sodium intake to help my body deal with the spike of calories and junk food.  Is it right?  No, but tell me, please, how this is so much worse than the typical American daily menu, in which food from all walks of life are consumed without so much as a second thought.  Tell me how this is somehow not equally something that needs to be “recovered” from, especially when you see the overweight, out-of-shape bodies rendered by this way of eating?

I said it before but I’ll say it again (hey, it’s my blog), I’m just not convinced that I can maintain the fit, lean body I enjoy having if I were to adopt the “no food is off limits” mentality common in most recovery approaches.  And I’m tired of feeling like a felon for even thinking such thoughts.  God forbid I should actually admit to wanting to keep a fit body more than I want to be rid of the disordered eating that comes with restrictive dieting!  No, somehow we’re all supposed to sing the chorus of “diet bad, moderate eating good.”  Well to hell with that!  I’ve done the “moderate eating,” and you know what?  I’m happier and healthier when I diet deliberately!  When my choices are limited, I feel free.  I can free up my mind to focus on the rest of my life, my work, my passions.  Without rules, every meal brings an overwhelming decision process; too many choices!  And right or wrong, I like to keep track of my calories.  Having done this for so many years, I know exactly what amount I need to eat in order to keep my body where I like it.  And knowing this, I like to end my day with full knowledge of whether I ate within my body’s caloric needs.  Why is this wrong?  Is it obsessive?  Maybe.  But that’s my row to tow.  The way I see it, if doing so allows me to enjoy that glass of fine wine, to savor that piece of dark chocolate, to get out and take that spontaneous winter snowshoe hike, to feel the confidence of being able to be put in any situation and handle myself with joy and ease….where’s the wrong here?

One thing to keep in mind:  I have never had a particularly severe case of bulimia.  Obviously, none of this musing would apply if I were engaged in truly dangerous and undeniably destructive/disruptive behaviors.  There’s a difference between the once-a-week after-dinner binge, in which there is no purging, only strict dieting and exercise in the days that follow, versus daily binges that are followed by vomiting or the use of laxatives.  To anyone who is doing this, I urge you to seek medical treatment immediately, as I would do the same!  Again, I go back to the point I made that I’m not even sure if my behavior fully qualifies as an eating disorder, anyway.  Where does the disorder end and “stuff that is simply human fallability” begin?  If it’s otherwise not interfering with your life, is it really something that needs to be changed at this time?  I have the luxury of asking these questions expressly because I have never purged and I otherwise lead a happy and full life despite the remnant behaviors I still struggle with.  Just want to be clear on that.

So in short, what I have learned is that right now, even as I renew my commitment to keep up the fight to minimize my disordered eating behaviors, I would still rather deal with the down side of dieting/bingeing cycles in exchange for having the body I want — and yes, the emotional outlet that, right or wrong, is part of the behavior.  It seems counter-intuitive I know, but I actually have an easier time keeping my weight in check when I allow periodic binges, because the rest of the time I can be at peace with eating tasty, healthy, clean foods.  I’m actually curious to see if having a blog as an outlet will provide an emotional release valve that will help me reduce the triggers and better manage my stress.  Wouldn’t it be great if I find this to be the final blow to these behaviors!

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