Eating Disorder Talk

So, it is after the show and I am blogging right now to help myself get through the night. I am so afraid of my mind. It’s my dang food addict mind. I have a good movie on, books by my bed (kind of boring, but I’m almost done), and I am exhausted from the long day. I purposefully did not take a nap to help myself sleep tonight. Food thoughts. Saturday nights are my nights of food thoughts for the past three weeks. I don’t like it. I want it to end. So, I am writing. If it continues to keep me awake, I will stay in my room. If I leave my room, I will be near the kitchen. I do not want to be near the kitchen. If it was my choice, I would fall asleep right now. … for all I know, that may be exactly what happens. …. we’ll see. I am going to keep you posted and be honest. It’s all about the journey, not the destination.

Here’s the deal - I have been having Sunday as my junk food day. Starting tomorrow, it is ending. Instead of the entire day being full of junk food, it is going to be only in the evening. It is one meal of junk food. With that in mind, I am scared. What if it doesn’t work with my brain? I will still be getting some junk in my week, but it will be a lot less. I do not want it to give myself a reason to jump into junk. Honestly, I don’t believe it will. If anything, tonight and tomorrow are the hardest parts. I have loved the ability to eat all the junk. In fact, for the last few Saturdays, I have not slept well because I get so excited about the junk I have coming to me. So, it’s not the day after my junk dinner, it’s these moments before. It’s the now. That is what scares me. I think I will lock myself in my room tonight. Literally. I will not let myself eat my fruit breakfast until 8am (the earliest). Even if I am awake in bed, food will not be an option. Period. Okay, I am giving it to G-d now. This is a healthier change for my body. I know I am making the right choice. The adjustment is scary, but I will get through it and love this new routine.
Scary!

I don’t have a great image of myself. When I look in the mirror and even when I imagine my body, I do not see how thin I am. Instead, I see my flabby skin where it is not firm. I notice my thighs when I am in my underwear. Even when I was underweight, my thighs were still not where I wanted them to be. Looking back at the pictures when I was underweight, I did not look good at all. I looked scary, but in the moment, I still thought I had weight to lose. I could not escape the fat image of myself. How do I escape that? How do I start to see myself for what I really am? I am skinny! And as I say that my more dominating “No, you are fat!” shouts back. Aaack! I bet that if my own self image changed, my body would have an easier time staying thin. … am I making any sense?

Why is it that I feel it can be so much easier for stars to maintain their weight. They have the money to have someone watch and train them. I don’t have that. I have to do everything on my own.
I guess I have imagined the world being so much easier if I was rich and famous. Then, I watched these videos on youtube with Katharine McPhee. Yeah, we are all human. It is not easier for one person more than another.

I understand binging. I also understand how purging could come about. I have done it with laxatives. Thankfully, that habit lasted for a week and a day. Now that is out of my life and the binging, I don’t think about purging. I am a singer as well, so I could and will never do anything that will go against me.

Today, I have learned that I like hearing about star’s honest struggles. I don’t like to hear it to put them down. That would be wrong and sick in so many ways. I just think it brings important to attention to the subject and hopefully a wake-up call to anyone who is in denial about his/her current eating disorder. It can help others.

I do realize it is a giving thing. Someone got Dunkin Donuts for the house and I do think it is very nice … however, it is really hard for me. When I go into the kitchen, the donuts are impossible to ignore. Thank G-d, the box is closed, but I think I have already memorized everything that is in the box. I am doing okay right now, but I want them to not be in my sights every time I go into the kitchen. I am not going to eat them. I am good at not eating that stuff because I know I can have it once per week if I want it.
Luckily, the last time I had a donut, I didn’t really like it. It was too rich for me at the time. I ate it anyhow because G-d forbid I throw away food.
I am heading to bed in a moment. I just thought this would be a good thing to share. It is so much easier to resist food when it is not in my home. In this case, it is practically staring at me. I wish the nice person gave the donuts on Sunday when I let myself have some goodies. Today, not today.
Look at me. Just knowing the food is near can make me obsessive!

I have learned that having an entire day of junk food really doesn’t work for me. After having macaroni and cheese for breakfast on Sunday morning, I felt it in my body. I normally have only fruit in the morning. Fruit is best digested when eaten alone and in the morning before anything else has been digested.

Going from something simple and natural like fruit and moving to macaroni and cheese was hard for my stomach. My body was still recovering from it when it came to lunch. Because of it, I ended up having a much healthier lunch for myself. At night, I had some junk food and my body felt okay.

So, I have decided to end having entire junk food days. Instead, I am only having junk a food dinner on Sunday evenings. Once per week. I am not going to completely end it because then I will feel deprived and jump into the binge life again.

This is still all trial and error. I will see how things go for me this Sunday and make decisions afterwards. Honestly, I think it will work.

To not deprive myself on the yummy treats that are out there, I have been trying something new. Junk food day. Every Sunday, I have let it be a day where I can eat whatever I want. After eating healthy, digestible food during the week, I have learned how important it is to make sure I have some healthy stuff during the day. If I don’t, I literally can make myself feel sick. So, I balance it out with a salad for one meal and a sandwich for another meal. Don’t be fooled, I have desserts with these meals.
I am not sure if this is the best thing and am learning as I go. Since last week, I have lost a pound. To make sure that I am losing and not gaining, I am giving myself another week. If gain a pound, I will have to change my junk food day and turn it into a meal. I realize that having an entire day of eating whatever I want sounds frightening, but I have done it in the efforts to get out my millions of cravings. You see, I have not had a lot of these junk food for 3 years. It’s true.
Do not try this. For many people, the junk food day would become an awful binge and possibly an excuse to throw up or not eat anything at all for the rest of the week. This is not an option. For me and only for me, I have tried this out. I will know for sure if this is a good way to go when I weight myself again at the end of the week.
Even if my weight continues to go down and eventually gets to a point where I am happy, I have to also pay attention to the energy in my body. I am not some extremely knowledgeable person when it comes to general health. In the end, the goal is to be extremely knowledgeable about my own health. So far, allowing myself to eat what I want once a week has completely stopped my binging for the past month and my food stashes have disappeared. There is no need for them. I don’t feel like I am depriving myself anymore.
It’s all one step at a time. My binging is gone and I have allowed junk food in my life. Now I have to figure out if that is too much and could be taking a toll on my energy. We’ll see! I am learning as I go.

… for a column in a magazine or newspaper?

It has been my dream to write a weekly column for a magazine or a newspaper. To me, that would be such a dream. Through this column, I want to inspire people. For years, I have thought, how could I do this. I thought about writing about staying inspired. But then yesterday, my mother told me I should write about my experience with eating disorders. In her opinion, she this it would be a topic more people could relate to … what do you think?
I am also unsure, despite how gutsy I am with the blog, about it’s negative impact. I know I cannot make everyone happy, but I do not want to be a cause for more eating disorders. I may be going overboard with my thoughts and fears, but I have to really think this out before I make this step. Writing about eating disorders is a very serious thing.
Overall, I would want the column to have more of a positive influence. Helping others helps me in this addiction.
… I am just thinking about it and am putting this idea out there. Would love to get your thoughts …

There was a food gathering tonight - a fun buffet where everyone brought something. As much as I am excited for people to be here, I do not feel safe around the food. To plan ahead, I ate my dinner in advance. Now, I am up in my room while everyone is eating. I just can’t be near food right now, so I have chosen to be by my lonesome while they eat. I will go back down there and socialize. I just don’t want to eat the food. That is that. It’s just one of those days. This doesn’t happen all the time, but once in awhile, I just can’t be around the food when it’s this “all you can eat” thing. I am at a place where I know I will go overboard and I don’t want to. I don’t want to feel like crap about what I ate or analyze anything. I ate my food. For my body and mind, the food part of my day is over. … I am really looking forward to this uneasy feeling to pass.

Don’t kid yourself. The food and drinks at Starbucks are not good for you. I am guilty of spending a lot of money at this place myself. To help myself out and help inform others (and get out of denial), I thought it would be good to bring it up.

The calorie count at Starbucks is unbelievable! If you are trying to be good to your body and get the nutrition you need, stay away from the crap. Starbucks is crap. I do not care about any arguments you have against my statement. If you are thirsty, drink water. I know that is not the easiest thing to do, but the truth is the truth. Drink water. I am not only saying this to readers, i am saying this to myself. Water does a body good, so drink it!

Eating more than I planned is not a good enough reason to have a binge.
I have to realize that and I am realizing that in the moment. Today, I ended up eating more than I planned. Usually, this gives me an excuse to binge. To be proactive, I am putting it out there to not keep myself in the dark. I do not want to dive into the food. I am saying a big NO to a binge by talking about it. I have found this to be very helpful every time I am in the mood to dive into the food. I am not going to do that this time.
It is so easy to eat. It is so easy to eat a lot of food when all the stuff I want to eat (donuts, macaroni, cake) is the cheaper food. I am not going to do it. Eating doesn’t make me happy. Living in the moment and enjoying my life makes me happy.
Though I ate more than I planned this evening, I am not going to use it as an excuse to binge.

I want to send my love to anyone who is in the midst of their food addiction. Being trapped in the emotional an physical turmoil of food is far from fun.

I you are stuffing your face and reading this. Stop. Not forever. For now. Stop. If you feel compelled, take your food to the dumpster outside and let it drop in the trash. If you feel further compelled in this moment to throw out your food stashes, do the same. Toss it all. I am not saying you have to do it, but I am putting it out there. For today, throw out your food. I know, this is not the coolest suggestion, but it’s one thing I thought I would put out there that may help out a person who may in the midst of a binge while reading this. With that in mind, go for it! If you are a person who has thrown out your food, call a friend. Even better - see if you can spend the night at a friend’s house. I don’t care about what time it is - do it!
Don’t criticize me if this is lame to you cause it’s bound to help out at least one person and for me, that is huge.

That was the question my wise mother asked me yesterday. I have not spoken to her as often as I would like lately. In our conversation on Saturday, I was telling her about my food thoughts. Without realizing, I kept going and going about the subject. Finally, mom stopped me and said, what else are you doing on Sunday? It then dawned on me that I was focusing so much on the food in my life that I was missing out on what I was actually doing throughout the day - two shows and then karaoke at night.
I knew I had all these other great things going on, but all I could think about was the food. I am not doing that to myself anymore … easier said than done. Overall, it was so great to have someone wake me up.
Life is more than food. Food is meant to fuel my body in order to live my life to the fullest. I need to work on focusing and talking more about that.

I can go on forever and ever with analyzing what I eat. I worked at this homeopathic health spa not too long ago and fell victim of people watching everything I ate. It became obnoxious and uninvited very quickly. It also became a huge contribution to my binging. I cut out things that helped me have a cleaner diet. But then, with this “healthy” diet, I was ignoring any cravings. I didn’t want the healthy replacements and therefore deprived myself from having any goodies. It built up and then I eventually had a binge. Now that I am back to a more normal way of eating that is healthy but not perfect, my food stashes are gone. I get to eat the yummy stuff once a week and that works well for me right now.
There are always new diets and new ideas on how to stay healthy. It can be overwhelming. For now, I am sticking with what works for me and ignoring all outside opinions.

After I wrote my blog last night, I did some research and learned how dangerous laxatives can be for the body. I learned that if they are taken longer than a week, that is when the damage happens.
I immediately went up to my room and put my laxatives in storage. Good bye laxatives. I had them for a week and a day. Long enough. My body is still healthy and I plan to keep it that way. I feel like I ;just missed the bullet.
Another interesting thing I learned was the bloating that occurs from the regular laxatives. You would think it would be the opposite from all the releasing, however, with the gas build - up, I guess that is what can happen. Also, I was exhausted from it. Is that a common symptom?
I am not proud of my falling into a new addiction, but I am happy to be out of it. I think it is my fear of death that immediately stopped me from continuing a “romance” with ex-lax. Thank G-d for that fear!
I went onto youtube (as usual) and found some great footage from people dealing with laxative issues. They really helped me out, so I thought I would share what I found.