It turns out recovery is hard...

My feelings over the last couple of months have gone something like this:

"Oh my God life's freaking awesome and I'm eating and not thinking about calories and wow food and eating is amazing"

to

 

"Yeah so I'm not eating that healthily, and yeah, I'm not as toned as before, but heck, who cares - imperfections make us who we are"

 

to

 

 

"Woah, there nelly, I've got as much blubber as a walrus"

Photos were the catalyst of this last one. I knew I was piling on a bit of extra fat (well, duh, I'm eating more) but my Mum put some photos up on Facebook of some recent family events (just for the record, family events that I LOVED because I was able to join in, not care about eating or drinking, and for once be relaxed and enjoy the event). However the photos made me cry, shudder, and immediately contemplate fasting, juice cleansing, restricting, food group elimination, excessive exercising...the usual.

These were some of the photo culprits:

My initial thoughts on these photos:
Image on the left: Well hello there thunder thighs, and wow your arm's looking chunky
Image on the top right: Your hips are humongous and, erm, are you pregnant?!
Image on the bottom right: Are you hoarding food in those hamster cheeks? Oh, and by the way, your arm's obese.

Talk about some self-loathing.

Let's take another look. Firstly, I AM NOT OBESE. After the initial shock of looking so much bigger than I was, I realised I was not fat. Hell, I know some people work there backsides off to get down to this weight.

Image on the left: this is not a flattering photo. You did not know it was being taken. Those are your muscular runner's legs, those are your legs that can make you feel like you're flying. They're also in jeans that are now too small, and too tight clothes are never looking flattering. Maybe let's splash out on some new clothes to suit my curvier, healthier body yes? Oh, and how about looking at your other arm which is at a slightly less unflattering angle?
Image on the top right: again, that shadowing is not flattering. And yeah, you're tummy's a bit chunkier. But some of that is muscle from all those sit-ups you do. You also messed up your digestion from all that restrictive eating, so sometimes you get bloated. Eating more's the only way to cure this. (And look at that genuinely happy smile on your face - you're loving life right there).
Image on the bottom right: remember those push ups you do every day...that might have something to do with your arm size. Also remember how much you love feeling strong. As for your cheeks, unfortunately you weren't blessed with strong cheek bones and dimples - you're going to have to learn those cheeks.

And remember how happy you felt in each and every one of those photos. That's worth every extra inch of fat on your body in those photos.

So yeah, it turns out recovery is hard. But you've just got to remember to dig out that voice of self-love when it gets a bit dark. You're stronger than those negative thoughts.

Wearing a bikini and a new reality

So I did it. I wore a bikini. In front of other people.

I genuinely don't remember the last time I wore a bikini without covering it up with shorts and a t-shirt. Just the thought of showing off every inch of fat on my body filled me with dread. I thought people would scrutinise all the imperfect parts of my body - not just my weight, but my pale skin; my cellulite; my untoned stomach; my poorly done bikini wax; my varicose veins...the list goes on.

I felt like the moment I took off my clothes it was going to be like there a was a massive siren going off accompanied by a big flashing arrow, with everyone turning round to gawp in disgust. I thought my boyfriend would see me and automatically hate me for all of my imperfections. And none of this was because anyone had ever done these things - my boyfriend certainly not, he's amazingly supportive - but that didn't stop my disordered brain thinking disordered things.

I couldn't come on a beach holiday and sit covered up the whole time, so I locked myself in the bathroom for quite some time, gave myself a pep talk, and braved the beach. To my amazement, as I stripped off there was no flashing light or loud sound. Unsurprisingly noone was looking in my direction, nor cared one tiny bit that I was stripping off into my bikini. And, of course, my boyfriend didn't look at me like I was some ugly lump of fat. Which isn't surprising as, not only is it not something he's not seen before, but surely something every boyfriend wants is to spend time with their girlfriend in a bikini?!

So where did I pick up the courage from? After all, I have done zero exercise and eaten poorly for the past few weeks, am almost the heaviest I've been for years, amd am covered in bruises from carrying stuff round at the exhibition...so I'm not exactly in peak condition!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, the last few weeks I've had a new found relaxed attitude to eating. I've no idea where it's come from, but it's given me the head space to look at things in a new way. Before I would have been so caught up in my negative thoughts that I wouldn't have had any time to do anything other than panic. However being more relaxed has given me time to think about the situation I'm in and to look around me. At first I still found myself idolising people with tiny frames...and then once again realised that they were the bodies of teenagers. Which just made me angry with myself - adults are not supposed to look like children! Once I started looking around me at actual adults I saw women of all different shapes and sizes, all wearing bikinis and all looking amazing. No one was looking at them in a negative way at all.

One of the key reasons they looked so amazing was because they were all exuding confidence. I'm not going to pretend I know what was going through their heads (I'm sure they all have body hang-ups) but they were sat there acting like they were loving life, and wearing a bikini was neither here nor there for them. When I looked at them I didn't see their body type, I saw fantastically happy and confident women. And that's how I wanted to feel: happy, confident and carefree! Why should I be the woman sat on the beach covered up because of my own negative thoughts?!

And that's exactly it: we are our own worst enemies. We impose our own views on the world around us - if we think negatively about ourselves then we often think the world thinks the same about us. If we're judging ourselves on our bodies, then we assume everyone else is doing the same. In reality, people are often far too caught up in their own lives to notice other people. And even if they do, and they think something negatively about our bodies, so what? They may have a more toned stomach than you, or a more tanned complexion, but if they're judging us negatively based on our looks then their personality and good nature - the important things in life - don't even come close to yours.

The biggest favour we can do ourselves is to reevaluate the norms we've created for our own individual realities. Do they actually match the norms that really exist? I built myself a reality in which I thought everyone has the perfect bikini body, no one has cellulite, everyone has perfect skin, and everyone judges you based on your looks. In true reality the norms are that hardly anyone is so skinny you can see their ribs, that most women have cellulite and people don't spend their days judging you based on their looks.

I know this shouldn't have been such a revelation to me, but it was. As a result it gave me the confidence to sit on that beach, knowing I wasn't perfect, and not care. Being surrounded by women in bikinis, appreciating every woman for her own shape and size, made me realise how uptight and unrealistic I was being. And by being that way, not just in terms of wearing a bikini, but in every aspect of my life, from eating, to relationships, to work, I was denying myself the space to be truly happily and live my life to the fullest. Living your life terrified of other people's judgements, and your own self-judgements, is a half life. Recognise reality for what it is, and then be present in it - wear a bikini, eat chips, and smile :)

Thursday thoughts: Binging

Binging.

There are so many different levels of binging.

For some people, someone might say they've binged on chocolate simply if they've eaten a single chocolate bar out of an emotional reason.

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 Others may classify a binge as munching your way through an entire share size bag of crisps or chocolate.

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And then there's the binging where you just have to get as much food inside you as quickly as possible, you're not really tasting the food, and you end up with a stomach that's so full that you're in agony, you can barely move, and you want to throw up.

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I've never purged, but I can understand exactly why people do. If not to rid themselves of the calories and the negative emotional feelings, just easing the pain would be enough.

Plus there are the feelings the following day. I won't have slept because of the pain and anxiety and sweats. I'll feel disgusted and ashamed, like I don't even deserve to be a human being. I'm bloated, gassy, my stomach aches, my blood sugar levels are all over the place, and I don't want to be around anyone. 


To me the binge feels like a craze - I can't stop, and I'm completely numb, just grabbing any food in sight and eating it. And if I run out of the food in the house (I've even gone through the bin before) then I'll head up to the supermarket and fill up a basket or even a trolley. This picture may look extreme, but sometimes that's how I feel. I'll end up with food down my clothes, all over my hands and face, and I don't care, I just need to get the food in my body. I've even been to the supermarket to continue my binge to find food down my trousers and peanut butter on my cheek. It's so shameful to admit.

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In the DSM-V criteria (the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental practitioners) binge eating is defined by "eating significantly more food in a short period of time than most people would eat under similar circumstances, with episodes marked by feelings of lack of control." We "may eat too quickly, even when we are not hungry." We may "have feelings of guilt, embarrassment or disgust and may binge eat alone to hide the behaviour".

And what causes a binge? I imagine it's different for everyone. I believe there are two generic causes. The one that sits in the here and now, and the one that sits deep down below which causes all of our eating problems.

The ones that sit here and now for me are things such as:
- being alone in the house and having the opportunity to eat without anyone around
- feeling relieved
- returning home after an event where I thought it would be difficult not to overeat and managing to restrict myself...only then to blow it
- having something sugary or "disallowed"
- I also think just not eating enough makes our body crave food

Then the deeper ones - well I don't know what these are. These are the deep beliefs that cause us to have disordered patterns with food, and binge despite knowing how horrible it will make us feel, or how damaging it is to our bodies (I'll discuss this in a future post). 

We are constantly wanting to lose weight, get thinner and thinner. And what happens? We either get to a point where we eat nothing and become skeletons, or we can't maintain that and we develop a binge-restrict cycle. Binging is a common word in our vocabulary, and that's not natural. Binging isn't natural. Restricting isn't natural. What's natural is eating when we're hungry and stopping when we're full.

And making all of this worse is the sugary, processed foods we eat. The ones that make us addicted and leave us craving more and more.

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Ultimately to stop binges we need to understand what's causing our disordered eating patterns, learn how to manage them, and ensure we're eating enough and that what we're eating is natural and clean.

Next week I'll talk about the damage we're doing to our bodies from binging. But for now let's remember that binging can be a proper psychological issue, and that we shouldn't beat ourselves up. We need to recognise we've got a problem, and do something about it by seeking the right kind of help :)

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Hope you have a wonderful day,

E x

WIAW: Vitamin E

Hi everyone!

I'm doing my "half way through the week" dance!

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 For today's What I Ate Wednesday I wanted to talk about vitamin E.

Function
Vitamin E is actually a group of minerals (who'd have thunk it) that all have some fancy mineral names that aren't particularly important, like alpha-topocerol. What is important is how good Vitamin E is in protecting our cell membranes as a result of its antioxidant properties.It's fat soluble, and therefore particularly good at protecting the fat that lines each and every one of our cells. It kicks free radicals' little booties when they try and attack our cells.

Cheeesy face picture source

This is why vitamin E is seen as being good for the skin. These free radicals can damage the collagen that keeps our skin plump and wrinkle-free.
 
Vitamin E has been linked to preventing dementia and other age-related diseases due to these protective qualities (when cell membranes become damaged cell function can be damaged).

Vitamin E also protects bad cholesterol from free radicals. If bad cholesterol is attacked it can harden in our arteries, which in turn can lead to problems such as heart disease.

Recommended intake and deficiency
Males are recommended to take in 4mg a day, and women a little less at 3mg. We can also store vitamin E, so can drawer on our internal "pantry" of vitamin E if we have a day of low intake. However it is a good idea to make sure you're eating enough fat due to vitamin E being fat soluble.

Because of this it's rare to suffer from a deficiency, particularly if we're eating a healthy, varied diet, and symptoms are minimal if existent.

Dietary sources

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As usual, leafy greens are great sources (what are they not good sources of?! EAT YOUR GREENS!). As are nuts and seeds and plant oils.

- Sunflower seeds = 12mg per 1/4 cup
- Almonds = 6mg per 1/4 cup
- Spinach = 4mg per cup
- Swiss chard = 3mg per cup
- Avocado = 3mg per cup
- Olives = 2mg per cup
- Chili peppers = 2mg per 2tsp

So we should be able to easily get out vitamin E intake through our diet, protecting ourselves from heart disease, age-related diseases, and keeping our skin looking fresh.

 
So what did I eat to make sure I was getting my vitamin E?

Breakfast was moooore strawberries and some roasted nuts, including almonds - so a good dose of vitamin E there :)

 For lunch I had an M&S salad with quinoa and soya beans. Not biggies for vitamin E there, but all the veg will have had some to tot up a bit.

I also had an apple with that to fill me up a bit more.


Mid afternoon I had some popcorn to keep me going on the train journey home.

Then for dinner I had a salad with a good old lump of houmous, which contains tahini (made of sesame seeds - woop) and a few olives! I also had a date dipped in tahini, just to make sure I was getting my levels :P


 Was quite proud of my eats today :)

Again, still over on the fats, but I know they're healthy. I've got a time booked in to go and see a dietician on Monday so that I can speak to her about upping my calories etc. which I hope will be the next step in me eating more :)

What source of vitamin E did you eat today?

E x

Sources
http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=111http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminE-HealthProfessional/
http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/information/nutrition/vitamin-e-benefit-skin.htm
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/lifestyle-guide-11/supplement-guide-vitamin-e?page=2
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vitamins-minerals/Pages/Vitamin-E.aspx

Comparing ourselves to our perceptions of others

Hi all,

Today I wanted to discuss my second therapy session from last Thursday with you. I was far less nervous this time round:  I think I was happier with my food diary this week and knew more about what to expect.

We started off talking about the Minnesota starvation study that my therapist had given me to read. She asked me what had most stood out to me, at which I listed out pretty much everything I'd read! In particular:

- That when the individuals had restricted and then were allowed to eat again they had massive urges to binge. That made me feel better about having urges to binge - less like an abnormal monster!

- They became obsessed with food whilst restricting, spending hours looking at recipes or packaging on foods - I could totally relate with this!

- Whilst restricting their calorie intake the participants experienced emotional changes, becoming socially isolated and moody. You just need to speak to my parents to confirm my mood changes...

- When increasing calories again participants experienced weight gain particularly around the stomach area, and this took time to redistribute...but it did redistribute. In fact all participants recovered in all areas, but it took time.

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The therapist used this to make me think about the effects that not eating enough might have on me, why I might be binging, and the journey and symptoms I have ahead of me.

One thing I've noticed is that she won't point things out, she'll raise something and leave it in the air for me to think about, both in and out of the session. As she said, most of the work takes place out of the sessions. 

We also talked about binging, and how this might just be my body craving food, even when I'm not hungry. I'm going to try and book a session with the dietitian they have at the practice to discuss what my eating should be like, and what my current eating patterns could be doing to my body. I've been doing a lot of thinking about binging since my session, and I'm going to write a separate blog post on this at a later date.

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We spent some time looking at my food diary and discussing how the words "feeling fat" kept occurring. This was something I found particularly difficult to explain, and is something I know we'll delve into again. We discussed why I set myself arbitrary calorie allowances, and how I feel when I exceed this. I talked about how I compare myself to everyone walking down the street, thinking how in control all these people must be, how perfect a life they must have to be able to look like this.

As my therapist pointed out, how do I know that these people haven't just had arguments with their boyfriends, that they don't live off diet soda, that they don't treat people horribly. All these ideas about people who are skinny leading lives of perfection are ones that MY brain is putting on other people. Not everyone is thinking in the way I do, it is my brain, that we all know is disordered, thinking things that may also be disordered. Just because one woman looked great in skinny jeans, why does that mean she's better than me? And even if she is all these amazing things, why does that matter to me? It's not stopping me from having all of those positive personality traits, and I don't have to be unhealthily skinny to have those characteristics anyway.

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I think this is something that is going to take me a while to change my thoughts about, as these are ideas that have been ingrained in my head for a very long time, and continue to be reinforced by all the magazines we read and TV we watch. But I will get there!

So my targets for this week were to start thinking differently about people and to question myself every time I compare myself to someone else based on weight. This is hard, but at least every time I see myself doing it I now think about what my therapist said. That's a step in the right direction :)

I also wanted to work on stopping this binging, so I've been trying to eat a bit more. Again, this is something I'm going to massively struggle with, but I hope if I do it a bit at a time that will help. Unfortunately the first couple of days were binging...but the next couple of days I'm really going to knuckle down. Yesterday was a good start :) I'm going to couple this target with continuing to eat proper meals rather than snacking all the time, so I just need to choose one meal to up my calories at.

Something I felt I was starting to get somewhere with this week was listening to my hunger cues. This was something that I'd ignored for a long time, and my food diary showed I was often rating my hunger levels as low. That obviously shouldn't be the case when I'm not getting the required calories to allow my body to even function at a minimal level! I don't know why this is the case, but I imagine ignoring my hunger cues for so long probably made them a bit redundant, plus snacking all the time can't help. I'm trying really hard to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full, although still pushing myself to have 3 meals even when I'm not hungry (otherwise I'll never get anywhere!). Hopefully this will be something my digestive system will be thankful for!

Do you make judgements of strangers based on their weight?

E x

Meals and gratitude #14

Hello weekend!

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I've been sat in the office today gazing out of the window at the glorious sunshine. If you're down in London like me, how hot is it!? I swear I was walking a bazillion times slower on the way home because it was so hot.

My day started at 5am with an early run. It was glorious! There's something about the peace and quiet, cool air, and the sun waking up that makes it perfect.

I had the usual tahini-dipped date...

...and let's stop there. I was happily writing this post, about to tell you what an AWESOME and IN CONTROL day of eats I'd had. And I just went and ate copious amounts of bread and biscuits. I'd call it a binge - probably well in excess of 1,500 calories in the space of half an hour.

I am seriously angry with myself. But this time I'm angry with myself for a different reason to normal. Usually I'm angry because I'm going to get fat, and I hate myself for demonstrating no self-control. Yes I'm angry with myself for those things, but I'm going to forgive myself. Why? Yesterday in therapy we talked about how binging might be a sign that my body is just craving more food. How even if I'm not hungry, I'm still eating less than my body requires to do all of its basic functions. So no wonder I binge - my body is screaming to eat. Maybe my body is actually showing some authority, controlling me unwillingly to eat?

No, what I'm annoyed about is this: I'm meant to be seeing my boyfriend this evening. I'm not anymore, I just cancelled. I can't be around people when I've just behaved like that and feel like this. So I'm angry because I've messed him around, and because I've deprived myself of something I enjoy. I'm angry because tomorrow I'm not going to feel my best. I'm going to have a sore stomach, I'm going to feel bloated, I'm going to feel tired and anxious. So I'm not going to be fun to be around.

I honestly wish I knew why I binged. Why do I do it when I'm not even tasting the food, when I know I'm going to feel horrible afterwards? It seems to be a lose-lose situation, and I don't know any other point in my life where I put myself in a similar situation.

I'm going to ponder that whilst I'm home alone, feeling annoyed with myself this evening.

I hope you have better evenings! As always, if you have any questions or just want to share something you can always reach me on here or direct message me on Twitter @EatJogGlow

E x

Thursday thoughts: lying

Hi all!

Hope you're all doing ok :)

For this week's Thursday thoughts I wanted to talk about the lying and secretive behaviour that tends to come with disordered eating.

For me there are 3 aspects to lying:

- lying about having eaten when you haven't
- lying/hiding food that you've binged on
- lying about being bothered by food

Lying about having eaten when you haven't

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 Wow, the things I would do to avoid having to eat a proper meal, normally out at a restaurant or at a friend's: "I've already eaten", "I've got leftovers to eat which will go off otherwise", "my flatmates are cooking me dinner", "I'm not feeling well". I think the best was a recent one where I wanted to get out of going for dinner with colleagues, and I told them I had to help my Mum with her tax return. All would be complete lies. I told people that my doctor had suggested I don't eat wheat or dairy because I might have food allergies and therefore it was easier for me to eat at home. I hadn't been to the doctor's in years!

At Christmas or birthdays I would (and still do) often throw away most of the chocolates and food I get given, and then pretend I'd eaten them. "They were so delicious". Early on when my parents would occasionally still buy me the odd chocolate bar I would eat a bite, and then hide it under all the other rubbish in the bin.

I've never been someone who's taken food off my plate at the dinner table and hidden it, but I know that this is another common way of avoiding food.

I know I've been at points where I would literally say anything to avoid having to eat a meal. And I'd lie my butt off to avoid anyone finding out I hadn't been eating enough.

Lying about having binged

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Lying maybe isn't the word, although the first time my boyfriend asked me whether I binged I did say no. I couldn't face him picturing me eating in that way. But on the whole, it's more secretive. For me, the perfect binge was when I knew there was no one at home and I could sneak to the shop, buy a (sometimes trolley) load of food, lug it back to the house, sit in my bed and shove the food in my mouth. I would then put any leftover food and wrappers in a bag (normally the next morning after I'd passed out in a sugar coma/been in so much pain from being full that I couldn't move) and wait until bin day to put them in the wheelie bin. I couldn't risk them seeing all the wrappers.

And if I couldn't get out to the shops, I would eat whatever food was in the house. My parents would wonder where an entire box of cereal had gone, or I'd have to go out and replace the box of my flatmate's bicuits or loaf of bread I'd eaten before they got back.

Very few people know that I binge: my boyfriend does now, as does my Mum...and then my therapist. But other than my therapist I've never discussed it in any depth. I once wrote my boyfriend a letter to try and explain it as I couldn't face talking to him face-to-face about it, and I'd lied so many times to him that the reason I couldn't meet him was because I was tired/had bad period pains/had too much work to do, when in fact I'd binged and could do nothing but huddle up in a ball in my bed.

A binge represents to us everything that we feel we shouldn't be: greedy, obese, no self control.

However what if that binge actually represents everything that makes us human: we binge because we're starving ourselves, we've found a way to deal with the stress in life, our brains are naturally wired to find certain foods addictive.

That doesn't mean we should keep binging, but we shouldn't be ashamed or secretive of it. It's our bodies' cry for help, and rather than sweeping it under the carpet we need to face it head on, discuss it, and learn from it.

Lying about being bothered by food 

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I thought that image summed this up nicely. In my head, the way we should be outwardly presenting to the world is that we hate food. We can do without it. We don't need food for happiness, energy, enjoyment. Our LIVES were more important - all the exciting experiences and achievements we were creating every day.

At the same time, though, if a friend would be waxing lyrical about how cake made the world go round, I would agree, say how much I would love a piece of cake right now. Even though if she'd presented me with a piece of cake I wouldn't have wanted to eat it!

I'll rave about a restaurant that I've been too, even if I only ate a 1/4 of the dish.

I will never tell anyone that I spend all my time thinking about food, counting up my predicted calories for the day, dreaming about chocolate cake.

I will never admit that when someone else is eating something I've denied myself I can't look them in the eye as they eat, as I'm so focussed on the plate of food in front of them. My eyes feel glued to it.

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So, we lie to the people who we love, the most important people in the world to us, all so we can try and drop some pounds.

When put that way it sounds ridiculous, right? But in our heads all logic and rational thought gets removed.

Something I'm already learning from seeing the therapist is that I have to be honest. No matter how awful what I've done sounds, or how scared I am of putting on weight, I have to tell the truth. If she doesn't know something about me, she can't treat it, and therefore I'm never going to get better.

So let's cast any fears of the results of being honest aside, and remember our fear for if we continue with the alternative. We are strong individuals, and we can get better. We can live a life where we're not caught in a tangled web of lies and deceit, where we're not thinking on our feet to find an excuse for a certain social occasion.

Mental health issues are not something to be ashamed of, nor to try and run away from. Face your problems head on, speak up about your issues, and start on your road to recovery :)

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What have you done to overcome lying? How does lying make you feel?

E x

I didn't know myself as well as I thought

Hi everyone!

Hope your weeks are off to a good start.

Today I wanted to talk through some of the things my therapist had picked up from our first weekly session. I thought this might help anyone wondering whether to go to therapy, as hopefully it will make it less scary (!), and also I think some of the things my therapist will pick up on with me will be relevant to a number of people, disordered eaters or not :) I thought I knew myself pretty well, but she pointed out a few things that really resonated that I'd never noticed before.

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I was super nervous about this first session. I didn't know what to expect, and I'd had a really bad few days of eating which I thought we'd have to analyse in great detail. I was so nervous I almost didn't go...

But I'm so glad I did.

One of the things that I'd been asked to complete in advance of the session was a food diary for a few days. It was relatively simple, and asked you to log:

- The time you ate
- What you ate, and quantities (doesn't ask you to go into calories or anything - just asks for a rough estimate)
- Where and who you ate the food with
- How hungry you felt on a scale of 1-5
- Your mood beforehand
- Whether you purged in any way
- Comments and thoughts afterwards

I actually found this really useful - I've never really sat down and analysed my mood before and after eating, and I don't really use hunger signals to judge whether I should eat or not. Identifying feelings makes you realise sometimes it's not just negative emotions you feel, and hopefully over time patterns will start to emerge as to specific eating behaviours/situations and emotions.

My therapist picked up on a few things from my food diary:

- I leave it quite a long time to eat after I've got up - mostly this is due to me exercising first, which she's fine with, but there are times I'll put off eating for as long as possible
- Quite often there are no distinct meals, just constant snacking
- I was eating a lot of sugary foods on my "binge" days
- I wasn't eating enough - which she was obviously aware of any way
- I wasn't rating myself as particularly hungry

I'd never really thought about how late I leave it to eat in the mornings, and I'd never really realised how to an outsider I don't appear to be having any definable meals. And the fact that she said that I wasn't eating enough on days I considered myself as binging was a) mind blowing and b) scary - that meant I was eventually going to need to be eating heaps by her standards!

The part about not rating myself as hungry was interesting. There are times when I do feel starving, but often, especially at the end of the day, it's kind of a numb feeling to food. Or I just feel bloated. Either way, she said I wasn't feeling as hungry as I should have been. She explained how when we don't eat large enough meals, the stomach muscle can weaken, and it becomes less effective at pushing the food through the digestive system. This can sometimes explain why we feel bloated and less hungry. 

I'd also been asked to complete a lifestyle assessment, which asked a whole range of questions. A few things she raised from that was:

- I rate my relationships with my family and boyfriend as good, but my friends as poor - apparently it's usually the other way round
- I answered the question "how would I rate myself" on various qualities by thinking of what other people would say I was. That wasn't the question!

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Related to this last point is that I very rarely use the word "I" when talking about my feelings. I'll say "you", a
bit like "one". So I'll say "you want to do a good job, so you feel the pressure to provide excellent outcomes", rather than "I want to do a good job, so I'll feel pressure to provide outcomes". She says this is a method we use to detach ourselves from emotions and shirk responsibility.

Another snippet of information she passed on was a write up of the Minnesota starvation study. It's so interesting! It's where they did an experiment to see the effects of starving young men, and shows the effects to their physical and mental health, both during and after the study. The link above is to the BBC write up she gave me, but there's heaps of other information on the web. Most importantly, it suggests that to really recover from any form of disordered eating, you need to be getting sufficient calories right at the start to support the mental aspect of recovery.

So I was given a number of things to work on this week:

Eating proper meals

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I've been ok with this. I find it a lot easier if I'm in a routine and not working from home, but I'm making a conscious effort to keep eating all in one go at a mealtime. I've also been trying to include more carbs other than veg, as she said I wasn't eating enough of these. I've started including brown rice and went for a wholemeal pizza the other day to try and boost this.


Eat earlier in the day

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Whilst my therapist was quite happy for me to exercise before eating if it upset my stomach, I'm trying to make sure I eat as early as possible. For example on Saturday I would normally have gone into town first and then eaten a very late breakfast when I got back, but this time I did the opposite. I think this stems from wanting to leave it as long as possible to eat so that it avoids late morning snacking and helps me feel fuller til later in the day.

Use "I" instead of "you

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This is a tricky one as I don't even notice I'm doing it! However when I have noticed it it's been surprising how hard it is to say "I". It makes you feel so much more vulnerable!

 


It's been amazing how much she picked up that I was unaware of just in 50 minutes. After dealing with my disordered eating for many, many years you'd think you've I thought I'd pretty much analysed myself to death, but an outsider has a whole new view on you me. Obviously I don't think those few things are going to cure me - I imagine there are going to be a lot of months if not years to get me well and truly sorted, but it's nice to be taking steps forward...even if it is terrifying sometimes.

Have you ever kept that kind of food diary?

E x

Thursday thoughts: ruled by the scales

Morning everyone!

This week I wanted to discuss how the weighing scales can rule our lives.

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I think everyone can relate to this, eating disorder or no eating disorder. Most people have their own rituals for stepping on their scales, and I imagine few people can say their mood has never been affected by the number they see pop up.

For me, my scales ritual has always been that it must be done first thing in the morning, no clothes, preferably before I’ve done any exercise (I don’t want any fake weight loss from sweating!). This used to happen every day, and then often in the evening too, and even at random points in the day (you know, just in case I’d put on or lost another stone in the last half an hour…). I was obsessed with the scales.

 

When I started bingeing, I became fearful of stepping on the scales. The thought of seeing how I’d failed, how I’d acted in such a “disgusting” way, how large and horrible I was, pictured in scientific numbers, made me panic. But eventually my obsession would win over, I’d step on the scales, and then feel horrific the rest of the day.

 

Often, my obsession with the numbers on the scale was quite removed from my actual body. Yes, I had massive body hang-ups and desperately wanted to be smaller, but the scales were almost a separate numbers game rather than being associated with my looks. In my head, lower numbers meant better self-control, better looking, better determination…generally a better person. I wanted to get to a lower and lower number, and to put on weight was a massive failure. I used to obsess over the estimated weights of celebs you’d see in the magazines so I could compare myself to them (although I doubt they’re even vaguely accurate!). Yet I would never tell anyone my weight: it was a source of internal pride, not something I wanted to disclose to the world.

And to add to the numbers we see on the scale, there are all the additional statistics, such as BMI, to become obsessed with and to set yourself expectations for.

So why do we do this? I know I don’t remember the first day I stood on a scale, but I do remember in a PE class where we were allowed in the gym, and the steps machine asked me to put in my weight to help estimate the number of calories I was burning. I had no idea what weight I was, so I copied someone else’s, and wondered whether I should know what my weight was (and if I should be obsessing over it as much as the other girls). However I have no idea when I started weighing myself regularly. 

Messages get ingrained in our heads from an early age. And it’s not only “you should know how much you weigh”, or “you should be this weight” - I feel it’s starting to become that the only state we should be in is one where we’re losing weight. I often think there's this perception that even if you’re slim, you still have to be seen as trying to lose weight, to keep going and going. And what’s the easiest way of us measuring where we are? The scales of course!

But scales are not even accurate! Many different things can affect the number on the scale, other than our weight, such as hormones, the amount of water our bodies hold on to etc. (this article from Greatist is a brilliant demonstration of this). And check this out:

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That muscle and fat WEIGH THE SAME AMOUNT. Muscle is much denser than fat, and therefore if you have the same volume of muscle and fat in front of you, the muscle will weigh significantly more than the fat. So actually, if you start working out, gaining muscle, you could lose body mass but stay the same weight. And if you’re not aware of this fat v muscle weight issue, you’re going to get frustrated that your workouts don’t seem to be working. You may panic, you may train harder, eat less, all to budge that number on the scale. And most likely you will be training TOO MUCH and eating NOT ENOUGH. All of this doing damage to your body. So, the scale is not some wonder machine. As humans who learn maths and science we see numbers as factual and accurate, something we can use to make comparisons – and this is not the case with scales. 

Another example, these women all weigh 154lbs, yet look how different their bodies are, beautiful each in different ways:

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The scales do not tell us everything. 

We all need to step back and start actually thinking about what the numbers mean. We need to know that the scales can fluctuate around 7lbs without us gaining or losing any real weight. 

We need to ask ourselves SO WHAT? So what if the number on the scale goes up a couple of pounds? The real thing we should be measuring ourselves on is our health. Are we eating a diet that supports our body? Are we eating enough to give us all the nutrients we need? Are we moving our bodies enough? Are we hydrating with water? Are we giving our brains a break from all the stupid mental stresses we put on ourselves, including stressing about our body imge?

So we need to stop obsessing over the scales. The scale no longer needs to be something we see more than our old school friends, or something that dictates how we feel in a day.We are so much bigger than this. No one cares what the number on that scale says, so long as we are HEALTHY!

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My aim is to one day throw my scales away. I want to get to a point where I can listen to hunger signals, and eat intuitively, and let that regulate my weight naturally. Since I started working away from home I have not had scales available to me everyday (although I originally did consider lugging one with me!) And you know what? It's helped me to realise life is possible without knowing your weight everyday (although it was definitely strange for the first few weeks going about my business not knowing my weight that day). Yes, I still feel a larger sense of apprehension when I come to weighing myself when I get back after being away (it’s often the first thing I go and do), but overall I do feel like I have more freedom from the scales. 

I'm going to practice more of the positive thinking  I've shown in this post, and hopefully with the help of a therapist I will eventually get to the point where I throw that scale away. Are you ready to throw away yours too?

Have you ever given up the scales? What's your view on weighing yourself daily?

Hope you all have wonderful days.

E x