running up that hill

I feel like everything in my life is going right at the moment :)
not only does the wi-fi on my East Coast train back up to Durham actually WORK, but it's the perfect opportunity to update which I've been meaning to do for about a week but just far too busy. I also found my camera this morning while packing (occupational hazard when you're as disorganised as me) so I have pictures!

first, rewind to the 18th December. as you'll know if you read her blog, Katie came to stay with me in Durham! I won't be boring and recap stuff which she has, but suffice to say we had a really fun time, and I also got to meet Jessica which kind of made my Christmas too. here are some of my pictures to do a brief summary...



it was RIDICULOUSLY cold. that's our bin, but I picked the picture cause it shows the 'Durham City' sign and the insane amounts of snow. I am heading back up there now so wish me luck! however I think I actually have acclimatised to the cold, cause down South I was ok going out just wearing leggings (lol not JUST, but as opposed to leggings and jeans, you get my point!)



outing number one to El Piano, the vegan gluten free restaurant in York. this was amazing. I had the special 'Aztec' tofu, and the aubergine bake, and Katie's are the sweet potato mousse and falafel. I may not be vegan or coeliac, but who cares I'd still choose to eat there.



second outing on the trip home - totally had to try the falafels. this was the mixed salad with falafel which Katie got as well from the takeout counter. twas amazing again. I'm so glad I managed these meals cause it was quite a big deal for me to move from 'having a substantial lunch' to 'having a substantial lunch OUT' so quickly. but heck nothing is impossible right?

ok aside from eating at El Piano, we also shopped in York, went to the Life Centre (kids science playtime!) in Newcastle, shopped some more, met Jessica, and sat by my radiator jabbering a lot! it was so much fun, and I'm so grateful to Katie for coming up to see me :) she is such a good laugh and a helpful person to talk to about pretty much everything under the sun. I would insert a disclaimer here about how I hope I wasn't too annoying but I think we've both established now that we are both paranoid ;)

ok so after our holiday in the snow, Katie drove me home on the 23rd (thank you :D) and I went to Dorset with my family on Christmas Eve. I won't lie, being at home was seriously difficult. I had wondered if my parents wouldn't comment on my weight as last year I was in a similar position and they didn't. but I think after my IP stay things have changed, and my dad told me I look like I did at my lowest weight and I think he was really scared. ack. well, I'm not that low, and I am doing better behaviourally, which hopefully I demonstrated by doing fairly well with meals over Christmas. it was really hard to deal with the anxiety of knowing that I was being watched, as well as changing up my normal meals. I did some cooking though...



ingredients...




FRYING! ;)

complete...ratatouille. we had this with crispy bacon for dinner and it was pretty darn good. I also made parsnip soup and crusty bread for lunch but didn't get a pic of that. still I really appreciated my dad's willingness to let me cook so I knew what was going into things and felt ok about eating them. he has also been so kind to me helping me out with things...like today he wouldn't let me carry anything on the tube, he made a detour on the way to work to drag my heavy suitcase and a bag full of my blankets and cushion etc while I just carried my shoulder bag. it's so kind of him and I really just want to do better cause I can see the way he looks at me sideways and it's really awful to think how I would feel if I had a daughter who looked the way I do :S

in any case, moving onto the positive, I am still keeping my calories up and haven't let myself slip back down as has happened before. I am really scared to weigh myself though as I'm not sure, there might be a chance that I've lost which would put me in a range I honestly never thought I'd see again...stupid fucking illness. it might just be that I am eating more so I feel smaller for the same weight on the scales though if that makes sense. but I can always increase anyway ;) I definitely feel like my metabolism has sped up, I am actually getting hungry to the point of my stomach rumbling before meals which is so rare for me because of the damage I've done to my digestion through my eating disorder.

hopefully I will be back in Durham in 2 hours now so I'm going to sign off and have lunch, I am bloody starving right now! I'm sure I will update soon though, I have much less to do in the next few days.

hello again :D
thank you so much everyone for all the support on my last post, it was much appreciated :)

I've definitely made headway with the accommodation issue for next year now, saw my senior tutor today and it looks like transferring colleges will probably be possible, so I'm very happy about that. I've also done a lot of my Christmas shopping! Went to the Metro Centre on Saturday and although it was packed, I had a really fun time picking out presents. Benefit mascara for my mum, some locally produced hot chutney for my dad, Harry Potter themed cutlery for my slightly obsessed brother...I won't go on! I also may or may not have bought a couple of things for myself ;)
Got a picture where I think I look less exhausted and a bit happier...in the car park post shopping fun...



(please anyone just tell me if its triggering or awkward to have pictures...figured this one was cool as its just my blurry face lol)
the collared shirt is new from Topshop...I seriously recommend these they are the warmest and most comfortable things ever!

I've been going fairly well with changes to my diet...I haven't done everything I'd wanted to but have made significant changes, breakfast and lunch are now established and more substantial for sure. Plus my weight has been stable for the past few days so obviously it is having the desired effect. I had some really low moments where I was totally convinced that the changes would have me gaining and gaining, and I'd just freak out and go backwards, then have to be admitted and gain anyway. Clearly this was all ED'd bullshit which I am so glad I ignored cause I only gained 1lb and I'll bet that was just the thing they talk about where your glycogen stores increase etc. However I have my period now which is also driving my ED mental (I've actually had it a few lbs above where I am now before, but low 13s bmi? don't know what my body is doing) but again, I am going to try the ignore tactic. Regarding weight gain, I know a few people commented on this, at the moment I am trying to stay where I am and avoid hospital over Christmas, which is basically where I was heading until I started to turn things around. Obviously my life plan is not to maintain at this weight. But when I think about long term & gaining it throws me off right now, I don't feel stable enough to contemplate it without freaking out. My doctors etc do want me back up to bmi 15 at the very minimum though so obviously at some point in a few weeks/months that will have to be addressed.

The only other thing that is stressing me out at the moment is money, annoyingly. It's irritating cause I've been so thankful that my binge/purging hasn't been as compulsive and out of control as the last time I was at this sort of weight, it has been more balanced with restricting mostly. But I can really see the impact of malnutrition and weight etc on the impulsivity of my spending and it's not good at all. Spent over £40 in Sainsbury's today, and do I NEED any of this stuff? Hell no. Is a 70p reduction justification for buying 3 tubs of pesto which I won't keep down anyway (among other similar stupid purchases)? Ugh, ridiculous. I get into this mindset at low weights where I feel like I NEED to stockpile food or have particular things and it's such a waste. It's not that I don't have the money, but I don't really think when my parents put aside savings for me as a child they envisaged some emaciated 21 year old version of me spending it on food I wouldn't digest. I don't know, I might come across as flippant but I feel so damn guilty, not only for this but for the amazing help I get from the NHS, the benefits I claim cause of my eating disorder, everyone bending over backwards to help me & what do I achieve? Being 'good' at being ill? Great. I need some real life achievements for once.

Sorry if that was a bit depressing it's just been going round my mind a bit lately. In general I am feeling alright though, at least better :)

I hope everyone is suitably excited over the fact that there are only TWO weeks until Christmas! I know I certainly am...I seem to have far more festive spirit this year than usual! The liver's out proctor came over and gave us mince pies this morning, there are local bands playing carols in town, I am plotting my presents and we are going to a carol service in the amazingly beautiful cathedral on Monday. All is well :)

We also had a house Christmas lunch on Sunday which was such a fun thing to do with my housemates...managed to snap some pics too :D



table all set up with Secret Santa presents



Henrietta (yes, my housemate named our chicken!) being carved



my brilliant Secret Santa present! (have been wearing these constantly!)



and yeah, this is me :) I know I look like I haven't slept in a month, but we're working on it yes?

regarding everything I talked about in the last post, I have emailed my senior tutor and I'm going to talk to her next week about hopefully getting a room in the self catered college next year. she seemed really sympathetic so that was nice. I am a bit nervous seeing as I seem to have given the impression that things are going really well so seeing her in person will be interesting though. although I'm not sure to what extent now my feeling that things are so much better than they were this time last year is true or just denial. I'm a fair bit off my lowest weight now, but then again I was actually higher than I am now last January and reached my lowest in Feb. then again, behaviourally things are better. and I feel like I HAVE learned things from my hospital stay which I can hopefully put into action this time around. I feel less hopeless. so crossed fingers it wasn't that much of an untruth.

yesterday I feel like I really made a big step in pushing my eating disorder out for Christmas, which is a massive goal of mine - to be feeling more normal and in less of a dangerous position over the holiday. I added a meal in, which in itself isn't new...I've done 'increases' before but they've never stuck and I think my eating disorder knew they wouldn't and felt safe with it. this time I really did not feel safe and really didn't want to do it...but I did it anyway...I can't express how amazing that felt. I think things turned around a bit on Tuesday, when some things happened which really brought home to me how serious this is at the moment, plus I woke up down 3lbs since I'd been 'maintaining' last week which I absolutely couldn't blame on fluctuation and scared me quite a lot. so this morning I'm back up one of those lbs and of course my eating disorder wants to run with this and say 'see, STOP, you're going to gain every time you add something in'. I know this is bullshit though. yes going up a lb or two will be normal as there is more food in my stomach and so on but let's face it, it is totally necessary and won't even make a difference to my body except for feeling better physically! right now I am just wrestling with the dilemma of weighing myself at all to be honest. part of me wants to stop entirely for the next couple of weeks as I plan to make some more increases (add a night snack, among other things) and don't want to scare myself. I'm not sure if I need to know though, cause I know realistically if I started to lose anything I'd have to increase faster. has anyone else got advice about what they did in this situation? I won't have weigh ins after this Friday for awhile cause of the Xmas period, and I know I'm on quite thin ice, I can't just drop a few kilos without knowing, but I don't want to become obsessed with fluctuations either.

aside from stressing over such mundane rubbish, I have been addicted to online 'shopping' lately, both for people's presents and things I may or may not want to buy for myself in the January sales! I am totally stuck over a present for my dad though...just what do you buy for middle aged men, seriously?! I think I'm gonna make a trip to the Metro Centre on Saturday and do some serious present buying, which should be great fun :) I will certainly take pics of the decorations if they're nice, and probably hang out in Starbucks for ages topping up my blood caffeine levels.

I hope everyone is having an amazing, erm, Advent? period!

Believe it or not, I may have actually updated my blog!

So sorry it’s been such a long time :( I honestly have missed blogging immensely and especially in the past few weeks I’ve been keeping up with lots of other people’s blogs and plotting to come back. I’ve basically had to write five out of six of the term’s essays in the past two weeks, so I decided to put off writing this entry until today...which is effectively D Day after I trekked across the howling winds, rain and 2 degree weather of Durham to put them in the department pigeon holes ;) not like I’m overdramatising it or anything!

Anyway. This term has been...interesting to say the least. Freshers week was utterly hectic, and the first few weeks of term I had very little sleep and consumed a slightly shocking amount of alcohol ;) since then...well to be honest my eating disorder has been really out of control. I remember very little in the way of actual logic. Just sitting on my doorstep smoking after a night out on fresher’s week thinking that I really had the opportunity to ‘be’ a typical student this year, to go out, get involved and have fun without all this crap holding me back. And that thought totally repelled me. I didn’t want to. What on earth that means I don’t know. Anyway, I almost don’t want to get into how messed up things were but I may as well be open about it. I lost 20% of my bodyweight in five weeks, and I wasn’t really healthy to begin with. The last week, I’ve stayed stable at a bmi of about 13.5, so for the first time since mid Oct I think I’m managing to get a hold on things at least to some degree,especially given that when clothed/hydrated that makes me just about where I need to be for weigh ins etc. I didn’t want to talk about this with anyone unless I felt like I was actually doing something about it you know? Of course, maintaining is messing with my head utterly. I hate the feeling of total paranoia, convincing yourself that unless you’re losing, you MUST be gaining. Right now I am really fighting with the desire to ‘just lose a couple more kilos’ so I have room for manoeuvre. Why exactly I think I need that I don’t know but it CAN’T happen. I want to increase what I’m eating gradually and get to a more ‘real’ maintenance diet of about 13/1400 calories (obviously lower cause my weight is lower, I’m not suggesting anyone sane maintain on that :S) by Christmas. Right now I’m eating a fair bit less than that but I probably just nuked my metabolism and I guess it will pick up when I increase.

As far as uni goes, I am absolutely LOVING our house and my living situation. Despite things being a bit messed up health wise they’re a million times better than they were last year just cause of living in our own place, with one of my closest friends. We literally just banter about everything under the sun, and have little projects like baking bread or our Secret Santa. I’m totally confused about what to do next year now though, I hate the way just as soon as you’re settled they start talking about housing and rent! I’m allowed to move back into college, but they said I ‘can’ get a special concession to live in the self catered college if I want. Which would be AMAZING given the a) better food b) really new nice rooms with ensuites and shiny new furniture, but it’s not my college and it would be even harder for me to get involved in college life than it already is as a fresher living out. I don’t have to decide this for a week or so but it’s playing on my mind since the essay crisis has passed!

I’m planning on staying up North for most of the Xmas holidays cause Katie is coming to see me after the end of term, then I’m gonna do something for New Year with another friend who lives up near here. I may freeze, but hey, I usually get utterly bored at home during holidays so it should be a welcome change. Hope everyone is ok and sorry if this first entry is really rushed/nonsensical. Hopefully I will get back to blogging more lately. I’m sorry if this isn’t all inspiring and happy too, I want to keep the blog for myself but am pretty low & unmotivated at the moment. But life goes on. So my blog will go on :)

ps major thanks Jessica and Laura for your kind messages wondering how I was...I realy appreciated it and it motivated me to post!

post title in honour of J, who I am excited to see soon when I get back to uni :D

I realised this morning that by the end of this week, a month will have gone past during which I've only binge/purged once. a bizarre realisation for someone who even carried on finding a way to do it while in hospital and heavily supervised. also felt like a HUGE milestone for me because it's well below the cut-off point to be medically diagnosed with bulimia. of course doctors are slightly insane and it isn't actually possible to 'technically' suffer from anorexia and bulimia simultaneously, but I've always thought that rather than the more misleading and nebulous idea of 'purging anorexia' would describe my illness well. so, I am slowly erasing all 'signs' that I have an eating disorder. next step is the weight criteria, I'm sure :D

anyway my second thought was that I should blog about it, and I realised that I hardly ever talk about how I've been able to stop the bulimic behaviour. partially I think, because when like me you lost a lot of weight and retained most of the old fears associated with restrictive anorexia, the initial recovery process is very similar. I found that when I started keeping down food, it felt like I was right back in the mindset of my teenage years. also, everything seemed to fall in place at once. I always understood this on a logical level - I knew that even when I was restrictive I was terribly afraid of bingeing, partially because I was so starved that I knew my body would have taken over and had me eating everything and anything in an instant if it wasn't for the paralysing fear of weight gain. when that 'fear' was taken away bulimia quite literally took over my life and I realised that the idea of being able to eat absolutely anything and lose weight was really not the holy grail I'd imagined. but I digress. I'm trying to narrate how I managed this past month so that I never fall into the old logical fallacies again. when I was maintaining a low weight, I didn't even think that I WANTED to stop bingeing & purging. it was totally alien to me - why would you want to? wouldn't anyone do this if they knew how? but now...while eating what I NEED, aka enough to gain weight on a consistent basis...it seems like a fading nightmare. why did I do that to myself? the obvious answer is my refusal to give my body what it needed. I didn't understand this for years. I would say it, but secretly believe that eating 1500, 1600 calories or similar was 'enough'. and I'd wonder why I could still have struggled when I was in hospital, and in the past at higher weights. the answer now is obvious - I resented 'having' to keep down a full meal plan and gain weight, and there were very limited behaviours I could get away with which would somehow alleviate the stress. it's quite illuminating now to see how much I tried to run away from what I needed to do, because it terrified me. I'm writing this partially to remind myself, but also cause I know that lots of people with eating disorders are terrified of bingeing, having been there myself even when I'd never done it...I hope explaining my story helps a little to prove that both the fear and the reality of overeating really do decrease a) as you eat what you need, regularly, and get closer to a healthy weight if you need to and b) as you ACCEPT your body's needs and give yourself permission to eat rather than resenting it. obviously there are still emotional triggers, but if you are restricting or in a restrictive mindset where you want to be restricting, they are amplified about a million times. of course I don't believe I will be 'cured' by weight restoration, but I think the fact that I am practising point number 2 every day will be a big help for the triggers that are more related to emotions or attitude to food :) in a way I suppose it's been helpful for me that I need to gain so I can ease myself into 'justifying' eating something that I just crave or am hungry for rather than having a restrictive mindset. I'm sure that will get harder as my weight goes up but I'm prepared to conquer it :D

besides pondering stuff like this I've actually been rather busy for the last few days :) I went out with my housemate on Monday to do some last minute pre-uni shopping, and I was in London again with Jemima and Katie yesterday. Katie's birthday + my first UK blogger meet-up = a very fun day :D we obviously went to Wholefoods and raided the salad bar, then wandered around Camden/Oxford Street/Regent Street all afternoon. luckily I think we are all the talkative type and couldn't stop jabbering about pretty much everything. it was really funny to share irritated memories of IP with Jemima...we have been in the same unit (and are NEVER going back, lol). It's really nice to spend time with people who are going through similar things to you sometimes, especially when they are so brilliant :D. I will be very sad not to be very close by to Katie for the first time in ages when I move!

other activities have included setting up my new laptop (YAY!)



and eating lots of Marshmallow Fluff obtained from Selfridges Food Hall (double yay!)



I think I'm finally getting on top of my to-do list before Sunday. car insurance - check. module choices - check. I put 'the history of the book (medieval)' right at the bottom of my preference list ;) I hate medieval history with a passion. packing - not checked yet. but I'm getting there!

I am so emotionally exhausted right now, it's taken me about 3 hours of sofa-collapsing and TV watching to push myself into writing this post. I pretty much just want to sum up today in expletives but I will do my best to restrain myself ;)

For a start, I spent most of the morning feeling awful and beating myself up over everything I wrote about yesterday. It's so goddamn frustrating that I finally feel like I am past the ambivalence I had for so long about actual weight gain itself, but now all these doubts and guilt about 'being greedy' or 'eating to gain when I don't need to' come sneaking up on me. I just feel totally pathetic and immature now for even being worried by it, and I don't know why because to be honest it's quite understandable (I am trying out this 'having compassion for yourself' thing? it's weird...) given that I have a meeting next week where I am supposed to be told a meal plan to maintain my weight, and I've been feeling overly full and not 'ready' to eat when I need to which is pretty much my biggest dread/irrational fear. plus please someone tell me how it's possible to feel too full when all you eat is refined carbs and sugar with absolutely no vegetables? lol, fuck my life. also, someone in real life today asked me 'you're at your target weight now right?'...perfect timing, world.

anyway moving on, I think I must have convinced my head to shut up by just sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling 'I'M NOT LISTENING FUCK YOU' as though I were four years old! haven't really worried about anything like that this afternoon/evening, but unfortunately mostly because I was feeling generally low, crap, and lacking in motivation to think about or do anything really. plus worrying about real life fun which I can't even write about here...ok to be honest I can't write about it anywhere. it is kind of hitting me that I need a therapist purely because I want to talk to someone who actually has to keep confidentiality...good thing I am moving soon. I also fell asleep for half of the afternoon which totally f-uped when I was supposed to eat...if you ever have the inclination to end up in a position where you have to try cramming 1500 calories into 5 hours with very little fat content...just don't! I practically started crying into the toaster when I burnt a piece for the FOURTH time cause I was so irritated and not paying attention to it. just in that sort of mood today, I think a red light changing at the wrong time could probably make me cry! realising that my laptop is definitely broken beyond repair and I'm going to have to buy a new one in the next two weeks definitely DID make me cry :P another 'don't do it'...Dell laptops! because I am feeling sorry for myself I have to show you...check this out ;)

before I get on to the confused mess that was today - I think I actually ate a ridiculously 'typical' thing for a blogger just now :P
I gave in and bought gluten free porridge today, despite the extortionate price tag, cause this mix has only 0.7g fibre per serving, and I have seriously resented not being able to eat porridge recently! I have to say, it wasn't as good as regular porridge, but I prefer it to rice flakes. and my randomly inspired topping tasted damn amazing...



frozen cherries (another fairly low fibre discovery! fruit, I missed you) and cream cheese 'icing', basically mixed up with a tsp of Cadburys drinking chocolate. sounds weird, tastes great! if I really wanted to fit in I would call it chocolate cherry cheesecake oats ;) but let's just say that, being an odd one out again, I've eaten cheesecake many many (too many?) times in the last few years and it doesn't exactly taste the same. still really good though. and far cheaper, lol.

(added a sidenote - there are numbers in the following rant, feel free to skip!)

as for the confused mess - I am starting to remember (one of) the reasons my weight restoration efforts have tended to slow down and reverse themselves in the past. I'm noticing a huge change recently in the way my body and mind function and feel. a good one! but really pretty triggering. in the simplest possible way: I'm starting to feel far less hungry. that's misleading though, I don't mean hungry in the stomach rumbling physical way. I wouldn't pay any attention to that anyway cause my stomach is so damn screwed up! what I'm referring to is the more subtle physiological manifestations of starvation. I'm sure lots of you reading this will have experience of this - the anxiety around food, inflexibility, physical signs, clock watching. beyond that I experience it just as a FEELING...an extremely uncomfortable one at that, like a psychological gnat biting you! generally although I'm unaware of physical hunger when I'm ill, it is fairly obvious that there's a war going on - my body is screaming for nutrition and I am brutally ignoring it. what is confusing me now is that I'm not feeling that anymore, it's dropping away scarily fast. and I remember this happening over and over again during the period where I 'managed' my ED in my late teens. I bounced between a bmi of 14 and 17 thereabouts for a couple of years, and I'd try to gain then run out of steam and feel like I was ok when I got close to the higher end. even when I am eating a pretty high intake, if I'm at a lower weight the mental & physical awareness of being starved doesn't go away. but I am noticing it changing a lot now, which fits as I'm in the low 16s bmi wise.

sooo, as for why this is a bad thing?? ok, it isn't actually at all. but I've spent all day driven to absolute frustration with the spiral of thoughts that I'm obviously just 'greedy' for trying to gain more when I feel like my body is saying 'stop'. coupled with the fact that I've been getting periods for quite awhile, the 'obvious' (or totally deluded :P) conclusion for me is that I don't have 'permission' to gain more because I probably just have a weird body. of course all the stuff about menstruation being related to body fat percentage doesn't help either. I've always heard and thought that the body should 'settle' and hunger should decrease when you are close to a normal weight, so I'm really just questioning what the $%£$ my body thinks it's doing...I pretty much 'want' to still feel hungry? very strange...

before I go any further...the whole thing rings HUGE alarm bells for me and as such I am being stubborn and eating exactly the same way I have been, despite a distinct feeling of meal times rushing up on me incredibly fast and being bored of eating. for the moment I'm totally capable of continuing to gain purely on the premise that it's not going to hurt anyone :P and even if I were healthy, remaining underweight would hurt psychologically. plus I think I'll look better with another 20lbs, lol. but I'm still an obsessive crazy person who really needs answers rather than generic assurances. I really want to know what's going on with my body, because every sensible part of my brain is telling me that the odds of me being healthy at this bmi or a bit higher are absolutely miniscule given that I'm 20 and Caucasian. there must be some other odd explanation, I would just really love to know what so I could beat my ED over the head with facts. is it actually possible for your body to 'adapt' to anorexia, hence why I've had periods at lower and lower weights etc? do I just not know what 'healthy' really feels like? heh, I am probably going to research this like crazy and find nothing now. hopefully I will find a way to either rationalise it or just ignore it soon though...in terms of not thinking about it, not just ignoring the thoughts which I am already doing ;)

I get so overwhelmed when I 'put off' blogging for a day but I have things to write about...where do I start?! thank you everyone for wishing me luck in the review. it was actually ok. well I'm not really sure how I feel about it but it didn't affect me badly or anything, all pretty routine really.

we talked about planning, and how I have planned (or not!) my transition to uni. cue me feeling like a right idiot because I must have come across as so unprepared, as though I were attempting to use the opportunity to 'escape' or something. really, there isn't much I actually can do until I'm there, and I said I was confused by all this talk of planning when really, it's just up to me whether it goes well or not. er, do I have a bit of a tendency to reject help and try to be too independent? mayyyybe :P

anyway, turns out the 'plan' that was being talked of basically involved setting a weight which if I drop below 'bad things will start to happen' i.e. communication between my GP and home, I think. supposedly to catch things before I go totally insane. good safety net, honestly though I was thinking 'oh fuck, no WAY am I going that low again'...if I did it would almost certainly end in another admission anyway, and just...no. it was slightly depressing that the whole meeting was about what might happen if I reached a dangerously low weight though, not the possibility of any improvement! on that note though I have broken the plateau I've been stuck at for awhile and gained a bit more :D I'm now, er, 60% of the way from my lowest to my goal? which is pretty cool and encouraging. I think everyone else in the meeting except me was surprised though! I am supposed to set up a meal plan 'for maintenance' too but I ain't going to bother ;) I want to come back at Christmas and shock everyone at home...but this time not because I look like death warmed up, in a good way!

the rest of my day has been one of those where every little irritating thing possible happens, but I'm in a good mood! loving it. the annoyances though? well firstly, it took me 45 minutes to make the 15 min drive back from my review, what with early morning traffic. I'd gotten up at 7.30 (this is WAY early for me. practically inhuman!) and it was 10 by the time I got home, not having eaten yet. yeahhhh you can imagine I was one GRUMPY driver! so I had breakfast while watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer (did anyone else's teen years feature this show heavily? lol. James Marsters is still smoking hot!) messed around on MSN and talked to Katie. most exciting part...you can see my msn icon in her pic! hehe.

I decided to have a particularly expensive lunch to revel in the last couple of weeks I'll be living at home and able to slyly eat bits and pieces of my parent's food :P



tuna salad toast & smoked salmon/Philadelphia/lemon/black pepper toast. wish I could afford this every day!

post-lunch, the heavens decided to open and there was pretty much a torrential downpour. which, er, kind of spoiled my plan to go for a run! not a fan of being soaked to the skin. still, looking on the bright side of life, it was good to prove to myself that I don't HAVE to run, I just like to. I went shopping instead, ate the same way I'd planned and had a great time! I have itchy feet now and am looking forward to running tomorrow though :) but my shopping trip was time well spent, because I finally managed to buy things I've been looking for for weeks. I have a shopping problem - ok not a 'problem' exactly but a problem in that when I 'need' things I tend to go out and buy totally random other things which I could really do without! so today I found a jacket and some boots, which I've known I needed for my move to the frozen North for ages. check these out, have to show off ;)





lol, do I look like Samara from the Ring? trust me, I look ROUGH today, so you all don't get to see my face. it was the early morning I swear! also, if you ever feel like a challenge try taking a non-blurry picture of yourself with your hair covering your face. tricky! or perhaps I'm just totally un-coordinated...

so shopping has cheered me up :D I am rather pensive following that review though. I think it's kind of hitting me that this is really my last chance at moving away for university. if I end up in such a dangerous position again I don't think anyone will feel safe signing off on me going back to be honest. my outlook feels so different right now, in that the idea of going back there honestly makes me want to cry. in the sense of being incredibly sad that I apparently believed I deserved to go through that, and not to ask for help until my little visit to the general hospital scared me into it. but I know how easy it is for things to slide. I'm up for the challenge, but it's more than a little scary! I've relapsed, well, a lot of times. how many failures does it take before learning from your mistakes becomes easier? is determination enough? it had damn well better be...

despite being a Sunday, today was destined to be a good one because of the 4 hour marathon of 'Lie To Me' on Sky 2 this afternoon. I officially love Tim Roth and am a TV addict. hadn't seen any of these, it was the first four episodes, and I loved them! they were slightly spoiled by my parents getting home for the last one and making random comments about how much they hated it...terrible taste I tell you! they hate House too :O shocking I know.

also, I am so clumsy it's almost unreal! and apparently have issues with actually feeling pain at appropriate times. remember my shaving cut/graze? and how I didn't feel it until I saw the blood? well. I went running along that amazing path by the Thames this morning and didn't notice I had somehow acquired a nasty cut on my foot until I got back and was greeted by this...



yep, that's blood :P and I hadn't felt a thing. it hurts now though! I feel rather special having had this happen twice during what, two/three weeks of running? on that note though, it has occurred to me that I am REALLY ignorant about exercise in all forms. seriously! you guys have to help me out here. it may sound a little weird but even when I was purely restrictive AN I was of the 'I'd rather sit on my butt and not eat' school of thought...when I was admitted this winter and I did a questionnaire on exercise addiction I got the lowest possible score, which apparently is lower than a lot of 'healthy' people, lol. but besides that tangent the point is that I don't know how to train, how to rest, how to stretch, what sort of thing to eat before I run, after...you know, anything! I am making a project of researching now, because I will actually injure myself if I continue just going with the flow!

the rest of today has been uneventful, I am just panicking about my review on Tuesday and that has me thinking about uni, of course. I can't ever seem to talk in 'whole family reviews' (they involve a doctor, a CPN, me and my parents) because my family don't talk about much at home so it's a totally false environment. I also know I will be weighed and it will inevitably set the tone for whether it's a positive meeting or not. I know there will be a gain from last time, but I'd so much like it to be a fairly substantial one and I'm not sure exactly what will happen. my body seems totally unpredictable so we'll see.

I can't get too fixated, anyway, cause I most probably won't have a scale in the house at uni. at least that's my line of thinking at the moment, although I'm slightly worried about it now and not sure whether it's the right thing. even though I've talked on here about taking things slowly, I 100% do want to get to my final target weight as an end result. I tend to see it as a different type of 'negotiating'...bear with me here as it's an odd metaphor. sometimes in treatment there is this idea that you never 'give an inch' or 'negotiate' with your ED, it's basically like negotiating with Al Qaeda. well, I work with a slightly different approach to recovery. despite the rhetoric, governments DO negotiate with terrorists cause they realise that the terrorist has the power and resources to blow them up :P but they do so with the end goal of winning the war! rather than the kind of 'fake negotiation' which is seen both in politics and with anorexics, where the end goal is basically to let yourself be walked all over while pretending to negotiate! long ramble. point of it is - I need to get my weight up a fair bit more, and I am slightly worried that uni will allow me to let this fall by the wayside. so perhaps I need a scale glaring at me in the bathroom to remind me of this goal. and perhaps I could throw it out once I get there! or smash it! I haven't decided yet, I'm just rambling about it. but any thoughts welcome :)

a positive note to finish on: I ran out of something I had planned to have for this evening's snack. initially I got freaked out, but then decided on another,er, challenge shall we say? I haven't kept down 'dessert' in a very, very long time outside of IP. I don't even really want to think about how long, it's sad! I've had chocolate, sweets, sweet things...but never an actual dessert. firstly, I think they have bad associations. pie, pie more pie and custard in hospital did not do me any favours! secondly, I eat little and often cause of my GI issues so dessert post-meal wouldn't work. ANYWAY, I saw that my parents had brought this back from their weekend away, and I wanted some. so I had a slice. surprisingly uneventful! everything gets so much easier and less terrifying when you are eating a lot more :P hopefully my stomach will agree, because I'm sure the fat content is, er, high...but I'm going to sleep now so I have a good chance to digest and wake up feeling good! ahhh the power of positive thinking...

so basically, I'm too tired to post anything long but I have loads of pictures!
(kidding. sort of.)

firstly, Katie's post reminded me of a pact me made on MSN. do I link to her blog in every post? possibly, but hey, everyone should visit her! anyway, we were talking while I was coming up with an interesting new variant on pizza: instead of the tofu from my last one I used sausages! anyone ever seen those crazy Dominoes 'Meat Feast' pizzas...seemingly often consumed by teenage boys? I was trying to think of something which 'sounded' really intimidating to eat and this fit the bill. can't quite put a finger on why but what the heck. I said to Katie that I didn't know whether I would take a pic because it would be another marker of being incredibly 'different' to most bloggers...not only do I NOT eat whole grains, I also do eat meat (and sugar :P but we all know that!). but we made a deal so I had to do it! I suspect it was far better than the Dominoes pizzas anyway...



I always burn them slightly though! not the greatest timekeeper ever...

in other news, I went shopping yesterday...it was nearly a totally unsuccessful mission, you know the kind where you just can't find ANYTHING you need? I had just about given up but I found some black trousers in Esprit's sale...I need them for matriculation cause I don't actually have a suit! and then obviously, I got sucked in by the shiny red signs and decided to buy a polo shirt too cause it was reduced and I was spending anyway...is anyone else a total sucker for advertising strategies? it gets me every time!

so on top of the gratuitous spending, yesterday was also made of awesome 'cause I nearly ran 5k for the first time! I say nearly cause it was actually 4.7...I am kicking myself now for not working out the distance first cause I definitely could have kept going. annoyingly this was in the evening, which meant I had to run around the roads where I live, and some of the way on the pavement, which I think may be the culprit for my knees being a bit sore today :( still, it felt amazing...I updated my Facebook that night as 'Fi feel like she can fly', lol.

so today I went down to the path by the Thames near my house, just to do some reading and soaking up the sun...I ran there the other day and wanted so badly to take pictures, so this time I could! check this out...it's so pretty...







hey, at least the polo I needlessly bought is colour co-ordinated with my iPod earphones :P

I sat there for awhile reading 'The Three Sisters' which is on my drama module for English. At least this module has some great texts...if I don't get sent my History choices soon I will probably end up studying Medieval book-binding or something and want to bash my own head in with boredom. Post-reading in the sun I went to get something to eat/drink in the infamous Sainsburys and got ID'd AGAIN buying this...



as I love Red Bull and I love caffeine I thought I might be impressed...but not really. despite 32mg per 100ml it really didn't touch me at all. perhaps I need to join Caffeine Anonymous? tasted ok, but was the most un-filling thing imaginable despite that I had a small snack with it too. hence when I got home I broke out a failsafe...



Marmite = love.
I'm so happy that I can just eat something in this casual way at the moment if I'm hungry, without feeling scared or trying to cut back later. after seeing a minor weight loss Friday, I've been eating a lot more and am now almost at the level I was as an inpatient...I could never have believed I'd be able to eat this much alone, still almost can't believe it actually! I know I won't gain as fast because my weight is higher and I'm running now, but as before I was gaining 3+lbs a week I'm happy to go slower than that :P what makes me grin is the fact that in terms of facing that amount of food in a day, it's just the same (well, more difficult as I am taking responsibility for making the choices and preparing the food myself), and I feel more than ok about it.

tomorrow = more reading (I got Jung Chang's biography of General Mao from the library...can't wait), more typing and less photos! hope everyone is having a good weekend!

I really appreciate the support and replies yesterday...especially the teaspoon solidarity! honestly I slid that in there as a slight joke but I have to agree - teaspoons are fantastic :D I also have to quickly apologise, my internet is playing up like nothing else, those of you who blog with Wordpress, I can't even load any pages on it, and even on blogger it doesn't seem like my comments are going through :( so I will be back tomorrow I hope, if it decides to fix itself! Facebook isn't working either so I am feeling rather cut off from the world...slightly bizarre if you think about it!

today was...difficult. I swear this is why I never want to post anything good because invariably I spent the next day in an awful mood. of course, that could also be because I seemingly swing from cheerful to grumpy every 24 hours these days ;)

I suppose you could say I'm having a bit of an identity crisis, as cliched as that may be. since figuring out that I have demolished the illusions I used to have about my eating disorder, and I don't want to BE that person any more, the question is, how can I be anyone else? I can't stop running over and over in my head a conversation I had with a very close friend a couple of years ago. it was in the midst of a relapse, and I was venting my frustration to her about how I hated having everyone associate me with anorexia, almost having it tag along as my invisible shadow. I said 'really, deep down, that's not who I AM...it's just a thing which keeps following me'. and her response was (paraphrased!) 'somehow it is though. it's just part of YOU, I can't imagine you being any other way'. over the years I've been told by many people that they can't imagine me at a normal weight, or without the little idiosyncracies that come with my eating disorder. of course I don't blame them at all...mostly I think they were trying to make me feel better actually!

anyway, I suppose there's a minor issue of vanity here. if I, and everyone else, has been looking at a low weight version of me for years, do I even have the 'potential' to look normal at my target weight? sorry that sounds quite bizarre, it may only make sense in my head! but it confuses me a lot. far beyond the issue of looks though, is what it all represents for myself and my personality. as Katie has wisely said many times, when you become anorexic you aren't just a thinner version of yourself, your entire personality shifts. of course I have noticed this to a greater degree when my weight has dropped especially low, but now that I'm aiming to maintain a weight high enough for my brain and body to be FULLY functional for more than about five minutes, the question arises will it change me? my early childhood wasn't the happiest as far as I can remember...I was accelerated by a year and felt out of place among my peers, with a couple of friends but mainly disliked, inevitably due to being annoyingly precocious and involved in just about everything - extra work, reading, chess, programmes for gifted children, swimming...ok I will stop before I get tired just thinking about it! in any case I was unhappy at school and unhappy at home...old sad story. but I know that during my adolescence I've been sociable, fairly popular, cheerful in company, still a bit of an annoying overachiever but also a troublemaker and more 'well balanced' shall we say? the fear now I suppose is, will I lose my spark and become shy if I'm not hiding behind the false confidence of being underweight? will I become less focussed and determined...is that a symptom of the disorder? thinking about my two short forays out of diagnostically anorexic territory doesn't help either...my commitment to recovery was so tenuous that by that point my chaotic and overwhelming emotions and the build up to the inevitable relapse eclipsed any glimpse I might have had at how it 'changed' me. of course, I shouldn't necessarily assume that any changes will be negative ones! but when facing something you fear terribly it is rather the default setting!

I've slightly emotionally exhausted myself writing about all this, but at least it provides some distraction from the mundane and annoying recovery related stresses which have been driving me up the wall today. so it seems I need to be eating more. and my body is telling me this in a very emphatic and pushy way...I was out today and had to be TOLD that I was pale as a ghost and shaking, apparently it was time to inhale yet another large serving of food. I don't really have a problem with it in theory, but all day I've been panicking that eating this much will push out the sensible side of my brain and allow me to convince myself that I am 'overeating' or some such rubbish. I am very good at 'warning' myself that it wouldn't be healthy to start gaining too much weight...insert eyeroll here. I'm sure I will handle it though, but I am having a temporary attack of nerves! in fact right now my feet are getting cold...sigh. it never ends!

just before I blogged I remembered to take a pic...I must eat some of the weirdest cereal mixtures ever!



chocolate & dried pineapple? yes! I think anyway ;) also, how weird does my tea look? I'm having to drink Ceylon tea cause we've run out of coffee...not good, not good at all!

back tomorrow with more sense I hope?

so I suppose yesterday was so boring that I couldn't be bothered to blog about it?! almost true, but I was also feeling pretty low and battered about by the time I usually blog at night and I couldn't focus my mind on it. in retrospect, I think I was just really tired and usually for me when I'm physically run down I get emotionally vulnerable and every niggling doubt I have about x/y/z comes to the surface. probably one of the contributory factors to my exhaustion was this...



the bedside table I got from Argos...I had no idea it would be this heavy!

my mind is totally scrambled today and I'm still lacking in inspiration to post. although if I'm honest, I'm not sure if it's also somehow feeling vulnerable and slightly off kilter here. suddenly using my blog to write about myself and how I feel seems incredibly...selfish? narcissistic? I don't know. of course the double standard theory applies, I love reading other people's blogs, I'm just confused by my own!
I also can't shake a sense of vulnerability and need to justify everything I say on here, especially since a few recent 'judgements' both online and from people I know in real life questioning my recovery. my knee-jerk reaction is that I need to list concrete facts about why they are wrong - the weight I've gained (a lot), how much of a state I was at the start of this year (light years from where I am now), the progress I am currently making...and so on and so forth. but I'm going to save that for another day. the journey behind me is important to me, and to my future, but I refuse to let my feelings of vulnerability push me into defending myself with it somehow. and let's face it, all this, in the end is for me alone.

on a brighter note, all this self doubt has had me thinking about how things have changed for me, mentally. the insecurities I have are usually related to whether I will be judged for not being weight restored, gaining slowly, still using a teaspoon to eat my cereal...you know, mundane 'physical' markers of recovery like that! but looking back at all the other times I've gone through partial weight restoration and said I was attempting 'recovery', the difference to me is very pronounced. the list goes like this:

early 2004 - prescribed a high dose of Olanzapine (a powerful antipsychotic with side effects of tiredness, weight gain and zombie like behaviour!) and told I can't return to school until I gain 30lbs at least and will be hospitalised if I lose anything. suffice to say, my 'recovery' wasn't self-motivated or particularly committed...relapse didn't take long.

Xmas 2004 - told I have to maintain a minimum weight to stay in school. comply resentfully and spent most of my time concocting plans to lose more when I leave home/manage to quit drs appointments/find a magic deception tool and so on. this goes on for awhile and it would be something of a joke to call it anything like progress.

mid 2006 - by this point I am a 'purging anorexic' or 'low weight bulimic' (I HATE both those terms, but that's a story for another post...) and I decide to 'recover' by shifting straight back into restrictive anorexia. smart move! (not)

Xmas 2007/early 2008 - after treatment in the summer this is possibly the first time I actually entertained thoughts about what recovery might mean rather than gaining weight with the blatant intention of losing it again once it would be 'easy' 'go unnoticed' etc. my commitment is tenuous and very limited though, and as I gain weight I just become more and more angry and bitter, wishing there was a way I could hang on to my illness. the ensuing relapse was worse than ever before.

flash forward to now. I have made much more 'acceptable' attempts at recovery before this, at least in terms of the criteria placed on it by treatment professionals. I know that I could have gained the 50-some lbs they wanted me to in hospital by this point, and perhaps then I would be 'statistically' considered recovered. but I have no interest in being one of the statistics who prove that relapse rates after inpatient treatment are shockingly high, that people move in and out of the diagnostic criteria for this illness throughout their lives. in short, I have no interest in repeating the previous experiences I've had where I (or my doctors) thought that weight restoration as fast as physically possible was all that was needed, and then relapsing to an even more dangerous degree than I did last year.

in any case, the part which to me is FAR more important than the physical is my attitude towards it. the fact that now I feel my mind is ahead of my body (and don't worry, my body is catching up!) rather than the other way round, which for me has always paved the road to relapse. that I can look at an emaciated woman in the street, or talk to one of my friends who is still desperately ill, and not in even the tiniest sense want to go back there. that I can be proud of my acheivements and recognise that I am a stronger person now than I was six months ago. that I don't just say all these things because I know logically they are true, but that I believe them.

of course, I still have my panicking days full of negative thoughts and worries! in previous years though, I would actually slip backwards and restrict or b/p on those days, and so even though overall I was 'in recovery' I didn't have long periods symptom free. it comes rather more naturally not to do that now :)

I make myself nervous posting positive things! but I will leave it, anyway :)
and I will leave you all with a pic of the best dinner I've had in a long time...



baked tofu pizza! sounds weird, looks pretty burnt too! (I was playing cards with my brother while it cooked and our game kind of went on a bit too long...) but it tasted fantastic. basically, take tortilla, spread all over with salsa, add sliced mozzarella and tofu which has already been marinaded in soysauce/chilli sauce/mirin/honey and baked for half an hour. then chuck under the grill for ten mins. yum.

a random succession of irritating things has been happening today, but I'm in a pretty great mood! love it so much when that happens...

so I blogged this morning about my weight playing stupid games and the cleaner (reading that back now, I must be the only person who could manage to be annoyed by that, lol). later on I tried to get some of my jobs for the day done which involved phoning up my uni to ask about module choices which they've neglected to send me, and going to Argos to buy a flatpack bedside table for my room. turns out the woman who deals with module choices wasn't in, and when I inputted the code for the table it came up with 'furniture insurance 4yr' which was definitely NOT what I wanted! insuring a £25 table = pointless. when I got home we realised that when my mum looked up the table she'd noted down the wrong code, so I have to go back tomorrow. fail.

anyway after that and after lunch I decided to go for a run, which was probably the day's best decision. I did 3.3k which takes me right to the centre of one of the towns nearby us - pretty handy! I seem to be feeling better & better every time I run which is fantastic...perhaps this stuff about endorphins is true? I also nicked my dad's iPod which provided some pretty good background music...Billy Joel, Simon & Garfunkel, Pink Floyd anyone? lol, I secretly love my parent's music. the second batch of fail events for the day started with realising I had blood running down my ankle when I stopped running! on Friday before I went out I'd cut myself really badly shaving, you know the kind where it's more a very deep graze from a sharp blade than a cut? anyway seemingly running had ripped off the plaster which I'd put in a really stupid position, and of course it hasn't stopped bleeding yet at all because that kind of cut takes ages to heal. so basically, I ended up in the middle of town red-faced, sweating and bleeding.

then entered fail number three...I went into Sainsbury's to buy a Red Bull and got asked for ID?! apparently it is now a restricted substance...either that or someone working in Sainsburys is on crack. this problem actually ended very well though. the cashier felt really sorry for me cause she could see I'd been running and obviously wasn't going to have a driving license on me, and told me that the regular (rather than sugarfree) Red Bull isn't age restricted. at this point I said whatever, swap it without knowing whether I'd have the guts to drink it tbh! when I was very ill I used to drink a LOT of sugarfree Red Bull...but I'd count the measly ten or so calories in it and it'd practically constitute a meal, ridiculously enough! I'd never even had a sip of the regular version in my life. so when I walked out of there I was very very tempted to take it home for when I felt 'braver'. it wasn't anything to do with calories...I knew full well I'd eat a substantial snack when I got home anyway and I could have just reduced that a bit and had the drink if that had been the problem. to be honest there was just some little niggling thoughts telling me that the drink was basically poison. but, it's always better to seize the moment right? especially when the moment involves being tired, thirsty and out of money to buy another drink til you've walked over 3 kilometers home! (I was GOING to say here that a day when my weight had unexpectedly dropped was another opportune moment to dare to add 'extra' but I am excluding it, because I intend to be able to give myself permission for this sort of thing even when my weight doesn't need to go up)

so basically, I drank the damn thing. and felt LOADS better for it on my walk home. I could say that I prefer the other version, but I suspect that's just because I've had it so many times and it's so safe. this one was...different...but not in a bad way. I'd say the sf one tastes more like bubblegum and the regular more like juice? most random description ever? probably!

my day has been concluded by several games of cheat, an attempt at making baked tofu (quite good! but needs longer than 45mins imo) and some tending to the mashed up leg. check this out...



I don't actually think they are performing any useful function, but I saw them in the first aid kit when I was cleaning it and couldn't resist!

also, just got tagged in this on Facebook. if you are friends with me, there may be a couple of other embarrassing photos in there, but I refuse to willingly share them ;)
this one is funny though...

since it's Monday, I have to say that last week was fantastic and the most fun I've had in a very long time :D yesterday this was thanks to meeting up with Katie in London for the vegan festival! we found each other in Waterloo and decided that obviously going to Wholefoods for lunch was the perfect way to start our day. since it was so good I had almost exactly the same combo of spicy egg noodles and tofu I did on Saturday, plus some random bits & pieces I chucked in there! sadly I left my camera at home in the rush that morning so I couldn't take pics, even though we were discussing the fact that food blogging is so common now and taking pics in public isn't too embarrassing anymore.

after lunch we headed for the vegan festival which was HUGE! lots of different stalls with clothing, food, leaflets etc over about three rooms. there's very little on a vegan diet which I can eat while following the low fat/minimum fibre thing, so I didn't get anything but having a milk allergy meant Katie was able to find an amazing amount of vegan desserts/chocolate type things which she can't get elsewhere. it was pretty cool to discover that they can make vegan chocolate bars with rice milk! we left the festival with a huge stash of milk-free vegan stuff in tow, and headed off to the Natural History museum. luckily this time there was no queue and we got in to see the dinosaurs, along with the big scary plastic T-Rex model which I remember scaring me when I was a kid. my great realisation from this museum trip - it's SO good to actually be interested in doing things like this and just going out and looking round places for fun! I used to have a 'what's the point' attitude when I was ill, probably because everything involved more effort and didn't interest me anyway.

the rest of the day involved random wanderings down Oxford Street, eating lots of sugar (I had like, 80g of candy corn? lol), Starbucks...oh and we dropped into Waterstones and met Aisha at work! I've just located her blog and I'm not sure she knows who I am :P but it was cool to meet another UK blogger in person! it was also brilliant to see Katie again, when I move up North soon I will miss her terribly :( ah well incentive to keep blogging hey, I want to keep in touch when I have time!

since I totally failed with pictures from our time in London, I will try to make up for it with a new food discovery I had last night - rice porridge :) I'd been meaning to try it for ages, I'm not sure if I got the proportions right or not though! the packet I had said 50g with a whole PINT of liquid! I actually used 50g with 200ml soymilk and 200ml water, which seemed to work. looks like this...



with honey and blackcurrant jam. I need better add-in ideas though. the jam was nice but the honey didn't seem to add anything, it just melted! more rice porridge in the future though I think, time for experimentation :)

this morning has been a bit of a failure so far...firstly I woke up and the cleaner was here, which ALWAYS happens on a Monday but really irritates me and puts me in a grumpy mood! I hate having someone I don't know wandering around the house when I'm trying to shower, and not being able to have breakfast/coffee for an hour just makes me grouchy! also, I am totally and utterly confused by my weight this morning - down a whole kilogram in the last four days? I had gained a kg in the week before that, and I don't think my intake has really changed. I tried counting up a few days this morning to see what's going on and it seems like I've been getting anywhere between 2100 and 2800 calories a day (I don't count daily or eat the same amounts every day)...probably at the upper end if I went for a run or was out shopping all day etc. so why on earth does my body both gain AND lose so quickly and easily on this sort of amount (which in itself is significantly over what I was 'told' to eat)? or is it not 'real' weight somehow? I'm slightly confused and irritated. for the moment I just drank an extra glass of juice with breakfast, so we'll see. does anyone else have a crazy body like mine which likes to go up and down in weight for seemingly no reason?

I am back from London :) I headed off yesterday morning, a bit earlier than I needed to to meet my friend cause I wanted to buy a necklace after managing to break the one I usually wear. So I naturally ended up in Oxford Circus Topshop because one can never spend enough time there! Got the necklace (pics later!) and went back to Picadilly for lunch at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant I've been to loads of times. I thought I'd feel weird eating on my own but there were actually loads of people doing it, out for lunch from work I guess. London really makes me laugh sometimes, it was just typical that every person or group of people left two empty chairs beside them and didn't want to sit 'next' to someone else along the conveyor belt! The capital is a bit antisocial I guess...

After my lunch I went to Cybercandy and bought some laffy taffy and candy corn, just for fun. Then I got the bus from Leicester Square to Pimlico where my friend lives. The bus goes through Parliament Square and I was sitting at the top front of a double decker - check my tourist pic!



I've lived in the suburbs near London since I was about five, and seen Parliament Square loads of times...but I still like taking pictures. The other passengers were rolling their eyes I'm sure! After some random wandering around Piccadilly area and a stop for coffee (well, I had a white choc frap actually) we came back to get ready for the evening and I took some vain photos ;)



new necklace :) clearly I am not actually a vampire despite the sleeping habits!



quite a new dress too, worn for the first time. I LOVE it, but the funny/slightly annoying part is that cause it's ruched at the hem it constantly feels like you've inadvertently tucked the hem into your underwear or something! ok, slight overshare but it's amusing! hope it doesn't seem like I am posting photos of myself for ED'd reasons by the way, I am quite acutely aware at the moment that I'm still underweight (and I hope this awareness lasts!). Quite a few times during the evening I was plagued by wishing that I could be at a healthy weight like the friends I was out with. Of course I know I CAN, it's the process which is hard. But sometimes I get impatient which I know is silly because there will be huge ups and downs on the way and I can't try to run before I can walk given what a huge and terrifying thing weight restoration will be for me. Just the fact that I had those feelings is real progress though! I feel like it signifies a more general attitude shift - during previous recovery attempts I've resented 'having' to gain weight and been triggered by anything and everything. Now things which might have triggered me just make me angry or sad in a productive way. I think this is because I'm truly 'ready' though, and taking things at a pace I know I can handle. So I refuse to try to run before I can walk, because I want it to last!

Ok, huge tangent! So obviously after the photowhoring we went out, first for dinner at an Italian on Picadilly, then to the Sports Cafe near Leicester Square. Lots of this was involved...



and I confess I may have drank two of those! we moved on to a club at 1-ish and by that time I was more drunk than I think I've been this year, actually! much to my friend's amusement I also spent a fair amount of time dancing with and talking to a couple of guys, one in the bar and one at the club (I may or may not be giving you the PG rated version of that story...) it's quite amusing and a nice chance because during the few periods of my late teens when I was relatively speaking more healthy I had a reputation for shunning serious relationships but always having a 'fling' of some kind on the go. not in a bad way, my friends are open minded enough to know that being single can be fun and doesn't have to involve being totally promiscuous! naturally, when I was really ill I didn't care and got no interest anyway, so it's nice to have at least a little bit of my old self back. perhaps one day I will settle down though...but I guess I'm young yet.

clearly, this morning I woke up with a killer headache at midday! get this though - I persuaded my friend (who clearly has excellent taste) that lunch at Wholefoods was the obvious solution to a hangover. unfortunately it took us an hour and a half to get there due to poor knowledge of the bus system so by the time we ate I was absolutely starving...as demonstrated below...



before being demolished it contained egg noodles, penne pasta and a heck of a lot of baked tofu...yum! the ice mocha drink was brilliant too, I was in need of coffee and it only took a little persuasion to tell myself I needed that on top of what was a pretty big salad bar haul to make up breakfast and lunch.

tonight has been pretty uneventful but I went for another run, which went really well after my realisation that I need to take it slow if I want to do longer distances. I only upped it to 2.5k, but I slowed the pace a fair bit and by the end I felt good and like I could have carried on - great because the other day when I did 1.5 it was more of a 'thank God, don't think I could have run another step' sort of finish. I didn't push it though, I walked another km home so to run the whole way is going to be a good next step. I can't wait til I get to uni and can join the gym though cause I know at this stage with my weight etc I should be doing more strength training than cardio. it feels good to do something in collaboration with my body though, instead of waging a war of self destruction against it the whole time!

I'm going to a vegan fair in London with Katie tomorrow which I'm pretty excited for! slightly ironic being that I'm most definitely not vegan but hey, any excuse for a day out :) I'm sure I will return with more silly tourist pics of London and so on...

ok perhaps a little dramatic! but seriously...after many conversations with Katie we have concluded that weight restoration is like going through puberty twice (or three, four, five...you get the picture but this is the LAST time I tell you!)

so remember my awful dreading nothing mood yesterday. today I woke up feeling amazing and I have no idea why. it's times like this that keep me going, because I swear over the past few weeks as my weight has gone up I've been SO much more...sane? normal? happy? I don't know. I did feel physically better when I was gaining in hospital but perhaps I wasn't on board mentally, or perhaps I hadn't gained enough...I don't know but for the first time I feel really huge changes mentally. I don't feel like an addict in withdrawal anymore at all...today I was looking back on times when I used to literally spend my life on my ED and it seems so damn unappealing, monotonous, sad. I mean seriously, I used to spend every damn spare waking moment eating? how mind numbing. and this isn't in a 'but I secretly want to restrict' way...asides from purging anorexia I have three relapses worth of experience with restrictive type and I can testify that it's hell painted in different colours ;) in any case the idea bores the life out of me. I've even been eating my meals a heck of a lot quicker because, really, I get bored! which is so freeing. I've always eaten fairly slowly and it helps me to digest better, but before I ate more slowly because I was scared, I guess. every bite was thought about, considered. now I am just eating, it's cool!

anyway in a more mundane record of progress, my weight was up another kg this morning :D (and that is exactly the emotion I felt, lol). annoyingly it was :D at first and then a whole load of overanalysing and confusion, but never mind. in any case I am 2kg away from the weight I agreed with my doctor that I'd be before moving out to uni! I move in 15 days so it's a bit touch and go there to be honest, but freshers doesn't start until just under a month's time so I can always make it by then. it's not my highest weight I'm aiming for but I've never in my life stayed there long term...it's always been gain up to it, or a few kg higher, then relapse badly. so this time is going to have to be VERY different.

I took some pics today so I have to tell you about my day ok? actually it wasn't exactly thrilling but it was pretty much my one day relaxing at home this week so I had to get stuff done. stuff being shopping!



I really like Frosties, k? I wonder how long 750g will last...seeing as I use a 60g serving probably not very! to all others who said that 30g serving sizes are for crazies (or small children) I wholeheartedly agree...



here's the new stuff I bought...you don't need to see all my 'same old' shopping! flaked rice was recommended by Katie as it's fibre free...I will try it soon. Sainsburys fromage frais was an idea from Ellie, thank you! I already tried this and LOVE it. other stuff is tinned pineapple (did you know this has very little fibre? omg I was excited, I want fruit!), Sainsbury's spaghetti hoops (Heinz made theirs multigrain. fail Heinz, stop catering to normal healthy people and start catering to me!), marshmallow wafers, V8, japanese curry sauce and rice noodles.
ok funny story about the V8. I wanted to get a veggie fix without killing my digestive system. thought this would do the trick. what I didn't realise is that it's overwhelmingly TOMATO flavoured! I HATE tomatoes with a burning passion. gross. so basically I chucked it in the bin, and went out later in the day to buy some of their carrot/tropical fruit juice instead. you wouldn't get me to drink tomato juice if I were dying of thirst. if anyone's interested that curry sauce is good, and new as far as I know. it's not very spicy though. spice = my best friend and this made me sad.

after my grocery buying fun I had lunch then went running :) this was my reward to myself for my most recent bmi 'threshold' reached, although I don't intend to do more than about 6k a week until I'm at 17.5/18 or so. I did 1.5k today and it felt REALLY good. sidenote - I'm a bad Brit, I don't do miles. I ran 1.5 and 3k when I was at school so those are distances I 'get'. years of muscle wastage are killing me though, it took me over 8 minutes and I used to be able to do under 7 without much sweat :( but I'm sure it will come back! I'd love to be able to run for longer too but I always did middle distance...I tended to not have the patience to properly train for long races and just work on the assumption that pure willpower and stubborness would get me through. this is not the case when you have a body attached people. must undo what is obviously a sign of my general life mentality!

after I ran I ate, watched some TV, played cards then had dinner (rice noodles with tofu and the japanese curry sauce, yay!). I fell asleep AGAIN after dinner, I keep doing this! it's almost like I sleep twice cause I nap in the evening for an hour or two, then stay up late and sleep til morning. weirdness. am currently blogging and just ate this...



60g for the WIN. I need to sleep ASAP cause I'm going out tomorrow with someone I haven't seen in a loooong time, and I need to get into London early to pick up some things I need before I meet my other friend to go to the cinema. I have a feeling my vampiric stay up all night nature may be genetic and incurable. but nevermind!

thank you for all the advice everyone :D
I am going to phone up tomorrow and check in to make sure nobody thinks I fell off the face of the earth. there's probably only time for one appointment before my review anyway but I think it's probably more the phoning and staying in contact thing which is important for me to do.

was out all day again today and I almost fell asleep on a bus going down Oxford Circus earlier! it was pretty amusing except I was a bit worried I'd miss the stop! we went to the British museum in the morning and looked at the Ancient Greek sculptures...they certainly were fond of depicting centaur/human fights! stopped off for lunch at Pizza Express where they annoyed me by not having the one thing on the menu I figured I could order and easily digest, so I had to get a salad and eat everything but the lettuce and avocado which made me really sad! frustratingly my stomach was playing up really badly after lunch even though I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary. I'm taking more careful note of this stuff now and it seems that there are some foods which never give me problems and some which I can handle on and off, depending on whether I'm actually hungry or 'ready' for the meal. it's putting me in a bit of a dilemma though because everything that's always OK isn't so much actual 'meal' food...more like semi-solid stuff like yogurt, plain toast, cereal, sweets etc. I could just make a smoothie or have some toast if I feel like it's not gonna be a good day, but I feel like it's going to make it so much harder for me to challenge my eating disorder if I don't eat a 'proper meal' everyday. it's always my dinner which is an issue though, probably because there's no liquid component and it's fairly substantial. this whole thing is intensely frustrating!

moving onto more fun stuff, I did a lot of shopping today ;) let me see...pajamas and a bra in the sale at M&S (does anyone else love M&S underwear? lol, I can't stand their clothes but me & my housemate always go in there to look for bras!), a skirt and a Hello Kitty jumper at H&M, and finally loads of stuff at Uni Qlo...grey cords, 3 plain tshirts reduced to £3 each, and a hoodie. annoyingly, what I MEANT to buy was a jacket and some boots for when I move up North, but I can never find stuff like that when I'm out with friends. I'm gonna have to maybe go myself before I move. still, it was nice to buy some things for myself, and a bit of an acheivement because my wardrobe contains virtually no jeans or fitted t-shirts which aren't a size 6. at my height almost everyone at a healthy weight would be a 10 so this is a little unrealistic for the future :P and I have always lived in skirts and trackies in previous recovery attempts. I put together everything in a 6 and am taking it to the charity shop tomorrow...it's a huge amount of stuff and makes me sad but I think that's just an excuse to kick off about not allowing myself to get that underweight again. plus I said I was going to do it months ago :P

when I was coming home today and earlier in the evening I was feeling really irritable and low for some reason, it was kind of scary. I kept having this odd feeling as though there's something bad hanging over my head...don't know quite how to describe it...maybe as though I was dreading a phone call with bad news or something? but there ISN'T anything going on, I'm just all over the place! I kept thinking 'what's the point' when I was out. I had a good time with my friends but it was like this background noise in my head. talking about what to do when we graduate - 'what's the point, you'll relapse anyway and probably not have a life by then'...buying clothes 'what's the point, when you relapse they won't fit and you won't care about looking decent anyway'...talking about uni 'what's the point you can't have a normal life'. SO frustrating! logically I am excited about the next few months. emotionally I seem to be trying to back away. it didn't help that I got home and ended up fighting with my mum over pointless rubbish...I was looking for some old boots and it turned out she'd thrown them out cause she didn't think I wore them without asking me, along with some of my clothes. so obviously me being in a bad mood I got really snippy about it and I think she may have stopped talking to me, err oops. can't wait to move out so my stuff doesn't keep disappearing though! at least it's an excuse to shop...right?