running up that hill

ok maybe it's after midnight! but in any case, I'm a little bored cause I fell asleep after dinner for a couple of hours and automatically woke up at 10.00 exactly for my evening snack. weird, does anyone else have a freakishly exact body clock like this? it's useful though :) I think I was a bit worn out today cause I took my little brother ice skating this morning then went into town for lunch and a bit of HMV browsing (as most eight year olds, he's obsessed with computer games!). anyway after that I had to go and buy some food supplies for the weekend and straight after we went out to Pizza Express for dinner, so I kind of felt like I hadn't had a spare moment all day. also, I had the Vitabella pizza for the first time (UK people?) and it was really nice :) I think my mum was a bit nervy about me choosing a 'light' pizza! but hey, the rest of my family eats WAY more lightly than I do in the day and has a heavier dinner so it's ok. I felt way better with a small option actually cause it meant that I had my usual highly caloric afternoon snack instead of shrinking it a bit. fitted right into my schedule!

thank you all for the comments on my last post, made a lot of sense. I feel a little silly now cause I have to confess, there were times when I sat and told people 'I don't want to get better, why are you pushing me, just let me maintain' etc etc. I guess it just felt like the ground was pulled from under me when someone actually said that was the plan rather than pushing me. but heck, on the 'proving people wrong' front things are going well :) big news - I got my period! yayyy for hormones! tbh I usually get it at a low weight, in fact I've had it 10lbs below where I am now, but it's still a relief! I was starting to wonder what was going on there. to be bluntly honest, I have had a hard time the past few days with one side of my head moaning and moaning 'see, you're healthy now, you don't need to gain, what's with all this peanut butter/hummus/extra calories etc'. but I just stuck my middle finger up :P

unfortunately I am also having hugely annoying GI issues again. of the 'I am curled up in pain and cannot move after meals' type thing, plus being full for FAR too long. I've started to rely on metoclompramide a bit but I hate the side effects too much so I hope this eases soon! it's been six months now since I was at my worst point physically, and I'm just starting to wonder if this will ever go away. delayed gastric emptying caused by an eating disorder is supposed to rectify itself once you are eating normally again and I'm getting impatient :(
I'm also wondering if I can get any help for it, medically speaking. every professional from the ED services I go to seems to assume it's a problem of the bloating/constipation sort, which it isn't at all. more like food getting stuck in my stomach for six times the normal length of time! but all the professionals tell me it's impossible for me to have had such severe bulimic symptoms at such a low weight, which I believe is linked to the GI issues, so no surprises there.

anyway I should stop moaning :P and post some pics!



Fage 2% with agave and mixed berries/plums. also had a cup of dark chocolate ice cream with this, told you my snacks were substantial :P



dinner last night: Cauldron mushroom burger (obsessed!), spinach with 1/2 can mixed beans and a load of red pepper hummus. also lots of mustard, err have I told you I'm a bit addicted to it? spicy = yum!



this is what happens when you are too busy eating and forget to take a pic...it looks like you munch on rabbit food all day long! this WAS a Pret Italian Chicken Salad...lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, chicken, pine nuts, red peppers, parmesan and Italian dressing. yum :)

I'm working tomorrow and the next day and going to Thorpe Park on Monday so may be completely wiped out by Tuesday, but it should be fun! next mission - I'm looking into getting a membership at my local leisure centre for the summer, as inspired by Jemima. when we were ice skating today I saw that they have some cut price offers for the gym/classes/pool membership which include an induction, so I could talk through the fact that I'm trying to gain and I don't exactly want to jeopardise that, but get some kind of fun/exercise routine going at the same time :)

hi blogworld :) long time no typing!

it's disgustingly hot in the South-East right now and I've only just made my room habitable by keeping the fan on and the windows open for about 48 hours straight now. unfortunately, there are now lots of flies in my room! :(

I was going to take my brother to yet another theme park (yes he's obsessed) today but the weather's so horrible that we put it off. so I'm sitting around the house watching 'Heroes' (love it) and blogging. I also managed to forget what day my appointment with the dietitian was on, doh. so I may well be in trouble!

my title - it's the 1st of July today. and yesterday I spent a long time beating myself up because, getting honest here, I didn't gain any weight in June. I now have three months before I move out and time is ticking away fast. if you remember my irritated post about it, I gained for three weeks then with a ridiculous display of the power of my ED to panic and overestimate calories, lost ALL that weight in a week. bollocks. so I had a review again with everybody and ended up hugely triggered and feeling awful, cause it seemed to me that they were just resigning themselves to the fact that I will fail. obviously my actions have contributed to this somewhat so I can't blame anyone else, but it made me feel hugely fatalistic. basically the gist was, they will aim to help me get through uni at a barely 'safe' BMI and avoid another hospital stay. the idea of which anorexia LOVES, of course ;) but I really don't! I said I would gain before I move out and I don't want to let one crap month stop me. another thing which really bothered me was the suggestion that 'if I'm not careful I will end up dropping out in November with a bmi of 11' :S. firstly I have huge problems with self-fulfilling prophecies! but secondly, this is a huge fear of mine. what if I try to get better, really work at recovery and the stress pushes me into an even worse relapse? I don't even care to think what I will do to my body if I put it through that again. or my parents. or my sanity, tbh!

in any case, that was a lot of rambling. but the point is, I have to try and move on and not tell myself that I'm a lost cause because I haven't managed to keep any weight on yet. I've proved that I CAN get my weight up, I just have to keep it there and keep going. I don't want to be 'taking baby steps' for ever and just end up in the same place. for the moment, my tactic seems to be 'eat as much as you can fit into normal meal/snacks without going nutso' and it seems to be working :)

things I did to stick two fingers up to my ED recently:
~ ate dark chocolate late at night cause I was hungry and low on calories - screw you, rigid eating pattern!
~ accepted that an Innocent veg meal is NOT at all equivalent to my normal meals (stupid head, because it's packaged as a 'meal' I decided it was fine...you get the picture) and starting adding calorific, yummy stuff to them when I have them
~ ate Ben & Jerrys for my snack yesterday! haven't kept down B&J in...well, a very long time!
~ bought 2% yogurt when it came back in Sainsburys instead of sticking to fat free

I also have some pics :)



very common lunch - toast spread w/ butter & wholegrain mustard, two Quorn sausages, spinach w/ balsamic, Lucozade Sport barely visible at the top



me in La Tasca! taken while out with an old friend. I tackled a big challenge on this day - lunch, snack AND dinner out :) luckily lunch was sushi which is manageable, and altho tapas sounds scary it was actually nice and relaxed.



just for kicks...a lil pic of the inside of my car :D
xx

avoiding talking about it when I'm having a shitty time, that is :P
this is one bad habit of mine which I intend to start breaking today. all my friends will testify to the fact that they know I'm miserable or ill if I 'fall off the face of the earth'...stop facebooking, stop calling or in this particular case don't update my blog! ok, so I am really struggling right now. but I intend to have a bitch about it and then figure out how to fix it instead of avoiding for once!

my rubbish end of week started on Wednesday night when my dad wanted to have a 'talk' with me. see, these talks always end up with me in floods of tears, cause I know he doesn't mean it but it comes across in such an accusatory 'you're doing something wrong' tone of voice. he said yet AGAIN that he doesn't think I'll be ready to move out in October, that I should be in IP or day treatment, that I'm not doing well. I got so so frustrated at this point because a few weeks ago it was 'you're not gaining weight' and I was thinking YES but I'm making my own food, taking responsibility for myself, maintaining...I've come from being tube fed in February to this, give some credit? so now that I have actually been gaining, apparently he thinks that I'm not engaging with treatment etc, and I'm still purging. ummm...didn't know what to say to that one, I am going to appointments and I've cut back on purging a heck of a lot...it's like if I'm not doing every damn thing 100% we have these talks and I feel like he's saying I'm a hopeless case? argh. so yeah he also said 'do you really want to go to university, maybe it's not right for you, you could just work in a shop near here you know'...I mean wtf, my parents have always pushed me academically and now it feels like they're giving up cause I'm some pathetic chronically sick person?

ARGH! rant over, lol sorry. anyway moving on, the week got even shittier cause after having INSISTED that I was gaining weight and doing well, I had dropped 1.2 bloody kilograms in my appointment the next day :X. I was totally shocked...I thought I was eating at minimum the amount I'd agreed to gain 0.3, but the dietitian thinks I am overestimating hugely or something? either that or my metabolism is speeding up, maybe a combination of both? I keep getting hungry at like 1 or 2 am so it seems likely. so they packed me off for urgent bloods and an ECG because of the rapid loss, which honestly just made me feel even more bloody useless and pissed off. I just wanted to leave it til tomorrow and they were insisting, and all I could think was 'jeeez I'm not going to keel over between now and tomorrow, I've gained 20lbs already, relax'. don't you hate it when your thoughts go off on one and you feel like a brief summary would be 'hi this is anorexia. Fi is unavailable at present, how can I help you screw up your life some more?'...? of course I know that this illness can be so dangerous and they are looking out for me but it's just so hard to take myself seriously.

BUT. on the positive side, basically looks like I got a huge kick where I need it, right? ;)
I am absolutely determined to fix wherever I was slipping up now and get back on track. here are some fun goals to that end...

~ NO overestimating, log everything to make sure I'm following the plan and not cutting corners
~ if I cut back on something make up for it later, no excuses about being too full cause I can always rely on liquids
~ if I'm particularly active, add something extra, better to be safe than sorry!
~ stop avoiding! do things that will cheer me up instead of being miserable!

on the bright side, tomorrow's gonna be a fun day where I can hopefully test myself out, and get out of the house! I'm going to Chessington (theme park) with my little brother, and he is so excited I think he might possibly explode? apparently the weather's gonna be awful but that does not dissuade me at all. really can't wait!

cause I want a pic to brighten this post up, here's some munchies I bought for tomorrow (obviously I will eat other things too, lol)



clearly after I tried a cheese & pickle sandwich before I got addicted and realised that they are yum, and my reservations about the calories were pretty dumb considering I WANT to pack more in! also am relying heavily on the liquids right now, hence Lucozade. and would you believe it, I've never tried that flavour of Eat Natural bars. I've been stuck on the almond/apricot ones for years and nice as they are, it's really time to break out!

so er, I feel very vulnerable now having made a whole post about how I'm really struggling and not meeting my goals. hopefully it's a good way to move past it though? question - who do YOU tell when you're having a hard time? do you have trouble admitting it and/or asking for help? please tell me I'm not the only one ;)
xx

exciting news. yesterday me and Katie went on an exploration of London! we conquered Wholefoods, managed to get lost somewhere along the way to Finsbury Park, and finally collapsed in Starbucks on Oxford Street :)

for context, our grand plan was to go to the allergy and gluten free show in Kensington Olympia. so obviously, we had to visit Wholefoods in Ken High St first. now I have to say, I've only ever been to the one in Soho. and it is SO inferior. I was rather in awe at the size and multiple floors! I had also never tried their salad bar, and am now convinced that I was seriously deprived all these years.

we also did some shopping and I have to say, the only thing I was interested in buying was PB&Co Dark Choc Dreams! they don't stock it in Soho, which after having tasted it I must say is pretty shocking ;)

anyway after Wholefoods we wandered off to the Olympia, but didn't spend long at the show cause it was kind of small. next mission was Camden, and getting absolutely lost and confused in the markets! funnily enough, we also got lost on LEAVING Camden as we tried to walk and ended up going in the total wrong direction, getting a bus, deciding the bus was too hot, getting out and getting the tube, THEN finally being so tired/hot/half dead that Starbucks near Oxford Circus basically seemed like an oasis in the desert! despite all out silliness tho, it was super fun to hang out with Katie again, and especially in London cause we've never done that before and I LOVE London.

I got the train home from Waterloo after saying goodbye to Katie, and also picked up a sandwich for dinner cause I was way too tired to cook anything. I knew it had to be a bit heavier tho as I normally cook dinner so I picked something I've always wanted to try but put back as soon as I saw the label during my ED, lol.



this was good! expensive though, but still. and loads of that brand of sandwiches seem to have butter instead of mayo which wins me over in an instant.

as far as more food goes, I'm currently thinking of as many ways as possible to dig into my jar of Dark Chocolate Dreams. step one, my Sunday night snack, was to spread it on a chocolate chip Clif bar. this was AWESOME. and I have to say, I really love the Clif bars too, I wish I'd bought more! anyway today's attempt number two at peanut butter snackage was also great...



seed/oat bread, PB & banana. fantastic. I remember eating this for breakfast in school when I was doing better with the ED. however, my version now with interesting bread and PB&Co definitely beats the Sunpride and SunPat days!

in other news, I phoned up today and am in the process of organising my return to uni in October! unbelievably excited about this. the secretary told me they need my medical note by September, so lots of good motivation to meet my target by September, which is what I was planning/hoping for anyway. I've got to say, there is an underlying unease about returning to somewhere I got so unwell. I can't help thinking there will be really vivid memories while walking around town of this winter, the struggle it was to get around and into uni, the shops I was in and out of a bajillion times a week, my little vacation in the general hospital. I suppose the only way is to keep moving forward mentally so that I can be sure those memories will be 100% sad and scary, and not trigger me at all.

next mission: DEXA scan, tidy my room, organise my summer!

you've got it...I made brownies today (pics later!), but the weather is NOT co-operating the way it was last week. in fact it's pretty darn freezing :(

on the bright side, this week is getting off to a good start. I feel a LOT more relaxed and 'free' after coming to that realisation about how scared I am of giving up 100% control over my diet and allowing 'uncertainty' into the mix. it's almost like there was this looming fear over me stopping me from doing things, and now I've named it I've taken its power away...cause really, it's a ridiculous fear! if I were to eat something 'unplanned'...erm...nothing would come of it! also, leading on from that last post, it's the evening of the third day since I decided to 'just stop' bingeing & purging. and I actually feel ok! which is quite shocking cause tbh by this time I would usually feel like I was crawling out of my skin with anxiety and 'withdrawal' (I definitely think of this part of my ED like an addiction!)
so I am shocked, but pleased!

so the next couple of days are going to be fairly busy, which is good. feel like I've been killing time today really. anyway I'm going to see the dietitian tomorrow morning :) excited for this as I really need to have a talk through my diet with someone. making my own plans is fun but it'd be better if I had a professional opinion on them!

anyway, after that I've got TWO lunches out in a row, on Wednesday and Thursday. one with my cousin and one with a close friend. going to be a bit of a challenge to say the least! ah well at least for Thursday we're going to Wagamama and I know the menu pretty well. going to be amazing to see my friend anyway, I'm living with her come October and I really can't wait. moving out is going to be A.MAZING. if there's one thing my eating disorder's taken away that I really resent, it's my independence.

I've got some fun pics today too :D



me with new haircut from yesterday :)
actually it was just a trim, but she straightened it so nicely I had to be vain, lol. and I always seem to be wearing that neon hoodie when I take pics, I think I must be trying to blind you guys! my apologies...



new breakfast addition :)
I love Nakd bars so thought I'd try these...and really, raisins that taste like cherries are a pretty cool idea! it was a VERY strong flavour and made my whole bowl taste/smell of cherries which was really nice. slightly artificially sweet maybe? but to be expected. and more interesting than plain old raisins any day. I want to try the lemon ones next, definitely.



breakfast addition number two: dried pineapple slices
now these were DEFINITELY far too sweet and overpowering. I like the dried fruit idea and it's a good way to pack in nutrition for less volume, but I'm going to try a mixture next.



the BEST afternoon snack I've had in ages.
sparkling guava juice - this stuff is amazing. comes in mango flavour too. uses natural fruit juice and is sugar free.
one of my brownies! I adapted and merged about a billion recipes, but they were made with dark chocolate, black beans and hazelnuts. YUM.
aaaaand a vanilla/chocolate pudding for good measure :)



unfortunately, these are the newest additions to my diet :(
I should be taking multivits anyway, and I found out last week that my latest bloods show low ferritin so my body is not absorbing iron correctly? (I think, I got a bit lost in the explanation lol) so anyway am taking these fun thingies. I also have a DEXA scan next week, which I was reminded about at that appointment :(
I generally don't lose my period easily and have had it at some silly weights, so I've been lucky, but my last scan was borderline and apparently my bone density is likely to be out of normal range now. argh. still, no use predicting bad news til I get it, and at least I'm making some positive changes now eh?

off to read everyone's blogs now :)
xx

sad thing number one: I may or may not have abandoned this blog for a few days :( reasons being a) I was having a hard time and didn't want to write about it, b) I was mulling over a few things but didn't have any coherent thoughts and c) relates to sad thing number two!

sad thing number two: my camera battery broke! so I have no pictures of my excursion to London/Wholefoods last week, OR my amazing dinner and drinks out with my cousins on Friday night! pretty tragic no? it's fixed now but I haven't any pictures yet.

thought I'd share some pics I was thinking about recently tho.



this is me at a much healthier weight, in 2005. I know you can't see much but tbh I wanted to focus on my face! I'm just kind of awestruck by my skin and hair in this, and the fact that I genuinely look (and was!) happy. I was in India with my best friend when this was taken.



so I've got to say, comparatively this face is just ugly! tis at a formal at uni, a few weeks after I started. of course I WENT to the formal and smiled for the camera but most of my time was spent hibernating in my room at this point. then a couple of months I went on a crazy downward spiral and ended up in hospital. FUN.

just thought I needed a little motivation ;)
so as I said, I had a crappy few days. I sat and tried to figure out why for a long time, and can only think of two things.
1) on Wednesday I went in for my weekly appointment and was indeed up by 0.3kg. which I definitely celebrated at the time...but looking back on it perhaps it was playing on my mind? I'm also very very close to the marker of having gained 20lbs from my lowest, which is hopefully something I WILL be proud of, but also pretty scary!
2) the day I went out to London I KNOW I didn't eat enough. I stuck to my plan but I was walking all afternoon in the heat, and I was hungry, which rarely happens tbh. this is making me realise that I need to be more flexible. I had to talk myself into getting an iced americano that afternoon when it wasn't 'snack time' but I was thirsty. I didn't feel like I had permission to drink, let alone eat more, and that needs to change. so I am going to try and be less rigid with my meal plan from now on.

with regard to the issue of being too rigid, I've been thinking a lot this weekend about my fears surrounding change. I decided to take a new approach with trying to stop vomiting, for a start. previously, I've always gone with a 'cut down' approach and told myself it was 'ok' every so often as long as I was making an effort. now since I was vomiting up to 15 times a day this winter that seemed sensible to me. but it just hasn't been working how I want it to. SO. strategy number two. it's no longer EVER 'ok'. my aim I guess is to stop completely but my contingency plan if I can manage that is just to write a clean slate if I screw up and start 'quitting completely' over again! if that makes sense?

anyway. I am one day into this project and feeling like I've come to a big realisation about why it's scaring me so much. it's uncertainty. I have this lurking anxiety/fear that if I don't have a 'get out' clause with eating, what will I DO if I'm hungry but don't have 'permission' to eat? what if I eat something unplanned or that I'm not happy with? this uncertainly has been ruled out by my eating disorder for years, I've had literally 100% control over what I digest. letting go, and trusting that if I'm hungry and need to eat something 'extra' the world won't end, is going to be a pretty daunting process. but hopefully it should really push me forward. cause I've found that otherwise, if I've been overactive or skipped on my meal plan and wake up starving hungry...my immediate get out clause is to b/p. I don't have to deal with giving myself 'permission' to add something extra to make up for missing the last meal, or similar.

sooo I guess...wish me luck?
xx

as you can see, the title applies both to the weather and what I did this morning!
they are banana/date muffins and were AMAZING. I walked down to town after breakfast to get some rye flour, soymilk and fruit puree, then made 'em before lunch. have frozen the rest to get out for snacks as needeed! it's been ages since I cooked something nice for myself, for a non ED'd reason, so it was lots of fun.



breakfast - Fage w/ agave, Coco Pops, 1/2 a sliced banana, box of raisins. also an unpictured apple & coffee, obv :)



lunch - plain bagel w/ butter, wholegrain mustard & chicken pieces, pea shoot salad w/ balsamic & a couple of pieces of artichoke

aaaaaand the best pic of all!



MUFFINS! two of 'em, with a grande coffee light frap for my afternoon snack. snack was out (again, I know, bad money-wise!) cause I was randomly window shopping again. seem to be doing that a lot recently, I'm thinking of it as planning for my huge shopping trip at my target weight! or at least that's my excuse...

good thing about today:
I have realised just HOW much things have changed since I (re)started gaining weight. here's a small rundown of what I've noticed in just over a week!
~ I am far less anxious, I can 'sit with myself' far more easily without waiting for the day/tv programme/hour etc to be over
~ I don't want to binge/purge! this is huge for me, I think I said in the first post but I haven't been restricting AN for a couple of years, I was basically a very underweight bulimic.
~ I have energy and WANT to do things, I feel less lethargic and low all the time
~ I'm full of ideas for ways to fill my days instead of just wishing I could waste them with ED behaviours

ok, so this stuff should be obvious. but I really don't think I trusted that it would happen for me. I thought I would put in hard work, gain weight and not get any recompense. ok, so it is kind of an irritation to my ED to discover that yes, if you maintain a 'safe' but still very low weight your body IS still effectively starving and your quality of life will be impaired. but it's a good thing to know!

tomorrow I'm going to London and having lunch with my dad. conveyor belt sushi...OMG YUM. will update with lots of photos, probably do ridic amounts of window shopping and go find a wholefoods to buy some PB lol. can't wait!