Down so long..

It’s been so long since I’ve had ‘fun’ other than using all free opportunities to structure my diet and exercise…now I’m so tired I can’t overexercise like I did before, just plodding along at a relatively normal rate, and I’m not so hungry now that I’m not working out like a fiend 12 miles a day, food, life, and my wracked physical body just bore me.  But I’m afraid to move onto something else.  Wish I could just stay like this, but I know change comes and bats you on the ass, so I brace myself constantly.

Feel guilty for wasting a day, that’s all.

Depressed Amish People and Cookies

Reading an anthropological study of the Amish–factoid states that the famed mall food Aunt Anne’s Pretzels were founded by ex-Amish and now that the founders Amos and Anne have made a fortune, they use some of the profits to fund counseling specifically for Amish people experiencing emotional difficulties, which the communiity itself lacks.

 What strange associations for an innocent bit of mall food, located next to Mrs. Fields or Cinnabun.

I’m eating Green Giant creamed spinach right now.  Not very adventurous food wise lately.  Nothing seems to appeal but I keep eating.  I wish almost I didn’t have to–but not in weight loss mode or saving up for a great meal to come, really…

Can Wegman’s Creamed Spinach cure depression?

Bad brain day.  Staring at the pool, thinking of how many times I will have to clean it, can’t clean it well like my mother used to, thinking of not having enough money to live, thinking about not getting into grad school, the curt letter a poet sent me who used to go to high school with my mother when I informed him of her death.  Bad thoughts that I won’t go through with—and feeling better now. Swam, had a decent dinner, although more caloric than I would like, given how much I ate today.  But grabbing onto sanity with tenterhooks.  The answer to the post’s question is er, no.

Trust issues

It’s so hard for me to trust myself as a thin person Though I woke up a few weeks ago and realized that I’ve been doing ‘this’ (this being the particular manifestation of the ED) since 2000 or so, meaning almost six years.  I feel as if I’ve been fat in my life for far longer, and I’ll wake up and thinness is all a dream, as if the ability to wear a pink tank top and a cute plaid pink madras skirt will be taken away from me.

 

Growing up I so wanted to be the girl in pink, not the girl in the bulky elastic band pants chosen by my mother from Sears.

 

Mother, I miss you, and I wish both of us could have been a bit less controlling and trusted ourselves a bit more, and had some better times together, when you were alive and healthy.

 

Why do I feel I deserve to be thin and beautiful?  Bought milk at the 7-11 last night, waiting behind a large young man buying what I assume was his dinner—non-diet soda, Gatorade, chips, two full fat ice cream cones, the kind in foil that you peel free like skin.  How does he feel?  I wanted to go and buy him fruit and a sandwich in stead—his meal cost $12.35, and he could have easily bought something healthier, lower in calories, and more filling for less.  How does it feel to be locked in his body—I know, and I don’t want to remember.

Just eat a sandwich already!

‘They’—they meaning people without active eating disorders (or the actively disordered in denial)—always say ‘just eat a fucking sandwich’ to people with eating issues.  Which sparks outrage—etc., it’s not about the food, blah.

 

That said, I woke up this morning feeling panicked and overwhelmed and after a cinnamon raisin bagel I feel remarkably calmer.

 

From a good bagel shop, too—don’t know exact calorie count.  A year and a half ago, that would have freaked me out, and before that, would have been unthinkable.  Conversely, in my days of overeating only a bag of bagels would have satiated me, mentally, not physically, then I would have tried to purge or simply ate nothing else for the day, and that would have been a good excuse to do nothing.

 

Got lots to do today, though.  And sometimes one does need the ‘sandwich’—of course there are other issues, which makes it tempting to starve and focus on food again, so that food again becomes the problem, and salvation is provided by a 55 cent bagel.

Shopping Lists and desire

About a year ago, a typical shopping list for me would have looked like this:

 

Swiss Miss Diet Cocoa Powder

 

Generic brand instant oatmeal (regular flavor)

 

Boca Fat Free Vegan Burgers (the lowest calorie count of all vegetarian burgers—70 calories a patty)

 

Chopped Broccoli

 

Apples

 

Splenda

 

That’s it.  The quantity would vary, depending on my calorie needs/confidence/supply.  But the items would remain the same.  Sometimes a flash of recognition would come, and finally I admitted to myself that I had eaten a packet of oatmeal, doused in a tooth-crushingly sweet amount of artificial sweetener for breakfast, everyday, for four years straight, without variation, even in summer.  Always accompanied by an apple.

 

I was sick of it.  I was living alone—no one would gloat or care if I varied my routine a bit, increased my calorie allotment for the morning to incorporate taste into my food groups.

 

Now my shopping trips are more random—veggie burgers of faux chick’n I like, regardless of calories, different fruits, vegetables (frozen, but with sauce like creamed spinach), avocados, the occasional jar of peanut butter, a bagel or a muffin, even whipped butter, tuna, fat free mayo.  But with variation, shopping takes much longer, agonizingly longer.  What do I want?  What do I really want?  I can’t remember…

 

As a child, I liked hot dogs with mustard, fried clam strips, blueberry-studded frozen waffles and Pop Tarts, birthday cake, pepperoni, and provolone cheese.  All of these things, even if I desired them, would be too harsh on my stomach.  I have tried them all, except for the fried clams and they just don’t do it for me anymore, no more sing.

 

It’s just tough to fast forward from a child’s palate to an eating disordered life and then try to go back and find out what tastes good, with an adult’s tongue but not with an anorexic or bulimic head anymore.

The name

Oh, and just so you know–the name of my blog comes from Marya Hornbacher’s memior of having anorexia and bulimia entitled Wasted.  I have binged on sugar free jelly but I’ve never been a fan of rice cakes.  Given that I have dined on broccoli and low-carb katschup, though I’m certainly no one to sneeze at anyone who has, in fact, eating jelly and rice cakes for supper!

Hello world!

“Bad Days…let’s not have rice cakes with jelly.”–Marya Hornbacher, Wasted, p. 276

You know the drill–overprotective parents.  Spent a wasted, pudgy childhood on the couch watching “The Price is Right” with my smoking, wheezing, asthmatic grandmother while my mother cleaned the house in furious anticipation of my father’s arrival from work.   He would come home, she would serve him a mountain of spaghetti topped with a snow of Parmesan cheese an inch deep (I kid you not), serve me a portion twice the size of hers, and rather than fighting over their failing marriage they would fight over the fact I wouldn’t clean my plate, then the fact I was getting fat because I asked for dessert. 

Typical, typical. The usual American childhood. Begging for McDonald’s Happy Meals for the toys and marveling at the fact that although different shapes in the package, the 6 pack of Chicken McNuggets were always the same different shape (one the shape of a boot like Italy, I recall). Snarfing down chocolate in secret, hating my thighs, watching my mother do Jane Fonda at three in the morning. 

Anorexia at 12 years old, nearly eating myself to death at fifteen, bulimia in college, and relapsing into anorexia and compulsive exercise again in my late twenties. I’ve had enough! So, this blog will not be some silly 12-stepping program about recovery, because I’ve had enough structure, thank you very much, nor is it all of that goddess and loving one’s womanly hips nonsense as I know from personal experience that unlimited cheesecake and sloth is not the solution to recovering from a restrictive eating disorder.

In fact, I’ve found a good deal of wisdom on the running track, when I’ve been training sensibly to make my legs stronger, not to burn calories.  The latest wakeup for health came when I realized how poor my running was getting, because of my crappy nutrition, even though I’m not at a particularly low weight any more. This blog is about finding a balance between food and body that is comfortable in an America gone mad, where vanity sizing is so out of control they have to make 00s at The Gap, and the smallest size at Starbucks is Tall. 

Oh, and just so y’all know, I’m actually not at a ‘dangerously low weight anymore,’ so no health concerns per se, that are life-threatening.  This is about getting my head and body back on track and just finding a sane relationship with food. 

For example—I have only eaten out at one restaurant this entire year, unless you count reading the calorie counts of Starbucks sandwiches while eating alone ‘eating out.’  I haven’t eaten something that I don’t have the ballpark idea of calories in years—or didn’t until recently when I tried some French Fries from a local eatery. 

Worth it or not worth it?   

Not. 

Greasy, truth be told. My dog enjoyed them more.  But no more FEAR of fries, that some how if I let myself wantonly inhale a pile of them.  

I look forward to more experiments in the future!