Binge

Well, I may have jinxed myself with my last post, because last night I binged for the first time in 2 weeks. It was all gluten-free and vegan, but still I feel awful, as it was a lot of heavy carbs that just don't do well in my body at all. Oh well. It's over now. I just have to write about it so that I can come clean, and now I can wash my hands of it and move onward. Today is a new day, and it is the perfect opportunity to gift my body with some beautiful fresh juice.
It was all so absurd and pointless, the reason for it. I am exactly aware of why I did it. I've been struggling to get over a cold, and it's not going away easily and I've been missing my workouts and feeling really sorry for myself. Added to that, I got a message on Facebook yesterday from a guy I dated a few times, several months ago, that I really wish I'd never hear from again, and it was stressing me out how to respond, and didn't want to be rude etc, so I tried to be polite, but I was getting upset because he keeps being so pushy and I just want him to leave me alone. On top of that I haven't heard from the guy I'm dating and that makes me sad because I love him and miss him. So I was feeling all this pain and turmoil in my heart and head, and instead of just letting myself feel it in my heart and move on through it, I turned to my old, ingrained habit of stuffing it down into my gut instead.
I think I will just try to visualize the pain all doing down through me and coming out with my poop and going away and laugh about it instead of allowing my beautiful self to be affected by it because I don't deserve that!

So today it's going to be juice baby juice :)

And here is a pretty picture because pretty things make me feel better:

Week 2 ending, and sharing how my week went

It is Saturday morning and now is the end of week 2 of what began as me making an effort to eat more raw, and has now turned into a nifty little experiment on myself I think! I am finding it very easy to eat all raw 100% during the work week and am loving my food and not missing any other food at all, so I decided I am going to keep doing this another week anyway, as I don't like to think too far ahead. When you have an eating disorder like I have, it's all 1 day at a time. Yes make a plan for the week, but don't try and make future negotiations with the eating disorder or it will be back and bite you in the butt! with a vengeance! Or at least that's what I've learned how it is for me anyway.

So, how did I do this week in regards to my goals? Well for starters, I came down with a nasty cold and had to fight it all week, and had to stay home sick on Monday. I then dragged myself through work the rest of the week and that took a lot of energy, and I missed 2 out of 3 weights workouts, and only made it to 1 of them (Wednesday). And no cardio ones at all. I couldn't breathe and my chest, throat and head hurt too much. I'm disappointed but all in all, I think being sick threw me a curveball and I did the best I could with it.
Food wise, I ate all raw since last Sunday through Thursday, but last night I decided to have my treat instead of today, so I had my treat of choice, which was rice cakes and hummus and then rice cakes and sesame tahini mixed with honey, and then a big bowl of frozen bananas blended with my homemade almond milk and a spoonful of raw carob powder. 
That means I have now made it 2 WHOLE WEEKS  without refined sugar! (my biggest demon). I am more than pleased with myself, and that alone makes up for not having made it all the way through Friday.

I now have 3 days off and my plan is to make a lot of juices and hopefully get better and hopefully get in a workout or two. I will set my goals for next week at the start of the week. For now, 3 days at a time :)

Weekend ups and downs (mostly ups though)

So, good news and bad news....Bad news is I came down with a cold on the weekend, and I feel really yucky, and dreading having to go to work sniffling and sneezing and snorting. I have a feeling I am going to bed really early tonight.

Good news though, is that I did really well foodwise. I just cruised along and made wise decisions and good choices, and I stayed on plan, although yesterday not completely raw but I'm perfectly ok with that as I'd already given myself permission to eat whatever I wanted on Saturday. I had green peas, rice cakes with hummus and some with tahini and honey, and then a few pistachios and raisins. I didn't binge and and I enjoyed my "cheat meal" thoroughly, and to my great surprise I didn't even crave or eat any sugar, although I had thought I would want some candy, but I didn't, so I didn't eat any. I'm ok with that though, as for now my goal is to cut way down on sugar as that is more manageable for me and doesn't set off that Binge/.Eating disorder Voice telling me that I must eat x, y, or z (junk foods), and it prevents binge mentality, at least for me anyways.

So, I went for my run yesterday morning, having already decided to take a rest day from the gym as I was very sore from my workouts, and then today woke up with a sore throat and yucky cold that is sapping my energy so I did not work out today. I just went for a nice leisurely walk and got a bit of fresh air and sunshine which I thought would help my immune system fight off this cold.

I also lost 5 lbs in the last week and feel really good about myself, and feel so good in my clothes, that I haven't felt in quite a few weeks, and really proud of my good choices all week and indeed on the weekend too. For the first time in a long time I feel genuinely at peace with my food choices, which is a pretty amazing feeling and for someone with an eating disorder it is a rare feeling.

My plan for next week is pretty much the same, I enjoyed eating raw so much that I am setting that as my goal again, to eat all raw Monday through Friday, and to get in all my workouts, although being sick I might have to cut myself some slack depending on how I feel, but my goal is to get in my weights workouts for sure and just go a little lighter if I need to on the weights.
Also for next weekend my goal is the same, to permit myself a treat on Saturday as that so far is working for me.

Today I just had 2 big jars of juice and a lot of herbal tea and some garlic with raw honey as an immune booster, and some vitamin C, not sure what dinner will be, but it'll be something raw for sure.

Feeling grateful and Triumphant :)

It's Friday night and I reached my goal for this week!!! I am so proud of myself. I had a two-part goal for this week: 1) eat all Raw, and all in only amounts that my body needed, and 2) get in all my workouts; and I reached both of them! Wow!  I feel so amazed that I made it, and so proud of myself, and so grateful for the help from the Creator that I prayed for to enable me to reach these goals.
This means that I have eaten (and juiced) 100% raw for the past 5 days, and also last weekend I did too, which means 7 days in total. Yay!

It's been a hard week at work and I am very tired and sore from work and from the gym, but I feel victorious and mentally on top of the world.
 One thing I decided last weekend is that I would allow myself to eat whatever I want on Saturday if I could just make it through my goals. So I will see what I want to eat tomorrow. I am not craving anything unhealthy. Also I have gone to the gym for 7 days straight and due to soreness I think I will take tomorrow off, but I will still go for my run in the morning. 
So happy it's the weekend and that I actually get to enjoy it rather than spend it a) recovering from binges and b) beating myself up for binging and c) extremely bloated and puffy and tired feeling....now it'll be time to take some "Me" time, and then to set some new goals for next week.

3 down, 2 to go...

I find it hard to post during the week usually I am way too busy, but just a quick update. I am so proud of myself, I set myself a goal Sunday night that I wanted to do Monday to Friday, 5 days, all Raw and also try to get in all my workouts this week. I have now made it to Wednesday night, which means I'm 3 days in and 2 to go! That doesn't seem so bad! I feel so awesome now, I'm back to working out every day and I feel amazing and have eaten all raw and all appropriate amounts too. What a difference it makes to take care of yourself. Wow. I feel way less bloated and fat and my butt looks kinda normal now lol. As an extra bonus, I managed to eat all raw for the whole weekend, too, so I'm actually on to 5 days now, but I didnt' care about that, I just had a little goal for this week and so far so good.

Struggling to get Back on Track when my Butt looks Huge

Well, after 2 gym workouts and 1 run this weekend, I am officially "back on track".  I have such a struggle when I am in a binge rut and the past 3 weeks were basically shot. It gets so hard sometimes when I feel really down about something and end up eating crap every day for the rest of the week, and then sometimes I am able to get back on track on the weekend, but sometimes not and then it spills over into the next week and I feel horrible. Knowing I am hurting myself and yet also knowing that at that moment, I am unable to stop, and incapable of rational thought. In this case, it was a downhill week where I overate every day, and then was not able to pull myself out on that weekend, so the next week was awful as well. The week after that, which was this past week, I stayed eating healthy stuff only, but I still overate, but didn't full-on binge. Plus I was bloated from PMS as well, so that didn't help, and when I am in that state I feel so awful that I don't even go to the gym. And then it comes to a day on the weekend (in this case, yesterday) where I have finally cleared up my mental state, am thinking rationally, and juicing and nourishing my body with wonderful living foods, and it comes time to go back to the gym. Now, I absolutely LOVE working out, it is one of my favourite things to do, and I like my gym, so normally I'm super happy to go to the gym. But on a "getting back on track" day, I struggle so hard because I have gained about 5 lbs and I feel that it is painfully noticeable and that my butt looks huge, and I don't want to go on the stairclimber with people behind me looking at me. I am so embarrassed that they will think I gained so much weight and I think they must know that I haven't been in for 3 weeks and must have eaten a lot to gain weight like I have. Sometimes I get all ready to go and then it takes me about an hour of pacing back and forth in the hallway to get up the nerve to actually leave. This happened yesterday. Once there it was even worse because like I said, I thought everyone must think I look terrible. But luckily there weren't that many people there. I hope they were new people and there was no one I know there. But still, I think the staff must notice. Oh God. How embarrassing. But I pushed through and enjoyed my workout once I kept telling myself to just do my best and forget about everything and everybody else. It takes a great effort of will to do that. Today I felt better and went for a run this morning, and then this afternoon to the gym, and this time I felt a bit better about it. I hate feeling this way but there is just nothing much I can really do about it, short of try very hard to take better care of myself.

I feel sad when I think how many different sizes of clothes I have, for wearing in different times of binge-stages. Ugh. I hate how my weight yo-yo's up and down all the time. It really sucks to keep gaining and losing the same 5-10 lbs. I'm just glad I am tall and that I look ok no matter what. But still, it just sucks. Binging and constantly having to recover from binges is so exhausting, even though my binges are much smaller and healthier than they were in previous years. My clothes sizes range is smaller, too, and I have to remember that it used to be 20-30 lbs of yo-yo'ing rather than 5-10. Sigh.  I just wish, so wish, that I could be capable of rational thought and behaviour ALL the time and not just most of the time. I wish the binge compulsion wouldn't have such power to control me this way. I wish I could treat my body with the respect that it deserves ALL the time...although I used to be unable to treat it with any respect at all...I just wish I could remain at the weight that I feel best at, that I feel alive and vibrant and strong and joyful, that I could wear my favourite jeans anytime I want rather than just when I've had a good week. I wish having a good week was more in my control...I guess there are no quick fixes for anything, I know that, and I also know that I keep looking back and seeing how far I have come. I sound like I'm whining, but I really do know that I have made progress and am so proud of how much progress I have made. I want to keep making progress and no matter how long it takes, I want to someday look back and see that I really am recovered and no longer am controlled by the eating disorder.

Anywhoo, I'm having a big juice just now, apple, lettuce, fennel, celery, ginger, and redcurrant, and earlier I had a banana and a green bitter endive juice and some green peas. I know that loving myself with a week's worth of really mindful eating and workouts, I will be back to the low end of the range again. I am just going to keep looking forward, pushing towards my goal inch by inch. I'll get this.

 

just a Note

I just wanted to share a recent post on one of the blogs that I read regularly. It pretty much hit the nail on the head with regards to how I feel about my personal optimal diet, which was interesting given my recent experience with another eating style.

http://jinjeetalifero.com/?p=3552

Releasing frustrations today!

Ok, so this is going to be a long-winded rant lol!
I am feeling really frustrated and annoyed, so I am going to vent and release my frustrations. I am also on my period, so it's a perfect time to let go of things! Lol.

So I last posted about how I decided to join in a Facebook challenge for Eat to Live. At the time I really didn't think it was a huge deal that I can't eat beans, I figured I would just leave them out for the most part and eat mostly raw along with juicing and the odd cooked vegetable, using the group as motivation and support. They seemed like really supportive people, so I thought why not. Well, turns out it IS a pretty big deal to that group. They're on there posting pictures of HUGE lunches and dinners consisting of large quantities of cooked vegetables and beans, and apparently that is the ETL plan. Also you are not supposed to drink any fruit juice (I put apples in almost all my juices, almost every day), and you are not supposed to replace a meal with juice (I like to juice all day Saturday and Sunday, and I have a big juice as half of my supper a lot of weeknights), you are not supposed to "snack between meals" (I work as an apprentice electrician, and most of my workdays my eating breaks consist of 10 minutes to snatch a bite or two here and there between jobs. There is very rarely a sit-down break and this is the nature of the work. I love it and don't have a problem with it, as I have a very small stomach and my body prefers small amounts of food often throughout the day. It is also a physically demanding job, and by the end of the day when I'm about to head to the gym, I NEED a high-carb snack like a banana or a Larabar. Not only that, but if I did happen to have time to eat a huge meal during my workday, it would really hurt my stomach to put my toolbelt back on afterwards).
They are also against any oils, and yet they are perfectly ok with slathering their food with Bragg's or tamari, and these things make me feel ill and are full of sodium which makes me bloat like a balloon. I think it's completely hypocritical to say "no processed nuts!" and yet they use commercial almond milk which is full of things like "natural flavour" and sodium, not to mention it is cooked and hence contains cooked fat (I make my own almond milk). I just can't possibly look at any more pictures of cooked, heavy, dense oatmeal with processed, pasteurized almond milk and feel inspired, when I sprout my oats and mix them with beautiful fresh, raw almond milk that I make myself, sprinkled with chia seeds and a dusting of cinnamon and topped with a diced banana. I can't understand how that is supposed to be inspirational to me. I strongly believe in raw foods, and have never felt better in my life than I do on a high raw, unprocessed vegan diet with lots of juicing. To me, eating cooked stuff like that is going backwards. And beans just make me so sick. They are WAY too heavy, in my opinion. I like having a small amount of edamame or frozen steamed peas, or sprouted lentils and that is all. Not every day and certainly not every meal. I don't feel at all inspired by these pictures of heavy cooked meals. I don't understand the woman who runs the group talking about "doing this no matter what" and "don't go off the plan"  and "if you are not eating beans every day then you're not on the plan and need to revisit why you're in this challenge" as if it is some sort of gospel that works for everyone. So no matter what, I'm supposed to eat that stuff, even if it screws up my sensitive stomach and makes me ill? I don't get it. Where is the logic in that?  Also, she is obese which I also don't find at all inspirational for that type of lifestyle.
If it works for some people, great and more power to them, I think that's awesome and absolutely no disrespect meant towards any of them. We are all on our own journey and we each need to find what works for our own body. We are the only person in the world who knows our own body the best. Nothing wrong with doing your own thing if it is healthy and is of real benefit to you. With that said, I don't think that group or that lifestyle is for me. Far be it from me to judge someone else's approach to health, I would never do that! I am only having a little rant session because I needed to vent! Lol.
I haven't decided yet whether to leave the group or what.

Anyway, I am most definitely "off of the plan" because today I am having a big celery, apple, ginger and redcurrant juice, and I didn't eat any beans either! Lol.
Whew, what a relief it feels now after my ETL rant... :)
I feel like I've been released from prison :)

I just made a batch of almond milk and am freezing some of it for the first time, hope it comes out ok when I go to thaw it.  I guess we'll find out in a few days how it works. It'll be good to know anyway for future reference.

Not sure what's on the menu for the next week, but this weekend mostly juice, hmm, and haven't really figured out what my plan is for the next week at all. I am just SUPER glad that my week of horrible PMS, combined with sugar withdrawal bigtime, and also heavy smoke in the air from all the local forest fires which aggravates my asthma, is over!! Yay! I still have a few more things to say, and I really want to share more about my struggles with my eating disorder, but I have to head to the gym in a bit. I'll be back on later.

100 day challenge, day 1

Wow, it's been ages since I last posted anything. I haven't done horribly since then, but I haven't done terrific either. I 've been off track with my workouts for about 3 weeks now and definitely feel it, and also I fucked up my food intake pretty badly this weekend. This is the first time in months that I actually ate dairy and gluten-free bread, and I have the bloated upset tummy to prove it. Ugh. Also it is PMS time so that equals bloating and emotional-ness. Yuck.

Anyway, I've struggled each week for the last 3 to be on plan with my eating and exercise, and sadly ended up binging by wednesday each week.  I feel like an absolute mess mentally today, and bigtime sugar withdrawal headache and head fog too. Ugh.  I hate feeling this way.

Anyway long story short, I am in this group on Facebook for the Nutritarian, eat to live by Dr Fuhrman lifestyle, and they were just starting a 100 day challenge, so I decided to join in and take it 1 day at a time and see if I can break my addictions around food. Only thing is they go pretty heavy on the beans, and beans really don't agree with me, so I am still doing the challenge but going to focus on mostly vegetables, and will eat my legumes in the form of green peas, edamame, and sprouted lentils, as those work very well for me. Also I am doing juicing regularly, something Dr Fuhrman discourages, but I firmly believe in my juicing and also in doing mostly raw, so that is my main focus. Still within the ETL framework, but something that I know will work well for me, or at least I hope it to.

So today was a pretty rough day. I am so hard on myself and beat myself up soooo bad and basically I feel really down on myself because I never seem to get past day 5 or 6 of eating super healthy and then either binge or eat junk. Then go into a downward spiral and start feeling depressed and I know it's mainly sugar that makes me feel unbalanced this way and that I don't need to feel this way, I just need to nourish myself and starve out the toxic cravings so that they subside and then I'll be fine. I just need to get through the next week what with PMS and all and going through the withdrawal and yeah, just take it 1 day at a time. I just don't have much faith in myself at this point. But what the hell, I am nothing if not persistent. I figure if I try often enough and enough things and ways, I can work my way to my goal of physical and mental stability, peace with my food, and the body of my dreams. Anything is possible, but everything is impossible the minute you give up. So I am not giving up.