balancestruggle

D’s Jambalaya

Get a big pot and warm up some olive oil in it. 

Dice a big red onion and chuck it in.  Sautee that dude well.

Cut up 1lb each of chicken breast and lean spicy sausages.  Chuck them in, turn up the heat and cook them well.

Get to work chopping five green peppers and about 5 baby bok choys.  You can use celery if you prefer, but would probably only use half a bunch in that case.

Chuck them in.

Get to work again chopping 5 tomatoes.  Good big ones.  Chuck them in too, + about a cup of vegetable cocktail.

Add 4 Tbsp of cajun spice, 3/4 cup of water and 1 1/2 cups of instant rice.

Stir it up, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes while the rice absorbs the water.

Enjoy!!!

I haven’t weighed myself in a long time because I haven’t been to the gym where the only scale in my life lives.  I have however, been eating very well and kicking the PMDD symptoms to the curb.  And this despite it being year end at school and my computer dying and taking half of my data with it to the computer afterlife. 

 Run your backups, lesson learned!

Because of the PMDD, I’ve made some dietary changes and started taking some supplements.  The result is that I am not nearly as depressed at this time of month, THIS MONTH anyway.  And a happy side effect is not wanting to “depression eat.”  The result appears to be me being able to move up a belt notch.  I don’t think anyone else can see the difference, but I do.

 Also… some of my bras have extra room in the cups now.  Don’t know how I feel about THAT!  :)  I’d like the boobs to stay if possible… Besides, good bras are super expensive and I can’t afford them right now.

 That’s about it for me today.  Just thought I’d do a quick check in.  I am sincerely wishing all my buddies goodness and energy and a positive outlook.  Feeling happy with oneself is even better than feeling happy with one’s weight.

Big love,

D

Jeez.

I suck at this.

I had really bad PMDD symptomology this month, a lot of stress at school.  I’m off of dairy and that is stressful but I’m finally getting the hang of it. 

Oh, and I gained a pound.

Sigh…

Why do I get so bloody stressed out and reach for anything sweet?  It’s like I’m some sort of sugar junkie crack addict.  I would do almost anything for a cookie and it seems like I need one every hour.  What’s more, is if I DON’T eat in the morning, I can go for days without eating (don’t worry, I haven’t actually done anything like that), but if I do eat my healthy moderate breakfast, I get hungry all day.

It sucks.

I can actually deal with hunger.  It’s the blood sugar drop that I have a hard time with.  I get shakey.  I feel weak in the knees.  I get agitated and grumpy.  And the thing I know that will soothe me and make it all better is a honey cruller.

Jeez.

I fucking hate this.

I’m not one of those people who wants to be ridiculously, unrealistically thin.  I just want to get back into the BMI index for my height (5′7″).  I’ve got 15lbs to go.  I have NO time.  I’m stressed always (even when logically I don’t have anything to be stressed about - my body just goes into stress mode - damn my parasympathetic nervous system!!!)

It’s when time gets away from me and I don’t think.  I don’t make a decision I just do whatever feels good at the moment.  I have to slow myself down again, make time for this.  It’s just hard when so many other *important* things are vying for my attention.  And they ARE important… they are academic… I’m in a competitive graduate program with a supervisor that can be a passive-aggressive turkeyarse. 

That’s all.  That’s my check-in.  I can’t entertain today.  I’m sorry I’ve been away so long.  I just haven’t had anything to give anyone recently.

Off to sleep and recharge.  Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet (Anne Shriley!!)  So I will cleanse my spirit with REM and try again tomorrow.  And the next day and the next day… until I am doing better.

Love to anyone reading. 

I have a kinda neat/kinda stupid rule about weighing myself.  I don’t do it often, and when I do I either do it first thing in the am (after a BM, before eating) OR if I have had a meal I just plain automatically subtract two pounds.  Not a solid scientific procedure, I realize.  But this is my rule.  It is leftover from the stupid old ED days…

The other holdover is that I am quite remiss to discuss numbers with people.  Numbers are a huge trigger for people with EDs and so we tend not to discuss calories, sizes, weights or amounts of any kind when in recovery mode, for fear of triggering our kith.

So it is kinda weird for me to try to hold a healthy space while bringing the numbers back into my life.

This week, I have not exercised a ton nor eaten extremely well - at least so I thought.  But something good must be going on, because I am two lbs lighter than I was last week.  Last week I did my weigh in at the gym on an empty morning stomach, then ate and worked out.  This week, it was an end of the day weigh in… after lunch and snacks and lots and lots of water.  So it wasn’t really fair and applied my minus two lbs rule.  By that (admittedly imperfect) logic… I have lost two lbs.  That is, the scale said 1/2 less than last week when I weighed in on an empty stomach and bowel.

Make sense?

Anway, this excited me to no end.  Wanna know why?  Here’s why: It meant I dropped below the 170 mark.  A mark that has plagued me for years.  Since highschool, this has been a real downer weight for me.

Immediately, I am self-conscious.  Oh, no.  What if one of you is comparing yourself with me?  What if mentioning my number causes you to want to compete with me in some weirdly anorexic way?  Fear.  Remorse.  Guilt.

But no.  I want to be able to talk about this without having to use code.  I want to stop being afraid of the numbers and not using them as a measure of my self-esteem while still using them as tools to get to a healthy place.  I am not measured by a number.  But hopefully numbers can be made use of by me for my own goals.

It was nice to see some manifest evidence that my efforts were doing something.  Especially in this time when I don’t FEEL so great because of my efforts.  We’ve all hit walls where we feel like we are no longer acheiving - at weight, at exercise, at stamina and even emotional strength.  I guess it was just nice to see that it does matter what I choose to do food and exercise wise.  Then I looked back on my week.  Hey wait a minute.  I have been better at some of the small changes I’ve been trying to make (stopping eating when I am satiated, being more regular with mini-exercises).  Maybe I am learning something?

And it wasn’t even on the course outline!

Well, the week is pretty much over and I have only made it to the point of exercising once, plus one good long walk.  Insufficient!!!  I tend to get a bit cranky without some aerobic exercise.  And then I succumb to the laws of physics:

A body at rest tends to stay at rest.

Okay, it’s not that I am actually resting.  I’m working my poor little arse off at school this week.  I had a stats exam that nearly made my hand fall off.  How many calories did I burn in flop sweat alone on that one, I’ll never know, but it felt like a million. 

I sit here now, having just got back from school and the pharmacy, and I have an hour and 45 mins before I need to leave the appartment.  But I also have a series of tasks that must be done before I can shove off.  You see, this is the problem.  The planning just bloomin’ overwhelms me.  I don’t have time to think about this.  I want my mummy; someone to pick me up at school and take me to my activities and make me dinner and pack me a healthy lunch!!

Oh, and tuck me in too.  That would be just ripping.

I am so bloody tired since giving up caffeine.  I know that at least it is not artificial.  But bloody hell, balls and claptrap!!  This is just bruuuuuu-tal!

I want to thank the couple of you who were so sweet to send me booster notes.  And I beg your understanding… I want to be a good buddy, I think this site is sooooo great in hooking us up with each other for support.  I don’t seem to have the time to write personal messages.  But please understand, when I write anything at all, it is intended to reach out to you in the spirit of comraderie.

I am struggling with you.

And I will succeed with you.

I am going to try to squeeze my exercise in whenever I can.  For example:

Standing instead of sitting on the bus.

Walking to the subway instead of busing it.

Going for a walk on my lunch break.

Remembering to do my spot exercises for my shoulder.

Carrying the heavy bag instead of automatically choosing the lightest.

Taking stairs two at a time.

If anyone has other mini-exercisers, I’d love to hear em!

Be well ya’ll!

D

At least one of you knows that I have a great love of the website www.icanhascheezburger.com.  Others of you have figured it out and sent adorable booster notes on theme with cute animals.  Thanks, by the way!  Sorry I’ve been incommudicado for over a week now.  But it’s been back to school and other craziness.  I’m here, however.  Still slogging, with some days better than others.

Which brings me to my point.

PMDD.

 For the longest time, I always believed that PMS was a joke.  Sure, I get mind-numbingly painful menstrual cramps every 28 days and I get a bit weepy, but I always assumed that PMS was something that some man made up to try to marginalize women and keep them out of the workforce, or some stupid crap.    I assumed this, all the while being in denial that for a few days, every cycle, just before my period, I get brutally depressed, have insomnia, cry for hours for no external reason, and a host of other symptoms designed to keep me from getting anything useful done.  The other thing that I was not quite sure what to make of was the fact that I actually perceive myself as about 30 lbs heavier at this time.

Now, I don’t mean that I FEEL 30 lbs heavier.  I don’t mean that I’m having a “fat day.”  I don’t even mean that I’m dealing with bloating and water retention so that my jeans are tight.  I’m talking about feeling like I am looking into a funhouse mirror, becoming disoriented and unsure about what I look like, and then convincing myself that the warped me in the mirror was the true me.  You can guess how this would feed into a depression!  You can certainly guess how it would feed into an eating disorder.

After several months of this, my partner (aka the most wonderful man on earth) gently broached the subject of what point I was at in my cycle.  He began to question if this was PMS.  Then I went on anti-anxiety/anti-depressant meds for a while and it cleared up.  Returned when I went off of them. 

Fast forward to this month.  Last Tuesday, I have insomnia, can’t get out of bed, crying all day (even on transit)… came home cried for hours watching MASH reruns… this is ludicrous, I think.  Finally, after years, I bring it up with my therapist (the second most wonderful man in the world) who is also an MD.  “Uh, yeah, D.  PMS is a REAL thing.  There is no doubt in my mind.  And I think that this isn’t PMS.  I think it is PMDD.”  We discuss it at lenghth… under normal circumstances, he’d advise me to keep track of stuff for a few months.  Considering, my partner and I have been monitoring it for years… he’s convinced.

Last Tuesday, I felt like I was slowly bleeding to death.  There was no external reason.  My life was just fine.  I also spent the day honestly believing that I had somehow gained 30 lbs over night.  That’s not normal.  That’s not okay.  What to do?  One end of the spectrum is for me to try an SSRI for ten days a cycle from day 15 until I start menstruating.  I don’t know how I feel about that.  I tend to get nauseated and I fear that I would use this to not eat and trigger some ED issues.  So I’m not crazy about that as a first choice.  The other end of the spectrum is supplements and dietary changes.  I am also not crazy about THIS as a first choice because when I developed my ED it began as ortho-anorexia and I could see this being triggery as well.

So  a lot of thinking to do.  Yes?

You know, I am not in the same place I used to be in, but I am scared.  Or maybe I am using the fear of my ED as a way of avoiding the fact that I do need to lose some weight.  I don’t know.  I know that as long as I’m in this mode of protecting myself from the ED, I’m allowed to eat chocolate whenever I feel bad.  And that’s not good.  Again the theme emerges as balance, and I have to be very honest.  I don’t know if I can do it.  That is the fear.  I have not really ever acheived balance for very long before… I’m not very good at it yet.

Which I suppose means I need to practice.  Sigh…

If some dietary changes mean that I am not as depressed once a month and sleep through the night… well, I suppose it is worth it.  I can try it as an experiment.  I can try.  I just don’t know if I can do it.

Here’s what I’m told are the things to avoid/reduce:

refined sugar (good idea, regardless)

caffeine (aaaaack!)

simple carbs (replace with complex carbs)

alcohol (meh)

Here are the things I’m supposed to increase

calcium, magnesium and B6

aerobic exercise

fibre

Okay… sigh again.  I guess I just need to sit with this for a bit and figure out what my motives are.  Am I trying to stay fat so that I don’t have to deal with my life?  Or am I hiding behind the protection from ED argument for other reasons?

And can it be that a host of physical/emotional troubles I’ve had since puberty can be reduced to PMDD?

This actually happened a little over a week ago, but things have been tight at school so not a lot of time to write!  But here it is now, for you amusement.

I was at my gym.  I pay a little extra there to have access to a women’s only health club that also has a hottub.  It’s awesome.  I went into the women’s only area to work out and to my delight, it was deserted when I arrived.  I love this because all to often, someone is in there with the volume on the TV WAY too loud and I can hear it over my headphones.  There are a lot of elderly women at my gym, so often I don’t bother about it, thinking that they can’t hear very well and have to put the volume up loud.  But then, I saw the sign on the TV that reads, “Volume must be kept off in consideration of other patrons.”  Great!  I was not going to suffer geriatric bullying any longer!  If anyone came in while I was in here, the volume was not going to be cranked.

Sure enough, just as I finish my cardio and am ready to move on to weights, a woman comes in.  She is violating two gym rules that I can see in that she is wearing a SWIMSUIT with no pants or shorts, AND instead of running shoes, she is in crocks.  These are both no-nos that are clearly posted all over the locker room.  She goes to a cardio machine, takes the remote and CRANKS the television up.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t come to the gym to watch TV, I come to work out.  And no disrespect to anyone who likes this sort of show, but I wouldn’t ever watch the View.  Now the View is turned up to about 80 decibels and can be heard over the hard german techno in my ipod.

I politely say to her that I would apprecite it if she turned it down, that I could hear it over my headphones.  She does a silent-era performance of an exasperated sigh and turns it down one notch.  I tell her that it is still very loud, point out the sign that says that the volume must be off and ask her to turn it down again.

She unloads on me.

“How dare you!  I’ve been a member of this centre for XX years!  I’m not turning this down for any more of you ungrateful so-and-sos!  You think you own this place?  Blah blah blah bitchy blah blah….

I leave.

I get a staff person.  The manager of the women’s health club section.  She asks if I know who it is?  I say no.  She says, is she wearing a bathing suit and crocs?  Uh, yeah… The manager has a look of complete exhaustion and says, “I have to deal with this harpie 7 times a day.”

Manager comes in, tries to talk to crazy bathing suit woman.  Can’t get a word in edgewise.  After 15 minutes turns to me and apologizes and says that this woman is just an “old bitch” they can’t get rid of.

Wow.

Bathing suit lady was clearly replaying a power struggle she goes through almost hourly.  I have no idea why they allow her to keep coming to the gym and haven’t revoked her membership.  She is rude, yelling, interrupting, insulting, accusing me and the manager of some great conspiracy.  The manager apologizes repeatedly to me.  I thank her for trying.  She leaves.

Then I finish my workout.  I resist the urge to make comments at the elderly bathing suit woman - knowing I could easily reduce her into hysterics, that I have the power to make her do something superstupid and get her kicked out.  That I could go back to the manager and even make up some story that would get bathing suit lady kicked out immediately.  But I don’t.  I finish my workout, every single second of it, refusing to be bullied out before I am done.  Oh, and I grunt a LOT and LOUDLY, just to be a bit irritating.  I do not blow her a kiss when I leave.  Though I really want to.

Then I go to the hottub.

Another woman gets in and I think to myself.  Wow, what a great looking, tanned 49 year old.  She’s got amazing boobs, I wonder if they are real?  We start talking… she is friendly, hospitable, witty, a delightful conversationalist.

And she’s actually 71.

She invites me to do pilates with her later in the week.  She is just a pleasure to hang out with.  I feel welcomed to the club and happy to be there.

On the way home I couldn’t help but compare these two, septegenarians.  One who was completely a hag both inside and out.  Another whom I thought was too good looking to want to talk to me, who ended up being a total sweetheart.  When I asked her what her secret was, she said that exercise was the elixir of life.  Ah… good to know.  I bet she doesn’t have to watch the view to feel like she has friends.  She makes them effortlessly.

I hope that when I am old, that I am fit and energetic. 

And not wearing just a swimsuit on exercise equipment and yelling at complete strangers.

Oy.

How delightful it was to discover three complete strangers commenting on my blog and being so wonderfully supportive.  This is a nice little community ya’ll have running here!  Thank you so much to the group of you who sent me welcoming well-wishes.  I think you are just lovely and friendly for doing that.

 So today is going well thus far.  Sigh… morning was a bit shakey as I didn’t have breakfast.  I went to therapy and then was supposed to have brunch with a friend immediately following.  Then the friend was late, the restaurant wasn’t open.  Then they weren’t serving brunch and I was really disappointed.  Look at how much of the power and control over happiness I just gave to eggs this moring!!! Ridiculous.  Eggs are readily available and I have easy access to both them and a frying pan.  I needed be so upset about not getting to have proper brunch.  But it really occured to me just how much time and energy I had spent focusing on food.

A good reason for making sure one has breakfast BEFORE leaving the house.  Also a good reminder that brunching is about seeing the friend and not the plate.  So screw you brunch!  I went for a burger and a side salad and felt quite pleased afterwards.

 Checked out Noah’s Natural Foods looking for lavender flowers for baking with.  Found them.  I used to work at one of the Noah’s-es downtown.  Hasn’t changed.  Still greeted by a surly worker and almost made to feel like I did not belong in their “fabulous store” for rich people only.  Got my lavender flowers (35 cents for a tablespoon’s worth) and a raw food treat.  OMG, the raw food treat was amazing!!!  Coconut base with some sort of creamy something (tofu?) and a lime topping.  Delightful afternoon snack.  Sensible portion.  Outrageous price.

 Been home for a while now, with friend, working on a sewing project.  Making one’s own clothes is VERY fun and satisfying.  But beware!!!  If you are sensitive about sizes and numbers, patterns will make you very upset.  I regularly range from a size 10-14 depending on store and cut.  But in a McCauls pattern I can be a size 18 or 20!  Another great reminder that numbers do not mean a damn thing!!!  How you FEEL in your own body is what this is all about.  How does it feel and what can you do with it?  That is what’s important to focus on!!!  So my friend went with the big numbered size and we pinned and snipped and cut away the afternoon.  Didn’t get to the sewing part yet though.  Friend was disappointed thinking it would only take a few hours to make a garment!!!  Oh, dear… no no no.  Much longer, my sweet, my longer still if you want it to fit and look right.

Wondering now what to do with myself.  I have a tutee for stats tomorrow at noon and need to prepare for her.  A bit concerned about her as she has talked about having hives and panic attacks recently - and I saw a bottle of hydroxycut or somesuch total nonsense snake-oil in her back pack, nestled in the textbooks and the tampons.  Talked to her about it, but we’re not friends so I’m not sure how far to press the issue.  That’s a difficult thing when one of your jobs is psychotherapist.  Where do you draw the line in your personal/professional/academic life?

Enough for now.  I may head out early for a show tonight and work in the coffee shop.  Delicious smells there…  The smell of coffee seems to perk me up.

Be well, dear readers.  Breathe deeply…

Hi, I’m D.

 Here’s my deal.  I am a 33 year old professional counsellor/psychotherapist who recently began grad school.  I have struggled with my weight and body image issues since just before puberty.   Recently, say the past 9 years, I have been in recovery from an eating disorder - mostly bulimia with bouts of anorexia and a lot of ED-NOS.  I have been essentially symptom free for 6 years and in that time have put on a lot of weight.

 Before I go any further, yes, I do realize the strangeness of someone with this kind of history attempting to diet.  But it is time for me to look at my health in a way I’ve not been able to before.  This far into recovery, I feel I am ready to stop hiding behind the former diagnosis and face the fact that I’m not all that healthy these days.  Whereas I used to binge, purge and starve, these days I have swung in the opposite direction and do not think seriously about my eating at all.  The pendulum has swung really severely in two directions, and now I’m ready for something more moderate.

A middle ground.

Instead of going all crazy and restricting types of foods, I’d like to find a healthy balance that includes healthy foods and treats in reasonable proportions.  Instead of freaking out and “needing” to go for a 5K run to punish myself for eating a piece of cake, I’d like to be able to enjoy cake and running in moderate ways.  I’d like to not obsess about “getting it perfect” and get it “good enough.”

For the first time in a looooooooong time, I’m prepared to look at my weight and my exercise habits as a measure of my health.  You see, my mental health is better than it’s ever been.  Time to take care of the body now too.

I’m interested in meeting people who are also moderates.  I do not want to obsess about numbers too much, I don’t want to pressure myself to be a certain size or weight within a certain time.  I just want to see some slow steady progress in the general direction of the BMI range.  I want to see myself exercise more consistently, not just MORE.  I want to feel stronger and less stressed out.

Moderate friends would be appreciated.

I won’t encourage anyone to do stupid diet stuff, or be hard on themselves.  But I will encourage you to look at your emotional connection to food, your food connection to power, and your power connection to your body.  I’m interested in looking at these relationships and being VERY honest about my motives and my activities.

I have given myself permission in recent months to cry when I feel a craving to binge, purge or overexercise so that I can find out what emotion is underlying it and deal with the actual orignal problem.  And it’s been a big, wonderful deal for me.

I’m happy to share my postivity with anyone who thinks they may benefit from it.

Be well.  Feed the hunger of your body and soul with what nurtures you.  I will try to do te same.

D