Counting Calories...

A journal entry I wanted to share highlighting that even with my new food plans I am STILL trying to battle the urges and compulsions to add everything up..all the time.

"I need to remember I need to STOP COUNTING THE CALORIES. Although, if I am honest with myself, I am still having a lot of trouble remembering that.

I am also struggling to not worry that by not counting the calories in everything that It will mean that I will completely OVER eat and get huge. I feel like I SHOULD BE counting calories and totting them up and knowing how many I have eaten at any given moment. To me this feels normal, it feels like it should happen and is just the way eating goes. You know what you've had and how much it is. 

The problem is that NOT knowing feels so weird and alien to me and I really can’t get my head round that. I feel sort of irresponsible and out of control not knowing. I need to rewire my brain thought because I need to not care, because for as long as I care this much about the exact calories Ana is going to be listening and watching and waiting just around the corner to trip me up when I have ‘eaten too much’ and praise me for ‘eating too little’

I know I need to trust that Ms. F hasn’t given me a zillion calories to consume per day, although it feels like it. I need to trust that she is in fact giving me enough to restore my health, my liver function and yes, my weight. Her and Mrs W. just want me to get BETTER and RECOVER. 

I just can’t help stressing though because I am, in black and white, eating A LOT more than before, even a lot more than two weeks ago. BUT I NEED TO. I am not on a bloody diet any more, I am not meant to have the purpose of maintaining or losing weight, I am not restricting for Ana anymore. I need to not ‘watch’ what I eat to lose a few pounds; I don’t need to eat to look healthy. I need to embrace recovery and get a grip. 

Life is not a diet any more."

Why Don't I Jump?

MAKE THE JUMP FOR GODS SAKE! 

The books and videos and blogs are right, the EATING IS THE HARDEST PART but it is the part that will make the difference to me right now. It is the difference between THINKING positively – this week has FELT positive in my head but I need to now make FEELING positive in to actually being POSITIVE. But this is going to mean REALLY facing my fears and jumping in.

This is so scary, but everything I have read and watched (both my Jenni Schaefer) has said the same thing, that it is the scariest bit, it is the hardest bit but I HAVE TO JUMP, TRUST MY PARACHUTE will open.

I have been thinking ‘strong’ all day and now it is 9pm and time to actually eat more I get scared and totally back out of it and talk myself out of adding to my calorie totals, convincing myself that 800 calories is fine. This is what I mean when I say I feel strong when I read about it, I know it’s in me to do it, to jump but in reality Ana keeps dragging me back and makes me feel weak. I keep saying I’ll wait till XX time or ‘I’ll do more tomorrow’ but this is Ana keeping me hanging until the next time I get on the scales. I know I need to be less scared of this.

I know EXACTLY what I need to do RIGHT now, why don’t I just jump. What am I ACTUALLY scared of? Why am I falling for her tricks? Why do I feel the need to give her the satisfaction of the number she says she’ll be happy with on Friday *this number used to be 14lbs heavier than I am now remember Sarah* Why do I want to make her stronger?

Because to RECOVER and to get me BACK I need to JUMP, right now the JUMP is supper tonight. It’s a small jump because I can’t see it taking me to 1200. But a small jump is better than sitting here making ANA stronger isn’t it?

Why Don't You Just Eat?

I don’t know what I’ll do If I get asked again ‘Do you want to get better?’ ‘Do you want a new job?’ or the worst ‘Why can’t you just eat?’ These are the questions I keep getting asked by my family. They keep saying that EVERYONE is getting frustrated and annoyed with me because they say ‘You’re an intelligent girl; you know what you need to do.’ I know I have a degree, I know I haven’t always restricted my diet to the extent I did this year and I know I haven’t always been this underweight, but the sooner they realise I have felt like this for A LOT longer than they have known the better. The sooner they might be able to understand why I CANT JUST EAT.

The hardest thing at the moment is they can only understand the physical sides of anorexia, they keep going on and on about how ‘they don’t believe it’s this psychological.’ That my treatment is focusing too much on all that ‘psychological stuff’ and that I need to just eat. K asked if I ‘get told off’ for maintaining my weight and not gaining this week and she can’t understand why I don’t get ‘in trouble’ for not gaining a huge amount of weight.  

I keep getting asked if I want to get better. YES, of course I do, that’s why I am going to my appointments, it’s why I am going through this battle, it’s why I am sat at my parents, not in my own home. If I didn’t want to get better, I wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t go to meetings and I wouldn’t be drinking Fortisip, eating food or listening to my apparently ‘intelligent self’. I don’t think they are trying to understand (and I don’t expect them to fully understand!) that recovery is an exhausting battle which is trying to restore my weight and health physically but trying to re-build my mental health by teaching me to accept my body, my weight and to build a better relationship with food. Basically, re-teaching the last 10 years of my life.

Dismissing and trivialising of the psychological aspects of anorexia hits me like a bullet, it completely makes me feel pathetic and it makes me feel like I am making it up, that it is trivial and easy to beat. It makes me feel thick and weak for not ‘just getting better’ and it makes me feel like I should know what I want from life. I don’t. I don’t know what I am fighting for, other than health right now. But in order to fight for my health I have to fight off Ana, I have to fight off anxiety, obsessions and fear – and trust that it will be worth it.  I have to leave a place where I feel safe and warm and in control and run and leap in to the freezing cold sea and swim for dear life.

They don’t seem to want to accept that I have presented them with a ‘happy’ me for so long, but I haven’t felt like that inside. I can see that is hard for them, I get that – it’s the way I felt when an old friend told me she had and ED a few years ago and even I hadn’t noticed. It made me feel horrific for not noticing her pain, 

But that’s the biggest danger of eating disorders, they makes you good at ‘sucking it up’ at hiding your feelings and amazing at pretending you’re fine. Because Ana always CONVINCES you and everyone around you, that you ARE fine. It’s just the way I am, I just like to be healthy and in control and I don’t like chocolate. 

I was obviously good at it, because everyone around me isn’t accepting just how long this has been going on. I just wish they'd believe me. 

Feeding & Starving

Starving me is feeding Ana. Feeding me is starving Ana.

(and there's only one of us that can survive.)

Talking to Ana

A conversation between Ana and me this morning…

Following an argument with my younger sister and knock on argument with my parents, this is the way the Ana and I sorted this whole thing out. I am going to start doing this more often so I can work out how to shut her up, once and for all...this is a technique used by Jenni Schaefer in her book, and I think it really does help me further separate my thoughts from my eating disordered thoughts.

Ana: Don’t eat your breakfast. They don’t care about you and you don’t need this breakfast now. You didn’t want it anyway did you? I will make you feel better if you don’t eat it.

Me: You’re right, I hate this breakfast. I don’t deserve to eat it anyway, what’s the point?

Ana:  100%, that’s right –don’t eat it. Make a scene – It’ll make them feel bad and guilty for not caring about you and you’ll feel good afterwards for not eating it.

Me: You’re right, I want them to feel bad about this too.

Ana: So stop eating you selfish fat cow.

 <I WALK AWAY FROM THE BOWL – GO DRY MY HAIR READY TO GET OUT THE HOUSE AND GO FOR A WALK.  THEN RETURN TO THE BOWL >

Me: Hang on, You’re not helping me are you? It’s just going to make it worse by causing a scene. And you’re wrong, how does ME not eating make them feel bad? It’s killing me, not them. You’re wrong!”

<I PICK UP THE BOWL AND CARRY ON EATING, THIS TIME OUTSIDE ALONE and CRYING>

Ana: No I am not. I made people listen to you before didn’t I? They can’t hear you. They don’t even CARE that you’re crying

Me: Yes they can hear me. I just need to clear my head and then talk to them about it when I have shut you up.

Ana: Leave a little bit of breakfast then, just for me?

Me: Okay, but just a little.

<I LEAVE SOME BREAKFAST...THEN, WALKING TO COSTA>

Ana: Thank You for that Sarah. Just think, you're burning calories now too. Great! Oh, and when you get to Costa you’ll order an Americano – because you’ve had too much milky coffee recently and there are WAY too many calories in them. You’ve already had too much this morning; you won’t have saved any calories if you do. Plus, today is Sunday; you’re bound to eat too much later too.

Me: Ana, restricting my calories is not going to make them feel worse. They are getting on with their lives and want me to get better too. I am having a coffee light not an Americano, I've burnt cals and deserve it.

Ana: Okay, well you won’t be having a burger with your dinner then or bread with your soup later, unless you like being greedy that is?

Me: Oh, we’ll see about that Ana. By the time I have cleared my head I might feel stronger again. Plus, I know I can’t let other people’s emotions stop my recovery. Including YOU.

<I DRINK COFFEE AND WRITE THIS>

The bad bit of this is I DIDN'T have the burger, this has had an effect on my mood and eating today. I am going to bed under my calories and I feel very low tonight. Let's hope a conversation with her tomorrow goes more my way....

POEM: I Wish...

I wish I knew a way out,
A way to gain and grow,
I didn't want this life,
The thoughts,
But how was I to know?
I didn't want to be this way,
To lose everything I had,
My house, my job,
My dreams my goals,
To feel so lost and sad.
I wanted to be perfect,
And happy in my skin.
The thing I wish
I knew before,
And believed today,
is that
Happy isn't thin.

Counting Calories...

...Like HoldingOn's video describes so well,  a big part of my anorexia and my recovery is consumed with counting calories.

Even now, when I am restoring weight, I am still counting. Every 1,3,5, or 10 calories makes a difference to my day, my anxiety levels, my life. I am FED UP with these numbers consuming me.

They stop me relaxing, they take over my thoughts as soon as I wake up, when I am in the supermarket. They are the reason I make some really bizarre meal choices and the reason I can't relax about some foods. Calorie counting DESTROYS social events, I withdraw from the table, eaten up by counting, adding and comparing calories. The anxiety levels caused by not knowing the calorie content of something drive me insane and the endless hours searching for the calorie content of food takes over my life. If I am not counting the calories consumed, I am counting the calories I've burnt. I needed total CONTROL over the calories that touch my lips, every single last one. Now that is easing, but I can't be carefree, and every 'nearly' carefree moment is followed by a manic look for the content.

The adding, the counting, the comparing from minute to minute, day to day. It is TOTALLY EXHAUSTING. 

I don't know why I bother, the totals NEVER make Ana happy any more either. So no one is happy when I am counting calories....I have already taken steps to STOP COUNTING:

1) Taken off all calorie counting apps from my phone.
2) Binned my personal food diary, and only use the clinic forms
3) Challenging myself to NOT count some foods
4) Relaxing about calorie content of fruit and veg
5) Not weighing all my foods