Christmas Sucks Balls

To say my posting schedule has been erratic is perhaps too kind.  But then, I tend to do this.  I throw myself into something with full abandon and then give up when it becomes too hard or the pay-off starts to diminish.  Maybe in the case of this blog, not posting is better.  It means my life, for the moment, isn’t completely devoured by my ED.  Still, it is nice to know this blog is here: to air all my grievances and to use as a source of catharsis.

I have no doubt that for most (or all) people struggling with an ED, the holidays suck.  So much time and attention is given to food and spending time with people around food.  With food.  And more food.  Food.  Food.  Food. 

It’s much harder to pretend to be eating when you’re around family 24/7.  Even the most unobservant loved-one is bound to notice that you haven’t touched the food on your plate, or made a single pass at the food table.  The “I just ate” ruse is less than effective when you’re never alone.  The other end of the spectrum is just as difficult.  With so many goodies ready at hand, it’s easy to hoard away binging supplies.  To stuff your mouth with bits of sugar and butter and flour and yum.  Little bits of shame that you’re sure is glaringly obvious to everyone you pass.  It might as well be smeared across your face, with a neon sign above your head screaming “GLUTTON.”

Truth be told, I don’t even know why I’m here, writing this.  Yes, I still binge, but I’m getting better and I’ve been making a conscious effort not to restrict.  My workout schedule is as crazy as ever-more so now that there is snow to play in.  I’m learning to listen to my body, and not push myself to the point of injury.  It seems to be paying off, as I’ve dropped another 4% body fat.  For the first time in my life, I can see muscle moving under skin.  It’s a good feeling.

Which is why I can’t figure out why I’m so damn melancholy.

Damn the holidays.   

That Being Said, I Missed You

It’s been awhile since I posted.  There have been nights where I had a desperate need, but my traitor body decided it was too tired.  Sleep [dreams] are sometimes an excellent cure for a troubled mind.  Oddly, I have felt guilty about not posting.  This is silly because as much as I cherish and appreciate the comments left by readers, this blog is not for you.  It is for me, and only me.  It is a tool for my recovery, nothing more.

That being said, I have missed you.

Things have changed much in the time we’ve been apart.  Besides coping with the (temporary) loss of my Penguin, I have started a new job, workout regimen and degree program (this will be my third).  Needless to say I am frantically busy, which has been both a reprieve and hindrance.  On one hand, I have less free time to binge.  On the other, I have less free time for anything resembling fun. 

My eating has been…erratic.  When I am busy, I find myself forgetting to fuel my body.  I’ll sip on a zero calorie energy drink all day, only to realize – as I’m crawling into bed – that not a bit of food has passed my lips.  If I was aiming for anorexia, this would be amazing.  Since I’m aiming for healthy, things like that piss me off.

This morning I used www.mydailyplate.com to calculate just how much I’ve been eating.  The results?  My daily consumption has been falling somewhere between 500 and 800 calories.  Of those calories: 40% comes from fat (boiled eggs and almonds), 20% comes from protein (boiled eggs and protein bars) and 40% comes from carbs (protein bars, fresh vegetables and fruit).  Not good.  I really need to up my protein intake if I want to continue building muscle.  I’m also afraid that my body will become nutrient deprived since my calorie count is atrocious.  I’d take supplements, but they make me incredible sick.  I think regardless of what I eat during the day, my dinner will include a protein smoothie (non-sweetened frozen fruit, water and vegan protein powder) with kale.  And by “include”, I mean that it will replace my evening meal.  Fuck dinner.

For the past month and half, I have been working out two to four times a day (at least an hour each session).  Last week I hiked over 40 miles, completed three strength-training workouts, spent three hours kayaking and another two hours mountain biking (yes, on real mountains).  On a whole, I feel great.  I’ve never been stronger or had more endurance.  On the downside, this regimen is taking a toll on my body.  Something always hurts, and I’m fairly certain I tore something in my right quad. 

Things are not all bad.  There have been small victories.  Small steps in the right direction.  A goal I have been working on for years --to give in to small indulgences without binging-- has finally become my norm.  Last week I managed to enjoy just one bite of a homemade cupcake.  Last night my father brought me over a bag full of homemade almond cookies, of which I had only one.  The rest are tucked safely away in the back of my freezer.

Honestly, I don’t know if I’m getting better or worse.  I am much more happy.  Much more content.  That’s something, right?

My Body Gallery

Have you heard of http://www.mybodygallery.com? A friend recommended it to me.  I suppose everyone will use it differently.  It has the potential to be an excellent source of inspiration or a cruel reality check.  Your choice.

My abandonment issues have been given a reprieve.  My Penguin, who was supposed to leave early this morning, won’t be flying out for two more days.  This means I’ll have the whole weekend with him.  Thinking he was going to be gone, I packed my schedule with activities to stop myself from crawling into bed depressed.  As a habit, I don’t cancel plans without VERY good reason, so I guess this means Penguin will be tagging along. 

I’m going on a ten mile hike with my family tomorrow.  This will mark the first time Penguin has seen them since we started dating.  Maybe it won’t go as badly as I think.  My parents have scared away more than a few boyfriends with their odd behavior and frank questions.

Wish me luck.

Last Night

I text Penguin after work to see what his plans are for the evening.  I thought, like me, he would want to spend as much time together as possible before he flies far away.  It is raining outside, pouring.  No evening hike for me.  I avoid exercising in the rain whenever possible.  The risk of chaffing is too high.  Unless, of course, it’s been a couple days since my last outdoor adventure; I’ll choose sanity over skin every time. 

While waiting for a response from Penguin I hook up the PS3 and press the play button for P90X Kenpo.  My fists cut through the air, punching sticky ghosts of hunger and pain and frustration.

I crawl into bed for a nap.  It’s 6:30 and he hasn’t called.  My mind is restless.  Every rustle of sheet becomes the sound of tires on gravel.  Every fat drop of rain, slapping on wood, a footstep.  I tell myself he would call before coming over.  He would check to see if I was home first.  It doesn’t work.

At 7:30 I turn on my Wii, a perfect distraction.  I’m obsessed with the new Zelda, Skyward Sword.  It has replaced Ocarina of Time as my favorite in the series.  Yup, I’m a nerd.

7:45, I find myself in the kitchen.  I am not hungry, but my hands don’t listen.  They prepare a pickle sandwich: one piece of bread slathered in mustard wrapped around a kosher dill.  I know it will set off a binge, but I take a bite anyway.  Chew, swallow.  Chew, swallow.  Chew.  Swallow.  Next is a black bean patty, covered in salsa -- extra spicy.  My lips burn as I put forkful after forkful into my mouth.  I taste nothing. My traitor hands reach for the raspberry truffle cookies.  They shouldn’t be there, sitting on my counter beckoning.  I should have delivered them last night, gotten them far from my kitchen.  I break off a piece, place it on my tongue and stop.  My stomach is already full, distended -- too many days of fasting and restricting have shrunk the organ.  I spit the bite of cookie into my hand.  Throw it and the rest of the greasy, sugary treat away.  I do not want this. 

At 9:00 I give up hearing from Penguin and swallow four Nyquil capsules.  Enough to make my head swim and my body collapse.  Getting a prescription for sleeping pills is not an option.  My doctor would ask too many questions.

Penguin calls at 9:30.  He assures me that he wanted to return my text earlier but said if he had, he’d have blown off packing to spend time with me.  I don’t know if I believe him.  He always has an excuse for his inconsiderate behavior.  We both know he is a terrible boyfriend, but neither of us do anything to change. 

He arrives at 10:20.  Just in time for bed.  I think I am a booty call.

Skinny

Today a coworker asked how I stay so skinny. 

A plate of cookies sit on the break room table.  Our fiscal officer is masticating a raspberry truffle; everyone in the room except me has a treat in their hand.  She doesn’t bother to swallow before asking the question and it catches me off guard. The word tastes funny on my ears.  Skih-nee.  Skin - ee.  Skin  -  knee.  No one has ever put me and that word in the same sentence before.  I don’t know how to react.  I smile.  On the inside I am cringing.  It’s true my body has been changing, fat melting away to reveal collar and rib and hip bones.  Slick muscle.  But there is still so much of me.  Too much.  The boiling yellow and white is swallowing me whole.  Smothering me.  Choking me.

That my pencil-skirt, once skin tight, can now be slipped off without undoing the clasp means nothing.  It is an embarrassing, obscene size.  Made from a tent’s worth of material.  The needle on the scale keeps drifting down, but the number is never small enough.  I am never small enough.

Sometimes I wonder if this will ever end.  If there will ever be a perfect size.  A weight where I feel skinny, perfect.

I will have to stop binging to find out.  Impossible.

Realistic Goals

I set a personal speed record today.  Ten miles up a steep valley (well, five miles up, five miles down) in under three hours!  It was storming for most of the hike, so I got soaked and chilled to the bone.  Oh, and I wiped out at one point so my right leg is covered in road rash.  But otherwise it was a lot of fun.  Perfect, even.  The sun came out and said hello just as I reached the tarn.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about in this post.  I’ve had an epiphany and I think I’d like to share it with you.

There was a girl at the movies that caught my eye.  She was tiny, emaciated, legs-as-thin-as-my-arms, and it didn’t send me into a jealous fit.  I looked at her, and while I thought she looked fine, I had no urge to be her.  I think I'm starting to develop a rational, achievable body image goal.  I don’t want to be waifish.  I want to be fit.  Yay, me?

Even though at times I make huge leaps backward in my struggle toward recovery, it still feels really good to take small steps forward.  They add up, those baby steps.  In the end I know they will bring me to exactly where I need to be.

Don't Eat the Cookies

I made cookies from scratch.  Three different kinds: peanut butter cup, chocolate lovers and raspberry truffle.  Too much dough makes its way into my mouth -- enough to form a whole cookie.  Dinner is a cup of tea in compensation.  Usually I have more will power, but I am preoccupied.  Not sure with what, hormones maybe. 

Penguin sneaks through the front door just as I am putting the last sheet in the oven.  He comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist and buries his face in the nape of my neck.  I trade a kiss for a cookie.  Watching the smile spread over his face as he takes the first bite is far more enjoyable than actually eating one myself.  I clean the kitchen as he snags another cookie, then another.  One of each kind.  If I ate like him I’d weigh 300 pounds.

Seventeen minutes later I pull the gooey, delicious, horrible-for-you creations out of the oven and set them on the stove.  Want to know the secret to perfect cookies?  Add ½ - 1 cup extra flour to the dough, undercook them by about two minutes and then let them cool on the pan, not a rack.  Doing so keeps the center moist and chewy while the bottom continues to brown so they don’t fall apart.  The most important step is to not eat any. 

The remaining 100+ cookies already sit divided into Tupperware: one for my parents, one for my brother and his girlfriend, a plate for work and a giant container for Penguin.  Enough to last 90 days.  Oh yes.  Maybe that has something to do with my preoccupation.  He is leaving.  In three days.  For three months.  For 90 days.  For 2,160 hours.  For 129,600 minutes. 

NO.  I will not do this.  I am NOT that girl. 

I notice the grease stains spreading out beneath each cookie.  Soaking into the butcher paper placed carefully between each layer, striations of fat and carbs and heart-hammering because there is so much sugar.  I put the lid on each container, sealing in the curls of yum, yum, yum that waft off them. 

Penguin never asks why I don’t eat my own baked goods.  I assume it’s because I am fat, fat, fat.  He’d never say it, but I know I am not his type: not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not… enough.  He talks constantly about body image, how so-and-so is looking rather hefty these days.  How his ex-wife’s sister is developing manly forearms from all the weight lifting.  How his friend’s thighs now rub together.  Fat.  Wrong.  Bad.

I listen to all the reasons I am not good enough.  I wonder why I do this to myself. 

It doesn’t matter.  I will think only happy thoughts.  Today was a good day.  Any day I get to bake and then go for a six mile hike is a good day.