Trip pics

I know my last post was pretty vague, but I’ve been having such a great time enjoying life that I really didn’t feel like writing till now. So the clear things up a little – I am currently visiting some friends in another country. I know – it’s a weird time – considering I have work and school and all that. But it so happens that I hit a series of national holidays, and school was out for a bit as well as work so I figured – now or never . Before I would have been way to obsessed about my “perfect schedule” and having everything so “under control” to make a trip like this. But this is then and that is now.

So here’s a photo recap of what I’ve been doing a lot of lately:

Food (so much good food that I never take pictures of because it always seems inappropriate)

Gardening – lots of it. Fun in the sun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This has been my redundant breakfast for the past several days – homemade full fat yoghurt (from raw unpasturized milk), homemade granola, tahini and AMAING carmelized squash. I could eat this for the rest of my life and die a happy woman

 

 

Love reading through all my friends various cookbooks (what can I say – I’m a foodie at heart)

 

School assigments follow me though – even on vacation.

 

 

But we’ve had a few wine filled evenings as well, so it all balances out in the end

 

So that’s all from me for now. I am living, loving and enjoying life. Now I’m off for a glass of fresh milk and maybe going to look at finishing that assigment…. or not

 

Quiestion of the day : what’s your favorite thing to do on vacation?

A brain dump.

So much I want to say, yet so few words.

Currently in sort of a strange place in my life. Everything it seems I thought I knew I don’t know, and all I was sure of I quiestion.

Maintanence – a strange place to be. All I’ve known till now is weight gain, followed by a quick stint of weight loss and the cycle repeated. Now that I am in “maintanence” I keep finding myself thinking – what now? A part of me it itching to do something, move somewhere, to keep perfecting myself. Its the hardest thing in the world to just “be”, especially when you’re not yet comfortable with who you are.

So much has changed – both for good and for bad. My eating habits are all over the place, and the constant guessing game is tiering. I want to just throw in the towel and eat whatever – at the same time I know too much about nutrition and health to do that. Another part of me wants to get back to some sense of stability, some knowlage of absolutes. But I’m learning more and more is that nutrition is like religion – everyone believes a certain thing – it doesn’t make it right for wrong. There is some truth in everything – what you need to do is find what works for you. And my God – it’s a long, tiering process.

But – even through all the complication and bad body image days – I don’t regret my recovery thus far one bit. Am I 100% comfortable in my body – no I am not. Do I feel that I did everything “just right” – no I don’t. Do I wish I had done some things better – sure I do. But one thing I can say with 100% certainty is that a whole new world opened up to me that wasn’t available before. For once I can do anything, be anyone, go anywhere. It’s a whole sense of freedom that I’m just discovering. It’s scary, yet awesome at the same time.

And hell, if nothing else I’m getting a HECK of a lot of life experience though this. I mean – what other nutritionist can say they have experimented with this many diets, gone through an eating disorder and figured out what works for them (that part is still coming, but I’m hoping for the best). So at least maybe, long and tiering as this process may be – I MIGHT be able to figure it out and help someone else in the process. Just keeping it possitive

So yes, that is the reason I’m not posting as much – is because I’m not sure what to write about. Currently – I’m trying to keep my head above water, get my life in gear and pretend I have it all together for the outside world. Because lets face it, after 5 years obsessing about something – once you take that away you’re not exactly sure who you are anymore. SO thank you all for bearing with me while I figure all this out – hopefully it’ll be sooner rather then later.

And now – sleep. Tomorrow is another crazy day in the life of me

Body image blues

Yeah, I know I dissapeared off the radar again.

Well for one Easter break ended, and I’ve been a bit more busy. But to be honest – it’s more then that.

I’ve got the body image blues.

It was triggered by my post- easter food baby/bloat that still hasn’t gone down. I know I might have gained a little bit of weight, but I’m pretty sure most of it is water/bloating. That being said it doesn’t make my clothes fit better, or me feel better about myself AT ALL. So yes – it’s safe to say I’m struggling a bit here.

However it did bring to light some things I’ve learned about body image through my recovery journey.

1. The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side. When I was underweight I would look at pictures of when I was at a healthy weight and think – “wow, you actually looked pretty good there”. Then once I get there, I always feel that pull to try to change or fix some part of my body or (and this pesky thought is the worst of them all) “lose a little weight”.

What helps: Reminding myself I was never happy at that low weight either – and now my body is healthier,I have more energy and everyone around me thinks I look better too (even f I can’t see it in myself)

2. Good body image isn’t something you wake up with – it’s something that is built up over time. Every day I look in the mirror and I have a choice – to see the bad and focus on it, or to see the good and focus on that. It’s not like one day you wake up in the morning and feel awesome for the rest of your life – it’s a day by day process.

When all is said and done I’d rather be the top girl then the bottom one any day. Just need to keep repeating that to myself

3. Body image has A LOT to do with your mood. I’m not sure if this is true for everyone or just for people who have an ED history, but speaking from personal experience – when I’m in a bad mood- frustrated, stressed etc. things get a whole lot worse.

What helps : remembering that fat isn’t a feeling and reasoning with myself (i.e if I wasn’t “chubby” yeasterday there is no way that I gained loads of weight from one day to the next. Thus it must all be in my head)

4. The way you treat yourself = the way you see yourself. Even if you don’t love your body – fake it till you make it. Paper yourself- paint your nails, dress nice, style your hair, put on some amazing scented lotion and let yourself feel like a princess. These things are especially hard to do when you feel like your lower then dirt – but like I said – fake it till you make it.

5. Body image issues are all in YOUR head. Meaning that no one else sees the things you do. Today my mom, my sister and I were all talking in my room. One thing led to another and my mom started going on about how she needed to lose weight for the spring. My sister and I started laughing and telling her there was no reason for that – which was great – till my sister started telling me that she also felt she had a flabby stomach (she is as slim as can be). Made me realize that noone else sees what I see when I look at myself, so I might as well just try to get over it

So… what’s my plan with this recent slump:

- get a haircut next week, try to keep dressing nice and feeling good

- work out a few times next week as a stress reliever

- eat clean/with a few healthy treats thrown in there

- focus on the other areas of my life that are important now – work, school etc. and get my thoughts onto the more important things in life.

And remember:

 

 

I am gonna beat this bitch, come hell or high water!

Easter in pictures.

Egg fight!!!

The spread – cold cuts, cheese, pickled herring salad, potato salad, boiled eggs , spinach puffs

Dessert pt 1: vegan black forest chocolate cake with whipped cream

Gotta love a house full of teanagers (me and my second oldest bro)

A sister pic

Game night!And dessert part 2 ( a no-bake peach cheesecake I seriously ODed on- whatever, totally worth it)

And a good deal of this

:

And this:

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Whats the best thing you ate this year? For me, definitely that cheesecake – new recipie I was trying out that wasn’t healthified in any ways – so damn good!

Oooh, and I also got an awesome before and after pic from last year vs this years Easter – check it out

(Slight difference – no? )

My healthy (not so healthy) diet

Can I hear a hip-hip hooray for Easter break!

Today was the first day of easter break, and I spent 4 hours working on a group project and then studied for an hour and then had an awesome run. Running and I go through phases , I love it or hate it, but today it was definitely a love thing, I felt like I could have run for hours, of course tredmill with no TV meant only 40 minutes for me, but it still felt good. Then I got home and veged out, did a bit of failed baking , and now I’m writing this post before pouring myself a glass of something and finishing my project.

I thought I would talk about something that I’ve been thinking about recently. Recently someone I’ve been emailing back and forth asked me for a link to my blog for healthy eating ideas. This led me to thinking how much my blog has changed – I haven’t posted any food pictures in forever, I don’t really blog about how/what I eat anymore. And here’s the reason:

I don’t really eat all that healthy.

My relationship with food has changed to the point that healthy eating is no longer the focus of my life. I try to eat healthy mind you, but food has become a means to an end rather then the end itself. Take today for example – I was working on a project at  a library and I had been there since right after breakfast. I ate the orange I brought along as a snack, and then 30 minutes later I was hungry again, but no where nearly done my project. So then came my dilema – should I make the long walk home, cook lunch, eat lunch, clean up and then go back (hopefully before the library closed) and try to finish my project or should I eat the wafle I had in my bag and use it to hold me over till I finsh and then go home and eat a proper lunch.

 

 

Before this would have been an obviouse choice – the perfect diet/eating schedule was definitely more important then the time I would waste walking back and forth just so I eat the right thing at the right time. But today food was fuel so I ate my “unhealthy” snack and ate a proper lunch when I got home. But the sugar rush I got fueled my studying plus a pretty awesome run, so I don’t think I made a bad descision. Now, I’m not saying this was something I’d like to do often – I need to learn to pack enough healthy snacks to last me, but this example just showed me how my relationship with food has changed.

Right now I am SO busy, that I often have to make due with what I have. The past few days I have been seriously ODing on cottage cheese and truffles (all your fault Andrea )  - because it just seems to be the only portable thing I can eat at work. And yes, it’s not the most balanced and I’m looking forward to eating some decent cooked meals now that it’s almost Easter. But in the end life> perfect diet- and I think that’s exactly how it should be.

That isn’t to say I haven’t been eating some yummy food from time to time:

On a warmer day – salad with cheese, picked fish and yogurt dressing

Protein pancake with quark and a banana

Most of my meals are kind of – grab and go –  a boiled egg, deli meat and roated veggies

Cheesy omlettes

And lots of cottage cheese

So yeah that’s me now – not as healthy but a whole lot more chilled out all around. I think after Easter I might do a minor “diet cleanup” and try to focus on eating more veggies – but right now there’s easter and lots of chocolate on the horrizon. I have a feeling I’ll have quite a few more sugar fueled runs in my future

Oooh, and in honor of my 3 month aneversary at a healthy weight I  got this done – and I absolutely love it. It’s a daily reminder of how  far I’ve come and how much I accoplished – and it feels awesome.

Yes people – I no longer have a perfectly flat stomach and protruding hipbones. And that is ok because I am a woman, and curves are shexy

How has your eating mentality changed over time?

Do you have any tatoos?

Marvelous Monday.

I generally tend to think of my life as pretty run of the mill. I mean sure, I am busy as heck – but it’s pretty mundane stuff that no one really wants to hear about

However, today was different so I’m linking up to marvelous Monday, because today was truly marvelous.

First marvelous thing of the day – vitamin chewies. They’re handly vitamins because they only have about 30-40 % of your RDA, but they’re marvelous all the same!

And extra marvelous is the fact that I GOT MAIL. My sweetest ever sent me a package full of goodies which resulted in me spending the next 30 minutes doing a happy dance and smiling the rest of the day.

Marvelous was this chocolate truffle I broke into less then 30 minuts later (I never said patience was a strong suite of mine )

Marvelous is chocolate in general, especially of the darker, more expensive variety, and it makes for THE BEST class fuel

Marverlous is the ability to sit here blogging, instead of frantically studying or working on assigments – it’s almost Easter and I’m going to be sure to be on the lookout for some marvelous recipies

Have a marvelous week everyone!

What’s making your day marverlous?

Freedom

Freedom :

- is the ability to do what you love and do it well, without your body not being able to keep up with your mind

- is the ability to focus and put your whole heart into something

- is the ability to feel again

- is the abilty to look at your body, squishy parts and all and think “hey I am a woman and this is beautiful”

- is the ability to respect and treat yourself well

- is not second guessing everything you do, and knowing that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved

 

I now realize I spent 5 years of my life in a caged box. There were times I thought it kept me safe, times I didn’t remember what the world outside was like. So I hid, i stayed inside, I fought those who tried to force me outs. I honestly had forgotten things could be any other way. But now as I step outside and breath the fresh air I thank God every day that I can live again. I am finally free!

 

Never did I ever

• Never did I ever think I would see my weight gradually rising – when at a healthy weight and be 100% ok with it (ok so maybe 99%, but it’s still good )
• Never did I ever think I would be able to buy a chocolate bar and snack on it- just because I wanted to
• Never did I ever think I would end up looking forward to eating delicious meaty dishes
• Never did I ever think I would be so upset over someone throwing away my coconut oil (FAT!!!) cuz “hey, I was planning to eat ALL of that”

You will be missed  :(

• Never did I ever think I would exercise less then 3 times a week and be ok with it
• Never did I ever think I would end up snacking on two tablespoons of raw honey straight out of the jar (the sugar!!! the horror ) Yes, I did in fact take this picture at work, and if anyone saw me I’m sure they think I’m a total whack job
• Never did I ever think I would randomly take a picture of myself in honor of my new and improved body with no makeup/primping done and put it on the internet (Still tough for me not to pick my body apart in this picture, but I think it’s awesome I have hips again:D)
•  Never did I ever think I’d be this free of an ED
• Never did I ever think I would end up blogging for two whole years – but here I am.                                                                          Happy 2 year blogversary to “A new start“.

 

Truth be told I wasn’t even planing on writing this post, till I saw a reminder from wordpress congratulating me on my 2nd blog anaversary and I figured – I owe this blog a little something

What is something you thought you’d never do?

My thoughts on the paleo diet.

Those of you who have been following my blog a bit recently might have noticed me mention the “paleo” diet once or twice on here. Ok, so a bit more then once or twice You might be wondering what it’s all about – why I am into it/how it’s working for me (and my long time readers) /how can a once vegetarian girl switch so rapidly into a different lifestyle with little or seemigly no remorse. SO I thought maybe I’d share my experiences with you and hopefully answer some of your quiestions.

First off – what is the paleo diet?  It is (as taken from a paleo webiste)a diet based upon eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era, the time period from about 2.6 million years ago to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, about 10,000 years ago. These foods include fresh meats (preferably grass-produced or free-ranging beef, pork, lamb, poultry, and game meat, if you can get it), fish, seafood, fresh fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and healthful oils (olive, coconut, avocado, macadamia, walnut and flaxseed).) Everything else is basically off the menu for one reason or another (there is PLENTY of information out there if  you want to read into it).

Why I started experimenting with it. Well aside from the fact that it’s popping up everywhere – both on the internet and the blog world, I first started looking into it as a diet that was healing for people that have various gastro-intestinal problems. Also, I was going through a very rough time finding the balance between eating too little/too much/binging and constant sweet cravings. I had already tried vegan, vegetarian, ultra-clean diets in the past so I figured – why not try something new?

Thing is – I suck at sticking to strict diets. Ironically enough after 5 years of really controlled eating habits all I want to do was break loose , even if it kills me (and believe me sometimes my digestive tract does). So I switched between looser and stricter paleo eating weeks – depending on my time/mood/motivation. Here are some of my observations over time.

- I haven’t been eating grains or beans for a while now, and have noticed a definite difference in the amount of pain I’m in on a day to day basis. Even the bloating has been more manageble for the most part. Oats still tempt me like crazy, and I definitely want to try to experiment and see if I can make them at least a little more digestible. But lets just say the last time  tried lentils – I suffered for two days afterwards.

The combo I miss most at the moment – overnight oats (sigh )

- Dairy is a hard one for me to cut. There’s something in it that my body just craves like nothing else. However it does give me stomach issues – the week I was stictest paleo and didn’t have any was the week I felt the best.

- Paleo works best for me NOT low carb. Meaning I need to be able to eat my fruit and starchy veggies to my hearts content. Otherwise I have major brain fog, have no energy and am cranky the rest of the day. Maybe I’m not “fat adapted” yet, but there’s not too much I can do about that.

-  I crave meat now like crazy. Seriously I feel like I haven’t had a proper meal unless I’ve had some animal protein (eggs/meat/fish). Occasinally I try using peanut butter, nuts as a protein source, but it’s definitely not the same. I guess my body just craves all the protein to repair all those cells, muscles, organs that have been neglected for so long.

- In order to be at all satiated on a paleo diet you NEED to eat a lot of fat. I know I still don’t eat enough compared to how much I should, which is why I still get sweet craving from time to time. But really the meals where I have a hefty amount of fat are like night and day compaired to when I don’t.

Coconut oil is awesome! It’s seriously become a daily staple for me – I use it for almost everything.

- Paleo style eating has eliminated a lot of sweet cravings and binge/overeating tendencies. I’m pretty sure it’s the combination of eating enough protein/fat, but I’ve definitely noticed a reduced sweet craving. Sure I’ve eaten my fair share of dark chocolate along the way, but it’s no longer a post meal habit. Also if I eat a proper breakfast and dinner, generally the urge to snack/graze all day is way less. As soon as I try to eat less real animal protein or fat – those crazy cravings are back and my eating habits are all over the place. For example eating a bowl of oats with a scoop of PB would never last me over 3 hours- but 2 eggs fried in coconut oil with some turkey deli meat and a tomato last me 4 hours or more (depending on the amount of oil/deli meat) I use.

 

So although this way of eating makes me feel good and has normalized my eating habits to a certain extent – I’m wary of it because it’s pretty restricting. As someone who is still recovering from an ED (definitely more recovered then not though ) I feel I need to be careful not to take things too much to an extreme. Which is why I try not to stay to strict – I still eat dairy and other “non-paleo” things if I feel so inclined. However doing that I still have digestive issues, whereas the week I was pretty strict with it – there was nothing of the sort.Also, it’s pretty expensive if you want to be strict with it – so I end up modifying it u quite a bit to fit my budget restrictions.

Another problem I have with paleo eating is an ethical issue. I was mostly vegetarian for almost 3 years and eating vast amounts of meat still bothers me. I can’t afford humainly raised meat most of the time, so I eat whatever is available. It just seems selfish for me to be constantly eating this much meat/eggs – even though I feel better physically then I have in a long time. No meat substitute seems to be working for me anymore, so I feel kind of trapped

Alright so those are my experiences so far. If you have any more quiestions about my experiences – feel free to ask.

My quiestions for the day:

What are your thoughts on the paleo diet?

Any advice on my dilema with following a strict diet and not becoming obsessed with it?

 

 

Love and other complicated things….. (about learning to love yourself first)

(Warning, you are about to read the sappiest post, possibly in the history of your life. So buckle up and bare with me if you think it’s worth it)

Ok, so I’m going to start off by saying this post is going to be intensely personal, and although it’s kind of weird to write these kind of things up for all to see, it’s something I do want to get off my chest. Also most of those reading this blog I already consider friends,  so it’s not all that strange for me.

Valentines day used to be a difficult time for me. Generally I spent most of my valentines days pretty miserable, because I didn’t have that special someone. This might not  seem like a big deal to some of you, but relationships and all things love related have a kind of negative connotation with me.

Let’s just say I’ve never had a normal relationship. For real. I had a few flings here and there in my early teen years, but nothing serious. The first time I “fell in love”  (can you even call it that if you’re that young) was when I was 15.It was a dark time of my life, I was struggling with some pretty intense depression along with going through all the normal teenage insecurities you go through at that age. In any case I guess I kind of latched on to the first person that showed me any kind of  kindness. And he was a nice guy, don’t get me wrong, and to this day I wonder if he didn’t by any chance feel the same way. Of course before anything could develop he moved further away and although he would still call me and tell me how much I meant to him, and how much he missed me etc., the next time I saw him he was snuggling up to another friend of mine. Well all that to say it was a harsh slap in the face for a girl that was as naive as I was back then, and definitely did little for my self esteem.

Then came my first ( and kind of unfortunately last ) relationship. I had actually met him a few years back when I was 13 at a music festival. We kept in touch more or less and there was definitely some chemistry there, but never met up since then. Anyhow when I was 15 he offered to come visit me.  I figured, why not? So we worked everything out and during that short visit I managed to fall in love with him. He made me feel beautiful, noticed, special – everything I was desperately needing at the time. And it somehow happened.  He was my first and I wanted him to be.  I remember crying the night he left, and knowing I would never forget him.

Turned out I didn’t have to, because he decided to move close to where I was and stay for good. He felt the same way about me I did about him, and to be honest at first I was overjoyed. My parents cautioned me not to get involved, he was much older then me (21) and I was still young and naive. But what girl listens to her parents, especially about things like that? I threw myself head first into this relationship, expecting it to be roses and rainbows the whole way.Well I was in for a shock,  because you should never put all your hopes on one person. I’ve blocked out my memories and burned all the journals from that time, because they were just too painful. It turns out the “love of my life” had a dark side. He was a manic depressive, and definitely fed that side of my nature. He was also emotionally and physically abusive to me and blamed me for this fits of depression. He was horribly possessive and jealous - I couldn’t do ANYTHING without him. I never said the right thing, did the right thing, was good enough. He often told me that my only positive attributes were my good looks. Around this time I started my extreme dieting that turned into anorexia. He knew about it, but did nothing to stop it. I desperately wanted him to, wanted him to support me, to pull me out of the the dark hole I was getting sucked into. But he had his head to far up his own ass (sorry for the language) to notice I was disappearing before his eyes.  Our relationship lasted about 6 months, and as much as I felt trapped in it and hurt by it, I loved him too much to let it go. They say love is blind and that is what my love was, blind to how much he was hurting me, blind to the fact I deserved better, blind to the fact that you can’t help anyone who won’t help themselves.  In the end my friends and family (most of whom didn’t know about my relationship) decided even this friendship of mine was hurting me too much to let it continue. Later on they told me that it looked like my life was being sucked out of me a little more each and every day. Anyhow my parents basically banned him from seeing me again (at this point I knew it was for the best), and he had a screaming fit right in front of my house – almost like he was possessed  It scared me so bad – that scene is ingrained in my head forever. He had been drinking and said and did some horrible things that night – he threatened to kill himself – and at that moment I believed him. Some of my friends were crying, the air was tense. But I was strangely numb – I had no more tears to cry after crying nearly daily for the last 3 months.  I felt like he had taken everything from me – every last shred of dignity, self-respect and hope I had. And all I was left with – was an eating disorder to comfort me.

Since then I’ve never let anyone into my life. Sure I’ve had a few “friends with benefits” you might call them – but it was always all in good fun, and I never let it get serious. I used guys as a numbing mechanism when I was sick – because for the few moments I was with them I felt wanted/loved/like I was something again. But I never let them any deeper becaus e I didn’t feel like I deserved it. Deep inside my heart I felt I was nothing, good for nothing, worth nothing.

But over Christmas something changed. I met up with a very good, old friend of mine. We have a funny relationship – somewhere between friends with benefits and best friends. I’ve been with him through a very bad break up of his and he’ s been with me through my hospitalization and the ups and downs of my ED.  But I’ve never let my guard down – not even around him. I still tried to hold it together – even when I was at my worst. He was always the one doing the talking – and I was always listening. But seeing him again – something was different. I didn’t notice it at first, I thought maybe it was because he had a potential girlfriend and I was afraid of losing one of my best friends. But one evening after having quite a bit too much to drink I broke down and I told him everything. Yup, I was one of those crying girls at bars that I swore never to be. Actually after my last boyfriend I swore never to cry in front of a guy – period.  But at this point I was just tired – tired of being ok, of keeping everything together, of being strong. I told him everything – what was really going on at home, about the worst relapse of my life, about how I was scare of facing the future. And he held me and listened. Anyhow one thing led to another and I spent the night with his arm around me (again a girl chronically afraid of affection). And in the morning I realized – shit – I love this guy.

Wow, putting that into words is hard, because I don’t like admitting that I let someone into my life like that. It’s still hard for me to accept that I made myself “weak and vulnerable again”. But just letting those guards down was the most liberating feeling ever. And this love is a lot more mature then the ones I had before. This guy has a girlfriend- and I’m ok with that. We never talk – probably for that reason – and I’m also ok with that. Sure its not easy for me to think of them together, not sure if I could actually handle seeing them together. But I’m happy he’s found someone he’s happy with. I’m happy just knowing he’s happy. And even though we’re not in touch, and we might never see each other again, I don’t regret opening myself up to him. Because he made me realize something about myself – I finally love myself enough to let someone else love me.

So this Valentines instead of being depressed about having no one I celebrated the fact that I can now accept that I AM worth something, that I DO deserve someone that will treat me right, and that there are nice guys out there. And if I’ve managed to open myself up to one person and not be betrayed by them – it can and will happen again. And some day I will find the right person for me.

Quiestion of the day – was this the most sentimental/awkward post in the history of this blog or not?