To Be Honest….

Remember when I told you i’d be sharing with you thegood, the bad, the ugly? Well here goes some of that ‘ugly’ i’m referring to…

To start, I’ve been hesitant to blog because sharing struggles is always a lot more difficult than sharing the victories.

In my recent post What You’ve Missed, I gave you guys a small idea of what my reovery has been like, but I left it very open-ended. I have been particularly nervous to share my struggles now that I have told my friends at school about my blog, but I also realized that the struggles i’ve shared throughout my blog have been the most helpful posts to me in my recovery. Something about being completely raw and honest is so relieving and freeing.

Anyways, Last summer I remember I posted a couple times about binge /over-eating episodes followed by restrictions and my confusion about these behaviors. I wish I would have looked into them more, because instead of dealing with the reasons behind the binging, I decided to just assume it was a normal part of recovery and that it would stop. This led to an escalation of the behaviors which ultimately got me towhere I am now.

I’ve been so scared to introduce my new issues with eating because I feel like there is a stigma attached to overeating as opposed to undereating. Unfortunately, my reality has become overeating and i’ve decided today not to be ashamed of it any more. My overeating is a RESULT of my undereating and it is my eating disorder telling me that undereating is an ok behavior (and therefore appropriate to talk about) but overeating is not- the truth is, neither are ok but both are real problems that a lot of people deal with.

Realistically- it makes sense. I wouldn’t touch dessert or any food that isn’t “healthy” for that matter when I was restricting. I convinced myself that I didn’t like those foods, when the truth is I was terrified of touching them because I knew how delicious they would taste to me. I had trained myself to avoid them. When I first started allowing myself some exposure to these foods, I felt that I had no control. I was left wanting more, even if I had an adequate portion size. At the same time, my lifestyle at school doesn’t allow for much self control, especially when drinking/partying is in the picture. Bingeing became something I no longer could control/make up for through periods of restriction after and eventually, the weight started to pile on. Now, i’m at the highest weight i’ve ever been. I’m not overweight and I hope me saying this all doesn’t trigger anyone, but I know that my weight right now is not my natural weight. It isn’t the weight i’d be at if I was able to eat more intuitively.

I want to use my blog now to document my progress with bingeing. I’ve been SOOO hesitant to bring this up but I know that this is what I need to do to help me with my recovery again. I am starting to realize my behaviors have a lot more depth than the want to be thin and i’d love to share with you all my ideas on that. When I was gaining weight, blogging about my obstacles helped me so much and now I need to be true to myself and use this as a place for my recovery… even if it isn’t anorexia this time.

Since coming back to school, i’ve been doing SO MUCH BETTER. The binges have decreased a lot and even though i’ve had some slip-ups, I feel like i’m on the right track. the reason I needed a new meal plan was to keep me on track and to keep me eating enough throughout the day so I don’t binge. I’m struggling with eating the right amount on my meal plan in fear of a binge, when in reality under-eating is the cause of it. I hope to use this as a place for someaccountability, hope, and support.

I’m also going to share other random things because obviously these struggles are only a small portion of my everyday life

Like some of the delicious things i’ve been eating..

Birthday Brunch at Original House of Pancakes

turkey wrap with avocado and laughing cow

TJ’s chili lime chicken burger with a salad

salad with avocado, ranch, cheese, & turkey

Anyways, I just went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 with one of my best friends. It was amaaaaaaaazing!!!! Hopefully i’ll post tomorrow about it (i’m slightly obsessed with kung fu panda…. not gonna lie)