Posts filed under 'eating disorders'
Passing Judgment
Note: This post is all over the place and content-heavy, so … consider it a stream of consciousness and please bear with me.
My post last Friday about the evidently malnourished Australian Miss Universe contestant got me thinking about judgment … specifically, my unconsious (human?) tendency to pass judgment.
I called this woman out here on my blog — a disordered eating recovery blog — for being too skinny (at 5′11 and 108 lbs.) and for possibly having an eating disorder … in spite of her denial of it being true.
I called her out because in looking at her, I was concerned that this is the image our children see.
I called her out because I was both sickened and saddened — sickened that she looked so skeletal, and saddened that her figure personifies “beauty” to some … possibly even some of my own readers or followers of “thinspo” (the pro-ana movement).
The irony is, if I saw a morbidly obese person on the street, who might not be in the best health either, though I might make a superficial judgment in my head (as in, stating the fact that the person is morbidly obese) … would I devote a post about it?
No, I wouldn’t. (more…)
11 comments April 27, 2009
Chew/Spit Free … 6 Weeks and Counting
People say it takes 21 days to create a habit, and I’m guessing it takes a little longer to resist a habit.
That said, I just wanted to share with everyone here that I’ve been chew/spit free for six weeks now! … A tremendous accomplishment, and one of which I am very, very proud.
It doesn’t mean I am confident enough to say six weeks means I’m out of the woods just yet –we all know blips on the radar, pebbles on the road are part of the recovery process–but I am so happy to be where I am mentally right now, in this moment. (No jinxing it, ok?!)
I owe a big thank you to my friends and family and husband who really helped me see that THIS IS IN MY CONTROL. (more…)
13 comments April 21, 2009
The Party’s Over … or Just Beginning?
Roughly four weeks ago I decided that I was in control of my chewing and spitting behavior and that I could, indeed, CHOOSE not to do it. That I could be proud of my choices, not feel guilty for them.
In the two weeks that followed, I found myself over-eating on foods I used to chew/spit … and over-exercising. (I don’t share a recap of my days here like some bloggers do, but that’s the honest truth).
This past week, my exercise was more normalized, and I didn’t buy quite as many triggers. I also took a rest day (and will tomorrow, a travel day) … but I have been still eating more than I need to (for someone who still wants to lose weight and get back to where I feel my best).
Mostly, it’s been giving in to that-time-of-the-month cravings (which ends today, phew!), not flexing my resistance muscle, and just plain enjoying more than usual … (which isn’t such a bad thing, if I were able to be happy with my figure as it is … some days I am, other days … I’m not … call me Goldilocks, looking for something that’s juuuuuuuuuuuust right).
But as I’ve noted here, I’ve also eaten chocolate in the privacy of my car or at my work cufice that I know I just don’t need — and the secretive, sneaky way I do it … I wouldn’t want my friends, coworkers, husband, family to see. It’s embarassing.
So it is my hope that this coming week, I’ll finally see growth, evidence of that happy medium. (more…)
10 comments April 10, 2009
How Disordered Do You Want to Be?
I ask this because I, like you, have a choice.
The answer for me is … not at all.
We have a choice. We might tell ourselves our disordered minds are in control, but they’re not. We are.
If we punish ourselves with restriction or over-exercising, or if we punish ourselves with a binge, we’re doing it to ourselves.
It’s not about the food or the exercise; it’s always about something else. Food or exercise (lack of it or over-abundance of it) is a coping mechanism.
And I don’t want to use either as my coping mechanisms any longer.
This weekend, during an Honest.Open.Willing. chat with my husband, he asked me point-blank, “When will the obsession end?”
He sees me more than any of my friends and family, and he sees glimmers of hope, some aspects of behavioral change. He knows I want to be better, to be more fun again, to be the happy girl I was when I was heavy … but he (as well as others close to me) have said, ” … but the obsession is still there.”
He’s right, it is.
I want to turn it off. I don’t want to be disordered, or have disordered thoughts, or to make progress only to fall back. (more…)
19 comments April 9, 2009
The Help Tab
Like any savvy blogger, I check my blog’s stats each day. I like to know how people are finding my blog, where they’re coming from … and — most importantly — what they’re clicking on.
While it’s always nice to see comments, or to see how many hits a particular entry got … or didn’t get, which sometimes happens, too … the data point that interests me most is how many people are clicking on the HELP page each day.
As it turns out, at least 267 people have clicked on the help link since I added it in late November. That means a lot to me. (more…)
9 comments March 27, 2009
Commentary: Food Photo-Blogs & Recovery
Some of my very favorite blogs to read (besides celebrity gossip blogs!) are non-weight-loss-related, healthy living food blogs.
I LOVE the work my blogging buddies are doing, and love to get ideas from all of you. I wouldn’t have known about Barney Butter, were it not for these awesome food bloggers, for example!
I also read quite a few recovery blogs. I love seeing others grow and get better, and it’s helpful for me, as a reader, to see what others are experiencing. But lately I’ve had a bit of a nagging concern that I debated mentioning …
And so because I can’t keep my blogger-trap shut … I have to put this out there — and please know, in no way do I mean to attack those recovery bloggers, because you know how much I care about each and every one of you and you do it because you believe it’s a positive tool, or you wouldn’t do it — but to me, it seems that photo-journaling food –specifically on recovery blogs — might do more harm than good in the recovery process.
I mean, how does it NOT fuel the obsession? How does it NOT add to the fixation? How does it NOT just keep the cycle going, around and around? I honestly want to know. (more…)
28 comments March 26, 2009
More Food For Thought
“If you don’t learn to master your rage, your rage will become your master….”
I can’t take credit for this quote; my brother shared it via e-mail with me this morning, and I just had to share it here because I think it speaks volumes.
Apparently this (to quote my bro) “seemingly intelligent quote is nothing more than a ridiculous quote I learned from the Ben Stiller movie, Mystery Men.”
He suggested just trying replacing the word “rage” with anything I want and make my own sense of it, and encouraged me to give it a shot. (more…)
2 comments March 20, 2009
Facing Reality
One of the positives about always being heavy is you never really “gain weight” — you just are always “big.” There’s no yo-yoing, no four sizes of clothes in your closet that all could fit on a day’s notice.
I’ve never experienced the whole “tight clothes dilemma” … or needing to buy new things … until now. Now my body dysmorphia (when I lost weight and was “thin” and still thought I was fat) has turned into full fledged reality; no, I don’t mean to imply I’m fat, but I’m uncomfortably chunky at the moment.
Over the past two years or so, sure, I’ve had to move certain things to the back of my closet; even skinny people experience this from time to time. (Those white capris from the summer of 2005, for example. At my thinnest, they fit perfectly but now? HA.)
But for the most part, I have been able to wear almost everything I used to wear. Until now. (more…)
18 comments March 1, 2009
Is a Cookie Ever Just a Cookie?
There’s a scene in the HBO documentary THIN where Polly, who is in treatment for anorexia and bulimia, can’t eat a piece of pizza. She just can’t do it.
It makes no sense to a rational person: it’s just food, why can’t she eat it? But to Polly, it’s not. It’s “poison.” It’s “fattening.” It’s “weakness.”
Her therapist asks her in a soft, soothing, low voice if she can’t maybe view it as, “A piece of bread, with some tomato sauce and cheese on top”?
Polly shudders. She can’t. She just can’t. And then she leaves the table.
I don’t understand this, personally. Unlike Polly, I can eat a slice of pizza or a cookie, and I do (ok, if the pizza is in NJ being the pizza snob that I am!).
I’m learning to ungroup/uncategorize foods to make life more enjoyable … it’s been a long process but I’m getting there. I don’t look at foods in such stark black and white terms anymore. (more…)
14 comments January 29, 2009
Super Scary Stats
Sometimes I feel like I have two personalities, even on my blog.
On the one hand, I started this blog to overcome disordered eating issues that arose after successful weight loss the healthy way (eating less, moving more)… And on the other hand, I’m trying to lose some weight I’ve gained, while keep my disordered eating behaviors in check. You can see how this could easily be viewed as having split personas.
I blog about both parts of my persona because they are related to one another, and because they feed off one another, for better or for worse.
Fortunately, I’ve been doing really well re: said disordered eating behaviors — no midnight eating, no chewing and spitting, and no emotional eating –especially since journaling on Sparkpeople. It’s like something clicked last week, and I know it’s not necessarily a permanent click, but in the meantime, it feels darn good.
But after reading a recent blog post by a favorite blogger of mine, it hit me that sometimes it seems with even the best of intentions, for every one step forward we as individuals might take, our society ends up a step back.
Case in point: MamaV over at MamaVision posted some super scary stats about the underground pro-ana movement.
I urge you to take a look at these stats she shares, the most frightening of all being that pro-ana Web sites have increased 470% from 2006 to 2007, according to Optenet. (more…)
10 comments January 22, 2009
