Resisting A Binge.

Yesterday night after dinner the inevitable 'binge pangs' started. If you haven't experienced binge pangs they are horrific. I imagine it's a little how a drug addict feels when they need a hit. You are consumed with the need to eat. Consumed, overwhelmed, obsessed. All you can think about is the food. You feel on edge and jittery. Your mind does this funny thing where it tricks you into thinking one small binge will be fine, and actually you won't feel bad this time. This time you really NEED the binge.
Last night I was close, so close to a binge. I had a start-of-binge (one jammy dodger, one piece of toast, one ryvita) and the urge to carry on, to eat more and more was overwhelming. But somehow, I resisted. This is a massive step for me as I never manage to resist. I was physically shaking I wanted a binge so much but I KNEW I would be glad later if I didn't. So I fought it. It was hard, draining and tiring but I feel quite proud of myself now.


Today I am going shopping with my best friend. Very exciting! On Wednesday I am giving myself a treat. I am going to a lovely bakery with a friend and letting myself have a piece of cake. This is something to look forward to, and I've given myself permission not to feel bad about it.


I lost another pound :) 

Don't threaten me, love.

Today I texted my flatmate asking to borrow a biology book. She replied "Yeh under my desk, don't touch the fucking scales though! Otherwise I'll be telling your mum she needs to be having words with you!!" I'd actually already weighed myself with them when she went to work, which I know was wrong but I just wanted to compare my new scales and hers. 
But my main issue was that she threatened to tell my mum. I felt quite angry with this. She may be concerned, but talk to me not my mum. I'm 20 this year and these threats don't scare me as they used to. I know this means I'll have to be more careful around my flat. It just frustrated me no end. This particular flatmate isn't the most understanding person, she sees everything in a very black and white context. 
I've been 'hiding' in my room more recently. I just have less desire to be around them. 


Today I struggled so much at the gym. I couldn't get myself motivated and I felt physically exhausted. My body felt weak and pathetic. This was particularly frustrating as I had eating a decent sized bowl of ready brek (with golden syrup - trying to give myself 'treats' to stop binges.) I'll try and get myself a little more motivated tomorrow.


I need your help girlies (and guys!) I have a DATE! A rare occurrence I assure you. I met this guy at church and liked him the minute I saw him. This is the first time we will have spent time just the two of us. He suggested we play badminton, which I enjoy. However I am not used to wearing GYM CLOTHES when I'm trying to impress a guy?! How on earth am I meant to look and feel good covered in sweat wearing my gym stuff, with my make up half way down my face! Any tips on wear to get some attractive gym stuff at would be appreciated/any ideas on how to look better in this situation??

Struggling with 'the voice'

Yesterday and this morning I've been struggling with listening to the eating disorder voice. I know I'm falling into it's trap. Yesterday I felt I had to time myself eating dinner and only have a very small bite every 30 seconds. But I could eat my yoghurt as fast as I wanted. The voice is gaining control on my actions not relating to food as well. I was reading a book, went to turn the corner of the page down and felt that if I did that I would not be perfect and would get fat. Totally unreasonable and ridiculous I know, but I followed it.

This morning, I felt compelled to cut my one piece of toast into tiny tiny pieces and eat each tiny square with a fork, one at a time, with a gap in-between each bite. Then halfway through breakfast I remembered I had forgotten to do the 20 star jumps I said I would do before weighing myself, so got up and did 40. 


I know these are all bad behaviours, and when I was eating dinner last night I wanted to eat it normally but I COULDN'T. On the other hand I do find them very comforting and relaxing to have such organised meals. 




The really frustrating thing is I know I'm eating a healthy diet. I think what I'm eating is actually just a regular person's healthy. Yet for me all the ED thoughts come with it. 
Let's take yesterday for example:


Breakfast:  ready brek with sultanas and golden syrup (I was challenging myself to have a food a really enjoy.)
Snack: small satsuma.
Lunch: Weight watchers soup, 2 ryvitas, 8 calorie jelly, pear.
Dinner: Small portion of chilli con carne. 
Snack: fat free, low cal yogurt.


This all seems like a normal amount not too much or too little, so why am I getting to caught up in the ED thoughts and related behaviours. I feel like I'm just an attention seeker.


Thank-you so much for all the lovely comments, you've all been fabulous and I really do love hearing from you. Also welcome if you're knew to the blog and have just started commenting, I love following and supporting new blogs!
xx

Thrown away the adios max.

Oh my gosh I took one, just ONE of the adios max diet tablets and I got so ill. Let's just say I didn't leave the bathroom and my stomach was spasming (is that a word?) out of control. It was either the adios or I got a bad stomach bug. In two days I've lost 6lbs. Mainly this is because of the bug. Today I am being careful with food, but also challenging my eating disordered thoughts. So I put golden syrup on my ready brek this morning because I don't want to get to a place where I feel I am a failure if I have it. I know if I get to that place the binge/purge cycle starts. So I'm eating 3 meals and keeping them all healthy.

I went out today and brought a book about a girl with anorexia. I know full well that this will trigger me but I'm being irresponsible. I won't lie I LOVE having my own scales. But I am NOT going to get sucked back into my  disorder really bad. I just want to loose 10-20lbs in an okay way.

Whatever. I just want to achieve. In everything. I've been a failure this far. At school I didn't get the best grades, I never stick with any hobbies, I never lost enough weight. I'm just not quite good enough. I want to be perfect.

Adios max and 10 calorie jelly.

I've had a deranged few days. I mean just plain SILLY. Yesterday I ate a ridiculous amount in the day and went out for a meal with my best friend, got home. Purged big time, bleeding throat etc.etc. Not so pretty. I don't really know where this came from, I haven't done a sober purge for a long time. But (because I still have an eating disordered brain) I enjoyed it. That satisfying thought "this was in my body and now it's not, I successfully purged" was very much there.
Then after this pure SILLYNESS I toddled of to the shops this morning and brought: 16 cans diet coke, 5 ten calorie jelly pots, 4 weight watchers soup cans. Then I did something really bad. A new step...I brought scales. My own scales. I am used to borrowing my friend so I could only weigh myself once a week. This is a bad move on my part and I know it was have bad repercussions. That's not all. I brought Adios max diet pills. I'm a student with no money yet I buy these. I got home all excited, got online and read the reviews.The ingredient in them 'fucus' is actually not proved to do ANYTHING. The main side affect is hair loss. Urmmmm no thanks, I swear I already have a receding hair line (cringe) I don't need any help loosing more hair!

Has anyone tried them? Results?

Gok's teens and tactical chundering.

Last weeks episode of Gok Wan's new programme 'Gok's teens' really brought up some issues for me with this type of programme.
Basically for those who didn't see it Gok is addressing teen issues. Last week's episode addressed body confidence. It featured one fifteen year old recovering for anorexia and one girl who likes pro ana websites. He was basically trying to show how unrealistic magazine pictures are/ 'helping' teens embrace their natural size. The problem I have is that these type of problems tend to do the opposite. Maybe it's just me but they trigger me. I think that showing teens what these other teens want (that they should be thin/aspire to be skinny) makes me feel out of the norm in that I'm trying to stop thinking like this. Plus the photos from pro ana sites triggered me. Hmph. Maybe it's just me. I think these programmes need to be very careful. I think that by raising awareness of these pro ana websites, it steers people towards them, doing the exact opposite of what the show wants. What do you think??

In other news, I am currently on university placement and loving it, but with the twelve and a half hour shifts comes a hellova lot of food. Leading to weight gain. Leading to weight loss. Helllllo diet coke!! I purged last night for the first time in ages, but mainly because I'd had three glasses of wine and was feeling a little drunk which I don't really like. But the purge felt satisfying. (People in England call purging when drunk 'tactical chundering', it's widely accepted as a form of stopping yourself getting too drunk. Scary eh?)

The story of a bulimic.

My name is Ellie. I am a 19 year old university student. I have a brother and a sister, and my parents are together. I am a diagnosed bulimic. 

Roughly three years ago I started a diet. Nothing severe, just adding more fruit and veg and eating less sugary foods. This diet signified a lot. I thought diet's were mysterious activities, only for real women. I saw this diet as my right as a (young) women. But it was more than that. Not only did it signify me growing up, it was my reaction to these hips I'd developed, this bum, these thighs. All the things that make a women, a women. As much as I wanted to be older I was scared of growing up and all that came with it. 

This harmless diet started, slowly at first, to have effects. A pound here, a pound there. It felt good. I know I wanted more. So the diet became more serious, more strict. Instead of porridge with semi skimmed milk and a banana, the milk was replaced with water, the porridge was weighed and the banana was left out. Lunch went from a sandwich with an apple, some salad, and a chocolate bar to a salad with an apple. Dinner was always a problem meal as my family are big about sit down meals.  

As this new more severe diet started taking effect and I lost roughly 7lbs I started getting obsessed. Anything to make sure the number on the scale tomorrow would be less than the number today. Breakfast was cut. Lunch was an apple or a carrot. Dinner was the same. 

Then is happened.

My first binge

It was only a small one, as my body hadn't hit the point where is craved food, where is screamed out for it's cravings. But it had an effect, this first binge brought guilt, unease, the feeling of dirtiness. So I tried to purge. I had tried a few times before but was always to nervous to actually go through with it properly. This time was different. 

Go to parents bathroom. Close their door and the en suite door. Lean over the toilet. take a few breaths and  put your two fingers down your throat. Stroke your throat. Gag...gag...and then results. Although the result was small as I was too afraid to carry on, it was a start. I didn't realise how frequent this would become.

So the first binge and purge came and went. The day after the binge I thought I should restrict more severely as I had eaten so much in that binge. Goodbye breakfast and lunch. Hello exercise. Hello purging dinner in the gym toilets. And with these ever more strict rules, these boundaries I set myself came more binges. Remembering these binges and the emotions that came with them is hard, so bear with me. 

The cycle was this:

Day one: so determined to succeed I would eat below 600 cals, and attempt to exercise it all off. 

Day two: The same as day one. 

Day three: Attempt to do the same as day one and two, but struggle more, more effort has to be into avoiding a binge.

Day Four: God I hated day four. Day four was my weakest day. Day four is when I felt so crap, so low and tired that the inevitable happened. The binge. The severity of the last three days influenced the severity of the binges. If I had fasted three days I would binge maybe two days to a week. Or it could just be an evening binge. Here is how these extreme binges went:

After dinner I would feel cheated. The dinner didn't satisfy me. The cravings were loud and the need for more was impossible to ignore. I would wait until the family had left the kitchen and it would begin. 2 chocolate bars, a packet of crisps, yoghurt, another chocolate bar, go to freezer, get a croissant, whilst defrosting it get cereal. Coat it with golden syrup. Coat croissant with peanut butter. Another chocolate bar. Another packet of crisps. Any left over desert. Toast. yoghurt. One final chocolate bar. Upstairs. Bathroom. Purge. drink lots of water to make purge easier. Finish. Go to the mirror to inspect the damage. Red eyes, sick around mouth. Breath smelling of bile. Fingers smelling of vomit. Scrub at yours hands, clean your face, clean teeth, mouthwash. Go to room. Shut door. Sit and wait for guilt. Feel dizzy and hyper. Then the guilt, the all encompassing guilt. I am worthless, how could I let myself binge? How could I ruin myself again. How could I be so weak, so feeble, so pathetic. Pure anger directed at self. 

And the cycle would begin again. The cycle would just get more and more severe until you are nothing but your bulimia. I had no time for friends, family, work, school, joy, happiness. No. Just bulimia, calories, gym and the depression that so often comes with it. Sleep was a thing of the past.

It got to a point were I could no longer hold myself together. For a week I would be hysterical every night. Unable to hold it all back. I decided I had to change, my life couldn't carry on in this way. I told my parents what had been going on. I went to the doctor. I went to counselling. But still the eating disorder would take over. For two and a half years I couldn't stay in recovery, but I could never keep up my extreme bulimic cycle. It was like the bulimia had lost it's bite. It was still there but it didn't have the same control over me. Over the years the relapses got shorter and the times of recovery got longer. Half a year ago it seemed like the eating disorder had gone for good. University started and I realised I could do and eat what I wanted. This was my most relapse, and although it was quite severe it only lasted 2 months and 8lbs long. 

So how am I today? I'm good, taking each day as it comes. Slowly. Not presuming I will never relapse again, but knowing that I will always find recovery. The journey has been long and painful, but by God I am a stronger and better person for it. I feel a greater understanding and empathy with those worse of in the mental health stakes. I am more patient and accepting of myself. I know that I am a strong person and I can overcome more than I give myself credit for.