A Year of Recovery

[[Side Note: A Year of Recovery

This year has done more for me than any other year in the past seven as far as my ED recovery goes.  I cannot even express the change that has taken place and made me such a happier person.  Where do I start?

I started off the year believing that I was really getting better by keeping up with the jobs that I loved to do and making a difference in the environment.   There’s no doubt it was good for my work mentality, but on the other end of the spectrum, I was not doing what was needed to really help me get better.

I was still obsessed with counting calories, depriving myself of food when I was exercising to burn off calories, staying away from various kinds of fear foods, scrutinizing my body to death, and keeping myself from being social with my new friends in my new city.  How was I going to be free of my ED if these attributes were still lingering, and getting worse faster than getting better?

I decided early on in the year to start on a feature I deemed my Side Notes and it has changed not only my life, but what seems like so many of my readers.  It amazed me how being so open about the emotions and turmoil that goes with having an ED many people do not share.  I was astounded with the amount of support that I got from the blog and helped me through every step of my recovery I shared with the world.

As much fun I was having driving airboats around in the Everglades of South Florida it was time for me to leave mid year to dive into another job, in another small and isolated town by myself.  I believed that I was getting used to this kind of moving around and living in crazy wilderness areas, but I never anticipated the emotions that would arise with having to only knowing and interacting with one or two people, and then absolutely none.  It was devastating coming home every single field day to nothing but an empty apartment, my friends and family hundreds of miles away and not being able to do anything in my town.  So I made one of the best decisions ever: I adopted a cat.

I have never been a cat person, but with my small living situation I was willing to sacrifice my love for dogs for something more attainable in my current situation.  Honey came into my life and I can’t express in words how much I love her.  I was at a time where all I felt was severe loneliness and having something that depends on you and loves you unconditionally was what I needed in my life.  My ED had convinced me that I didn’t deserve to be loved, but Honey sure changed that train of thought.

But the best decision I made came in May/June of this year and I cannot boast enough about how much it has changed my life for the better: THERAPY.

I wrote a post recently for Gena about the importance of this aspect of ED recovery and will discuss it again here. I cannot express more about how terrified I was to seek out help like this.  I knew it was what was best for me, but I felt ashamed and such a burden.  Most of all I felt like this made me some sort of…freak (I can’t find the right word, but I didn’t like how it made me feel essentially).  But I knew I had to do it.  It was essential and I was sick of being sick of myself, hating what I saw in the mirror and being ashamed of well, everything else.

So I went to a local therapist in town.  I had gone once before when I was in college and the counselor didn’t know much about eating disorders so it made things a bit hard to discuss.  This time I made sure the person I was seeing had a specialization in eating disorders/problems so I could get the real support that I needed.  I hated speaking about the things that made me uncomfortable inside and out, but it was what I needed to hear and be told was not a rational train of thought, and instead to see the real picture.  I went through different courses of recovery with my therapist, from trying to eliminate A.N.T.S. from my thoughts, worrying so much about first impressions, having high anxiety for social and food situations, my over-exercising/compulsive exercising, and so much more that has gone undocumented on the blog.

It’s a relief for me to see her every other week or however many times a month, and really discuss the emotions behind all the things that bothered me, were bothering me or were going to bother me.  It’s a tough cycle that she works through with me but it’s getting better. I have grown more in the past 6 months than I have in the past 7 years that I have worked through this alone.

Now I can’t say that I’ve been alone because that would be a lie.  I have had the wonderful support of my family, friends and bloggers to get me through some of the roughest times I’ve had, whether it was a break up that caused a relapse or feeling like I had eaten too much in one day and hadn’t exercised at all.  Every comment, email, text, tweet and phone call has made a difference and I am so thankful for every single one of them.  I could not have done it without all of you too.

   

Not only was I taking care of my mentality through my efforts in therapy, but I also took a step towards doing better in running.  I may have been running for almost 15 years, but it doesn’t mean I’ve been doing it right, or with the right mindset.  I started off the year running the Miami 1/2 Marathon on a whim, and did well considering I was having knee issues, and broke my old PR from the San Antonio 1/2 Marathon last year November.  But I wasn’t doing it correctly. I was going through runs without the proper fueling and refueling, creating havoc on my health and ability to do anything with pride, confidence and strength.

I continued through the first half of the year using running as my way of burning calories, and only burning calories.  I do love running (as I have no coordination to do any other sport correctly) and always have, but it tired me out, gave me headaches and stomach aches, depleted my train of thoughts and injured me in more ways than one.  Changes came this summer after a conversation with Monica on the plane ride to HLS, and thank God for it because my running now, freak’n rocks.

We talked about our issues with eating and I don’t remember what she said exactly, but after discussing half marathon training with her, it finally clicked.  Something she said finally clicked and I took the initiative to do what was right for my body to be able to handle running the way it should.  I started refueling while running.  I bought a camelbak to help me hydrate through so many sweat drenched run (because I swear I sweat more than all of you, combined. lol). All my efforts proved my ED wrong and showed me how strong I could make my body when I ran, and showed in the Oregon 1/2 Marathon when I broke my record and two hours on one of the hilliest courses even the race coordinator didn’t believe many would PR on.  Take that!

Along with therapy and with the advice of my therapist I was able to do something I never thought I’d be able to do: I got rid of my scale.  I avoided scales at all costs, whether they were at my parents or the doctor’s office, and made sure that I wouldn’t let that number dictate my mood or my feelings about who I was.  I had to remind myself, “I am not a number.” and truthfully, it was hard at first.  I was gaining weight and knew it, as my clothes were no longer fitting from the year before…but I had to keep reminding myself: you are doing things differently now; your body is readjusting to your activities and making sure your body has the adequate muscle and fat to function properly.  I was also afraid to have curves (and truthfully still am) but hey, it caught me a guy didn’t it?  But not only that, I realized how much I had grown and gotten stronger when I had some girls at the gym make comments about me that were inappropriate.  I didn’t break down, like I would have last year if it had occurred then…

I apologize for the long post, but I think I needed to write it (even if you didn’t read it all) to essentially reassure myself how far I’ve come in the past 12 months.  It’s a miracle in some sorts and will keep getting better into 2011.  I still have many of the same problems that I had but they are in a different phase than they have been the past years.  2011 will be one of getting further through them and who knows, maybe even ridding of them to really let me be the person I can fully be.

Fingers crossed!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

LET 2011 BRING YOU LOVE AND HAPPINESS!!!

Let It Shine

The sun is out today!!! Yay!!!  But it’s so bright against the snow it’s practically blinding!

In the midst of all the snow though, it’s given me a good excuse to finally buckle down and start transferring needed files from computer to computer…yep, I have three.  One is for work though.  I’m not that well off.

Oh, but the snow last night was crazy.  It was horizontal.

The winds were gusting at over 60mph and eventually knocked the power out when I was trying to read.  Gave me a good excuse to go to bed since it was getting late.  Not before letting Honey play with a mini snowball:

She was content just licking it.  Funny kitty.

I woke up to a serious amount of snow, where I thought it was only about 2 inches but in some spots, it was more like 4 or 5!  Madness to me!  Of course because the temps were 24 with a real feel of 8 I had to have my favorite apple, pb and cranberry oats.  It’s been 4 days since I’ve had them!

I was cracking up over the little pearls of snow around my oats…I kept wanting them to magically turn into Dip’n Dots so I could have that for breakfast instead.  No go though.

Honey thought about braving the snow but after a gust of wind shot some into her face, she was gone and back to her warm spot on my bed.

I couldn’t help but laugh at this though…I’d like to think it makes me a hardcore food blogger…hot oatmeal bowl makes awesome imprints in fresh snow.  Makes for pretty pictures!

“Honey, look at that snow you brought in.  Clean that up!"

Honey: Lick lick.

After looking outside and watching my neighbor try to get her car moved away from the gutter frozen solid, I waited until it warmed up just a bit before braving the ICE COVERED ROADS to get to the gym and grocery store (blasphemy, I ran out of tomatoes and had to get some…I know you would too).

I went to the gym and ran a sweet 5 miles with a mile walk afterwards and came home to do some arm work since…it’s been a while. It’s amazing how weak my muscles get after such little time…I could barely do two sets before I was exhausted…and Whit called so I had to take that call of course.  I miss that guy!

Anyhow, I cleaned up fast because I was starving!!!  I had one leftover soy sausage from when I made my Vegetable Sausage Sausage-less Soup and had frozen, so for protein at lunch I knew this would provide a punch!

I cooked that baby up first on the pan so it would heat through properly, then wrapped it in a FlatOut Wrap with some hummus, leftover roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts, spinach and tomatoe (many nerves were sacrificed for those suckers).

It came out absolutely perfect.  I love the spices in the sausage because they give a good kick to the meal!  I sided it with a cara cara orange (Every time I write cara cara it reminds me of the oddest falcon in that family, the crested caracara.  So big for a falcon…)

I read the afternoon away with an apple, my Jodi Picolt novel and walking back and forth to the laundry room in the cold…it was like a full on trip since I had to put my snow boots and jacket on.  Aggghhh.  Honey appreciates it for the warmth though.

I guess she doesn’t like the temperature I keep the apartment.  She’s got fur, she’ll live.

I’m on a kick for actually cooking up a meal and tonight goes to show it!  It’s simple I assure you, but is nice and tasty!  I picked this Multigrain Pilaf up the other week at TJ’s and was waiting for the right opportunity to use it.  Tonight was the night!  I liked the simple ingredients and flavors in it, along with the variety of grains!  It made for a good difference in texture while you eat!

I knew the medley wouldn’t be enough even though it does contain soybeans, so I scrambled up two eggs and added in leftover roasted veggies, lots of broccoli and some spinach.  Such a great dinner bowl!!!

Oh, and did I forget to mention that I also spent the afternoon working on a variety of my Boysenberry Oatmeal Bars?  I tried one batch with the WW and AP flour combo and the other with just PB Flour…lets just say the PB Flour makes the bars…crunchy?  Maybe I’ll just smash it up into granola…ohhhhh….

I ate one after dinner to satisfy the need for some dessert…and may have eaten another because there wasn’t enough room in the tupperware or the extra bag I had to stick them in for the freezer.  Sacrifices have to be made, right?

I’m hoping the ice won’t be as bad tomorrow so they’ll open up the freeway and I can get out to work and not be trapped in town.  Yes, I was trapped here…ok, that’s a lie, I could have taken the freeway West but really, if you’re gonna close it going East (since there were numerous crashes from the ice) I’m pretty sure it’s going to be just as bad going West.  Geez.

Alas, I need to finish up work tomorrow so fingers crossed…but I doubt it since it’s currently 23*F and supposed to get down to 18*F tonight…I have never felt anything this cold in my life and seriously, it hurts my face…

Happy Almost New Years Eve!!!  I can’t believe 2010 is almost over!

It’s Here…Again!

As much as I hate the stuff because it scares me, I just can’t get over it’s beauty!  It’s gonna look even more cool tomorrow morning!

Ahhh…something about it is so relaxing…even though it has people on the other coast in an absolute hooplah.  Sorry guys, but our weather system is coming your way.  I’m warning you now.

Today wasn’t anything worth noting other than being stuck inside and consuming copious amounts of semi-sweet chocolate chips and heart to heart cereal.  I did have soup in there at some point to warm me up that tasted like bleck…TJ’s low sodium Minestrone is nothing to rave over, I promise.  There was also some TLC Crackers to go with the soup and veggie heavy salad for dinner, all covered in hummus.

All this snow means I won’t be doing much tomorrow either, but I am going to pull myself out of the apartment no matter what to work out.  Sitting around makes me crazy!  Something I’m still working on…alas, it will help keep me in check and calm my nerves!

Happy Humpday!!!

How Did I Do?

So, it’s that dreaded time of the year: revisiting our 2010 goals/resolutions.  I actually forgot about most of them specifically throughout the year…so we’ll see how I faired through the year!
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1. Give Yourself A Break: I’m always too hard on myself.  And I never give myself enough or any credit at all…
-I think I did pretty well with this one, as well as I could maybe.  I have let myself enjoy more things than ever before and allowing myself to really take part in things that I want to and have fun in!  Take the Oregon Half Marathon for instance; I totally didn’t think I’d be able run the race under 2 hours and thought I would fail miserably.  But by reassuring myself that no matter what, I was there to have fun and visit some of the greatest bloggers in OR!

2. Be Brave: Seriously, no joke, I’m probably one of the shyest people you’ll meet.  I won’t open up to you in the beginning and if you want to be my friend, you have to come to me; I won’t come to you.  I’m horribly terrified of first impressions and always think mine are horrible, so making friend’s has never been easy for me.
-This one, I can boast about.  No joke. I made friends. I traveled to Florida again for work. I took the plunge for a longer job in an isolated town.  I started dating a boy.  I ran races I thought I couldn’t do.  I started going to therapy for bigger and better help for my eating disorder.  I started writing Side Notes for the blog. 

3. Open To New Experiences: This one stems off of being brave.  I’m always hesitant to try new things and this year I want to be able to say “I’ve done it!”  I was able to learn so much about opening up and being brave with Brad in Florida, that I would give anything to let myself be that brave, without the help or pushing (and/or forcing) or others.
-Mountain Biking? White Water Rafting? More Airboating? I did at least a few things!

4. Be More Mindful of What You Say and Do: I tend to have a big mouth sometimes.  I need to think about what I’m saying before I say it.  Many times I want to say something and it comes out more harsh than it needs to be, so that’s my biggest dilemma.
-Um, I did take this into count the first few months.  Then I fell off the bandwagon and cursing ensued.  Err, that’s never a good thing!
5. Strength Training 2x a Week: I really think this is going to help me with my running.  I realized this while training for the San Antonio 1/2 Marathon and want to keep up with it.  This year I want to incorporate more weight into my moves (I got 5 pounders for Christmas, I want to be up to 10 and 15 lbs by the end of the year) and to try new ones.  I tend to stick to the same thing. 
-Almost! I started ST’ing once a week with Self Flashcards the first half of the year then started working with DVDs like P90X and Jillian Michaels for the second half.  I can tell the difference in my body but I have a tendency to slack off every once in a while. I would like to make this more of a normal thing.

6. More Yoga: I really want to perfect my downward dog.  I’ve been doing yoga off and on for years, and this has always been my problem move.  The best way to describe it right now, is that I look like I’m doing a very whacked out push-up with my butt high in the air.  The problem seems to be my shoulders/back that are too tight and I can’t get my upper body to straighten out.
-Fail.  Ok, not total fail because I did do well for a bit, then stopped, then started, then stopped, and have just started up again.  Ok, I’ve only done it twice in the past two weeks but hey, better then not at all, right?  Yes!
7. Running Goals:

• Speed work: I have been relaxed about this since I got out of high school where we did speed work every Tuesday and Thursday.  I’m going to try to get something speedy in with short repeats at least once a week, and maybe a tempo run along with the speed work (on a different day) every other week.
  
• This did not work out well. I probably did a total of a dozen speed workouts the entire year, but I have an excuse: my knees.  The faster I go, the more they hurt and I have to take time off of running.  How does that work out?  I have no idea…does my stride lengthen during those runs and my knees hate it?  I’ll look into it more next year.
  
• 5k: Under 24 min.
  
• I ran one 5k this year, in 27 minutes.  It was the worst feeling 5k ever.  I never had a chance after that to run another in race form.
  
• 10k: Under 52 min.
  
• I ran one 10k this year in 54 minutes, so I wasn’t too far off.  I had a second planned that I was going to train for but a knee injury kept me in the dust and not competing for it.
  
• 1/2 Marathon: Under 2 hrs.
  
• Hell yeah I did!  I started off with 4 minutes to close on at the start of the year, then within a month was down to 66 seconds to beat then broke it on the hilliest course ever by 55 seconds!  Thank you OR Half Marathon!

• Marathon: ??? Let’s just try to get that half marathon done shall we?  But I’m being optimistic…since last time I trained for a marathon I got so hurt I was out of running for almost two months and it was absolutely devastating to me.
• That for 2011 people…it’s gonna happen.  I already paid for it!

8. Less Stress/Anxiety: Takes things one day at a time.  I need to seriously, just chill out.  I stress out over the tiniest things and always have to have a schedule.  And having a schedule is nice, but if I learned anything from last year, is that spontaneity can be fun.
-This was a journey all year long.  I think it was the worst at the beginning of the year, then after I started going to see my counselor it was so much easier to deal with.  Our discussions about my rational and the reality of the situation was what made it easier to deal with.  But above all of that, it was realizing the emotions sitting behind the anxiety that was looming over my head…lonely? sad? depressed?  I had to see what I was really feeling to be able to understand where the anxiety was coming from.
9. Save Money: I work probably around 9 months out of a year while the rest is spent traveling on my own dime.  I need to start saving what money I can since I don’t get paid much with the jobs that I do and one day I’m going to have to settle down and live a real life.  I also have student loans to finish paying.  Yikes.
-With the new job I got the middle of this year I have saved up quite a bit of money.  There are certain props to my job so saving money becomes a lot easier than most other people out there.  Lets just say I’ve saved enough that I’ve thought of replacing my car, have looked into grad schools, am taking several trips across the US (maybe even the Pacific!?) next year...  Yep, I’m a big girl now!

(Source)
10. School: Take the GRE’s and start the GIS Certificate program with Penn State.  My goal is to study like a mad woman and take the GRE’s by the end of January, at the latest mid-February.
-Haha…nope.  I’m a big advocate of believing that standardized testing is the stupidest thing on the face of this planet.  It doesn’t represent my intelligence at all…maybe next year, since the GRE is changing majorly.
11. Blogging:

• More Centered Blogging: Although I don’t hate that my blogging tends to be all over the place, I would like to focus on more specific things like recipes, workouts, eating disorder awareness, and environmentalism.
  
• I don’t know about this one.  I guess in concern for my ED recovery it has been more centered with my new Side Notes feature.  It has helped me center around my struggles and the activities I try to make me feel better.  Otherwise, I didn’t do half the environmental blogging I wanted to, or the exercise posts I was planning on doing for race training.  I did start posting more recipes, along with my Single Serving Recipes on my Recipes Page for all those single people out there!
  
• Posting: I need to get it in my head that if I don’t post everyday, it’s not going to kill me.  I love blogging, but sometimes I go to write a post and it’s so boring that I feel bad.  I need to move away from feeling so obligated to do it and enjoy more of the content and the ones that I read.
• This one has definitely worked out well!  I didn’t post every single day and didn’t feel bad about it!  I did it when I wanted to and with the content that pleased me…if someone thinks my blog is a “train wreck” then go away and stop reading.  I’m just say’n.

How did you do with your resolutions!?  I’m sure you did excellent!!! 

Morning Morning!

The weekday I get to sleep in because I know the weather is going to hamper anything productive to do for work, I wake up earlier than I ever have to.  I blame the wind.  And rain.  Oh the rain!

I’ve got my own little river goin on.  I once stepped in that in the dark.  It was not a pleasant scene, but made me laugh when I realized I knew it was there.  Oiy.

Nothing too exciting going on this morning other than waiting for the snow to get here.  They’re saying this afternoon, but it’s like 45* right now and I don’t know if the cold air they say is coming is gonna make it snow…Oh well, I don’t like driving in snow anyhow!  So frustrating and ice scares the live’n shizzle out of me!

I had time this morning of course, so I finally dove into my greek yogurt!  Oh GY how I have missed you!  With all this cold weather I don’t like eating things that are cold, at all.  So smoothies and yogurt have gone out the door…

But this morning I bundled up (ok, I’m really always bundled up since you know how low I keep my thermostat!) and braved having yogurt for breakfast…it was so danged tasty!  I love the mounds of cinnamon I can put on that stuff to make it taste awesome w/o added sugar!  I used to eat fruit flavored yogurts all the time (yoplait oh how I basically swam in you) until I slowly transferred over to plain and added fruit and realized I didn’t need all the sugar they put in those things, along with high fructose corn syrup!  Yuck!

What kind of yogurt do you eat?  Are you a greek yogurt fan, a plain or flavored yogurt person?  I used to love the peach and raspberry yoplait when I was in college…I never went a day without one!

Besides, it gives me an excuse to add chocolate chips to the whole mess…with kashi go lean crunch and a diced apple.  Happy girl here!

Now I’m off to put a dent in a very very long to do list…this is gonna be a few day debacle.  Hopefully it’ll help make time go by faster since cold weather makes me feel like a sloth!

PS Thanks to everyone for their sweet comments and emails about my post on Gena’s blog where I talked about the importance of counseling!  If you have any other questions, never fear to email or leave me a comment!

And We’re….Back In The Game!

I feel sooooooooooo much better today!!!  I can’t not exclaim it enough!
It may not have started off looking that way…there’s a banana buried underneath that mess of kashi go lean crunch and tj’s fiber o’s…

But it got much better after that.  My appetite was in full swing and the abundance of sun just had me goin!  I slammed an apple down my throat mid morning while driving around in the desert and marveling at the tremendous amount of hawks in the sky…they’re taking advantage of the sunlight and drier days since they probably didn’t get to eat or hunt much when we had those 6 solid days of rain just over a week ago!
I was in a hurry going out the door this morning, though shouldn’t have since I didn’t know there was ice on the porch and fell nicely on my left hip, with all my gear on, and falling on me.  Ouch to the max.  And bruises to boot. 
Because of the hurry I made a veggie sandwich with the few veggies I had left in the fridge (hummus, spinach, tomato and roasted red bell peppers) and paired it up with a pear that was on it’s last leg.  I had pears that are too ripe. Rawr.

I am trying to cram all of my work into yesterday and today since we’ve got a nasty winter storm moving in tonight until Thursday and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to go anywhere.  A homebody I will be for the next two days.  Too bad my boyfriend isn’t here or I might be able to stay entertained…instead he’s here soaking up the warmth I want:

Don’t be fooled, that’s almost where he lives.  Jealousy runs through my veins.
Alas, I was finishing up my last point when my belly started growl’n again so I obliged with a favorite of mine:

Don’t lie, I know you want it.  Believe me, it’s absolute chocolate-y goodness in a bar.
I didn’t blink twice as soon as I got home and jumped straight into my gym clothes to do a nice steady run.  As I was driving over there I noticed that even though it was rush hour time for town, there was no one on the road. Whaaaaat?  I guess everyone has work off this week?  I guess I never realized that was normal for everyone…or is it?
Anyhow, I warmed up with a 1/2 mile walk on the treadmill, then ran 4.5miles in 43 minutes, warming up from 6.0 to 6.7 and back down for the last 1/2 mile.  I then walked another 1/2 mile before heading home to clean up, cause you can sure as heck bet I was a mess!  But boy did it feel good to run!
The whole time I was running all I could think about was pizza, but knew I needed to use up the black beans that were sitting in the fridge…Mexican pizza it was! I layered some sharp cheddar cheese on the Flat Out Wrap, topped it with a 1/2C of black beans, some defrosted bell pepper strips and raw broccoli, then added some salsa after it came out of the oven to make it complete!

I figured dessert should be a bit more healthy since I’d already had that chocolate-y bar earlier in the day, so I nuked up an apple with some cinnamon and topped it off with some pb…if I had had some graham crackers to sprinkle on top it would have been a makeshift apple pie!  So tasty!!!

And because my sweet tooth started to rawr soon afterwards, I had a cookie or two that Jessica sent me as a sweet little Christmas present!  All while catching up on some of my favorite blogs.

Now I’m off to comfort my poor kitty who' I’ve neglected through all the work the past few days and start reading some more of House Rules by Jodi Picoult.  I bet I’ll be done by tomorrow.

PS Check out my guest post on Gena's blog about what I believe is the most important thing in recovering from an ED: Counseling.