Delightfully delicious - The great session

Discussing so much with Diann yesterday, but food remains the underlying cause of the problem, but also the solution to the disorder.

Last week Tuesday, when I was talking to Diann, she wanted me to eat intuitively, as many days as I wanted. If I did this, then on them days I was allowed to skip a supplement. I did it 2 days. Friday and Saturday. When I woke up on Friday, I knew that I had to take the plunge.. I had to do it. So I ate my breakfast and toast as normal, and my first supplement drink. Then I had a slice of toasted soda bread..delicious!!! Then I had my normal potatoe and sausage. I made a smoothie with yogurt, watermelon and apple, then I had another slice of toasted soda bread and a muesli bar. It was only 4 o'clock in the afternoon and I was still hungry after eating all this. I wouldn't have been able to stop myself, hadn't I gone down town with Eileen for 2 hours. All day long, all I was doing, was thinking about what I wanted to eat, what should I eat and, more importantly, how MUCH should I eat. It was so hard, because skipping the drink in the afternoon, felt so wrong and I was suddenly let loose and I didn't know what was right. I didn't know if I was doing myself more bad then good by not having the drink. I was stuffing myself, because I knew I had to have enough calories and I'd feel sick without the protein and carbs. But I didn't want to stuff myself, because it made me feel like a pig. At 04.30 in the afternoon, I went out, so I wasn't thinking about food anymore. I didn't eat for a couple of hours, because I wasn't hungry. I had a delicious dinner..my favourite..salmon, rice and broccoli. In the evening I had a biscuit and a supplement drink. I wasn't starving, before going to bed, like the weeks before, when I was needing to eat all the time.
This reassured me..for a few hours.

Saturday I was going to give it another go. I wanted to jumble it up a little more. I started the day with my breakfast as usual, then toast. An hour later, a pannini with melted cheese..hummmm. Then I had an extra portion of fruit and a potatoe and sausage. I had the first supplement drink at around 03.30 in the afternoon, instead of in the morning like the day before. I enjoy them so much, so having it in the afternoon instead of in the morning, meant I could look forward to it, all day.. hummm.. After that I just had a muesli bar, my dinner, a biscuit and a supplement at around 10 at night. Again I wasn't going insane with wanting more. Things can be so easy at times..

I got through the 2 days, eating intuitively. I wasn't supposed to be counting the calories, but I know the calorie content of nearly every piece of food. So it's hard to forget the number, when I'm eating it. Diann wants me to get away from that way of eating as much as possible. But I don't know if it will ever totally be irrelevant. There's 300 calories in a drink. I'm loosing this amount, so I have to make up for it by eating other things. It's probably 2 slices of bread with a spread of some sort. But it isn't as easy as that. I don't want to eat such a large amount of bread. But what else is there to have.. One minute things are so easy and instantly they are complicated again..

Sunday I went back to eating my normal daily menu. I didn't want to focus on food for just 1 day. I wanted to think about other things and I wanted to feel slightly normal. But late at night, after I had finished my last supplement, I felt awful and starved again. I just wanted to keep on eating. I forced myself to wait 10 minutes, before staring into the fridge and drooling over forbidden foods. So I waited and the feeling went. I didn't want anything more to eat.

It's said that it always takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that your stomach is full and to tell you that you don't need anymore food. For me, it took 10 minutes and all the worries about being hungry had gone. I should learn to do this after every meal. Because most times when I eat and I've cleared my plate, I'm gutted and I want more. Diann said it's my body still coming out of "starvation mode".. my brain is still thinking: She's eating, now lets keep her eating, just in case she stops again. I honestly thought this would have died down by now. My exact words were: "But I've been eating for so long, how come that feeling hasn't gone yet?".. That sounds so bad.. "I've been eating for so long.." as if the eating is only going last for a certain amount of time.. which is crazy, I know. Everybody has been eating their whole lives, as have I.. but a comment like that isn't that of a "wise woman"..come to think of it, when it comes to food, I'm not really all that wise, so such a comment should be allowed..

Diann said, months ago, that people who are recovering, sometimes drink the supplements for years, because they're safe and they know exactly what's in a drink. When I first started taking them, I was so reluctant. I didn't want them, and I longed so much for the day to come when Diann would say..you can cut down on the drinks. But I'm not too sure if I'm all that pleased about it now. I can now relate to why recovering anorexics want to keep taking them. Because, right now, I'm just so afraid of eating the wrong thing or eating too much or too fatty. I don't know what's right and wrong anymore when it comes to choosing what to eat. I don't want to build my body back up with all the wrong food. Because I'm restoring tissue, muscle and fat and whatever I gain now and over the coming months, will stay with me forever. I don't want to do it wrong.

I feel like this is my chance to build a body with the proper fats. It's like I'm starting from scratch and it's my only chance to get it right. But what is right and what is wrong? I eat a lot, but it's healthy, except for 1 digestive biscuit a day. That's probably the only thing that's bad for me. Can I become healthy, while eating a biscuit everyday? Well, I know the answer to that..only if I think twice about it. If I wasn't to have the biscuit and I would want it, then it's not healthy. If I don't want it and don't have it, then I'm healthy. The thing I need to get my head around is that, once I restrict myself or forbid myself from having a "guilty pleasure", then it's unhealthy.

Whenever I sit watching telly or whatever, and I'm eating my daily menu and I haven't had a biscuit yet, I have to eat it. If I'm eating intuitively and I don't want it, I don't have to have it. It makes so much sense, and it's what people do everyday: they eat what they want, whenever they want, providing they aren't on a diet. If I don't crave a biscuit, then why would I eat it? I don't have a sweet tooth, so I'll never have massive cravings for junk food. Eating junk food or healthy food doesn't mean that I'm or I'm not recovered. It's about eating what I'm wanting and not restricting myself.

At the moment, eating intuitively, is the challenge I'm faced with daily. I'm either thinking about what day to do it on, or it's the actual day itself and I'm battling with myself about the good and bad foods. Right now, I'll be wanting and feeling I need certain foods for 2 different reasons. The first need for a certain type of food is the nutrition: my body may, for example, need more protein for muscle tissue or iron and vitamin B to boost the hormone levels or vitamin C for my immune-system.. I'll feel the need to eat certain things, to get the nutrition my body is still lacking. The second need for a certain type of food is "catching up" on all the cravings I ignored for so long: food that I have loved so much and that usually I would eat lots of, my body became deprived of and I was trained NOT to act on what my longings but as my appetite comes back, so will my tastes. It can be so confusing, because I sometimes don't know what part of me is wanting the food or the reason for me wanting the food.

It will take a while for this to balance out, but I have to challenge both sides of my longings to fully recover. My weight will stabilize as will my appetite and I'll feel safe when eating and I'll be able to trust myself again around food.
Sometimes I think that it really doesn't have to be such a big deal. It's only food, nothing more, nothing less. I should just eat, without worrying, analyzing and without guilt. But it isn't as easy as that. If it were, I wouldn't have had a problem to begin with.

I keep on thinking how good it's all going and that I'm better. It continues to haunt me. I think ahead and wonder how long this will keep on going for. When will I be able to say: "The recovery is over and I'm no longer in between".. ? Because that's exactly where I am right now, I'm not anorexic, but my relationship with food cannot be classed as healthy or "normal" (whatever "normal" may be).. I'm not one or the other. I can either be leaning more to one state of being or the other. I try not to look ahead and put a time-limit on it. I have to force myself to forget about how long it might take. Or else I'll drive myself insane.
At the moment, I know which side I'm leaning towards and it's good. Diann said that I'll know when the day comes, that I can say.."It's over".