A Day In My Life

I've debated the title of this post for about an hour now trying to remember if articles in a title should be capitalized or not. Look, I made a choice, let's just move on from this.

Today, I wanted to take you along for a typical day with me, because I spend 97% of my time alone and it feels better if I imagine I have you guys there with me. Cyber hugs! Keep it above the waist.

I started out the morning bright and early at 5:00 am to watch not one, but two movies in a row on Netflix. You'd be surprised to hear that Don't Be A Menace and Annie actually pair quite nicely when watched subsequently.
There it is again. Articles in a title, and underlining vs italics. I need English lessons.

After that, I chugged two cups of coffee and had every intention of proudly sporting my slipper shoes into Salvation Army to buy silverware--don't judge--, but within almost minutes my bowels were screaming from my previous beverage choices and all I could think of was the safety of the Target bathroom where I was headed next.

Can you detect the hustle?

At Target, I proceeded to purchase only the items on my list, and successfully made it through checkout without any attitude sales pitches from the Target lady. Seriously, if you ask me about that debit care one more time....

I bought aforementioned silverware, because girl can't keep a fork in the house around here....



...and curtains, the rod to which I strategically used to cover my five head/pose for an awkward wizard-like selfie.

I also snapped this photo of Zoey on the outside table, which Zack hates because he fears she will fall through the glass and shred herself to bits and which I secretly encourage because of cuteness reasons. We're great parents.

After avoiding picking up this small piece of trash on the floor for the rest of the morning, I decided I would treat myself to some sushi for lunch.

Aren't you grateful for this visual aid?

The trek to get sushi was somewhat less than enjoyable. If you have ever tried to parallel park a long bed F-150 on a busy street you understand. Oh, and there was that moment when I tried to take a paper from The Pitch dispenser and was unfortunate enough to discover that someone had peed in there.

But all in all, it was a pretty good, productive day. I came home and outrageously almost forgot to take a picture of my food before I ate it. 

Following my food coma, I took a three hour nap and am now sharing it with you fine people.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. You're the best imaginary friends a girl could ask for. Byeee!

Welcome Back!

I'm baaaaack!

If you're returning from several months ago I'd like to say thank you for coming back to visit me.

For the newbies,.... why did it take you so long to get here??

Just kidding. 

I needed to take a short little hiatus from this and other forms of social media to really refocus on myself, blah, blah, blah, long story short I'm back. Doing this again. Maybe reactivating Facebook. Maybe not. Not sure yet. 

I guess the best way to get going here is to just catch you up on what I've been doing since March??? (gasp) 

So let's see....

I decided I'm ready to work day shift to get back to sleeping at night and being awake during the day.

Vampire life just doesn't work for me anymore.

We've been slowly but surely finishing the basement to finally have some more living space. Thank you Zack and Dad.

My sister graduated college and has been living with me temporarily while saving up for her own place, which she just found so, yay Aubs.

And I guess, circling back to why I started this thing in the first place, I've been seeing my counselor now for 10 months!

That is the longest amount of time I have ever committed to anything. Period. 

Well, aside from my husband.

I have been doing really well with that for several months now and quite honestly am considering terminating my treatment at the end of this year. Again, we'll see. 

That is also, however, why I was kind of struggling with jumping back in here because I can really foresee that this eating disorder thing isn't going to be such a big part of life anymore. So I guess this is where I should insert the disclaimer that I may not be talking about that as much this go around. I suppose I could just start a new blog but the name More Than a Fork and that cheesy little banner art up top took me more time than I care to admit to come up with, so... I'm staying here. (snaps)

What I can instead offer you are stories/updates about myself navigating this early-to-mid-twenties-quarter-life-crises-of-sorts. 

Wow, that sounds so disgustingly entitled and I think I may have overused the hyphen.

Anyhow, if you've ever drunkenly tried to make a box of macaroni and cheese with your vanilla almond/soy milk or just narrowly walk the line of agoraphobia like myself, welcome and pull up a cupcake. ??

And for the takeaway please enjoy this extremely edited picture of me. Byeee.

Feel Better When You've Finished Eating Than When You Started

Round 2!

Two posts this week! I'm starting to get the hang of this again and it feels nice!

So yesterday started off with a loooooong overdue nutrition appointment. Even though I've been seeing these people for months now, the drive there always creates a little bit of anxiety for me. My fear is that I'll sit down, get comfortable, and then not have anything to say. Well, I could have easily put that fear to rest this week because almost as soon as my butt hit the couch I was spewing anecdote after anecdote recalling my past few weeks.

It honestly occurred to me for a moment, "Maybe I should take a breath and let her talk for a while..... She looks like she wants to say something..... Oops, I just interrupted her again." But then I reminded myself I paid for this time, so she can just sit there and focus on gas exchange because I clearly needed to vent.

We talked about how I feel like I'm finally at the height of my weight gain and how hopefully now that it has leveled off I might start to see it go down again. (Fingers, toes, eyes crossed on this one!)

We talked about how I'm starting to feel more comfortable examining how eating certain foods make me feel physically. I told her it's been a miracle that I've passed up the opportunity to get pizza on a few occasions, just because I knew that afterwards I would feel bloated, puffy, and even headache-y(?) It's my blog, I'll invent words if I want to. To this she gave me this nugget of advice, that the goal of eating is to feel better when you are finished than when you started.

Brilliant! Someone should pay her for this stuff, oh wait...

This led to our my next conversation about how I've finally gotten over my greek yogurt aversion. After limiting myself to plain non-fat for so long, even just the thought of it previously brought some stomach acid to the back of my throat. (Too much?) Well somehow, I kind of just woke up one morning with a craving and bam! Here we are again choosing this fine fellow for an almost daily snack. However, --watch your calorie counters explode with this one-- I have decided that full fat, vanilla flavoured* is the way to go! (*Just trying out the alternate spelling of this word for fun. Sorry Brits, it just feels wrong.)

Anyhow, top that sucker with some microwaved frozen berries and granola...... it's basically dessert. Old me would have freaked about the idea of full fat dairy, let alone additional toppings, i.e. calories. So I was actually completely relieved when she said that herself and another nutritionist in their practice have themselves recently made the switch back to full fat dairy. Because fat tastes good! And, I guess the research she's been reading has suggested that even saturated fats aren't as damaging as previously thought.

Who cares??? Argue that all day if you want, I personally just leave the science to my husband. All I know is tastes good and I feel good afterwards.

So we talked about this and much more but I think I'll leave it at that for today. I'm going to go try to vacuum off the thick layer of earth my dogs have brought into the house. I should just give up and have dirt floors.

Peace!

What foods have been making you feel good lately?

Spring Ramblings

Hello Forkers! I'm not entirely sure I like the sound of that but oh well, it works for now.

Well, the seasons have literally changed since I updated this bad boy and I'm not exactly excited about it. Breezy short shorts and skin revealing summer clothes aren't necessarily the types of things I feel like prancing around in these days. I'm honestly dreading it very much and it's been giving me some anxiety thinking about how I'm going to make it through these next few months without a huge sweatshirt to hide behind. Also, cleaning out my closet, as I have been doing, has drastically limited the selection of things I have to wear right now.

However, instead of letting it get to me, I've focused instead on the fact that I get to buy new clothes. So, my plan to brave this steamy season is to utilize A-frame knee length skirts and cardigans with t-shirts. Sounds good, right?

Also, today I ate this brie for breakfast after an exhausting, post night shift grocery shopping session and I just have to say I love him! It felt like such a treat and satisfied the craving I have for something savory after I get home from work. Yay cheese!

Then, my Ulta order came in! I've been on the fence about getting the Anastasia Brow Wiz for months and I finally took the plunge and bought it. I also ordered the Benefit Gimme Brow because I just needed it wanted to try it. Brows galore!

Honestly, I've been super obsessed with drawing my eyebrows in super dark and straight lately. It's no coincidence that I developed this preference after Zack and I binge watched all three seasons of Game of Thrones. I pretty much only pay attention to the scenes with Daenerys in them, I mean......Emilia Clark. Enough said.
So this is my best attempt.

Before brows

After brows!

I've even considered repurchasing these colored contacts I used to buy from this super sketchy strip mall I used to go to in college, and was about two clicks away from ordering a blonde wig online a few days ago, just to make the transformation complete.

Who doesn't like a good dress up session?
Just me??
Cool.

Anyways, that's all my weirdness lately. If you've made it to the end of this post, scattered as it was, I applaud you and hope you found this to be a awesome use of your time.

I'll try to get back to some of the "meatier" stuff later this week, or maybe not. Let me know if you like these fluffier posts. I kinda think they might be nice to lighten it up and add some balance to the blog. After all finding balance is the ultimate goal here!

What are you up to this weekend?

Italian Night!

My goodness, I have really stepped away from this blog for longer than I intended to!

Honestly, I just had a few terrible weeks in a row that I could not seem to shake. Perhaps it was a residual backlash after trimming down my therapy sessions so drastically, so quickly. Anyhow, I just felt like a complete social failure. It seemed like every interaction I had with people was painfully awkward and forced. I know I was certainly not a pleasure to be around. I would have moments throughout the day where I would just start crying and not know why. Weird stuff. Stuff that was pretty discouraging and isolating.

Luckily, I survived. Not like there was any real danger of that not happening. However, when your emotions are getting the better of you like that it can certainly feel that way. I don't know how or what got me through it. Though as I'm sitting here reflecting on it now, I have to say I think it's because I kept fighting. I kept pushing myself to face my fears, to be in public, to try new things, and to be uncomfortable. Was it pretty? No. Embarrassingly enough, I had a very public cry session at bar for a friend's birthday. Told ya I was fun to be around. But whatever. It happened. I looked like a freak. I cried, because I cried in public the next day. I was a hot mess.

But do you know what? I'm so glad I was. For whatever reason, I needed to be sad for while. I needed to feel anxious, watch my mascara run, and smear the lipstick half way across my face in full view of strangers....Well maybe not that last part. Whether I knew it or not, I needed to get low, to get truly disturbed like that so I could climb myself out of that hole on my own. Perhaps losing time with my therapists was too much for me just then. But perhaps, I was beginning to rely on other people to deal with my emotions for me too. I don't plan on being in therapy forever and though it is a great tool that I intend to use to its fullest extent it's not a tool I want to depend on forever. I need to learn to fix things on my own and to analyze myself with some distance to regain perspective. So though I am incredibly grateful I have an appointment with my counselor this Tuesday, I'm also grateful to be able to say I'm figuring some of this out for myself too.

To top it all off, I finally had a positive social experience that I could be proud of! I had some friends over for an Italian themed pot-luck of sorts and it turned out really well. Good food, cheap wine, and lots of laugh and catching up. All in all, I needed to remember that I have friends despite my flaws and that I can be myself in front of people and it's ok! I also totally meant to take pictures but forgot as that's not a natural habit of mine, oh well. Anyways, enjoy this photo of the Shrimp Fra Diavolo I made with very real comments about its tastiness from my friends.

Gotta enjoy positive feedback. It was a busy weekend, but a good one.

What did you do this weekend?

Relieving A Heavy Heart

Well, this week hit me like a ton of bricks, which I was completely not expecting. Then again, when do people ever expect to be battered by bricks? Several events this week have had me feeling less than.

Firstly, I'm having to reevaluate the status of my relationships with certain people in my life and that's never a comfortable situation to be in. As I'm learning more about myself and coming to the realization that I am in complete control of how I feel at all times, I have been challenged to accept a few things:

1. It is a waste of time to wait for apologies from others. You may never get them. You may, and find that they are completely unsatisfying. 
2. Forgiveness is a practice that best serves yourself rather than it does the other person. 

I have realized it's such a futile attempt to try to hurt others who have hurt you, because at the end of the day it's exhausting to spend so much negative energy on someone who probably doesn't care at all.

This is the way some relationships end, and you know what, I think it's okay to let them.

Secondly, I will be seeing some friends soon that I haven't seen in a couple of months and I'm very nervous about it. At first, I was really excited about the idea of catching up but within a couple hours of  accepting the invitation my anxieties kicked in and now I've contemplated not going at all. Typically, I've faced these situations by disarming them with humor.

"Can we all just all address the elephant in the room? Hi, my name is Katie."
Ba-zing!

But this time feels different. I know you're true friends should not care about what you look like, they should like you for you. But then again having an eating disorder for close to a decade now kind of just implies that I'm not always the queen of rational thought.

Truth is, I'm very embarrassed of how I look right now. I wish I could carry a sign around my neck with a disclaimer reading "Look, I know I've gained a lot of weight. I'm working on a few thing right now." Then at least, maybe they could forgive me for it and I could in turn forgive myself. 

See how that forgiveness thing went full circle for me this week?

Anyhow, that shame cycle has me trapped currently.

I realize this is not the encouraging, "you can do it" attitude that I've tried to display on here previously, but this is what has been weighing on my heart and I had to share it. This process is happening in real time, to me, a real person and I think as nice as it is to share all of my successes, the struggles along the way are where real lessons are learned. 

How did you overcome your struggles this week?

Don't forget to like, comment, or share with your friends.

Thanks!

3 Reasons We Overeat/Binge

This information is one of those "too good not to share" moments that has been incredibly helpful to me.

One of my first few meetings with my nutritional counselor, I was explaining my lack of hunger cues and how I felt like I was just alway eating all the time. If there was a more poised way to say "Help me, I can't stop stuffing my face!",  I was doing my best to figure it out.

What she told me in response was not what I actually wanted her to say--I wanted more tips on how to stop eating/distract myself, i.e. drink a full glass of water, brush your teeth, go for a walk instead, blah, blah, blah--but instead she began describing the 3 reasons why we overeat in an effort to explain my behavior.

There are at least 3 major reasons why most people overeat/binge.

1- Starvation/Hunger- This is where I spent the majority of my eating disorder when it first began. Getting to the point where you are beyond ravenous. Allowing ourselves to get this incredibly hungry we end up just tossing back whatever is in front of us in unreasonable amounts. When I was I was 100 or so pounds it was no issue to throw down 15 bucks worth of the dollar menu for just myself. It's not always that severe, but I bet we've all been in a place where we let ourselves get just a bit too hungry.

2- Deprivation- At first glance, this may seem like starvation but it's actually very different. This is when we've been hungry, acknowledged it, and filled up on chicken and broccoli when we were really wanting pasta. Trying to kill that craving, you stuff every sort of "allowed" food in your mouth and before you know it you've had two bags of rice cakes, plus the macaroni you wanted in the first place. For me, deprivation leads to this panicky approach to eating.

3- Emotional- This was the hardest for me to accept about myself. I never pegged myself as an emotional eater. I never cried into a gallon of ice cream on the sofa, I didn't emotionally eat! Boy, was I wrong. What I failed to realize all this time was that there are many ways to emotionally besides just out of sadness. When I really, really thought about it I tended to want food the times I felt anxious, or nervous, or unwelcomed, or resentful, or lonely, there was a whole list of emotions I never knew existed because all this time I'd been so focused on the food.

*Side note: Boredom is also often used as a culprit for emotional eating. For me, that never made sense. I have a problem with the word bored, I need to be more descriptive than that for. Do I feel unmotivated, tired, lonely, etc. This is also why I would never say I ate out of boredom because to me there are so many other words that are more meaningful and better say what I am actually feeling.

Of course, I wanted my nutritionist to tell me more about how to keep those behaviors up. That's what I had been doing for years, so much so I didn't know there was any other way to be. But there is.

After learning and really focusing on applying it to my life I feel so much more in control of understanding why I am eating or wanting to eat when I'm not hungry. My husband can even attest to the fact I have literally stopped in the middle of doing something and said "I really want to eat something right now, but I'm know I'm not hungry. I need to figure out why I feel this way." And I did. I sat down and just talked outloud--partly to my husband, but mostly to myself-- and figured out I was feeling anxious and bored. I had a lot of energy just then and felt like being social. So I had to ask myself what was a better way to use my time where I could fulfill one or all of these needs at that moment, instead of eating? I put on some headphones and went for a jog around the block, not to exercise, let's be very clear about that. I did it because I needed to move my body and I needed to get out of the house and be out in the world for a little while.

So maybe next time you feel in a place of overeating you can run these 3 reasons through your head and really figure out what need you are trying to fill with that food. Acknowledging the problem is sometimes the hardest part.

I hope this means something to you. I have been working so hard to come to this point with myself. Be patient and keep trying if you're right there too.

Thanks!