Less structured eating routine

Since starting a new job at mcdonalds, I have found it quite difficult to continue eating 6 meals everyday. Especially since I am usually gone from home for 6 hours or so, without a chance to eat.

To ensure I keep up my calorie intake, I am increasing the size of my meals as I decrease the number of meals I have. For instance today I only had time for 5 meals, but I increased the size of my first two meals and dessert to make up for it.

Although it seems as though I am forcing in much more food then I actually need at each meal, I know that this is what I need to do to make sure I get enough energy and dont lose weight. I know it is important for me to take this precaution as I still manage to lose weight much easier then other people, even when I dont want to.

What is your experience of this? Do you find that losing weight happens particularly easily after weight restoration happens? Do you have a possible explanation for this?

Finally, I will share with you my food diary for the day, as I know many of my readers enjoy them :)

Todays food diary

Pre breakfast snack (6:00am):
1 twist bar and 1 vanilla up and go supplement drink

Breakfast (9:00am)
2 portions of strawberry flavoured oats prepared with 50% water, 50% milk and topped with 1 large sliced banana

Late lunch (3:00pm)
1 packet of two minute noodles, 1 apple and 1 small kinder chocolate bar

Tea (6:00pm)
1 large serve of tomato pasta served on a bed of baby spinach with cherry tomatoes

Dessert (8:00pm)
1 tub of two fruits, 1 hot chocolate and 1 small packet of choc chip cookies (25g)

Me with my boyfriends cat Bella

Me with curly hair (since getting healthier, my curly hair has come back)

Is my one month without the scale a bad idea?

I am starting to feel a little worried that my one month without the scale could be a bad idea. To be perfectly honest, I love not weighing myself as I have not been worrying about the amount my weight at all. Afterall, my weight really is only a number and it really does say anything about me in the ways that really count.

However, it is starting to worry me that I could be losing weight without even realising it. Looking back, it was probably a bad idea to start this challenge just as I was starting to make some changes to my intake and exercise. As now I really dont know if I have cut my intake back to much, considering I am exercising more now too.

I have worked so hard to get back to a healthy weight and I would hate to wait for another two weeks before weighing myself again, only to realise I have lost a significant amount of weight that I will then have to try and regain. Now I can see that it probably would have been better to check that I had managed to maintain my weight for a while before stopping weighing myself all together.

I have felt so free not weighing myself for the last 2 weeks and eventually, I really would like to throw my scales out and not weigh myself at all. People are so terrified of gaining weight and seeing the number on the scale increase even a little bit but what does that really matter, so long as you are healthy and happy. Chances are, if you gain a kilo no one will be even able to notice, in fact if you hadn't weighed yourself you probably wouldn't notice either.

It is times like these that I wish I had someone close by who I trust to blind weigh me, so that they could tell me whether or not I had lost weight without telling me anything else. I probably have nothing to worry about at all, it is only my anxiety making me worry that I am perhaps losing weight. Or maybe, in some twisted way, it is actually my anorexia that wants me to weigh myself, because it hates me not knowing exactly what I weigh.

My main concern is that I have lost weight but what if my anorexia is actually just concerned that I have gained more weight and it therefore is almost tricking me into weighing myself. I am feeling so confused about what I should do. I hate it when you cant distinguish which thoughts are your anorexias and which are actually your own.

I have such mixed feelings about this, all going through my head and I honestly dont know what to do. I would love any suggestions or advice, Please?

What is going on?

I was incrediebely shocked when I weighed myself this morning as my scales told me I had lost 500g since my last weigh in only 4 days ago. This makes no sence at all to me. Over the last few weeks, I have been consistantly gaining atleast 100g per day so to now start losing weight is a huge mystery. I have been eating the exact same amount and have not been doing any extra exercise so I really cant explain this dip in my weight. I know that I should not feel dissappointed in myself for this result as I havent done anything wrong and had no way of knowing it was happening.

It would have made more sense to me if I had started maintaining my weight, but to suddenly start losing weight, at the same rate I was previously gaining it is very strange. While I cant explain this weight loss, it still does not change the fact that it has happened and I therefore need to make some changes accordingly. Something we need to remember is that our bodies are not calculators or machines. We can never determine exactly what weight our bodies will gain or lose by consuming a certain amount of calories.

My anorexia is screaming at me that I dont need to make any changes as it must be some kind of mistake. It is telling me that perhaps the weightloss is only due to fluctuating water and fluid levels in my body. Or perhaps my scales are giving an innacurate reading as they occasionally have done in the past (although considering I got the same reading 10+ times, I doubt this very much). My anorexia could be right but by making no changes at all to my calorie intake, this would mean giving into my anorexia, which is something I know I cant do. Every time you give into one of your anorexic thoughts or demands, no matter how small it is, you are giving your anorexia strength.



So now I just need to decide on what changes I will make. Afternoon tea is probably the meal I feel as though I could increase as some of my calories are only made up from a drink. Perhaps instead of eating a medium piece of fresh fruit, Instead I can have a portion of dried fruit as dried fruit is something I enjoy and it is also much more calorie dense so I would not feel as though I was eating more. I will see how I go over the next 3 days and if I go back to gaining the same amount I was, (approximately 100g per day) I will keep eating this new intake amount. If I start gaining weight at an even faster rate, I may consider cutting back to my regular meal plan (without the driedfruit). Of course if I fail to gain enough weight or lose weight again I will know I need to make a more dramatic change to my intake.

What do you think about the weight loss I have experieced and the change I have decided to make?

A small set back

Since it has been just over half a week since I last weighed myself I thought it would be a good idea to weigh myself this morning to make sure I am still on track with my weight gain. I wasn't as nervous about stepping on the scale as I was last time because of how well I handled my last weight gain and I was so sure I would still be gaining weight. I was extremely shocked to see that I hadnt gained any weight at all. In fact according to my scales I had actually lost 200g. I stepped off the scale and re-weighed my self in the hope that my scale had just given me an inaccurate reading but unfortunately I continued to get the exact same result. 

I dont think I have actually lost real body weight as I have been eating so much and small weight fluctuations are to be expected from day to day but it is obvious that I have not gained any weight either. I was incredibely dissapointed and felt like I had failed myself as well as my readers. I thought about what i have done differently over the past 4 days and soon realised that I haven't done anything differently at all. I ate just as much as I did the week before when I gained half a kilo and if anything, I have been less active. 

Yes, it is unfortunate that I haven't gained any weight over the past 4 days but it isn't because I have done anything wrong, therefore I should not punish myself for it. In fact I should be proud of myself for the way I have decided to take action and increase my calories again right now. 

I could have listened to my anorexia when it tried to convince me to wait until Wednesday, which is the day I usually weigh myself and decide whether I need to increase my intake for the next week. Or I could have believed my anorexia when it tried to tell me that my scale must be broken as I was definetely looking fatter. But I didn't. Instead I reminded myself about how much I want to recover, which I cant do unless I gain more weight. 

I am guessing that the  reason I haven't gained weight so far this week even though I am eating the same as what I did last week when I did gain weight is that I am experiencing hypermetabolism. Hypermetabolism is very common in recovery and literally just means that your resting metabolic rate significantly increases as you start eating more. I am quite confident that I am experiencing this as the most common symptom of this is feeling sensitive to the heat which I definetely am experiencing at the moment. Prior to now I have always felt very cold, even on nice days but now I feel as though I am overheating all the time even when its cold and I seem to be sweating more then usual as well.

 It is important that we all remember that hypermetabolism is a relatively normal part of anorexia revovery and that we cant stop it from happening. All we can do is make sure we increase our intakes accordingly so that we continue gaining weight. The meal I plan on increasing is my dessert. This meal is my smallest meal so It makes sence to increase it so that it is the same size as my other two snacks. From now on instead of just having dessert which I will add an extra serving of icecream or custard to, I will also have a hot chocolate for supper just before going to bed.

While I want to set a good example for all those people out there who read my blog and who are trying to recover, I know I cant expect my recovery to run perfectly smoothly either. Afterall, expecting myself to be perfect all the time is one of the things I need to overcome as I recover. I want to be completely honest with you all which is why I shared this little bit of not so good news with you. There is no point in me making recovery look easy, because it simply isn't. Sharing my struggles and setback will hopefully be helpful to you anyway, as it gives me a chance to explain how I managed to get past them and continue on my fight.

After hospital (part 1)

After sharing with you all my Inpatient experience, I think that it Is now important for me to share what happened to me once I was sent home.

As I said, my frame of mind was not much healthier when I left hospital  then when I went in. And my anorexia was just angrier as I had been forced to gain weight that I thought was extremely unnecessary. I compromised with my parents and agreed that I would try to stabilize my weight, but this didn't work. I was scared of most foods because I was scared they would make me gain weight which led to me under eating and losing weight.

I will share with you a part of a diary entry from when I first got home. You will probably notice that this entry is not angry like the last one I posted. Obviously my anorexia was not angered at the time I wrote It.

xxxxx

21/11/2012
So I am home, which I'd good.... I think! I have decided to concentrate really hard on stabilizing my weight. Although I know this will be hard as I will have to eat more than I am comfortable with, I would rather eat the food here then in Hospital where I will have to gain more weight. I would love to just be able to stay the size I am and avoid going back to hospital. 
The only reason I don't want to go back to hospital is because I don't want to gain weight. Besides that, I think I prefer being in hospital than at home. Mum is truly horrible. She constantly talks about what I have given up, as if I chose to get sick. She says that I no longer care about my future, just because I don't know If am ready to go straight to university next year or not. I just want to have a chance to get happy and enjoy myself. 
I feel like mum is laying down so many laws and being really controlling again which is a part of where my eating disorder began. Constantly rubbing in what I have lost through having anorexia doesn't help anything. It just makes us fight and makes me feel bad about myself.

xxxxx

Things were difficult with my family at home, just as they had been before I went to hospital. My parents were told by the hospital that I needed to continue eating the same meal plan but there was no way I was going to listen. I argued that if I continued to eat the sane amount I would continue to gain weight. They new I should be drinking juice and milky drinks still but I completely refused. Meal times became a disaster, especially tea. My mum tried to cook things she thought I would be comfortable with but I didn't want to eat anything. I Would argue with mum about how much I would have dished up on my plate and insisted that a small piece of fruit was enough for each snack.

The next month or so was all a bit of a blur. I can't really remember much about this time but I do remember arguing with my mum a lot. I know It would have been hard for her but our relationship had been rocky for a long time, even before I got anorexia which made listening to her even more difficult. I moved in with my nan on boxing day night and stayed with her for two months. In these two month, for the first time I was a relatively normal teenager. I worked as as waitress, hung out with friends, went camping, went to first few parties and became more confident.

I lost a bit of weight but was getting away with it. I prepared all of my own meals and my grandparents weren't concerned by what I was eating as I ate quite a lot of food but it was all very low calorie food. I was happy with how I looked and I honestly wasn't trying to lose weight anymore. I unintentionally under ate as I was scared that I would gain weight if I ate any more. I moved back home and my GP told me that if  I lost anymore weight I would have to go back to hospital so I did start eating more again. She also made we give up my job so I could just concentrate on looking after myself. My weight stabilized for a while but slowly I reduced my calorie intake. I stopped going to my GP so no longer had to worry about her threatening me with going back to hospital.

I ate a reasonable volume of food but all the foods I ate had a very low calorie density. I intentionally chose foods that would be filling and that had a Low gi so I wouldn't feel hungry. I became obsessed with food and would try and make my eating time as long as possible. I ate with tiny cutlery and also ate only tiny mouthfuls of food at a time. I ate a huge bowl of oats for breakfast each morning which took me over an hour to eat. I also ate a lot of tinned spaghetti and soup. I was extremely bored and spent my days Watching TV, doing chores around the house and thinking about food. I was only eating about 5500 kj a day and didn't think I was losing any weight. My dad had to move away for work and only came home on the weekends. Eventually I moved out of home and went to live full time with him when the fighting with my mum got to much.

To be continued.....