An incredible weekend

It's currently Monday morning and my gorgeous boyfriend has just headed of to work after us having a wonderful weekend away together. We drove down to Swansea late Friday after Nathan finished work and I finished university. We stopped on the way to get some Subway for tea which was yummy as always. Nathan wasn't feeling so hungry so only got a small 6 inch sub however I couldn't resist indulging in a large footlong sub.

We arrived at my parents place at about 8 pm and it was really nice to catch up with everyone. Both of my brothers and my sister were home as well as my parents which was nice. We were planning on having a sleep in on Saturday morning however we both woke up early so just got up and started our day. We just hung out with family until lunch time and then we headed into Swansea to watch the football. Both of my brothers play for our local football club as well as many of my cousins and friends so Nathan and I always enjoy watching it together.

After the football we headed into the club rooms to have a few drinks with everyone before we went to the pub for some tea. I had a delicious lasagna with salad and I ate it all and enjoyed every bite! We could only stay for a short while at the pub as we were heading to the annual football club ball. We walked to my nans house to get changed into our good clothes and get ready. It only took me about 15 minutes to get ready as I really am not the sort of person who spends hours and hours getting ready to go out but I was still happy with how I looked and was looking forward to the night.

We had a truly amazing time at the ball with some incredible people and it was definetely a night to remember. Admittedly I probably drank too much but I really enjoyed myself which is the most important thing. My favourite part of the night was definetely dancing with Nathan as well as my brothers and friends. I have always been the type of person who was far too self conscious to dance however I have no trouble getting up on the dance floor after a couple of drinks and really enjoy it! We went home at about 12:30 when the ball ended and just went to bed.

The next day I was feeling fine as fortunately I dont really get hangovers however poor Nathan wasn't so lucky. Unfortunately Nathan gets very sick after drinking alcohol so we just had a very quiet morning. It was my mums birthday so it was lovely to be there too see her in person and give her a present which she loved. We all went out for lunch to celebrate mums birthday before Nathan and I headed home. Luckily Nathan felt well enough to eat a little lunch and he continued to feel better through out the afternoon which I was glad about as I hate seeing him feeling so unwell.

Surprisingly, I wasnt sad at all about leaving my family in Swansea again, even though I dont know when I will see them again. I am so happy living in Launceston with Nathan and wouldn't change anything about my life. No one has ever made me as happy as Nathan does and the love I feel towards him is something I have never experienced before, even with family. I am loving my university units so far and am enjoying studing again and having more routine in my day.

I love feeling so full of energy and well now that I am doing Herbalife and eating more nutritious foods (although admittedly I did neglect this over the weekend). I have full intentions of resuming my new eating this week though as well as going to the gym when I can. ( I might evenpost a food diary atthe end oftheday today so you get an idea of what types of foods I am fuelling my body with.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend and you are all pumped and ready for the week ahead! :) x

Day 8: 5 current goals

I decided to share 5 of my eating disorder related goals as well as 5 other goals that are applicably to my life but are not necessarily recovery related. Always remember that just writing your gold down usually is not enough to ensure that you stick to your goals and actually reach them. Leave your goals written somewhere that you often look so that you can be reminded of them and so that you can keep actively trying to acchieve them. With a little hard work, no goal is to difficult to reach, we just have to believe that we are capable of raching them.

ED Related
1. Reach my healthy set point weight (whatever that may be)
2.Learn to love and appreciate my body at my natural set point
3. Leearn how to eat intuitive and stop counting calories or following meal plans
4. Make a full recovery from anorexia
5. Prove to EVERYONE that recovering from an eating disorder is possible

Non- ED related
1. To fully support my mum, while she tries to overcome her own battles
2. To be there for my little sister 100%, so she never feels alone
3. To complete my traineeship at the bank (I will still continue my job however)
4. Start saving more money (I know that money isn't everything, but it is still handy.)
5. Travel to Europe and while I am there I would love to meet some of my wonderful       readers (unfortunately this is probably quite a few years away).

Day 4: Your dream job

While I quite enjoy both of my jobs, neither of them are my dream jobs. My ultimate dream job would be a job where I could help people suffering from eating disorders. This is the main reason I began the medical research degree at university and also why I was interested in nursing however at this stage in my life, studying just isn't a healthy thing for me to do so I had to put the dream career of helping others suffering from eating disorders on hold for a while.

I do enjoy my job at the bank though and can see myself doing this in the long term however since my job at the bank is only part time, there may be an oportunity to have another job too, that would allow me to help people suffering from eating disorders. I guess I will just see where life takes me. I suppose the thing is I do not need to get a degree in order to help people to recover from eating disorders.

I can always just help people through things like my blog and other events that happen throughout the country. Perhaps I could even organise something in the future to raise awareness and money for eating disorders. The possibilities really are endless. Does anyone else out there dream of helping other people recover from eating disorders?

I think the reason I want to do this so much is because I felt so alone when I was sick, like no one could help me. I also felt like getting better was impossible. I want to be there to show sufferers that recoverig from an eating disorder is possible and I want to be there to help sufferers do it. Recovery is such a hard battle and being alone only makes it harder. I do not think anyone should feel alone while trying to recover.

Believe tattoo

I have been thinking more about getting a recovery tattoo and think I want to get something that emphasizes believing. Believeing both in recovery and in myself. I also think that I would liike to get a tattoo on my wrist or arm although I would have to ask my boss if that would be appropriate or if we are allowed to have visible tattoos whilst we are working at the bank. Here are some examples of some tattoos I found online and really like.

My 101 in 1001

I thought that this was a fantastic idea as I believe the best way to actually get things done is to write them down and set yourself a time frame to complete them in. I got the idea to do this from Izzy's blog and have decided that I will also add the list to my pages so that I can cross the things off as I do them and show you my progress.

1. Travel outside the country for the first time
2. Make a full recovery from anorexia
3. Meet Anna, a girl I started talking to through my blog who also lives in Tasmania
4. Do a fun run for a charity
5. Eat pannacotta
6. Make some new friends
7. Find myself a boyfriend
8. Reach 100 000 page views on my blog
9. Publish 1000  blog posts
10. Help someone  make a full recover from anorexia
11. Stop counting calories all together
12. Learn how to listen to my body and eat intuitively
13. Reach my bodies natural set point weight
14. Eat food from 5 different fast food Places
15. Go to the Taylor Swift concert in Melbourne with My dad and Amy
17. Drive in the city of Hobart
18. Learn to love my body the way it is supposed to naturally be
19. Raise money/awareness for eating disorders
20. Explore some more of Tasmania
21. Go on a week long camping trip
22. Eat a chicken Parmiagana meal at a pub
23. Fully complete a crossword without usng the internet to cheat
24. Develop a good relationship with my mum
25. Try to find way to show Dad and Amy how much they mean to me
26. Get a horse
28. Help my mum to get better
29. To get my hair back to being naturally curly, like it was before I got sick
30. Read 10 books
31. Get healthy and clear skin
32. Eat a delicious dessert at a restaurant without feeling guilty or anxious
33. Go to a gold class cinema
34. Go surfing
35. Sleep under the stars
36. Sleep in until after 12
37. Paint Tess's dog kennel pink
38. Climb a mountain
39. Have a ski lesson in the snow
40. Get contact lenses
41. Meet a famous person
42. Overcome my anxiety so that I do not need to take anxiety medication
43. Try Ben and Jerrys icecream
44. Eat a krispy Kreme donut
45. Find a brand new hobby
46. Eat a big slice of my nans home made christmas pudding
47. Feel comfortable in a bikini
48. Go snorkeling on a reef
49. Eat popcorn at the movies
50. Make a snowman
51. Do a huge jigsaw and frame it for my wall
52. Cook and eat every recipe that I wrote down in my 'favourite recipes' book
53. Spend some more time on our farm with my dad
54. Keep improving my blog, as I learn more and more about effective blogging
55. Send a parcel of Australian goodies to a reader in another country
56. Get more involved in my local community
57. Buy some presents and place them under the giving tree this christmas
58. Always be there for Amy throughout her teenage years for support
59. Develop a closer relationship with my brothers
60. Make more of an effort to visit the nan who I do not see very often
61. Watch 5 north Melbourne football games live with my dad
62. To actually go swimming when I take my sister to the beach/river in summer
63. Eat a cooked breakfast in a cafe
64. Eat real pizza from a Pizza restaurant
65. To comfortably have drinks with calories in them, just because I am thirsty
66. To make a christmas Gingerbread house
67. To stay out with friends so late that we watch the sun rise
68. Get fit
69. complete my traineeship at the bank (but keep working there)
70. Take Amy on a special weekend away
71. Grow my own Strawberries
72. Make homemade jam
73. Not weigh myself for 2 months
74. Go ice skating
75. Eat only unprocessed foods for 1 week straight
76. See fireworks on New Years
77. Do the mud run
78. Become an organ donor
79. Go for 1 week without watching tv
80. Stop picking at imperfections on my skin so that I stop scarring
81. To sleep on a boat/ship
82. To not feel any guilt, after being unable to exercise all day
83. To be able to accept a compliment from another person
84. Try every type of magnum icecream available
85. Eat two courses at a resaurant without feeling anxious
86. To eat less tinned/ packaged foods and to start making them myself from scratch
87. See dolphins/whales in the wild
88. Find a brand new form of exercise that I enjoy
89. Spend less time inside and more time outside (especially in summer)
90. Make it through a whole summer without getting sunburnt
91. See something that makes me believe in magic
92. Run 10 kilometers along a beach
93. Make 10 new friends in one day
94. Get a tattoo that symbolises my recovery
95. Eat pancakes with icecream for breakfast
96. Eat icecream from the tub with a good friend
97. Laugh so hard that I cry (I did this all the time once, but I havent for a long time )
98. Maintain my weight/not lose weight for 1 year
99. Do a colour run
100. Donate blood

101. To be proud of what I manage to achieve and who I am 

Do I believe in fate?

What inspired me to write this post today is a dream I had last night. I dreamt that I was back at my old high school and had to take part in a huge debate about whether or not there was such a thing as fate. The dream ended up turning into a bit of a nightmare really, as when it was my turn to talk in front of the huge audience, I started to have a panic attack and had no idea what to say. I was happy when I woke up and realised it had all been a dream but even after waking I continued to think about the question of fate.

After reading the following definition online, I decided that I definetely do not believe in fate. 'The development of events outside a person's control, regarded as predetermined by a natural super power.' I believe that anyone has the power to make almost anything happen in their lives, they just need to work for it and believe it is possible. If there was such a thing as fate and if everything was predetermined, there would be no point in trying to do anything at all.

For instance if I believed in fate, I would believe that my destiny had already been decided. And that I was either going to recover from Anorexia or I wasn't and that there was nothing I could do to change it. So if there was nothing I could do change my fate, what would be the point in even trying to recover? I know tthat it is impossible to recover from Anorexia while just sitting around and hoping that it happens. You need to go out and work for it and MAKE it happen. 

I think that the worst thing people can do is to believe in fate as then they do not feel as though they need to work at anything. If someone doesn't study for a test and then fails it, they should not try and blame failing the test on fate. The reason they failed the test is because they did not study and put in the effort required to pass. The same thing goes with preparing for a job interview, if the applicant believes that they do not need to try their hardest, as whether or not they get the job has already been decided by fate, I almost guaruntee they will not get the job. If they had put more effort into their interview however, their chances would have been much better.

When unfortunate and unforseen events happen, I do no think that it was always going to happen due to fate. I don't think there were any supernatural forces pulling a person into that partiular unfortunate destiny, but that it just happened because these types of things happen sometimes. We cant always stop these types of things happening but I do not think they are predetermined either. I do not believe that I am still alive today because it was not my fate to die of anorexia. I believe that I am still alive today because I decided that I truly wanted to recover and I am willing to do everything I need to do in order to get better. 

While some people believe in fate, I will always choose not to as I believe that we hold most of the power to make our lives exactely what we want them to be. There may be some limitations or unfortunate and unforseen things that stand in our way sometimes, but this does not mean we should instantly accept them as part of our destiny. I dont think that anything in my future is predetermined and this is why I will always try my hardest and do my best. I truly believe that good things happen to people who work hard for them or even by luck, but certainly not due to fate.    

Dream

As I sat and ate my first dream chocolate bar since before I got sick, I thought about the fact that through recovering I am making my dreams for the future possible. All of the dreams I have ever had, fully rely on me recovering from anorexia and I therefore know I will never be truly happy unless I recover. This is why I know I need to recover and this is what I would like everyone out there who is suffering from an eating disorder to realise as well. Afterall everyone out there deserves so much more then life with an eating disorder.

So far I have had to put myself through a lot of pain in order to make the progress I have made in my recovery but I can see as I get closer to being fully recovered that every bit of this pain in well worth it. If I wasn't willing to recover, I would be facing a lifetime full of pain and suffering but through recovering and putting up with some pain now, I am allowing myself to have a happy anorexia-free life in the future. Please, choose to fight your anorexia and free yourself from its grips. It is only through doing this that you will be able to make all of your dreams come true and live the life you truly deserve to live.

My recovery plans

To make any of your goals or dreams come true, I am a firm believer that you need to have a a proper plan in place and this is the same for your recovery goals too. In my experience, just wanting to get better is not enough, you actually need to have a detailed action plan in place so avoid anxiety getting the better of you and causing you to procrastinate in your recovery.

I have already come a long weigh in my recovery and I feel like this is only du to me having a plan of how I would actually recover. This has allowed me to increase my calories to proper recovery amounts and continue to increase them as I have needed to, each time I have failed to gain weight between two consecutive weigh ins. By following my plan I have also stopped counting calories as accurately so I no longer weigh everything I eat. I have challenged myself on various occasions to eat fear foods or to eat foods prepared by others with an unknown number of calories in them, which has also allowed me to get closer to by goal of becoming recovered. 

This is my recovery plan for the future, that will hopefully get me to being fully recovered. I hope to be onto the last couple of steps by the end of this year and to feel fully recovered sometime next year.

-Keep eating my current meal plan (unless I need to increase it again of course) until I am weight restored

-Possibly take out a couple of extras in my meal plan but not very much to begin with perhaps just 100 calories here and there (I wont take out any unless I continue to gain weight)

-Stop restricting my exercise (may start running) as I would like to start doing 5km fun runs for charities (while keeping an eye on my weight to make sure I dont lose any weight)

-maintain my weight using a meal plan for a month or two

-Start trying to teach myself how to eat intuitively (I may just start eating  intuitively for one meal per day, while sticking to my meal plan for my other meals To begin with)

-Learn to trust my hunger cues more and more, so eventually I can eat all of my meals intuitively whilst still maintaining a healthy weight

-If I ever feel like a particular food I will eat it and I will continue to eat 'scary foods' after I am weight restored as I enjoy them (and therefore believe they are good for me ;) )

-Work on learning to love my body, the way it is naturally supposed to be and not have any worries about weight, calories, or what I SHOULD or NEED to eat

The bucket list

On Saturday night I watched the movie, 'The bucket list.' I really enjoyed the movie as it had one of my favourite actors in it, Morgan Freeman but also because I found it really inspiring. For those of you who havent seen it, this movie is about two terminally sick men who run away in there final few months of life to try and complete a bucket list one of the men had put together.

This got me thinking about the types of things I would like to achieve before I die. some of them may not happen, and thats ok but it is nice to have dreams anyway. Having dreams keeps us looking to the future and heading in the right direction. Someone told me once that your dreams should scare you a little and that if they dont, they aren't  big enough. I had never thought like this before but now I completely agree with this.





My current bucket list (no doubt this will grow)

1. COMPLETELY RECOVER FROM ANOREXIA
2. TRAVEL TO EVERY OTHER CONTINENT AT LEAST ONCE (BESIDES MAYBE               ANTARTICA)
3. MEET ATLEAST ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO I HAVE GOTTEN TO KNOW THROUGH BLOGGING AND WHO HAS HELPED ME THROUGH MY RECOVERY SO FAR
4. FIND AN AMAZING GUY WHO LOVES ME FOR WHO I TRULY AM
5. HAVE CHILDREN WHO ARE PROUD TO CALL ME THEIR MUM
6. HELP OTHERS WHO ARE BATTLING ANOREXIA TO BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE         STRONG ENOUGH TO RECOVER
7. FIND A WAY TO LET MY DAD KNOW JUST HOW MUCH HE MEANS TO ME
8. LEARN TO EAT INTUITIVELY AND TREAT MY BODY WITH THE RESPECT IT             DESERVES
9. GO ON A BLIND DATE
10. TO HAVE THE CONFIDENCE IN MYSELF TO DANCE LIKE NOBODY IS WATCHING
11. TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND LIKE WHAT I SEE
12. GO ON A ROADTRIP RIGHT AROUND AUSTRALIA
13. STAND ON TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER
14. SWIM WITH DOLPHINS
15. CREATE OR BUY MY DREAM HOME
16. GO TO DISNEY LAND
17. TO MEND WHATS BROKEN BETWEEN ME AND MY MUM
18. TO RAISE AWARENESS OF EATING DISORDERS AND BREAKDOWN THE STIGMAS SURROUNDING THEM
19. BE A REGULAR VOLUNTEER FOR A CHARITY OR IMPORTANT ORGANISATION
20. DROVE CATTLE ON HORSE BACK THROUGH THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK OR       THROUGH THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS

Day 20: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I have absolutely no idea where I will be in 10 years time and in all honesty, I think I would rather not know. The only thing I truly hope for is that I am completely recovered from anorexia and that I am living a completely normal and healthy life but as for everything else, anything is possible. I have no idea where I will live, where I will work, whether I will have a partner or whether I will have kids, but im ok with that. Yes it is scary not knowing where I will end up but it is also exciting.

My whole life I thought I knew exactely what I wanted and where I was headed but my anorexia has taught me that none of us can predict the future. We just need to make the most of our lives while we are here and do everything in our power to make sure our futures are wonderful. No matter what your dreams in life may be, always remember that it is possible to make them come true, but only if you are willing to work incredibely hard for them.

Somewhere I dream of travelling

Although I have done a lot of travelling within Australia I have never been to another country. This is not because I haven't wanted to, but because I have never had the opportunity. Leaving the country is a bit bigger deal in Australia as we are an island country and dont share boarders with any other countries. Both of my parents are almost 50 and neither of them have ever even left Australia.

Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed of going to Europe to visit all the wonderful countries I had heard so much about like France, England, Italy and scottland. And since starting to blog and reading about the lives of various other europeans living in places like Sweeden, Ireland, Germany, Denmark etc I have wanted to visit those places too.

European holidays are extremely expensive so it is not something I will not be able to afford for quite a while but it is definetely something I want to do one day. Perhaps I will even be able to visit some of the friends I have met through my blogging while I am there. Having dreams like these are great as they keep me looking to the future and remind me there is so much of my life that I am still yet to live.

Where I am at

Life has been an ongoing battle for me since I was diagnosed with anorexia 2 and a half years ago. It would be pointless to try and explain my recovery journey so far in this initial post as there is simply too much too write.

Although it has been a very slow process, I finally think that I am headed in the right direction in terms of my recovery. I know I still have along way to go before I am declared both physically and mentally healthy but I believe that if I continue fighting as I am now I will be able to call myself fully recovered one day.

I hope that through this blog I am able to document my recovery and form a network of support with others who may have suffered or who are still suffering from an eating disorder.