My new lifestyle

Prior to starting herbalife, I thought I ate relatively healthily. I tried to eat lots of fruit and vegetables and I avoided eating excessive amounts of typically unhealthy foods. After starting to transform my diet, I can see that my old diet was far from healthy and that it lacked protein as well as many essential nutrients.

I was eating as many as 4-5 serves of fruit a day which I tgought was a really healthy thing to be doing. According to the Australian guide to healthy eating however, this meant I was well abd truly exceeding the reccommended intake of 2 serves. I was also eating processed snack foods that contained lots of refined sugar.

Almost all of my diet contained carbohydrates, not because I was scared of foods containing the other macronutrients but because I enjoyed those foods. Only eats carbs however left me feeling tired all the time and I never seemed to feel full, even straight after eating a meal.

Now, I have been eating much more protein instead of only carbs and am freeling so much better for it. I am now eating more lean meat, eggs, protein bars, soy milk and yoghurt and have been adding protein powder to my morning oats too. I have also been trying to increase my intake of healthy fats too, although I know I need to keep increasing my fat intake as it is still quite low.

I have started eating more serves of wholegrains instead of as much sugary fruit and this, along with eating so much more protein which has helped me to feel fuller and more energized for longer. Also, eating more protein will hopefully allow me to get stronger and build muscle as I exercise. Hopefully this will help me to be the healthiest and best me that I can possibly be.

I am still loving my herbalife products and have just signed up to be a member. The thing to remember about Herbalife and healthy eating  is that it doesnt have to just be a phase, for me I want it to be a lifestyle that I follow indefinitely. I am so excited for what the future holds and for the first time, full recovery feels totally possible for me.

Sometimes you need to be selfish

After talking to mum for hours today and trying to get her to see that she has so many things to keep fighting for, I finally realised that no matter what I say, I cant help her to get better until she truly wants it and at the moment I really dont think that she does. In that respect it is a lot like anorexia, as you need to want to get better in order to actually find the strength you need to succesfully fight your illness.

When I talked to mum today, I wasn't nasty and I didn't say terrible things, I just told her that she is capable of getting better and that she does have so many wonderful things in her life worth getting better for, I also told her that she cant keep going on the way she currently is as she will end up getting really sick, losing her job or our family will be break up for good. She will lose my dad, the most wonderful man in the world and possibly even my little sister too and through all of that stress, her alcoholism will only get worse.

I have done nothing but think about my mum all day and this has made me incredibly anxious. I rang her this afternoon to check that she was ok but she wasn't very nice on the phone and I could tell she had been drinking. When I got off of the phone I felt physically sick and upset. I now realise that I cant make myself suffer through this any longer as it does have a negative impact on my own recovery.

As hard as it is, I need to be selfish and leave mum to try and get better herself as I cant help her and trying to help her only brings me down. The thing that upsets me the most is the impact that it is having on my little sister and my dad. All I can do is let dad and Amy know that I am always here for them if they ever need me but other than that, I just need to take a step back from my mum and just continue doing what is best for me and my recovery.

Eating tea tonight was incredibely hard as I was feeling upset and angry about what happened with mum today. This showed me just how much of an impact mum and my relationship has on my anorexia and also reminded me of why I failed to make any true progress in my recovery, until I moved out of home. I honestly hope with all my heart that my mum is able to get better but sadly I cant help her without hurting myself. I just hope she decides that she truly wants to get better before it's too lae and everything falls a part.

Pro-Ana

Something that really upsets me is the presence of Pro-Ana websites on the internet. It makes me sick to think that some people are actually trying to become anorexic as well as trying to help others to become anorexic. Anorexia is an incredibely painful and dangerous illness and  I hate it when people fail to see this. There are not websites out there encouraging people to develop other mental illneses like depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder or bipolar, so why are there websites that encourage people to develop anorexia? Anorexia is the mental illness with the highest mortality rate and I think that if more people realised how awful it is to live with, they would never choose a life of anorexia. I thought the following website explained what Pro ana sites are all about really well as well as how they are a huge problem.

Taking Action: Fighting websites that promote eating disorders

POSTED 9:07 AM, JULY 28, 2014, BY CATHERINE AWASTHI, UPDATED AT 08:42AM, JULY 29, 2014

TENNESSEE VALLEY (WHNT) – There’s been a rise in chilling websites that promote eating disorders, and they could have a big impact on your teenagers.

A new survey from the National Eating Disorders Association estimates approximately half a million teens struggle with eating disorders.

Adam Roderick was one of them.

“I started putting a lot of pressure on myself to excel and pursue perfection, to prove everybody wrong,” Adam Said. “I was taking it to the next step. The unhealthy level. And then eventually slipped into restriction.”

Roderick was 19 years old when he started starving himself..

“For me, I was trying to live up to that societal norm, that pressure that was being put on me,” he said.

Type Anorexia or Bulimia into an Internet search engine and the results will typically consist of help, information and support for people who are suffering from an eating disorder.

Type in ‘Pro-Ana or Pro-Mia’, and you’ll see a very different picture.  Websites with pages and pages of potentially fatal messages. And the message has gone viral.

Dr. Emily Whitt works with the Eating Disorder Center of Alabama. She said she sees a lot of adolescents getting on these websites that can trigger their behavior.

“These are very dangerous and disturbing sites that promote eating disorders — which are the deadliest mental illness that there is, so it is serious,” Dr. Whitt said.

What starts with a search for daily workout could easily lead somewhere else , the world of ‘Pro-Ana.

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“You know, it was like I knew they were wrong and I knew that they were unhealthy… but I couldn’t look away,” said Roderick.  “There’s a lot of people out there who that’s the only contact they have is with people who are on message boards, who are posting on these sites — is that message of… sickness.”

Messages on these sites include:

“Hungry? Have a bottle of water”
“You don’t need food”
“Dear stomach, you’re bored, not hungry. So shut up.”

Doctors say these unhealthy messages of ‘thinspiration’ promote unhealthy behavior to some of the most vulnerable victims. Dr. Whitt was shocked when she came across them on the web.

“I said how very sick. I was just very disturbed. And, it’s sad and shocking that something so deadly and so self destructive can be made to look attractive,” said Dr.  Whitt.

Roderick said the websites treat eating disorders like old friends.

“They were so memorizing in so many different ways because they fed into all those sick thoughts that you struggle with and honestly preyed on them. So, it was kind of like, ‘I hate it but I love it’ kind of relationship,” he explained.

By the time Roderick discovered these pages and pages of pro-Anorexia, pro-Bulimia messages, he was pretty far into recovery. But, he knows if it were sooner, it would have been detrimental.

“Anyone who gets on this website will see how disturbing and sick the information is,” said Dr. Whitt. “They’re trying to lure people in who are already vulnerable.”“It’s kind of a scary thought to think about, where it might have led if I had seen them a year or two earlier.”

The Pro-Ana/Pro-Mia sites have a disclaimer:  This site does not encourage that you develop an eating disorder.  This site is for those who *already have an eating disorder and do not wish to go into recovery.  If you do not already have an eating disorder, better it is that you do not develop one now.  You may wish to leave.

So, they claim they aren’t encouraging eating disorders, but simply supporting them.  Dr. Whitt doesn’t buy it.

“They’re absolutely promoting it,” She said. “It wouldn’t be called Pro-Ana meaning pro-Anorexia if they weren’t promoting it. Anyone who gets on this website will see how disturbing and sick the information is. They’re trying to lure people in who are already vulnerable.”

Eating disorders are one of the deadliest mental illnesses, claiming almost 45,000 lives every year.

“This isn’t real, this isn’t healthy, this isn’t how things really are,” Roderick pleaded. “We need to teach them that there is hope, there is a flip side honestly.”

“It’s not the way,” Dr. Whitt agreed. “The most unhappy people I know are these suffering with eating disorders. It’s a lie and I’m sad that people are sold on this lie.”

Roderick adds that these sites so often romanticize eating disorders, and they twist the truth.

“They don’t show you the feeding tubes, they don’t show you the heart problems, they don’t show you the fact that you might lose your fingernails and your hair,” he said. “They’re just so caught up in the disorder that they don’t acknowledge the flip side.”

“I don’t think that we should just sit and wait for it to go away,” Dr. Whitt said. “I don’t think it will.”

Parents, there are signs to look for and preventative measures to take to help your child.  Watch for signs of isolation and constant comments on their own body image.  If you think they may have visited one of these sites, check their computer history.  If it’s blank, that’s a sign they might be hiding something from you.  And if your child is struggling, please get help.  It takes a community effort of education and concern to prevent this deadly disorder.

There are about 500 Pro-Ana or Pro-Mia websites. The FCC has had some success in getting these sites shut down, but social media is making that even more difficult now.

You need to want recovery, more than anything else

The thing about recovery is that in order to put yourself through the pain that it involves, you need to want recovery more than anything else In the world. A very special friend of mine is really struggling at the moment in regards to sticking to her meal plan and I really wish I could help her more but the truth is, I dont know what more I can tell her that I haven't already. I have made many suggestions to her about strategies she could try and use but no matter how hard she tries, she still seems to give into what her anorexia tells her to do. Firstly I want to say how incredibely brave it makes my friend for recognising that she feels as though she cant fight and win this particular battle on her own yet. I also think that asking for my help about how to tackle this bump in her recovery has taken a lot of strength and it shows that she truly wants to recover. 

While this is not something I personally struggle with anymore, I know exactely how she feels as I have been where she is now. There have been stages in my recovery that I was not willing to endure the pain that fighting my anorexic thoughts involved, so instead I just gave in to them. This only changed for me when I started wanting recovery more than anything else in the world. After having this 'breakthrough', whenever my anorexia tried to convince me to skip a meal or restrict I had the strength to fight my anorexic thoughts and do what I knew was best for my recovery. I know that none of us in recovery want to remain sick, we all want to get better but how much we want to get better and whether or not we believe in ourselves is what determines if we can successfully fight our illnesses or not. 

Please do not think I am saying you are weak in anyway if you cant fight your anorexia all the time because I know that this is definetely not the case. I have spent years being unable to fight my anorexia so I completely understand. I wasn't choosing to give into my anorexia because I wanted to, but because I felt like choosing to fight my anorexia was impossible. I know it is extremely hard to choose recovery, as fighting your anorexia is much more painful then giving into it. If you want recovery bad enough however, you will be willing to endure the pain involved in fighting for yourself and your recovery.

While this particular friend of mine may not be able to tackle this particular problem on her own yet, she still needs to be incredibely proud of herself for everything she has been able to achieve. After spending a long time being very sick, she has already come so far in her recovery and the strength she has already demonstrated is truly remarkable. This girl is one of the strongest people I have ever known and I know that if she believes in herself and does not give up, one day she will be truly ready to stand up for herself and fight her anorexia 100%. Until that day comes, all I can do is promise her that I will be by her side to help her in anyway that I can.