Although getting used to being away from home took some time, I really did enjoy it in the end. The first year I was at the boarding house their was 60 boys and girls from all over Tasmania, as well as some international students and we were all like one big family. We watched tv together, went shopping, studied, went swimming, played board games and hung out together. It really was an amazing atmosphere to be in. Some peope did not handle the rules of boarding school very well but they didnt bother me at all as I had grown up in a relatively strict household anyway. I had always used my manners, went to bed when I was told to and followed the rules at home so it was no more difficult having to do it at the boarding house.
Unlike many boarding houses, our food was amazing! We had a chef cooking all of our meals for us and there was always more then enough food available. I think that having so much delicious food available all the time is what led to me gaining weight in the last year or two that I was at boardng school and becoming so unhappy with my body. For breakfast we could help ourselves to any toast or cereal that we wanted but there was always a hot option as well. One day per week it would be eggs and bacon, another morning it would be baked beans or spaghetti and that type of thing. For recess (morning tea) there was always a bakery snack available. This would usually be something like a piece of slice, a muffin, some cookies or some other sweet treat. We could also help ourselves to as much fruit as we wanted.
For lunch we would have hot food delivered to school. Somedays it would be something like meat pies or pasta. Other days we had hot meat and gravy rolls, fried rice, pizza, dim sims or toasted sandwiches. Afternoon tea was always something nice too like pikelets or scones with jam and cream, biscuits and cheese, french toast, Muffins or pastries. Tea always consisted of two courses. Either soup and main or main and dessert. The soups were always quite hearty and there were always 5 or 6 loaves of thickly sliced bread available to have with butter and your soup. Tea could be anything from meat and vegetables to pasta, rice, casserole or stir fry. Desserts were always really delicious. They were usually something like pudding with icecream, banana splits, chocolate mousse, terimasu, pannacotta or lemon meringue pie.
Lastly, we would have supper before going to bed which included a hot or cold miky drink and as many sweet biscuits as we fancied. So as you can see it was really no wonder that I gained weight while eating all of the delicious food that was available to me, especially considering I was not very active. In my final year of boarding school however I severely started restricting what I ate. I would cook a sachet of oats with water for my breakfast. Eat an apple for morning tea, make myself a salad sandwhich for lunch, eat another apple for afternoon tea, eat tea but not any soup or dessert and I also would not have any supper before going to bed. The shocking thing was, that after making all of these changes I still lost basically no weight as my metabolism just got really slow.
In the last year or two of boarding, I also got really obsessive over studying so I did not enjoy being a boarder like I should have. I hardly ever came home on the weekends as I would just stay at the boarding house and study in my room all weekend on my own. In my final year of boarding I also had my own room with my own bathroom and fridge as I was boarding house captain. I loved having these privileges but obviously having my own bathroom was not a good thing went it came to the developement of my eating disorder. This meant that it became extremely easy for me to make myself sick, witout anyone ever suspecting a thing. So I suppose that boarding was good for me, for the first couple of years I was there, however it wasnt so good in my final year as I was in a very bad state of mind.
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