Hey there, stranger. Mega-long post alert!

Hello children! Sorry about my unannounced absence. You might have read on Morgan's blog that I've been struggling a bit over the past few days. Or well, more than a bit. From Thursday through this afternoon, I had urges to restrict and binge stronger that I've ever had since starting recovery. In group therapy on Thursday I think we figured out that I took everything too fast. I went from strict calorie counting to eating whatever, whenever, in one day. I thought I was doing really well for a few days, but then I became overwhelmed with guilt towards the huge steps I had just taken to become a normal eater (normal=fat=evil in ED's book). I'm happy to say that I didn't restrict/binge over the days I was gone! Avoiding those urges was the most challenging thing I've ever done and I needed a lot of distractions to pull it off. Whenever I felt triggered (which was pretty much all the time) I distracted myself with puzzles, drawing, cello, piano, shopping, and music. I also did a hell of a lot of walking! Not for calorie-burning purposes either, I just needed some time to myself to think about where I am in terms of recovery and make a plan for beating ED once and for all, which I did successfully. I also thought of where I want my life to go and realized that I couldn't do anything that I want to do if I bring my ED along with me. I couldn't spend my junior year abroad in London, or open a cafe with my best friend, or become fluent in Spanish. I don't want to be one of those anorexics at a healthy weight who dies all of a sudden, due to the stress suffering with an ED brings to your body. Sometimes I forget that I'm 14 and shouldn't have to think about these things. But I think that it's important that I do, because if I keep convincing myself that it's okay to live with my disorder then eventually the health consequences will catch up to me and I won't be getting any older.

And this brings me to: why I avoided blogging! Obviously I had a lot of life-changing things on my mind. I know it sounds dramatic, but if I don't become 100% committed to my recovery then the things I can do with my life will become extremely limited. Anyway, yeah, I didn't need to waste any brain space thinking about what food I was going to post each night. And plus, as I mentioned above, I was getting triggered really easily. I know that I would've came on here and compared my intake to other bloggers', and used it as an excuse to restrict/overexercise. I don't like feeling obligated to post everyday. When I do, I get really wrapped up in needing to make extravagant meals everyday, which just reinforces ED's opinion that food should only be eaten if it's "worth it". Food=fuel, that's all! So the point of this is that blogging everyday is not healthy for me right now. For the time being, I'm just going to post when I'm feeling strong enough to not get triggered by or obsessed with food blogging. Some weeks, that might be every day. Others, it could just be once or twice a week, or none at all. I feel awful about leaving you guys some days, but I know it's what I need right now! I've already made up my mind, but do any of you have other questions/comments/concerns/suggestions?

Whew, serious part is done! Now I know I said that I was trying not to obsess over food, but I found that making special food made me want to binge and restrict less. So here are various highlights from the past few days.

Yesterday morning I made blueberry-maple-cornbread oats. I topped my oatmeal w/ a small crumbled sliver of leftover cornbread (scroll for recipe), handful of bluebs, and drizzle of pure maple. Where has this been all my life??

This morning I tried to make puffin muffins. I used this recipe for vegan nanner muffins as we were out of eggs. I added 1.5 c of WHOLE puffins this time, and an extra couple tbs oil. I think I'm going to give up on making Puffin Muffins. It seems like such a cool idea, but the puffins never stay crunchy or very PB-y. If you crush them, they disappear when you bake them, and if you leave them whole, they get all chewy. The actual banana muffin was quite lovely and moist though.

Yesterday, I made roasted pecan-walnut butter. I just roasted 3/4 c each of walnuts and pecans and pureed them until smooth. I really like this! PB is more intense, while this is more.. warm? It's lovely on sammiches with cran-apple butter.

Okay, moving onto dinner! On Thursday, I made gnocchi with tomoto-feta sauce, using the sauce from this chicken recipe. The sauce doesn't look attractive, but it was yummers. And if you haven't every tried gnocchi, do! It's amazing potato-chewy pasta. Mmm.

I went Southern on Friday! I made vegan baked beans and custard cornbread. The beans were good but oh gosh, the cornbread was amazing! The bottom layer was like reg. cornbread but the top was creamy and well, custardy. I had raw veggies on the side.

And yesterday night I made cheddar cheese soup. This was pretty good and really creamy, but the cheddar taste didn't overwhelm me like I thought it would.

Ahahaha just writing this post has tired me out! And this stupid time change doesn't help matters... I'm sorry for skipping on commenting lately but I'll try to catch up on that soon!