Kasha Kiki

New blog!

2009-05-23T12:38:00.002-04:00

Hey pretties!

I've decided to make a new blog. Click her e to go to the new one and learn why I'm making the switch.

Mommy's day

2009-05-10T13:13:00.006-04:00

Hello, loves! Told you I'd be back. I've adjusted to not blogging regularly quite well. My obsession with food, magically, is now almost gone! It's so lovely to just be able to eat normal food on ugly plates, without worrying about whether what I'm eating is attention-worthy. That just feeds my disorder and makes me think that I'm not worth it if my food isn't special enough. Don't get me wrong, I still love food! I always have and always will. But I want to just let my culinary creativity come naturally if it means a full recovery.

So today is Mother's Day. Is my mom the only mom who despises this holiday? She always tells my sister and I not to get her any gifts, and just treat her as well as we do every other day of the year. But of course I never listen to her! I love her for all the support, humor and advice she's given me over the years. Not just in my recovery, for the past 14 years she's been the only person I can trust with anything I want to say. I had to do something to recognize that. Since she loves to read, I made her a cloth bookmark embroidered with her initials and flowers. I also made her favorite breakfast in bed: Cinnamon raisin scones, scrambled eggs, and orange juice. No picture, because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Lately I've been feeling very stressed and overwhelmed. I've been anxious all the time and can never get my mind to settle down so I can relax. There are always tons of thoughts and worries building up in my cranium so today I decided to do something about it!

I made two lists. The first is called "Things and People that Really Annoy Me". When I'm stressed I get overly emotional, so just about everything annoys me and weighs my mind down. In half an hour I came up with 58 things, wow! Next I wrote a list called "Major Stresses", which only has nine things on it. These are what were occupying my mind the most and made it impossible for me to quit worrying.

Then I went sort of crazy with my pens.. for the annoyance list I just ferociously scribbled all over the page until all those little problems were blacked out. I didn't need to think too much about it, because they were just useless bits that were clogging up my brain. I was a bit more thoughtful with the stresses list. For every item on it, I thought about what I could do to improve it so it didn't stress me out anymore. Then I scribbled it out. I came up with solutions for some of the problems. But for the rest of them, I just had to think, "That's out of my hands and I can't do anything about it." Too much of my ED came from trying to fix problems that weren't mine to fix. I'm going to just have to relax now and let everything that I can't control run it's course. Things will work out.

A HA, I'm not done yet! After the coloring party I just ripped the papers to shreds and chucked them in the recycling bin. As stupid as it sounds, I feel like I can actually breathe now, like the stress has just fallen out of my head. Seeing my problems spelled out in front of me, coming up with a solution to make myself feel better about them and destroying them might give me the relaxation I've needed for so long.

Okay okay, so I do have some food pictures. I'm sure most of you have heard of Katie's New Foods Challenge! But if you live in a cave and have not, definitely check it out! The new food I choose was edamame. I know, what kind of failure vegetarian has never tried edamame before? ME! But I finally picked some up a little while ago and I'm so glad I did! It has stellar nutritionals, with tons of protein and fiber. It's mighty tasty too! Sort of nutty. I made a lovely salad with cooked edamame, romaine, carrots, black beans, zuccchini, and cucumber. Yum yum yum.

And today I tried my first green smoothie! I've only been reading/commenting on blogs sporadically lately but noticed a definite trend in green monsters. I was skeptical, but today I made my own out of a banana, strawbs, ground flax (another new food for me), 2 handfuls of spinach, and a splash of milk. It was delicious, why didn't I try it before? I'll definitely make it again with different fruits.

Ooooh, well today's breakfast was too cute not to share! Those little Wholefoods chocolate graham bears had just escaped the peanut butter tsunami and were headed for the apricot lifeboats but...

Nope. The Kiki monster ate them. Along with the oatmeal ocean and PB tsunami.

Hmmm, I'm so used to saying "goodnight" to wrap up my posts but it's not even 6:00 yet! Alright then, ciao!

Video Post!!!

2009-04-22T17:43:00.006-04:00

Hello, lovelies. I’m baaaack. With a video post, obviously. I felt soooooo awkward while filming this. I kept thinking “What are you doing? Why are you still talking about this???” Hence strange expressions and really really awkward and long silence around 3:48. I had some notes in front of me, you see, and was collecting my thoughts. Hehh. Erase it from your memories.

And here are some of the 365 days of pictures I've taken.

Tulip in my yard

My kitty Shadow, stuck inside a plastic bag. She for some reason has an irrational fear of them so she was running all around the house trying to get the bag off of her. I thought it was hilarious until I had to spend half an hour getting her out from underneath my bed so the bag wouldn't suffocate her!

And this is a thing in my living room that holds our firewood. I thought it was pretty how the sunlight shone through the cobwebs (shows how much we use our fireplace!) and reflected off the copper container.

Okay, I think that covers it. I'll be seeing you around! Love you all loads, night.

Just for your information

2009-04-14T19:45:00.001-04:00

…I’m going to be away for a little while. I’ve been feeling really depressed since Sunday. There wasn’t one trigger event that started this. It’s probably due to me staying at home all spring break and not seeing anyone but my family. Also the weather is gray, cold, and drizzling, which always makes me feel sad. I just want to curl up into a ball and stay there forever, I don’t want to go outside or to school or to cello. School today was atrocious. Everyone was talking to me about what I did over break and it took everything in me to answer them, to not cry because I want to be cut off from everything.

There have been no ED side affects from this, so far, and I’m hoping to keep it that way. For once I don’t actually care about food and am just seeing it as a necessity. I’ve been eating everything on my MP with no problem and don’t feel like giving it any extra thought right now.

I won’t leave you all without any pictures though. I decided to start a 365 days of pictures thing on Monday, so I can get some use out of my camera beyond food pictures. It’s exactly what it sounds like, taking a picture a day for a year.

Day #1, April 13- My family decided to go to the National Zoo. I hate zoos, I find it very depressing to see animals confined into such small spaces with people gawking at them from every direction. This orangutan was enjoying some orange slices before a mob of people came to stare at it. When he noticed, he put the paper bag the orange was in over his head to hide. :[

Day #2, April 13- Photograph of a poster, how lame. I forget the details, but my uncle was some how involved in planning a concert with Yo-Yo Ma. He got a chance to talk with Yo-Yo (what a fun name!) and told him that his niece played the cello. So Yo-Yo signed a poster thingy for me. It says “To Kiki, with _____”, something I can’t make out. Probably not with love, maybe with good luck? Cool none the less.

Sorry for such a non-post. I don’t know how long I’ll be away, I just want to get back on my feet before I start food blogging again. I have group this Thursday, perhaps it will help. I was supposed to have made progress since two weeks ago. Fail.

I haven’t been commenting but I’ve read up on all your blogs. Much love, night.

A doughy day

2009-04-10T19:26:00.001-04:00

Hello, world. I’m feeling pretty good today, which is why I’m posting three days in a row! Last night I ended up skimping on 100 cals that I meant to add to my PM snack. I was standing in the kitchen, granola bar in hand, and then I thought “No, I don’t need this.” So I put it back and went to bed. I think I’m okay with the size of my snack now and would be fine with keeping it this way. I know that’s letting ED win, I know I should be eating all of it and then sitting with the crappy feelings. But I just added back hundreds and really don’t want to push myself anymore. Arggg I don’t know!

My breakfast was delectable this morning! Among other things, I had chai banana coconut oatbran! Which is oat bran cooked in 1/2 milk and 1/2 water with TJ’s chai tea mix stirred in, topped with half a caramelized nanner and a sprinkle of coconut. Yum!

AM snack was two multi grain rice cakes topped with PB and the other half of the banana, smashed a la Jenny. Along with some lovely geometry homework.

For lunch, I made a grilled pesto, hummus, and black olive sandwich. Olives olives olives I love olives! I also had cauliflower, plain yogurt with homemade apple butter, and a NP flax bars. I love these bars. They remind me of big, honey and raisin filled rice krispy treats.

I did homework and practiced my various instruments for a while then got bored. Which means I baked. I wanted to make granola bars, but we are out of oatmeal! *Gasp* So I made toaster pastries! I haven’t tried one yet, I’m saving it for breakfasts/snacks. They were quite difficult to make, I actually had to throw the dough (rhyme!) of one away because it wouldn’t stop falling apart :[

After baking I went on another walk. Brought my camera with me of course. It was so gorgeous out today, close to 70 degrees, breezy, and sunny! I found these flowers in my yard, I think they’re purple lillies of the valley. I think it’s good for me to photograph something other than food. I’m thinking of doing a 365 days of pictures type-thing on here, what do you all think?

My afternoon snack was slightly different than usual because I only had enough CC for one half of my muffin! So the other half had cream cheese. Along with strawbs and sunflower seed butter.

Dinner was amazing! My sister helped me make whole wheat pizza dough. It was the easiest and quickest dough I’ve ever made (only took 10 mins!) thanks to a food processor. We I topped my portion with Nature’s Promise pasta sauce, mozzarella, OLIVES and green pepper. It turned out exceptionally well. The crust was just the way I like it- soft and chewy, not “crackery”. Also had a salad of romaine, carrots, cucumber, broccoli, and papaya poppy seed dressing.

My dad’s job involves doing techie stuff at big conventions in DC. Since he works after the shows are over, he often gets to claim the leftover freebies that they put out for the people going to the conventions. Today he came home just as my mom and I were setting the table for dinner. He plopped down a box of donuts on the table and said they were leftover from a convention. There were four, one for each of us. My mom said “Well, Kiki won’t want hers, so we’ll just let Allison have it.” My dad asked why I didn’t want mine, which I obviously didn’t have an answer for. After a moment of awkward silence he said “Are you ever going to eat doughnuts? Are you ever going to be normal again?” Thankfully I was saved from answering this because the oven timer went off. I don’t know how to explain to them that there isn’t a way to know what a normal me would be like. I don’t have a clue of what I’d be like, or what foods I’d like, if I had never gotten an eating disorder. And now, I don’t know if it’s normal for me to want to eat healthily and never touch a doughnut, or if that’s my ED speaking. Maybe the real me wants to eat junk food when I felt like it, like I did before this all started. This frustrates me because I used to be so sure of who I was and what I wanted.

Good night, loves! Oh, and I need Easter dessert ideas. I need something like and springy!

Que lastima!

2009-04-09T20:20:00.001-04:00

Evening, poppits. Today seemed to drag on forever and ever. I ran out of things to do around 2:00 so I ended up spending most of my afternoon on the computer :\ This is one reason why I wish I had made plans.

This morning I had chocolate covered strawberry oatbran! I don’t think it really needs an explanation, but it was oatbran topped with strawbs, dark chocolate chips, and crushed pretzels. Amazing.

I ate this while watching Bruno, en espanol. Don’t laugh at me. It went about my pace, and I understood almost everything except something about bananas. Ay, las tortugas escaparon (the turtles escaped)!

AM snack was a warmed Zbar with moo juice. Yummy! I couldn’t live without Zbars.

For lunch, I made a black bean burger. I only had refried black beans, so I used those and they worked okay. It made the burger a bit floppy. I didn’t have a bun, so I just used toast, and topped it with guacamole, a laughing cow, and sprouts. I much prefer bean burgers to faux-meat burgers. I also had almonds, cauliflower, and a NP flax bar.

Afternoon snackikin.. just in case you don’t know the usual combo: whole wheat english muffin with cottage cheese and applesauce, a kiwi, and sunflower seed butter.

Then I went on a walk and took pictures of perty scenery. I got some strange looks from neighbors, but I’ve gotten worse. I like the contrast between the pink flowers, the blue sky, and the brown branches in the background. Spring, finally!

It was blintz night for dinner. I accidentally bought potato blintzes instead of my favorite cheese. They were pretty good. Kind of like pirogie filling inside of phyllo dough. I also had a random salad with romaine, carrots, black olive, broccoli, and papaya poppy seed dressing; and applesauce! Sorry for the somewhat blurry pic. And the shadow. For dessert I had two of my flourless PB & SSB cookies. I’m really enjoying how much more food I can eat at dinner now that I’ve increased my cals. Ha I don’t even remember what color my hands are normally. When will this orange go away?

Today is supposed to be the last day of my increase. I have 200 cals to add to my night time snack. I’m really scared to do it, I’m feeling like backing out right now. I think I’m so anxious about it because before my little episode last week when I found out about my director leaving, I still felt guilty about my night snack. I would force it down because I knew I had to, and then crawl into bed feeling “sticky” and disgusted with myself. Now I’m even less.. um, mentally stable, than I was last week. So I’m afraid that those feelings will be multiplied, which will cause me to have another slip up. Or maybe I just don’t want to be “back to normal” again.

Make sure you enter the Bob’s Red Mill giveaway from An Apple a Day. Also check out the Barney Butter Giveaway as well as the hilarious Barney Butter Fiasco post on meloncauliflower.

Good night!

Baking is my therapy

2009-04-08T19:29:00.001-04:00

Hello loves. Thanks for the support about the fight with my mom. I so want things to be normal again. But it’s been such a long time since I’ve been normal, two and a half years. I was only 12, and I don’t remember what a normal social life is like anymore. I’m quite content just staying at home, cooking, and reading blogs. I’m feeling just mehh today, I’m still sort of upset about what happened with my mom last night. I want her to see how hard I’m trying but don’t know how.

For breakfast today I had coffee oats, because I woke up at 6 am and was exhausted. So I cooked 1/4 c. oatbran and 1/4 c. oatmeal in milk, stirred in some vanilla creme coffee, and used the whipped banana technique. Then I topped it with dark chocolate chips. Mmmnom.

I added back in my AM snack today. I’m impatient, adding back my cals every other day is taking too long! Plus there’s always my fear that my metabolism will slow down when I restrict, so when I do eat over cals, I’ll gain an excessive amount of weight. Anyway. I had a lemon vanilla cashew Clif Nectar bar, aka my favorite bar ever! I'm really upset that Clif is discontinuing their nectar line. This is perfectly sweet, and I love the chunks of cashew mixed with the soft dates.

I was intrigued by the Johnny Appleseed sandwich I saw on Shelby’s blog yesterday. I made one for myself, using regular PB, cream cheese, and applesauce (trying to conserve my fresh apples). Grilled of course. I was skeptical of the cream cheese and PB combo, was it was really good! I also had cauliflower, a NP flax bar, and a vanilla Oikos! This was the second Oikos I bought with my coupon. Just like the plain, vanilla was amazingly rich and creamy. I think I like it better than vanilla Chobani! My only complaints about Oikos are that a) I can’t find it at my regular grocery store, only at Whole Foods and b) It’s so expensive! If I didn’t have the coupons, I’m sure my mom would not appreciate paying $2+ for one yogurt!

Then I baked flourless peanut/ sunflower seed butter cookies! Using 1/2 c. brown sugar, an egg, 1/2 c. sunflower seed butter, 1/2 c. peanut butter, and 1 1/4 tsp. baking soda. I always manage to enjoy baking even when I feel triggered. Mixing up a bunch of ingredients and turning them into something yummy always makes me feel better! They turned out quite nicely, if a bit flat. The sunflower seed butter tastes so similar to PB that it blends right in.

After I made the cookies I did some homework. I want to get it all out of the way before tomorrow so I can enjoy the last few days of break without any obligations. Today I choose to work on my mathematical essay. Is it not enough to have to solve a billion equations?

I considered having some cookies and milk for my afternoon snack, but just wasn’t feeling it. So I went with my favorite.

For dinner I made the Potato Omelet from Greek Vegetarian Cookery. I suck at flipping omelets so I just stuck it in the oven to cook the top, so I guess technically it’s a frittata. I liked how you could taste the potato more than the egg in this. Yum yum, I love greek food! I also had a slice of unknown calorie cheese bread, and cucumber. And for dessert, two PB/SSB cookies. ORANGE!

Today I was cleaning out my old room and found some of my food journals from when I was first starting treatment. I still was afraid to eat the right amount for gaining, and was counting everything religiously. I had the calories for every egg white, teaspoon of peanut butter, and slice of light bread written in the margin. When I found the journals, I was mostly relieved that I’m far beyond that now. I was so consumed with ED at that point, and I’m glad that I’m not as controlling or obsessive as I was. I’m proud of myself for coming such a long way. But I said mostly relieved because there’s still that annoying voice in my head telling me I made the wrong decision. That I took things way too quickly, I’m too recovered now, I’m worthless now that I’m not as sick. I know the healthy side of me is right, so I’m just going to ignore that voice. It makes me wonder though. Will I always have that side of me that turns to restricting food whenever I’m upset? And will I always have to be prepared to push it away?

Night, loves!

Technorati Tags: oats,dark chocolate,nectar bar,sandwich,cream cheese,peanut butter,cookies,english muffin,cottage cheese,applesauce,omelet,bread,cucumber

Buttons!

2009-04-08T07:36:00.000-04:00

I wrote some of this post earlier in the day yesterday, and it was supposed to be posted last night. You’ll understand why I didn’t get around to it I think.

Evening, loves. I’m posting two days in a row because I feel like it! I’m was feeling pretty positive today so I figured I’d take some food pics. So yay!

This morning for breakfast, I had CCV’s chocolate chip cookie dough oats. I used Katie’s melted banana trick in place of the sugar and it was divine! I can understand why her oatmeal-hater friend loved this. Soo creamy, just sweet enough, and I loved the texture the raw oats gave. Tasted really close to a real cookie!

For once, I didn’t want a sandwich for lunch! I made pthois, aka honey feta griddle cakes. I don’t know how to pronounce pthois either! But I can say that these were extremely delicious, even though I used whole wheat flour. Feta is my favorite cheese and the sweet and salty contrast was perfect. I topped each cake with sauteed carrots and broccoli (not greek but whatever), garlic hummus, and the last bit of feta. Voila, greek fajitas!

I also had a Stonyfield farm strawberry yogurt and cauliflower. I really do love veggies! Then a bit later I had a NP flax plus bar.

I was hungry for my afternoon snackity snack, so I decided on popcorn, with dark chocolate chips and almonds. I also had an apple with a laughing cow.

Then I made a crocheted double-headband with buttons sewn on it. Random fact about me: I love buttons! Pardon the towel in the background.

Dinner had to be eaten in the car on the way to therapy from my cello lesson. Boooo. I decided to just bite the bullet and add another 100 cals to my dinner today. I packed a black bean & guacamole sandwich, the best pear I’ve ever eaten in my life (Harry and David!), and… That thing about the sandwich is a homemade Larabar-ish thing. Emphasis on the ish. I had half a banana left this morning and decided to use it. So I ground up 3 tbs almonds in the food processor, took those out, and blended the half banana and 1 tbs raisins. I know Larabars are supposed to have dates but I thought raisins would work too. Then I blended it all together, and ended up adding 3 tbs. of oats to make it sticky enough. I shaped them into two bars and stuck them in the fridge. I guess they’re more like Trek bars, because of the oats? But they taste good. Next time I’ll use dates.

Therapy went okay today. I hate my therapist. Just saying. My mom had to come with me this time and my therapist asked her what her main concern about me right now is. My mom said that she’s worried that I’m depressed because I used to go out with my friends all the time, but now I rarely do. I tried to explain to her that the friends I have are always busy on weekends and can never do anything. My therapist said I was making excuses and could find new friends, which I guess it partly true. She then explained to me how to start a conversation to ask someone to go somewhere with me. “So, what are you doing this weekend? Oh really, nothing? Oh, then we should go to the mall or something.” No dip, sherlock. I know how to socialize, I just can’t.

On the car ride home, me and my mom had an argument for the first time in a long time. She said that she thinks that I spend too much time blogging/commenting on my friends’ blogs, like it’s taking over my life. She said that last year, in the worst of my ED, I “tricked” her into thinking everything was okay when really everything was falling apart. She just wants me to have one really good friend in real life that I can talk to, because I never tell her what’s going on in my head and she doesn’t know if I’m relapsing or what. She says she understands that it’s hard to make plans, and just wishes someone would invite me somewhere and things would be “back to normal”. I got really upset and said “Do you think I want to be like this! No, I miss the way it used to be!” I can’t make her understand that my ED has ruined everything, there’s no way of knowing what normal is anymore. It’s not my fault no one asks me to go anywhere anymore. It’s not my fault that every friend I make leaves me for someone else! I’ve been trying to make plans with my friends, even some new people, but they always fall through the cracks. I can’t stand being blamed for something that is out of my control. I don’t know what to do. The relationship I have with you all is more real than any that I’m having in real life. If I couldn’t blog, I think I’d be even more depressed.

I was very tempted to restrict when I got home. It seems that that’s my preferred coping method these days. But, it’s only been a week since the last time I slipped and I’m just starting to build myself up again. So I didn’t. I pushed through my snack, because not eating isn’t going to solve anything.

Ummm, good morning, loves! Have a lovely wednesday!

Technorati Tags: popcorn,apple,cheese,sandwich,guacamole,pear,homemade bar,cookie dough,oats,greek,cauliflower,yogurt,veggies

Two types of Greek yogurt!

2009-04-06T19:57:00.002-04:00

Hello, blogland. Thanks again for all your reassuring comments. I’m overall feeling much better today than I have been for the past few days. I want to gradually up my cals to 2300 or 2400 again, since that’s about what I was maintaining on before. I’m hoping that I haven’t ruined my metabolism already! I think I’ll add 100 cals every other day, maybe?

I had quite a relaxing day. It started raining so I pretty much just stayed inside in my Scotty-dog jammies until my mom came home! I also enjoyed watching college boys play basketball outside my window, hehe. At one point I started to feel really anxious because the rain ruined my plans to go out for a walk and burn cals. I started pacing until I realized how irrational I was being and ate a snack. That calmed me down quite a bit! One day of missed exercise is not going to matter, in the grand scheme of things. Isn’t it ironic how the thing ED wants us to avoid the most is usually what makes us realize how backward his logic is?

Yesterday we went to a crafts fair. All the jewelry and clothes were too overpriced so we got food-related stuff, of course. I got a HUGE ceramic bowl, I can’t wait to eat something out of it. We also got the best pure maple syrup in the world. I forget why it’s so special, but it tastes buttery. Mmm. My mom got peach crumble bread that I don’t want to eat because it has trans fats.

For breakfast this morning, I had super apple oatbran! Which is oatbran cooked in “sweet apple chamomile” tea topped with applesauce, apple butter, and a crumbled graham cracker.

Lunch time rolled around and I wanted a sandwich! We got wholly guacamole yesterday with a coupon. Wow, where has it been all my life? Soo yummy. Esp. on a grilled sammich with refried black beans. I also had cauliflower, a corn muffin (scroll) and OIKOS!

I tried the plain kind today, topped with strawberries, honey, and honey nut cheerios. I tried a plain bite and it was delicious. It’s very thick and creamy. I love plain greek yogurt and eat it quite a bit, so this didn’t seem as “tangy” to me as some of you have been saying it is. It was definitely tangier than Chobani. I still have a vanilla Oikos to sample, but so far, Oikos is beating Chobani for me. Thanks for the coupons, Kristina!

Snack needs no explanation.

First, I will share last night’s dinner because it was so delicious! I made healthy corn muffins. I accidentally used an extra 1/3 c. liquid and it resulted in the fluffiest, moistest, best corn muffins ever. I also had TJ’s baked beans, and spinach chips. Perfect meal.

Tonight’s dinner was equally delicious. We made spinach-parmesan pie. This was sort of like an upside down quiche, with a greek twist. There was a nice nutmeg-y crust on top with yummy cheese and spinach on the bottom. Had it with kale chips and the last of the corn muffins.

So far for my night snack, which is my first increase, I’ve had Cyclops Greek-style frozen yogurt, banana flavor. I got this at WF because I saw it was being discontinued. It’s so much better than regular frozen! It’s very soft like soft-serve, and it’s tangy like Greek yogurt should be. The banana flavor isn’t artificial, and there are actual chunks of real fruit. Why don’t I ever notice these delish things until they’re about to be discontinued?

That’s all for now, loves! Sorry about the weird layout of this post, but I’m experimenting withWindows Live Writer and haven’t quite figured it out yet. Bear with me! Night.

Make sure you hit up the Fage Yogurt Giveaway from the Hungry Yogini!

On my way up, again.

2009-04-04T19:13:00.011-04:00

Thank you so much to everyone who left comments on my last post. I cried every time I read a new comment, no kidding! I wrote down a lot of your helpful advice, for the next time a mood like this strikes. I realize that there will always be ups and downs in recovery, and I should expect them. Just last week, I was doing so well, but WHAM, out of nowhere comes ED. I don't really know what else to say, but it means the world to me to have people going through the same thing as me leave me such caring responses. I don't know what I'd do without blogging!

I suppose that I'm still in a "down" of recovery. Sorry to post numbers but since Wednesday my cals have been at 1600 (three meals and a little snack), with exercise. Which is significantly lower than they need to be. I guess I could just add all my missed calories back, in one fell swoop, but I don't want to overwhelm myself and lose even more progress. My issue right now is that I can't make myself care about the consequences of ED. Like, I was on a walk yesterday in 60 degree weather and was shivering. I thought "This will feel ten times worse if I have no fat on me." And today, I couldn't concentrate on my cello or in ballet, and remembered how I felt that way every day when I was at my lowest. But the thing is, every time I think of a way that ED will ruin my life, I just shrug it off and think about how happy I'll be when I start losing weight again. The rational side of me knows that this is wrong, but I feel like ED has no consequences for me. I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else, but it makes sense in my head. I'm just going to trust that when I was still in my positive, pro-recovery mode, I was doing the right thing.

Since this is a food blog, I suppose that I'll post some food pics! Even though I was feeling triggered this morning, I was still in the mood for some weekend morning baking. It makes me feel peaceful. I made bran muffins, subbing a banana for the raisins. Usually I don't associate bran muffins with the word yummy, but these were spectacular! They had just the right amount of sweetness, and the bran flavor was subtle. I ate them warm out of the oven and enjoyed biting into the chunks of caramelized banana!

After breakfast I went to ballet. It was mehhh, I won't go into specifics. Lunch was eaten at the mall again. My sister usually comes with me and my mom to my ballet class and seems to think that we have to stop at the mall and eat every time. I hate it. I got a subway veggie delite with cheese, assorted veggies, and olive oil. Imagine a bag of baked lays chips with this too.

I decided to add my afternoon snack back today. My favorite, an english muffin with CC and applesauce, kiwi, and sunflower seed butter. I won't lie- I cried while I was eating this. Why is it so easy to take away calories, but so hard to add them back? So easy to slip and lose progress, and so hard to gain it back? I'm just going to keep taking small steps like this until I get my intake where it needs to be again, I think.

Then I went to Whole Foods! Nothing like a little grocery shopping therapy. Here are my purchases:
Apples, strawberries, one vanilla and one plain Oikos (using my coupons! can't wait to try them), a Rachel's yogurt, passionfruit Zico coconut water, my favorite lemon vanilla cashew nectar bar, pretzels, multi grain rice cakes, NP flax plus granola bars, refried black beans, NP fig waffles (!!!!!!!) and Cyclops Greek style banana frozen yogurt.

For dinner, I made my favorite, polenta! Using my favorite recipe, feta and mozarella as the cheeses. If you've never had polenta, try this recipe! It's so creamy but so easy to make. I had it with kale chips, and a slice of homemade bread. Perfect meal.

As you may have noticed, I tried to change my blog layout today. The background is supposed to look like this, but it's not centered properly. I changed my template to minima and used these instructions for getting a 3 column template to see if that would center it, but it didn't work. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Love you all so much! Good night!

Arg, where is my head? Don't forget to enter the CCV in a box giveaway!

Life is unfair.

2009-04-02T19:15:00.003-04:00

Please, please, please, PLEASE, don't read this if you get triggered easily.

Well, on the bright side, my school orchestra got straight 1s at festival yesterday! Music groups get graded on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. This means we're going to state festival, woo!

Now that that's over with.. I haven't brought this up yet, I don't think, but my school orchestra director is the best teacher I've ever had. She's actually an English teacher, but she has played the violin and viola her whole life and volunteered to be our school orchestra director at the beginning of the school year. She's really young, only 23, so she seems like "one of us". She has really helped our orchestra connect this year. On the one hand, she's an amazing musician and can just pick up a violin and play along with us perfectly. On the other hand, she's really funny and witty and smart, and just makes everyone feel better when they're in her class. Because of her, everyone in my orchestra is friends with each other, rather than just acquaintances from orchestra. Yesterday we were on the bus on the way to festival and a couple girls asked if she would drive us to Union Station to perform at Christmas time again. She said "I didn't want to tell you this today, but I won't be here next year. I'm getting transferred." They over-staffed my school this year, so the newest teacher (my director) has to be transferred to a different school.

My director is being replaced with the director of the bands at our school. She hates us, and all children as a matter of fact. Yesterday, one of her bands tried to play an April fool's joke on her by playing a rock song when she cued them for scales. She didn't laugh, she just stared at them and then started screaming! No no no no, a music director has to have a sense of humor. Even though I'm not all that close to my director, she's still made a huge influence on me. When I'm with my friends from orchestra, I let go of all my self conscious ED feelings, and I feel more like myself that when I'm with anyone else. It's not going to be the same next year without her. Our new director isn't going to drive us to a restaurant, letting five of us cram into the backseat of her car, cracking up the whole time! She won't drive us to Union Station, to play in front of the Christmas tree and see a movie and eat ice cream. Because of my director, I've been able to connect with people far more than I ever thought I'd be able to. It's not fair. I finally feel like I belong, with my director and all the kids in my orchestra, and now that's all being pulled out from under me because of over-staffing.

We went out to Chipotle last night, it was okay. It was really crowded so our whole orchestra was separated into small groups and we couldn't talk to each other from across the restaurant. I ate about 2/3 of a veggie burrito with no cheese, because I had missed my snack and knew I needed it. Everything went downhill when I got home. I started feeling really depressed about my director leaving. Then I started thinking about how this time last year, I was in the worst of my ED, and I'm so much bigger now. I locked myself in my room and cried for a really really long time. It felt nice. I started to feel hungry but then I thought "No, you aren't hungry. You aren't craving anything. How can you think of food with how you're feeling now?" So I didn't eat, I had a bottle of water and went to bed. Things haven't improved much today, I'm sorry to say. I've eaten my three main meals, but I've skipped most of my snacks, where my parents won't notice I'm skimping. I really apologize if this is triggering to anyone.

I went to group today, and talked about what's been happening. The girls were so sweet, I could tell that they were trying to pull my mood back up. I was on the verge of tears for the entire hour, because I knew that I couldn't believe what they told me. Or ED couldn't. I don't know, damn. One of them told me that life is hard, but what's even harder is taking care of yourself through it all. Another girl said that people may come and go in my life, but they'll all make a lasting impression on me that will shape who I am in the future. All of them tried to emphasize how far I've come since I started group, and how much I'd lose if I relapsed back into old behaviors. One of the girls, who's been through a ton of IP, talked to me outside of the group room and told me that she knows what it's like to have someone you care about taken away from you. She asked if I was feeling any better and all I could do was smile and shake my head no.

Two days ago I said I was ready to kill whatever part of ED is still clinging to me. And now.. now, I have just super-glued ED to me again. I don't know what I'm going to do over spring break next week. My parents will be out working mostly, I won't have friends at school to keep me distracted while I'm eating. I don't have group, so there's no one for me to talk to next week either. Things could get worse in terms of eating and exercising. Or, I could be back on track by spring break, that was the goal I made for group. I just feel like that "flame of recovery" that has been burning inside of my for the past almost-year has been blown out.

I'm sorry for such a crap post. So sorry. I'm confused and my head hurts. Goodnight.

What now?

2009-03-31T16:14:00.011-04:00

I'm posting two days in a row because I'll probably skip posting tomorrow. We have festival for orchestra (big competition where all the schools in the county compete) which will take up my whole afternoon. Then afterward, I'm going out to Chipotle with the orchestra kids! Eek. Going out to eat is usually pretty easy though, for some reason it feels safer than eating something my mom makes for me.

Thank you all for the support on my last post.. I never know how to express my gratitude enough. The rational side of me knows that my grades don't define me. But ED tells me that he's always right, of course I'm worthless if I'm not perfect in everything. It makes me feel so much better to have everyone enforce my healthy side, so thank you! What I learned from your comments: No one will care about a B in five years, B's are human, I tried my hardest, no one is perfect. If I keep saying those, I'll start to believe them.

I only have a picture of part of breakfast because I was lazy! I had a glass of 1% milk, an apple with PB, and applesauce & crystallized ginger oats w/ a crumbled graham cracker.

I wanted to use up the last two slices of store-bought bread in the fridge before I started eating my homemade stuff. I made a PB and cran apple butter sammich, and also had cauliflower, a Zbar, and Chobby Wob.

Snacky time. Whole wheat english muffin with CC & applesauce, an apple (because I really really like apples), and sunflower seed butter.

It was Mexican night for dinner. While the rest of the family had beef tacos, I made my own yummy veggie ones. I sauteed zucchini, tomatoes, red onion, green pepper, cumin and chili powder in olive oil. Then I put them in corn taco shells and topped them with shredded cheddar. I also had TJ's Spanish white beans. The beans were okay, didn't taste very Spanish too me. Mostly like veggie broth.

Oh and I forgot to post this yesterday. The lovely Kristina from Stonyfield Farms sent me coupons for Oikos! And a cute reusable shopping bag and coupons for normal yogurt. I'm so excited! I'll have to get my mom to take me to Whole Foods this weekend so I can try Oikos.

Today I had my cello lesson, but I didn't have therapy after, thank the lord. I don't think I talk about this much but my cello teacher is basically my therapist! She had depression as a teenager so she can relate to a lot of my fears. She also went through some disordered eating when she was in college. Anyway, she's very confident in herself now and is my mentor, and I feel way more comfortable talking to her than I do my real therapist. Tonight, I was talking to her about how in some ballet classes I'm happy with myself , and in others I hate myself and can't stand the way I look. I said that I hated the way my weight had distributed from gaining and I wished that some of the weight on my lower half would shift up. She looked at me and said "Where is that weight going to come from? There isn't any on you that can shift more. You look sick."

Usually she's not so blunt. This quote kind of makes her seem mean, but I suppose she was just tired of beating around the bush. Anyway, it was just a really really huge slap in the face. Here I was, pinching my "fat" and wishing that I hadn't let myself go past my safe weight. But now the woman I look up to most says I still look ill? Her comment totally put things into proportion for me. I trust her.. she obviously sees what damage I'm doing to my body and mind by staying here. I'm kind of scared, actually! I don't want to be sick Kiki anymore, just Kiki. Happy, healthy, Kiki. So now I've come to this conclusion. Now I don't know what to do next.

I'm going to go think for a while, I suppose. Night!

Creativity.. occupies the cat?

2009-03-30T14:56:00.009-04:00

I didn't have school today because the teachers were working on our report cards for the 3rd marking period. We can totally just check our grades online on Edline so this was a bogus holiday, but I'm not complaining. I checked my grades this morning and I have an A in everything except for geometry. 88.8%. AHHHHHHHH! I figured out that if I had just gotten 5 points higher on various tests I would have an A. Let it be noted that I have not had anything lower than an A on my report card since I was in 5th grade. I intended on keeping it that way, but my teacher won't bump my grade up so I'm stuck with a B. I know that technically, if I get an A next marking period, I'll have an A average for the semester and that's what colleges will see. But just knowing that I'm less that perfect is killing me! I realize that I'm the typical perfectionist anorexic, I'm finding it one of the hardest parts of my illness to let go. One little less-than-perfect blemish is all it takes to bring me down.

If I was still at my lowest, I would use this as an excuse to restrict my cals and exercise more as "punishment" for not being perfect. But today, I did everything possible to keep myself from thinking of my grade. First distraction: Baking bread.

I've never baked yeast bread before. Oh wait, scratch that, I did when I was in second grade. I decided that it would be a good hands on type of baking project that would keep my mind occupied, so I went for it. First (yes, there is a second!) I made this recipe because it looked easy and good for beginners. I had to add a fair bit of extra water because the dough wasn't turning into a ball. And even though I kneaded it for twice as long as the recipe says, it didn't become "elastic". I just went with it and let it rise, then made two different types of loaves. One is a free-form baguette-ish thing, and the other is baked in a small loaf pan.
I was pleased with how the free-form turned out, but I was disappointed that the one in the pan (the square one) didn't rise much. I tried a small slice and it's very tasty though! This crust is really crunchy, and the actual bread is dense and wheat-y. That's really the only way I can describe it, you just have to trust me when I say it tasted good.

Then I took a breakfast break. I had an apple with PB. Then I had oats cooked in 1% topped with crushed puffins, strawbs, and dark choco chips. I'm liking cooking my oats in milk, it makes them calorie dense but they're very filling.

I had planned to use the first loaves as sandwich bread but decided they didn't rise enough. So I started to make whole wheat potato bread, because it also looked fairly easy. I formed the dough and then made lunch. I made a mini laughing cow + sprout sammie with toasted bread #1, and had another slice with SSB. Also almonds (yay, healthy fats!), caulilflower and carrots, and a Kashi bar.

After lunch I worked on my potato bread. I practiced my cello while it was baking- I felt so artsy, like I was in a movie! Although the dough seemed "elastic", it barely rose at all. It definitely did not look like the picture when I was done with it!!
See how flat it is? Why can't I bake bread? Maybe it has something to do with how cold it is in my house. We decided that we aren't going to use anymore heat until next winter, so it was 66 degrees in the house today.

Somewhere along the line, I made a tunic out of a pillowcase. I used these intructions (haha I typed recipe) and an old floral pillowcase that doesn't match with any bedding in the house. I used to do crafty things like this all the time, but stopped when my life became devoted to counting cals. I'm glad my DIY side is coming back! This was a really easy project, and I'm pleased with how my tunic turned out. I think I'll take in the back though.

Before I went to ballet, I had a nanner with PB but you know what that looks like. Ballet went well again, don't have much to say about it. When I got home, I had plain yogurt with TJ's high fiber fruit & nut medley cereal. My mom thinks I'm a freak of nature for this, but I love this cereal! It tastes like raisin bran, but I like the wormish texture better. It has raisins, cranberries, almonds, and pecans in it but I've yet to run into any pecans.

For dinner I made one of my favorite recipes, chickpea & peanut stew. I added a bit more liquid than usual and it was still excellent. With two slices of bread #1, perfect for dipping in the stew!

That's all for now. I successfully kept myself from thinking of my imperfect report card all day, hopefully I can keep it up at school tomorrow. I'm going to get my stuff ready for school tomorrow, then watch Gossip Girl! Muhahaha.

Dreary day

2009-03-28T19:20:00.008-04:00

Buenas noches. Thanks for all the support regarding the comments I got yesterday. I'm not even really sad that L. isn't my friend anymore. She's so blase and doesn't have anything in common with me. I went to the mall with her once and we were trying on clothes. I asked if something looked good on me and she just shrugged her shoulders and texted someone else. Really. If she's not willing to work to be friends again, then fine, I'm better off without her!

I had a smaller breakfast than usual this morning. Size wise, not calorie wise I mean. I feel like if I eat calorie dense foods then I'll never be full, and I'm really scared of that. This morning I challenged myself to chocolate cafe crumble oats! T'is oats cooked in 1% milk with a spoon of vanilla creme coffee, topped with a TJ's cafe twist and dark chocolate chips. Yums. I only ever have coffee on Saturday mornings because I need it to get through a long ballet class. Otherwise I stick to tea. I was mighty jumpy after this oatmeal!
I also had a banana with PB, and it held me over perfectly. Haha, another one of ED's lies is proven to be false! I actually felt more full after eating this than I do when I eat one of my larger breakfasts.

Before I left for ballet I had almonds. Class went well, my muscles ache though. I feel like now that I'm allowed to exercise I should be doing some strength training. Not for ED's calorie burning purposes, I just want to dance as best as possible. Anyone have recommendations? Anyhow, there was barely any body checking during class today. I actually took the time to think of how much I appreciate by body for putting up with a dancer's workout. People who think ballet is a frilly sport have no idea! I know that if I was still emaciated and restricting, I wouldn't have enough energy to get through a class- I'd probably have to quit ballet in favor of keeping my disorder. Ballet is my passion though, and I would feel so empty without it. So today, I am thankful for having a healthy, strong, nourished body to help me do what truly makes me happy.

This is most definitely a repeat pic, but for lunch my mom dragged me to the mall so I was forced to eat there. I got a vegetarian bowl from Maui Tacos, which consisted of brown rice, black beans, guacamole, lettuce, and homemade salsa.

After the mall, I hit up my favorite store, Trader Joe's! My loot:
Clementines, bananas, a Z bar, garlic hummus, baked beans, Spanish white beans, whole wheat "British" muffins, Laughing Cow spreadable cheese wedges, 2 French Village yogurts, 1 pom. Greek yogurt, and high fiber fruit & nut medly cereal.

By the time I got home it was snack time. Who can guess what I had? Everyone. A british muffin with a laughing cow and applesauce, half a grapefruit, and PB. I love this snack because it's tasty, but also because I feel perfectly full after I eat it and so I don't think of food for hours on end.

Dinner featured one of my favorite grains, quinoa. I made lemon herb quinoa, and upped the OO to 2.5 tbs. I quite liked this, the lemon made it taste very fresh and all the herbs complemented eachother perfectly. I also had a Quorn cutlet cooked in olive oil and oregano and the other grapefruit half.

The weather was dreary and gray today, and I woke up with a mood to match it. I always feel at least slightly affected by ED everyday, but didn't feel triggered anymore than usual today which was nice. I'm just feeling really depressed and tired. Ballet was the highlight of my day, because dancing always makes me feel better. I was at the mall with my mom forever. She kept making me walk all around to look at random stuff, and I was already tired from ballet and didn't want to do anymore walking. I was on the verge of tears the entire time because I just wanted to go home and sleep for a really long time. By the time we did get home, I didn't want to sleep and instead opted for wallowing in my misery. That's always helpful, right? My sister wants to watch a movie with me tonight but I don't want to be around people right now. Everything is making me nervous and angry. Argg sorry for whining, I hope this is gone by tomorrow.

Goodnight, lovelies!

P.S. I finally updated my blogroll to add all the awesome blogs I've been reading lately. I tried to add all of you, but I most likely left a few bloggers out. If you don't see your blog on the list, just tell me and I'll add it!

TGIF...

2009-03-26T14:42:00.006-04:00

Hola, mis amigas. Sorry for not posting yesterday. It was really rainy and windy (where is spring??) and my power got knocked out. Even though we have underground cables. I was sitting at the computer, typing a comment and the lights went out :[ They didn't come back on until 11 at night. So I'll probably post tomorrow night to make up for it. I am so glad it's Friday! This week seemed to stretch on forever. Probably because it's the week before the week before spring break and it always lasts forever. Sorry for not coming up with a new acronym, I'm so tired.

For breakfast among other things, I had oats topped with strawberries, dark choco chips, and HN cheerios. That seems to be the combo to turn to on school mornings.

Lunch was a PB+cran apple butter sammich, cauliflower, TJ's French Village yogurt, and a trek mix bar.

Ack! My afternoon snack was also typical. Whole wheat english muffin with mozarella (out of cottage!) cheese & applesauce, spoon of sunflower seed butter and strawberries. I seem to be in a food rut for every meal except dinner. But I honestly like what I eat..

Dinner was one of those challenge meals that I've been planning with my mom. She's trying to get my sister Allison to cook more, so Allison helped me make this. It's spaghetti pie from OK, So Now You're a Vegetarian. I don't use this cookbook much because I got it when I first went veg and was still dependent on a lot of cheese and eggs, versus fresh exotic veggie dishes. It does have some good recipes though. This was basically smart taste pasta with parmesan, then a layer of ricotta, then a layer of pasta sauce, and finally a layer of melted mozarella. So basically lasagna but with spaghetti. I had it with steamed spinach.
It was quite good! I'm okay with a sprinkle of cheese on my pasta, but having it in major amounts like this is a fear of mine. I reminded myself that non-ED people eat things much worse than this is restaurants without a second thought. I used to love things like this too. So I took a nice big slice and enjoyed every bite! Whoot!

For dessert/first part of PM snack I had a key lime pie Larabar. I like this flavor, but it never tastes like key lime pie to me. It always seems more coconut-ish? Anyway, it doesn't compare to apple pie!

Today was sort of rough for a Friday. At lunch I was sitting with my friend, L, and her best guy friend, M. L used to be my best friend, but of course once ED began I started isolating myself from everyone and we drifted apart. Now that I actually want friends again, I can't remember why I ever wanted to be L's friend in the first place. We've hung out a few times recently and we can't even keep a conversation. So actually, she's probably only my acquaintance now. She's one of the few people I've ever told about my ED, although I think most people know I have one based on how I looked last year. Anyway, M was being stupid and said "Dur hurrr how do I count calories?" I know he was just kidding, he doesn't give a crap about calories. Then L said "I dunno, ask Kiki." Then M said "Oh right, I should've known."

Infuriating! I was so upset that I got up and left the table. I've accepted that people are stupid when it comes to EDs and think they're just about counting calories and being skinny. I realize that they don't know when a comment like that could be triggering or hurtful. What bothers me is that I'm still thought of as the anorexic girl. When will I stop being seen as the calorie-counting one, and start being seen as Kiki? This. Ends. Now. I am so sick of being defined by my disorder. First I was doing it to myself, telling myself that I wasn't worth it if I didn't look "sick enough". Now I realize that people have been doing it to me for a year. I am finally starting to see who I am without my ED, and I'm ready for everyone else to see it too. From now on, I will not place my self-worth on what size I wear, what my BMI is, or how skinny I look. That's not how I want other people to see me, so I shouldn't see myself that way.

Mkayy now I'm going to go curl up with a nice cuppa' tea. Make sure to check out the Pure Bar Giveaway on Carrot 'n' Cake. Good night!

Shrinking wrappers!

2009-03-24T16:38:00.006-04:00

Hello, all. Thanks for the stellar boy advice.. I feel bad for saying he reminds me of a beaver! When did I become so mean? Anyway, yesterday he was really starting to get on my nerves. Like "What did you get on the test? A 94%? Hur hur har har huuuuuur of course." Then he asked how he could repay me for helping him get a B on the test, and I just said he couldn't and turned away. I think he got it because today he wasn't so eager to talk to me. Hopefully it'll last!

And for the record, not all World Market stores are going out of business. I'm pretty sure that it's just the one near me. But it's probably an indication of how all the other stores are doing...

The only part of breakfast that I have a picture of is this Zbar. I absentmindedly stuck the wrapper in with the bar in the microwave. I heard a really loud ZAP noised and realized what I'd done. I opened the microwave really fast, and look what happened! Whoops.

I shouldn't even post lunch anymore because it's so repetitive. But it was a sunflower seed + cran apple butter sammich, cauliflower, Trek Mix bar, and TJ's French Village yogurt. I'm sick of eating cauliflower. It's not even helping, my hands are still orange!

This afternoon I went with my favorite snack of CC and applesauce on a whole wheat English muffin, a nectarine (which my father bought and I only ate because it was going bad, hate unseasonable fruit!) and PB.

Okay, NOW I'll share the dinner I had on Sunday because I used part of it in tonight's dinner. I made Sicilian lentil pasta sauce. This was the best pasta sauce ever! Very "meaty" and hearty. Go make it. On Sunday I had it over angle hair pasta. My mom insisted on using real, white pasta, and I just went with it. Yayy! With kale chips.

So tonight I used the leftover sauce to make a barley bowl, a la Sophia! Greek Italian fusion, I suppose? I combined 1 c cooked barley, splash of EVOO, 1/4 c feta, the rest of the sauce, and kalamata olives. Not attractive, but yumskies. With a nanner, and a cute mini New Tree mint dark chocolate. Tasted like a Thin Mint!

I ate that in the car on the way from cello to therapy. Therapy didn't go as badly as I expected it to. My therapist asked to see a post/comments from the blog. So I printed out my post and the comments from March 20th, minus the url (don't need her spying on me!) She seemed pleased with it, for the most part. She was happy that even though I have an iffy relationship with food, I'm still able to get pleasure out of making new recipes/discovering new foods. Therapist also pointed out how well I was able to connect with all of you! We agreed that one of the many causes of my ED was not having a group of people that I felt like I belonged to, so we're both happy that blogging is a place where I feel I fit in. I love you all, just to add. She said that since I'm able to show my personality and form relationships with people online so well, I should actually try it in real life! Which is a valid argument. It's so much harder for me to talk to people at my school because they don't share the same problems and feelings as my readers do.

Right now, I'm munching on a thin mint. Gotta get that chocolate fix!

Goodnight, lovelies!

Lovely weekend!

2009-03-22T19:05:00.009-04:00

Evening, blogland. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Mine went pretty well. Yesterday I had ballet, which went pretty well. No cruddy body-checking, it was just a really physically challenging class. Then afterward I went to Trader Joe's and got lots of yummies. Then to TJMaxx. I sadly didn't buy anything because everything there is either too flashy or too big. I also went to World Market, which is going out of business. It was one of my favorite places to shop because I could get cool international food and clothes there. The shelves were full a month ago, but this is how it looks now:
Darn this economy.

I pretty much just spent the day at home today, doing homework and practicing my music. I did go out grocery shopping though. I feel guilty because my goal for group this week was to socialize this weekend.. but obviously that didn't happen. On the bright side, ED didn't bother me at all!

Yesterday morning I made applesauce Cheerio muffins! I almost cried tears of joy when I found this recipe, because of my infatuation with Cheerios. I used honey nut, of course, and half white wheat flour. They were very fluffy and moist. But the Cheerios disappeared! This always seems to happen when you put cereal in baked goods. There was a nice touch of honey flavor.

And this morning I tried Morgan's yogurt oats. I used 1/3 c plain yogurt and 2/3 c water and they turned out so creamy and 'licious! I topped them with a chopped apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a graham cracker. I had other stuff too but this was the only picture I took.

I wasn't too hungry for my AM snack so I had gingerbread tea with milk and two Trader Joe's french twists for dipping. I saw these on Brooke's blog and picked them up yesterday. Her description was spot on, they were like flaky, crispy, cinnamon croissant puffs! Hard to believe that they're butter free.

Lunchikins was a sammich with dill hummus, veggie cream cheese and SPROUTS (my love!). Also plain yogurt with orange marmalade, cauliflower, and a Trek Mix bar.

Snack was popcorn with dark chocolate chips, a nanner, and almonds.

I will talk about dinner from last night because it was special. My mom has been helping me plan our weekly menus now and she suggested that we make one of my sister's favorite foods, mac and cheese. My mom picked this recipe, using long noodles (ACK what are they called??) and it was so good. Cheese exploded from every bite. Had it along with a salad.
It was a challenge to eat something so "decadent" as mac & chese, especially when I didn't pick the recipe. Stupid, but it's also more of a challenge for me to eat short pasta v. spaghetti, because I feel like it's less filling. Anyhow, I only felt a tad bit guilty but it slowly faded as I kept eating all of that cheesy goodness! I figured that every other not E.D.ed person lets themself indulge every once in a while without feeling guilty. It's totally healthy, and I can't expect to ever beat ED if I stick to safe, healthy foods all the time.

I'll talk about tonight's dinner some other time, because it was superb also. Now I need help with something totally non-ED related (I think). There's this boy in my Spanish class who I kind of tutored and helped him get an A for the quarter. Spanish is my best subject so I didn't mind helping this kid (who will be called B.) But now he won't leave me alone! He found me on Facebook, which I only use for outside of school friends. I ignored his FR, but at school, he keeps insisting on doing something to "repay" me for helping him. First he offered a card, then money, then walking me home from school. After I turned down all B.'s offers he passed me a note that says I'm a great friend and we should hang out and gave me his number so I can call him if I "ever want to talk". I DON'T WANT TO CALL HIM! I don't want him to like me, I don't even want to be his friend! He's an okay kid to talk to every once in a while, but I don't want to get close to him because a) We have no common interests. b) He has a girlish personality. My best guy friend is my best guy friend because he's a good listener. I can vent to him without him bringing up his own problem. B. does exactly the opposite. I have enough girlfriends to worry about, I don't need another! c) He kind of reminds me of a beaver.

Wow that was a really long rant. I am dreading class tomorrow because I know he's going to try to talk to me again. I don't know how to tell him to leave me alone without being rude. Crud. Maybe I can get a schedule change?

Don't forget to enter the Mixmygranola giveaway at An Apple a Day!

Try to enjoy your Mondays tomorrow, if that's even possible!

Oh yes, and the lovely miss Emily passed me this award:
Thanks love! I pass it on to Debbie, Kailey, Jess, Laci, Jemima, Brooke, and Stef. Here are the rules: 1) Add the logo of the award to your blog 2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you 3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs 4) Add links to those blogs on your blog 5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Night!

Tasty Granola Induces Frenzy!

2009-03-20T19:14:00.005-04:00

Haha the title of today's post took me forever to come up with. It's been a long week and it takes a lot of mental capacity to come up with new acronyms every week! The frenzy means frenzied eating because granola is so darn good and I've gone too long without it.

I'm feeling a whole lot better, ED-wise, partly due to all your lovely comments! You all seriously have no idea how much it helps me to read such supportive words from people who know exactly what I'm going through. So thanks. I'm also feeling a lot better because I had group yesterday and I love my group girls. I told them that recently I've been torn between wanting to binge/restrict and recover, and they all completely understood how I felt. That alone made me feel almost back to normal. One of the oldest girls who has been through a crap load of treatment said "Be proud of what you've been through- how far you've come." It made me realize that so far in recovery, I've gained a lot more things than I've lost. Sure, I don't have my emaciated body anymore. But now I have my cello, ballet, friends, sense of humor, concentration, and many more things back. So why would I quit fighting now that I've just regained the things that are more important to me?

Mkayyyy, foodies. Among other things for breakfast I had a bowl of oats topped with powdered PB puffins, blueberries, and dark choco chips. Nom.

Lunch was a repeat of yesterday's, meaning a sandwich with yummus hummus and cream cheese. Also cauliflower, Chobby wob, and a Trek mix bar.

Before I left for my dietitian (which went well, scroll) I had an apple with cheese. But you all know what that looks like. When I got home, I had another snack inspired by the lovely Debbie's creative snack choices. We froze some leftover orange french toast, so I popped a slice in the toaster. Then I dipped it in cottage cheese + applesauce. Yum, I love having breakfast for snacks!

Dinner was one of the best I've had recently. I made feta cheese, kale, and red onions. I doubled the feta and tripled the OO, and just added the kale towards the end so it wouldn't get all limp. This was spectacular! Feta is my favorite cheese and I loved the taste of the onions together with the kale. I also had tofu cooked in EVOO with cumin and garlic and a slice of french bread.

Last night for my PM snack I had ice cream. I was craving chocolate sorbet and strawberry ice cream so I had both. The sorbet was as hard as a rock so I stuck it in the mircowave. I put it in too long though, because the top was all melty and soupy. I treated it as chocolate sauce and dumped it over my Ben and Jerry's and it was lovely. Tonight I plan on topping it with a caramelized nanner.

Now about my dietitian. I think that I've made it clear that I really hate the treatment center I go to (which my group is not a part of). They treat me as a walking eating disorder and put too much emphasis on weight. But, I like my dietitian because she treats me like a real person. I know that she cares about me and doesn't always just talk to me about my feelings towards food/exercise/cals/etc. She sort of tells me the same thing every time I see her though. I know where I need to challenge myself, and I don't want my parents to have to pay someone to tell me what I already know. I told her this today in the most polite way possible. She says that she, my therapist, and my ED doctor had a meeting and decided that I can stop going there in the near future! She said that she and my doctor will see me one more time in six months, and if everything goes well, I never have to see them again! Yipee! This is just another example of what I'd lose if I slipped again.

I'm going to go watch a movie now. Enjoy your evenings loves!

Change of plan..

2009-03-18T17:23:00.006-04:00

Evening, loves. Sorry for not posting yesterday. I didn't skip posting for ED reasons, more like I was buried under a pile of homework and cello concerts and crappy TV (american idol!) watching. I think I'm going to take after Morgan and Brooke and switch to every-other-day posting. Even if I'm not feeling triggered or depressed. I have enough of an obsession with food, I don't need to end my nights thinking about it every day. Plus, sometimes I end up putting blogging ahead of some more important things. For example, my grades have been slipping lately (okay, slipping down to B's, but I can't have that) and I should be spending my extra time studying and doing homework, not posting food pictures. So maybe over spring break or on the weekends when I don't have so much to do I'll do daily posts again.

Also, sorry for being so negative in all my posts lately! I don't want to come off as a whiner.. it's just I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of feeling guilty, tired of blocking out negativity, tired of everything that recovery has brought into my life. I was comfortable during the worst of my ED- I didn't have enough energy to feel much of anything (except happiness when I lost weight) so there was no battle to fight. A lot of days I don't see a point in making the effort to recover, because I feel like I don't have much to live for. I feel like I'm complaining too much again. But I don't expect advice, I know I'll find out what makes recovery worth it. There's something inside of me that's telling me to keep eating despite the overwhelming guilt and regret I often feel, so I'm just going to trust that there is something better for me than my disorder and keep going.

Okay, end seriousness. For breakfast think morning with other stuffffff I had antioxidant oats! Which is bluebs, almonds, and dark chocolate topping on oatmeal.

Snack was normal, and lunch was somewhat difference, for once. Instead of nut butter on my sandwich I had veggie cream cheese and dill hummus, which was lovely. Hummus is yummus hehe. I also had cauliflower, a trek mix bar and TJ's "french village" yogurt. This was basically like reg. yogurt but slightly thicker and not as sweet. I like it.

I made a big batch o' barley this afternoon, and I figured that there was no better thing to do with it than make blended grains a la CCV. I used this recipe for banana brulee oatmeal, using barley. Wooo new favorite snack! So creamy. I ate it with a spoon on PB.

Dinner was excellent. I was really craving salad, but salads have been off limits lately because they're rather low in calories. So I made taco salad! I brushed a WW tortilla with olive oil, stuck it in a bowl, and baked it at 400* to make a shell. Meanwhile, I cooked 2 tbs of quinoa in 1 tbs olive and tossed in onions, green pepper, a Quorn chik'n cutlet, and zucchini (??). I poured it over lettuce in the shell and topped it with black beans and salsa. I'm not a fan of faux meat because I don't like to be reminded of the taste or texture of real meat, so next time I want to use tofu. Nom nom so tasty and fresh.
I jumped out of my window and ate this! Haha, not at the same time. I have an arbor thingy under my window that plants are supposed to grow on. It was close to 70 F and my parents weren't home to I sat on my arbor for dinner. Don't laugh. It's a good thinking place! I also had strawbs and graham crackas.

Then I jetted off to orchestra. It was good even though some idiot knocked over my cello. Stupid wind players. I bit his head off.

Guhhh I've just been hit with a wave of fatigue. Peace out girl scouts!

Breakfast for dinner

2009-03-16T18:55:00.004-04:00

Heyyy lovelies. Sorry for not posting yesterday. I don't want to go into specifics but let's just say that some old overexercising habits got the best of me. I was not in the right state for blogging. Feeling better for the most part today.

I woke up earlier than normal this morning (accidentally) so I had extra time to make breakfast! I'm back to my big breakfasts for a couple days because I'm still afraid of getting hungry at school. I'll try to challenge myself more this weekend, though. This morning among other things I had blueberry cashew coconut oats! We've had a bottle of TJ"s 100% juice sparkling blueberry juice sitting in our pantry since Christmas and my parents cracked the bottle open just recently. So I cooked my oats in 1/2 c of that, and topped it with chopped cashews and flaked coconut. Mm mm mmmm.

This picture is from yesterday but it's exactly what I had today, but an apple instead of the pickle/ razzies. T'is a grilled whole wheat wrap filled with dill hummus, cream cheese, lettuce, cauliflower, carrots, and sundried tomatoes. So much better than a PB sandwich! Plus a kiwi lime passionfruit Rachel's (3rd favorite flavor) and a Zbar.

Before ballet, I had an apple with cheese. Afterward I had a cashew acai protect Think Fruit bar.
I quite liked this bar. I can't say that it had a strong berry taste though, the sweetness of the dates overpowered the acai I think. But, it did have really big chunks of cashews, which I love. And it was denser and less sticky than Larabars, which makes for optimum bar-breakage. I think I'll buy this again just because of the texture!

Ballet went badly again, along the lines as it did on Saturday. I feel so certain that this intuitive eating has made me gain masses of weight! I know that this is stupid and irrational and that I'm doing the right thing for my body, but I honestly don't care. I swear that every time I walk into that studio I look bigger. I can't even dance well because I feel like this new weight is just weighing me down. When I was twenty pounds lighter I could dance a lot more easily. I'm sorry for being so negative in all my recent posts! ED could be making me imagine all of this but he sure is good at making me believe it.

My dad was working late for dinner which means that me, my mom, and my sister had to have breakfast! We made orange french toast. I loved it, it reminded me of creamsicles! We only had crappy "lite butter" maple syrup, which I don't go for. So I topped my french toast with applesauce and a shmear of PB. Nom.

I also had a lot of this delicious fruit salad, made of strawberries, banana, grapes, canteloupe (which I avoided because it is vile!) and pinapple.

And for dessert I had a Thin Mint. At first I wasn't going to have any Girl Scout cookies because they have trans fat in them, but less than .5 g because it doesn't show on the label. Any food with trans fat is a major fear food for me. I convinced myself to have one because these only come once a year, and my dietitian/the girls in my group always tell me that there is no one food or ingredient that can make me fat. It was.. good. But not great.

Love you all lots! I'm off to do some HW and then watch GOSSIP GIRL!!! It's been too long... night!

Ballet!

2009-03-14T19:26:00.006-04:00

Hey hey, blogitas. Hope you enjoyed your Saturdays! Saturday is my favorite day because it's the only day where I really have no obligations and can do whatever I want.

I decided to change up my breakfast today. You might've noticed that I like to eat a lot for breakfast? I usually have fruit, a carb-y baked thing, a protein like cheese, and then oatmeal. I was thinking about it yesterday and it's quite unbalanced. I think that I tend to eat more volume than I should because I'm afraid of going hungry, which I suppose is common in anorexics. Of course I always end up feeling stuffed, but I hate feeling hungry after a year of starving myself. Anyway, today I decided to break ED's rule and have a smaller volume breakfast to see if it would hold me over. First I had an egg and an apple

Then Jemima's lemon oats again! Because they're too good. I added extra yogurt this time and topped it with blueberries and pecan walnut butter. Nom. I have to say that this didn't hold me over for as long as my normal breakfasts do. But maybe I was just super hungry this morning, so I'll give it a few more days.

A ha! For once I took a picture of my AM snack. I don't like to think about eating a snack so early, so I usually just have nuts so I can just eat them quickly and forget about it. They aren't too photogenic either.

Then I went off to ballet. Ballet was rather triggering for me today, unfortunately. Last year my class was working with an older class for our recital and one of the girls became my 'thinspo'. She's very thin, but I'm almost certain that she doesn't have an ED. Usually I don't see her because she's in the class after mine, but for some reason she came to my class today. Baaaaddd. When we were standing in front of the mirror I compared my almost-all the way touching thighs to hers, with a big gap between them. I almost cried. Thinking about how much I wanted to lose weight again interfered with my dancing. If only those damn mirrors weren't there! Usually I think being in ballet is healthy for me, but today was one of those days where it was obviously screwing up my recovery.

I don't know how this started, but my sister considers it some sort of tradition to go out to eat every Saturday. I hate fast food, it makes me feel so yuck! I got a vegetarian bowl (rice, black beans, lettuce, salsa, guac) from Maui Tacos again.

When I got home I had plain yogurt with cheerios and raspberries, which I considered part of lunch still.

My official snack was popcorn with grapefruit and more cashews hiding in the bowl.

Dinner was delectable. I made corn cakes, because we have a lot of frozen corn in the freezer. I used half white wheat flour and half AP and it turned out fine. I was expecting that these would turn out crispy and sort of like cornbread, they were more like really thick pancakes. I'm awful at making pancakes so they were undercooked, but it's okay because I love batter-y pancakes! I think next time I'll use 1/2 c less corn so they spread out more and cook more evenly. I had two + another I ate after the pic. I also had a really random salad of iceberg, kale, carrots, mushrooms, fried tofu and papaya poppyseed dressing.

Okay, this is a long post so I'll wrap it up. Enjoy your Sundays!

Tyrannical Geckos Invade Finland

2009-03-13T19:32:00.006-04:00

Happy Friday the 13th! Those Finlandians (??) sure are having a lot of bad luck, with those scary geckos and all. The geckos were tired of being mocked because of their Geico commercials.

I came home from school today to a very special delievery! My boxers from PJs for TJ! I got them in green.
Haaa I'm a horrible model! Anyway, you should all check out PJs for TJ because it's for a really good cause. The proceeds go towards helping underpriveledged kids stay out of drugs and gangs. And plus, my girl Erin is the CEO! I've been wearing them all day. Which says a lot because it's 66 degrees in my house right now.

I made the toppings for my oatmeal last night so I would have time to make it and I was sooo excited! I like chocolate covered pretzels. I like chocolate covered strawberries. Isn't there only one logical option? Dark chocolate covered strawberry pretzel oats! Omnomnom.

I don't know why I bother posting lunch. Oh wait, today my sammich was sunflower seed butter and HN Cheerios. My friends were quite disturbed by this. They said that a nut butter sandwich shouldn't crunch. HA.

Sorry that I've been eating almost the same thing for a snack every day! I had a whole wheat english muffin with cottage cheese + applesauce (go ahead, K), half a grapefruit, and sunflower seed butter. I like to slice grapefruits the wrong way so you can just pull the slices out with the membrane.

For dinner, I made nutty mushroom risotto. I've never made risotto before because it seemed like a lot of work. I admit that this was pretty labor intensive, a ton of stirring. It paid off though, because this was so delicious! I loved the crunchy texture the cashews gave, next time I'll tost them. We had some wine but I didn't want to ask my dad to open it, so I just used white grape juice. I think it made the whole risotto taste too sweet, so if I make this again I'll cut back on it or use real wine. It was sooooo creamy and delicious! I also had kale chippies.
This was a challenge food for me because I hate hate hate white rice! It bothers me to think that I'm not getting as much nutrition as I would be if I was eating whole grains. Also, I challenged myself to have more than one serving. The recipe says it serves 4, but I think it means 4 as a side. I put a quarter of the recipe on my plate and it was tiny, so I just took a third and it seemed like enough. I'm not letting myself calculate cals, but risotto is quite calorie dense so I'm sure that I ate a few hundred more cals that usual at dinner. I'm not feeling guilty now, I'm actually quite satisfied. Over the summer when I was in Italy, I usually ate risotto everyday and didn't gain on ounce. So why can't I eat it now? Exactly, no reason. I win.

My mood has been all over the place today. I started out feeling fat and depressed. Then when I was at school, one of my friends pinched my thighs and declared them as tiny. ED made me feel very proud of myself, of couse. At home when I was taking pictures of myself in the boxers ED was getting pissed off at me. I'm ashamed to admit it but I'm afraid that people will look at the picture and think my legs are fat. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!! Why am I so stupid? I think the day is going to end positively though, because of the dinner thing. I wish I could just have one day where my mood didn't depend on something as superficial as body size and calories. Then I would realize how lovely it is to live without ED and never ever go back.

I'm going to go start my new puzzle! Wheee. Nighty night!

Applesauce!

2009-03-12T19:06:00.004-04:00

I think that the blogging world is influencing my dreams! In my dream last night, I was over at my friend's house and she was mixing what appeared to be muffin batter in a bowl. I called her Erin, which is not her name, and asked what she was doing. Then she said "I'm making applesauce, of course!" I think I had this dream because Erin was talking about making homemade applesauce a little while ago lol. Applesauce is good (esp. if it looks like batter) so this was a nice dream!

Woke up on time today! Breakfast was rather boring because I don't have much time to make it on school mornings. But among other things, I had a bowl of oats topped with 1/4 chopped apple, honey nut Cheerios, and PB. Simple but scrum.

Someday, I will actually have a pic of my AM snack. For luncheroonis I had the usuallllll but sunflower seed butter instead of PB on my sammich. And Chobby Wob :]

I had group therapy today. Before I left I had an apple with cheese.
When I got home, I was hungryhungry so I had popcorn and pecan-walnut butter. I think it's amusing how before I started eating outside the lines, I only ate nut butters once a day but now I eat it at least three times..

For dinner we made a sort of southwestern-ish frittata. It consisted of 3/4 c cooked hash brown 'taters, 5 eggs, 2 tbs milk, 1/2 c cheddar cheese and 1/2 c jack cheese. Broiled for 4 minutes to cheesy, melty perfection! On the side I had kale chips and french bread.

I actually had this as a snack last night but I plan on having it again tonight because it's so yummy! It's "tart honey" froyo, made by Dreyers, topped with half a mashed micro'd nanner. This was inspired by the lovely Emily, froyo queen! You all should def. try this froyo. The honey isn't as overwhelming as it is in Haagen Dazs froyo, it's more honey swirled.

So group therapy today went well. I've said it before, but group therapy is much more helpful to me than individual. I feel like I'm just getting feedback from my friends, rather than being forced to tell my problems to a therapist I have no connection with. Anyway, for the last few days I've been feeling guiltier and guiltier. Not about the food though. Say I eat some milk chocolate (haven't actually, just an example). It's a big challenge food, but I'm fine with actually eating it. I don't start to feel guilty until a little while later, when ED starts telling me that I'm fat for not wanting to restrict after eating a fear food. So I feel guilty for not feeling guilty! So irrational! I talked about it in group today and it made me feel a lot better. The oldest girl in the group is, in my opinion, about 90% recovered so I really look up to her. She reassured me that this is normal in recovery and it'll all start to go away once I become more confident in myself, rather than my disorder.

That's is, pretty short post tonight. Good night!

Make sure you all enter the Purebar giveaway contest on An Apple a Day! Yummmm Purebars.

Late start

2009-03-11T16:15:00.010-04:00

Ello poppets. Hope you're all had a nice Wednesday! I really felt like it was Friday and I almost cried when my friend told me that we still had two more days to go. I need to add something amusing to my weeks, they just drag on forever!

This morning I woke up approximately 15 minutes before I actually needed to leave for school. Stupid alarm clock didn't go off. So I got dressed and did my hair (read: ponytail) and practically ran downstairs to have breakfast! I remember that whenever I used to run late I would skip breakfast over doing my hair or something. But now I know that I can't get through my mornings without some foodie in mah bellay so I made time to eat breakfast. While getting my things ready, I wolfed down una manzana con queso and a Zbar.

In the car, I had an unpictured PB sammich. I wish that I could've made an egg or something for more protein but I had no time. This make-shift breakfast held me over pretty well.

Then AM snack was usual. As was lunch, but I have a picture anyway. T'is a sunflower seed butter sammich, cauliflower, Wallaby peach down under yogurt, and another Zbar. Heehh.

My afternoon snack consisted of cottage cheese + applesauce on an english muffin, PB, and a Zico coconut water. Every time I saw another blogger with this I would go "Where did you find that? I've been looking everywhere and I can't find it!" But then I looked in the juice aisle of Whole Foods and it was there. Duurrr. It was really good! Very refreshing and "clean" tasting, and not rich like coconut milk is. I'll definitely buy it again.

And din dins was 2 slices of whole foods 4-cheese pizza. It was nummikins, I like when I can detect different kinds of cheese besides mozzarella. On the side, I had a salad made of kale/iceberg, strawberries, feta, kalamata olives, and OO & vinegar. I love strawberries and feta! Raw kale is rather strange though.

Oh wait one more peekture. This is totally a recylced pic but on the way to orchestra I had toast with sunflower seed butter and HN Cheerios. My mom said "Why do you eat so much?" and it didn't bother me!

Like I mentioned above, my orchestra started again tonight. The first season was from sept.-december and we had a really long break so some kids could play in the all county/ all state orchestras. Tonight was the first rehearsal of our second season. It went well, we got some decent music but nothing too memorable. I actually talked to a new girl, which is very rare because I'm awful at socializing. And she didn't run away like I always think people will! I was also talking to one of my friends that I met in the younger orchestra last year. She was kind of poking fun at me because I turn pink really easily when I laugh or get nervous. It's so embarrasing! But anyway, she said "At least it's better than the gray color you were last year." I've never told her about my ED, but I think it would be hard to not notice how emaciated I looked. My usual excuse whenever people bring up how I looked last year is something along the lines of I did ballet four times a week, that's why I always looked so exhausted and sidetracked. I recited that again tonight and my friend said "Oh, so is that why you were so skinny?" This made me really uncomfortable. I just said yes, because I don't feel comfortable telling people I'm not close with about my ED. Of course, it made me happy to hear that all my hard work I put into losing weight paid off. But now I'm dismissing those thoughts.

On the car ride home I started to think about how far I've come since last year. I was still sitting in orchestra one night a week. Last year, I sat shivering in the back row, hidden underneath my baggy sweater. Instead of focusing on the music, I was thinking "How am I going to burn off those 27 calories without Mom noticing?" or "How much of my dinner did I scrape into my napkin?" This year, when I'm playing, food is the last of my worries. I can actually concentrate on the music, and OH, I can laugh now! Even if I'm laughing at myself for getting hopelessly lost in the music, I can laugh. And it feels really nice.

Sorry for not doing much commenting tonight, I have to type up a works cited thingy. Night!

Armadillo?? I hate inventing clever titles.

2009-03-10T15:52:00.009-04:00

Evening, lovelies! Thank you all for the support and welcome back you gave me after my last post!

Today has been pretty good except when I was walking home from school I got my house key stolen from me! I accidentally left the back pocket of my backpack open a little, and I think my key must've been hanging out a bit. I felt a tug on my shoulders and then this kid ran out from behind me with my key in his hands. By the time I realized what he'd done he was already 20 ft. ahead of me and I wasn't going to make a fool of myself running after him! I live in such a lovely town. But why? What is the point of stealing someone's key if you don't even know where they live? Thankfully we have a key hidden in my yard so I was able to let myself in that way.

Okay, ze eats! This morning, I tried Jemima's lemon oats! They were amazing, as if there was any question about that. Very creamy, and a perfect balance between tart and sweet. I used regular raisins and topped it with a few bluebs and it worked well. Jemima is a genius!

AM snack was almonds, and lunchikins was: A pecan-walnut butter and cran apple butter sammich, cauliflower, a Zbar, and a Chobby Wob. Mehh, I'm not a nut butter and jelly girl.

After school, I had yogurt with strawberries and pretzels dipped in PW butter. I got the pretzels at Whole Foods this weekend. They used to be a fear food but they're so delish!

Dinnaahh was eaten in the car on the way to therapy (which I'm getting to..). I made tofu "egg" salad using 1/4 block firm tofu, 1 tbs OO mayo, and generous sprinkles of dill, garlic powder, pepper, and poultry seasoning. I ate some of it over lettuce, and the rest I spread on a WW english muffin. T'was yummy, one of my favorite things to do with tofu. I also had half a nanner with sunflower seed butter and some carrots.

On Sunday night, I split a sweet and sara vegan s'more with my mommy. I was so proud of myself for eating this. At first I was thinking that I never would because it doesn't have nutrition info on it and is pure sugar. But I warmed it in the micro and my fears melted away!

And as part of my snack yesterday, I tried a goji moji Weil bar. I quite like Weil bars. It doesn't say so on the packaging, but I think Weils are raw and have short ingredient lists like larabars. This bar was delicious! I liked the big chunks of cashews, crunch crunch. I have a hard time identifying goji berries by taste in bars because I've never eaten one raw, but you could clearly see the dried fruit in every bite. Not tart like certain Lara flavors.

Sooo tonight I had to go to therapy with my mom. For the record, I hate my therapist and the treatment center I go to. They are way to focused on weight and treat me like a walking eating disorder. In my session tonight, my therapist was criticizing me for being too controlling of our dinner menu. I know I'm too controlling, and as you'll read later, I'm working on it. But when I or my mom tried to bring up the progress I've been making lately, she ignored it and continued to badger me on why I was so afraid of losing control. It makes me so angry that she pushes me so hard, yet won't even acknowledge the steps I've taken to beat ED! Arg I HATE HER! But after therapy my mom and I had a nice little discussion. We both agreed that I need to relax when it comes to dinner menu- planning, so next week we're going to start planning it together. This way, I won't have to take on huge fear foods all of a sudden, but I'll still be getting out of my comfort zone and eating less than my "ideal" menu.

Good night!

Hey there, stranger. Mega-long post alert!

2009-03-07T19:04:00.010-05:00

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!

Kiwis and kale

2009-03-04T19:26:00.007-05:00

Helloooo blog world. It feels weird to me that it's Wednesday already because of my snow day on Monday. But whatever, the faster the days pass, the fast spring will come and we can get out of this horrible weather!

I suppose I'll start with food. This AM along with other stuff I had a bowl of oats topped with applesauce, candied ginger and a crumbled graham cracker. Mmm spicy good.

Snack was almonds, and lunch was the usual with a Stoneyfield Farms yogurt and sunflower seed butter instead of PB. I need to make a dip or something so I can have more interesting sammiches!

For my afternoon snack I made a smoothie! I used 1/3 of a double batch of CCV's vegan yogurt (I made it chocolate banana flava), 4 ice cubes, 1/4 c ricemilk, and 1/3 c raspberries. Haven't had a smoothie in a while and this was good! I also had honey nut cheerios, of course, and a kiwi.

Dinner was one of my favorites, blintzes! Me and my mom split a package of cheese flavored ones, yum yum Jewish food. I also had applesauce and tried Kath's kale chips. I've never had kale before and I'm glad I tried this recipe first! The kale was so crunchy, crispy, and fun to eat. I topped it with feta because I didn't add enough parm while I was cooking it.

And a dark chocolate Lindor for dessert! Yum.

Today was pretty sucky. I was struggling with negative body image a lot again. I was really trying to keep myself occupied like I did yesterday, and succeeded in that for some of the day. My teachers gave me a lot of homework today so I was happy to do it (never though I'd say that!) to keep me from thinking about weight, cals, etc. But there were some times when I just couldn't keep the negative thoughts away. I was walking though the halls today, actually making an effort to socialize, and BAM: "I need to lose weight again." Or during lunch, I was sitting with a big group of people (only two were my friends) and no one spoke to me. So I though "Fine, so no one likes me. I can at least accept myself if I just start restricting again.." I thought I was doing so well, with all the intuitive eating and not caring about calories. But I should have known, ED doesn't go away that easily!

And it didn't help that my best friend announced that she's going on a diet today. I was sitting next to her during lunch and she only ate one apple as her whole meal! I wanted to hit her! She's very athletic and has always eaten well to get through all her practices. She has no fat to lose. She knows that I have issues with "dieting" but made no effort to keep me from getting triggered. And I'm not just ticked about that, I'm worried about her! She'll probably be back to eating normally tomorrow, she's done it before, but I'm scared that she could go down the same road as I did. That's how I started out, just "eating healthy" to shed a couple of pounds. Look where it got me! She means a lot to me and I don't want her to have to live with thoughts like I have. Sorry for the rant but I don't know what to do!

Sleep tight!

Happy square root day!

2009-03-03T19:17:00.005-05:00

School = excellent distraction. I woke up this morning absoulutely loathing myself. We had a two hour delay because the roads were still icy so I had extra time in the morning. I actually stood in front of the mirror and pointed out every place where "If I just lost a bit of weight, that would look much better." It's really hard for me to get out of the body bashing mood when I'm at home, just sitting around, so I was glad to go to school for once! I didn't want to loose all the progress I've made in the past week or so, and as soon as I got to school I started trying to find ways to get out of my negative mindset. My English teacher said something about today being square root day (03 x 03 = 09) so my fixation became square roots. Every time a negative thought started to creep in, I looked around the classroom until I found a number and then figured out whether it was a perfect square or not. And if it wasn't I looked for another number, and another and another and another. Pretty strange, but it kept my brain occupied enough to get the ED voices out.

I also managed to distract myself by talking to one of my best friends. We don't have any classes together this semester so we haven't had a chance to catch up lately. She hadn't been responding to any of my texts so I was really worried that I had done something to make her not want to be my friend anymore! But I talked to her during lunch today and it turns out that she was just busy with tutoring and lacrosse. So I freaked myself out for nothing! I've lost most of my friends to ED and I'm terrified of losing the only ones I have left.

I'm feeling okay now. Not overly positive but I don't hate myself. I'm proud that I recognized that ED was trying to undo all the progress I've made with intuitive eating and replace it with restricting, and did something to stop it! Even if I did it in an extremely odd way, I proved to myself that my will to recover is much stronger than any of ED's pestering!

As part of breakfast today, I made gingerbread oats! I cooked my oatmeal in gingerbread tea, then added 1/2 tbs molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, bluebs, and a spoonful of toffee-oatmeal stuff from yesterday. Scrum.

AM snack was almonds. Lunch was a chocolate banana PB sammich, carrots, a Trek mix bar and Chobby Wob. I'm eating carrots this week because I forgot to buy cauliflower. But orange is a nice color, perhaps I wouldn't mind it?

It was so amazingly cold walking home today so when I got home I wanted something warm! I had a packet of Kashi cinnamon and something other, I forget, oatmeal with pumpkin (haha again with bad orange veggies) mixed in. I also had an apple with string cheesay.

May I just tell you how lovely it is to not have to eat dinner in the car on the way to therapy this week? Extremely. My mom suggested that I challenge myself with pizza one day this week and that day was today. She bought Mystic pizza. I hate hate hate the thought of packaged frozen pizza! So full of salt and refined flour.. This one didn't actually have any preservatives/HFCS/trans fats so I felt slightly better. I'm glad I challenged myself, since I used to like pizza like this a lot, but it was just okay. I could've made a better one! I also had a salad of lettuce, black beans, carrots, sundried tomatoes and papaya poppyseed dressing.

I decided that this was not enough food, so now I'm munching on a slice of toast with SSB and honey nut Cheerios! See my orange hand?? Teeeeeeeeeehh.

I have to admit, I'm feeling very accomplished with myself right now because I know I haven't eaten as much as I have been over the past couple days. I wasn't as hungry today, so I must be a few hundred cals under what I had yesterday and the day before. Urgggg, I can't wait until I feel accomplished over things that actually matter, like getting a job or volunteering, rather than how many calories I eat! Not that I've been counting though.

Thanks for reading my several rants! I'm going to watch bad TV, night!

I love you, weatherman!

2009-03-02T19:34:00.007-05:00

Normally I hate my weatherman because he always predicts lots of snow and school cancellations but then it doesn't snow one flake. But now I love him because we did actually get 4-5 inches of snow last night and school was closed! Yipee!

I knew I needed to bake as soon as I woke up haha. My mom's favorite food is raisins and I felt like being extra nice to her so I made really good vegan raisin scones. They were indeed really good! I love it when raisin-y baked goods actually have a decent amount of raisins in each bite. I used half white whole wheat flour and half all purpose and it was hard to tell.
I also made broiled grapefruit with honey, vanilla, and cardamom. My grandma sent us a bit of cardamom because she couldn't figure out what to do with it. I was skeptical of warmed grapefruit but this turned out really yummy. Especially with a scone and a cup of chai.
I was actually full after this, miracle of miracles! I decided to roll with it because I've been eating more lately anyway, and part of eating intuitively is stopping when I'm full.

Then I started to clean my room. I barely ever go in my room, I mostly live in the office and living room (oh wait, and kitchen!) and just use my room for sleeping. So various knick-knacks, sheets of paper, magazines, etc. tend to accumulate up because I'm never in my room to clean them up. But this morning I woke up and my room was so cluttered that it was giving me a headache! I cleaned for a solid two hours and now I can actually breathe when I walk into my room. While cleaning, I found a couple things from my elementary school days...
This is Phillip. He is a frog, in case you couldn't tell. I made him in kindergarten. Sometimes Phillip feels sad because all the other froggies shun his unnatural blue color :[

I felt a bit peckish around 10:30 so I had plain yogurt with bluebs and HN Cheerios.

When I finished cleaning I had lunch. If you all haven't noticed, I am officially obsessed with honey nut cheerios! So obviously I had to put them in a sammich.. today it was sunflower seed butter and HN cheerios, grilled on WW potato bread. Tehehehe so good! Also carrots, a trek mix bar and carrots. I miss carrots too much to stop eating them!

For my snackin' I had applesauce+cheese on a sandwich thin. With a spoon of PB and a kiwi!

Indian for dinner! We picked up whole wheat naan bread at TJ's the other day. Naan is my most favoritey favorite bread in the world so I was looking forward to dinner all day! I made curried channa (chickpeas) and peas to go with it. Green peas aren't Indian but whatever.

This afternoon me and my mom (my mom and I??) attempted to make Hurdy Gurdy's oatmeal bars. The hurdy gurdy is a strange instrument, but the name of the recipe is some inside joke between my mom and some guy she knew in college (she majored in music). It was a failure because I convinced my mom to use butter instead of shortening due to trans fat. We ended up with sort of a toffee-strusel, instead of chewy bars. It was mighty good on top of vanilla ice cream for dessert, however!

If you're still reading this, I love you. Today has been more difficult than the past few days have been. After lunch I started to get really hungry again so I did more snacking than what's in the picture. Now I feel guilty, like I'm having way too much food. I made myself play Wii sports for a long time and I did some workout moves that I haven't done since the worst of restricting to burn some calories off. But, I keep eating when I'm hungry. ED is really really pissed off at me right now. "You have an ED, and you feel guilty. You have an excuse to stop eating. So why won't you?" I know I won't, but I want to listen to him so badly! I know the positives to recovery far outweigh the negatives, but right now I don't especially care. ED is comfortable, restricting is comfortable. Eating anything I want without knowing whether I'm gaining is not comfortable.

Sorry for the negative post. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Good night, chicas!

Oh, and One Frugal Foodie is having an amazing, gigantic giveaway. Make sure you check it out!

Post #100

2009-03-01T19:14:00.007-05:00

So this is very strange. Back when I made my blog, I thought it would be a sort of an experimental thing where I could post my new recipes/ food finds when I felt like it. I had no idea that blogging would become such a huge part of my life! From comparing my first couple entries to the ones I've made recently, I can clearly see what a enormously positive effect blogging has had on my recovery. I've gone from having smallish, perfectly measured and portioned meals, to eating what and how much food I want, whenever I feel hungry. Also I can tell that blogging has really let my personality come out again. When I first started blogging I still wasn't completely aware of the fact that I could be my own person, not just an isolated ED-zombie. But I've slowly figured out what makes me me, and I really enjoy posting it on here! I'm sure that I never could've gotten to 100 posts if it wasn't for all the support, reassurance, advice, and laughs that you have all given me. So thank you!

For breakfast this morning I had an apple with cheese and another Puffin muffin. They have a slightly more pronounced PB flavor when they're room temperature.

I also had a bowl of coconut blueberry chai oats! I cooked my oatmeal in coconut thai chai tea, and topped it with plain yogurt, bluebs, and flaked coconut. Yummers.

For lunch, I made Fay's signature carrot & PB sammich, but used sunflower seed butter instead of PB. T'was delish. I also had a Voskos yogurt, trek mix bar, and a minneola.

I'm not feeling as starving as I was yesterday today, but I'm still pretty hungry today. Throughout the day I snacked on many handfuls of honey nut cheerios and a bit of dark chocolate. For my official snack, I had CC+applesauce on an english muffin. I had a spoon on sunflower seed butter on the side. When I first tried SSB I was like hmm, this is weird, how will I finish the jar? But it's growing on me and I really want some right now..

For dinnah I made broiled polenta with mushrooms and cheese. Omgz, so good! I didn't have porcini so I just used more regular shrooms. I like how mushrooms get all chewy when you cook them. On the side I had a big hunk of french bread and steamed spinach.

The thing I wanted to talk about yesterday is jeans. Jeans are scary for me because during the worse of my ED, I had several pairs of jeans that hung off of my bony frame, even with a belt. Even though I've gained weight, these couple pairs of jeans still fit me because they were so loose on me while I was restricting. But this past week, one pair ripped and another had a button fall off from too much wearing, I suppose. My mom told me that she would buy me a new pair or two. So yesterday after lunch, we went jeans shopping. I was emotionally attatched to the jeans that fell apart. Even though they weren't ED's ideal size, I still felt skinny enough wearing them because they were the jeans I wore when I had a really low BMI. So, I was really nervous to buy a new pair because I didn't want to have to see the size that ED equates with failure.

I ended up buying a size that I'm okay with. I was talking with Fay and told her that I thought it was because the store I bought them from was making their sizes larger. Fay then proceeded to knock some sense into my brain by telling me that no, it was not the store making their clothes bigger. It was me being small enough to fit the stupid things! I mean, just yesterday I said I noticed in ballet how skinny I looked. I wore the jeans today and gave myself a good look in the mirror. They are too loose. Obviously this makes ED very happy because it means that I'm getting "the attention I deserve" for being sick enough. But then I thought that loose jeans are not attractive on me. I have no butt, and who really likes that besides ED? What are the advantages to staying skinny enough to make these jeans hang off of me? None. My body won't be able to support children. I'll be too tired for ballet. I'll be too tired for cello. I'll spend my day thinking of ways to stay small enough to fit the jeans. I'll isolate myself again.

Conclusion: I have absoulutely no reason to base my self worth and mood on a pair of jeans. It may make me feel nice now to have loose jeans, but in the long run, it'll bring about many problems and I'll regret it.

Whew. All done. I'm crossing my fingers for a snow day tomorrow! It's supposed to start snowing around midnight and continue through til morning, accumulating 3-6 inches. Woopee! Good night, all!

What is WRONG with me?

2009-02-28T19:18:00.024-05:00

Ahhh girls, this makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time! I'm so so so ridiculously hungry! After I finish a meal, I'm only full for about five minutes and then I start getting hungry again. Seriously! All day I've been trying to eat when I'm hungry, but it's so difficult when I feel hungry enough to eat a full meal every single second. I'm okay with taking in the extra cals, surprisingly, because I know my body needs it for a reason. BUT in order to keep me from eating everything in the house I've been distracting myself by playing cello, doing puzzles, and reading, which kind of works. But as soon as I'm done my hunger comes back. I feel sort of better knowing that my metabolism is probably burning up right now though :] And thank you all for your reassurance.

The other day I mentioned that I would be baking muffins this weekend using one of food bloggers' favorite products. I woke up really early this morning so I had time. We've had this box of PB Puffins sitting in the pantry for a really long time, so I wanted to use them up and buy a fresh box today. And we also had a lot of apples. So, without further ado, I give you: apple-Peanut Butter Puffin muffins!
Ingredients:

1 1/4 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c brown sugar
1 heaping cup applesauce
1 small apple, finely diced
1 egg
1 c PB puffins, slightly crushed

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
In a smaller bowl, combine the brown sugar, applesauce, egg, and apple. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir in the Puffins.
Scoop into 10 greased muffin tins.
Bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes.

Heehh I'm so proud of myself. The puffins actually dissolve when the muffins are cooked fully and just give a touch of peanut-buttery sweetness. I think next time, I'll either add more puffins, crush them less, or add a couple tbs of peanut butter to get a stronger PB taste. But these are very moist and the chunks of apple are nice.

I also had an apple with cheese. Anddd a bowl of oats topped with Honey nut cheerioes (new obsession), bluebs, and PB. Simple and delicious.

Then I went off to ballet. It went well! I think all this extra food is making me much more positive! I was sort of expecting that ED would start going off about how I've gained tons and tons of weight from eating when I'm hungry, but he didn't. And I saw myself as how I really look. So yay! We went to the mall for lunch (arg! hate fast food.) and I went to Maui Tacos. As far as fast food goes, MT is pretty healthy. I got the vegetarian bowl, which was: brown rice, lettuce, homemade salsa, black beans, and guacamole. I ate all but the chips.

Then I went to Trader Joe's, yayz! It was really crowded today and the lines were super long. And since TJ's has such fabulous customer service, they were giving out samples of chocolate chip almond cookies to everyone standing in line. I was ravenous, so of course I had to have one and they're delish! No pic, sorry. When I got home, I had a NP granola bar and some TJ's japanese rice snacks and counted it (except I didn't count) towards lunch. The rice snacks are made of puffed mochi rice and are covered with a sweet-salty soy coating. They're really good. Crunch crunch.

For my actual snack, I had a micro'd apple dipped in sunflower seed butter and two multi grain rice cakes w/ melted cheese. I picked the SSB up at Trader Joe's today and I quite like it. It taste similar to PB, but not as sweet. It's hard to describe, it has a darker, more complex flavor than PB.

For dinner, I made pasta faggioli. This was amazing even though it turned out like stew. I think next time I'll use a lot less water. I also had peas!

The lovely Kailey tagged me to show my favorite spring fashion.
I don't possess a great sense of style, like some of you. I like spring fashion though, because it gives me lots of opportunity to wear girl patterns, namely florals and paisley! I love watches, little drop earrings, and pretty purses. I like to wear pastel button-ups, as well as flowy blouses. I also wear a lot of white because it's fresh and pure like spring! I made the bracelet on the bottom for NEDAW after I ran out of purple shirts! It's just a simple Chinese staircase. NEDAW is almost over, but I think I'll wear this bracelet forever! Now I tag the following bloggers to do their own spring fashion posts:

Lastly, Jemima, Morgan, Sophia and Mel tagged me with this award. I feel so loved, thank you girls!
I wish I could pass this award on to all of you, but that would take waayyy too long. So, this time, I choose Mel, Erin ,Fay ,Emily.

I have something to talk about but this has been a really long post, so I'll save it for tomorrow. Nighty night!

Talented gorillas ingest figs

2009-02-27T19:34:00.006-05:00

The gorillas are talented because I'm pretty sure that there are no figs to be found in tropical forests, so they must have been produced by magic!

Thank you all for the tremendous amount of support you gave me on my post yesterday! Starting intuitive eating and quitting calorie counting has been the biggest ED-bashing step I've taken so far, and it means the world to me to have people encouraging my positivity and reassuring me. And I'm glad you all liked my diary entry, it was sort of a challenge to post something so personal.

Oh and I got a comment from an anonymous commenter asking how I quit binging last year. The answer is that I quit binging as by starting restricting. I was always used to being kind of small and so I was really upset over the decent amount of weight I had gained from my binges. So that's when my restrictive diet began, and before I knew it I was only eating a tiny amount of food and couldn't convince myself to start eating more. You know how it goes. So, I'm sorry that I don't have any advice for combating binging, but don't try restricting instead! Bad idea!

Today has been rather difficult. I've been really energetic and positive all day today, probably due to all the extra food yesterday. But I've also been so amazingly hungry! I feel hungrier than I think I ever have in my life. It's killing me, because while I've been honoring my hunger and eating what I'm craving, ED is telling me that I'm eating a ridiculous amount of food and I'm going to binge and gain a bunch of weight again. Today in between meals and snacks, I've had an apple with cheese, lots of handfuls of assorted cereals, PB, dark chocolate, and walnuts. I just finished dinner and I'm still hungry. I'm scared, what's wrong with me? Is it possible for your metabolism to speed up a lot after just one day of eating more than usual? I'd really like to believe that, because ED is freaking out right now by telling me that all this intuitive eating is going to make me blow up overnight. I'd really appreciate some insight on this.

For my usual bowl of oatmeal today, I was in sort of a rush and just threw on some random toppings. They ended up being a crumbled graham cracker, bluebs, and dark chocolate chips.

Snack was almonds, of course. We had a half-day at school today so the teachers could work on our interims. I came home and made myself a grilled pesto, spinach and mashed black bean sammich. It was delish. I also had a minneola, NP granola bar, and a Stoneyfield Farm strawberry yogurt.

Fay suggested that I curl up in a pillow nest with a mug of hot chocolate to watch one of my favorite movies. That's exactly what I did, and I'm so glad I did! It provided some much needed relaxation. Bonus points to whoever can guess the movie!
I used ghiradelli dark chocolate hot cocoa mix, made with milk. Liquid calories have progressively become more and more of a fear food since I quit drinking Boost. So I challenged ED today and had the cocoa (topped with whipped cream!) and it was amazing. I also had popcorn, because what's a movie without popcorn?

Tonight for dinner, I made cheese grits souffle. Whenever my mom sees me looking at recipes she starts going blah blah blah, grits blah blah blah yummy blah blah. I think she's mentioned them enough so I finally made some! Grits aren't really a Maryland thing but oh well. This was pretty good, but it didn't rise properly. It reminded me of polenta so obviously I had to like it haha.
I had seconds... and also a salad made with lettuce/spinach, black beans, carrots (I know I know!!), and papaya poppyseed dressing.

If you haven't already, make sure you enter Katie's Jocalat bar giveaway! I make CCV's recipes all the time, but for the sake of getting three extra entries I'll show you a pic tonight :] I made vegan yogurt, using 1/2 a banana and 1 tbs cocoa powder. It's not overly sweet, but I'm a fan of raw cocoa so it works for me! Here it is, in it's tupperwared glory

That's all for now! Good night, sleep tight!

First time in...

2009-02-26T19:11:00.012-05:00

Evening, lovely love muffins. Speaking of muffins! I have a muffin idea in my head for this weekend. Involving one of the food blogging world's favorite products. But that's all I'm saying for now :]

The exciting part of this post comes soon, but first I'll post a pic of my oatmeal this morning. It was topped with TJ's chai tea mix and half a caramelized nanner.

And for lunch I had a PB sammich, cauliflower, Nature Valley granola bar, and a vanilla Chobby Wob.

This afternoon afterschool I was reading the lovely Mel's blog in which she talks about eating intuitively and giving yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want. I mentioned yesterday that I was having difficulty eating when I was hungry (thanks for the stellar advice, btw) so this post couldn't have come at a better time! It really struck a chord with me how Mel said "...when you deny your body what it's REALLY craving and give it something else instead, you will never be satisfied and then just end up bingeing later on what you wanted in the first place. By giving yourself what you want to begin with, with NO emotional baggage associated with the food, you cut down on the guilt, and thus cut down on the binge/restrict cycle."

I was feeling really starving today for some reason. I was sitting at the computer thinking "okay, you can have your snack at 3:30 before you leave for group. No more." But then I read Mel's post today and a lightbulb went off! I can't expect that recovery is going to come to me without any work. I won't just be able to wake up one morning and be totally in touch with my body, and give it all of and the right type of food it needs. I have to actually practice honoring my hunger consistently, so that becomes my new "normal" diet, rather than restricting what I really want to eat. This disorder has already taken so much from me, I can't let it take away anymore TIME by waiting for recovery to come.

Then I was reading through my diary from early September, 2007. I had just gotten through a couple months of binging after the event that triggered my ED. I'd already been struggling with disordered thoughts for a few years. But a very shortened version of my diary entry is: "You don't have to be skinny to be anorexic. I weight ___ lbs, so I'm not exactly a stick. A lot of guys at my school weigh more than I do. I've dropped my calorie intake to ___ cals a day. In front of my parents and friends, I have to force myself to eat. The thought of consuming anything but water disgusts me. I HATE EATING! I picture my ideal weight at ___. I pick my flaws out in the mirror every day. I swore that I would never do something like this to myself. But I can't help it. This may not seem like a serious problem now because of how much I weigh, but I think that if this goes on I might have a serious problem. I do sort of wish someone would notice I have a problem. I'm tired of being invisible. I need other people to recognize that I'm not always so rational and composed on the inside. I need to be skinny."

Little did I know that a few months later I'd be facing hospitalization for being so underweight. Anyhow, I remember that while I was writing this, I was realizing for the first time that my days of eating carelessly were over. I could no longer eat when I was hungry, without counting cals. I was already so consumed with my disorder that I couldn't be convinced that restricting my body of what it needed was not a way to get noticed, or to feel better about myself for more than a few hours. As I was reading this over, I came to the conclusion that I haven't eaten intuitively in a year and a half. So what way to better mark that by breaking the bad habit? That's right. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted, without paying attention to cals.

ED wants me to be embarrased for posting how much I've eaten today, but I refuse. Before I left for group I had a bowl of honey nut cheerios with milk. ED started butting in and jabbering about how it was too sugary for a snack but I brushed him off. In the car to group, I had a string cheese and apple, then after group I had a dark chocolate raspberry almond Quaker True Delights bar. When I got home, I was ravenous, for some reason. I guessed that it might be because of a lack of protein and fat, so I made a bowl of plain yogurt with 1/2 a banana, PB puffins, and a spoon of PB.

And guess what? I didn't feel guilty eating these. At all. In fact, I felt proud that I was respecting my natural hunger signals and not depriving my body of what it needed. I'll admit, for a couple of minutes, I was worried that this would turn into a binge. Even though my binging only lasted a few months, it was one of the most painful things I've ever been through and don't want it back. But I stopped, drank a glass of water, and thought that I was legitimately hungry, I wasn't eating for emotional reasons or because I was bored.

I am on a calorie counting-free snacking high right now like you wouldn't believe! I talked about this at group today and everyone was so happy for me, which just made me feel even better.

I wasn't feeling like I had already eaten too much when it was dinner time. I steamed some cauliflower, spinach, and mushrooms. Then I put them in a ramekin, topped them with tomato sauce and cheese, and shoved it in the over. Pizza veggie-bake! Delish. On the side, I had some grilled tofu and a slice of toast with PB. I had more PB because I could and was craving it.

I haven't counted cals at all since my snacks this afternoon. It's so liberating, why did I do it in the first place? And wow, I never realized how much brain space it takes up! I'm feeling a small tinge of guilt now, which I suppose is expected them first time. I think I just need to practice this more and it will get easier. And also maybe one person to tell me that I'm doing to right thing.

Good night!

Breaking news!

2009-02-25T19:06:00.006-05:00

Okay guys, I'm so proud of myself. I've been practicing Wii sports tennis since Christmas almost every day. And I'm happy to say that today, I reached pro level! Chicka chicka yeah! 1021, mmmhmm. Now I feel really lame because the rest of you are posting about how you just ran eight miles.

In other news, did you know that Santogold changed her name to Santigold? Aparently some jeweler called Santo Gold threatened to sue her if she didn't change her name. I'm sad because Santogold has a much nicer ring to it than Santigold.

My bowl of oats this morning was topped with the last of my freeze dried acai-bananas, blueberries, and dark chocolate chips. Yummers. Must buy more freeze dried nanners.

As usual I have no picture of AM snack. For lunch, I had the usual PB sammich, a minneola, a TLC bar, and Stonyfield Farms "people's choice" pomegrate berry yogurt. There was some online voting a couple months ago for a new yogurt flavor. I voted for one of the whole milk flavors but obviously more people voted for non-fat. This was nice, I liked that the fruit was mixed in rather than clumped at the bottom.

I was hungryhungryhungry after school today, which means I had popcorn! I topped it with cinnamon and had a bowl of plain yogurt w/ bluebs for some purple.
I also had a multi grain rice cake with a tbs better N PB and applesauce. Much better than plain! I don't know why I'm holding it so awkwardly in the pic.

My dad was working late again tonight, which means that me, my mom, and my sister had to have breakfast for dinner! We made gingerbread pancakes using a Hogdston Mills mix. I had one topped with maple syrup, one with a bananarama, and one that I added applesauce to after the pic. Pancake day was yesterday but they still tasted delicious today!
While sitting down to blog I had a string cheese, that I'm counting as the protein part of my dinner.

This picture is actually from last night's snack but I'm going to have it again tonight. It's Stoneyfield Farms cookies n dream (full fat!) ice cream. It's soooo yummy! I don't like plain chocolate ice cream but adding chunks of chocolate cookies to vanilla is amazing.

I've noticed a couple of bloggers saying how they've been hungrier than usual lately, and I have been too. I don't know if it's because my metabolism has sped up, because I haven't weighed myself recently and don't know if I've lost weight. It could also be because I'm lacking in fat/protein/fiber/something else and don't feel full as much as I should. But in any case, I've been having a really difficult time honoring my hunger. When I start to feel hungry, I usually just drink water or have a stick of gum to kill it off for a bit. Either that, or I have a bite of fruit. So, I've basically been sitting with my hunger, allowing it to distract me from my schoolwork, cello, studying, etc. I know this is ridiculous and irrational but I'm still so afraid that if I go over my set calorie limit, I'm going to gain weight. I don't know what to do! I want to give my body all the food it needs, but I can't convince myself that a couple extra calories on normal days (like when I'm not going out to eat) won't add up and make me gain. Arrrrrg advice would be much appreciated.

Now I'm off to... I don't know. I might watch some crappy TV with my mom. Night!

I hate word verification!!!

2009-02-24T20:32:00.005-05:00

Ack, I hope this problem with word verification gets fixed soon! I've only been able to comment on about three Blogger blogs today because whenever I click publish, a window pops up that says "loading" but never does load, which keeps my comment from getting published.

Breakfast featured a simple but delicious combination of oats topped with half a banana (didn't have time to micro it!), bluebs, and dark chocolate chips.

No picture of my almond-y AM snack as it was scarfed down in the locker room. For lunch, I tried a peach passion down under Wallaby yogurt. Yay, another score for Wallaby! Usually I don't like fruit on the bottom yogurt too much because the "fruit" is actually more like overly sweet syrup. This was nice though because the peaches weren't sweetened and they were in chunks so the yogurt had nice texture.

For my after school snack, I had a bowl of natural popcorn, and plain yogurt w/ half a banana and blueberries. I also had two spoonfuls of Better N' Peanut Butter. This has been sitting in my pantry since last May or so, when I was still restricting. I never got around to eating it because first, it was too high carb for me to eat. Then, I started gaining weight and it became too low cal! But I've been seeing it pop up on a bunch of blogs lately so I figured I'd try it. It was good. But sure didn't taste like PB! More like PB mixed with jelly, or coffee. I think I may have to eat it in ways other than straight up on the spoon.

Dinner had to be eaten in the car between cello and therapy. I had a block of silken tofu going bad in the fridge and was craving quinoa. So I cooked up 1/4 c quinoa and meanwhile made a quarter of CCV's quiche soup. When the quinoa was cooked, I tossed it with some EVOO, 1/2 c cauliflower and a bit of green pepper. Then I mixed the quinoa with the quiche soup to create... Cheezy Cauliflower Quinoa! Vegans- aren't you proud of me?? A meal without eggs or dairy! And it tasted good.
On the side I had PB puffins and an unpictured nanner.

As previously mentioned, I went to my cello lesson today. It was lovely because I played suite 1 from Bach's unaccompanied cello and that's one of my favorite pieces eva! Then I went to therapy and it was good, because I actually felt like talking to my therapist for once. I didn't mention this before because I didn't want to jinx anything, but my group therapist and individual therapist had been discussing cutting down on my individual. I told my group therapist that I felt pressured to say things that weren't true in individual, and that I had made much more progress on my own and with the group than with my therapist. So my therapist and group leader talked, and decided that I can cut individual down to every other week now! I'm so happy, this is the first "reward" I've gotten for making so much progress on my own.

Also. The girl in my orchestra who I was talking to about stupid cleanse diets wore purple tops and shoes yesterday and today. I don't know if she likes purple, or if she's aware that it's NEDAW! I'll try to get up the nerve to ask her if she's wearing purple again tomorrow.

Nighty night, lovelies!

Give me my Larabar!

2009-02-23T19:23:00.006-05:00

Okay, so I had one of the worst dreams I've ever had last night! I was in gym class, and my stupid teacher was making us do math equations in class. It was ridiculous- we were in our gym uniforms and all and he was making us do math worksheets! So I decided to be rebellious and not do my math equation. I was putting my (apple pie, favorite!) Larabar up to my mouth to eat it and my gym teacher swooped out of nowhere and took it from me! He got really angry and started yelling at how I didn't have any special privileges and had to do double math problems now. It was very realistic, but thank goodness it didn't really happen!

Anyhow. Among other things for brekky I had a bowl of oats topped with applesauce, candied ginger, and a crumbled graham cracker. One of my favorite combos.

No pic of AM snack. Lunch was a chocolate banana PB sammich, cauliflower, a Rachel's yogurt, and a Nature's Path hemp granola bar.
My friends were not accepting of my switch from carrots to cauliflower. One of my idiotic guy friends sniffed it and declared "It smells like vegetables!" Rachel's yogurt is my favorite but I had never tried the pomegranate acai flavor before today. It was very good, but I'm depressed because they discontinued Rachel's at my supermarket to sell stupid freaking coconut milk yogurt. Gr gr gr. And the hemp bar was excellent too, nice and chewy with big chunks of dried fruit!

Before I left for ballet today, I had a string cheese and a minneola, which according to my grandma the botanist, is part of the tangerine family. Then after ballet, I had a Zbar and a string cheese. Yes, that is two string cheesay easays. I need all the protein for maintaining my super strong muscles!

Ballet went okay. I was sort of beating myself up over my appearance but I had to stop because my muscles hurt so badly! I hate ronde de jambe en lair. It seems that every other class I feel okay about my body, and the other classes I hate myself. When does it end?

For dinnah, we made quiche cups again. This time we used more mushrooms and less peppers. On the side, I had the rest of the veggie filling that was leftover and two slices of french bread. I've had a ton of protein today but whatevs. Aw crud I just said whatevs! I have sunk down to the level of an eleven year old, lip gloss-wearing, Hannah Montana-watching teeny bopper.

My grandma the botanist is also a crocheter/knitter. She wrapped a vase she sent my mom for her birthday in a pretty orange shawl-y thing. My mom didn't want it so I claimed it for my own! Yay, orange!
I was attempting to look elegant in this but I look confused and cold because I had just walked home from school. Failure. Ignore the toilet paper roll in the backgroud. And the trashcan.

Today in orchestra in school I was talking with another cellist in my section. We have a weird friendship, we like to torture eachother verbally. It sounds awful and strange but this girl is one of my best friends! Anyway, we were having an argument today, I forget what it was about. But it ended with her saying "HAHA, but then I'll snap your twiggy legs!" See what I mean? I'm used to it though. But her comment really smacked something into perspective. ED tells me that my legs are fat and blobby almost every day. Yet today, one of my best friends who I trust with everything, called them twigs. ED distorted my vision so much that I couldn't see the thing that's clear to every other person. From this I infer that ED is a meanie lying manipulative jerk and should not be trusted at all. So haha, I win.

Also, the stupid word verification thing on Blogger won't let me post comments for a lot of people. If any of you have the type of layout where comments get posted at the bottom of each post and a little window for word verification pops up when you click publish, then I can't comment on your blog. I really really want to though, so hopefully this gets fixed soon! Yesterday I noticed comments from Cortni and Pammy, and I just want to say how much I appreciate your comments. It makes me feel so happy to know that new people have found my blog and enjoy reading it! I can't comment back though until word verification gets fixed.

Now I'm going to go cry because there is no new Gossip Girl tonight. I have to actually do my research now!

Hangry Pants is hosting a granola giveaway. Don't forget to enter!

Confessions of a grocery shop-a-holic

2009-02-22T19:24:00.008-05:00

Evening, chicas! I'm feeling much better than I was yesterday. I wonder if there will always be days like yesterday for me, where I wake up hating myself, food, and my body. I wonder if I'll ever be able to be comfortable with who I am, and not have my mood revolve around something as pointless as losing weight and being skinny.

For breakfast, I had some leftover aebleskiver dipped in applesauce. Still yummy, even after sitting in the fridge overnight!
I also had an apple with cheese, then pumpkin pie oats! I added 1 crumbled whole grain graham cracker, 1/4 c pumpkin, cinnamon, and dark choco chips on top of my oats. One of my favorites.

No picture of my AM snack, because it was almonds. It's almost always almonds, which is why I never bother to take a picture! For lunch I was craving peanut butter like mad. Since applesauce has been one of my obsessions lately, I made a grilled PB+applesauce sammich on whole wheat potato bread. Excellent, I'll have to try this combo again! I also had plain yogurt, carrots, and a TLC bar.
Okay, now don't laugh, but I'm turning orange from eating too many carrots! I think I've had carrots at least once a day for the past year and a half. When I was at the doctor's the other day, the nurse looked at my hands and said "Did you use spray tan or something? Your hands are really orange." Um no, that's the actual color of my hands.. it was quite embarassing. So today was my last day of eating carrots/pumpkin for a while. I need the orange in my hands to go away, and prevent it from spreading to the rest of my body! So if you ever see me eating carrots on here, scold me.

After lunch I went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic with my sister. I liked it, it was sort of dumb, but funny and entertaining. Then we went to WHOLE FOODS! This is where the grocery shopaholic part of my title comes into play. I could easily spend hundreds of dollars at WF, but today I just bought a few things and only spent $30! Yipee!

When I got home from the movie, I had a snack of an apple with cheese and a KLP Larabar.

For dinner, I made garlic and parmesan mashed red potatoes. I haven't had mashed taters in a really long time, and these were soo good! I can understand why Jemima named her blog after them!
On the side, I had a Quorn chicken cutlet with OO, cumin, garlic, and oregano; and some peas in the pod.
For the past few nights for my night time snack, I've been having soy delicious chocolate PB ice cream. It doesn't taste exactly like dairy ice cream, but it's still addicting!

That's all, good night darlings!

P.S. School is tomorrow. Yuck. I hope I faint again.

Birthday Fun!

2009-02-21T21:32:00.006-05:00

Well, kind of. I woke up this morning feeling quite low. I was in a very negative, body-hating mood and I couldn't do anything to distract myself. I was really focused on how stupid I was to even try to recover anyway, to try to leave ED. This feeling held over through ballet, which just made the body image and comparing myself a million times worse. Arg.

But, today was my mom's birthday so I had to act smiley and positive all freaking day! I suppose it was for the better, so I wouldn't have been able to isolate myself and let the ED feelings grow. For breakfast, I made aebleskiver! For those of you who don't know, aebleskiver are a Danish breakfast treat. You fry them in a special pan that kind of looks like a round muffin pan. They taste like puffy buttermilk pancakes! Me and my mom are Danish so I asked for the pan for Valentines day, tehe. I added a bit of sliced apple in mine. Yay, look how cute and bite-sized they are!
I had a couple dipped in applesauce.
I also had another apple with cheese and blueberry crumble oatmeal! I topped my oats with micro'd bluebs, a crumbled vanilla gingersnap, and a splash of vanilla soymilk. Soo good.

For lunch after ballet, me and my sister went to the mall. I have already expressed my hatred of fast food. I got Subway (veggie delite w/ provolone on wheat). That is totally not a recycled picture. Really.
I had baked lays on the side, then when I got home I had an apple and dark choco chips.

My snack was a repeat of yesterday, except cauliflower instead of a tangerine. I love applesauce and cottage cheese! It tastes yummy and keeps me full foreva.

For her birthday dinner, my mom choose to go out to Mi Rancho. They didn't have many veggie options, so I ended up getting vegetable fajitas. They were made of sauteed zucchini, carrots, onions, mushrooms, and a bit of bell pepper. I wrapped them in two delish homemade tortillas, and topped them with a bit of guacamole. Not the normal Mexican veggies, but very yummy! On the side, I had some refried beans. No pic because I didn't want to make my mom feel uncomfortable on her birthday. For some reason, I never have any problem eating out. I can't stand it when one of my parents cooks for me, but ED is totally okay with letting me go to restaurants. I guess I just convince myself that it's okay to eat out on special occasions like this. I actually managed to enjoy myself, and didn't let myself start calculating calories. So yay!

When we got home, we digested a bit and then had cake. My mom requested a raspberry cake without chocolate in it, so I made this recipe with modifications. I stirred in the raspberries instead of just putting them on top, and made a buttercream icing instead of a glaze. It was good, but a tad dry. My mom liked it though.

My good mood was ruined right before we had cake. My dad got ticked off at me over something stupid, and my mom got angry at him for getting angry at me. Then I got mad because I hate to see other people mad! I'm actually sort of at the point where I feel very satisfied when I upset my dad, but that's another story. But I felt really bad that my mom wasn't enjoying her birthday cake as much as she should have, so then I didn't want to eat mine either. I hate eating when I'm upset. So, there was a very tense atmosphere at the table and I found it really hard to eat. I only ate half my piece of cake.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekends! I'm off to do my puzzle and listen to Celtic music haha.

Teenagers Gnaw Icy Froyo

2009-02-20T19:45:00.008-05:00

Evening, blogland! Sorry for not posting or commenting yesterday. Most of my teachers decided to tell me that all the work I missed while I was sick was due by today, so I spent all day and night doing that yesterday! I think I'm mostly caught up on commenting though.

Thanks for your advice on how to eat at parties. I'm sorry to say that I ended up not eating anything. While everyone else was socializing and eating cake, I was sitting by myself with no food. I'm sure that attracted more attention to me that I would have gotten if I had been eating though. Gur. I talked about it at group and the other girls said that it just comes with practice, yipee.

This morning for breakfast I topped my oats with freeze dried acai bananas, the last strawberry, and dark chocolate chips. T'was yum.

No pic of AM snack or lunch as they were boring. For my afternoon snack, I had a whole wheat english muffin with CC and applesauce, walnuts, and a tangerine. This is now my favorite snack!

Since both my dinner from last night and my dinner from tonight were scrumptious, I'll show you both. Last night, I made quinoa stir fry with spinach and walnuts. I love putting nuts in grains!

Tonight, I made soft oven baked polenta. Polenta is my new obsession! It's so creamy and filling. I used a combo of feta and parmesan for the cheeses. I accidentally forgot to take the lid off the baking dish so it was soupy, but still delish. You should all try polenta.
I also had a side salad made of lettuce, carrots, sundried tomatoes, cucumber, and papaya poppyseed dressing.

So far tonight, I've had a very oddly shaped yellow plum from Harry and David. It was really yummy and juicy.

Today in orchestra we were chilling out because we packed up our instruments a couple minutes early. I heard two girls talking about how their friends were going on a detox diet. They said that one of their friends thought she needed to lose weight, and their other friend was just following along to be healthy. This is where I jumped in the conversation, and they didn't seem to mind. We all started venting about how unhealthy detox diets are, how they deprived you of protein and fat. Then we were talking about how it sucks that every girl has such low self-esteem that they feel the need to diet to feel better about themselves. It makes me so upset that there are girls out there who are starting down the same path as me, just dieting to "cleanse" and be healthy. I took eating healthy too far though, which ultimately lead to my ED and I don't want it to happen to anyone else! I am happy though that there are some girls who realize how stupid teenage dieting is and know that it's not the way to make yourself happy. I sort of suspect that one of the girls has/has had an ED, but I don't exactly want to ask.

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday, and we may or may not be going out for dinner. I don't know if I'll have time to post. There will definitely be cake :]

Night!

Being sick is boring!

2009-02-18T19:07:00.004-05:00

Thanks for all the get well wishes, everyone! For those of you who asked the fainting was probably a combination of my fever, the chills I was having, and dehydration. The doctor said I should have at least one more day off of school so my mom just let me sleep today. I must've been really tired, because usually I wake up at 6:30 automatically and today I didn't wake up until 8! I had an awful headache and backache, and just felt really tired all over. I probably could have made it to school, but I doubt I would have been able to concentrate. I will be going back tomorrow. I spent most of the day emailing my teachers trying to make up work, I'm such a dork!

Among other things for breakfast, I made an old favorite: gingerbread oats. 1/2 tbs molasses, sprinkles of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger, and topped with blueberries that are actually purple.

For my AM snack I had some fruit leather and puffins, no pic. I've had a jar of chocolate soynut butter sitting in my pantry for the longest time. I tried it once and didn't like it very much, but I need to use it up eventually so I tried it again today. I grilled it on WW potato bread with some sliced strawberries and it was pretty yummy! I am convinced that grilling any sammich makes it taste a million times better! I also had a vanilla Chobby wob, sliced apples, and a TLC bar.

We had a lot of bananas getting ripe so I used them to make cookies! Or, I don't even know if I should call them cookies because they're refined sugar-free and I want to eat them for breakfast. Oooh I know, I'll call them Healthy Breakfast Oatmeal Cookies! Sorry I don't have a better picture, but I ate them with cottage cheese + blueb and an orange.
Ingredients:

2 c oats (I used a mix of 4 grain and old fashions. I'm not sure how quick would work)
1 c whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 c + a couple extra tbs as needed applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 c molasses
1/4 c honey
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 chopped banana

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine all ingredients with a spoon. Drop by heaping tablespoonfulls onto a greased cookie sheet.
Bake in batches of a dozen for 14-15 minutes per batch. Remove from pan and let cool completely.

They were pretty yummy, for something that I came up with! Not too sweet, which is good because I don't really want to eat them for dessert. I liked the hunks of banana. I think I'll experiment on this later.

For dinner we made a spinach and cheese fritatta. Yes, I realize this is almost exactly what I ate for dinner last night. I don't care. The fritatta was made of 5 eggs, 2 tbs of milk, 1/2 c parmesan cheese, pinches of salt and pepper, about 4 c of spinach, and 2 slices of cubed mozarella. Combined the eggs, milk, parm, salt and pepper, dumped it over wilted spinach in a skillet, topped with mozarella, and broiled it for 3 minutes. It was delish. I also had two slices of French bread.
And an apple plus melted Zbar goodness. I love me some carbs, probably too much. But I'm sick so I can eat what I want.

Soo tomorrow I'm having a class party, I forget the reason why. I can't eat at these things for the life of me. I wish I could just eat and enjoy myself, but ED always bugs me. Eating spontanesouly is the worst for me. And it doesn't help that I have no friends in my class to socialize with. It just makes me even more nervous to have to make smalltalk to people I don't even know, and I feel like they're judging what I'm eating. Do any of you have tips for eating at parties like this?

See you all in dreamland!

ER Adventures! Ish.

2009-02-17T13:49:00.008-05:00

Something very scary happened to me today. Early this morning, I guess around 3 or 4:00, I started getting chills. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and a had to curl up into a ball under my covers to keep warm. I got up eventually and went to the bathroom because I was really thirsty and needed a drink. After I'd gotten my drink, I started blacking out. I grabbed onto the sink thinking I could just wait it out. I woke up lying down, and at first I thought I was in my bed again. Then I though no, my bed is not hard and cold! Then I remembered that I had been blacking out and realized I must have fainted onto the bathroom floor. I don't know how long I was unconscious. It was dark in my bathroom, but I thought it was because I had already turned the light out. But, I was still blacked out from fainting and didn't realize it. I got up, grabbed onto the doorframe and yelled "Mom, Dad! I think I just fainted!" My dad was walking down the hall to wake me and my sister up for school and got to the bathroom just in time to see me faint again, and hit my head on the metal rim of my bathtub. When I woke up both my parents were holding me and I was quite confused! And my fever of 102 was back. It's hard to tell from this picture, but my head left a nice dent in the metal rim:
I stayed home from school, of course! My head didn't actually hurt, which is kind of creepy considering how my dad said he found me with my head jammed up against that sharp rim. I rested for a couple hours, then my mom took me to an urgent care center. The nurse asked me some questions and then said that the doctor was just going to tell me to go to the emergency room, so there was no sense in staying. So then we went to the ER, it was quite pointless. First they hooked me up to an IV. Then they did a couple of tests on me for thyroid problems, the flu, and strep throat, and said that there was really nothing wrong with me. The doctor said that there is a virus going around with a fever that comes and goes each day, and the fainting was probably a combination of that and dehydration. I never want to do it again!

And just because I don't have many food pics today, here is a picture of me in the ER with an IV attached to me!

For breakfast this morning (three hrs after I fainted), I topped my oats with Funky Monkey freeze dried bananas again. I forget what the exact name of it was, but it was banana acai flavored. I was kind of disappointed because I thought that there would be actual dried acai berries, but it was more like acai-powdered bananas. Still yummy though! I also added a couple slices strawberries.

No picture of lunch because I was in a hurry to leave for the doctor. Snack was kinda a big deal. I was in the ER for about four hours today, mostly just lying around waiting for the inattentive doctors to take the IV out of my arm. Every time I asked if I could have a snack, the doctors said no, not yet. It was almost 7:00 by the time I was released, and I was a starvin' marvin! I considered waiting until I got home to eat, but I was so incredibly hungry I knew I couldn't wait. I went over to the vending machine and picked out something with a decent amount of protein and fat that I knew would satisfy me. Which ended up being...
Peanut butter cookies! Haha sorry I ate them in the car so I couldn't take a picture of what they looked like. Anyway, it's been the longest time since I've had anything junky and processed like that, so I'm proud that I managed to pay attention to my hunger and break ED's stupid rules. They were good too.

For dinner I was still rather hungry so I just whipped up a quick spinach and parmesan 2-egg omelet. And also a grilled PB sammich.
*Shakes fist at ED and his small portion sizes* *Goes off to eat some dried figs*

We're All in This Together

2009-02-16T18:23:00.007-05:00

Are you catching my High School Musical reference in the title? I have the songs stuck in my head because I've been playing HSM dance for Wii for... a while today. But I want to thank you all for reminding me that most of you are struggling with the same thing as I am and can relate to my fears. I, um, don't actually know whether I'm still gaining weight or not. The last couple of times my doctor has weighed me she hasn't said anything. Which either tells me that I'm still gaining, or I'm maintaining. I am totally fine not knowing what my weight is doing though, because after relying on the scale every day I'm happy to get a break and not let it determine my mood!

By the way, I'm feeling much better today. Thanks for all the get-well wishes, I'm sure they helped cure my cold/flu-ish thing a lot!

This morning, I made banana apple bread from Bella Eats. I only had one banana that was ripe enough so I decided to make half the batch and turn them into muffins. I remembered to halve everything, except for the flour. Whoops. While I was scooping the batter into muffin tins I was thinking, "Wow, this batter is really thick! And it makes so much!" Then 15 minutes into baking I remembered why. I was afraid that they would end up too dense, but they actually turned out great! Not as sweet as they would've been, but I hate overly sweet muffins. I could really appreciate the fruity flavors in this. I liked biting into the mushy apple bits. Plus, they were tall! Muffins that don't rise are my #1 pet peeve.
I think next time I make this, I'll use the same proportions except replace 1/4 c of flour with maybe another half of a banana, or honey/molasses.

I also had an apple with cheese. And, what could be better than s'moresoats? Raspberry s'moresoats.

For lunch, I went with a childhood favorite, a jam and cream cheese sandwich. I used to eat these all the time! I also had sliced cucumber (we were out of veggies!), a Gnu bar, and a Voskos honey vanilla yogurt. Yay for Voskos! This flavor was good too. Stronger vanilla taste than honey though.

I was super hungry today, for some reason. I decided on a hefty snack of natural popcorn with cinnamon, an orange, and plain yogurt with blueberries. Typically I don't eat popcorn because it's too low cal but I needed to tame the beast within me!

My dad does free lance work so sometimes he has to work weird, late hours, like he's working tonight. Me, my mom, and my sister have a tradition where we eat breakfast for dinner when he's working late. He always goes "Ew, breakfast for dinner?" But it's okay because we don't want to share! Tonight, we made a big Dutch Baby. For those of you who don't know, a dutch baby is essential a giant, eggy, puffy pancake that you cook in the oven instead of in the skillet.
Heeyyy if you turn your head to the left and squint, you can see a dinosaur lying on his back! What you do is melt 1/4 c of butter in a dish/skillet in the oven at 450. In a blender, blend 3 eggs for one minute. Slowly add 3/4 c of milk. Slowly add 3/4 c of flour. Blend 30 seconds. Remove baking dish from oven, pour egg mixture into it. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
I topped mine with strawberries and powdered sugar. And erm, double what you see in the picture because I had seconds! ED started to bug me about the white flour and butter but I brushed him off. Breakfast for dinner is an old tradition, and if ED won't let me enjoy it, then he's not invited. So ha.

It seems I've had a day filled with childhood favorites! Jam and cream cheese sammies, smore's, dutch baby.. I can roll with that.

Rawrg school tomorrow! It's supposed to be my goal for group to socialize more. It's not that I'm afraid to talk to people, and I only sometimes think that people are judging me while I'm talking. Most of the time, I just don't feel like it! I feel like I could function without talking or interacting with any other people. Anyone else feel the same? I used to be a social butterfly, but ED took that away from me and now I'm just content to stay in my little cave. Grr.

Off to watch Gossip Girl! Night!

Bleurgh.

2009-02-15T19:19:00.008-05:00

Evening, chicas! I though my cold or whatever I had on Friday had gone away, but today it's back and 20 times worse! I have a fever of 102, runny nose, sore throat, aching muscles and a headache. Also, whenever I look up or to the side, my eyes hurt. I've been scaring myself by looking at familydoctor.org and convincing myself that I have periorbital cellulitis. Thankfully I have the day off tomorrow to recover.

Okay, so I have a problem I need to share. I gained weight on 3300+ calories, and I had to clean my plate at each meal to get enough food in every day. I couldn't leave the crusts of bread or scraps of a casserole, because I needed every calorie I could get and I was afraid that ED was telling me to save calories that way. But now, I can't get out of the mentality that I need to finish everything put out in front of me. Even if I'm really full, even if I don't like the food that much, I make myself finish all my food. I guess it's partially because I'm scared I'll get hungry, partially because I don't want to give ED a chance to butt in again, and partially because it's just a habit that I learned from 6 months of weight gain. But I want it to stop! I can't convince myself to do the "stop eating when you're full" thing. Any advice?

For breakfast, had an apple, plus this grilled CC and applesauce sammich.
Then a bowl of oatmeal topped with PB puffins, dark choco chips and raspberries. Yum-o! Actually, forget I said that because I can't stand Rachel Ray.

I didn't take a picture of my AM snack because it was just orange juice. I was really lazy for lunch so I ate the lunch I brought to school on Friday but never ate. It was a Pb sammich (I grilled it, of course), apple and carrots, a Zbar, and a Siggi's orange ginger yogurt. I quite liked the yogurt! Not overly sweet, just a hint of orange taste, with nice chunks of ginger throughout. Also a very nice thick texture.
This lunch was an example of not being able to stop after I feel full. I don't have much of an appetite and the yogurt made my stomach hurt, but I kept eating it anyway. Ugh ED is making me feel like a pig for this right now.

For my snack I wanted something to make my throat feel better. So I topped some strawberry Haagen Dazs sorbet with half a banana, and ate the other half on the side. I ate it in bed and it made me feel much better! Btw, the sorbet was really really good. I also had some unpictured PB puffins.

For dinner, I made chickpea peanut stew again. I think this is the third time I've made this and it's definitely one of my favorite recipes! All PB fans would love it. Didn't have any red pepper or zucchini so I just tossed in a few handfuls of spinach.
I also had a string cheese that I'm counting as part of dinner.

Sigh, I have quite a lot of snacking to do tonight. Still under calories by a lot.

Hope you all enjoyed your Sundays! And enjoy your day off tomorrow, US girls!

Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-14T20:36:00.008-05:00

Hey there, lovely bloggers. I hope you all had/are having a lovely V-Day and you used it as an excuse to consume mass amounts of chocolate. Even if you aren't spending it with someone, know that I love each and every person who reads my blog! Unless you're a stalker and know where I live. In which case I'm very very scared of you.

Also, thanks to everyone who left a supportive comment on my last post! I was still in a really crummy mood after I woke up this morning. But after I read my comments, I realized that there is no reason for me to want ED back in my life. And I did something constructive with that in the form of a list. Why ED sucks rocks and I never want him back:

COLD. Enough said.
Dannon carb & sugar control yogurt. 60 calories and 3 carbs of pure crap.
Constant calorie counting. I couldn't have a stick of gum if it didn't fit into my cal budget.
Hiding food in napkins/under table/other creative places that I won't say.
Skipping out on parties involving food because I felt "sick" and needed a nap.
Lying. All the time, to everyone.
Making myself burn at least 300 calories a day through ballet, DDR, walking and yoga.
Wanting to pass out from exhaustion after taking a shower.
Cutting bread, pasta, rice and all of my other favorite carbs.
Being asked "Are you okay?" at least once a day.
Making the audience at my ballet recital cringe at how skeletal I looked.
Not having enough energy to play my cello or dance with emotion.
Not being able to laugh, or even smile.

The list goes on and on, but these are the ones that came most easily. So HAHA ED, there are way more negatives to having you back than there are positives.

Breakfast! I had an apple, then cottage cheese with cran apple butter and honey sunshine cereal.
Then an extra special bowl of love! Aka oatmeal topped with vanilla yogurt, dark choco chips, and raspberries.

Lunch time rolled around and I wanted a sammich, as usual. My dad made this really good eggplant dip yesterday, so I slapped than on bread with pesto and spinach and grilled it. Yummay. The dip tastes like eggplant parm but the magic is that it has no cheese! I can ask my dad for the recipe, if anyone wants it. I also had plain yogurt, carrots, and a Kashi bar.

Then I went to see Coraline with my Valentines (mommy and sister). I love Tim Burton so I was so excited for this! I liked it a lot, but it's very creepy for a kids movie. We saw it in 3-D so it was even cooler. When we got home I had a bowl of Kashi hot cereal that I'm trying to use up with pumpkin. With a string cheese.

Oh yeah plus I went to Whole Foods and got some yummies. For dinner the rest of mi familia was having sausage lasagna. So I made a Nature's Path micro white cheddar mac and cheese. I mixed in lots of steam spinach and carrots. On the side, I made baked potato... cubes. Meaning a chopped up a small red potato, tossed it with EVOO, thyme, oregano, and garlic powder and baked it for a while. I loved this meal!
For dessert (!!!!!!) me and my mom made Naturally Nora alot'a dots cake, which is the equivalent of a healthier, organic funfetti cake. I don't like eating dessert (or ED doesn't) but I felt better knowing that this mix featured no bleached flour! We made them into cupcakes and topped them with pink buttercream frosting. It was a challenge to eat this a bit. I've pretty much convinced myself that it's okay for me to eat dessert on special occasions, but I still feel a tinge of guilt right now. It blows my mind that normal eaters eat different amounts of food every day!

Nighty night, loves!

Telepathic Girlscouts Idolize Fergie

2009-02-13T19:29:00.006-05:00

Evening, blog land. Today I went to school for a whopping two hours! I lost my voice right before I was supposed to present my project and called me dad to come get me. I might as well have just stayed at home anyway because I didn't even get called on to present. I'm feeling better now (as in, I don't want to pass out) after taking a two hour nap, but I still have a killer headache and sore throat. Perfect for valentines day, hm?

Among other things for breakfast I made oats topped with applesauce, 3 pieces of chopped candied ginger, and the dregs of my box of graham crackers. Note to self: buy more graham crackers.

Unpictured almonds for AM snack. For lunch, I considered just eating the sandwich I had packed for school but decided that I wanted something warmer. So, I made polenta. I topped it with steamed tofu, corn, and spinach and a bit of nooch. Yummy. I had it with carrots, a Voskos blueberry greek yogurt, and a Kashi bar.
I was so excited to find the yogurt at Whole Foods! They'd never had this brand before. I really wanted to try the fig kind that I saw on Megan's blog, but they only had blueberry, honey, and vanilla I think. I really liked it. It wasn't as sweet as most fruit on the bottom yogurts, and plus it had a really rich thick texture.

My afternoon snack was a bowl of PB puffins, raisins, and the last of my almonds. Arg I'm running out of all my favorite foods!

For dinner, me and my sister made veggie quiche cups. To do this, we sauteed 1/2 a chopped onion, 1 chopped red bell pepper, 1 small tomato, and 1/2 c chopped mushrooms. Then whisked together 8 eggs and 1/2 c mozarella cheese. We spooned the veggies into 12 greased muffin tins and filled them halfway with the egg mixture. Then baked at 350* for 20 minutes.
They were pretty good, but need more spice. I ate some of the leftover veggie filling with a handful of spinach and a slice of WW toast along with it.

Today I had to go see my ED doctor. I don't like her very much, partially because what she says to me makes no sense! A normal conversation with her goes like this: "Oh yes hello Kiki dear. I like that shirt, such a lovely.. mmm. Yes." I'm not sure how she wrote three books. Most of my visit was positive today. She showed me how much my bloodwork has improved, especially in the white blood cell and cholesterol areas. And plus, I've grown 3/4 inch since August! I'm 5' 8.25" now, yay!

The negative part came when she weighed me. I hate being weighed because for the longest time, how much I weighed dictated my mood for the day. If I'd gained or maintained weight, I was a failure. I haven't weighed myself in months because it's not healthy for me to beat myself up over a number. So the doctor weighed me on one of those special doctors' scales with the slide-y thing on it. The bottom slide goes by intervals of 50, and when I was at my lowest weight the bottom slide needed to be set at 50 because I was under 100 lbs. Today the scale was set at 50 lbs when I stepped on it, but my doctor changed it to 100 because I'm at a healthy weight now. This really upset me, I started panicking inside about how I'd let my weight get so out of control, I needed to lose weight again to get the bottom slide back at 50. I know this is irrational and stupid, I know I'd be a walking skeleton again, especially since I'm so tall. Eating has been difficult since I got back from my appointment though, and I can't convince myself that I'm doing the right thing by feeding myself. Ahh. Someone give me a slap in the face?

That's a wrap! Hope you all enjoy your Valentines day!

Tag, you're it!

2009-02-12T19:49:00.010-05:00

Ack, sorry for not commenting on all of your blogs today. I feel really sick today.. not like I have the flu or anything, but just really weak and fatigued. While walking up and down the stairs at school today I seriously felt like I'd faint. I'm feeling somewhat better right now, but if I feel like I do now tomorrow morning I'm going to go to school, present a project, and go home early. I was so exhausted when I got home, but I had to do lots of homework which is why I didn't get in many comments.

Today Mel tagged me to show off my bag! I'm not a bag girl, so don't laugh! Now that I think of it, I probably shouldn't have taken this picture in my butterfly bathroom because it draws attention away from the bag. Oh well.
It's very shiny in real life. I was working on some homework in the waiting room before group today, so I used this bag to bring around my spiral notebook and novel. I don't use this for going shopping or anything, but it's the perfect size for my schoolwork! I got it as a B-day gift, but it's from World Market and cost around $20.

Now I tag the following bloggers to post pictures of their bags:
Fay
Brooke
Erin
Jess

The rules are as follows:
1) Post a picture of whatever bag you are carrying as of late. No, you cannot go up to your closet and pull out that cute little purse you used back before you had kids. I want to know what you carried today or the last time you left the house. No cheating!

2) I want to know how much it cost:) And this is not to judge. This is for entertainment purposes only. So spill it. And if there is a story to go along with how you obtained it, I’d love to hear it.

3) Tag some chicks. And link back to this post so people know why the heck you’re showing everyone your bag.

Breakfast this morning featured PB&J oats- just plain PB, cran apple butter, and a handful of frozen raspberries.

I don't have pictures of my AM snack or lunch, sorry. And I only have a picture of part of my snack because I'm so out of it that I forgot that I had a food blog. But what I did have was sort of a small ED victory. I have group at 4:00 and usually just eat a piece of fruit in the car ride because ED tells me I can't have anything else until 5. This means I have to sit through the whole session hungry, pressing on my stomach so it doesn't growl. But today, I paired my apple with some string cheese and the extra protein made me stay full until I got home again! Of course I had more food when I got home though.

Dinner was an old comfort food, blintzes! I heart Jewish food. My mom and I used to always eat these and I figured that I needed to reintroduce a fear food. We got the cheese variety this time. I wanted to fry them just to push ED to his limits, but my mom said to bake them to make it easier. Boo. They were amazing though! I recommend blintzes to cottage cheese fans because it's the same texture, but more sweet.
My, what a very golden dinner. I wish I'd had some greens. But it's necessary to serve blintzes with lots of applesauce. I also had two mini pitas with peanut butter.

Right now, I'm munching on a blood orange. I hate them, they're so creepy looking! They always remind me of biting into a bruise. Ick. I figure that I need the vitamin C if I'm getting sick though.
I'm off to go to sleep early! Good night, blogland.

P.S. I got a comment yesterday from Casaundra. I'd love to comment on your blog, but every time I try to the comment box seems to disappear!

Interview & Eats

2009-02-11T15:10:00.013-05:00

The darling Jenny decided to choose me for her interview questions. They're great questions, but I can't guarantee that I have great answers for them!

1. If you were on your deathbed (grusome, I know) and could eat one food before you died, what would it be?
Definitely chocolate. My favorite kind is extra dark, and it would be my dream to find some with figs in it! Eating chocolate seriously improves my mood, must be all those endorphins. I think it would be nice if I could have one last sliver of happiness before I passed on.

2. Who is one person (dead or alive) that you truly admire and why?
My cello teacher. I don't talk about her very much on here because she doesn't know about the blog and I'd feel weird blogging about her a lot. But she's my mentor. She struggled with depression when she was my age, so she can relate a lot to the feelings of hopelessness that I have now. I talk to her more than my therapist, haha, and she always has really useful advice for combating ED even though she has never had one herself. After I told her that I'd been diagnosed with anorexia, she told me that she was afraid I'd waste away and it broke my heart! Also, she has a very carpe diem attitude. She's trying to experience everything that she can right now so she can look back on her life later and realize that she's accomplished everything that she's ever wanted to do.

3. If you could pick on animal that resembles you (not physically) what would it be and why?
Hm, probably a sea otter! I like to think that I'm clever, curious, and cunning (alliteration!) like otters are. Otters often slide down snow/ice slopes just for fun, and lately I've been trying to "live life to the fullest" and do things for sheer enjoyment. Plus, otters are really active I'm always very bouncy and hyper and can barely contain myself in my seat!

4. What is your favorite possession that you just could never live without?
My cello! Playing music is very therapeutic for me. I'm writing a poem on this for school, so this is very fresh in my mind! Obviously, I don't enjoy myself too much when I'm playing etudes or scales, or anything else boring like that. This will sound lame but when I master a piece, a wave of bliss washes over me. It's so surreal, I feel like I've left my body and just get wrapped up in the sound of my playing.

5. What is your favorite quote/anecdote/song lyrics/poem/etc.? What attracts you so much to this?
My favorite quote, by Helen Keller: When one door closes, another opens. But often we look so long so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.
This is true for many aspects of my life. Pre-ED, and sometimes now, I would get so upset over something like being second chair in orchestra that it was all that I could think of, and I missed so many opportunities to improve myself while wallowing in my self pity. And now that I do have an ED, I'm so concerned with losing ED and not having an identity without it that I'm missing a lot of chances to rediscover the real me. Lately I've been so convinced that I shouldn't have ever gained that weight and I shouldn't have made all that mental progress, because now I've almost lost ED, the only thing in my life that I feel really cares about me and pushes me to be perfect. Even if he does push me to be perfect in terms of losing weight, at least I'm getting attention for something. But now I'm realizing that I need to change, I need to escape this anorexic mindset! Now that I don't have this second conscience sitting on my shoulder telling me to restrict and lose weight constantly, I have so many opportunities to define who Kiki really is. I must have felt my life was worth something more than being "perfectly" thin before this disorder, so I need to use how far I've come to my advantage and uncover that again.

Wanna play along? Follow these steps:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the
questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others
in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.

Okay, now breakfast wasn't too special. The only thing I took a pic of was my oats. My toppings were freeze dried nanners (all gone!), the last two strawberries in the box, and some flaked coconut. Yummers.

In gym today we had to run the mile, blech. Usually I get tired easily and walk, and end up getting like 13 minutes. But today, I felt really strong and energetic so I got 9:27! I know it's nothing compared to the runners on here who run miles every day, but I feel accomplished. I was hungry and weak after I ran, so I ate this and it was okay.

Then lunch was boring, but I took a picture for you anyway. It's a PB sammich, carrots, a TLC bar, and a Wallaby down under yogurt. Normally I don't like Wallaby because it's "thick and creamy" Australian style is actually quite runny. But this kind was really yummy and thick, and I loved the gobs of fruit on the bottom. This was a new product at Whole Foods.

For my snack today, I had a sandwich thin grilled with 2 slices of mozarella and some applesauce. I love this combo! Also almonds and carrots. I'm pretty sure that my hands are turning orange from all this vitamin a!

Dinner was quinoa with sauteed apples and almonds. I like quinoa way more than rice, and it cooks faster too. I've had this recipe before, but not since I started the blog, and it's great. I used 2 tbs EVOO and 1/4 cup chopped almonds instead of slivered.
I now see that ED has decieved me into thinking this is enough for dinner. I shall now go eat some dried figs and string cheese.

Sorry for the huge post! Sleep tight pretties!

Heffelumps and Woozles

2009-02-10T20:32:00.004-05:00

Evening, pretty ladies! Do you all hate Tuesday as much as me? I don't mind Mondays that much because I'm still stuck in weekend mode and just walk through the day in a trance. But on Tuesdays, it hits me that the week isn't even halfway over yet!

Breakfast this morning wasn't special, except for my oats which were fab. My mom bought cinnamon Funky Monkey Freeze Dried Bananas for my sister at Whole Foods. My sister didn't like them so I got to have them! Go buy these right now. They taste like Fay's banana spice bread (which was excellent) but crunchy! I put some in my oatmeal with raspberries and dark chocolate chips.

No picture of snack or lunch today, sorry. Perhaps I'll have some tomorrow. My snack was a clementine, vanilla roasted almonds, and a whole wheat english muffin (whole foods) with cottage cheese, applesauce and cinnmon. It's a very yummy and filling combo.

Dinner had to be eaten in the car from my cello lesson to therapy. It was very random. We had some frozen b-nut squash puree, so I cooked that up with cinnamon, nutmeg and a bit of brown sugar. I also had 3 whole foods mini pitas with PB, leftover Vcon broiled tofu, and a key lime larabar. I like the mini pitas, but I think they'd be better stuffed with cheese/veggies because it was hard to spread PB in them.

Therapy was... weird. My mom had to come in with me this time. I don't like my therapist very much. Whenever I have a session, I feel obligated to say something to fill the wordless void around us, so I sometimes end up saying things that aren't true just to please my therapist. So my therapist was trying to get me to answer questions having to do with problems I don't really have, all with my mom in the room. No fun. I told her about the blog, like my group therapist said to do. She wanted to see it and I laughed and said no! But she said that she didn't see any problem with it, because she trusts me not to make it into another obsession.

Snacks tonight have involved plain PB puffins, because they're that good.
I'm going to do some commenting then start getting ready for bed because I'm beat! Sleep tight!

School Shenanigans

2009-02-09T15:11:00.008-05:00

The most exciting thing in the history of my school career probably happened today. Last night after procrastinating by blogging, I finally started my geometry problems. They were word problems, and I can tolerate a bit of those but there were at least 20 that I had to do! So I got to one that went something like this: Sharon and Matt are icing cookies. They have enough icing to cover a 9x13 inch sheet cake. How many cookies with a 2 inch diameter would they be able to ice with the given amount of frosting?

It's a pretty easy problem, but I was sick of world problems so I just wrote the practical thing, "TRY IT AND SEE!" I thought I was going to actually do it in the morning but I forgot. So we handed our HW in at the beginning of class today so my teacher could grade them and hand them back before class ended. I had completely forgotten about what I wrote until the teacher called me to her desk! She scares me to death! She said something along the lines of she does not approve of this sort of apathy towards her class, and why did I think I didn't have to attempt every problem? So I made a pouty face and said "Sorry, but math is just so hard for me!" I totally guilt tripped her because she apologized and asked if I'd like to come in during lunch so she could teach me how to do the problem! It was truly amazing.

But rewind back to breakfast. It was una manzana con queso (gotta practice my Spanish!).And un Zbar calor.
Then a bowl of banana chai oats! Muy bien!

Skip over snack and lunch. I had ballet today. Ballet went pretty well. I was sort of doing body checks now and then but I couldn't really see my "fat". Yay!

After class, I had a kiwi, string cheese, and a Perfect Pumpkin Boomi bar. My mom brought me this from an airport in Florida, woohoo! I love getting new bars.
I really liked the bar! It was sweet, but not overbearingly so. I like to be able to see every ingredient of my bar, and I could do that with this one. The ingredients are only pumpkin seeds, raisins, honey, dates, apricots, cranberries, crisp rice, amaranth flakes and salt. The rice, amaranth, and seeds provided a nice chewy-crunch, and the dried fruit was nice and squishy. I wish they sold Boomi bars around here :[

For din dins I made huevos rancheros tostadas. Instead of picante sauce, I pureed 1/2 c tomato sauce, 1/4 c green onions, 2 tbs green chilis, 1/2 tsp chili powder and 1/4 c chopped tomato. I never thought about it before, but I really don't like the idea of an egg yolk staring up at me. So I made mine sunny-side down. I wanted to top it with cheese, but my sister used it all up making nachos!
I also had a tangerine.

That's all for now! Enjoy your evenings/ beauty sleep lovelies!

Math homework avoidance!

2009-02-08T16:37:00.007-05:00

Okay, well first things first. This is the coolest time waster, ever! It's crashed my internet twice and I'm supposed to be memorizing square roots but I don't want to stop!

Today has been a pretty boring day. Just errand-running and homework, for the most part.

My somewhat unbalanced breakfast started off with half a grapefruit. Why are they called grapefruits? Why? They don't look like grapes, or taste like grapes!
Then a PB and cranberry apple butter quesadilla.
The World Market near me is going out of business. It's really sad because it's where we get all of our cool ethnic food. There are Chinese markets here, but there isn't anywhere else to buy European/Australian food. But, there were some pretty good clearance sales when we went yesterday. One of the things we got were ________ vanilla gingersnap cookies. So I crumbled one up in my oats with some strawberries and a splash of vanilla soymilk. Tada, strawberry shortcake oats!

For lunch, I had the leftover butternut squash and white bean soup with half a very cheesy grilled cheese for dipping purposes. Also a plain yogurt, carrots, and a Kashi bar.

Then I went to Whole Foods, yay! I didn't get too much stuff because the cost adds up very quickly there, but what I did get is new and yummy. You'll be seeing it over the next few days. While at WF, I tried a really yummy square of Chocolove cherry dark chocolate.

Snack! I'm really liking this routine-less afternoon snack I've started. I had chocolate banana PB (full 2 tbs, yay!) and half a banana on two multigrain ricecakes (from WF). I also had a bowl of plain yogurt.

Para cena, yo cocine Spaghetti Fritatta. Muy delicioso! I used Smart taste pasta.
I also had a slice of toast and a clemmie. Question: What will the food blogging world do when clementines are out of season and are no longer sold in grocery stores? I think I'll cry when I walk into giant and they aren't there!

Ugh, school tomorrow. Sundays are always depressing for me because even if I do something fun, I know that the next day I'll have to go to school. Raaaaaaaaaaaawr. Wouldn't it be amazing if all the food bloggers in the world could live in a happy blogging community? With no school, and infinite time to bake and cook? Yes, I like that idea.

Oh, P.S. I was still hungry after dinner so I ate another rice cake with PB. This is a big thing because normally, I'm so afraid of going over my calories. But I figured that if my body was telling me that I needed to give it some more energy, I should eat! And I'm not feeling guilty now. This was difficult for me before?

Have a great evening, beauties!

So, yay.

2009-02-07T19:22:00.007-05:00

Do you girls get words and phrases stuck in your heads? I do! I get songs too, but I often get random words or sentences repeating over and over again. It doesn't annoy me, but I've never met anyone else that this happens to. The title of my post it what's repeating through my head right now. In ballet today, we had just finished an exercise and my teacher's helper just said "So, yay." with no emotion. It sounds stupid but it was hilarious! Oooookay reading this over sorry for the randomoscity but I'm a space cadet right now.

This morning I had to go get my blood drawn for my stupid ED doctor. She makes me get it done like every other month! Hate evil doctors grrrr. I had to sit around in a waiting room for an hour before I finally got called to get my blood drawn, so I was not a happy camper. I'm okay with blood, but thankfully I only had to get two vials worth taken out of me. I had to fast too, which I never had to do when I was underweight. It was 10:00 when I got home and I was hungry like a wolf. I saw some leftover cheesy corn and barley bake so I threw that in the skillet with tofu and a couple mushrooms.
It was okay. For my daily bowl of oatmeal, I made banana chai! My dad likes to buy this chai latte mix from TJ's. It has a bit of sugar and milk powder in it. So I put a tbs of that in, plus half a micro'd banana. Sooo creamy and good!

I don't have a pic of my AM snack, sorry. It was just almonds. It was just me and my mom for lunch today, so we decided to have the same sammich. The sandwich consisted of about 1 1/4 eggplant cutlets from TJ's, 1 slice mozzarella cheese, and 2 tbs marinara sauce. The photo doesn't do it justice. Eggplant parmesan sammich! :] With carrots and lentil dip, and a Kashi bar.

Snack today was a challenge (imagine me doing magical wavy fingers). I'm sure I'm not the only girl on here who struggles with eating by the clock, and eating the same thing every day. My snack eating schedule is crazy, I usually spread everything (always a yogurt, fruit, carrots, and carby thing) out from 3-6:00 because I'm afraid I'll get hungry. The ironic part is that I do get hungry, when I'm only letting myself eat a clementine because it's not late enough to eat a heftier snack. This afternoon, I decided that that is probably the stupidest ritual on Earth and needed to be broken! So I listened to my body and ate when I was hungry, which was at 4:00. And I didn't just eat fruit to try to temporarily kill my hunger. I had a real snack!
On the right, you see plain yogurt plus a microwaved apple and cinnamon. New favorite snack! And also a Archer Farms granola bar, which was just okay. This snack kept me satisfied for 3.5 hours, and eating each part of my snack over the course of three hours never did that for me. So take that, ED!

For dinner, I made a family favorite, kugel! It's still a bit of a fear food for me, but it becomes less and less of one every time I make it! It seriously tastes like apple pie pasta. Mmm. I ate the last apple in my yummy snack today (whoops) so I used applesauce and added in dried apricots and raisins and it was amazing. We had it with broiled tofu from Vcon, and some steamed rainbow chard. Balanced meal, for once!
I ended up eating another serving of the tofu because the omnis have something against it.

I showed my mommy my blog today. She seemed pretty pleased by it. She said that it's clear that I get nothing but supportive comments from you ladies! Her only question was whether or not I'd be taking food pictures for the rest of my life. I don't want to think about quitting food blogging though, even if it ends up being years in the future. I love it too much!

G'night!

Tacky Gorillas Inhale Frenchtoast

2009-02-06T19:18:00.008-05:00

Those silly gorillas. Where do they even find bread to make french toast?

Thank you all for your input about whether I should keep my blog or not! It means so much to me to know that all of you want me to continue my blog. Believe me, so do I. From looking back at when I started my blog in November, I can see the progress I've made by using blogging as my outlet for getting over ED feelings, and from all the wonderful advice I've gotten! I think, like a few of you said, that it's difficult for other people to really understand how positively the blogging community has affected me from just my description. So, I'll take other peoples' opinions into consideration, but overall I think this blog has improved my attitude towards food a million times and I want to see it keep getting better! I'll keep updating with this story though.

Okay, eats. Breakfast was kind of boring, just repeats of stuff. But it featured caramelized (microwaved) banana oats,. I added some dark chocolate chips for extra yumminess.

No pic of lunch. My afternoon snack featured a microwaved apple. Fay recommended this to me and I had to try it! It was amazing, just like apple pie filling. I really wanted it with a spoon of PB but I'm out of regular and I don't think it would go with chocolate banana too well.

Dinnah was butternut squash and white bean soup. It was really really good! I used 2 tbs of olive oil instead of 1 tsp. I liked how all of it was creamy except for the white beans. It almost made up for the fact that I kind of sliced my thumb open while chopping the onion. The perfect way to warm up on a chilly night. I think next time I'll just use regular tomatoes instead of "mexican" so I can taste the squash more.
I had it with 1/4 of a Florida grapefruit and a slice of French bread. Mmmmm love grapefruit!

As soon as I saw the post on Katie's blog today about vegan yogurt making, I knew I had to try it. I had a block of silken tofu going bad in the fridge, so I made a double batch! I used 1/2 a banana and 1/4 cup frozen raspberries and didn't even need any sugar. Another success from CCV! I think I like this more than the regular pudding because it doesn't require any stove-top cooking or refrigeration. Yay!

That's all for now, folks. I had to go get my blood drawn tomorrow morning, booo! Then ballet :] Hope you all enjoy your Saturdays!

To blog or not to blog

2009-02-05T19:31:00.006-05:00

Today when I checked my email, my mom had replied to the letter I sent her in which I told her about the blog. She basically said "That explains the food pictures.", and that she's noticed that I've been doing a lot better at meals/ with scary foods. She also said that she couldn't judge for herself whether this was a good thing for me to be doing, so she suggested that I ask my therapist/ group. She wants to see my blog on the weekend.

So today I had group therapy and talked about my blog as my "round". I felt really uncomfortable explaining it, and I don't think I got my point across too well. First, most of the girls didn't know what a food blog was. Second, I couldn't put into words how this blog has been helping my recovery. The therapist who leads my group said that she couldn't decide whether or not blogging is a good thing for me, because it's different for each person and depends on what stage of recovery they're in. One of her main concerns was that the bloggers who comment here would give me advice that wouldn't work. This hasn't happened so far (because you're all so amazing!) but I can see how non-professional advice could hurt me. My group therapist was also afraid of "cyber-bullying". This hasn't happened to me either, but I don't know how I'd react if someone commented on here specifically to offend me or take advantage of my disorder.

She also asked three important questions. They were meant to be rhetorical in group, but I'll answer them here.

Q: Is blogging just another way for me to get attention?
A: No. Of course it makes me happy to get comments, but I am more focused on using this blog as a way to share my love of food and help my recovery than I am on gaining popularity in the blogging world.

Q: If I'm only talking to people online about recovery and food, will it be harder for me to interact with people in real life without using those as conversation pieces?
A: This is something that I've noticed recently. It's becoming increasingly difficult for me to find things to talk about with people my age other than food. I'm sort of introverted by nature, but I'm just closing up my shell even more because I can't have normal conversations anymore. Sometimes, I find things to talk about with kids in my orchestra and can chit-chat sort of well, so this one is TBD.

Q: Will blogging make me even more obsessed with food and healthy eating than I already am?
A: I don't know. I'd really like to believe that I have a genuine interest in food and that I'd be cooking and baking all the time even if I didn't have an ED. Often times, it seems that I can't find anything else to think of besides food. If I'm bored, I go online and look up recipes, and sometimes don't eat what I'd really like because it doesn't seem "blog worthy". I have a couple of good distractions though, like doing puzzles, ballet, and playing the cello. This one will be figured out later too.

My group therapist asked that I talk to my individual therapist about the blog too. I really don't want to quit blogging, because I've made so many great relationships on here and would be so sad to just let them go! I think I'll keep the blog, but I may have to make changes so I can do what will be best for my recovery.

Alright, that's done! Don't have too many pictures today. Part of breakfast was a yummy bowl of oats. Toppings were chopped crystalized ginger, applesauce, and graham cracker crumbs.

I'll just skip right over lunch and onto my snack, which involved a cinnamon roll Larabar. This flavor is pretty good, but nothing compared to my favorite, apple pie! Meh.

Din dins was yummers. I made cheesy baked cauliflower. I realize that this is the second day in a row that I've had something with "cheesy" in the title, but it's okay because I like cheese! This was pretty good, but it needs something to help it stick together better. And more cheese!
With a baked Quorn chik'n cutlet, brushed with evoo and seasoned with cumin, oregano and garlic powder. I really don't like these too much. I'm a vegetarian, I don't want my food to taste like meat! These are too real tasting for me. But my mom buys them, so I keep eating them...

Sorry for the super long post. I'm just trying to put some things into perspective. Now I'm off to do a puzzle, goodnight lovelies!

Hi, Mom?

2009-02-04T19:34:00.006-05:00

So I told mi madre about the blog today. Or I sent the email to her anyway. She hasn't checked it since noon she says, but she'll either read the letter tonight or tomorrow morning. I made sure to explain how much getting support and reassurance from all of you is helping me, so hopefully I convinced her!

We got our report cards today. I was very happy to see that I got straight-A's! It surprised me because I got a C on my geometry exam and a B on my biology. And I thought I did awfully on English. I probably ended up with like a 90% in all those classes, but who cares? I really don't know what I'd do if I got anything lower than a B.. I'm still caught up in this anorexic perfection stuff. Now that I can't be perfect by losing weight, I have to be perfect with my grades. Never ends, ah!

Among other things for breakfast, I had apple pie oats! Just applesauce, cinnamon and a crumbled graham cracker.

Lunch was nothing special. As part of my snack, I had a PB Jamfrakas bar. Yeah yeah, I know they're supposedly contaminated. But I didn't get my refund so I might as well eat them! Megan, I shall send you some fresh ones as soon as they get back on shelves. Does anyone know when they're going to start selling them again?

Dinner! I made Cheesy Barley and Corn Bake. This was pretty good, but needed more spices. I didn't have any fresh parsley so I'll try that next time and hopefully it'll help. I like barley a lot more than rice because it gets kind of.. creamy, I guess, when it cooks. And it's very nutritious. So I'll be looking for more recipes that use it!

I made basic pudding from CCV again for my night time snack. This time, I added half a banana and a couple strawberries. Yum! Katie, your puddings are my life! Okay, well not really. But I'd be very sad without your amazing pudding.

We had a sub in Spanish class today so obviously no one did any work! So during that really long 45 minute period, I tried to think of my favorite food and I couldn't come up with one! I have so many foods that I like a lot, and I don't know if I could narrow it down to just one. In the past I would've said lo mein, but I don't like greasy foods like that now. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Pretend that you could get all the protein/nutrients/vitamins you needed in a pill, so your food doesn't have to be based on nutrition.

Have fabulous Thursdays!

Manamana

2009-02-03T20:36:00.009-05:00

Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing that I always want to write "Kasha Kiki" on the name space of my schoolwork instead of Caroline (real name)? I've been doing that since last Thursday and it's vair annoying.

Today at school, I learned that I really hate running for long periods of time. We had to do this test today called the pacer. It's when you have to run from one side of the gym to the other along with a recording. You have to make it to the other side before a beep sounds, and the beeps get closer and closer together every minute. Torture! I'm good at sprinting, but I am just not meant for this "cardiovascular endurance" stuff. After I did all the laps I could (37) I felt like dying. My chest hurt, sinuses were congested, eyes were running, my body ached, and my gums (?) really hurt. Hate gym class.

Breakfast. Mmm. Not many pictures, but part of it was dark chocolate raspberry oats!

Lunch was pretty boring and repetitive so no pictures. As part of my snack today, I had plain Stonyfield Farms yogurt with strawberries. Stoneyfield yogurt is my favorite, and this was so much better than the icky Euro-style stuff I got from TJ's!

My dinner had to be eaten in between my cello lesson and therapy. I made a tofu scramble, I guess? With very random veggies though. I cooked up 1/3 block of silken tofu in olive oil. Then I added rainbow chard, carrots, mushrooms, peas, a bit of soy sauce, and lots of garlic powder. So not the typical combo, but still good. I had it with an apple pie Larabar, my favorite! I want a Purebar though. I also had a banana.

I've done lots of snacking tonight, but the highlight has been this dark chocolate coated gingerbread cookie. My mom brought it for me, someone at her office brought them in. Nummy!

In other news, I didn't tell my mom about the blog today. I had maybe half an hour of free time today, and most of it was spent reading your lovely blogs! I had no time to write a decent letter. But, I have no plans tomorrow so I can spend all the time I need writing a letter. Today at therapy, my therapist said "Are you still taking pictures of your food?" And I said "Uhhhh no. Well not all of it." Which is partially true. I know she thinks that this is just another little obsession, and I'm afraid that my mom will think the same thing. Ahhh!

Good night, lovies!

P.S. NO! Call me Kiki! Kiki is the pet name that my sister gave to me when we were kids. I let the people who are close to me call me that, and teachers and stuff call me Caroline.

(time) Crunch!

2009-02-02T20:56:00.006-05:00

Evening, blog land! This post is supposed to be quick, but I don't know if it actually will be! I don't think I'll be able to do many blog comments either. I have lots of homework and other chores to do and it's already late-ish. Sorry!

Breakfast was all stuff I've eaten before. Yogurt, biscuits with jam and cream cheese, and antioxidant oats with a vanilla yogurt frosting.
I also had this lovely tangerine that my mom brought me from Florida! She was staying with my grandma and grandad and they have tangerine, grapefruit, and orange trees in their backyard. So I now have lots of fresh citrus!

I had to have a boring packed lunch today, booo! This is just a choco banana PB sammich, a clementine, Zbar, and Go Go Squeeze applesauce! How fun is that? Applesauce in a cute little tube! It was yummy, but I wouldn't pay $1 for a single packet again for such an unimaginative flavor. Normally I'd have yogurt instead of applesauce but I packed this when we were out of yogurt. I was definitely feeling the lack of protein when I got home (hungry!) so I had some unpictured string cheese.

After school today, I had dance class. It didn't go as well as it did on Saturday. Lots of negativity, picking apart my flaws type stuff. But let's not dwell on the negative! I know I'm not going to feel super about myself every class. Instead of thinking about how much of a failure I am for letting ED win, I need to think of ways to keep him from butting in again. To refuel after class I had this:
Cherry cashew pure bar. This is the second time I've had this flavor and it's divine! I don't like the cherry pie larabar very much because it's so tart. But this is the same idea and tastes so much better. The cashew flavor is pretty prominent and it's perfectly sweet! A+!

Dinner was.. a pasta dish again. I've been having pasta a lot lately, but I haven't had it in a while so I'm not sick of it yet! Yum. We were supposed to have a fritatta but didn't have enough eggs. I used a mix of multigrain and smart taste pastas with the tomato sauce from last night. With it, we had unpictured carrots & cucumber, and Trader Joe's eggplant cutlets. I love these little cirlces of crispy goodness! One of the few frozen meals I'll eat.

Meh, this is pretty short afterall. Tomorrow I'm going to tell my mom about the blog. I am I am I am I am! I think I might write her a letter, in case I can't compose myself enough to tell her face to face. I'm good at writing persuasive letters, so I can just put all the positive things this blog has brought me in the letter. I also have to explain that this isn't an extension of my ED, it has actually been helping me recover. Thanks to you lovely bloggies!

There might be a snow storm coming tonight, so I'm hoping for a snow day. Or at least a 2-hour delay. OH I hope that there's a worldwide snow storm so we can all have a snow day and keep each other entertained!

Make sure you all enter the Hangry Pants almond butter giveaway!