On my way up, again.

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!

Creativity.. occupies the cat?

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.

Why can't I ever think of clever post titles?

I'm going to be repeating myself by saying this, but thank you all for the support you gave me on my last post! It seriously makes my day a million times better just to read all the caring comments that are left for me. Plus it makes me crack up to here yesterday's event called the "enchilada incident". You girls gave me some wonderful advice about the situation with my dad. Unfortunately, it's really hard for me to "just talk" with my dad and tell him how uncomfortable he is making me. When I was first diagnosed with an., he didn't even want to believe that I really had an eating disorder and insisted that I had just lost muscle mass through ballet. After a while, he got used to the idea of me having a mental illness, but he still cannot grasp the concept of fearing food or gaining weight. I so wish that we could have a nice father-daughter conversation, but that's not going to happen, at least not now. Hopefully in the future though. Thanks again for the suggestions though.

For breakfast, I had an orange, apple + cheese sammie, and a bowl of PB&J oats!

By PB, I mean PB puffins :] My sister is a serial cereal eater. She gets on a health kick, or a chocolate kick, or a honey kick, and then buys cereal accordingly. When she bought the puffins, she was on a health kick, but she's now decided that puffins aren't sweet enough and it going to eating PB Cap'n Crunch instead! Oh well, more for me. And I used cran apple butter.

For lunch, I had a hummus and grilled pesto sammich, carrots, and a chocolate yogurt. The yogurt was sickly sweet, almost like a chocolate shake. Bleh. I made Baked Oatmeal Snack Bars from Kath Eats to go along with it. I subbed orange juice for 1/4 c of milk, almonds for walnuts, and dark chocolate chips for the fruit. Orange- chocolate- almond sounds good, right? Haha. It was not too great. I think that if you take away the natural sweetness from the dried fruit you need to add some white sugar/honey to compensate. So next time, I'll try the original recipe and hope it works out better.

And note to self: Parchment paper is not the same and wax paper. Because I used wax and it stuck, and I'm pretty sure that I acidentally ate a piece of wax paper on my bar!

I had ballet today, and it went somewhat better than it did on Saturday. I was in a space at the bar that isn't in front of a mirror, so I couldn't scrutinize myself at the bar. But then we went out in the center of the studio for jumps and adagios etc., and ED started pestering me. "Look. Your legs jiggle." I mostly ignored him by telling myself that ballerinas need strong legs to do all those lovely jumps. And women need some fat on them to... live healthily! Plus, I really don't even need to look in the mirror. I can feel whether my body is in the right place, and I can hear whether I'm with the music or not. So ED has no place in my studio. Mwaha!

For some after-class fuel I brought along a chocolate brownie pure bar. Oh my, it was so amazing! Very dense, moist, and fudgy like a brownie should be. It was better (and more filling) than a Larabar- don't kill me don't kill me! The wrapper says "Like a good mood in a wrapper" and I certainly felt very happy after eating this.

Dinner was another recipe from Kath Eats! Apple-Cheddar Fritatta (minus bacon). I love this recipe, it's not the egg and cheese overload that some fritattas and quiches are.
I also had a clemmie and a few small slices of multigrain baguette.

I am so not looking forward to school tomorrow. With exams and holidays, I've barely been to school lately, so it'll be a rude awakening to have to stay the whole day! Now, I'm going to enjoy the last hours of my mini-vacation and watch Gossip Girl! Good night, lovelies!

Edited to say: WHY was there no GG tonight? Now I have to wait another week for a new episode? This ruins my life.

La prueba fue facil

Grrrrrrrrrrrr I wish I had noticed the thing about the scheduled blogger outage sooner. I wonder how long this is supposed to last, because it's 7:22 and I want to post soon! Mrph.

The Spanish exam was so easy! I didn't even need to spend so much time studying. I think I only missed one or two multiple choices, and I did really well (I hope) on my written section. We were supposed to say what we bought for a party and I couldn't remember how to say soda! So I put beverages of fruit, but it's okay. My teacher will get it.

Only piccies of dinner tonight, because that was the most exciting meal. I made crockpot lentil and apricot soup.

It was pretty good, but not what I was expecting. I thought that the apricots would make the whole soup sweeter, but they didn't even though I doubled them. So basically, it tasted like lentil soup (but v. good lentil soup) unless you got a bite of apricot. Which was like perfection, the apricots got all mushy and oozing.
I had 2 pieces of TJ's French baguette

And for dessert, Eggnog Panna Cotta from BitterSweet! Second try at using agar flakes. I've had a carton of Holly Nog in the pantry since last year and I need to use it up. So I eliminated about half of with this recipe. And it was a really, really good choice. I didn't have any vanilla, for some strange reason, so I used 1/2 tsp maple extract and you couldn't tell since the eggnog was already spiced. It was sooo light and creamy! I topped it with some blueberries in a feeble attempt to make my dessert look as good as it does on BitterSweet. Mission failed :[

It was a challenge to have dessert, as always, but a little less of one this time. ED always tells me that I'll be overindulging if I have dessert, and I don't deserve that. But guess what? I do deserve to have dessert. I deserve to indulge and live life to the fullest without feeling guilty or "fat" about it, and so do all of you. What we don't deserve is ED! I may have made some mistakes in my life, but that doesn't mean ED should be able to take away the rest of it.

Hope you all had wonderful Wednesdays! Remember, it's all downhill until Friday now!

Pasta again?

Thank you all for your wonderful ideas about what I should do with PB puffins! I'll be sure to try them. Lately I've just been eating them straight from the box, and it's actually working pretty well :]

Today I was supposed to go to the mall with my best friend, but it turns out she couldn't go. I have another 4-day weekend coming up, so we'll just hang out then. I was slightly disappointed, but I busied myself my studying. I know my Spanish pretty well, but I hardly made a dent in my 19 page biology review pack! Thank goodness I have off tomorrow too.

Today we got the first real snow of the winter! Yay! It was really pretty, perfect snow. Huge fluffy flakes. We got about 1.5 inches, which is good because no one was predicting snow in the first place.

For brekky, I decided I needed to do something with the brown bananas I had. I made banana bunt bread from Green Lite Bites. I used oil, because I'm skeptical of recipes that use all applesauce, plus I need the calories. I also used dark chocolate chips, big surprise.
It was delish! It wasn't overly sweet, but that's what I was aiming for. Much healthier than regular banana bread, with all whole wheat flour and no refined sugar! Omnom.

For lunch, I made a grilled pesto+homemade hummus+spinach sammich. I also had a vanilla Chob, carrots, and a TJ's Trek Mix bar. I just tried the bars for the first time today, and I love them! Plus they're like $3 cheaper than Kashi. No offense Kashi, I still love you.
For dinner tonight, we made another pasta dish. When we were making the menu for the week we didn't take into account that we'd be having pasta two nights in a row. It's okay though, I like pasta! We made Garlic-Mushroom pasta. Again, I used multigrain pasta.

It was pretty good. We used more pasta than the recipe suggests, so there wasn't enough sauce. Next time I'll switch the proportions of sauce and mushrooms. I also had a piece of TJ's French baguette.
I can't wait for inauguration tomorrow! My plans tomorrow are going to be centered around watching the inauguration and the parade. I really would have liked to go down to DC to see it in person, but there are just going to be too many people! I've heard 4 million? My dad, who works in DC, is planning on staying there overnight because he won't be able to get out because of all the traffic. If you all were off today like I was, I hope you enjoyed the last of your 3-day breaks!

Edited to say: Darn it! I just heard about the PB Jamfrakas/Larabar recall. I just bought a bunch of Jamfrakas! At least I can get a refund...

Yo no fui, call the US Embassy...

Today my Spanish teacher told us that if we're ever arrested in any South American country over spring break for getting drunk on the beach (right), we should say "Yo no fui, call the US embassy". It means I didn't do it! Sorry for the randomness, but that has been stuck in my head since 10 this morning.

Thank you all for all the support you gave me for my last post. Reading all your comments makes me feel better immediately! I meant to thank all of you personally so if I didn't, sorry, your comment was much appreciated. I'm feeling slightly better today, but still not back to normal yet. Luckily I have group tomorrow so I can hopefully figure out what's bugging me.

Boring, repetitive food today. I wish I could post more pics, but it's so hard to have interesting food when I have no time to prepare it at home. I have a semi-exciting lunch planned for tomorrow's lunch, though.

For dinner tonight, I made this recipe for angel hair pasta in garlic sauce. White pasta is a fear food for me, and I was so not up for a challenge tonight. I struggled through it without enjoying it. I didn't think it was that good either, white pasta just tastes bland to me, and I could barely taste the garlic in the sauce.
On the side, I had a piece of bakery French bread (white bread, white pasta.. blech) and a tangerine.
Later I made a yummy snack. I microwaved half a banana I found in the fridge for 30 secs, then added a vegan marshmallow and some dark chocolate chips. Mmmm.


To make up for lack of pictures today, I took a picture of my kitten Shadow (Okay, so she's seven). I made her a little blanket cave :]
I promise promise promise that I'll have more pictures tomorrow. There's an exciting menu planned!