Happy square root day!

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!

Post #100

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!

Confessions of a grocery shop-a-holic

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.

Happy Valentines Day!

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:

1. COLD. Enough said.
2. Dannon carb & sugar control yogurt. 60 calories and 3 carbs of pure crap.
3. Constant calorie counting. I couldn't have a stick of gum if it didn't fit into my cal budget.
4. Hiding food in napkins/under table/other creative places that I won't say.
5. Skipping out on parties involving food because I felt "sick" and needed a nap.
6. Lying. All the time, to everyone.
7. Making myself burn at least 300 calories a day through ballet, DDR, walking and yoga.
8. Wanting to pass out from exhaustion after taking a shower.
9. Cutting bread, pasta, rice and all of my other favorite carbs.
10. Being asked "Are you okay?" at least once a day.
11. Making the audience at my ballet recital cringe at how skeletal I looked.
12. Not having enough energy to play my cello or dance with emotion.
13. 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!

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.

A Successful Day

Just so you all know, the only reason I know how to spell success is because of Full House. I remember when Danny was teaching Stephanie a mnemonic to learn to spell it, and he said "Double the c, double the s, and you have success". So there you have it.

I did get a lot accomplished today. I read (When We Were Romans by Mattew Kneale), practiced my pointe for ballet, practiced cello and piano, played Wii, and did some homework. I also made some pom poms out of yarn to create this little buddy:

Hehe.

Breakfast featured another one of my banana fig muffins, which are just as good the second day.

For lunch, I was craving soup like made so I heated up some minestrone made by my homegirl Amy. I had half a grilled cheese with cheddar for dipping purposes. I also had carrots, an Dannon natural yogurt and a chocolate brownie zbar. Perfect lunch.
For dinner, I made Scottish Borders Rumbledethumps from Recipezaar. I've made this recipe several times and I love it sooo much! Like mashed potatoes but better, and substansial enough to be a meal on it's own. But along with it I also had a wheat roll with butter and an apple.
ED hasn't made much of an appearance today, which is unusual. When I was playing Wii, he started going "Yes yes yes keep playing! You're burning calories now, you don't need to eat today." But then I thought "Nooooooooooo I'm hungry for soup so haha." I actually do have arguments in my head that go something like that.

I have to go to bed rather early tonight to get myself back onto my regular sleeping schedule, considering that school starts again on Monday :[

Iguana?

I'm really awful at coming up with clever post titles.

And grr! I somehow deleted all of my pictures from breakfast and lunch! They were quite photogenic, too. But yesterday at Target, I found the cutest bowls ever! I made a bowl of pumpkin yogurt (pic was mysteriously deleted too) and look what was waiting for me at the bottom of the bowl:

I have another cute bowl that I'll reveal tomorrow morning. I do love Target.

I also had some fruit and tried the peanut butter blisscrisp Jamfrakas. It was really nummy! I liked the crunchy rice puffs. There was a lot of honey flavor, but I didn't mind. I forgot about the pic until halfway through eating it, sorry!
For dinner, we supposed to have plain ole' spaghetti. The rest of my family was having meat sauce on theirs, but I wanted to be different. So I made a stir fry. I used Ronzoni smart taste pasta (I know that it's cheater whole wheat stuff, but it's the only thing my family will eat..), frozen snap peas and carrots, orange juice, and some garlic chili pepper sauce. I cooked the veggies in about a tbs. EVOO, then added the cooked pasta, hot sauce and OJ until it was moist. Very spicy, but really good!

I had a string cheese too for protein. Then this cutie:
Christmas lion, anyone? I really don't know why this cookie cutter always ends up with our Christmas cutter stash!

I'm going to go play Wii now, goodnight everyone.

Disapointment.. then yummy dinner

The disappointment is in reference to the Christmas tree selection here. I live in a really cramped, congested part of the country and most of the good trees got picked over years ago. The lot we went to today had really crummy trees, they were either way to tall and bare, or too short and dumpy. We settled on a short one, and it's barely taller than me! I'll post pics once we decorate it tomorrow. My dad says this is the last year we'll be able to actually chop down our own tree. Next year we'll have to either get a pre-cut one or an artificial tree *shudders*.

But on the bright side, I made one of my favorites for dinner tonight. Peanut Butter Noodles! I like to use peanut butter at every chance I get. I added in some snow peas and carrots and had it with string cheese for a balance meal!

I was too lazy to take a picture of anything I ate after dinner, sorry! Arg, school tomorrow.