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!

Lovely weekend!

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!

Hey there, stranger. Mega-long post alert!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is WRONG with me?

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

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
2. In a smaller bowl, combine the brown sugar, applesauce, egg, and apple. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir in the Puffins.
3. Scoop into 10 greased muffin tins.
4. 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:

• Fay
  
• Jemima
• Shelby
  

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!

We're All in This Together

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!

Snow Day!!

If you can even call it that. It was a really, really, lame excuse for a snow day! There was about half an inch of snow when I woke up this morning. But hey, it got me out of school so I'm not complaining! Plus, I was having a really bad hair day this morning. I looked like Astro Boy! Except you know, not a boy. And with a shirt on.

I like snow days because they give me a chance to do some baking! So for brekky, I made Spiced Banana Bread from Ginge and the Giant Peach. Except I only had one banana, so I made half the recipe. I used canola oil instead of butter, and half whole wheat and half white flour. Oh yeah and dried apricots instead of mixed dried fruit. I didn't have a small enough loaf pan, so I poured the batter into 5 muffin cups.
Fay, your grandmother is some baker! These were so amazingly good. Perfectly spiced, and very moist. I can't stop thinking about them now.
With a muffin, I had an egg and the most perfect pear I've ever had in my life. My mom got it from the Harry and David fruit of the month club at her office. Soooo good!


And yay more breakfast! S'mores oats! S'morsoats. S'moats. I put lotsa cinnamon in my oatmeal to make it taste like a graham cracker, then mixed in a chopped vegan marshmallow and dark chocolate chips. I cannot even put into words how good this was. Melty goodness.

Lunchtime came, and I wanted soup but we had none. So I made polenta. I mixed 1/4 c cornmeal with 1/4 c water to make a paste and brought it to a boil. Then I simmered it for 15 mins, adding a couple tablespoons of water every now and then to keep it from clumping. When it was done, I stirred in about 1/2 tbs butter and topped it with half a cooked potato and a slice of cheddar. Exactly what I needed on my snow day! With carrots, an oatmeal bar, and a Nature's Promise yogurt.

I thought that I was going to have to eat dinner between my cello lesson and therapy tonight, since that's what I normally do on Tuesdays. But when I got to my cello lesson, my teacher wasn't there and I found out it was canceled:[ . And my dad called my therapist and said that the weather was too bad to drive in. I packed a quesadilla on two corn tortillas with cheddar, lettuce, black olives and black beans; plus the rest of the can of black beans.
I just heated it up when I got home and ate it like that.

I hope I haven't been boring any of you by my marathon posts! It's just that on school days I never get to make such exciting yummy food so I'm taking advantage of that. I promise, once I go back to school tomorrow (or maybe not, it might snow again!), I'll be back to just posting a few things a day. Unless you all like my daily eat posts..?

I'm off to do the snow dance. Sweet dreams, everyone!

P.S. Get a free Quaker True Delights bar here.

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 :[