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!

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!

Teenagers Gnaw Icy Froyo

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!

Telepathic Girlscouts Idolize Fergie

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!

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.