Change

I woke up this morning, at my usual 5:32 am, and the first thought that entered my mind was, "What if I didn't run today, what if I broke my habit and took three days off in a row from exercising? Can I do it?" I immediately shut-down the thought out of fear of losing control, not being able to take the weekend off, etc., and put on my running shoes. As soon as I was out the door, I instantly began to feel the "high" of my morning ritual. Ok, so I'm not yet ready to cut back even more on my exercise (I'm limited to five days a week, no longer than 1 hr and 30 minutes each session)...but since I can't do that, then I need to do something else. So here in lies the change I have finally committed myself to.

To be honest, the change began this weekend when I forced myself to drink my Ensure and maintain my meal plan without exercise completely. In fact, I hardly left my apartment this weekend, due to all of my work for grad school, so it was a really big push because I felt so lazy and undeserving of the extra calories/food. With that being said, I still managed to do it, and today marks my first day of actually forcing myself to have the second Ensure in the afternoon. (My meal plan consists of three meals, two snacks, and dessert every night. I am also supposed to have one Ensure in the morning and one in the afternoon, but I have not been able to overcome the fear/lack of hunger I face in the afternoons that allows me to drink that second Ensure). On that note, I have successfully added that today, and am feeling ok.

Ok, because I came home and was really hungry, and would usually reach for a piece of fruit or something relatively low in calories to keep me going until an early dinner around 5:30-6ish where I would then eat my normal dinner, but today I did it. I sucked down that calorie-laden chocolate drink (which, to be completely honest, I don't really mind the taste of) and forced myself to not think about how I would cut-out those calories in the rest of my meal plan or work them out later. Nope. No more of that. Through this challenge, I have also realized another component of my recovery/nutrition. When meeting with my nutritionist last week, she kept asking how we could get my weight up. My only response was that I needed to add the extra Ensure, and was completely closed-off to the thought of adding more calories through food. I left wondering why I so openly refused adding more food. When she originally mentioned it, my first complaint was that I wasn't hungry enough for more food and that liquid calories were easier because I didn't feel so uncomfortable. Reflecting upon it now, I think it also has to do with the fact that these Ensures are eventually going to be cut-out of my diet (hopefully in the near future), and that I then will not have to worry about consuming such high-calorie drinks. I continued to ponder this thought, and realized that I've been drinking weight-gain drinks since I have entered recovery (Ensures and Scandishakes) and I haven't put on much weight at all. In fact, I've been hovering around the same weight, going down, then back to the same point, but never going over, since I entered recovery. I translate that to the fact that my body NEEDs those calories I am getting from those drinks...so why don't I try and add them through foods rather than these expensive, sickly drinks?

 I catch myself trying to rationalize and analyze in order to convince myself/reconfirm to myself that I am still not eating enough. Its so hard because I am so focused on hard-facts and logics, and I truly do not understand the science behind metabolism, calorie-burn, exercise, etc. In fact, I don't think anyone truly knows what is going on in a person's body. I say this because my dietician tested my metabolism, which surprise surprise was extremely low, and told me the amount of calories I would need per day in order to function (not counting any additional exercise). I consume those calories, at a minimum, and actually go over those daily calories in attempts to gain weight...but then how come, after all of these weeks, and all of these extra calories, I am still not gaining weight and have even lost weight? Wouldn't this reflect a hyper-metabolism? The answer no. Shouldn't I gain weight? Well, I'm not, so no again. So what the shit is going on in my stomach? Also, side-note, lately I have been feeling constipated/bloated and extremely uncomfortable after eating. I have been regularly taking my enzymes, but it is really making me believe that I have some intolerances/maybe some allergies to foods that I am unaware of. If I were to have to narrow it down, my main issue appears to stem from dairy. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way trying to avoid the consumption of dairy due to this uncomfortableness, but I have been experiencing pain and misery after eating. Oh boy. What to do what to do. It seems everything just piles on one after another. I guess I will just push through and hope that eventually my body will adjust. I meet with the nutritionist to be weighed on Friday. I guess we will see then if this "change" puts some meat on these bones. Until then....

PS: I do not know my weight and have not known it since my third week of recovery in January. My first nutritionist asked me if I was willing to give her my scale, and at my next appointment I happily gave it away. Before my anorexia began, I did not weigh myself at all and in-fact, was almost too ashamed to weigh myself because I was on the heavier side when I was struggling with bulimia. As I fell into my anorexic patterns, I actually went out and bought a scale and began weighing myself almost three times a day. That lasted almost two months, and as soon as my nutritionist asked if I could give it up, I saw it as an instant out of the sick cycle I had begun. So since then I have not known that number, and to be honest, it was one of the most powerful decisions I have made in my recovery.