Losing Weight

I really want to lose weight but I'm terrified of where it takes me, of how it affects my thinking. The fact of the matter is that I only want to lose about half a stone. The reality is that I don't know how to do it without becoming all disordered. It makes me think that I should have learnt the tools somewhere to adjust my weight without slipping into some kind of confused hell that makes me obsessive and frantic about food input vs exercise output.

I obviously don't want to diet, can't do that but then how do I lose weight? I'm still trying to manage the dangerous pendulum of exercise. I want a tiny portion of the discipline that I had back when I was anorexic but without the actual illness. I don't want to remain as sedentary as I have done over the past year as it doesn't make me feel good at all.

I have a feeling that I may be slipping into some kind of depression or numbness as I literally cannot motivate myself to make the changes in my life that may make it better, easier. I say some kind of because I don't feel the deep despair that my depression had previously taken me to. I'm just not enjoying life as I should given I have so many new opportunitiees open to me. This is where I am in recovery, probably a bit stuck.

Weighty issues

I struggle to control my weight and feel ok about where I am. A bunch of my friends remarked on how I had lost weight after Christmas, I hadn't noticed but maybe I had. Of course I then tried to look for the evidence. Did my clothes feel looser, had I eaten less, had I taken any more exercise? No, yes and possibly. Of course then I actively wanted to lose some more weight. Slow and steady right but I have the dregs of a bulimic mind. I, of course, get anxious about my food intake, which causes me to want to eat more and to feel out of control anytime I do eat. So I upped my exercise intake, took in more fruit and less refined sugar and started to feel good. Then my skin broke out in spots (could be due to my menstrual cycle but gut feeling says it's not that) and my exercise intake went back down again. But hoorah because I was still eating less refined sugar...until today. A child's party and a buffet full of creamy, oily food along with cake and sweets. I was overwhelmed and desperate to fit in. I ate more than I should from the buffet, devoured a huge piece of cake and some sweets. I then spent time thinking about whether I have been truly restricting or if I just overate. I can't decide which and it has been burning in my mind ever since. This is a day where recovery sucks.

I really do want to be just fit and healthy...and thin. Is it possible for all three to happen?

Smoooothies!

I'm feeling the benefit of being that little bit healthier, doing exercise and getting a good fruit intake via smoothies. They have become my number 1 drink and I am managing to overcome my processed sugar binges, that in itself feels great, like a real achievement. Plus I have lost a couple of pounds and my skin is looking healthier. I prefer to drink rather than eat. It really has given me a better mindset.

So smoothies feel like January's blessing. It somehow has given me the confidence to try making other healthy foods/drinks so I may just try my hand at making some chai tea. Maybe that can be February's drink choice! Hmmm, I wonder if I could somehow make a new drink each month. Would it work? Could I actually do it. Maybe that can be my fun challenge for each month. Cos let's face it I'll need a winter warmer drink. I hate winter and I know that this summer devotion to smoothies may not make it through those bitterly cold winter months when all I wanna do is warm up my body and feel cosy.

Sad

Today I'm sad. Nothing to do with the past couple of weeks and the death of someone I loved, liked along with a few other deaths. Deaths that I cannot comprehend, deaths that have taken tiny pieces of my heart. Today I am sad for myself. For lost things, for lost loves. Today I cry silently inside and try to smile it all away. Today I can acknowledge how lonely I get in the middle of my incredibly filled life. Today feels like so many yesterdays, yesterdays I thought that I had escaped forever. Today I can see that no matter how much love I get, I can still feel unloved, unheard, unseen. Today I see it is me that is at fault for dreaming that it could be any other way.

You're Beautiful

I caught up with an old school friend last night. He told me that he had fancied me at school but had been afraid to ask me out. He told me I was beautiful back then and still am today. That one comment made my night, has made my day. What a boost to my diminishing confidence. I was a different person back then, on the verge of my first foray into having an eating disorder. Before then I had just had disordered eating, although I hadn't realised it. It was like the slow decline of my personality, of the walls I had created all spiralled into an intense self loathing that I was unable to step away from for a long time. I talked about the aggression I had back in school with that friend. I'm not sure he had noticed partially because he was under my radar. He was a nice boy, I liked him but we weren't best of friends, I didn't hang out with him but I remembered him. My aggression was only directed at those who I noticed, those who got too close and myself.

The conversation made me think about the lost opportunities I have had to be loved or at least to feel liked. Maybe if I had been able to open up, to allow people, men to get close to me I wouldn't have felt the need to be so self destructive as I would have had some form of validation from elsewhere. Or maybe I wouldn't have been able to deal with the broken  heart that dating would have inevitably have brought me. Who knows? At least I am able to treasure this latest form of validation and whilst I don't believe I am beautiful, it is nice to hear it.

Fit and Healthy: A Wish

I've started running, I'm in training for a race. I am so unfit it's not funny. Once upon a time I was a girl who liked to use her legs and I ran for miles. I didn't even think about it, I would just run. I was also slightly anorexic at that time even though I didn't really know it. Now I am like an old woman who has just discovered her legs and I huff and puff like the big bad wolf. I cannot believe that I am this unfit. I shall not obsess though I shall just work hard. I'm feeling enthusiastic that this new exercise regime will allow me to stay in control of myself. I really do want to enjoy getting and being fit. It would be amazing if I could just have the body that I want; outer strength matching innner strength.

Music, tranquility and my soul

Last year was pretty busy and in the background of my study I listened to tv. I think I lost myself and lost my passion for music. I love music, I sing (badly) when I'm happy. I love dancing with my children and belting out alternative lyrics (cos I can never remember the real ones).

My pure joy is dancing with my daughter to music in her room when she is supposed to be asleep. It feels like snatched moments of glory, of the making of memories that we'll both look back on fondly. Last night I found new music and I listened and I learnt and my soul was happy, truly happy. I even had my daughter in bed with me listening to the newly found songs. When I played a particular song again this morning (Lianne la Havas- No Room For Doubt), my daughter sang along with some of the correct lyrics. She's better than me!

So last night was a peaceful night. I didn't light my scented candle but I did rediscover the joy of  music and surfing and reflecting in my bedroom. My room isn't a peaceful place right now due to an unending amount of clutter. The clutter is on my list of to dos. This is the year of remaking my room into my sanctuary, which is hard when you share it with a total clutter bunny. But I decided the other night that I can't change the clutter bunny, it's simply wasted energy, but I can change my attitude. So I will strive to please myself and make my most important room somewhere where I can truly relax.