Consumption Malady

I got a food scale, weeks ago actually. It’s really cool. You know how you would look up the calories for an apple or a bell pepper on the internet and you’d have to be like “I guess it’s medium sized. I don’t really know.” And you wouldn’t have any other choice but to say it was ____ calories, even if it really wasn’t, because you didn’t have any other way of figuring it out. Well, if you spend $30 on a food scale, you’ll be able to calculate exact caloric amounts. Super exact. You will have to do a little math. Basic stuff, though. Anyway, it’s fantastic.

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So. . . I know I don’t post very often anymore. I have a boring life. I succeed. I fail. I puke. I lax. We all talk about those four things, over and over. I often get confused; get all your blogs and names mixed up. At times you are all one eating-disordered girl/entity, since, to be honest, everyone talks about the same stuff all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I still love to read your blogs. They’re motivating. They give me ideas on how to bolster my own eating disorder. I love ‘em! . . . I’m not sure there was a point to any of that. I’m boring, but I do the same shit as all you guys, so. . . I should just post anyway? In case it helps anyone (the way your blogs help me)? Sure, yeah, that sounds good. Good reasoning. I’ll start posting more =).

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148 pounds today. That means I’m down 2.8 pounds since Aug. 3, which was the last time I got a chance to weigh myself on my mom’s new super high-tech Scale-O-Matic 3000. I’m kidding. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s new and super nice and probably a lot more accurate than my dinky $14 digital scale.

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So here is my daily plan:

Breakfast: coffee with skim milk

Snack: piece of fruit

Lunch: salad, bread and cheese

Snack: piece of fruit

Dinner: salad, bread and cheese

Dessert: piece of chocolate

If I eat everything (which I rarely do) it’s about 630 calories. And, yeah. . . it’s pretty fantastic. Like I’ve been saying (like I won’t shut up about) I eat great-tasting quality foods all day long. I never feel hungry, but I do experience the affects of hunger (if that makes any sense). Like, I still get the empty feeling, I get really intense hunger pains, light-headed upon standing, low-energy. But I never feeling like I need food. I never want to binge. Well, once I did, but that was only because I didn’t have anything around to eat, no safe stuff at least. But if I’m prepared, that stuff doesn’t happen.

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Anyway, I love life, and I hope you do too!

It is 1:40 am right now in Washington state. Technically, tomorrow is July 31st, my 20th birthday. Today my phone decided to spaz out, and I missed a call from my dad. He is homeless, living in a shelter, and rarely gets a chance to call me. Bummer. We were going to make plans to hang out. My dad is awesome. He’s, honestly, one of my best friends. I haven’t seen him in, like, two weeks and I miss him tons. So, what am I going to do? Strap on my sneakers and walk my ass down to the shelter! That’s right. They have to leave at 5 am, I believe. Possibly 6. But to be sure I don’t miss him, I’m going to start walking at 3 am! Isn’t that fucking insane?! No sleep tonight; just walking. My dad means a lot to me. And, hey, maybe I’ll burn off today’s epic binge!

Do you guys ever get scared by how satiated you feel and worry that you’ve eaten more than you have? That’s the way I felt today. It was amazing. Quality foods, guys, I’m tellin’ ya. It makes all the difference in my life. I’ll cut it off there; don’t want to get all soap-boxy again.

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I AM REDISCOVERING PASSIONS! And it is fantastic! With the boyfriend not being so smothery these days I have time to listen to myself, appreciate things, re-realize that the richness in life is what makes it all worth while. I am rediscovering my love of music, my love of food. And maybe some day I will re-find my passion for writing prose; for writing anything at all! You see, that used to be my dream. It used to be everything to me: writing. I wanted to get published so badly. I still have no ideas, and I don’t quite know if I’m writing anything “good.” I mean, as far as writing style goes. (You be the judge.) I love life again. It’s amazing. I love life. I love myself (for the most part). I feel fantastic.

Last night I dreamt that my friends and family sent me to this, like, troubled young peoples’ home or something like that, for having an eating disorder. It was a really nice, big house. I think I was the only ED there. Everyone else had different “troubles” like depression, anxiety, or just kids that got in trouble a lot. I was “recovering” while I was there and doing a good job of eating like a normal person. The monitoring wasn’t super strict, like in an ED clinic, but there were adults there to supervise. One day I was sitting at a table on the porch with some girls that were there. We were doing crafts; making cards or bracelets or something. I was trying to take some Tylenol, wasn’t paying attention, and accidentally grabbed a cup filled with super glue instead of one with water. I realized that I fucked up before my lips were glued together and I kept my mouth open until it dried. Then one of the girls said that it could be poisonous and I should go puke it up. I don’t think any of the boarders knew about my ED. I was like “Shit! I could get really sick!” So I went and puked. And I got caught by a couple of the supervisors. They, of course, didn’t believe for a second that I had swallowed super glue. They were just like “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” I didn’t get in trouble, and they didn’t even seem to care that much.

I’m eating a really fantastic salad right now. Here’s the recipe:

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FOR ONE SERVING-

-3 white button mushrooms, sliced or chopped (12 calories)

-5 sprigs of parsley, stems removed (4 calories)

-1 cup baby spinach (7 calories)

-1/4 a clove or garlic, minced (2 calories)

-1 tps extra virgin olive oil (30 calories)

-the juice of ¼ a lemon (1 calorie)

-salt and pepper to taste

            Total: 56 calories

Place all the vegetables in a bowl, drizzle with oil and lemon juice, add garlic, toss, and season to taste.

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I love fantastically simple things like that. I’ve been quite inspired, lately, by European-style meals which consist of a glass of wine, a lovely simple salad, some really great bread, and some really great cheese (I’m obsessed with Europe, by the way, especially France. Took 3.5 years of French in high school). I’ve never read the book French Women Don’t Get Fat, but I read the back, and, having been to France, I think I understand the concept; the key is your ability to savor and appreciate and be passionate about every meal of the day. And the easiest way to do that is simplicity and quality. Very simple, high-quality foods. Meals that consist of salad, bread, cheese. Now, I think we can all agree that a handful of iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing, a piece of white bread, and a slice of Kraft American Singles is not going to be a healthy, satisfying, lovely meal. I’m resolving to eat less processed foods. I’m resolving never to eat a crappy piece of soft sandwich bread again. I’m resolving to buy quality foods, and simplify and savor everything I eat. I think the reason I get in these cycles of binge-binge-binge-binge-binge is because I’m eating such crap all the time that I’m never satisfied, because nothing tastes good, because my body doesn’t even like anything I put in it. I encourage you all to put down your microwavable oatmeal, your bottled salad dressing, your NutriGrain bars and eat something that actually tastes good!

Yay texting buddy! I finally snagged one! Lol.

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Bad eating day today. Not that that’s a big deal. It happens all the freaking time with me. Puking helps lol.

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Brian is buying me a ticket to Yuma to visit him! WOOOOOOOOOOO! Soul-searching in the desert! It’s going to be kick ass! I’m thinking I’m leaving this Wednesday the 21^st. He even promised to help me watch my eating (probably because he’s just about the only person who knows about my ED and he doesn’t want to hear me barf in his bathroom). Brian + my new texting buddy + tank-top weather = me having tons of motivation to get skinny! Probably won’t get to post often though.

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I wish all you girls and guys the best of luck in your lives!

I’ve had this little mantra playing in my head all day. It’s been there since the second thing I ate: a piece of garlic bread. Definitely not something I personally consider “safe,” in the eating disordered sense of the word. Anyway, whenever I’m not really thinking of anything, just kind of sitting and spacing off, I realize that this is on repeat in my mind: 

Fat. Fat. Fat. Can’t believe how fat. Gross. Disgusting. Fat. Pig. Pig. Pig. Huge. Insatiable. Hog. Stuff you face. Stuff your face. Puke. Puke. Puke. Huge. Disgusting. Hog. Ugly. Fat. Ugly. Bad. Monster. Eating everything. Fat. Fat. Fat. Huge. Disgusting. Fat.

Great, huh? I don’t know about you guys, but bingeing or eating any more than I planned to makes me feel like a bad person. Like I’m actually doing something morally wrong. Like the way I feel after I act really bitchy to a telemarketer or when I scold my dogs really harshly. It makes me feel like a really bad, terrible person. Do you guys have that feeling, too?

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Anyway, I’ve been bingeing and purging a lot today. You know what phrase is really weird to me? Saying “give it back,” instead of purge, or barf, or hurl, or vomit, or throw up, or blow chunks, etc. I feel I can truly embrace how disgusting and pitiful actually am when I give it a nice grafic name like that. Give it back? Who are you giving it back to? That’s a really terrible gift, if you ask me. Lol. I don’t even know if the toilet likes it. I don’t mean to offend. Not trying to make enemies. It’s just a very different way of looking at it than I have.

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Nervous about weighing tomorrow. Going to be HUGE! Hoping I don’t go over 600 calories.

Super awesome! I’m under 150 pounds! One pound until my first weight goal!

I was attampting to stay up all night, hop on the very first bus at 5:30 am, show up at Zach’s house, nap, and then spend some time with him. I fell asleep though, and didn’t get there until almost 8 in the morning. I slept until 2:30. I had to leave at 5 to go hang out with Jesse, a friend from high school that I haven’t seen in a while. So we only hung out for a couple hours awake. It was great to see Jesse again. We had fun, but I did get quite depressed when tons of people I didn’t know showed up at his house and loud techno started playing (his older brother’s a DJ). I really dislike loud music. And I get really nervous around too many people I don’t know (too many being more than 2). So I was already a little bit flustered and I just started thinking about how I don’t really want to be with Zach anymore and shit. Gah! Made me really bummed. I’m trying to get my mom to help pay for a plane ticket to Yuma so I can see my friend Brian (my best friend, actually). It’ll only be a couple hundred dollars, and my birthday is coming up. It’s not like she wasn’t going to give me that much money anyway. I just want her to give it to me earlier. I want to break up with Zach and then run away to Arizona for a few weeks because Brian is a super great guy and it would really cheer me up and help me out a lot to be around him. And being so far away would help me not get sucked back into a relationship with him, Zach I mean.

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Good day as far as intake goes: diet soda, coffee, coffee, coffee, one raspberry, and 100-calorie popcorn. Hoping to go to sleep soon so I can wake up soon and see how much I weigh soon. I need to be 149.2 tomorrow to be on track to be 140 by the 31st (my 20th birthday!).

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You beautiful girls have an amazing tomorrow, ok? You all owe it to yourselves to have amazing bodies!

Thanks so much for your opinions! I really appreciate everyone’s input about my relationship. But one thing I probably should have mentioned is that I have a HUGE problem saying what’s on my mind, especially if I think I might start a conflict. So, in his defense, I never told him about the things that were making me unhappy and actually said repeatedly that I was just fine with them. How could he know he was making me unhappy if I was constantly saying he wasn’t? How could he know what to change if he didn’t know what he was doing wrong? Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m tired this cycle of putting my boyfriend down and then defending him. Moving on:

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15 calorie Crystal Light popsicles! Awesome!

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Jell-O Pudding–sugar-free, fat-free, one ounce boxes of mix: 100 calories for the whole box of unprepared mix (certain flavors are more calories). Almond Dream almond milk, unsweetened, original flavor, enriched with nutrients: 30 calories for one cup! Amazing! 2 cups Almond Dream + Reduced Calorie Jell-O Pudding mix = a whole lot of pudding for only 160 calories! I thought that was just fantastic. And you can put almond milk in all kinds of things—coffee, tea, cereal, smoothies—anywhere you would use cow’s milk, but way less calories (100 calories less than 2% milk).

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100 calorie microwave popcorn. I love it! That’s a whole lotta popcorn for only 100 calories.

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Ooh! And another really awesome tip: fruit flavored Gerber Graduates Puffs (next to the baby food in the supermarket). It’s really yummy. 25 calories for ½ a cup. I like to use this instead of cereal. One cup of toddler puff things + 1/3 cup Almond Dream = a bowl of cereal for 60 calories! One cup of Cheerios, dry, is like, 100 calories. Which do you think Ana would rather eat? Lol

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Low-cal “fettuccine alfredo”—1/2 a bag of Tofu Shirataki noodles (20 cal) + one wedge of Laughing Cow Light Spreadable Cheese, any flavor you want (35 cal) + 1 tbsp low-fat sour cream (17.5 cal) = 72.5 calories for a pasta dish that’s really filling and yummy. A regular fettuccine alfredo would be over 500 calories for the same size serving.

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Walden Farms makes tons of calorie-free products. Of course, like diet soda, it doesn’t really have 0 calories; just a fraction of a calorie per serving, making it legal for them to put “0” on the label. Walden Farms makes salad dressing, chocolate dip, marshmallow dip, jam, peanut spread, etc. Just about everything is artificial, though. Mixing some with the real stuff is a great way to reduce calories a lot. I do it especially with the peanut spread, since peanut butter is so densely caloric.

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I went to a birthday party today. My extended family is so big that we often group birthdays that are near each other into the same party. Today the cake said “Happy Birthday Grandma, Sarah [my second cousin], Pete [my cousin, Sarah's dad], and Rick [my uncle].” My birthday is considered so far away from everyone else’s that I get my own party all to myself at the end of July. Lol. My name will be the only one on my cake. Go me! Anyway, I overheard my mom and my Aunt Trisha talking:

Trisha: Kayla has gotten so thin!

Mom: No she hasn’t.

Trisha: Oh. I thought she did.

Hmm, I thought, Is my mom in denial? I mean, yeah, I’m overweight still, but I have lost weight; a total of 23 pounds. She knows I make myself vomit. I asked her once to help me get help. All she said was I have to try to stop first. That was over a year ago. Another time she asked me if I was pregnent because she heard me puking so often. Of course, I had to say “No, I’m not.” I can’t have her thinking she’s going to be a grandmother. And finally, she got her hands on a letter I had written to my brother. I never actually got up the courage to send it to him. It was about absolutely everything that was making me miserable. It my guts poured out on the page, plain and clear as day, put in the most blunt language. And in it I talked about being bulimic. One day while she was driving, she asked me to grab something for her out of her purse, and as I dug around I found that letter, and I totally stole that shit back!

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Maybe she’s not in denial at all and was simply saying that I’m still fat.