Monday, April 28, 2008

Argh. All I could think about earlier was how I would have a chance to workout today and I even mentally tried out what would feel best and decided on weights and a little cardio, elated at the idea. All I can think about is sleeping and so I am going to listen to my body but I am getting impatient. Damnit. And it is a beautiful day, all I can hope is that I will take a nap and wake up energized and ready to maybe do something fun outside with our son once I get him from school.
Got an A- on my research paper and am overjoyed about it, I actually dreamt that I got a D so this was very welcome. School is this.close to being out and I cannot wait!
Doing well on respecting my body and honoring my hunger in a positive way again now that my hormones are subsiding. Stupid hormones.

Friday, April 25, 2008

The last few days or so I've been feeling like my beautiful lie is crashing down around me. Never mind that for the past month I have felt phenomenal, looked the best I have in a long time, and been so much less stressed out and crappy feeling in general. All it took was maybe a day of wanting to stuff my face and experiencing exhaustion to make me doubt myself and my new found ability to trust my body. Guess what? I'm just bloated and hormonal and cramping and sleeping a whole lot extra...the way I am feeling is normal and will pass soon, hopefully any day now. With time I think I'll learn better ways to weather this kind of thing out instead of jumping to the conclusion that I'm rubbish and untrustworthy and destined to rip the seams on my trousers.
Another huge contributor to the way I'm feeling is only working out twice in the past month, that is just very un-Erin-y but I finally had to let something go in order to preserve my sanity and for a bit I even let cooking go and ate takeout several times a week. School just got INSANE for the past month as you can see from my lack of posting and I found out today that all my classmates have felt the same way for the past month. Thank goodness I chose to break loose from dieting and guilting myself over workouts at just the right time.
I'm headed to bed now even though it's not even 9 but I am so damned tired and am hopeful that I can ride my bike or whatever strikes me in the morning, I am so excited to workout again I can hardly stand it.
In summary: things are going well but my hormones make me crazy sometimes and school is almost out, yay team.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Busy studying for an exam in the morning-semester is almost over!
Just wanted to jot down that since ceasing to diet weird deposits of fat have left, for instance my knees are easily felt now, my calf muscles more defined-so much so that I wondered if something was wrong when I felt the buldge, nothing wrong just a clearly felt muscle. I have bigger boobs again and my stomach almost looks like pre-baby. My weight is up yet I can wear my smallest clothes-so many weird things going on that are totally fascinating to me and probably snoozeville to you, but I had to document it somewhere for my benefit and to explore further later.
Back to the GI system and it's diseases....(studying, not my own diseases).

Monday, April 14, 2008

Just found this while looking through my documents folder for research paper related things:

"The Other Side of Normal. I’m done with the other side of normal, the way I see it there is normal and then there is better and worse than, and for me dieting and the behavior and thoughts that go along with it are definitely on the worse side. I envision the better than normal side as being strong and muscular, a functional happy body that can do more than I ever imagined. I also see myself being semi-vegetarian, having a compost pile, recycling, and taking canvas bags to the grocery. Worse than normal obsesses about her body and its perceived flaws; she is weak and in mental anguish much of the time-worrying about how “bad” she was for eating that cookie once in the last few weeks or having those two celebratory drinks. Worse than is less than, and she knows it well. This is why she gets sick from stress, from pressure to be perfect, self esteem is low and dependent on the scale or a hoped for comment that never comes from people that have no idea it even matters to her."


I may have posted this when I wrote it back in April of 07 but I couldn't find it looking back. Interesting. It is always weird when I come across things I wrote and I don't remember doing it-easy to recognize my writing style though. I am so glad I am definitely on the better than normal side, or at least on my way.
I'm working on a research paper that is due wednesday that I've left until last minute. I was able to test my new found skills (listening to my own body) Saturday night and even did fairly well with it in regards to alcohol, something that at times (many times) has not been easy for me. I think I've braved all my old anxiety causing situations and come out unscathed.
Today I found out my dad is taking pills again and I am having a worse case of munchies than usual but nothing outrageous.
I am okay, I won't let him drag me down this time. It's nice to really like myself again.
I'll post as I'm able, I'm reading when I can, take care all you wonderful people.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

If I keep waiting to post until I have the time/ability to type out everything that has gone though/is going through my mind it will never happen.
I believe so strongly in the idea of eating intuitively that I plan to not only do my senior seminar on it, but to also base my practice around it once I become a registered dietitian. This will be quite controversial in my school as the non diet approach is still not widely accepted in the dietetics community though it was briefly mentioned in the obesity/weight management chapter last semester. The professor said, 'some RDs have found great success with this method" barely explained, and then moved on to weighing, food tracking and calorie counting.
In the intense tidal wave of emotional revolution I experienced when finally getting it recently I wanted to behave like a zealot and convert anyone and everyone around me and to proclaim dieting to be harmful for everyone. I forget that not everyone stays on "a diet" for years at a time, spinning their wheels and getting further bogged down and lowering their self esteem. Some people don't seem to be negatively affected by this behavior (constant restriction, self flagellation, etc) but I must say I believe it is a smaller percentage.
Eating intuitively is not about abusing your body. If you think it means never making positive nutrition choices for yourself again or contiuing to binge without investigating what is triggering the abusive actions, please look further inward. I am not an expert at this point, I do not have all the answers, nor do I think you are a depraved lunatic if you prefer to count what you eat and rely on external cues to determine what and how much and when you eat. I do believe however, that learning to trust yourself, trust your body and trust your judgement is a crucial step in truly loving and accepting yourself. Do only what you can see yourself doing the rest of your life, happily.
I've gone through a bit of grieving over the way I've treated myself the last few years and even now it hurts inside, and it is startling how insidiously the damage was wrought. I am well versed on the science side of things, I never ate below 1200 kcals a day, I got lots of protein and vitamins, etc etc. I drank my water, I worked out like a machine, I turned away artery clogging "treats". The MENTAL aspect of holding rigid control, feeling low when it slipped, pushing, pushing always pushing, never happy with myself for long, never reaching the mythical perfection...it nearly broke me. I can see that now. I sat in our bed one night and just sobbed, so angry I did that to myself. The clinical symptoms related to semi starvation are me down to every last one of them, if not all, nearly so. Since letting go I no longer feel so angry or irritable or impatient or stretched so, pardon the word, thin.
Positive things came out of it, I learned to cook and to love doing so. I found a profession that I think I can use to be a positive influence on the world, especially women. I started this blog and met people that are amazing-strong, intelligent, funny women. I learned I love yoga and riding my bike and a host of other activities. Now I can move further towards the shiny happy end of the spectrum.

Friday, April 04, 2008

My little one is very sick, caught the cold my husband got that I think I have been fighting somewhere deep in the Land of the Forgotten Sinuse Passages (aka way up in my noggin' somewhere).
Did an hour of yoga the other night and felt great but have yet to do it again even though I have had the desire just because of my time constraints. Doing the clinical rotation thing wears me out though not as badly as before and I have projects all coming due, only a few weeks left in the semester. I've stopped beating myself up if I can't work out as much as I want to, I know I'll be waaaaay more active when things slow down a bit and I'll just do the best I can right now.
I've had some struggled lately with food and trusting myself to do the right thing and there's lots I need to explore on here but I just can't right now. My little guy just wants me to hold him and it is so pitiful-wish I could make him better. If I haven't mentioned it, thank you to everyone that has been commenting-I get so excited when I see someone left me a note, I wish I was better at responding immediately. Please reference time constraints and management issues.