Have to keep our weight UP and e.d. quandries
Well if that isn't just the oddest thing ever, to be told. To have to keep your weight up. How bizzare is that? I dont know. After all this time of trying to eat more, do LESS eating disorder stuff, our weight falls anyway.. now isn't THAT great news! But instead it feels like we're in trouble for it because we have to be watched more closely I guess. I can't explain it like our therapist did today though... I don't know. Its not like we're really in trouble, but it FEELS like we are. Therapist and nutritionist "talked". (agh.) I guess they're just trying to figure out WHY our weight dropped so much if (if?) we're eating/exercising how much we say we do. I explained to her today that YES, we tell the truth. I guess its not that T doesn't believe me, its just that they dont know why our weight would have dropped so much. How about maybe that our metabolism might be finally coming back to life after all these years? And finally actually working again? Or that since we're eating healthier foods now (instead of sugar & emtpy calories, we eat protein and fruit) its making our body work right. I wonder could we be that lucky at LAST? God, wouldn't that be NICE?
The terror of gaining weight is still there though. It could end any day. We're not allowed to lose any more weight. So what if I stopped trying to lose weight, and all of a sudden started gaining huge amounts? Terrifying. Oh PLEASE, let this just be a gift that our body is working right again after all these years of eating disorder abuse.
One of the hard things is that we don't always know what each other eats and does.
Tuck loves late night raid-the-peanut-butter-jar-snacks. Extra crunchy peanut butter, by the way. He'll stick a huge spoon in the pb and just lick it off. Oh and he loves to pour chocolate chips in the peanut butter and scoop them out and eat them that way. Me, I prefer a little marshmallow creme/ peanut butter mixture instead. Others like Carolineine are smooth peanut butter eaters. The problem is that Tuck always forgets to write down that he had a snack. Then Mae also goes to get a snack-- a brownie out of the freezer. And she doesn't write it down either. The next day we're all confused. We had SOMETHING last night, what was it? Should we write down what we think one of the kids had? Why IS the peanut butter disappearing? Hey who ate a brownie? How many fruit roll ups did we have left the other day because the box is empty now... but there are only 2 written down on the food journal. AGH.
So our therapist wants us to keep better food journals. I dont know.. I guess we have to, but I think its a bummer that 5 year olds and 8 year olds have to write down everything that goes in their mouth just because someone they know has an e.d. *shrug* But i'm just 17 and that's just my opinion.
jo
Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:
i wonder if your T and the nutritionist are wondering why, if all the snacking is really going on, that you aren't gaining a bit of weight or at least not losing.
i've read that overweight people tend to have naturally higher metabolisms then underweight people. the body's own way of protecting itself from being extreme either way.
personally i'm very close to your sister's weight (as mentioned here previously) and when i snack, especially at night, i gain.
i'm not saying that you aren't eating but maybe working at writing it all down will give your nutrionist a better understanding of why you aren't maintaining or gaining.
anyway, good luck with it. i know how hard it is for just me to keep track of what i eat, i can't imagine how difficult it would be with a whole family contributing.
Well, 1 thing COULD be, is that after 20+ years of anorexia and my metabolism being very slowed down, and me eating low-quality food, that my body has finally adjusted to recovery-mode. Like now my body is realizing that its going to keep getting healthy,good food in good amounts, so its realizing that its safe to be working again. So my metabolism could be speeding up to what is a normal one. People with e.d's have bodies that don't work like most peoples. So, my body could be working faster, and as I'm eating more, my body is actually taking advantage of it. I wouldn't gain weight right now like a normal person would- in recovery, after a while (like where I am) its been explained to me that a person would an e.d. will actually start to lose weight as their body gets back to normal. Weird huh?
So, anyway, I don't mind being a low weight. To me its still way too fat. I could lose another 10 or 20 pounds and still be fat. I know other people think I'm too skinny already.. but they don't have to live in my body... :(
I'm going to talk about it more with my T next week. We need to. Of course, Caroline has some definite ideas of what SHE needs to talk about next week, and so does Mae, and so does Claire, and so does Pilgrim, and so we all need to just get in line...
what you explained sounds reasonable .. i know that you don't want to gain more weight so maybe just concentrated on maintaining the weight you are now but more importantly the healthful way that you feel at this weight. try to focus on how much healthier and strong you feel today then you have previously.
as you said, the number isn't important. what's important is that you have energy, that you are healthy and your body is keeping up with all the great things you have planned.
I just had one practical suggestion for keeping track of what you eat. It's probably easier to record late night snacks the next morning. Just try to keep the "evidence" collected in one place, the sink, or a dishpan, so you just count how many peanut butter spoons, brownie wrappers, etc. Things like chocolate chips you can measure out into small cups or jars, not to put a limit on the portions, but for easy counting later. Measuring out a "serving" of protein, and raw vegetables and then counting the containers I've emptied is sometimes the only way I can monitor that I am eating enough of the right things every day. Like a child, I cannot have another chicken wing until I finish my celery, and open a new container, lol.
Well not maybe we could do that. Keep little servings measured out and see how much is still left the next day. Good idea.
Well now maybe we could do that. Keep little servings measured out and see how much is still left the next day. Good idea.
BY THE WAY-- we weighed ourselves on Friday. Its not such a bad weight. Lower than its been in a long time. Since about 1999. Nice. BUT-- we are here in a HEALTHY way. Weird but cool. Not starving or b/p or anything. We're at this lower weight LEGITIMATELY.
Not that I wouldn't like it 10 pounds lower. ;)