preach.
I live grain-free, soy-free, and dairy-free…
and I have to pack lunch every day, so don’t fucking tell me you don’t have time to eat healthy. You do. If you suddenly found that everything you ate outside of your house hurt you, then you would make time.
It’s a life choice. Make it.
<3”tough love” Elle
Why do we binge?
I’m an extreme person. So when I make a mistake, all of a sudden my mind goes, WELL IT’S ALL OUT THE WINDOW. MIGHT AS WELL FUCK UP MORE.
But now I’m at the point where when I do that I actually hurt my body. Like trouble breathing, stomach pains, sick for days hurt.
And I’m realizing that I can’t be extreme like that.
I’m also realizing that eating a cookie won’t kill me. And most of all, if I gain weight, I CAN lose it. I think I partially restricted because I was so scared that I would keep gaining and gaining until I was hideous. But that’s not happened. And I lost weight before as well…so it’s not like I’m impervious to weight loss.
I’m at a point right now where I’m learning to be thankful for where my body is at and how even when it is able to digest, life is great. Because for a while I couldn’t digest anything.
And that’s fucking terrifying.
I’m realizing that sugar does weird things to my body. So I eat barely any of it now. And I feel fantastic. I really do. I think I may be a bit sensitive to sugar, as my thoughts are SO much more disordered when I’m on it than when I’m not. Like SO much more. And I had a discussion with a friend with the same symptoms and it was crazy how similar we were. So I’m beginning to think it’s not just me.
Quitting sugar and quitting grains is fucking hard. It really is. But…it’s kinda worth it. And I’m not strict like never again, I just avoid it most of the time. And I really do feel better. I binge less. And I think about food less.
So it’s something to consider.
Anyway this was long and rambly, but if you got one good thing out of it, it was worth it.
Tips for quitting the binge.
I’ve come to the realization in life where I am no longer in denial that I have a problem with overeating.
It’s incredibly freeing. Because now I know that I have a problem and there are ways to attack it.
Way #1? Keeping a food journal.
It’s amazing how much it helps. And if I have a bad reaction to a food or indigestion, I can find patterns and learn what my body needs.
It has really made a difference so far.
I am now also pretty much grain free, as my stomach is in the midst of healing. So there’s that.
If you remember me…
do you want me to continue tumblring? I know I write more than post photos which is what tumblr is really about.
do you get anything out of what I write?
Relapse
Feeling fat and worthless tonight after multiple binges. I could really use some encouragement.
Help?
Overeating and my Eating Disorder
Now that I’m in sort of a recovery zone, I realize that it was not the being fat part that scared me the most (although that did strike terror in me and I still have to fight thoughts that spiral in that direction), it was the not being able to control my eating. The massive massive eat-til-you’re-sick cravings that I had every day all the time. I ate so much so often that I gave myself gastritis. And I knew that it was bad, but I couldn’t control it.
Now that I’ve cut out most sugar and grain, I feel a million times better. I’m not haunted by thoughts of food all day. I don’t have massive cravings that cause me to binge. My blood sugar doesn’t spike and dip, making me irritable and starving. Nope. I’m starting to feel normal.
And now I may weigh a little more than I did when I was full-blown eating disorder, but I find that I don’t mind so much. I don’t hate myself for eating too much, because I rarely do anymore. I never binge. I still eat what I want. And I exercise when I want. But if I don’t, I don’t hate myself. I don’t hurt myself. I just live, reminding myself that my body will even out to a weight that I’m comfortable at, and if I ever want to, I can lose excess weight by eating more healthily and exercising more steadily.
But it doesn’t stress me out. Amazing how that is.
I used to read magazines…
When I was in middle school and high school, I began a tradition every August. When my family spent a week at the beach, I would buy all the teen magazines I could find and study them like a guide while I sat on a beach towel hoping to get even a little tan.
Back then, I went to a very poor religious private school and was used to khaki and navy pleated skirts and white polos. This was not the cute sexy uniform that most people imagine on private schoolers. It was unflattering, and the rules regarding accessories were so strict, you were lucky if the hoop earrings you wore were allowed (big ones were banned because a girl had ripped her earlobe on the playground one year, or so they told us).
Because of this, I had absolutely no knowledge of fashion, or even much of a wardrobe of my own, besides ugly long skirts which I wore on Fridays, which were “dress up” days at school.
So when August rolled around, I would sit on the beach, memorizing every page of Seventeen and Teen Vogue and Cosmo Girl and dreaming about the day when I would be stylish and confident and popular. The pages of those magazines held another world, the world of public school, a world without uniforms. Every year I would read those magazines and promise myself that THIS year would be different. That THIS year I would fit the personality profile outlined in Elle Girl, the “How to Be Friends with Everyone” or “How to Get the Guy.” But every year I would fall just short and repeat the cycle the next year.
Now I look back on my sheltered mindset and laugh. I guess those fantasies were wonderful while they lasted, but I would never be like one of the girls in those magazines. Mostly because they don’t really exist. Everyone is insecure, and most girls look past the editorials of Teen Vogue and settle for Northface jackets, ugg boots, and messy buns.
But I would never even reach that point. And today, I look back and smile a bit, thinking about how crazy I was to not embrace myself for who I was. Because it was fun to pretend, but I wouldn’t really want to be that girl. I’d much rather be the unique and quirky person I am today.
The magazine industry is beginning to fail, and I don’t wonder why. Of course the internet age has ushered in some serious competition, but also maybe girls of the most impressionable age are getting wise and realizing that magazines are nothing but one long ad, dedicated to making you feel like you need to consume more and look prettier to be worth anything. And that’s something I think we’re all tired of.
Cheers,
<3Elle
(Of course I can’t discount magazines in their entirety. After all, they DID teach me to use baby powder for greasy hair, and that pantyhose gets out deodorant stains, and that eyeshadow primer is absolutely necessary…but all the same, I think I’m done for good. There’s only so many times that you can read about the dangers of too much tanning.)
