Tag Archives: anorexia

My Thoughts on “To The Bone”

Disclaimer: I know from firsthand experience that even reading about books or movies that deal with eating disorders can be triggering. If you feel there is even a possibility that reading about “To the Bone” could trigger you, please skip this post!

I’m definitely not the first blogger to write about To the Bone (check out Clare’s post – I really enjoyed it), but I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on this new film from Netflix. It’s definitely been controversial and as someone who had a long struggle with anorexia, I’d like to put my two cents in. I’m also going to try to write about this post in a spoiler-free manner, so that those who haven’t seen the movie or don’t plan to can still read.

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It’s Not a Big Deal

This post has been bouncing around in my head for about a month now but I’ve been having trouble getting just inspired enough to actually write it. However I finally decided to the other night as I was thinking about something while lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. I had made chicken pot pie noodles for Jeff and I to eat for dinner, and I ate one helping. Then I put my bowl in the dishwasher, and went about my evening. I didn’t eat a dessert either. But the difference is – none of these things were endlessly debated. None of them were done out of punishment. I actually didn’t think about them at all. And that’s because I’m finally realizing that food is actually not a big deal.

There was a time when I’d think all day about the dinner I was going to eat, and worry about if I’d have more than one helping, and if I’d want a dessert. Then dinnertime would come and I’d eat a helping, want to eat another (because I’d starved myself all day), debate eating another, finally do it, feel like crap, and beat myself up. But then my mind would shift to dessert and I’d think about ice cream in the freezer, and wonder for another half hour if I should eat it, and finally decide that it was OK to have a little since I hadn’t had any in the last week.

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Letting Go of Old Clothes

It has been quite awhile since I wrote a post related to eating disorders and recovery. There was a time when that was almost all I wrote about here; a time when I was really struggling. Slowly after moving to Boston I began to do better and better, and the recovery related posts became less frequent. Particularly since this past summer, I have made lots of progress. I’ve taken more rest days than ever and realized that didn’t make me gain 50 pounds. I’ve been able to spend more time with friends and meet new people too, since I’ve been doing less hiding out in my apartment with my “safe foods”. I’ve even been able to let myself open up to someone and enter a serious relationship.

Jeff and I are actually moving in together over Memorial Day Weekend, and moving often presents a perfect opportunity to get rid of unwanted and unneeded possessions. Most notably, clothes. Many who have gone through recovery from an eating disorder will know that clothes are a touchy subject. They become too small, and that’s hard to deal with. Every article of clothing that will no longer fit still makes me feel like a bit of a failure, even if that feeling lasts just a few seconds. I have been holding onto these clothes, because setting them aside to donate makes me feel like I am giving up on being as small as I once was.

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NEDAwareness Week 2015: I Had No Idea

Tomorrow is the last day of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and I didn’t want the week to end without acknowledging it on this blog. Especially since I have been having SUCH a hard time lately accepting myself as I am now – my body, my lifestyle, my values. I’m so thankful to be a part of a community of friends who encourage and support me every day. I’m so happy to have family members who have never stopped encouraging me to recover, even when I’m a jerk to them when I’m having a bad day (sorry, Mom). And I’m glad that organizations like the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) exist to bring awareness to these awful diseases, which so often get brushed off, go undiagnosed, and are underestimated.

Source

I had no idea…that fats were essential to live. That is, until my skin was constantly itchy and my hair became brittle.

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Trade ‘Em Up Tuesday: Recovery

I really enjoyed the last Trade ‘Em Up Tuesday I participated in (thanks as always Alex for the idea!) and Carly’s amazing and honest post yesterday inspired me to take a similar topic and combine it with Trade ‘Em Up. There are plenty of moments when I still find myself missing the days of my eating disorder and the various sources of the “high” it gave me. But there are also plenty of sacrifices I made that I would not want to have to make again. So today I’m going to share what I would not trade, and what I sometimes want to trade, about recovery. Please be aware that the trades are not things I plan to do or think are a good idea to do! But it helps to take the voices in my head and put them here on this blog, so I can sort out those thoughts of temptation to slip back into old habits. I would not trade…cheese and nut butter. I remember the first sandwich I ordered with cheese on it, once I started treatment. I did it so I could tell my nutritionist I had done so, and not feel like I was lying to her (except I was already lying about a bunch of other stuff). But that first bite was…heavenly. My body seriously reacted to the fat in an almost scary way…that’s how deprived I was. I ate that sandwich SO freaking slowly, savoring every last bit of the cheese, even though there wasn’t all too much on there (of course I’d asked for light on the cheese). I also used to freak out if I ate nut butter more than two days in a row, and even then only one serving was okay, measured out and all. Now I love cheese so much, more than I ever did even before my ED began. I adore trying new nut butters and think a banana almost tastes sad without one (unless Chobani is involved).

Yes it was MY idea to order this Cask Republic cheese plate a couple of weeks ago.

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If I’m Being Honest…

If I’m being honest…I have not been in a good mental place the last few days and need to vent. I feel as if I need to write out the thoughts berating me so that I can make sense of them, figure out what to do in response to them, and/or try to quiet them.

If I’m being honest…I don’t remember the last time (since starting recovery) that I felt so dissatisfied with my body. I hate every photo I see and every angle looks bad in the mirror. I’m at this point where I really feel this want to “clean up” my diet. I want to “tone up”. I want to change the way my body looks. And what’s really annoying is I don’t know how to do that and not have an eating disorder. I don’t know if it’s “okay” to want to do that. When does that stop being called restriction? When does it stop being considered disordered behavior? Clare wrote a good post about this…can I be healthy in recovery? Can I make an effort to “clean up” my eats without falling prey to ED?

If I’m being honest…I am not in a place where I can try to “eat cleaner” without it being about my ED. Because the urge to restrict and deprive myself is seriously stronger right now than it has been in awhile. I’m still trying to learn to be okay with enjoying the food and drinks I love, so cutting back on some of them is going to hinder that journey. I keep seeing people Instagram their #eatclean-worthy meals and their heart rate monitors and their mile upon mile long runs and their brags about ordering water instead of a drink – and I want to do that. I want to get lost in that “look at me I’m so healthy” mindset so I can feel good about myself again. Now I’m not saying that I plan to do this. I’m not saying it is the answer…but I miss that high from looking back on my day and knowing I only ate X and didn’t eat Y.

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Checking Myself to Wreck Myself

Without the scale, I have latched on to a couple of bad habits to “keep track” of changes in my body. One is psycho-analyzing how my pants fit. The other is body checking.

I’ve been wanting to write a post addressing body checking ever since Sam discussed the topic (almost a year ago!) on her amazing blog (a must-read for anyone interested in eating disorders and recovery). The truth is, though I have gotten better about it, I still body check. My stomach is the area of my body I am most self conscious about, and it is hard to resist the urge to lift up my shirt and look in the mirror during the day just to see what it looks like. I often examine my body from many different angles in the morning when I am getting dressed, and/or in the evening before/after I shower. This sounds like an extremely vain practice and it’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I do it.

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My Scale Story

I’ve been MIA because I just haven’t felt like blogging much while on vacation in Florida…but I head back to CT today. While I have some things to say/share about my trip, I’m about to head to the airport and don’t have time to write a post today. So here’s a post I wrote on the plane ride down here…

I’ve been meaning to write a post about my scale journey for awhile now, and recently Sarah did one discussing her current relationship with the scale. I wrote a novel comment in response (check out the rest of them…great discussions on this post!) That really made me realize I need to get on writing my post. So here I am, ready to share with you all my relationship with the scale from start to finish…and also what I think it would be like if the scale and I were friends (or frenemies) today.

My first scale wasn’t even mine…it was my junior year roomie’s. But that also happened to be the year I decided to change the way I ate and “tone up”, so it was convenient for me to have a roomie who was also into the same goals. I had a number in my head that I wanted to hit, and quickly it became easy for me to use the number the scale showed me to discount any hard work I’d done at the gym or any healthy meals I’d eaten that day. I could feel excellent about my healthy habits, step on the scale and see a “bad number”, and suddenly all I was thinking about was what I could have done differently to make the number go down.

Start of my junior year, ready to tone up...did I really need to?

Start of my junior year, ready to tone up…did I really need to?

Eventually I got to the point where I was stepping on the scale more than five times a day. I’d use it to purposefully feel bad about myself; stepping on the morning after a night of drinking was my way of punishing myself for the night before. Even right after I’d eaten dinner, I’d step on just because I knew the number would look higher and I’d feel shame. I wanted to associate eating with shame, so that it’d become easier to resist the urge to eat. And not just eat unhealthy food…I mean resist eating in general.

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Accepting My New Normal

Thank you guys so much for your comments on yesterday’s post. It’s always a comfort to know I’m not alone in my seat on the crazy train. Writing is therapeutic for me and that’s why I’m back again today; I’ve needed to give myself a lot of self-therapy over the last 48 hours. Mondays are always the hardest for me mentally because I tend to do more “indulging” on the weekends. (Huge Sidebar: I’m putting indulging in quotes because I really can’t stand the word. If I “indulge” in something, but I do so every weekend, does that mean I’m indulging too much? Does that mean I’m doing something unhealthy on a weekly basis? Labeling X as an indulgence and Y as healthy really messes with my head, and that’s why I recently deleted my Indulgences board on Pinterest. I don’t need anything else around tempting me to categorize my food.)

OK, back to your regular programming. Yesterday was a particularly sucky-mindset Monday for me, despite your awesome support and reassurance. I’ve reached a point in my recovery where I do not give in as easily to ED’s temptations to restrict and over-exercise and hide from a life worth living. In terms of the way I actually live out that life, I am for sure in a better place than I was a year ago. But that does not mean the mind fuck of an eating disorder goes away. In fact, it means I’m dealing with a more self-degradation than ever before. Gone is that comforting feeling of constant hunger. Gone is the minimum of 200 minutes of cardio per week that I always HAD to do. And most scary at all, gone is the belt that I used to have to wear with all of my jeans.

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WIAW Goes to College

I think it’s fitting to start this post with the Asher Roth classic, “I Love College”! This was my jam during my sophomore year.


What wasn’t my jam was some of the food I lived off of! College is the time period during which I became more adventurous and expanded my palate. It also is the time period during which I developed my eating disorder. I had a lot of different food phases in college. I went from a freshman year of fourth-meals to senior year of starting recovery and learning that eating a rare fourth meal wasn’t going to kill me (especially when I’d skipped the day’s first…second…etc meals). I figured I’d start with sharing some freshman year faves and end with the foodie faves I started to explore both before I developed my ED (when I started trying to “tone up”) and after I entered recovery.

Thanks Jenn for hosting this party!

So about that fourth meal…

My go-to late night meals freshman year consisted of honey BBQ boneless wings, cheese pizza dipped in ranch or bleu cheese dressing, calzones, and Domino’s CinnaStix and Cheesy Bread. Yeah, told you I used to eat very differently! Toward the beginning of my entry to college I’d say I was ordering late-night food every night! It was at this point that some freshman pounds definitely crept on.

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Meet Caitlin

I’m a 28 year old full-time working girl living in Boston (previously lived in Connecticut). I’m passionate about food/drink, restaurants, self-love, fitness, and the ever-present search for balance. I write about that journey on this blog – I hope you enjoy!

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Design Credit

My header was originally designed by Mai Le and later tweaked by Chris Roggi to match this theme, which he helped me customize. He also moved me over to self-hosting! Both can be contacted through their sites for design & development work!

Disclaimer

I am not an RD and do not have any official training, certifications, or degrees in nutrition or fitness. This blog is a way to write about my life. Any views I express are mine alone, based on what works for me, and should never be taken as medical advice. Always talk to your doctor or a trained professional before starting a new diet or fitness plan. In addition, this blog and its content are in no way affiliated with Kate Gosselin, “Kate Plus 8”, TLC, or any related affiliates.

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