Christmas Is Over For Another Year

Thankfully Christmas is over for another year! I hope that whatever you celebrate or don’t celebrate, you all got through it okay – at the very least. I wish, more than that, that you managed to enjoy it, to share some time with the people who are special to you, and not let your problems steal any more of your lives from you.

I had a really good one this year. And I can see again, that I’ve come SUCH a long way. For years, Christmas was not something I could even ditch the ED for one day for. I would pretend I was festive while eating my same lettuce salads, turn down every chocolate or sweet with a big (crazy?) smile.. determined to show I was ‘having a good time’ when in reality I was miserable and I was making the people around me miserable too.  And I barely connected with any of the people who were in my life then, because I was just too wrapped up /obsessed/distracted/freaked out in all that was going on in my head.

It wasn’t easy though! I am like a duck on a pond – I can seem fine, and like I’m calmly coping with everything thrown my way, but under the surface where you cannot see it there is a heck of a lot of franticness going on. The difference now is that I DO the things that terrify me despite the same struggle and the same inner screaming of insults, panicked adding of the calories eaten, etc as before. I do it anyway.

On Christmas Eve I went to stay with my long time best friend, her partner and her family. They gave me a bunk in a super-duper caravan with my friend and her partner in the queen sized bed – this thing was a hotel on wheels, I have never seen a caravan with it’s own air conditioning, toilet, shower, oven etc before! (Then again, I’ve never slept in a caravan before either haha.) So that was an adventure in itself!

We had a really lovely (scary) dinner of salads, rolls, leg ham, veggie patties, cheeses and crackers, and I ate a bit of everything – a reasonable sized plate. I also had a glass of red wine, a really nice one that smacked me in the back of the head a bit (cannot remember which, I think it was Brown Brothers Pinot Noir). I am not much of a drinker – I don’t like being drunk, don’t like how it feels at all. I also haven’t had many opportunities to drink at functions or parties as an adult – eating disorders rob you of things like that. So a little will affect me a lot, and one small glass left me pretty giddy for the evening – but not too giddy to enjoy it.

I also sampled some traditional eggnog – it tasted a bit like junket, a bit nutmeggy, a bit custardy.. was really nice.

Christmas was such a stressful time, our tree exploded.

After dinner we went out for a drive around the Christmas lights – there were some amazing displays, and it left our night feeling magical. We came home and played a few games on the Wii (another new experience for me) before I fell into bed exhausted.  I had some strange dreams that night, probably because the ‘people’ in those Wii sports games are freaky, does anyone else think this? The way they stand there and BREATHE with their mouths in that open smile, the way they often have no arms or legs, especially in the bowling game, the people on either side bowling then jumping up and down with no legs… freaky haha.

I wish our Mii caricatures were this pretty!

Now Christmas day! It was awesome! The magic of being part of this traditional family Christmas continued. Lunch was huge – again, I ate a bit of everything, and appropriate servings. We started with HUGE king prawns, and oysters. I have never had an oyster before, mostly because the thought of it squicks me out. But with some encouragement I tried one. It was gross going down, but really does taste of the sea.

Our main course was a table groaning with food. Leg ham, turkey with stuffing, pork with crackling, sauces, dressings, two different salads, steamed potatoes. I had some of everything, even a bit of crackling! And I finished my plate. Not only that, I had about 3 smallish glasses of wine to try the different types. Was pleasantly buzzed haha.

We spent the day talking, opening presents, and watching the carols on TV. Unfortunately I had to leave in time to get home before it was too late so missed cake, pudding and pavlova with fruit which I’d helped my friend decorate earlier – but I was relieved. I seriously felt like I would have to roll myself home, I was SO beyond full.

It wasn’t easy. I might have appeared fine, but inside, my head was screaming. About how could I possibly be eating these things or even entertain the thought of eating them. About how everything was ruined. How I’d pay. My head added up every single calorie as it was consumed and tormented me with that the entire time, still does a few days later.

But despite that, I did it, ate that food, kept it down, enjoyed the party and the people.  You lose, ED.

A few years ago, this would have been impossible.

I’m so quietly but deeply overwhelmed and thankful for how far I have come – and the hope that I can continue down this path. Who knows where next Christmas will see me?

Santa was good to me too, VERY good to me. I still find it hard to believe people would buy me such beautiful gifts as they did. Among them, I got several outfits of clothing, a pretty beaded necklace, a beautiful New Zealand paua shell necklace, a brand new phone (!!!) and my favourite of all, a duck!

Yes, a duck!

This duck!

I can’t stop smiling every time I see the card – it’s really  a feel-good present. It’s wonderful to think that someone overseas is a lot better off because of that duck, and it’s amazing how much good a single duck can do. This was my first experience with being given a charity gift and I’m over the moon about it. I hear a lot of people expressing that it’s not a ‘real gift’ and that they are grumpy about someone donating to charity on their behalf, but in my eyes, it’s the gift I’ve enjoyed the most this year, from the moment I opened the card and burst out laughing, to now, thinking about the duck and how it helps, and thinking of my friends and how lovely they are.

So that’s my Christmas! How was yours? And would you love getting a donation to charity as a gift, or not? 

Next up, New Years Eve! 

Shalimar also enjoyed Christmas, I bought her a few better than usual cat food varieties, and she pretty much spent the time I was away sleeping and eating. When I returned, we had lots of cuddles She’s a gift every single moment. A very precious gift.

(Image Sources: featured, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

ETA (28/12/12) – I just wanted to add that the presents above were among what I opened on Christmas day. I also got some really lovely gifts from my other best friend and little sister – a foot care pamper pack with slippers!! and divine smelling lotions, chocolate coated ginger (I LOVE dark chocolate and I LOVE ginger!), lemon and ginger tea!!!, and a very pretty set of cutlery that now makes my meals that bit more special – pretty green handles, and they are NICE. Meal times should be NICE. 

I have just felt so overwhelmed this year by the generosity and the love from my friends (FAMILY) and I didn’t want my little sister and other bestie to think I’d forgotten her!  

It’s Nearly Christmas

Christmas has come so fast! In a few hours in Australia, it’s Christmas Eve.  I will be going to the Gold Coast to spend Christmas Eve with a very close friend and her family – followed by a huge Christmas Day. I’m so excited and also so nervous – it’s the biggest challenge so far to the eating disorder and the various forms of anxiety.

And I’m going to rock it.

“…is it FOOD?”

My only sadness is that Shalimar will spend Christmas day alone. Comfortable, yes. Well-fed, yes. But not with me. Thankfully, she will not even know it’s Christmas!  I know now that she will be more than fine – she will spend her time sleeping, watching lizards and lying next to her bowl, scooping the chow out with her paw towards her mouth. These things make her very happy indeed!

No matter what you celebrate, and no matter where you are with your own individual journey – I wish you all a happy, safe, peaceful and hopeful holiday season, and hope that the New Year is one of positive and hopeful times.

Thank you to all of you for your readership, your comments, and your amazing support during the just over a year I have been writing this blog.

All the best – Fiona and Shalimar xx

 

Tis The Season To Quake With Terror – Food and Christmas.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of quaking lately! The closer we come to Christmas, the more pressure I feel under and the more challenges I face.

A few Christmases ago, I could not even change my behaviours in order to not hurt the people I loved most. It broke my heart to know they worried about me, and I beat myself up endlessly for not being able to ‘fake it just for a day/week/appearance’ in some way to just set them at ease. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world – I knew that. One meal, like a Christmas dinner, would not have completely negated the years of starvation when it came to my body. It wouldn’t have suddenly made me fat or no longer emaciated. It wouldn’t have meant all hell broke loose and I lost control. (Although the reality was, I had NO control – I was controlled by the disorder, to a degree where I could not even disobey it if it meant saving my life or that of another.)

Christmas back then, if I was spending it with my Dad and his family, meant making myself a larger version of the same boring green iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and celery salad I had every single meal, just adding in a few bits of watermelon for the dessert, and chomping on raw carrots when they snacked on nuts and nibblies. I guzzled diet coke as they downed juice and wine, and laughed and smiled insincerely to show how much I was enjoying myself and how full of the Christmas spirit I was. Wasn’t it all wonderful!!! (NO).

I didn’t fool anyone except myself (and hardly fooled myself either, I was miserable and I knew it.) Worse, I’d often end up bingeing later  on leftovers. Then wracked with guilt because that was their food, not mine, despite the many times they implored me to have some too.

The last couple of years have been different. My dad and his family are gone, he has passed away, they want nothing to do with me. So Christmas with them is no longer an option. I have cut myself off from the rest of my family  and so Christmas with them – an ordeal – is not ever going to be a threat. Mostly I spent the alone Christmases either hiding in bed, or volunteering. But the last couple, I’ve spent with my ‘chosen family’ – friends who are dear to me. Who make the day special just by their presence. And who treat me with the same respect that I treat them, something my mother’s side of the family never accomplished.

And I took part in the actual eating, too. The hugest challenge of all!

Two years ago, with a friend and her family I ate roast chicken, salad, roast veggies, and had pavlova and cream for dessert. Last year, a friend and I had a picnic ourselves in a park – a BBQ with sausages, veggies, salads, fruits and berries. Both of these were just amazing days for me, memories I will cherish for a long time.

This year, I’m actually doing a full on Christmas, with a friend, her partner,  and her extended family. I’m to join them for Christmas eve – we will tour the lights, and then go to a Christmas eve mass. On Christmas day, I have no idea of how it will actually unfold – but so far there are going to be at least 15 people, one of my friends who has been busy cooking is a chef, and these people go ‘all out’. It’s going to be Christmas with Bells on!

I am so excited. AND SO SCARED. So far in the last few days I’ve eaten SO MUCH scary food – like cheesy melty grilled sandwiches, deep fried battered fish, and real handmade fudge.  And it’s not even Christmas yet. Much as it’s a triumph being able to overthrow the ED when I’m with people who are dear to me, I’m more scared that I CAN eat these foods than when I didn’t used to have any power at all. I’m scared that if I can do this now, the old rules that used to keep my monstrous, gluttonous greed in check no longer will, and that I’m only ever a step away from losing control completely and eating myself into obesity. I still feel like one bite of something that is forbidden completely ‘blows’ years of abstinence. It still feels like the imminent end of the world to have food that is ‘forbidden’ inside me, and staying inside me. It feels that bad for ANY food actually.

The difference is I am feeling these fears, and eating the food anyway. In a way I’m doing my own exposure therapy and I’m proving to myself that the world doesn’t end and I don’t blow up or eat myself to obesity when I do allow myself to eat the ‘wrong’ food either. Hopefully with practice, this will come to feel okay. Maybe even normal? I live in hope (but still not much belief… yet..)

I think one of the most important lessons that living with an eating disorder has taught me over this more than 20 years of having it to a clinical degree, has nothing to do with food or weight, and everything to do with people. It’s brought home time and again how precious the people we love are, and how fleeting our time with them actually IS. Because when we avoid food, we end up avoiding them or distracting them and ourselves – we miss out on them and they miss out on us – even in the same room or at the same table, we are missing – gone AWOL.

Just a week ago, a close friend’s uncle died. He was in perfect health, and his car simply veered off the road on the way to work and smashed. He had suffered an aneurysm - no warning. Not a second to do anything about it – just healthy, then dead. It was a huge shock to his family, and a lesson to my friend to cherish every moment with her family and her loved ones, because we never know when this moment might be our last with them.

We just can’t afford to let the ED get in the way of that, either. We just can’t. There is no guarantee, and there never will be, of next Christmas. Until it happens, there isn’t even a guarantee of this one. We only ever have right now – and when we put it off for reasons like food, weight, etc – we lose it. Forever.

So this is the time we need to be making plans of how we’ll get through this season, while still being able to enjoy spending time with those we love. If that means bringing a safe food, then so be it – it’s preferable to not miss out on their companionship. If that means NOT going to a get together you would attend out of obligation but the people there are toxic to you – then that’s also a very positive step. Just as life is too short to spend avoiding our loved ones, it’s also too precious to waste in the company of those who only hurt us. 

What is the hardest part of Christmas for you? And how have you prepared, or feel would help you to cope? 

(Image Sources: 1, 2)

Famine is? Trigger – calories.

Hi everyone, thank you so  much for so many lovely comments – I really appreciate your support and it means a lot to me that people find what I have to write helpful to them, wherever they are in their journey. I’ve always hoped that some day, I can use my past to help someone else have even a tiny bit better a future – and it helps to know that even with so far still to go myself, I can already use my own experience for good. It makes it all have worth going through.

I might be posting and commenting very sporadically over the next short while as I’ve run out of my internet allowance for the year (yes, and it’s only July!) and have to go back to the drawing board. I’m with the Public Trustee here – they took over my affairs when I was too sick and constantly hospitalised to manage them meaning they have complete control still over my finances, which I’m working on winning back bit by bit. But it means that I have to negotiate for every single thing I need, meaning it’s not just a case of needing and buying – it takes a while for the back and forth and then the granting of funds etc. Always a good reminder of why to keep working for more and more independence!

Before I go, I just wanted to drop a little bit of info your way for you to toss over. Did you know, that famine is declared when:

Famine has a technical definition based on food security and nutrition. In order for a famine to be declared, there must be evidence of the following three conditions:

1. At least 20 percent of the population has fewer than 2,100 calories of food a day;

2. Prevalence acute malnutrition must exceed 30 percent of children; and

3. The death rate must exceed two deaths per 10,000 people, or four child deaths per 10,000 people per day.

Tragically, all three of these conditions have been found in southern Somalia. The average daily caloric need is 2,100; therefore, eating fewer than 2,100 calories often results in hunger. Measuring malnutrition differs from measuring caloric need. Malnutrition occurs when a person does not eat food that provides the proper amounts of vitamins and minerals to meet daily needs. Finally, the death rate in some areas is as high as six deaths per 10,000 people with children especially vulnerable. UNICEF has estimated that as many as 14 children are dying every hour in parts of southern Somalia.

A bit of food for thought! I know many of you will be surprised since many of you have expressed distress at eating far far less than 2100 calories. Also many of us tend to not even come close to giving our bodies the actual nutrients it needs, regardless of how much energy we consume. We are horrified at conditions in famine-torn countries. And yet many of us subject our own selves to this level of deprivation. Reality check time!

Also – still not convinced that you NEED those ‘recommended’ calories? The average calorie content of rations for one person for one day supplied by the World Food Program is 2178. (Although in reality for various reasons, often less is actually eaten by the person). What Refugees are Eating.

What is your idea of a famine-torn country? We see hungry, desperate people on our news programs. They are malnourished, they are starving!

An 1849 depiction of Bridget O’Donnell and her two children during the famine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And so are you – if you are not feeding your own body what it needs.

Defintely food for thought!

Look after yourselves, everyone xx

Instead of Feeling, Instead of Dealing?

I think that for most of my life, the eating disorder and exercise in the form of striving to be a dancer has taken the place of staying with my feelings and with my reality – good and bad. In fact, I think this is a huge function of many people’s eating disorders and also could be true for people with addictions like alcohol, drugs, people who self harm.

I think eating disorders are a smoke screen. I’ve said this before, I know. I look back, and when I was hurting the most in my life, instead I turned to food and weight and ballet.

When the abuse at home and the bullying at school was out of control, I spent every waking hour practising my ballet. I even spent most of the night awake doing quiet exercises in bed or on the floor next to it. My mind was lost in the ballet music I imagined to keep time of each foot exercise or relevé or plié or pirouette. If I was too upset or too anxious or too angry I just counted in time. Counted to a thousand and started again, over and over.

I can see now that I was upset, angry, anxious, lost, scared. I can see that now. Back then, I remember thinking “How strong I am. You have hurt me every way you can, and still I do not show anything. You will not make me cry, you have made me stronger.” I didn’t realise that in fact, I was losing myself bit by bit, becoming stuck inside an armour that I built up bit by bit, then made thicker and stronger. An armour that protected me – but also trapped me. I now have to take  it off – bit by bit so that I can  replace it with real ways to cope.

Now that I’m in my thirties, I’ve noticed for the last couple of years that even though a lot of my feelings have been coming back (and this is scary as I don’t know what a lot of it even is!) I do not feel things anywhere near as intensely as I used to in my teens. I am wondering if any of you have found this, too? Maybe it has something to do with the cocktail of hormones that our bodies are producing at that age as we become adults. Things that used to be the ‘end of the world’ for me, don’t bother me anywhere near as much now.

Maturity is a factor, sure, but it’s not so much about my mind, how I am thinking – it’s FEELING. It’s stuff that doesn’t need words, stuff that can’t even be described with words sometimes. Feelings that could physically hurt. Grief that could leave me keening. Happiness that made me heady and ecstatic over simple little things like a teacher telling me I was doing well. Betrayal felt like being stabbed through the heart – physically. I feel all these things still, just not anywhere near that intensely. They don’t make  me feel like my heart will explode as they used to.

I wonder if things would have been different if back years ago, I’d had the insight I have now to recognise what I was doing? I did not know anything about eating disorders, so when I didn’t eat because of how I felt, or ate to make myself feel better, I didn’t think I was doing anything dangerous. I just couldn’t bear to do anything else right now. I’d eat later and make up for it, or deal with whatever was wrong later. Problem was that later I was too busy or felt as bad or the food was off. Also my mother was extremely controlling with food, and when I did not eat a battle would erupt, but when I wanted to eat, that wasn’t easy either.

I often feared having it found out that I did not eat my breakfast in the mornings or my lunch at school – throwing food in the bin seemed to get me caught out every time. The teachers would notice, or my older sister would tattle tale on me. Same for giving it away or swapping with others. So breakfasts were squished down the kitchen sink and uneaten lunches were crammed in on the way home, or left in my bag as I panicked about what to do with them. Too many times I was forced to eat something that was discovered because I had tried to throw it out, or it was just a few days old – really bad, rancid food. “Waste not, want not” was my mother’s mantra, and these experiences really turned me off against eating in general. Food was pushed on me or taken from me. Food was punishment. Food was comfort. Food was reward.

Food was not fuel.

On the other side of the coin, I was always hungry. I went full time as a ballet dancer at fourteen, suddenly going from every other night classes and my own practising to every single day – four or five hours of classes, a few hours of my own work in the studios between, before and after classes, and most of each night doing exercises.  Hunger really stepped up with all the extra movement, so when I wasn’t not eating, I wanted to eat everything in sight.

A particular treat became saving up $1.20 from finding the odd coin on the ground, and then going and buying a packet of jelly beans that I slowly dissolved in my mouth on the two hour journey home. It was my little secret, knowing that my mother would be furious about my ‘transgression’ but it was a mood lifter, somehow I always found enough money when I was feeling particularly low and so jelly beans have become forever linked with self-soothing.

After things imploded, I’d run away from home, found somewhere to live, fallen into the next nightmare and was struggling to cope, the link between food and soothing myself became even stronger.

Every single time that someone hurt me, instead of thinking about it or processing it, or asking for help – my mind did a big switcheroo to numbers. I constantly counted and recited lists of calories, carbohydrates and protein grams per 100g of foods in my head. I constantly planned days of intake in my mind, and how much of each fruit and vegie I would be allowed to two decimal points. I walked and walked and counted as I walked.

Surprisingly my ballet started to falter. I couldn’t leave my problems at the door any more. I was distracted, and that combined with feeling completely self conscious and hating myself and my body, meant that I was never ‘really there’. Looking back I see that a lot of the time I was actually dissociated. When you are nutritionally in trouble and dissociated you aren’t going to dance well. I was also missing classes because I was too distressed about my skin – my face had broken out like a pizza – my weight – I saw a michelin woman wobbling as I tried to dance among a roomful of sticks – and the depression was so debilitating that many days I just could not get out of bed any more. It ended in tears – me being kicked out of the performance strand.

This was the last straw, and from there I fell headfirst  into the  anorexia, and not long after that, into hospital for the first time of many, a cycle I was not to break out of for nearly fifteen years.  Dancing had been the last reason to stay alive, and it was gone.

Throughout my childhood there were offers of help and support. Teachers always seemed to pick up that home was not a good place – constantly they asked me why I was always late, always crying, always filthy dirty? Why didn’t I have tissues or a hanky when I had a cold leading to snotty sniffing and teasing? Why was I sent to school when so unwell? Why didn’t I have this or that necessary item for school? And more direct questions – what was going on at home? What did my mother do all day? How did she treat me? Where did we live, and who lived with us?And Was everything okay at home, you can talk to me any time? All questions I had been coached to answer, and I couldn’t even begin to think of saying Yes, please, I need help, things are unbearable. That they constantly hurt me or neglected me or made me feel awful about myself. They were my family, and I couldn’t turn them in, it would be the ultimate betrayal. And it must have been my fault any way for being so ‘bad’. Or I’d really cop it if I said something and it got back to them. If I was taken away by the child services I would be beaten up in the foster home.. all sorts of things I was scared of. So I declined help and support, insisted that everything was fine til I was blue in the face. And denied to myself that I wasn’t coping at all. 

We can spend our lives ‘running’ from what we can’t deal with for a long time, but not forever. Life has a way of forcing you to stop and face your own shit head on. In my case it was by breaking me down completely, bringing me to my knees in every possible way. I was completely captive to something that was killing me just because I could not face up to my troubles, and it came down to the choice to live or die – I couldn’t avoid this  choice any more by living in the limbo of denial that I’d been in for years. My body simply couldn’t survive any more. Either I started fighting to save myself, or I WOULD die.

And it’s hard. I don’t think there is a right way or a wrong way to deal with the past. I think there’s only YOUR way. There’s so much to learn, so much to admit to yourself. There’s accepting what happened. Accepting that you are a mess. Accepting that you need help. Getting off your high horse and realising it won’t kill you to stop pretending you are fine, but it’s sure going to kill you to keep on doing it. Dignity can be so overrated.

So here I am, I came to the crossroads and I chose the uphill path. Chose the path I should have taken every time I came to this crossroads before, every time I insisted “No, I know that’s not the way I need to go, THIS way is” despite having been down that path before and coming to the cliff edge that it led to, requiring me to go back. I wore that path bare with my constant cycling. And now, I stepped off it. 

I don’t know if I’ll be okay from here. But I do know I have a chance to be, now.

Can you see ways that you have used unhelpful ways to cope with feelings or escape from reality in the past? Do you still do this now?

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What is Normal Eating?

I see a lot of criticism of my fellow bloggers about what they eat, and how ‘abnormal’ and even disordered their intakes are.

So, what is normal eating?

I know what dysfunctional eating is:

• Dysfunctional (disordered) eating is chaotic (dieting, fasting, bingeing, skipping meals),or it can mean overeating or undereating much more or less than the body wants or needs.
• The disordered eater eats less for nourishment, and more for purposes of reshaping the body, for thinness, or to relieve anxiety and stress.
• Often eating causes distress. Afterward, instead of feeling better, the disordered eater may feel guilty, ashamed, uncomfortably full, or unsatisfied and fearful of bingeing.
• When food is restricted, thoughts of food, eating, hunger and weight often dominate waking hours.
• Because food is unsatisfying and may be limited, the dysfunctional eater often feels tired, irritable, unable to concentrate, and increasingly self-absorbed. (source)

Healthy eating is not about what we eat. It’s about how we eat. It’s about why we eat.

I do not believe that there is any perfect ‘diet’ in the world that can set out what we need to eat in order to be optimally healthy. It would never be right for everyone – because every body has different requirements, tolerances, situations, and even tastes.

A lot of the criticism I witness is due to the blogger either not eating something the critic thinks they ought to eat, or eating too much of something they think they ought not to eat.

Who made them the expert?

Personal taste, culture, and so many other factors are responsible for our food choices.  When you look at the hugely varying diets of people from all over the world, it’s clear that no one choice fits all.

For example, how different is this:

The Caven family of California's weekly food, from Hungry Planet as featured in Time (click to visit whole gallery)

From this:

The Revis family of South Carolina's weekly food, from Hungry Planet as featured in Time (click to visit whole gallery)

If that isn’t a big enough contrast for you, how about this?

The Ayme family of Tingo's weekly food, from Hungry Planet as featured in Time - click to visit feature.

Or even this!

Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp's weekly food, from Hungry Planet, as featured in Time, click to view entire feature.

I think it’s pretty clear, there IS no ‘normal’ when it comes to what people eat. Our diets are as varied as we are individual, and differ according to where we live, our cultural and religious beliefs, our income, what is available, and our dietary needs and preferences.

The book Hungry Planet: What The World Eats is a fascinating look at the weekly food intake and expenditure of families all over the world. I first borrowed the actual book, but I’ve found it online in a Time gallery here, it’s well worth a visit.

A similar project looking at individual daily intakes is What I Eat – around the world in 80 diets. 

Normal eating means having a healthy relationship with food. It is flexible and trusting. With normal eating patterns, we eat as do small children and babies, consuming food naturally when hungry and stopping when full, attuned to inner signals.

Normal eating refers to eating behavior – how a person eats, not what. Typical emphasis today focuses only on what foods people eat. How we eat gets ignored, yet it is at the root of many eating and weight problems.

Normalizing eating can improve life immeasurably for the chronic dieter or disordered eater and help them move on with their lives.

What is normal eating?
• A healthy relationship with food that is natural, trusting and flexible.
• Usually eating at regular times, typically three meals and one or two snacks to satisfy hunger.
• The amount eaten is regulated by inner signals of hunger and satiety. The normal eater is attuned to these signals, eating when hungry and stopping when full and satisfied.       (source)

MY eating is not normal. I don’t know if it will ever be normal. I also think there are situations in which normal eating as defined above will not be possible, and yet that particular person’s eating is as normal as possible for them. For example, the diet of a recovering bulimic who finds her binges are triggered by sugar and sets out to avoid it. Some critics might say, she isn’t listening to her body at all, she’s cutting out a whole food group, she’s restricting, etc etc etc. But if it helps her to avoid bingeing – then that does constitute normal and healthy eating for her.

So, my friends, please stop comparing and criticising yours and other people’s diets. Instead, enjoy the diversity of what your friends eat.

Do you feel your eating is ‘normal’?

What constitutes normal eating to you? 

My Very First WIAW!

I’ve always been fascinated with food and what other people are eating, so I’ve loved reading What I Ate Wednesday posts – but never been able to participate because what I eat.. well what do I eat? Nothing worth sharing, and what I do eat is often so bizarre I’d never want to put it out there.

However I do have some better, more on track moments. I thought that I would share a few favourites from the past week with you. There isn’t much green in here – I could say the capsicum in the salad and the splash of lime juice count, as well as the green grapes!

Favourite Lunch - 

grainy bread with beetroot, corn, spanish onion, crumbled tofu and mustard pickles; cheese flavoured sunrice crackers; home-grown passionfruit and grapes.

I’m loving the tanginess of this sandwich filling. Another variation that I often eat uses tinned tuna instead of tofu.  I also love to add chopped beetroot, corn and onion to hummus.

Favourite salad -

Tofu salad with beetroot, corn, red and green capsicum, tomato, spanish onion, mustard pickles.

Favourite treat – Home-made Ice-cream! Please do not snark at my ‘mixing bowl’. I have a VERY basic kitchen and this was bigger than my real mixing bowl! How appropriate to make ice cream in an old ice cream container lol.

Condensed milk, cream, mashed banana and a splash of lime juice - so simple. So rich and creamy!

It worked!

Ice cream is a huge fear food for me, as are cream and condensed milk so this was a huge but worthwhile challenge. I’m definitely going to do it again, and experiment with flavours – maybe coffee, maybe mango.. It could have used a splash of vanilla essence – but I didn’t have any.

Favourite chill out -

Coffee and the local paper while watching Shalimar in the garden.

Coffee never lasts very long with me. Someone needs to make a heat-resistant hydration back pack so I can sip coffee every minute of the day, hands free.

Shalimar is back on her lead – after 1. being very naughty and running away! and 2. A neighbour telling me to keep her out of the communal gardens in case she ‘hurts the flowers’… really? She’s a cat, and she’s snuffled those flowers for almost three months and caused no harm. So sad – but I’m in the process of organising an enclosure to be built outside the front of my unit, around her favourite snuffle-place and under the window where her cat-door conveniently happens to be. Hopefully soon she will have access to HER area whenever she wishes, and no save-the-flowers neighbours will be able to ruin the fun.

Poor Shalimar. I really feel like the fun police. So not right.

And I was so chuffed that I had to include my favourite compliment - 

Victoria Beckham? Oh really? Nah.

My helper from HACC (Home and Community Care – helps me with everyday things that being ill means I need help with – shopping, cleaning, transport etc) said that I looked like I was channelling Victoria Beckham yesterday. She cracked me up! I am missing the sky-high heeled shoes and the utter cool, stylishness she exudes. And the extreme skinniness.

I bought this dress from an Op Shop and really like it – the photo (and myself) do not do it justice. It’s a warm, heavy wool dress by Cue, perhaps a bit large, but I really liked the shape of it.   I’m stuck wearing my utterly UNcool shoes because of my very sore feet and legs! If I don’t have to walk far, I can wear ballet flats, but heels are out forever sadly.

Well I hope you all enjoyed my post and were not too grossed out at the food I ate!!! Happy Wednesday.  And Shalimar says hello… Really, she’s clawing at me because she is jealous at all the attention the computer gets. Time to go play with her

Time To Harvest the Yoghurt and Spaghetti.

In Australia tonight I read a news report about how our kids do not know where food comes from.

Year TEN students (aged average 14 years old) believed that:

• Yoghurt grows on trees – vegans – rejoice!
• Cotton socks come from animals. Vegans, another choice of clothing that is off limits to you. Poor you.

How sad is that? Our food could better be described as ‘Food Added’ rather than added preservatives and other nasties – so many of them there are these days.

So I decided to share with you an old favourite of mine. It’s not April yet, but consider this an early gift

[Melis - Please consider not reading past the video. I'm talking about my first cat's death xxx]

(Did they not know about Spaghetti Squash back then?)

But hey, you aren’t getting off that lightly.. Serious issue here. And I don’t just mean the poor kids.

I have a huge fear and mistrust of what is in my food. 

I’m very well aware of where it comes from. Maybe too aware. In fact, one of my phobias was born back in 1993 when I buried my first cat, my beloved Hotchy.

I started to think about how she would.. decompose in the ground. And how the tree that I’d planted above her – a cassia tree – and the honeysuckle plant – would literally feed on my poor Hotchy.

This started me thinking about the fruit and vegetables I ate. My apple, for example, grew on a tree, a tree with roots reaching deep into the ground. I started imagining the dead animals, animal poop… can you see where I’m going with this?

Basically my conclusion was that my apple was composed of dead animals and pooh. Not a pleasant thought.

Moving on, I have a greater mistrust of the people handling our food. Several other bloggers have expressed such distrust lately. How can we trust what is written on the label? When I found that my beloved glass noodles had been mislabelled back in the 1990′s as 340 kilojoules per 100g for the months and months that they were my one ‘safe’ food when they were really 340 CALORIES per 100 grams (1 calorie = 4.184 Kj) - it shattered my trust. How did I know that the diet coke was really diet? The skim milk skim? (Oh, and that Paris Hilton didn’t work at that dairy..)

A lot of my mistrust is also born from the fact that food is no longer really food, in far too many of our food products. Look at your labels and you have more numbers and unpronounceable chemical conglomerations than recognisable food.

So is it really surprising our kids don’t have a clue where their food comes from?

Further reasons to be aware of what is in the food:

Cancer risks of soda

Really gross food

What do you think of this?

[image source and article]

A very special day and a very fishy dinner!

Hello people!! Happy Valentines day It’s a special day for me, sort of – not for romantic reasons. For a much, much more important reason:

The most gorgeous kitty on earth (says me)

Nine years ago, the day before Valentines day, I adopted Shalimar from the RSPCA. She was the tiniest, scruffiest runt in the cage of kittens!! But I fell in love with her from the first sighting. It was meant to be.

I woke up the next day after a night of being climbed upon, thinking “She loves me!”.

What a wonderful Valentine’s day that was!

Nine years! Where did it go? And I swear she is getting YOUNGER as the years go by.

I truly would not be alive had I not adopted Shalimar. When I was at my sickest, I kept myself going for her. I couldn’t bear to leave her behind. Also, when I fell too deeply into the ‘comatose’ states that I used to, she would bat my face with her paw until I came to again – I would wake up with a face like mincemeat, but I’d wake up!

I love her so much.

On another topic, I’ve been doing some more eating in public again lately – and it’s been really enjoyable, and really bizarre!

A friend and I went for dinner to a cafe opposite my place one Friday night – we  shared an awesome antipasto platter, but the main meal was the bizarrest meal I’ve ever had. We both ordered the Special:

Grilled Atlantic Salmon, Asparagus, Snow Peas, Mushrooms, on Yoghurt Salad.

It was a beautiful, big filet of Salmon. I wish there were more vegies – one inch of asparagus, one snow pea, and about half a mushroom!! Stingy!!

But.. this was served on a bed of.. not the savory yoghurt salad that we had envisioned – perhaps chopped cucumber and natural or greek yoghurt? No – it was served with SWEET FRUIT SALAD YOGHURT complete with fruit bits!!!! And the red bit of the swirl is raspberry coulis.

I just.. can’t… Now I have a long history of combining very bizarre food choices – but even I would not have put fish and fruit yoghurt together.

My theory is that they were clearing out everything in the kitchen that was near expiry. Or they ran out of savoury yoghurt. Or the chef is smoking something stronger than tobacco.

I managed to avoid most of the yoghurt and eat my meal. But it was awkward – my friend could not eat more than one bite, and she was hungry – she is not fussy! I didn’t know what to do. I’m still fairly green when it comes to etiquette when  eating out  - and it was so uncomfortable trying to eat my meal while the person across from me was not eating, was not happy, and I couldn’t swap meals with her either as I had the same thing. I truly had no idea what the proper thing to do was.  But my friend said she would wait til I finished my meal and take her salmon home in a doggy bag – to feed to her (lucky!) dog. Later she reported she had washed it off, heated it up again, and enjoyed it with her own sauce. Thankfully it wasn’t a complete waste! But it was awkward.

Lesson – ASK about things in the menu that you aren’t sure about. And be more assertive if a meal is bad at a restaurant – you are paying for it after all.

A better experience was this last weekend – two friends came over and made pizzas in my kitchen! They were SO yummy. I wish I remembered to photograph them as I was too busy stuffing slices in my mouth while they were hot and cheesy. I am not going to go to Domino’s or Pizza Hut or Eagle Boys now. Why, when home made are far better than they could ever be!

The best part of course – the company of two beautiful ladies.

I need to do this sort of stuff more often. Eating disorders are isolating – they don’t allow you to have friends and to live. I’m so fortunate that friends didn’t give up on me, some had to withdraw for their own good, but they didn’t give up. They stuck around. Because without them I would be so alone, and the journey back to life would be so much harder.

The more GOOD, positive and enjoyable activities we include in our lives, the less room there is for the negative – including Mr Stupid ED. Hear that, Ed? No room for you! Shove off!

I’m going to spend my Valentines Night cuddling.. my cat. Hope you all had a lovely day too – whether it was a romantic one, or one where you simply remembered the people who love you and felt blessed and happy.

Have you ever had a really bad meal in a restaurant? What did you do? 

Have you ever had a secret Valentine, or been one? 

Sweet Poison – are artificial sweeteners deadly?

I have been trying to kick my HUGE artificial sweetener habit for years. Back in the late 1990′s I was living on diet coke and diet pepsi (among other diet soft drinks), diet jelly which had then just appeared in shops for the first time, sugarfree sweets, etc! Among other symptoms I had diarrhoea, bloating, cramps, horrific headaches, the shakes,  - and I knew that most of these were caused directly from my consuming these products.

But i was hooked. I can’t seem to taste sugar any more, when I try to use that instead (and this is aside from my fear of sugar for other reasons.) When I use sweetener in tea or coffee, I start out with a ‘normal’ amount. A few drinks later, I cannot taste that anymore, and have to use more. This keeps happening until I need an insane amount of sweetener to just taste anything ‘sweet’.

I read about pilots who were grounded from flying due to suffering Grand Mal Seizures directly from drinking Nutrasweet in their coffee, in a study written by a woman who had been diagnosed with Graves disease that went away as soon as she stopped drinking diet drinks.

Today a friend of mine forwarded me an email about artificial sweeteners called Sweet Poison. Unfortunately I couldn’t find who the author of this was – but I wanted to share it and ask you -

What do you think? Do you use artificial sweetener, or have you in the past, and has it ever affected you badly? Would you still use it despite knowing it could be deadly? Do you think this article (following) is legitimate or a propaganda style scare email? 

I do not necessarily endorse the opinions expressed in the following article – I am simply interested in those of my readers. It may or may not be factual – it came with no factual evidence, but from personal experience I know that there are some elements of truth there at the very least. 

here is the article as it was sent to me -

In  October of 2001, my sister started getting very  sick She had stomach spasms and she was having a  hard time getting around. Walking was a major  chore. It took everything she had just to get  out of bed; she was in so much pain.

By  March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and  muscle biopsies and was on 24 various  prescription medications. The doctors could not  determine what was wrong with her. She was in so  much pain, and so sick she just knew she was  dying.

She  put her house, bank accounts, life insurance,  etc., in her oldest daughter’s name, and made  sure that her younger children were to be taken  care of.

She also wanted her last hooray,  so she planned a trip to Florida (basically in a  wheelchair) for March 22nd..

On March 19,  I called her to ask how her most recent tests  went, and she said they didn’t find anything on  the test, but they believe she had  MS.

I  recalled an article a friend of mine e-mailed to  me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda?  She told me that she did. As a matter of fact,  she was getting ready to crack one open that  moment.

I told her not to open it, and to  stop drinking the diet soda! I e-mailed her an  article my friend, a lawyer, had sent. My sister  called me within 32 hours after our phone  conversation and told me she had stopped  drinking the diet soda AND she could walk! The  muscle spasms went away. She said she didn’t  feel 100% but, she sure felt a lot  better.

She  told me she was going to her doctor with this  article and would call me when she got  home.

Well, she called me, and said her  doctor was amazed! He is going to call all of  his MS patients to find out if they consumed  artificial sweeteners of any kind. In a  nutshell, she was being poisoned by the  Aspartame in the diet soda.. and literally dying  a slow and miserable death.

When she got  to Florida March 22, all she had to take was one  pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame  poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete  recovery. And she is walking! No wheelchair!  This article saved her  life.

If  it says ‘SUGAR FREE’ on the label; DO NOT EVEN  THINK ABOUT IT!

I  have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD  ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on ‘ASPARTAME,’  marketed as’Nutra  Sweet,’ ‘Equal,’ and  ’Spoonful.’

In  the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced  that in the United States in 2001 there is an  epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic  lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly  what toxin was causing this to be rampant. I  stood up and said that I was there to lecture on  exactly that subject.

I will explain why  Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature  of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood  alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde  and then to formic acid, which in turn causes  metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison  found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol  toxicity mimics, among other conditions,  multiple sclerosis and systemic  lupus.

Many people were being diagnosed  in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a  death sentence, Methanol toxicity  is!

Systemic lupus has become almost as  rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with  Diet  Coke and Diet Pepsi  drinkers.

The  victim usually does not know that the Aspartame  is the culprit. He or she continues its use;  irritating the lupus to such a degree that it  may become a life-threatening condition… We  have seen patients with systemic lupus become  asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas.

In  cases of those diagnosed with Multiple  Sclerosis, most of the symptoms disappear. We’ve  seen many cases where vision loss re- turned and  hearing loss improved markedly.

This also  applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia.  During a lecture, I said, ‘If you are using  ASPARTAME (Nutra  Sweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc)  and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms,  spasms, shooting, pains, numbness in your  legs,
Cramps,
Vertigo,
Dizziness,
Headaches,
Tinnitus,
Joint  pain,
Unexplainable  depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech,  blurred vision, or memory loss you probably have  ASPARTAME poisoning!’ People were jumping up  during the lecture saying,’I have some of these  symptoms. Is it  reversible?’

Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
STOP  drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame  on food labels! Many products are fortified with  it! This is a serious problem. Dr. Espart (one  of my speakers) remarked that so many people  seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his  recent visit to a hospice; a nurse stated that  six of her friends, who were heavy  Diet  Coke  addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is  beyond coincidence!

Diet soda  is  NOT  a diet product! It is a chemically altered,  multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing  product that actually makes you crave  carbohydrates.

It is far more likely to  make you GAIN weight!

These products also  contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat  cells, particularly in the hips and thighs.  Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used  primarily to preserve ’tissue  specimens.’

Many  products we use every day contain this chemical  but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our  body!

Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his  lectures that once free of  the  ’diet products’  and with no significant increase in exercise;  his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a  trial period.

Aspartame  is especially dangerous for diabetics. We found  that some physicians, who believed that they had  a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had  symptoms caused by Aspartame. The Aspartame  drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus  diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to  the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine  are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other  amino acids necessary for a good  balance.

Treating diabetes is all about  BALANCE. Especially with diabetics, the  Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it  then deteriorates the neurons of the brain;  causing various levels of brain  damage,  Seizures, Depression, Manic depression, Panic  attacks,  Uncontrollable anger and  rage.

Consumption  of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in  non-diabetics as well. Documentation and  observation also reveal that thousands of  children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD have had  complete turnarounds in their behavior when  these chemicals have been removed from their  diet.

So  called ‘behavior modification prescription  drugs’ (Ritalin and others) are no longer  needed.Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in  the first place!

Most  of these children were being ‘poisoned’ on a  daily basis with the very foods that were  ’better for them than  sugar.’

It  is also suspected that the Aspartame in  thousands of pallets of  diet Coke and diet Pepsi  consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf  War,  may be partially to blame for the well-known  Gulf War Syndrome.

Dr. Roberts warns that  it can cause birth defects, i.e. mental  retardation, if taken at the time of conception  and during early pregnancy. Children are  especially at risk for neurological disorders  and should NEVER be given artificial  sweeteners.

There  are many different case histories to relate of  children suffering grand mal seizures and other  neurological disturbances talking about a plague  of neurological diseases directly caused by the  use of this deadly poison.’

Herein lies  the problem: There were Congressional Hearings  when Aspartame was included in 100 different  products and strong ob-jection was made  concerning its use. Since this initial hearing,  there have been two subsequent hearings, and  still nothing has been done..  The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep  pockets.

Sadly, MONSANTO’S patent on  Aspartame has EXPIRED! There are now over 5,000  products on the market that contain this deadly  chemical and there will be thousands more  introduced. Everybody wants a  ’piece of the Aspartame  pie.’

I  assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of  Aspartame, knows how deadly it is.

And  isn’t it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among  others, the American Diabetes Association, the  American Dietetic Association and the Conference  of the American College of  Physicians?

This has been recently  exposed in the New York Times. These  [organizations] cannot criticize any additives  or convey their link to MONSANTO because they  take money from the food industry and are  required to endorse their  products.

Senator  Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill  that would require label warnings on products  containing Aspartame, especially regarding  pregnant women, children and infants.

The  bill would also institute independent studies on  the known dangers and the problems existing in  the general population regarding seizures,  changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes  and behavioral symptoms.
The  bill was killed.

It  is known that the powerful drug and chemical  lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose  the hounds of disease and death on an  unsuspecting and uninformed public. Well, you’re  informed now!