Been a bit quiet but I guess that was going to happen as I settled into this new way of being. By triggers are not as big or triggered as often - how nice! However something a lady said to me this week really hit the ouch button. I was chatting to some of the ladies at my evening class as I had just turned down a cookie for the 10th week in a row. I said I am so close to my target that I wont have one until I get there, but I was looking forward to having one then. One of them said 'Oh you know you will put it all back on' OWWWW! Now I know she was just throwing her baggage at me and this says way more about her than me, but it left me smarting.

She doesn't know me or anything about my issues, but for me what would putting it 'all back on' mean? That food was winning again... that I had forgotten all I have learnt over the last few months... that I was back believing my old rules or worse still I had created some new ones. All bad stuff and not from the vain 'Oh no I have gone up a dress size' mentality. But it has highlighted for me that there is to be another period of adjustment when I reach target as I don't want to continue to lose weight, I will have to increase my syns of add more healthy extras (I don't understand exactly how best to do that yet) But it is going to mean re-introducing some previously 'bad' food into my diet and learning a new acceptable and healthy amount to eat. I haven't really made a conscious choice to exclude these foods but with so much other experimenting I haven't had enough room in my tummy to fit them in!. But I hadn't realised how nervous I felt about those foods until that woman's comment, so I thank her for the increase in awareness her throw away comment gave me.

Experimenting!

 Have been given another odd recipe this time for a strange kind of strange flat bread so gave it a go last night. It follows the same kind of egg whisking that the chocolate cake I made does and creates a strange spongy looking slab of oddness! Don't get me wrong its not unpleasant... just like nothing I have ever tasted! Here it is pre cooked, it was suggested I add flax seeds, I didn't have any so put caraway seeds in, which I adore...

 ... but might have been a mistake considering what I then decided to do with my slab of stuff!!

I wonder if it would have gone crispy if I had spread it our thinner over two trays, but then it might have been to fragile to do anything with rather than crisp and crunchy?!? Next time I think I will split the mix and do one thin one and a smaller thick one

 Last nights dinner was half the slab (I really don't know what else to call it!!) with tomato puree, lean ham, mushrooms, my cheese allowance for the day and a sprinkling of herbs.

I sort of tasted like pizza (see above re caraway seeds!!) but as I used to have thin crust pizza it was a big difference. Had I been more of a deep pan girl it would of course have been less odd! But as I say odd doesn't mean it tasted bad by any means :-)

The other half was saved for lunch today and I decided to try and make some kind of a roulade thingy. I made a ratatouille rolled it up in foil and popped it in the oven, the cheese was added after and just melted on the hot surface.

I had to eat it cold over at my Dads later which was a shame as I think it would have been better hot. Needs work but the idea is there! I wanted to add pesto to it, but I also think doing it with maybe butternut squash and spinach would be good as well. If I made a bigger one I would like to slice it up to serve but not sure it would stay stuck in a roll if I did that and not sure what to 'glue' it with.

I am having far too much fun with this not being scared of food feeling :-)

Daemon day

Really struggled with my old behaviour today, I only just made it through and am feeling totally washed out and shaken up tonight. You see a lot of my behaviour with food is triggered when I feel out of control of a situation I try to cope by doing one of two extreme behaviours.

Restrict - I would take total control over my eating and stop altogether.... because of course that proves I have supreme control over what I eat and therefore I must have control over the other situation right?

or Binge - Saying to myself 'I'll show them' (whoever that maybe) They don't control me, I control me. Then eat a vast amount of crap food to show I have control of what hurts me not them. I don't really talk about just how much food that used to be but will explain it would be soft food so I didn't have to chew to much (which takes longer and fills you up) and so it wouldn't hurt to much if I over compensated for my behaviour later.

Now over the years different lots of therapy and soul searching I learnt to curb these behaviour so if they did happen a restrict didn't last as long and a binge was a fraction of the size (more like what a normal person would call a pig out) and it has been many many many years since I have over compensated. But truth is despite how under control my issues have been, when I am in a situation I have no control over my default setting is to still go one of these two behaviours.

Since starting the eating plan I have coped with a couple of little things rocking me, but nothing like today. I am stuck waiting for my results and its not the results that are causing me anxiety it is the total lack of communication from the college as to when and how I will get them. As a result I feel I am on constant alert every time the post comes, every time I open my email, will I find out today? next week? Made worse by the fact one of my peers has theirs and I can only theorise as to why that is the case. Today I picked up the last of my work and half hoped there would be confirmation of the total grade with it.... there was not.... and I crashed as a result.

On the way home I couldn't stop crying and that feeling of being totally out of control of something so important to me was overwhelming. I had to stop to get something for tea and that's when I found myself in a supermarket surrounded by food and in my worst frame of mind. I lost count of how many times I looped around the cake section but I focused on the syn value of the things I passed and I didn't pick anything up. Then I tried to remember what I was supposed to be getting but kept getting distracted. In the end I was shaking and fighting tears as hard as I was fighting the urge to grab a mountain of chocolate. I ended up heading for the safety of the fruit and veg section and grabbing random stuff and more pointedly a punnet of grapes. Then I just had to pay and get out of there, my head was pounding and I felt really upset and dissapointed I had let myself get that badly effected even though I hadn't picked anything up.

As I still had a strong urge to stuff chocolate into my gob in order to feel calmer I decided to pretend the grapes were malteasers. Yeah ok I know they don't taste the same, but by thinking of chocolate and letting my body eat something, I dont kow somehow it kind of helped. Maybe it was feeling virtuous that I hadn't gone for the chocolate, I don't know, but I calmed down after a damn good cry. I will have chocolate cake again at some point in the future, my birthday for example! But today was the wrong reason to have it and I know I would have regretted it. So I'm glad I didn't let the daemon win today, but am paying the price now, strong emotions go straight to my tummy and I have felt sick since this afternoon. I have managed to eat a sensible dinner though rather than restrict and that feels better, but not great as I feel full which brings up its own set of destructive thoughts.

I need to calm down, get a handle on why I feel the way I do about the results and either forget about them, or contact the college *again* to try to find out a due date for them. Though past experience tells me I wont find anything out and self preservation tells me to not try. Sorry no food pictures tonight, camera battery died. But even if it hadn't I don't feel like photos of food today.

Good night sleep should sort me out, positive attitude will return, I am both stubborn and determined, after all I did the hard bit walking out of the supermarket with fruit not cake

heavy blood

So today I am aware of even more good and bad aspects of this healthy eating malarkey. It might be getting a little expensive! I set aside some money to pay for the club membership and weigh in sessions and I'm nor surprised my food bill is higher than before. My old habit of not eating three meals a day has effected this more than the price of the food I buy.

But expenses I hadn't thought of are clothes! It is now very noticeable I have dropped some weight and one the plus side clothes that just fitted tightly are now comfortable. But clothes that fitted before now look very baggy and some will have to go. I'm not to worries as the expense can be offset a little by selling good clothes on Ebay to fund some new wardrobe items. Weight loss has really hit my boobs now *Oh Woe* which is a shame as they are my confidence boost. As a friend once said 'I can always tell when you are nervous about going somewhere by how low cut your top is!' and its true I have used them as a great distraction technique over the years. But goodness my bra's were not fitting well *before* I started this - now its just laughable how badly they fit! I'm going to give it another month to let the last bit of weight go and my body to settle then I am going to have to buy some yummy new bra's.

A more expensive casualty might be my engagement ring :-/ I have James mothers ring and it was always a little loose when my hands were cold, it spins around all the time, but not in danger of falling off so we never got it sized. However it is starting to get worryingly loose now and I may have to get it altered or risk losing it, which would break my heart. Better safe than sorry on that one I think but again as with bra's I will give it another month for things to settle a bit more.

It not all woe and I don't really think any of the above is a big deal in the grand scheme of things, after all its an excuse to go shopping! ;-)

But this morning I discovered a fantastic side effect to the eating plan when I went to give blood. I have only been turned away from donating once because of my iron levels (I think that's what the drop of blood test bit is anyway) But every time the drop of blood takes the longest allowable time to drop and its always touch and go for that moment if I will be allowed to donate. I was eager to see if the big diet changes would have an effect and part of me was worried I should have had more spinach and beef this last week. But no need to worry that little drop of blood went straight down, in fact the nurse said it was perfect! Now that's what healthy eating can do *happy* I gave blood and got my Bronze award this time which makes it even more perfect :-) Oh and as far as the after donation biscuit goes I decided to skip it having worked out last night that it would be most of my days syn allowance, so instead I took a light cereal bar with me and eating plan sabotage was avoided!

On the cooking front slowly getting the hang of the slow cooker and made a very yummy chicken casserole last night that was so yummy I forgot to take a photo! lol!!

So I'm riding the positivity wave this week and gonna crack on with some personal and work tasks I have been hiding from *rolls up sleeves*

Strange cooking

My appetite is continuing to return and last night had my first proper sized meal as well as bravely using the slow cooker properly for the first time. Very nice it was to, though I am still nervous about leaving the slow cooker on while I leave the house which somewhat defeats the object of having it! I served it up to darling hubby with rice as was his preference. But I didn't fancy rice and I am aware that some days I haven't had as much free veg as the eating plan suggests so instead of rice of potato I went for broccoli and cherry tomatoes. I have already got into the habit of bunging a handful of salad or spinach on the side of meals if the proportions of certain food groups are not as balanced as they could be. This week I also discovered adding a tin of mushy peas to bump up veg count without just filling up on potato or pasta

 I had a go at another strange cooking technique with these smash scones tonight and was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong the are very odd, but also very nice :-) I am trying to work out if I can use the recipe to create a cobbler top to a chili or cottage pie mix.

Hang on I'm getting far to adventurous here! My husband was remembering the wife he used to have who was scared to cook or try new recipes - where has she gone!! 




We had the scones alongside the Mexican bean bake I originally made in the first week of this food experiment. I have tweaked the recipe to use a mix of beans not just kidney beans, and I didn't do the strange Quark topping this time (because I forgot we didn't have any in the fridge!) So spent some extra syns and just grated cheese on top. And very well it worked indeed.
They will make a good snack and I will see what Autumn thinks of them tomorrow.


I am feeling so alive and proud of myself today, I actually noticed I am walking taller today so I must be feeling more confident. With every day that passes after being discharged from the counsellor I am finding my focus on the weight loss is drifting. I don't mean I am not sticking to the eating plan, I just mean the reason for doing it has shifted. I am doing it as it makes me feel good and calm and not scared of food *yay*

Discharged!!

So today I had my last counselling session. I have now been officially discharged as someone whose eating disorder is in remission.

*wow*

It's only taken me 20 years to get here. It feels amazing. I know where my issues stemmed from and more importantly I understand how the way I think fuels them. I have learnt a new way of thinking that derails all those past negative thoughts. Is that it? Is it all over now? Well no, still lots to practise and I am going to get thrown off course from time to time, but its now about how I handle that.

A couple of great examples over the last few days really illustrate to me how aware I am of my negative thoughts and how I have learnt to rein them in buy basically throwing a heap of evidence and logical thinking at them - they stand no chance! :-)

First example was on Sunday when I made a batch of chocolate and courgette cookies to leave for the babysitter. Now I love these and haven't made them for ages, so I wanted one. I was supposed to be going out for dinner and had said I would have a syn free day to compensate (not over-compensate!) But I decided you know what one cookie was OK. I have learnt (but am still practising!) that the edge of my healthy eating plan can be stepped over for a specific thing I choose to have, and it isn't disaster. I enjoy the treat and then step calmly back into the healthy eating mode. Now if I had two or three cookies that would be taking the mickey, but my clear choice was I am comfortable with one cookie, I ate it mindfully, I enjoyed it and there was no guilt. Very good balanced behaviour *yes* Sadly the whole think became a non-existent issue in the long run as I came down with a stomach upset (some left over broccoli I think but def not the cookies I hasten to add!) and we didn't go out to dinner and I ate nothing until the following morning! Oh well!

The next example was the old 'how to accept a compliment' issue, yeah I know a lot of us struggle with that one! Well my husband made very approving noises about an outfit I had worn, so I asked him if he had liked it. I am doing this a lot at the moment as I am playing with a few different looks as my body shape is changing. The outfit in question was a pair of fitting blue jeans and a plain white shirt, he said he liked it and something alone the lines of it being simple and elegant. 'Awww that's nice' I think for about two seconds when in pops 'That means he doesn't like your more busy, flowery Joe Brown type outfits... which I love... Oh no :-(' But this time there was a quick pause as I went into my helicopter view went 'hmmmm did he say he didn't like those other outfits? No! So just because this outfit is a positive it doesn't make other outfits a negative' and *boot* the negative thought was out the window and I was able to smile and take the compliment!

*phew* this is knackering beyond believe, second thinking myself and hunting for evidence all the time. But my goodness is it worth it and really really starting to pay off. Long way to go, but I have momentum to keep going.

Role model menu

The drive behind making the changes I have was to teach my daughter what  healthy food is and how it is not good to eat lots of junk. I want to share two things that happened with her and food today, that have made me very happy.

While enjoying her Marmite and veg pasta at lunchtime she reached over and took some fresh spinach from my plate and proceeded to munch her way through half a dozen leaves, declaring it was yummy. Than later as a treat I cut one of her Dads jam donuts into four so she could try a little bit. I brushed off all the excess sugar and showed her the jam in the middle. She poked at it a bit then picked it up and squeezed it so the jam went all over some of her fingers. She refused to eat any off the jam or the donut, she said she didn't like jam and then asked to have her hands wiped. I asked if she would rather have a fig roll 'Yes please mummy' was the reply.

She also mugged me for half my banana this afternoon, now I know she would have properly mugged me for whatever I was eating. All the more important I am eating a banana not a huge packet of crisps or a chocolate bar. I am so much happier with the food lessons she is picking up from me these days.