Seriously Speaking, Part II

I was reading over my last post just now, and suddenly I feel very vulnerable. What have I done, revealing my disordered eating and emotional breakdowns -- how could I do this? What are people thinking about me? That I'm a freak? Have I set off some panic in some that Optifast will lead them to a similar situation? Do my readers already know I have been screwed up all along, and are dumbfounded it took me this long to see it? I'm nervous. Feel like I'm out on a limb. With no clothes on my body. But what's done is done, so I'm just going to keep discussing this openly and candidly. For me, that's the only way to go.  

Today, Monday, I had a little goal for myself. Yes, I would have my same breakfast, lunch and snack, but for dinner I would partake in a soup I made for my husband (we both are sick right now and I figured soup was a good choice). Now normally, I would only eat a small piece of chicken or fish, or a chicken patty, and a small serving of a bean salad for dinner. And I would eat this small dinner every day of the week. But tonight I thought I'd do things differently. Tonight, I wanted to start addressing this restrictive diet of mine. Tonight I wanted to start the healing process.

I made a ditalini pasta and barley soup, with hot sausage, celery, onion, carrots, diced potato, garlic and parsley. It was all simmered in vegetable broth. Quite simple. My husband got his serving with a drizzle of olive oil and lots of shredded parmesan cheese. I had a small serving, no olive oil or cheese, and was nervous about eating it, but went ahead and had it. As I was eating, it struck me how rarely I eat my gourmet cooking anymore, and I felt a twinge of sadness.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've eaten one of the meals I cook for my husband since I started and finished Optifasting and moved into maintenance. With the overeating at the restaurant once, sometimes twice, a week, and my attempts to back out possible weight gain with a very strict eating routine the rest of the time, the gourmet meals cooked at home have been verbotten for me. And initially, I didn't mind that one bit because I got/get an incredible amount of stability and feeling of safety when I eat the same thing every day. But my heart tells me this eating one -- and only one -- menu day in and day out is just not normal. Something has to change.

Now, right now, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming away from my established eating pattern. I refuse to give it up. And herein lies the roots of the disordered eating. I don't know if others do something like this -- have this ritualistic pattern -- but if so, you probably have the same type of resistance I do. On the one hand, it's just like Optifast. Same thing, every day. You know calories in and don't really need calculations. But I'm not Optifasting anymore. I'm in the "real" world, with "real" food. Balance and variety needs to be found, and that's clearly not being followed by me. And why? It's so simple. I believe I'll gain all my weight back. And then I'll feel like a failure.

It's important to note that I really didn't acknowledge this as disordered eating until I began to start wanting answers as to why I was starting to binge and get so very upset. I turned to books and began to learn more about anorexia, binge/purge eating, and binge eating disorder. And I started to see that I had glimmers of this. I just sort of "fell into" disordered eating, and now it's here to stay -- unless I do something. So this is where I am today.  

Interestingly, I feel sorta optimistic tonight. There's that saying, "You name it, and you can tame it." That resonates with me. I think having the pasta soup tonight is a big start. And I'm very, very proud of myself. Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but that's not important. I focus on today, as you know. And right now I'm yawning and thinking about going up to sleep. Enough typing for tonight. Sleep well, all. Sweet dreams.