Ah, Team in Training... Let's return to the spring of 2003, when I had just moved back to Texas from an internship in Florida, and one of my two new roommates, Jenny, talked me into training with her for the Capital of Texas Triathlon in Austin, TX. At the time, I bingeing heavily and regularly; however, I had just switched my major to English and felt more positive about completing college than ever. I was beginning to make decisions based on my own interests, a novel thing for me as I was only then starting to differentiate between my true interests and the things I was "supposed" to be interested in for whatever reason.
What's more, I had proved through my full-time working internship that I could, in fact, complete difficult tasks and structure my own life somewhat. I was a functional ED sufferer on a VERY bumpy path to recovery. In fact, I did not believe in recovery at that point. I didn't believe in very much at all. But for some reason, I said yes to Jenny and decided to train.
Finishing was my only goal. I knew I could no longer put up the blistering running times I had in high school, and somehow, I had reached a point of acceptance. It must be said, for this is no small factor for me and the way I view fitness, body size, and recovery, that I was considerably heavier at the time of this training and racing than I am now. My weight stayed fairly consistent at this point; I suppose my body had learned my regular starvation/binge cycle. Nonetheless, I knew I was larger than our society's ideal. But after only a few weeks of training, I learned to love my body again. Only at age 20 did I truly begin to explore and appreciate my body, just as it was.
Even at my heightened weight, I raced faster than most people on our team. I knew it and harbored a special pride in it. I can affirm without hesitation that, despite the undeniable insanity of the bingeing, I was in the best shape of my life, aside from high school. Because of this experience, I am certain that body size does not directly indicate a person's fitness level or athletic ability. One of many, many lessons in not judging a book by its cover.
As for other lessons, Team in Training sustained me socially. Even though I made no close friends on the team, I at least gained surface-level friends. TnT events and training meetings provided me a place to go when I might otherwise have been bingeing or sinking into isolation. I didn't realize the importance of this structure at the time, but looking back, I can see how the training and fundraising gave me motivation beyond myself, kept me going to class, and offered structure to the chaos that was my existence.
As I wrote fundraising letters and people responded, I realized how many people in my life truly cared, not just about fighting blood cancer, but about me. I also received numerous personal stories from people who had survived or suffered with or knew someone who had cancer and met many who had participated in similar programs. I felt a positive connection to the world, a world that I otherwise classified as bleak, selfish, and unfeeling. I didn't recognize the window that was being opened at the time. Caring about others and feeling good about myself = a MAJOR breakthrough.
My first Team in Training experience came at a crucial juncture. I was making choices to finish school, to be responsible, to be honest, to have relationships with others, to go to class, to be involved in life at least somewhat. My living quarters were no longer a disaster area. I could face myself and learned to love myself just as I was. Even in a funk, I could get up and go to a fundraising event. I learned about my body and what felt good and what felt bad.
In any case, I hope this next Team in Training experience will prove even more impactful. I hope to be more mindful than last time of all the fabulous benefits involvement with this program affords. I can't wait to meet the honored hero I will be racing for, to start raising money, and to spread the word.
Significant Reflections ~
Back in 2003, having a fundraising website was almost unheard of. Now, it's a requisite! Feel free to visit mine at http://pages.teamintraining.org/txg/lstri09/mcowan to read more or donate funds. Believe me, even a couple of bucks helps!
Let's hope I swallow less drainage water during the swim. Jenny and I both thought we were going to die, not of exhaustion, but of some kind of poisoning, after the last race. The combo of rain runoff and Powerbar gels just doesn't work with post-triathlon fajitas... Ugh... I'll know better this time.
I also recall the severe cottonmouth experience during a 3.5-hour bicycle road ride just south of Lubbock. Instead of mixing Gatorade with water, I had the brilliant idea to buy Propel Fitness Water. Never again! Not as much energy as the Gatorade/water mix and twenty times the stuffy mouth. I couldn't even talk afterward! Craziness. Absolute craziness.
I'll never forget my long swims in the University pool with its convenient removable top or the incredible rides in Ransom Canyon. The triathlon also spurred consistent riding around the Canyon Lakes for the rest of my college career. I'll never forget riding my regular Canyon Lake trail through the Windmill museum and beside the Joyland Amusement Park, taking pictures the week of my college graduation. Patterns and structure I set for myself while participating in Team in Training stuck with me throughout school and into the recovery I experienced in 2005.
There are deep reasons why I love physical activity. I love the meditative mood it puts me in, the removal from all else going on in my life. I adore being outside and flowing somehow with nature or taking control and tackling tough obstacles and hills on my bike. And there are the memories, the memories that bubble up to join me each time I get on the road or take to the pool. Today, I get to create more.
Yes, I'm racing to find a cure, I'm racing for those suffering with blood cancers, but I'm also racing for myself and anyone else who is trying to find his or her way out of other illnesses and disorders...or disorder in general. I truly love that girl who raced her heart out in Austin in 2003. She didn't know she'd be here in five years; she didn't believe life could be this happy. I'm glad I proved her wrong.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Can Eating Disorder Recovery and Half-Ironman Training Coexist?
Conclusion: Yes.
Lately, I have felt considerably spent and resentful of certain other people in my life. Upon deeper investigation, I realized that I was allowing my explorations into the interests of others to take up all my time, leaving nothing for the pursuit of my own desires.
I say repeatedly that I'm "into" or "all about" music, but it has been months since my last open mic. I claim to be a writer but do no writing, having not taken the initiative to write a new article for work or on my own in weeks. And I frequently deny parts of who I am, such as the enjoyment I get from eating good food and participating in physical activities.
I'm going back to the beginning. What are the things that have always nourished me, that I can see myself going to as a child for centering and fun? Music, writing, lying around thinking and enjoying, running outside and playing. I remember thoroughly enjoying food and baking quite well. I also read, learned, and created things with my hands.
Today, I can still embrace all of these things and incorporate them into my job, my relationships, and my personal life. I do not need to be ashamed of any of the parts of myself, including the "cheesy" spiritual and recovery parts.
So, I recently made the decision to start actively pursuing more of the things I always say I'm "into." I may find I'm not so into those things anymore, or I may discover a new level of fulfillment. In any case, soon after I made that decision, I received a last minute request to perform my music for friends and strangers this weekend. A freelance writing opportunity came up. Plus, I signed up to do the Lone Star Half-Ironman with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program. Choosing to accept these challenges for myself takes a great amount of faith.
Although I raised $2400 and completed an Olympic-length triathlon with the Team in Training in 2003, I have since shied away from competitive athletic events because I associate them with my eating disorder. However, about a year and half ago, I reconnected with my physically active self and started to embrace my natural abilities and the nourishment moving my body gives to my soul. As long as I keep it fun and don't tell myself I "have" to do this or that exercise, I stay on a healthy plane. That remains the plan during half-Ironman training.
After weeks with the idea of re-joining Team in Training repeatedly nagging me, I finally bit the bullet and signed up on Thursday. It felt so right. The camaraderie, the amazing cause, the challenge of raising that much money. It all comes at a wonderful, celebratory time in my life. I want others to recover from their illnesses just as I have been able to recover from mine. During training, I will continue to explore new foods and new ways to utilize my body. I intend to get in even better touch with myself than I already am while also getting out of myself to help others.
Additionally, I thrive on team activities. It's what I grew up with. During my teen years especially, my life was highly organized. Meeting friends in structured group settings works for me, and I choose to embrace that now instead of running away from it as a deficiency. I no longer "need" to join organizations or teams to have a social life, but it feels good to do so. I no longer "need" to exercise heavily, but I can challenge myself in activities I already know I enjoy.
I plan to take a look back at the last Team in Training season I participated in for my next blog. For now, though, I'm looking ahead and feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for where my life is today, the people in it, and the things I am miraculously able to do.
Lately, I have felt considerably spent and resentful of certain other people in my life. Upon deeper investigation, I realized that I was allowing my explorations into the interests of others to take up all my time, leaving nothing for the pursuit of my own desires.
I say repeatedly that I'm "into" or "all about" music, but it has been months since my last open mic. I claim to be a writer but do no writing, having not taken the initiative to write a new article for work or on my own in weeks. And I frequently deny parts of who I am, such as the enjoyment I get from eating good food and participating in physical activities.
I'm going back to the beginning. What are the things that have always nourished me, that I can see myself going to as a child for centering and fun? Music, writing, lying around thinking and enjoying, running outside and playing. I remember thoroughly enjoying food and baking quite well. I also read, learned, and created things with my hands.
Today, I can still embrace all of these things and incorporate them into my job, my relationships, and my personal life. I do not need to be ashamed of any of the parts of myself, including the "cheesy" spiritual and recovery parts.
So, I recently made the decision to start actively pursuing more of the things I always say I'm "into." I may find I'm not so into those things anymore, or I may discover a new level of fulfillment. In any case, soon after I made that decision, I received a last minute request to perform my music for friends and strangers this weekend. A freelance writing opportunity came up. Plus, I signed up to do the Lone Star Half-Ironman with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program. Choosing to accept these challenges for myself takes a great amount of faith.
Although I raised $2400 and completed an Olympic-length triathlon with the Team in Training in 2003, I have since shied away from competitive athletic events because I associate them with my eating disorder. However, about a year and half ago, I reconnected with my physically active self and started to embrace my natural abilities and the nourishment moving my body gives to my soul. As long as I keep it fun and don't tell myself I "have" to do this or that exercise, I stay on a healthy plane. That remains the plan during half-Ironman training.
After weeks with the idea of re-joining Team in Training repeatedly nagging me, I finally bit the bullet and signed up on Thursday. It felt so right. The camaraderie, the amazing cause, the challenge of raising that much money. It all comes at a wonderful, celebratory time in my life. I want others to recover from their illnesses just as I have been able to recover from mine. During training, I will continue to explore new foods and new ways to utilize my body. I intend to get in even better touch with myself than I already am while also getting out of myself to help others.
Additionally, I thrive on team activities. It's what I grew up with. During my teen years especially, my life was highly organized. Meeting friends in structured group settings works for me, and I choose to embrace that now instead of running away from it as a deficiency. I no longer "need" to join organizations or teams to have a social life, but it feels good to do so. I no longer "need" to exercise heavily, but I can challenge myself in activities I already know I enjoy.
I plan to take a look back at the last Team in Training season I participated in for my next blog. For now, though, I'm looking ahead and feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for where my life is today, the people in it, and the things I am miraculously able to do.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Equally Bad
What if every choice were equally bad? Of course, if that were the case, every choice would be equally good, too, but it seems to be more different and interesting for me to use the term "bad" here. I always want to do the "best" thing, habitually stymied by decision-making. I often eat in lieu of making decisions. I focus on what is easy for me - food - instead of simply making a choice.
After I confessed this aloud to someone, she kindly told me that the basic act of making a decision is a gift. Why not give myself the gift of making a decision, even if it might not be the best one? And furthermore, what if there were no best?
For some reason, my mind immediately jumped to the idea that if all choices were equal, they would all be equally bad. So what did it matter what I chose?
What if I started bingeing, called a friend, and told that friend that I was bingeing and wanted to hear what he/she thought about that? What if I drove across town, then out of town, and then across the state? What if I didn't clean my bathroom and allowed myself to lie around and read all Saturday? What if I didn't try to write music? For me, some of these things are far-fetched; others are not. They are all completely doable, but would I do them? Would I choose not to? In my new case scenario, it doesn't matter anyway.
Does it all come down to just doing SOMETHING? Well, I don't think so. I think my main difficulty here may be in the focus on DOING rather than BEING. Can I just BE? But in choosing to just be, isn't that doing something? Doesn't being hold doing inside of it?
This is where my mind goes when I cease putting restrictions on it and allow all thoughts equal reign. Of course, even that isn't really happening. My brain is filtering out a lot of thoughts simply so that I concentrate on the act of writing this piece.
I started a few little writings today, including one on stream-of-consciousness living (pretty close to what's going on right now in this post) and one on the best vegetarian pizza in town (the results of my current quest). The latter post, however, aroused my hunger for pizza from a place I'd never tried. So I did, resulting in incredible disappointment which completely threw me for a loop. I found myself re-roasting vegetables from last night's dinner and eating partially cooked pieces while standing up in the kitchen. I jumped back and forth between reading a book, eating, and watching the Olympics for a while before deciding to clean the bathroom, vacuum my entryway and welcome mat, and take the recycling to the drop-off. Stream-of-consciousness living, just going from one thing to the next as it presents itself. It's not so fun for me, considering the number of thoughts that pop up at any single moment throughout the day, but I fell into the pattern.
Even now, I'm not sure where this post is going except that I do not want to judge my behavior right now. I don't feel like making plans with anyone, but if someone called, I would probably agree to go do something. I might let myself read. I keep trying to write songs and keep coming up with lots of half-formed things. It feels like fail, fail, fail with music these days.
Admittedly, part of my drive to not judge my behavior is an attempt to forgive myself for my lack of songwriting and performing lately. And as I go back, editing this post, I see that the many half-songs I've created may later turn into whole-songs or serve as catalysts for something entirely new. In fact, I can see that I've done a lot today, not just with music, but in general.
It's okay if I want to read and watch television. It can be okay. So what if I'm not striving after my dreams? Do I have to? Why? Can I choose anything and be okay?
In any case, I'm sure this post exposes the deep-seeded insanity that resides within me. I could never deny it. What you read now is a product of my seemingly innate tendencies to over-think and romanticize. I can go a long time ignoring my thoughts and pretending they aren't there while I'm really just storing up dozens, or maybe hundreds, of jumbled thoughts, questions, and dreams, which spill out on solitary Saturdays like this.
Perhaps one day, I will get my ED community site up and running, perhaps I will write a book, perhaps I will, perhaps I will. Perhaps all these things are equally bad. And maybe all I really want or need to do is sit and read. Can I give myself permission to make that choice? Will I give myself permission to achieve nothing?
After I confessed this aloud to someone, she kindly told me that the basic act of making a decision is a gift. Why not give myself the gift of making a decision, even if it might not be the best one? And furthermore, what if there were no best?
For some reason, my mind immediately jumped to the idea that if all choices were equal, they would all be equally bad. So what did it matter what I chose?
What if I started bingeing, called a friend, and told that friend that I was bingeing and wanted to hear what he/she thought about that? What if I drove across town, then out of town, and then across the state? What if I didn't clean my bathroom and allowed myself to lie around and read all Saturday? What if I didn't try to write music? For me, some of these things are far-fetched; others are not. They are all completely doable, but would I do them? Would I choose not to? In my new case scenario, it doesn't matter anyway.
Does it all come down to just doing SOMETHING? Well, I don't think so. I think my main difficulty here may be in the focus on DOING rather than BEING. Can I just BE? But in choosing to just be, isn't that doing something? Doesn't being hold doing inside of it?
This is where my mind goes when I cease putting restrictions on it and allow all thoughts equal reign. Of course, even that isn't really happening. My brain is filtering out a lot of thoughts simply so that I concentrate on the act of writing this piece.
I started a few little writings today, including one on stream-of-consciousness living (pretty close to what's going on right now in this post) and one on the best vegetarian pizza in town (the results of my current quest). The latter post, however, aroused my hunger for pizza from a place I'd never tried. So I did, resulting in incredible disappointment which completely threw me for a loop. I found myself re-roasting vegetables from last night's dinner and eating partially cooked pieces while standing up in the kitchen. I jumped back and forth between reading a book, eating, and watching the Olympics for a while before deciding to clean the bathroom, vacuum my entryway and welcome mat, and take the recycling to the drop-off. Stream-of-consciousness living, just going from one thing to the next as it presents itself. It's not so fun for me, considering the number of thoughts that pop up at any single moment throughout the day, but I fell into the pattern.
Even now, I'm not sure where this post is going except that I do not want to judge my behavior right now. I don't feel like making plans with anyone, but if someone called, I would probably agree to go do something. I might let myself read. I keep trying to write songs and keep coming up with lots of half-formed things. It feels like fail, fail, fail with music these days.
Admittedly, part of my drive to not judge my behavior is an attempt to forgive myself for my lack of songwriting and performing lately. And as I go back, editing this post, I see that the many half-songs I've created may later turn into whole-songs or serve as catalysts for something entirely new. In fact, I can see that I've done a lot today, not just with music, but in general.
It's okay if I want to read and watch television. It can be okay. So what if I'm not striving after my dreams? Do I have to? Why? Can I choose anything and be okay?
In any case, I'm sure this post exposes the deep-seeded insanity that resides within me. I could never deny it. What you read now is a product of my seemingly innate tendencies to over-think and romanticize. I can go a long time ignoring my thoughts and pretending they aren't there while I'm really just storing up dozens, or maybe hundreds, of jumbled thoughts, questions, and dreams, which spill out on solitary Saturdays like this.
Perhaps one day, I will get my ED community site up and running, perhaps I will write a book, perhaps I will, perhaps I will. Perhaps all these things are equally bad. And maybe all I really want or need to do is sit and read. Can I give myself permission to make that choice? Will I give myself permission to achieve nothing?
Thursday, August 7, 2008
I Wish
I wish a lot of things. I wish I didn't focus so much on food during times of transition. I wish I were the lead singer of a rock band. I wish just one of the starring actresses in the movie I just saw was not uncomfortably thin. I wish I had infinite energy and no fear.
I wish. I wish. I wish.
Time to stop wishing and start seeing. I can envision what I want and work to create that. I can simultaneously accept life and myself as-is, in love.
I struggle and struggle to feel good or solid or something unnamable. But I only really feel like myself when I stop struggling and start accepting and enjoying, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, in that moment. Life teaches me to enjoy and appreciate the process, instead of fretting over the goal.
Bottom line: I feel a little mixed-up right now, but I want to go with it and trust that I will end up in a beautiful place. I am safe anywhere...
I wish. I wish. I wish.
Time to stop wishing and start seeing. I can envision what I want and work to create that. I can simultaneously accept life and myself as-is, in love.
I struggle and struggle to feel good or solid or something unnamable. But I only really feel like myself when I stop struggling and start accepting and enjoying, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, in that moment. Life teaches me to enjoy and appreciate the process, instead of fretting over the goal.
Bottom line: I feel a little mixed-up right now, but I want to go with it and trust that I will end up in a beautiful place. I am safe anywhere...
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Lasagna - Multi-Layered, like Me!
I made myself lasagna tonight. Not a bad first attempt I must say, especially considering that I mishmashed different recipes together until I had included all the elements I enjoy. I'll use less tomato sauce next time (I tend to get overzealous with the 'mato - I love them so.), have a more compact layer of pasta/ricotta cheese/caramelized onions and mushrooms/pasta in the middle, and find a more inventive ricotta mixture.
I love to cook. People struggling with and recovering from eating disorders have a wide range of attitudes toward cooking. Some avoid it; others revel or even obsess over it. Although I didn't cook much during the midst of the disorder, I remember being quite the baker before. I made heavenly cakes, and still can. My ability to follow recipes to the letter leads to that. Perfectionism has a few advantages. Cooking, as opposed to baking, requires a bit more creativity, so I like doing both for different reasons. At this point, my relationship with this expressive art (as I do consider it) seems healthy.
I have endless patience while cooking because it is such a pleasant, meditative time. I love coming up with new, more colorful combinations or getting totally immersed in the execution of a challenging recipe. It's flat-out fun. Plus, I don't mind the taste too much either.
Confessedly, though, I haven’t been trying many new things in the past few years. I still question my ability to control myself around food, and planning meals often feels like obsessing. Plus, cooking can be a hassle I just don’t have time for. Check it out! I’m like everyone else, eating disordered or not.
Tonight was about stretching. I undertook a more involved recipe with a baking time that requires a span of time without eating between the actual assembly of the lasagna and the plating of it. I tend to start grazing while cooking and then just continue on into the meal once it's finished. (I'm great at 30-minute wonders.) But tonight I proved that I could complete a full preparation/cooking/plating cycle without getting full before mealtime. I decided what I wanted beforehand, shopped for the ingredients, prepped, cooked, and ate, all without feeling compulsive. I ENJOYED it. The recipe included challenging ingredients for me, so it stretched me a bit there, too.
In any case, I'm proud of this achievement. A lasagna, I know, simple. But I'd been wanting to do this for weeks, if not months. And lately, I'd been fantasizing about it more.
Usually, constant fantasizing about something means I need to look into what the obsession is about. Is the fantasy leading me somewhere good or somewhere harmful? For me, food fantasies can be either.
In this case, I shied away from the fantasy because preparing this kind of a meal (with lots of prep-work involved) requires an extended focus on food. And I don't need help focusing on food! I always fear that cooking that sort of meal will lead to an increased food obsession in me.
However, I am examining my food more closely lately and trying to take chances. By cooking what used to be a complete no-no food for myself, I worry that it might lead to a binge. However, the case more often than not lately has been that eating a fear food DECREASES my binge urges. It may increase my anxiety, but I usually am able to put the fork down. This is what happened tonight. I feel fine. I stopped. It tasted good, but the meal had a beginning and an end.
I am slowly dismantling the power my fear foods once held over me. After many successful lasagna meals and similar patterns with other fear foods, I know the reality and liberation that results from diminishing their stronghold. Reintroducing foods like lasagna takes a while, but I am usually able to succeed. In the beginning, I often try to make the food "safer" by choosing certain ingredients, or I'll make it myself before attempting it at a restaurant (or vice versa, depending on the nature of the fear). I usually freak out or stop short of eating enough to be satisfied a few times before I get really comfortable. But my comfort level with the food typically increases naturally. If I'm having difficulty getting over a specific one, I pray for moments when I'll be forced to stretch. Usually, I get what I ask for (a challenge from the universe I usually have to accept begrudgingly and with much fear).
This has only been possible in the last few years of recovery. For a long time, I felt no desire to include no-no foods in my diet. Eventually, though, I saw that my anxieties were inhibiting me. At parties, at restaurants, in moments when nothing was available but a fear food, I found myself weak and disappointed in myself. I decided that reintroducing these foods would enable me to feel freer about food and my body in general. I would also be more likely to get the amount of calories needed to sustain a healthy weight.
The urge to eat these foods has come back slowly, and I still display marked resistance to certain items. But countless foods have moved into my consciousness over the past few years, things I want to try. And by acting on those visions responsibly, instead of just ignoring them and starving or bingeing on “safe” foods, I have become a far healthier and more relaxed eater.
My fantasies typically guide me toward the next food or activity I want to try. Yes, I added activity. I follow this same pattern with anything I fear - or I try to. I decided a couple of years ago to start living based on faith instead of fear. A treasured friend once told me how she had started examining her decision-making process and day-to-day living by asking herself, "Am I acting out of faith or out of fear?" She decided to make choices that required faith instead of avoiding things that caused fear. I now challenge myself to the same test. Following faith has always acted in my favor.
I am not talking about rushing into rash actions simply to fly in the face of fear. When acting impulsively, reasonable caution can be mistaken for fear. To rebel against that caution is not the same as looking at a situation and determining what will take more faith.
Do I always choose the shaky path of faith, wading through a boggy field of fear? No. But I try to go that way.
Right now, I'm admittedly afraid. Eating the lasagna was an attempt at finding strength. Afterward, I feel content but also an undercurrent of trepidation. I don't want to start bingeing, gain too much weight, or sit here forever alone, eating lasagna… The fears run deep – to issues seemingly unrelated to food.
Why are these fears coming up? Well, I may address that in future posts, for lasagna is not the only fear-inducing fantasy I have actualized in the past few days. I broke up with my boyfriend - my best friend - last weekend.
To clarify, this was not a couple-month fling blown out of proportion by my romantic mind. We have been together long enough to develop something remarkably special. If anything was meant to be, we were.
Although I recognize that breakups are a typical kind of tragedy, it hurts and brings up many issues for me. I knew it needed to be done; the persistent fantasies of breaking it off indicated that. Nonetheless, making healthy choices can be difficult. Trusting myself to be alone can be difficult. To still love someone but not want to be with him anymore hurts, as I'm sure most of you know.
But that's for the next post. No doubt that I use food to express my feelings and care for myself. For now, let's just be proud of the lasagna-enjoyer over here!
I love to cook. People struggling with and recovering from eating disorders have a wide range of attitudes toward cooking. Some avoid it; others revel or even obsess over it. Although I didn't cook much during the midst of the disorder, I remember being quite the baker before. I made heavenly cakes, and still can. My ability to follow recipes to the letter leads to that. Perfectionism has a few advantages. Cooking, as opposed to baking, requires a bit more creativity, so I like doing both for different reasons. At this point, my relationship with this expressive art (as I do consider it) seems healthy.
I have endless patience while cooking because it is such a pleasant, meditative time. I love coming up with new, more colorful combinations or getting totally immersed in the execution of a challenging recipe. It's flat-out fun. Plus, I don't mind the taste too much either.
Confessedly, though, I haven’t been trying many new things in the past few years. I still question my ability to control myself around food, and planning meals often feels like obsessing. Plus, cooking can be a hassle I just don’t have time for. Check it out! I’m like everyone else, eating disordered or not.
Tonight was about stretching. I undertook a more involved recipe with a baking time that requires a span of time without eating between the actual assembly of the lasagna and the plating of it. I tend to start grazing while cooking and then just continue on into the meal once it's finished. (I'm great at 30-minute wonders.) But tonight I proved that I could complete a full preparation/cooking/plating cycle without getting full before mealtime. I decided what I wanted beforehand, shopped for the ingredients, prepped, cooked, and ate, all without feeling compulsive. I ENJOYED it. The recipe included challenging ingredients for me, so it stretched me a bit there, too.
In any case, I'm proud of this achievement. A lasagna, I know, simple. But I'd been wanting to do this for weeks, if not months. And lately, I'd been fantasizing about it more.
Usually, constant fantasizing about something means I need to look into what the obsession is about. Is the fantasy leading me somewhere good or somewhere harmful? For me, food fantasies can be either.
In this case, I shied away from the fantasy because preparing this kind of a meal (with lots of prep-work involved) requires an extended focus on food. And I don't need help focusing on food! I always fear that cooking that sort of meal will lead to an increased food obsession in me.
However, I am examining my food more closely lately and trying to take chances. By cooking what used to be a complete no-no food for myself, I worry that it might lead to a binge. However, the case more often than not lately has been that eating a fear food DECREASES my binge urges. It may increase my anxiety, but I usually am able to put the fork down. This is what happened tonight. I feel fine. I stopped. It tasted good, but the meal had a beginning and an end.
I am slowly dismantling the power my fear foods once held over me. After many successful lasagna meals and similar patterns with other fear foods, I know the reality and liberation that results from diminishing their stronghold. Reintroducing foods like lasagna takes a while, but I am usually able to succeed. In the beginning, I often try to make the food "safer" by choosing certain ingredients, or I'll make it myself before attempting it at a restaurant (or vice versa, depending on the nature of the fear). I usually freak out or stop short of eating enough to be satisfied a few times before I get really comfortable. But my comfort level with the food typically increases naturally. If I'm having difficulty getting over a specific one, I pray for moments when I'll be forced to stretch. Usually, I get what I ask for (a challenge from the universe I usually have to accept begrudgingly and with much fear).
This has only been possible in the last few years of recovery. For a long time, I felt no desire to include no-no foods in my diet. Eventually, though, I saw that my anxieties were inhibiting me. At parties, at restaurants, in moments when nothing was available but a fear food, I found myself weak and disappointed in myself. I decided that reintroducing these foods would enable me to feel freer about food and my body in general. I would also be more likely to get the amount of calories needed to sustain a healthy weight.
The urge to eat these foods has come back slowly, and I still display marked resistance to certain items. But countless foods have moved into my consciousness over the past few years, things I want to try. And by acting on those visions responsibly, instead of just ignoring them and starving or bingeing on “safe” foods, I have become a far healthier and more relaxed eater.
My fantasies typically guide me toward the next food or activity I want to try. Yes, I added activity. I follow this same pattern with anything I fear - or I try to. I decided a couple of years ago to start living based on faith instead of fear. A treasured friend once told me how she had started examining her decision-making process and day-to-day living by asking herself, "Am I acting out of faith or out of fear?" She decided to make choices that required faith instead of avoiding things that caused fear. I now challenge myself to the same test. Following faith has always acted in my favor.
I am not talking about rushing into rash actions simply to fly in the face of fear. When acting impulsively, reasonable caution can be mistaken for fear. To rebel against that caution is not the same as looking at a situation and determining what will take more faith.
Do I always choose the shaky path of faith, wading through a boggy field of fear? No. But I try to go that way.
Right now, I'm admittedly afraid. Eating the lasagna was an attempt at finding strength. Afterward, I feel content but also an undercurrent of trepidation. I don't want to start bingeing, gain too much weight, or sit here forever alone, eating lasagna… The fears run deep – to issues seemingly unrelated to food.
Why are these fears coming up? Well, I may address that in future posts, for lasagna is not the only fear-inducing fantasy I have actualized in the past few days. I broke up with my boyfriend - my best friend - last weekend.
To clarify, this was not a couple-month fling blown out of proportion by my romantic mind. We have been together long enough to develop something remarkably special. If anything was meant to be, we were.
Although I recognize that breakups are a typical kind of tragedy, it hurts and brings up many issues for me. I knew it needed to be done; the persistent fantasies of breaking it off indicated that. Nonetheless, making healthy choices can be difficult. Trusting myself to be alone can be difficult. To still love someone but not want to be with him anymore hurts, as I'm sure most of you know.
But that's for the next post. No doubt that I use food to express my feelings and care for myself. For now, let's just be proud of the lasagna-enjoyer over here!
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