Something That Works

My therapist and I have begun to move out of assessment and into actual problem solving and I gotta tell ya, I feel great. My assignment after Thursday's session was to figure out a meal plan that has flexibility and more calories. This means that I needed to find a way in which to keep track of my caloric intake without restricting to so few calories and keeping myself from eating when I'm actually hungry and then binging later because of it. I remembered doing ediets years ago in high school and it was actually pretty successful, so I went back to it to see if it was something worth doing again and it is totally worth it. This plan gives you suggestions for meals and helps you to balance out your protein, grain, fruit, and vegetable intake in order to keep you full and provide the correct amount of each group. When you pick something to add to your meal plan, it gives you other suggestions that would be good balanced pairings. It also gives you a weekly grocery list to make shopping for it easier/

So, I tried this yesterday and it was hugely successful! Because I was actually eating the amount of calories suggested for my height/weight, goal weight, and exercise level, I wasn't ravenous. Because I wasn't limiting my calories according to each meal, I was able to eat freely when I was actually hungry. I was still trying to keep up that strict/restricting eating style that was basically causing me to starve myself. Alright, so here's how my day was: By planning out my food according to an entire day and not just by meal, I had all of this food with me that was included and planned for without leaving my body feeling so hungry. For breakfast I had oatmeal, a banana, orange juice, and coffee. In my lunchbox (I think I need a bigger one now, by the way), I packed lettuce, a can of tuna, an orange, an apple, a yogurt, strawberries, peanuts, a boiled egg, and a coke zero. Without limiting myself and saying this food gets eaten at this time, I felt free. I could eat any of those items at any time of the day and that felt good. I knew that I had enough food to get me through the day, therefore I didn't feel the need to eat other random things because I was so hungry. So for lunch, I did a salad with the tuna, plus the apple, peanuts and the coke zero. A couple of hours later, I had the orange and boiled egg and then a couple of more hours later I had the strawberries cut up in the yogurt cup. And for the first time in months, I wasn't starving when I got home from work. Speaking of, when I did get home I wasn't so hungry that I couldn't wait to cook, so I prepared brown rice, sauteed a cup of mixed veggies, grilled chicken breast with avacado on top and I didn't feel the need to binge on something unhealthy at 10pm like I usually do. So much success yesterday. And ya know what? I woke up, weighed myself, and found that I lost 2 pounds. Score.

I cannot even begin to explain to you what a relief this is. I feel less tied down to food, less restricted, and so liberated! I was still thinking about food yesterday mostly because it was the first day trying this, but it wasn't a "good Lord, I have to eat right now" thought process. It was more of a "I wonder which of these many things I'm going to eat next!" kind of thinking. A lot of anxiety has already been lifted and since moving: the stress of a long commute is gone, money woes are all but eliminated, and being able to work exercise back into my daily life has improved my overall mood. I'm still working on my social anxiety and being able to go out in public without feeling overwhelmed, but it has most definitely been greatly improved. I don't feel quite as much shame in my appearance and I feel more mentally stable with everything. I just feel relieved and that's a really good feeling. I feel like this is something I can keep up and not feel like it's a diet. I've discussed lifestyle change before and I'm having to force myself to get back to that kind of thinking. I have to change back to the way that I used to think about portions and balance. But I have to figure out how to do this without letting it take over my life and become an obsession again. It may be hard to do, but I'm going to work really hard to do this. 

I am so glad that I started seeing my doctor. She has already helped me tremendously and I feel such relief in many facets of my life. Having her there to talk to each week and get advice from has really helped me to figure out what I need to do and how to improve the quality of my life. I know on the outside that everything seems so great and that I have this amazing life, and I do, but on the inside there is a constant battle over how I want to feel and how I actually feel. I have this outward persona of someone who's happy and positive, but the truth is that I deal with this anxiety and depression on a daily basis which is incredibly exhausting and annoying. I'm working so hard on getting my inside persona to match my outside persona. It's not easy, but it's gotta happen because I'm too tired to keep it up. It's getting better.