For breakfast I just had a morning oat bar, since there’s no pancakes left or fruit for smoothies. Then for lunch, I was cleaning up and had to get ready so I just had a grilled cheese sandwich (light cheese slice/premium brown bread, totals to under 200 cal, which is fab) and I walked down town, around town a bit and burned 500 calories. I bought something good for dinner, so I’ll post that when I decide to have it :)

So I had this blog back in 2012-2013 to motivate myself to get ‘fit’ and 'healthy’ but long story short, it spiralled into having an eating disorder. I’ve been struggling a lot for the past year, but now I’m so motivated to get healthy again and not let obsessive thoughts take over, I was never underweight and I still feel like I have to lose weight but I want to be healthy about it. No more restricting or purging. So I’ve decided to try and use this blog again for motivation and to help me properly recover.

To trans folks with eating disorders, I see you, and I’m sending my love. Its a difficult place to be, between desiring control over your body, wanting to minimise or alter secondary sex characteristics and being faced with unrealistic and idealised body images from both cis and trans people. Know that you’re going to be okay. There is help out there and people who understand. Even if you don’t like aspects of your body, you deserve love and kindness, and there are many wonderful parts of it too. Your physical appearance is one of the least interesting things about you. You are stunning and handsome and beautiful and clever and kind and caring and creative and brave and strong. Look after yourselves.

Mindfulness, Recovery, and Saying “Fuck It, Why Not?”

I started this blog in 2012, maybe 2013, and was very much in the depths of my eating disorder. I started it because I was angry: at my anorexia, everything it had stolen from me, and a little bit at my treatment program (they encouraged me to weigh myself weekly, log it, and do things like weigh butter and whatnot… it felt somewhat counterintuitive).

I was 15-17 when I was posting here most often (wow, a lifetime ago). I hope it was helpful - most of all I just wanted to help others feel less alone.

This blog has been very much neglected for years and years, because quite frankly I’d simply grown out of it. I’m now (almost) 26. Life is mostly actually really good, and I am so glad every day that I fought back against my ED and pushed through. It’s so, so worth it, I promise!

I have been thinking about ‘recovery’ a lot recently, and what it has meant to me. Something that I thought might be helpful to share is that (I have found that) it’s okay for eating-disordered thoughts to still be there even when you consider yourself ‘recovered’. What matters is how you deal with those thoughts. 

We cannot control thoughts: they simply come. Recovery, for me, has meant learning to let those thoughts pass, as if they were simply clouds in the sky, and not acting on them, fighting them, giving them any attention really. That would make them ‘real’. Out-thinking your brain is very difficult: this is something I have learned in my 3-year long battle with health anxiety! 

The above paragraph is very much a ‘mindfulness’ thing, and much more suited for those of us coasting along in the latter phases of recovery. If you are just starting on your eating disorder recovery journey, it’s a different process. You must, of course, fight back against the thoughts.

What I found helpful at that time was essentially just, at times of particular panic, telling my eating disorder to “fuck off”. Or, to put it more eloquently: “fuck it, what have I got to lose by trying this ‘recovery’ thing people are telling me about?” I had just read a book called ‘Fuck It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way’ by John Parkin and teenage me absolutely loved it. I won’t recommend it for all aspects of life (driving, financial matters!) but for the time, it was perfect. 

Harder than it sounds here, of course. But the principle was helpful.

(Anyway, hence the name for this blog all those years ago.)

If you are still on Tumblr and followed this blog years ago (or recently!), I hope you are doing well today. I hope the weather is nice where you are, and I hope you are thriving.

I will start posting recovery content again - not just specific to eating disorders, but aiming to create a generally positive mental health space. 

 Kate 

Every once in a while, I like to take a look over the last three years & appreciate just how far I’ve come. Whilst there’s always room for debate in terms of whether or not it is possible to fully recover from an eating disorder (some believe that it’s something to be managed for the rest of your life, and others believe that leaving your ED behind forever is possible for everyone), I know in my heart that I’ve well and truly let my eating disorder go, and that I’m all the better for it.

Notice the language there; I’ve let my eating disorder go, not “my eating disorder eased its grip on me” (or something similar). Two of the most important things I realised during my recovery process were that a) my recovery was in my hands, and b) that I was not helpless. I realised that I needed to take a deep breath and start tackling my fears and anxieties head on, rather than sit around all day and do research and write diet plans for myself and plan the “perfect” recovery, yadda yadda yadda. No therapist had ever told me this (if anything, my therapists were of the “count your calories and weigh yourself religiously” variety); it was something I had to work out by myself. I had to really, really learn to let it all go.

It’s very important to keep asking yourself the following two questions: “Why does this matter?”and“What am I afraid of?”. Ask yourself these whenever you feel the slightest tinge of eating-disordered compulsive-anxiety panic coming on; ask yourself these until you’re blue in the face. Eventually, you will stumble across an uncomfortable truth, and that’s what you need to deal with long-term and manage for the rest of your life - not your weight or your calorie intake, believe me.

‘My Worst Friend’
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I’m not sure about you guys, but lock down has forced me to face the worst parts of me.
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A deeply entrenched ED has destroyed my poor, yet resilient body over 14 years.
I continued to ignore all of the clear signs shoved at me; hair shedding, bone weakness, long standing amenorrhea, constant low energy and mood.. to name a few.
There’s a war in my head every time I eat & when I get scared I run back to my ED like it’s an old friend.
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Diet culture is incredibly toxic, instilled in young girls; the brain is ultimately hardwired to live a warped reality, and it’s an increasing problem.
Neural pathways are hard to rewire.
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So I urge you all to question what the media are telling you about your own bodies and what you’re worth. You don’t need to believe it.
I forgive myself & my brain, for falling into this trap. We somehow thought it would bring us happiness.

My therapist trying to teach me mindfulness:

Me:

For all the obvious reasons of 2020 just being over finally and having a (hopefully) more sane president in office.

But also for personal reasons because on the 4th I begin not only a new job, but an entirely new career in an entirely new industry for me and I am beyondexcited about it!  It will also be by far the highest paying job I’ve had and the most “grown up” job I’ve ever had with insurance and real benefits and all that.

I’m also in the healthiest, happiest, and nicest living situation I have ever been in.  It’s just me, my sister, and our dog in this nice house with the yards and the garage and a full kitchen AND NO OTHER ROOMMATES OR RELATIVES LIVING WITH US so we can do whatever we want and live how we want to live. 

In 2020, I completely lost track of my weight loss (as I feel most of us have) because I was trying to focus more on my mental health and just getting through the year, but with the new year and this new job and stability in my life, I’m excited to get back on my weight loss journey–even though it will be much more of a health journey rather than one that is weight loss-centered.

I have been almost completely MIA on this blog all year, but I’m looking forward to being more active again and will be sharing more mental/emotional health posts in addition to health/diet/weight loss ones.

lousydrawingsforgoodpeople:

mxxnlightsblog:

If you don’t face your old pains and traumas and heartbreaks, you’ll forever be the victim of your past.

“You overindulge because you’ve deprived yourself for so long. But you are strong. You can control yourself. It will be difficult, but not impossible.”

Two years ago, at age 28, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and one thing they do as part of testing is that they interview you, and they your family. It was after they interviewed Jess that I heard a term that had never been applied to me before.

Picky Easter.

I was offended. I was more than offended. I was an adventurous eater for goodness sakes! I ate soft shelled crab! Garlic…

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