I weighed 140 pounds this morning. Well, 140.2 That puts my BMI at 23.3, because I'm 5'5". I woke up at 6am, ate a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and went to my personal training session. It was a functional workout. I ran stairs, did push-ups, lots of abs, worked with kettle bells and medicine balls. I even fell backwards off the stairs doing toe touches. I finished my workout fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. That's what you get when you don't take breaks. My body-fat percentage is 19.4. That's down from six weeks ago, when it was right around 25%. It's amazing the things you can do in just six weeks. Imagine what I'll be able to accomplish by the end of May.
On the bus on the way there and back, I read Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. I ordered it weeks ago. It just got here. This is my second time reading it.
For lunch, I had leftover pasta. And varied throughout the day, broccoli, a cheese stick, homemade vegetable soup, a chicken breast, and a romaine salad with cheese, black beans, and dressing. For dinner I'm going to have tilapia. And something else. That almost puts me over on sodium for the day. I'm trying to stay under on everything. I can have 1380 calories. More today, because I worked out.
My name is Rachel. I am 22 years old, I am a grad student, and I have an eating disorder. When I'm not writing papers or working on research, I'm obsessing over food and exercise. To be most specific, I have ED-NOS. That's an eating disorder, not otherwise specified. I'm not anorexic or bulimic, I don't purge after I eat, and I'm not underweight. What I do is count. Everything. I have panic attacks if I don't know what is in my food, if I don't know where it came from, if I can't determine its exact nutritional content. I weigh all my food and plan my meals weeks ahead of time. If I deviate from this, I feel deep overwhelming guilt. I can't function. I feel deep and constant shame when I do eat, no matter what it is. I don't exercise as a purging behavior, but because it helps curb some of the guilt. And it helps push away the unbearable thoughts of "fatness." I realize that my body is healthy, that I am not overweight. But part of the problem is false cognition and misperception. I'm ashamed of my body, and to me, needing to eat reflects a permeating physical weakness. I have a lot of issues with personal weakness, and perceiving myself as weak, or worth less, because of my body, or my needs. This overlying theme permeates most realms of my life.
I used to weigh 190 pounds. That was a year ago.
I'm writing all this because I want to talk to someone about it and hopefully find other people who understand. As a disclaimer, I want to say now that I don't think this behavior is okay, and I encourage anyone with an eating disorder, no matter how more or less severe than mine, to seek treatment.
I myself am in treatment. My therapist, my clinician, and my friends and family are all aware of what I go through. I talk to people. Just like I'm talking now. I am not, however, in recovery. I am trying to modify my current behaviors to make them into something healthy. I'm trying to turn my obsessions and compulsions and anxiety and guilt into something good. I'm trying to find reasons to change. I've been like this for so long that I can't remember what it's like to not think about what I eat.
Worst case scenario, you'll find what I write to be horrible, or boring, or shallow. I hope not, because I have a very thin skin, and I'm only here to do something good. Either to make myself feel better, or to help someone else. Maybe I'm that naive.
