Fair trade

Liam likes me better when I'm sick. He's got issues with self-confidence, mostly because he's too intelligent and that makes him socially awkward. He tends to over-think things, and he's terrible at filtering the truth to make it more palatable. He's also pretty judgmental. Ironically, this all makes him a fantastic therapist, because he's excellent at getting people to recognize the reality of their situations. I wouldn't have thought that were true, except his clients actually recommend him to friends and family members.

But back to what I said before. It's true. I remember him saying at one point last semester, "I'm afraid that if you get better, you won't want me anymore."

My illness, obsessions, whatever-the-hell, has always been a good way for him to...not control me, per se, but to know how I'm feeling. It makes me very predictable. And he likes that. His ex-girlfriend cheated on him after a 5-year relationship, and it's all made him rather paranoid about my faithfulness, especially considering we live in separate states. It's completely ironic that the dissolution of our relationship was what it took for me to recommit to losing weight. And doubly ironic, the fact that I've gotten sick again makes him want me back. He always loves me, but I think my being strong and confidant scares him, because when I'm at my best, I easily outshine him. I'm incredibly sociable and dedicated and passionate. I can honestly say that I look for the best in people. I'm an optimist at heart. In general, I love people and I'm always eager to make them at least a little bit happier for having known me. That's my fair trade for the privilege of being alive.

The only thing I'm excessively negative about is my weight, and the only person I'm really hard on is myself. And Liam, he pulled me out of it before. And when I got better for a few months, he started to see me as independent and unpredictable, and all his irrational worries just got worse and worse. Officially, he broke up with me because he'd "rather be my therapist than my boyfriend," and he didn't feel like he was happy with me anymore. If this sounds psychologically manipulate and controlling, yeah, I suppose it is. And I've come to terms with that.

Now, one month later, I'm losing weight again, and I regularly talk to him about it instead of hiding it. Whenever I'm having false or excessively negative thoughts, I call him and he tries to help me rationally assess my behavior. The fucked up part is, that's what he loves me for. As much as he says that he fell in love with me because I'm a strong, independent woman with morals and positive ideals, I don't think that's true.

He loves the broken little girl, who wears white lace and never combs her curly hair and can't stand to be touched.

I should be upset, but I like it better this way too. It's probably sick, but it's comforting.

If you never read any of my posts, read this one.

It's getting to the point where I think I know more women who've been raped than I know ones who haven't. It's that common, isn't it? Common as dieting. Every single one of us known someone it's happened to, if it hasn't happened to you yourself.

And it almost feels like we just accept it. I mean, think about it. Did you report yours? Did your friend/cousin/sister report hers? It's like, they take a day (if that) to sleep it off and then go back to life like it never happened. Maybe bring it up with a girlfriend over a late-night conversation. And she nods her head and tells you that it happened to her too. And that's all the counseling we get. I think as a gender, or maybe just my generation, we're almost completely numb to it. "Oh yeah, I was raped." How much more casual can we get about it?

So, I know this is completely off-topic from my normal blog posts. And I hate to talk about this in particular because the automatic response (from everyone, friends, counselors, complete strangers) is "Oh, she has an eating disorder because she was raped and that's her way of getting control over her life."

No.

That's not it.

That's not the answer for me and it's not the answer for you. Well, maybe it is for you. But for me, I can honestly says that it was almost trivial. Yeah, whatever, rape happens. It happened. Shit happens. That's been my attitude since I was nineteen and it's still my attitude today, four years later.

So yeah, something triggered this post. Becka. My friend, my best friend since I've moved, my training partner and confidant. The girl I talk about most in these blog posts. We went out to the bars last night to babysit her newly-21-year-old little sister. Becka saw a guy at the bar and thought he was cute, but she's always always too shy to make contact. So I went over and introduced myself and brought him back to talk to her. They hit it off. She was so excited. They went out for coffee this afternoon. Tonight, he came over to her apartment to watch a movie with her. And she didn't want to have sex with him. But she's five feet tall and she weighs 105 pounds and so what, right? And now, at 2am, she can't sleep and she just wants so badly to sleep. And she's not going to talk about it because no one ever talks about it. And it all feels like one giant gray area, and I respect her too much to move without her asking me to.

So for my part, I'm asking you to stop pretending it didn't happen and don't just fucking accept it and don't treat it as common or casual. Talk to each other.

I swear, I'm not some kind of liberal feminist. I don't hate men. I don't hate anyone. And I don't try to understand why people do the things they do.

I'm just a woman who's sick of seeing her friends get hurt.

Fat fuck

I, uh...

I really need to lose weight, right? I'm back to around 145...god, do you know how hard it is to even type that number? It wasn't two months ago that I was down to 136, my lowest adult weight. One pound away from my target. Since Liam and I broke up (it's mutual now) I still feel like I've lost my reason to maintain this weight, or even give any thought to eating consistently. He was constantly on my ass about it, about my feelings, about an underlying causes for self-loathing. He's still very much in my daily life, but now I don't really feel the need to heed any of his advice. Ironic, yet again, because he's a clinical psychologist and works with twenty-something girls with eating disorders every week. It's like all those warnings have just dissolved, and all I care about all over again is my fat fucking stomach.

I know my biggest vice is eating late. And I'll make my excuse for that now. I'm a TA for two classes this semester, both online. The students aren't required to submit their work until midnight when it's due, which leaves me up until at least 3am grading. When you stay up that late, you get hungry all over again. My sleep schedule is fucked up and I can see this every expanding ring of fat around my stomach to show for it. It makes me feel sick. I can't stand to look at myself in the mirror. I can't stand my arms, my legs, my ass seems to have magically expanded.

On a happier note, there's a little gym at my apartment complex now, and even though it's been there for three weeks, I still seem to be the only one who put down a deposit for a key, so (aside from a friendly African guy who speaks with a cool accent) no one else can access it. That elliptical is mine, and it's fifteen second from my front door, whenever I want it.

More than you ever wanted to know about my hormones

First, thank you Jay, Scarlett & Kylie for your happy thoughts. It means a lot, even if I don't show it, and even if I don't keep up like I should.

Right now, my adviser has us (Becka and I) working on a project on Shaken Baby Syndrome from a legal/forensic perspective. Tell you what, it's killer. No, really. It's destroying my ability to think about babies without being sad. My hormones are fucked, I think.

Ready for a TMI paragraph? Read on, brave souls.
My period was eleven days late this month. No, I'm not pregnant. No, my birth control isn't messing with me (I'm not on it). I haven't even had sex in over a year and a half. In total, instead of lasting a normal 28 days, my cycle is up to 45. When I do get my period, it lasts for about two days. Oh poor you, you think. Well, it's scary. I'd like to be normal. Before I started working out, before I was ever on birth control, my periods came ever 28 days and lasted for three. Just peachy.

I'm one of those people who wants to have children. I want to be a mother. I just also happen to want to have a six pack. I know I should be on birth control to keep my hormones in check (more on that below), but when I'm on it, I have periods that can last up to two weeks. I'm constantly bloated and it's torture.

Even more TMI:
I already have fucked-up hormones as it is. My body produces too much testosterone. No, I'm not a hermaphrodite/transsexual/lesbian. I don't have excess body hair and I have totally normal breasts. But, normal women produce between 5-20 units of testosterone. Anything under 49 is still considered normal. I'm somewhere around 35. All this really means is that my periods are lighter and farther between that most people. It means I don't have a sex drive when I'm not on birth control (because birth control gives me back enough estrogen to make me a normal, hormonal girl). It also means I build muscle faster than most women I know. And, in the case of the females in my family, we have a hell of a time staying pregnant. Miscarriages are really common, especially with those of us who're more athletic. One of my 25-year-old cousins finally made it into her second trimester. She and her husband have been trying for three years.

So, that's where I am on that spectrum. I've been working out consistently again for the last 2-3 weeks, and I've already got my tiny waist back. I'm still following Marina's diet plan religiously, and now that I'm eating, my moods are in check.

My doctor recently dropped my dose of citalopram back to 20mg. The 40mg were fucking with my sleep cycle, and giving me all sorts of nasty vivid dreams (which are common with SSRIs, in case anyone here has experienced the same symptoms). Mostly, they involved skin flaying and amputees and burning alive. It was traumatic. But, aside from the wonky periods, my mental state is healthy, for once. I feel like I'm actually productive again, now that I'm not crying all the time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, get help, if you need it. Mental and physical health workers can be some of the most understanding, empathetic people on the planet. All it takes it making the first step. I'm going to keep pushing myself, but I'm also trying to take care of myself. My health isn't just about me.

Bikini

I had my first training session with Marina last night. We did mainly shoulders and abs. She pushed me hard. My favorite part was when she commented on how shockingly perky I was. I can't imagine anyone not being perky when working with a trainer. It's such an endorphin rush, just being in the gym in general, without having a professional working with you. My training session was over by 8pm, but we both stuck around just talking to each other for an extra hour. She invited me to come watch her first bikini competition in March. Becka and I are going together.

I had, like, 1600 calories yesterday. And my waist was smaller this morning. I've now officially under 28 inches. 27 and 3/4. Yay! So far today I've had cereal, a sandwich, a huge salad, tilapia, vegetable soup, lots of water. I'm taking today off from the gym since I worked out hard and lifted the last four days in a row.

Becka and I are going night hiking tonight. I have know idea what that entails, but I'm assuming it's just hiking at night, yeah?

I'd love to do a bikini competition some day. What say you?

PB & J

I finally made a decision.

I'd rather be fit than skinny.

I know what you're thinking: Well. That was easy. Wonder how long she'll last this time.

Last night in the gym, I finally decided to introduce myself to the super fit female trainer who works there. Her name is Marina, she's 23 years old, and she's participating in her first bikini competition next month. She has a supremely gorgeous body. We got to talking about weight, calories, lifting, strategies, cardio, and the like. She said it was ridiculous that I count the amount of calories I eat every day. All she pays attention to is how her clothes fit, and she might weigh herself once a week or so to make sure she's still in a relatively healthy range. Her first suggestion was that I just eat when I'm hungry...whatever that means.

I'm not sure I know how to tell whether or not I'm hungry anymore. All I know is that I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich today. Before noon. Like, normally I'm not allowed to eat anything but plain oatmeal or tea before noon. But I at a sandwich. And all of a sudden I didn't feel like fucking killing myself. That sandwich was an epiphany.

Could this all be reaction formation to not wanting to go to therapy? Hell yes. And that's probably what Liam thinks too, even though he won't say it. I've already had, like, 700 calories today and it's only 4:30. I don't know what to do with all these happy thought and energy molecules floating around in my body. Guess I should probably go to the gym, yeah?

Allergy head clouds

I've had almost a week's worth of steady, focused training session. If only you could out-train a shitty diet. I've been taking in too much sodium (damn ramen noodles) and I've been eating entirely too late (anything past 8pm is too late). Still, it's better than I was eating back at my Dad's place, if for no other reason than the fact that I don't buy ranch Doritos (because then I would eat all of them in one sitting).

Right now it's almost 2pm, and I'm sitting in my office drinking green tea and working on a spreadsheet for a research project/watching The Biggest Loser. It won't take long. We just have so many researchers running this one project (it's a 3-year process) that we need a lot of ways to hold them all accountable, mostly the undergrads. My general annoyance isn't helped by the fact that I've develop desert allergies and cannot breathe through my nose. Ironically, the only time I don't feel like cutting my own head off is while I'm in the gym. My head completely clears and I can actually speak well enough to be understood.

Last night I watched The Hunted. It’s one of my favorite movies. I’ve always been interested in survivalism, the wilderness, tracking, hand-to-hand combat. Check it out if you haven’t. It’s worth a look.

I already went for a run yesterday morning; half an hour of HIIT. Lifted legs between classes with Becka, which lead to some mild awkwardness. Not between me and her, but with the rest of my cohort. I hung out with a completely different group of grad students last semester, but when it started to become evident that none of them were interested in working out or eating healthy, I started hanging out with Becka more and more. Coming back from the gym, we ran into either other members of our class who just stared at us across the courtyard, all sweaty in running shorts and tank tops. The girls I used to spend time with know I'm in treatment, and the rest probably suspect if (if they haven't been outright informed). None of them know that Becka's ever been treated for an ED, but looking at it as an outsider, it would be hard to spend that much time with me unless you were just as much of a gym rat as I am.

Becka tries to isolate herself on purpose, and I think that just by hanging out with her, I'm starting to do it too.

Gonna work out again later tonight. Lifting upper body, and at least half an hour on the elliptical. I finally rented a locker on campus so I can stop toting my gym shoes back and forth. I have a pair for outside running and a pair for inside training. I don't like to mess up the machines by using gym shoes that are wet or have gravel in the bottoms. Treadmills are not cheap.

I have my first meeting with an ED specialist (like, a real doctor) tomorrow morning at 9am.

Science, bitches

I've been eating shit for the last week. Still under my caloric goal, but unclean food. And guess what? My waist shrank. Yeah, I'm finally under 28 inches. I've kept up on my work-outs, still with the same partner (thank you for the motivation) and I'm actually getting excited about going back to school to work out with Becka. I seem to have found a new wellspring of motivation in the last week (again, thank you). I think a lot of it comes from being home with Liam, but also for the fact that being in the Midwest mellows me out, which leads to a decrease in cortisol (a stress hormone that increases your body's ability to hold on to excess fat stores).

Science, bitches.

More human than human

I’m really torn between feeling guilty for not obsessing over my diet, and feeling happy for the first time in months. Being back home, in the Midwest, finally seeing my boyfriend for more than three days every other month, it’s really confusing. It’s like I don’t know how to handle…feeling good about myself. Liam loves me, no matter what I look like, no matter what I do, completely unconditionally. I almost don’t believe it’s real.

And that’s my problem: no matter what he tells me, and no matter what my logical brain “knows,” I don’t believe for a second that any could love me if I were fat. I believe that the only reason he loves me as much as he does it because, currently, I’m good looking. But the second I stop taking care of myself, and obsessing over my diet and my exercise, he’ll stop loving me. It’s actually really embarrassing to admit that, because I never thought I’d be the person who thought that real emotional love was based on physical looks. I know he loves every part of me, but I don’t think (and this, really, is insulting to him) that he’d be able to be with me if I wasn’t a size small. And that’s bullshit, and I know it. He loves me for who I am, and he thinks I’m beautiful because of who I am. He could give a fuck less about what I look like. But I don’t believe it. We’ve been together for eight months, and we can’t have sex for the same reason that I can’t eat what I want to: Guilt. I feel like eating anything “bad” will make me fat, and having sex will make me a whore. So, basically, everything I’m doing is to prevent myself from feeling like a fat whore. That’s the echo in my head; “fatwhorefatwhorefatwhorefatwhorefatwhore.” So to keep myself from feeling like a bad person, I avoid food and I avoid sex. And then that voice isn’t so loud.

As I'm writing this, it’s almost midnight, and I’m up watching the newest I Used to be Fat, thinking about cardio tomorrow. Did I mention that I hate cardio? But I did legs today, and arms yesterday, and I don’t work muscle groups more than twice a week. So tomorrow’s made up of a glorious amount of cardio. Did I also mention that I ate a piece of pizza at 8:30pm? That’s sick. There is something fundamentally wrong with eating that late. So I’m running an extra mile tomorrow, because that was a mistake and I should know better by now. I can’t keep doing this. Drinking tea every night and staying up until 2am and thinking about how much I need to sleep and not caring enough to actually do anything.

I feel disconnected from my body, like I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I don’t know that girl. And I know I don’t want to go back to the South. I’m sick there. I don’t want to go back to grad school. I’ll just get sicker. I can eat here. I can’t do that there.

Sometimes Liam tries to talk with me about eastern psychology, and eastern religion, and the general concept of duality and balance. I feel that. I feel like two different people. One’s weak, pathetic, fat, loud, explosive, emotional, needy, lazy. I’m ashamed of her. The other one is strong, quiet, stoic, cold, rigid, structured, almost robotic. Mechanical. That’s the person I want to be. I don’t want to need so much. I want to be less human, or more human. And that’s the other dual part: I can’t figure out if what I’m trying to be is something subhuman, or something above human. Or simply more human.

I don’t have a balance, and I don’t feel like I have a structure. I know I do, but it’s not enough. And I know that if I give myself completely to either side, skinny or fit, emotional or strong (because I assume those are opposites), I’ll lose something.

Skinny Fit (fat?)

I had a morning workout with one of my good friends. Leg day. Yesterday was upper body. Today, we did squats, lunges, HIIT, all that jazz. It's nice having a consistent, focused, dedicated work-out partner where ever I go. I'm now working out at two different gyms while I'm home, the hospital and the 24-hour gym. She's 5'4" and started out at around 155 pounds. She's down to 135 now. I'm jealous that she's down lower than me, but she's also shorter, and she didn't have as far to go. She's lost 20. I've lost 50. So, there you go (and yes, that's me being profoundly catty, but I fit into her fat jeans, and while I love these jeans, they're someone else's fat jeans). She also counts calories, and we eat around the same amount every day. We can spend two hours in the gym together just making up new mean routines for each other. It's a good time.

My diet's been unnaturally healthy, even for me, but I've been eating more than normal. I've actually gained about two or three pounds back, but I look significantly better than I did a week ago. I'm constantly torn between knowing that I can lose all the weight I want if I just cut down to around 300 calories a day, and wanting desperately to look toned and maintain my muscle density. Skinny or fit, skinny or fit, skinny or fit. It's constant, and I fight with it the second I wake up until I fall asleep. I want that scale to say 125, but I also want my biceps popping out of my sleeves. So, I maintain a consistent diet. And I work out. The most important thing is to just keep going, right? And I'm good at that part.

But for right now, I'm frustrated.

Competition

I flew into my home town Sunday afternoon. It feels nice to be back in the Midwest, honestly. I’ve missed snow. Mostly, I’ve missed my dog. He’s gained at least seven pounds since I left. Dad feeds him hot dogs instead of normal dog food. I put both my dog and my father on a diet. Dad’s normal weight is somewhere around 175-180 pounds. He’s currently at 196. He got me a one-month membership at his gym, which is open 24-hours a day. That’s profoundly comforting.

One of my best friends from home, also my former lab partner, Mallory, took me out for lunch today. We went to a Mexican restaurant. I ate half a taco. Dad and I went and worked out for about an hour and a half. He pushes me on cardio, I push him at lifting (let it be known that I can out-lift him by at least twenty pounds on everything). My diet’s already cleaning up now that I’m not so stressed, and it’s getting easier to cut back on calories. Food in general. I keep wavering between wanting to eat enough to build muscle, and just wanting to be thinner. I think I’m just being desperate and whiney. But it’s a weird thought to hover around. I just need this layer of fat around my stomach to get the fuck off of me. Mallory’s lost at least twenty pounds since the last time I’ve seen her. She’s still not thinner than me, but she looks great. No, I’m not being catty (no, no, that was catty, I accept it). But I really am genuinely happy for her.

Aside from the taco, I had salad and homemade veggie soup today, and a protein shake. I haven’t had enough water and it’s seriously taking a toll on my mental capacity. Being on diuretics can be a drag, but I’m going to keep using them until they’re gone. Yes, I know it’s just water weight, and it’ll come back when I stop taking them, and I’ll stop in a few days, but it’s nice to see the number go down.

I can’t sleep here. I’m writing this at 2am. I’ll post it in the morning. Dad’s so technologically illiterate that he doesn’t even bother to get internet. Gotta love him. Come to think of it, if I can’t sleep…I can always go to the gym.

Update: Worked out twice today. An hour and a half each time. I love being on vacation. Be jealous. Another friend and I are in a competition to see who can get down to 125 fastest.

Split Open Shins

My workout yesterday morning with my trainer was fantastic. We did a mountain climb (jacking up the treadmill) for 10-minutes worth of thigh-numbing cardio. Then we moved on to sumo squats, kettle bell swings, incline push-ups, box jumps, toe taps, high-knee sprints, jumping jacks, and other fun stuff. The toe-taps were the close-out, just before abs. Trainer told me to do them "for a minute, or until you fall on your ass." I fell on my ass at exactly 60 seconds, straight backwards off the 24-inch block. I have a bruise on my ass. Abs were easy, but since I'd done abs the day before with Becka, my entire torso was just non-functional.

Then I came back home, took a shower, and went to my noon boot-camp workout with Becka. There were only four of us in the class, we two grad student and another guy and girl. The guy dropped out after half an hour. Wuss. The trainer was a chubby guy. Becka and I quietly commented on our shared disdain for fat trainers. Our training consisted of three rounds of minute-long box jumps, squat presses, kettle bell squats, push-ups, oblique twists, jumping jacks, dumbbell swings, one-armed push-up rows, medicine ball throws, and shoulder shrugs with 35-pound bells. I was first up on the box jumps, and wouldn't you know it, I tripped again. Forward, this time, and I carved my shin open. Fat trainer gave me a band-aid and told me to keep going. I did. Today, my shin has a 5-inch diameter bruise with an 2-inch long ugly red cut. I'm actually kind of proud of it. I've iced it; still hurts.

I just texted Becka a picture of it. She said "Awesome! Looks like the bruise got way bigger. Battle wounds!"

There's a reason I love this girl.

After our work out (total time spent doing circuit training: 2.5 hours) she and I were changing in the locker room, talking about our individual diagnoses. She's a former gymnast, diagnosed with ED-NOS for six years now, and "coping." She's immensely afraid of gaining weight and just as addicted to the gym as me. Thank fucking god I finally know someone in real life I who I can talk to about this. We have a lot of other things in common too, like our intense fear/dislike/general abhorrence of sex. I think that just goes along with ED too. Self-control/perfectionism/all that closed-off-shit.

Started on at least a 5-day cycle of The Water Pill from Complete Nutrition. It's the only sure fire way I know to make the number drop on the scale. Yes, I know, it's just water weight, but I'm already down to 18% body-fat, so I'm gonna reward my psyche by letting myself see that number go down. I need it.

Zen

I practiced meditating this morning - or what I think of as meditating. Just focused on my breathing for about fifteen minutes, trying to make myself as calm and relaxed and totally empty as possible. It worked for a little while; it really did. Of course, it was while I was watching the actor's commentary for Resident Evil 2, which is just so funny that I couldn't focus on being upset anyway. Liam said something that pissed me off, which was valid. Just a comment on how whenever he asks me how or what I'm doing, the first five things out of my mouth have something to do with food or exercise. I got unnecessarily upset that he pointed it out. I'm upset that I got upset. I realize how this is just perpetuating the cycle of upset-ness, so I'm determined to make a conscious effort to be more accepting of life, or more zen, or something. Whatever that means. The point is, it's no fun being so stressed and upset and worried and angry all the time, so I'm going to try and change it, and hopefully add a few years to my life.

And get read of all the the cloyingly awful fat that won't drop off my abdomen. It's stress/sugar weight. I'm working on it.

136.8 pounds this morning. The lowest I've been. I can feel 135 inching closer and closer. I figure the less stressed I am, the better at time management I get, and the calmer I am, the faster it'll happen and the better I'll feel when it actually does.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm doing my best to relax, and I'm doing my best, I really am. Just bear with me.

Yoga and dosage

I broke down last night and called the emergency crisis hotline. No, I'm not suicidal. I'm just too miserable to function. I talked to the woman on the other end for forty minutes. She told me I needed to learn to relax. I took a yoga class this morning. It really did help for about an hour. Then I went to the student health center to talk to the nurse practitioner about increasing my dosage. She doubled it. My third counselor at the mental health center on campus wants to move me to a fourth counselor on a different campus, one who specializes in eating disorder.

I'm so, so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Back up to 139. I can't sleep anymore.

I don't know what to do

The intensive outpatient treatment I was hoping to start in January will cost me $100 per week, even after insurance has covered 80% of that. And I absolutely cannot afford that. I'm already paying $10,000 per semester in tuition, and $500/month in rent. I can't even afford to drive my car more than twice a week, and I only spend $40/month on groceries. I cannot afford $400/month for four months of IOP. Not to mention that I'd have to drive for over an hour twice a week just to attend the individual and group therapy sessions.

I'm in between classes right now, hiding in my lab, trying not to cry. I think I need this. But I can't, I absolutely cannot afford that. I don't know what to do.

I'm back up to 138.2 this morning. I started taking niacin again, hoping it will have some kind of effect.

I have a question

I’m not so sure I had an eating disorder until people started telling me I did. Sure, I flirted with the idea. What I do isn’t normal, but I thought it bordered more on OCD. I’ve always been a perfectionist, and I’ve always prided myself on self control. But it didn’t necessarily revolve around food until I started dieting, and even then, I didn’t develop any real anxiety about it until people started commenting on my diet. Back in February, I was almost convinced it was an ED, but when I looked up the diagnostic criteria, I was too fat to have anorexia and I couldn’t have bulimia because I didn’t binge or purge. Right now, I vary somewhere between “eating disorder” and plain old “disordered eating.” Liam, my boyfriend, believes it’s an eating disorder, and he’s sure I’m just going to get worse and worse until I start treatment at the ED clinic. He predicts that it’ll develop into full blown anorexia.

I really, really don’t think that’s the case. I can’t stress enough that I have zero desire to be skinny. I want to be muscular and slim and sexy and have a fairly low body-fat percentage, and there is nothing sexy to me about weighing 97 pounds. That’s sickly. I want to be strong; I do not want my weight or body fat to dip so low as to put my health in jeopardy. My rigid control, inflexibility, and guilt are all hallmark characteristics of eating disordered behavior, but I simply don’t fit the category for a stereotypical eating disorder, and I hate “ED-NOS.” I hate my label. It doesn’t mean anything. There are so many different ways to categorize a person with an eating disorder, and I think the only thing we really have in common is that we are never, ever happy with our bodies; we are never happy with staying the same every day; and we either have too much control or not nearly enough.

Does that theme run in every aspect of your life? Your grades, your relationships? It does for me. Please, give me your thoughts, because I’m 22 and I’m still trying to figure it out. I want to know how the behaviors that led to your ED, or the ones caused by your ED, permeate the rest of who you are. Are you this obsessive/controlling/anxious about everything, or just food and exercise?

My blog title, “Like Machine Does It,” comes from how I’ve always thought about myself - mechanical. I function. I don’t like to think of myself as a person with totally basic boring awful wretched weak human needs. I wish I didn’t need so much. My friends think of me as a bit mechanical and cold and so straight forward, someone who always does what’s asked of her without complaining. I sleep, I work out, I eat clean, I get my shit done. But lately I feel entirely too much (lately being in the last year) and it’s scaring me. So, the machine is something I aspire to be like. And I behave this way because this is like machines behave - this is like machine does it. And machines don’t feel, and they’re perfect, and they’re never weak - they simply don’t exist to be weak. Food is just one of my ways of controlling that need, that thing that makes me a weak awful human.

God, sorry for that awful pseudo-poetic ramble.

Just...two...more...

137.2 this morning. That's, like, two pounds away from my original goal, the one I set way back in May of '10 when I weighed almost 190 pounds. I am so excited I could puke. So far today I've had a bowl of oatmeal (totally plain), tilapia, two cups of broccoli, and plain black coffee. Also a caffeine pill and a multivitamin. I ran for half an hour this morning, but I didn't push myself because my knee started whining again, and I don't want to risk re-straining it this close to my goal. My gym opens up again tomorrow, and I will be in there at 8am :)

I'm almost nervous. I get to start GRADUALLY working my way back up to a decent caloric amount after I reach my goal. I don't know what I'm going to do with an extra 500 calories a day. It's almost too much to think about. But that puts me so much closer to getting my body fat percentage crazy low, because my body won't act like I'm starving it any more. I'm excited, anxious, nervous...

I almost can't look forward to winter break yet because of all the grad school-related stuff I have to do, but December 11th is right around the corner, and then I'm home free for nearly one month. All my medium-sized clothing is hanging off of me, as are the size 8 jeans I just bought. Size 6, here I finally come!

138.2

Less than 700 calories yesterday. I weighed 138.2 this morning. That's two pounds in 24 hours. No, it's not healthy, but it feels fucking good. That's not something I'm okay with doing on a regular basis, but when you need to see that scale move, it's a way to get it done.

Less than three pounds left to my original goal. I look good in black leggings and a tight, small wife beater. Really, really good. Like, athlete good. No jelly rolls when I'm standing up, almost none when I'm sitting down either. A year and a half ago, I could not have picture myself like this.

Once I get down to 135, I'm just gonna focus on maintaining and changing my the make-up of my body. I want to stay at 135 pounds, but I want another 5-percent shift in my body fat. Right now I'm around 19%. I want to get to 14%. That means eating often, eating clean, and LIFTING WEIGHTS :D

I fucking love working out. It's so much easier than not eating.

Bonus: Added a new page of fitspiration pictures snagged from around the web - place for me to save all the photos of sexy girls with abs :)

I am too much

That's the phrase that bounces around my head. "I am too much," "There is too much of me." I don't want to take up this much space in the universe. I know it sounds contradictory when I say I don't want to be skinny. I absolutely do not want to be skinny. I just want to be less fat. I want to be muscle and skin and bone, perfectly streamlined and smooth. More human, less animal. More machine and less human, maybe.

I'm sorry I'm getting poetic and off topic, but there you go.

I was on the phone with the second clinic this morning, and I think that's the one I'll go with. It's intensive outpatient therapy, which equates to weekly individual therapy, group therapy, and nutritional counseling. I won't be able to to start until January, as I won't be around during Christmas break.

And I'm absolutely horrified that they'll take one look at me and think (just like I think) "She's too fat to have an eating disorder." So, I keep thinking that I'll have to lose at least ten more pounds by January 4th, so that I'm worthy of treatment. And I know those thoughts are FALSE and delusional.

I am worthy of help and health.

But I don't believe that I'm worthy of treatment because I haven't earned it. And that's a fucking sick way of thinking about it. Just the fact that I have thoughts like that should be enough to tell me that I'm sick and I need help. But I can't see it.