8 week recap: the post you've all been waiting for

So I am fed, and I am rested, and I have some time, so I am sitting down to update a little less about food and a little more about the journey with ED. Even as I sit here typing I am unsure of what I am going to say next. Here goes.

The last eight weeks have been amongst the best and the worst in my life thus far.

The pros:

1. Finally acknowledging a difficult and embarrassing problem (binge eating disorder).
2. Developing a network of support for dealing with it: sharing the truth with friends and my GP, praying daily with my husband, attending group therapy at an Eating Distress clinic, keeping this blog.
3. Making some realisations that are helping me not just now, but will continue to strengthen me throughout my life (more on this to follow).
4. Losing 23.6 lbs in weight without going on a diet.
5. Developing a more moderate appetite and stable blood sugar (this is HUGE).
6. Increased level of fitness, with no guilt or self-punishment involved.
7. An improved and more positive thought-life, which in turn allows me to go easy on myself instead of constantly self-criticising. This also means accepting compliments and encouragement, and giving myself credit for small victories. I am also starting to understand what it means to give up my perfectionism, which has never gotten me anywhere. I can choose perfectionism or happiness; not both.
8. Enjoying my body and being thankful for it, and as funny as it sounds, especially my legs! My legs are long, strong and muscular and have walked me through 27 years of life. I want this enjoyment of my body to increase and increase as time goes on. I have spent long enough berating and hating it.
9. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a chronic insomniac. For the first few weeks of therapy I was very restless and unable to sleep at night. This was because I had no way to deal with my emotions. However, since finding peace about a few long-standing issues in my life, I am now sleeping like a baby. Well, maybe not a baby, as they often sleep fitfully and wake in the night for a feed. :) I am sleeping like a log...should a log be capable of sleep.
10. Finding out thanks to the members of my group therapy that I am not alone in my difficulties, and in fact that I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

The cons:

1. Feeling every emotion and being very raw about it. I have given up my old coping mechanism (binging) so now I must feel every emotion that comes to the surface. The option to stuff it down with food no longer exists. This means that I am very emotional and very, very tired a lot of the time. I am sleeping about 9-10 hours a night and usually have a nap during the day, too. I spend quite a lot of time looking at the causes or reasons for my negative emotions. I've had a few epiphanies too (these are the realisations I alluded to above, and will get to them in a moment).
2. Being mechanical (right now) about eating. I do not yet have freedom around food, and I still have anxiety around it. At the moment my focus is eating nutritiously, regularly. My policy is to enjoy treats in moderation, but to avoid them whenever I am feeling low. I do want to lose this mechanical, disciplined approach to eating, but that is a behaviour that will only come when I have gained full freedom from ED.
3. Increased anxiety. This is linked I suppose to point 1. I seem to waver between great peace of mind and great anxiety. I know that this is normal as I try to figure out ways to cope with negative emotions that don't involve food.
4. "Black" days. There have been several, and I know there will be more. The only thing that I want to do on those days is binge. I haven't yet successfully implemented any of the coping strategies suggested for those kinds of days actually on those days. I want to be able to actually take steps on those days to make myself feel better instead of crying all day or hiding away raging with anger and unfulfilled desire!
5. I am less sociable right now, and I laugh a lot less than usual. That's ok though, and I think things will return to normal as I get healthier and happier.

The realisations:

1. I do not have a blood relative who I can turn to in times of worry, upset or distress. There is no parent or sibling or aunt in my life who is sufficiently clued-in, caring or non-destructive enough that I could approach them for help (and actually receive it). In short, I feel somewhat abandoned by my family. I realised recently while walking with a friend that this unacknowledged fact has been the cause of a deep, deep unhappiness in me over the years, and every time I would feel the anxiety of having no family to support me emotionally (and honestly, never having had any emotional support) I would respond by escapism with food. Often of course my experience has not been simply a lack of emotional support but the presence of emotional abuse and manipulation by broken and unhappy people. I thought I had broken free of this years ago, but I hadn't. I had managed to find forgiveness for a lot of things said and done to me by my family, and I had put some strong boundaries in place, but I was not free from the negative emotions that came with this. My favourite way to spend an evening would probably have been to have a great meal out somewhere with a couple of glasses of wine, and then see a feel-good movie with a big box of sweets and a Coke (despite already being stuffed). This was the easiest way for me to forget my troubles. Now, I simply have to feel the feelings. Making this realisation has actually meant to my complete surprise the power that these familial disappointments have held over me is now broken. I feel lighter and freer and less anxious about my family than I have in years. Nothing in them has changed: I have changed.
2. I can live without binging. I hardly believe this as I am typing it. When the only thing that keeps you going is eating away your troubles, to remove this leaves a pretty bleak landscape behind. But it's true: I can live without binging. How do I know? Because I've done it for a couple of months now, and I didn't die, and I didn't fall apart.
3. I really, really like natural, whole foods. My tastes are changing miraculously so that I am mmming and aaahing over fresh fruits, nuts, vegetables and other things that are really nourishing and good for me. I find myself in the mood for broccoli or oats with natural peanut butter. It is very satisfying to actually want what it is you are eating, rather than simply eating what you know is good for you, perhaps with a mild reluctance. Processed foods and junk foods, when I am not in a "black day", are losing their lustre.
4. My body is a blessing to me. I won't lie and say that I am thrilled about my rolls of fat everywhere. But I am thrilled with how my body has responded to me caring for it. When I look in the mirror I don't see someone lighter: I see the same thing that I saw when I weighed 278 lbs. But I do see brighter skin and softer hair. I also enjoy movement: walking, running, cycling, weight-lifting. I have no training schedule, but it works out that I now get exercise every day. I have made myself no promises about how often I will go to the gym or anything like that. I only promise myself that I will get regular exercise, and I insist on only doing things I enjoy.
5. The ED has in many ways made me the person that I appear to be. My friends have an impression of me as someone very strong and capable. I have always honestly felt quite strong and capable, even when I was in bits. I always had a job and made my own money and took care of a lot of my own needs, starting at age 11. I moved out and supported myself fully and put myself through college without any help from anyone. I was someone who never depended on anyone else. Why? Because my complete support system was food. I had learned that food would not let me down, or shout at me, or make me feel bad. That is now all over. I now depend very much on my husband, my doctor, God, the therapists at the Eating Distress Clinic and my friends, in order to be ok. And that's alright. But I will take the parts of my personality that became strong because of my dependence on food, and I will keep them. I will simply discard the dependence on food. (Simply! Ha!)

There is more, lots more, but I don't know where it is yet. This is what has been going on with me for the last eight weeks. I am looking into a future that seems bright, despite currently being unemployed with no prospects, and severely obese. (I actually just chuckled writing that.) In the past whenever I would attempt to get my weight under control, and I'd lose a few pounds, I'd be praying that I could just maintain my willpower and keep going. I would always be binging here and there, say once a week or so, and still managing to lose a bit of weight. My habits however never changed, and more importantly, my thought processes never changed, so inevitably I would begin to find the deprivation too emotionally difficult, and I would eat and eat and eat until I had regained all the weight. Then I would cry and start the process all over again.

That vicious cycle of dieting that I have been in since I was a teenager is now well and truly broken. Diets can fuck off. I am never going on another diet as long as I live. I am going to eat mindfully but I am not going to count calories. I am going to get regular exercise. I am going to work on understanding myself and finding ways to cope with my problems that aren't linked to food. When I look at things this way, I don't know how I couldn't succeed. Even if my weight loss slowed right down and I lost only ten pounds a year, who cares? I'd get to a healthy weight eventually.

Life is for living. I don't know everything about what living means yet. I don't know what full freedom looks like. But I am definitely, definitely ready to find out.

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Breakfast: 2 lean sausages, grilled, with 1 egg, and a sesame bun. Tea.

Lunch: Half a quesadilla, with grilled chicken, light cheddar, mozzarella, jalapeños, onion and scallion, with salsa and sour cream, and a big chunk of cucumber, sliced. 1 square dark chocolate.

Dinner: Chicken and chorizo with garlic, onion and chilli in a tomato sauce, with pasta.