Answer - comment about my body

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you look more feminine before you had so much muscle. Not meaning you should be underweight but I like how feminine and girly you looked before all the sportiness and fitness lifestyle of muscle building. It's like you seem more defined by being yourself rather than fitness, running and strength training.


I hadn't planned to answer this question, mainly because i didnt see the point of answering it... not so sure what am i supposed to say? That that is your opinion and great to know that you have an opinion on my body. But the person who commented seemed to want my reply, so i thought i would reply in a post.

If i am going to be honest with you... i wasnt happy in my body back then. Or i mean, i accepted my body i had reached a healthy weight and was focusing on self love and body acceptance, but i didnt feel happy in my body. My arms were still too skinny in my own opinion and i felt weak. But also from the photos i guess you are referring to, i was doing far more exercise back then than i was now. But all i did was cardio... i was doing roughly 1-2 hours cardio a day and had little energy for anything else. I was not necessarily in a happy or balanced place. But then at the start of 2013 i began focusing on strength training and lowering the amount of cardio i did. Of course i love cardio so that is still a part of my life its just that i dont do it in excessiveness and its not a must but an enjoyment when i do it. So in the terms of being "defined by exercise" now that is not true. I create my own identitiy and like i have written many times before, exercise is PART of my life not my whole life. But it will always be a part of my life, however it isnt my identity.

And when it comes to femininity this strikes a chord because one of the things i have been quite insecure about is that fact that i do have more visible muscles than the "typical" girl. And for a while i thought about not strength training because i thought, no one will ever like me or like how i look. But you know what, i have come to the stage where i dont care... i strength train and exercise because i enjoy it. If it changes my body, so what... its an enjoyment so i will continue. And luckily i have found an awesome guy who likes me just the way i am, and doesnt mind that i strength train and maybe have "more muscle".. but in all honesty. I amn't even so muscley.... there are people far more defined and muscled than I am, so i am not so worried about being "too muscley" because that wont happen with my body type. The important thing is that I am happy with the way i look and THAT is what matters but also that I am healthy in my body and mind and not to mention that I love my lifestyle.

My life is not exercise or muscle building, like mentioned before... if i wanted to change my body or build muscle i would workout differently than I do now. I workout because its fun and what i enjoy doing, not because i want to be super ripped and i definitely dont spend all day thinking about exercise or spend all day exercising. Remember that what i post is roughly 10% of my day and there are only certain thoughts i post, not everything i think about.... not really sure if i should begin posting "went to the store to buy pens... went to the bathroom 5 times, washed my face, did the dishwasher, did the laundry, went with my mum to the foodstore, lay in bed for 2 hours..." "thought about how much coffee i drink, thought about redcorating my room, thought about my future, laughed at funny memes etc etc" just to show that my life is more than what i post on here? 

I feel that your comment is a little unnecessary. The only time a person should comment about someone elses body is when 1) they are a doctor or someone trying to help the person because 2) it is due to health reasons. Otherwise it seems a little unnecssary to comment about someones appearance. I mean what am i supposed to do... stop strength training - the thing i love - just because an anonymous person has told me i amnt so feminine anymore?

And if you want to know more about me... more about the person without exercise then read THIS post.

There you have my answer, and maybe you should rethink why you made this comment... or what it was you were trying to achieve by making the comment?

You might not think i look god, but i think i look great and the only opinion that matters in this case is my own.

P.s don't attack the person who made the comment. I didn't make this post for comments but because the person expressed their opinions on my blog I think I have a right to express my own opinions back. And when it comes to someone having other opinions about my body, sure they can think differently bit the only opinion that matters is mine. Not everyone will like me, it's not my job to please everyone and make everyone like me. People will always think differently and some will hate me np matter what I do and doesn't even matter that they don't know me... They've just decided to hate, and that's their issues not mine.

My Saturday and 3 meals from today

I guess i should say Happy Halloween or something? :)

I am not the type of person who celebrates Halloween or enjoys it that much, i dont really see the point of it.... When you are a child its all about the candy and when you're a teenager its all about the partying. And well, the costumes as well i guess?

Ive been asked if i have any Halloween plans and nope... my halloween plans are to spend the evening on the sofa with my boyfriend and series watching, hahaha. Nothing special here, unless kids knock on the door with their "trick or treat-ing"... though i dont think we'll open because there is no candy to give here, haha. I have been invited to two different halloween parties though as it was unexpected i dont have a costume prepared and really amnt in the mood to party so i wont be going to either and there arent any regrets either. I'll catch up with my friends another time, maybe go for lunch or brunch instead, then you actually get to talk!!

Do you have any halloween plans? :) Ohhh... and dont forget to enjoy the chocolate and candy :)

On my side, i am not actually eating any candy/chocolate today... which should be surprising. But there has been far too much of it recently, i am not even going to go into the amounts eaten and now all i want is a break from chocolate, which i never thought i would say. Though i am pretty sure it wont take long until i'll be eating chocolate again, hahaha. Too much of anything is not a good thing anyway.

Today i started my day with a visit to the gym, first time in a week and it felt good to be back. I wasnt there so long and didnt do too much as it was a "easy start" back to the gym, but next week it will be full focus again and time for deadlifts which i have missed :) And then i headed to my boyfriends place to sit and study, though i have realised that i am very good at sitting and doing nothing..... a little too good at it. Also a little too good at giving myself breaks when i havent deserved them. Such as now.... i've done 30 minutes of work and now decided to give myself a blogging break (though i admit, this is the first time i have checked my blog since 8am this morning, and its now 5.30pm so i havent wasted too much time on blogging/social media). I have found something that helps me with maths and that is online video tutorials.... so much better than sitting with a book filled with problems and you dont know how to solve them and the answers page just gives the answer, no explanation of how to get that answer. So finally it feels like i am learning some stuff, though having to do roughly 40 pages of work until Monday is not an easy task, so this weekend it is full focus on studying.

And now i am going to continue with my studying, and below you see 3 of my meals:

Brekfast: Yoghurt, lots of muslie and berries & coffee and eggs.

Lunch (after my workout): Oven baked potatoes, carrots and aubergines. A smores questbar and a True Transparency.

Studying snack: Caramel pudding, salted nuts (more than this.. like 3 times the bowl) and another true Transparency... sometimes its nice to mix up my water with something else.

I hope you have a great weekend and evening!

ED recovery problems

Asking you about your current weight

When you see something triggering.

When your doctor tells you that you haven’t gained weight.

Considering eating an extra snack

ED voice:

Recovery voice:

When my friend continuously talks about how much they exercise and tells me all the “healthy” recipes they’re learning

Feeling greedy, fat or lazy in eating disorder recovery

While in recovery i experienced alot of feelings of guilt, laziness and fatness. Three negative feelings which made it hard to progress forward because every time i ate i felt greedy. Every time my mum took Daisy for a walk or my sister went to the gym i felt lazy. Every time i ate, every time i didnt exercise i felt fat. These constant feelings.

   It also didnt help that i had to eat alot almost a yogurt packet and juice packet per day. When i was at Mando these feelings - the feelings of being greedy didnt bother me as much. It was when i was at home where i was most triggered about exercise and feeling greedy. When i was at Mando i was in this safe little bubble, even if i hated it and just wanted to get out of there. It was much harder being at home than at Mando because then i had even more feelings to deal with. When i was at home i had 99 opportunities to cheat each meal time, i didnt have to eat i could skip meals which i very often did. And i could go out running which i also did. But that was the reason why i would go back to Mando and have lost weight and lost more trust from the staff. So really i was just making things worse for me.

But i remember one day i broke down when i was at home on a visit and just said how i felt so greedy for eating everything. Even if i was just eating one or two meals at home that day, it felt like too much. And i said that i knew that if i became a day patient i would be eating soo much food, which we didnt have the money for at that time. But my mum told me that My health and recovery comes first. Money can fix itself but not eating wont fix anything, and it will just make everything worse. She said she would much rather spend all her money on food for me so that i can recover than spend it on clothes or other things.

 It did help me to hear that because every time i was going to cheat, throw away food, purge or burn off the calories then i thought about all the money i was wasting. How my mum could have spent that money on other things... i tried telling her to do that when i was sick so that i wouldnt feel the guilt of compensating or cheating wtih food. But of course she wouldn't do that, me eating and getting enough energy and recovering was priority one at that time.

The guilt over eating and knowing how much i was eating, which contributed to my feelings of greediness, laziness and feeling fat, were hard to combat. It didn't go away in a day, each time someone around me worked out, each time someone around me mentioned that they worked out would cause me alot of guilt. Each time someone worked out it and mentioned it, it was like they had punched me in the gut and told me i was fat. That was exactly how it felt.... the guilt of knowing i was eating more but doing less was terrible. Fortunately for me, i didnt use Instagram during my recovery, it wasn't much of a thing back then and i wasn't really on the "fitspo" side of Tumblr so i wasnt constantly seeing workout pictures which was helpful for me. Because it was hard enough to get rid of an exercise addiction, to allow myself to rest without feeling guilty or lazy without having 101 pictures thrown at me of abs, squats, quotes and 10km runs.
  It is tough to overcome the feeling of laziness, but know that you AREN'T lazy. You are strong, you are resting... your body needs rest to recover. And you know what... it takes strength to go against what the voice in your head is saying. If you enjoy working out, then it is easy to workout X days a week, but the strength is remembering that your body needs rest as well...that working out too much won't bring any positive benefits.


Below are helpful posts:
Exercise addiction masterpost
Anxiety because of resting
How to be ok with sitting down



And when it comes to feeling greedy you need to remember that you aren't being greedy. The food you eat is for YOU and YOUR body. It is nourishing your body,it is fueling your body. I mean if you look at people eating do you think that they are greedy? Not really, because you know that they are eating for their body. However if someone orders lots of food and wont let you try a little or wont share a sip of their coke or a bite of an ice cream, that can be considered greedy... but then again not, if it is their food they have the right to it. Whether they want to share it or not is their choice and doesn't have to make them greedy. You are not greedy for eating alot, your body needs that food. If you were to buy lots of food, only eat a little and then throw it all away... that would be a little silly and almost more greedy than if you were to eat it all, though that is my opinion. When you realise that you are eating what is normal and healthy for your body, then it is easier to move away from the guilt feelings and feeling like you are greedy, because you arent. And you need to keep reminding yourself that until you no longer have those feelings.

And when you feel fat, try the things in the post below and see if they help:
http://www.lifewithoutanorexia.com/2014/11/what-do-do-when-you-feel-fat.html


Remember that fat isnt a feeling, it's not a bad thing. Get to the root of how you are feeling, what emotions is it? Is it stress, tiredness, anxiety, guilt? Because you can't feel fat (even though i know it feels like a feeling, but it isnt.) Know that your body doesnt change in the matter of a day or two, you can be bloated which can lead to "fat feelings" but there is something else causing those feelings and the bloating will pass, but you need to work with your thoughts and feelings to overcome those "fat feelings".

Change your negative thoughts, go against what the voice in your head says. Dont let the negative thoughts and words control you. You ARENT fat, lazy or greedy in recovery. You are strong for fighting against that voice in your head which is controlling you.

How to move on from your meal and not feel guilty

I was asked if i could write a post about how to move on from a meal and not feel guilty or compensate over it later. And i have been thinking about what to write, what advice to give... because in the end, no amount of distractions help this. Because you can not distract yourself 24//7, sometimes your thoughts wander... and sometimes they wander to previous meals you have had, For example while i was sick, sometimes the guilt and anxiety would hit me 2 days later when i began thinking about the meal and then i would compensate because i felt guilty... even though i had eaten the fear food or "extra" 2 days ago.

When it comes to following a meal plan it is a little easier, as you can then remind yourself that what you are eating is what your body needs. Like a cake... one meal is one slice of the cake and your aim is to eat the whole cake so its divided into 6 slices and each meal is one slice and by the end of the day you have eaten enough. (Maybe a bad reference... but i hope you get it): But when it comes to eating freely one of the things which seems most scary is eating too much. Or you have this fear that certain foods will make you gain weight or will change your body or just aren't good for your body. But the first thing to remember is that unless you end up binging you won't eat "too much". Even if you are  a normal weight most people can eat more some days and still not gain weight or their body changing. When it comes to eating more freely then you need to think of the "cake" in terms of a week.... in a week you want to eat the round cake and it is cut into 7 big slices (1 for each day of the week) and then how you decide to cut one slice into different meals per day doesnt really matter...  (I dont really know where i am going with this, but trying to explain that if one or a few meals are bigger or different than usual during the week it doesnt really matter because it balances itself). And even if you are on a meal plan and you go and eat a whole pizza for dinner with friends instead o eating your usual dinner, it wont affect your weight or body either.

When it comes to the anxiety and guilt you may feel, you need to remember that 1 meal is just one meal.... it wont change anything and doesnt mean that you shouldnt eat again. Eating is a constant thing, something you need to do everyday, several times a day.It is not enough to eat once and think that that will get you through the day, because it wont. You need to try to realise that food is energy, it is helping your body. So what you ate more or ate a fear food? That is energy which is helping your body... helping repair your body or giving you energy so that you can live and function.

When you feel guilty and want to compensate, ask yourself what compensating will do.... are you choosing your eating disorder or a healthy life? What will happen if you dont compensate..... Why not try not compensating, fight against the anxiety and the guilt... know that on the other side it is a lot better, but then you have to get through the tough times. Try to take one meal at a time and forget the rest of your meals... forget the ones you ate, forget the ones you are going to eat. Just focus on the now. Focus on the meal you are eating and know that each time you eat you are giving your body energy and that it doesnt matter what you ate before or what you are going to eat later, your body still needs energy now.

If you know you are going to eat at a restaurant for dinner, that doesnt mean you eat a small lunch and skip an afternoon snack. If you know you are going for brunch one morning, that doesnt mean you restrict and eat every little the day before.... no, you take each meal as it is and eat what your body needs right then.


I know this post might not be so helpful, but that is because it is hard to give advice about this topic... because the only thing you need to do is to eat and face the anxiety. Face the guilt and the fear and see food as it is, energy and something your body needs... but also an enjoyment. Because eating isn't a chore, it is an enjoyment as well. And your body will always need food and energy and hopefully one day you will be able to eat intuitively and listen to your body and then you forget about what you ate yesterday, or the meal before because you can listen to your body and cravings and eat what your body needs and wants. But it is a process of listening and trusting your body and taking the negativity and fear away from food.

If any of my readers have advice about this subject then comment below :)

What i've put my body through

Yesterday i began thinking, im only X years old but ive already put my body through so much. Both on the outside and in the inside it has has to endure alot... sometimes i wonder how my bones are still strong and my body isnt still covered in scars.
   But the body is quiite amazing how it repaires itsself after so much damage. Some damage however is irreversable.... some things your body cant fix.

You might not be thinking about these things right now, but someday you might. Someday you will regret all those years of purging because they have eroded your teeth so much, has caused you permanent acid reflux and for some they cant even eat solid food or alot of food at once because it just comes back up again. The metabolism so ruined.
  You might end up in hospital with organ failure, dehydratation or in the worst case cardiac arrest. Your heart not being able to cope with everything its being put through.

You have one body, that is all you will ever have. You may be able to change your outsides with plastic surgery, different operations or through food and exercise. But your insides... its those that matter. All the hours exercise you do just to try to get a flat stomach, that wont matter when you suddenly develop adrenal fatigue/exhausation or you collapse or even die from all the stress the exercise puts on your body.
   Those laxatives you took to keep you from 'gaining' weight or to help with the anxiety of eating. They wont be needed when you can no longer 'keep it in' or your digestive system is so ruined that you cant digest solid food.
  The alcohol, pills or overdosing wont seem like such a good idea to numb the pain when you get liver failure or other organ damage.

Somethings your body can fix such as malnutrition,thinning hair, weak bones, muscle loss etc but those all require enough food and energy so that your body can repair itsself. Somethings like damage to the digestive system, Organ damage or failure... those are things which your body wont be able to fix.

Stop focusing so much on the outside and how your body looks, instead focus on the inside and how your body feels.

Friday morning and wanting a fresh start

This Friday morning started with cleaning my room. When i first woke up i realised just how messy my room was.... i like to pile things on my desk and have clothes on the floor etc A mess room contributes to bad feelings and you just feel constrained in your room. So cleaning, hoovering, new sheets and duvet cover and not just putting things in drawers and hiding them, but actually cleaning the mess. Once that was done it felt alot better and my room felt so much more spacious, even if i want to rearrange as i want a "change". Then it was coffee and BCAA time before i went for a long walk with Daisy - finally feeling better and ready to exercise again. 4 days of complete rest have dont my body good, though i must admit instead of being energetic and bouncing forward my legs felt heavy so once i had walked 50% and had 50% home both me and Daisy felt tired, but it was just to keep walking and to stop every now and then to throw sticks for Daisy!

When i came home i made myself waffles and scones and threw together a little mini Brunch, it was so late by the time everything was ready so it was just to call it brunch!

And then it was shower time to wash my hair and feel all fresh and new with newly washed hair, shaved legs and moisturized and clean skin! And now i am going to watch a few episodes of a series before its study time and then this evening its "photo showing time" (from my holiday in Lisbon) for my family!!

Feels like a good Friday so far :)

I hope you all have a great Friday and a great weekend. Do you have any plans for the weekend? :)

Old happy memories

Yesterday was a pretty sleepless night, i had far too many thoughts in my head which kept me up. So instead i decided to put on some calm music and fix the Lisbon photos into right folders as we are having a "photo showcase" (or what to call it?) today where those of us who have travelled in the past few months are going to show some of the photos we took. I then ended up going through 50% of my folders on my memory card and came across alot of good and bad photos and memories. So many photos of me while sick that had been stored away in a folder, in a folder, in a folder... i.e i had forgotten i had taken them, but also photos that others had taken of me while sick where i just look like death.. there is absaloutly no colour or energy in my face at all and my pupils are like solid black... you can almost see the anxiety and hate in my eyes. But i also found good memories... i found lots of photos from 2008-2009, i.e the start of my illness but it was more the start of controlling food and exercise and eating less rather than counting calories, feeling fat etc But also to see my 11/12 year old selfies... hahaha, Ohh the shame. But it is fun that i came across them, as they are still memories!!! And also to see my outfits..... they were definitely not anything fashionable, though not that that has changed! I also came across old happy memories where my smile was true and real and it definitely tugged at the strings of my heart.... to feel that freedom and that complete happiness. I miss being around friends who like taking lots of pictures... one of my friends who i lost contact with used to always take lots of pictures, and i love that. I love having pictures and memories, that is why i can take random pictures of my family and friends and such just because they are memories, caught in doing whatever they are doing. But also some memories you want caught on camera because when you look back on the pictures you remember all the good times, all the good feelings, the happiness and joy at the time the picture was taken... and i like that :)

Below are some (ok... a few) photos i found which put a smile on my face when i look at them.

A mix of photos from 2008 (I think) to 2013 (and then one photo from this year)? I have so many photos that i could post loads, but these are just some anyway, hahah.

It's easier to say you want change than it is to make a change

Yesterday was a day where i just had enough.... i didnt want to feel this way anymore. I didnt want these thoughts in my head.... the moment where you just know you need to seek help to get better. Where you know that you can not continue in the same path that you will just be on a standstill with the same emotions and the same feelings, or you will spiral downwards, and i want neither of those.

Then i began thinking.... how many times in my life have i said, "I want things to change, i am going to change things". It is easy to think or say that, especially when you reach a point where you have had enough, or you do something you regret or leaves you with lots of anxiety and fear, then its easy to think... im going to change. Tomorrow is going to be a new day and everything will be different. But then it isn't different, you still end up doing the same things... or maybe you last half a day or a day, or even a few days, but you end up ging back to the same old thing and once again you end up repeating "things are going to change"... but things never do and it becomes a constant repetition.

The important thing to remember with change and recovering from mental illnesses is that it doesnt all happen at once. And things dont always go perfectly... you might slip up, make a mistake, take a step backwards, but you need to remind yoursel to not just break apart and think "ive already ruined things might as well ruin them more". For example, if you drop your phone you dont suddenly stamp on it and break it completely just because you dropped it. So for those of you who have black and white thinking and have thoughts such as "i ate a piece of chocolate... now ive ruined it and might as well eat everything" or think " i've eaten a piece of chocolate, now i wont eat for 3 days"... that is black and white thinking, and breaking the phone when all you did was drop it. Instead think, you havent ruined anything and it is not black or white. Before you might have used behaviours such as the above, but now you need to remember that you wanted change and that means not resorting to old or bad behaviours... but instead doing something different, so things change.

It is small steps all the time and realise that all those steps forward will lead to the final goal. Not everyday is awesome, not everyday is easy but it does get better. You need to actually make the change as well, know that it will be tough but it will be worth it.

And this goes for me... i think that "I want change" i want things to be different, i can't keep feeling this way... but all ive done to change things is to look online for therapists... and then not even call anyone, not even talk to someone..... that is doing nothing to change the situation. I cant keep thinking i want change and then not change anything, i know what i need to do, but it means also doing it.


So these were my thoughts yesterday... and i hope they are a reminder to some of you, that it is not enough to think or say that you want change. You wont break free from the destructive mindset and destructive thoughts unless you do something about it and actually make some form of small change everyday!!!