February 18, 2020
After my consultation with EF (a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders), I decided she was the right fit for me. First, I outlined my goals:
- Stop vomiting
- Stop bingeing
- Stop starving myself
- Stop obsessing about my body/weight/size
And then we decided on initial marching orders:
- See my primary doctor for a physical and blood work
- Hide the scale
- Stop suppressing my hunger — no more coffee or gum
A week and a half later…
I was so anxious and terrified of taking these actions… I started my day with cups and cups of coffee and sticks and sticks of gum, never even considering the fact that I should actually feed my body when I wake up. What kind of vacuum would that create?! But since I am willing to try anything now, I said OK.
The first few mornings were wildly uncomfortable and strange, and I had true cravings for that Dunkin’ Donuts hazelnut Kcup. I was missing the coffee and the routine. Has any attics knows the routine is just as important as the substance .But that strangeness has now been replaced by almost acceptance because I know what a horribly negative impact my abusive amount of coffee and gum was having on my entire pattern of hellish eating.
And in what I would consider a miracle, I started eating when I was hungry. And to my complete surprise, I was actually hungry. For some reason I had convince myself that I just “didn’t get hungry until noon.“ Nope if I get up at 6 AM I really need to have some kind of bar by 730 or 8 AM. Eating that early was so counterintuitive and went against the grain of every anorexic rule I had it written in my book 20 years ago. But it has made a profound change in how much I am able to respond intuitively to my hunger cues throughout the day. Who knew. Who knew?!
And I did see my primary doctor… Gave them the “truth light“ version. Enough for him to say “yeah let’s do some bloodwork and here’s a referral for a Gastro MD in case you want to check out your esophagus.“ Being honest, or even close to honest, with the doctor is serious act of bravery. I’m still waiting on the results of my blood work. And I promised my therapist that if all comes back normal I won’t use that as ammunition to say maybe I’m not hurting myself that much and I can keep letting my eating disorder run the show… Instead I’ll just be enormously grateful. I hope.
And finally, putting the scale away was liberation. It’s been about a week and a half since I’ve weighed myself and I have noticed I’m scrutinizing the mirror a little bit more… Searching for signs that pounds are coming on. But it sure is better than having those numbers tell me whether or not I’m gonna have a good or a bad day. I read somewhere that someone said a scale isn’t going to tell you the weight of your kindness or your generosity or how much you love your family… I’m trying to hold on to that. The weight of who I am cannot be reflected in this number on a scale. It is the sum of so much more.
Tasting Freedom 