Healthy Weight Loss After an Eating Disorder - Week Two

I was dreading today. I mean what a bloody embarrassment it would have been if I didn't lose anything in my first week, the seemingly easiest week to lose weight according to the literature. It was small but at least it was a loss! Yippee! 

I had a wobbly week regarding sticking to the programme. I had two major slip ups where I binged. The first was after a night out last Saturday, the second, I'll get to.... I had a fair few tipples on Saturday and soon lost track of how many points I had consumed, actually I stopped even caring about my weight loss plan. I have the best boyfriend ever, as he picked me up from town in the wee hours and 'saved' me from that late night chipper. but as soon as I got home, I actually remember thinking 'Feck it' I'll be good tomorrow, which is saying something... because I remember very little else.

I stumbled into the house and into the kitchen and all of a sudden I was ravenous! I tore open the fridge and turned my nose up at the glossy green apples and colourful selection of veggies I had stocked it with earlier that day. No way was that going to satisfy the roaring hungry lion in my tummy. Within minutes I had the laptop out and I had ordered a pizza from Domino's. Damn the convenience of late night delivery!!!

Despite that set back, I picked up the broken pieces of my programme and tried to glue them back together. I got back to tracking and working out my points, home cooked hearthy, filling and healthy beef meatballs (needed the iron) packed full of zero point veggies and a small portion of wholegrain pasta. Total of 12 points for great sized yummy dinner, and there was enough left over to freeze a portion too.

Great, I am feeling wonderful and it's now bank holiday Monday.... I go to a spinning class and get my weekly dose of torture.. those seats are so painful! Then me and my better half went to my family home where my Mum cooked a beautiful roast chicken and ham dinner with all the works! yum! Points were through the roof... but kept within my 31 daily points and snacked on zero point food for the rest of the day.

I re-started the mindfulness class on Tuesday and have sort of mixed feelings about it. I came home and binged again on pizza after, and it took me a few days to reflect upon why it happened. It was differently emotional eating in response to the new group.

It's very different to the Mindfulness-Based Stressed Reduction group I did last year. It's easier to fit in and actually do the practises as the tracks are only 8 - 15 mins long! No more 45 mins mega sessions. Yay! This course is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and it is recommended by the UK's National Institute of Clinical Excellence - in other words, it works. More importantly it also works for people who are not depressed but who are struggling to keep up with the constant demands of the modern world. This programme focuses on promoting joy and peace rather than banishing unhappiness. It's precisely focused to help ordinary people boost their happiness and confidence levels whilst also reducing anxiety, stress and irritability. All sounds good so far.

This new style of mindfulness suits me to the ground as I am an expert in postponing my practice and in finding reasons why it doesn't matter if I don't practice each day. In addition, sometimes I am afraid to meditate. I'm scared of what I might feel if I am are not busy distracting myself. I'm fearful of being bored or of feeling intense emotions. Looking back to when I first started mindfulness I remember not being ready yet to experience the intense fear or memories of abuse by myself, alone in my own head. I feared that if I meditated, or let go of my usual strategies of numbing or being mindless, I would feel overwhelmed by the intensity of those memories or emotions.

I remember having "an epiphany", I was just so unused to being in the present moment that that was what was making me anxious. This isn't uncommon seemingly - especially for people with anxiety disorders, who frequently live in the future rather than the present. I was not used to looking at what's happening in this moment, never mind trying to bring acceptance to it! So I came home and ate, ate, ate to numb all those emotions that I being trying so hard to escape from.

What I learnt back then and consequently forgot in the last few months is that often what we find in the present is scary, and that's one reason we've been living in the past or the future. In reflection, I learnt or should I say I re-learnt a very valuable lesson this week: negative emotions are shit, really shit, but running away from them just makes you eat more pizza, put on weight and make said emotions even worse.

Anyway here's a shiny new graph charting my loss this week.

Stay mindful friends

Healthy Weight Loss After an Eating Disorder.

****TRIGGER WARNING**** Weight, BMI and ED behaviours mentioned.

As some of you may know, I have been purge free for the last year now (can I get a whoop whoop!) which is a HUGE personal achievement after years of bulimia ruling my every waking hour. The only thing is, I unfortunately am still not 100% ED behaviour free. I am still over eating and sometime binging, although nowhere near as frequently as before now I don't have a 'release', a way to 'get rid' of that post binge, horrible full feeling. None-the-less all that chomping on cream cakes and late night pizza parties have taken a toll on my body, my health and on my emotional well-being.

I knew my clothes size had gone up but I had gotten used to it going up after re-feeding. So I was NOT prepared to be told my BMI was in the overweight section during a recent Dr visit. I was shocked. She recommended cutting back on the sweet stuff and taking up exercise. 

In the last two years I have gone from being under weight for my height; bringing with it all the negative health risks that go along with that, to being over weight for my height, which has brought about some unexpected twists to my long list of maladies. My blood pressure is now high for the first time ever, I have nasty stretch marks on my legs and boobs. My iron levels are all over the place and cant make it up a flight of stairs without feeling like my heart is going to explode. 

Now I must say that I am not obese or anywhere near that category on the BMI scale (not a reliable scale I know, but I use it from time to time) I am just tipping into the overweight category. I'm super tall (5''11) so I tend to carry weight easily without knowing it, especially if I am not weighing myself, which I haven't as it used to be a major trigger in the past.

My Dr and I came up with a plan. Go to weekly weight watcher meetings, do one fitness class a week and get back running twice a week also. And also check in with her monthly to discuss any returning ED thoughts or behaviours. She also singed me up to an 8 week mindfulness programme to re-assert myself with awareness skills which will allow me to notice any negative thoughts creeping back in. A solid plan I think. My team believe in letting me make my own choices, including how I life my life. I love how they don't coddle me or insult my intelligence. I told them that I felt I could trust myself not to take the weight loss to the extreme and they agreed with me.

So I joined my local weight watchers last Thursday and found it really motivating. I've been cooking healthy home-made meals everyday from scratch, taking into account all the food groups and incorporating knowledge I learned from nutrition sessions over the years. Nothing is off limits, just eating in moderation. My goal weight gets me down into low end of the healthy weight BMI section. 

I'm back to tracking my daily food intake and now add values to everything I eat in the form of weight watcher pro points. The Weight Watchers program is based on a points system. Food items are assigned a point value, and based on your current weight you are given a daily allowance of points to consume. Weight Watchers also encourages a continuing education in nutrition through weekly meetings, which also offer support and accountability. The Weight Watchers program encourages slow and steady weight loss, but like any diet plan it has its dangers....

The main concept in the Weight Watchers diet is portion control and limiting the daily intake of calories. Each food item is given a point value based on the number of calories, fat and fiber it contains. Many vegetables have no points while a piece of pizza will have five or more, depending on the size and toppings. The problem with this system is that it recognizes points instead of the quality of those points. Two points is two points whether is a cookie or a small serving of low-fat cottage cheese with pineapple. The latter is the healthier choice, but the system sees them as equal. It is up to the individual to make healthy choices.

I have some peeves with adding these values to foods but I think I will do a different Blog entry on that though ... I can ramble a bit if you don't know!

Okay, so in the interest of accountability I am going to do a weekly weigh in on here to chart my weight loss. I do like a chart, I'm a numbers geek and proud of it. So here is week one.

I would really love to hear your thoughts on whether weight loss can be achieved in a healthy way when there is a history ED and disordered eating.

Stay mindful xxx