Out of My Discomfort Zone

Still in Hawaii, and still loving it. Beautiful day after beautiful day pass here, full of activity, living, and usefulness. I'm truly happy here.

BUT THAT DOESN'T CHANGE MY NEVER ENDING BATTLE WITH FOOD.

I was doing really well. Mostly raw. But the last couple days I've let slip and last night I was served breaded fish and rice pilaf from a box and ate it. :(((( I'm slowly sinking back into garbage mainstream eating because THAT is what my in-laws think is healthy and acceptable! It's not! Maybe I'm overreacting. It actually wasn't the last couple of days, it was just the one meal. But the temptation has been there for several days which is almost as bad! Maybe I should just let it go... just one meal of questionable food... But I can't. It's like giving an alcoholic a bottle of wine!

I've worked so hard to fight my eating disorder, and constantly fight my lifelong dietary programming that tells me to stuff my face with factory produced rehash that is not real food. It is my responsibility to protect myself from packaged food industry and it's commercially brainwashed minions in the masses. I know. But it's hard having it in my face every day. This is even worse than when I was fasting and sticking to my diet in months past while still cooking for my kids. The food is even worse, and people are serving it to me almost constantly.

I've fought back by offering to make dinner. Serving fresh salads, veggie dishes, and steamed or grilled fish or chicken, or making sushi and soups. They love my dinners... but I think their cravings and bad habits freak out and kick in and then they fight back with fried foods, starches, and boxed meals... cereals and cookies... pasta pasta pasta. /sigh... :(

I need to get out of here. I'm more physically active than ever. This should be great for me, but my body needs beautiful food, healthy food for radiant, glowing, health and beauty. My body needs to be not only my temple but my sanctuary!

bah.

damn people are violating my sanctuary. I need better security. Gotta put in some cameras and alarm systems. ;)

Sorry about all the fussing. I'm just upset I'm dealing with this at all.

And the result:

I'm water fasting today. I'm thinking about fasting all week. What does that mean? I am shutting down and going back to the only thing I know I can do to battle my ED and that is my other ED. Am I relapsing? Regressing? Or am I just honestly hitting a reset button to recommit to the healthy pattern I've successfully maintained for a while? I don't know. I do know that I don't really trust myself. I also know that I can't talk myself out of it.

As this is my journal I must be completely honest and say that I'm punishing myself for what I ate for dinner last night. Breaded fish and pilaf. My penance is one full day of "Hail glass, full of water" and two days of "Our juice fast, thou art heaven..." My brain knows this is not the best example of behavior. My husband would probably insist on a different course correction. But he's not here. He's been gone for 2 of 3 weeks we knew we'd be without him this month. So oh well. Ideally I should be eating healthy, I know that. And I have been most of the time. Obviously I've slipped though and that is absolutely unacceptable. We all know I'd rather err on the side of starvation than on the side of poison/gluttony.

I'm sure this is just temporary. I'll get my day of water and couple days of juice fasting out of the way, feel better, and go back to enjoying my bowls of sunshine. Fresh fruit right off the trees in the morning, gorgeous green salads in the afternoon, and vivid vital veggies in the evenings! Yay! Yup, that's what I'm going to do.

NO PILAF EVER AGAIN! I REPENT!

-----Comments-----

Kazehana - I definitely agree on the importance of fats. Thats why I figured I'd stick with the naturally oily foods like salmon, avocado, and olives. I always opt for butter over margarine. Oh and I didn't give up oil entirely on my salads but I am trying avocado oil... so I get some of that every day. Besides my salads and sauces, I'm not getting much oil though because I'm not cooking much. No butter because I haven't been eating anything that cooks in or uses butter. I'm an avocado junkie though, so I'm probably ok on the oil front. :)

Being Constructive in the Face of Failure

Last night I lost it and ate something I shouldn't, knowing I shouldn't, and ate more than I should have. Pizza. 2 slices, no cheese. You may say not so bad, but it was a binge, so it is bad. I was full. I'd already eaten a wonderful veggie salad.

Yes, it could have been worse, but that isn't the point. The point is not giving in to addictions, listening to one's wiser inner voice, and controlling one's self for a healthier lifestyle. Yesterday I failed.

I'm doing my best not to self-loathe about it. I know that I lost control because of a greater problem, my PMDD. It's in full flair-up right now and I was having trouble coping with anything and everything yesterday. I nearly cried so many times yesterday over the smallest things, and then nearly cried because of how ridiculous it was and what it must look like to my kids. I try so hard to at least keep up appearances for them. It doesn't really work. I almost called my sister crying. The reason I didn't was insecurity. This is not who I am. None of it, yet here I am, every month living as some other person for a span of time. It's insane. Really. Literally.

I did find out my grandmother suffered from it too until she hit menopause. Only no one knew what it was back then. It's good to know that. So far she's been the only real person I can talk to about it who really knows what the hell I'm talking about.

Back to the binge and PMDD in general, the main thing I'm working and focusing on now is not hating myself when I fuck up. I am human. I will falter. But I'm picturing myself and my progress like a bird. A bird flies along at great heights. Does it falter? Yes. But it doesn't throw a hissy-fit and fall out of the sky to a squishy death out of despair. It falters, then corrects itself and keeps on flying. Have you ever seen a cat try to jump up on something and miss? They look confused (sometimes embarrassed lol) but they drop that and jump up again. They don't howl out of self-loathing and collapse on the floor for the rest of the afternoon. When I need wisdom, I don't look to people, I look to the natural world. The natural world does not wallow in self pity. Humans are the only doofuses who make time for that sort of thing. My main goal is to stay on track and if I don't, I will correct and go on.

Gosh that sounds great doesn't it? Now I feel completely cynical about taking that philosophy out into another day of full fledged Jekyll and Hyde PMDD madness.

What the heckle, Jekyll, sometimes you gotta close the bedroom door and Hyde. /sigh

More From Me On PMDD - tumblr 10/7/10

Other PMDD Posts....

I'm PMS Hide Your Knives!
(Hide ya kids, hide ya knives, and hide ya husbands cuz they PMSin' everybody up hea.<3)