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Night Elf
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It's been nearly 3 months since I began a cold turkey approach to recover from my bulimia. I have done well and only slipped up for two brief moments, like half a day. Well now I've stepped backwards 2 steps. I'm so unhappy. I bought new clothes when I gained weight and thank goodness I bought elastic banded pants and skirts so they're a little flexible. However, they are feeling snug and if I continue gaining, I'll have to buy new sizes. I'm freaking out. I did say I didn't mind gaining weight but the last time I weighed which I shouldn't have done, was last week and I had gained 9 lbs. since March 8th. I'm not being a great sensible eater. I've gone overboard and now that I've gained so much, I'm wanting to restrict which means going back to My Fitness Pal again. I tried it but couldn't stay at their suggested calorie level to lose half a pound a week. I need more calories, so I changed it to maintain my weight and got more calories. Plus I gain some by my daily step goal of 10K steps a day. But that allotted daily calories seems way too much so I've been trying to stay under. I've been on My Fitness Pal for 3 days now. 

I'm praying a lot and I thought my prayers were being answered but now I'm back to square one and I don't know what happened. Really, if I can learn to be okay with me being a little heavier, I'd probably not have a problem but I'm now 14 lbs. over where my comfort weight was back when I was restricting heavily. I slowly gained so I was okay with it. Now I'm not. 

So if you're a praying person, I'd appreciate remembering me in your prayers. I think my prayer warriors have stopped praying for me so I need to ask them again. I'm not through this struggle yet. I am wondering if this is an addiction that can never be totally cured, just recovered with the possibility of sliding back into it at any time. Not good.

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I am praying for you right now! You've taken good care of yourself. Don't beat yourself up if you need more support. Perhaps it's time to contact a counselor for help? I'm sorry I don't remember where you are with that.

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39 minutes ago, Jaz said:

I am praying for you right now! You've taken good care of yourself. Don't beat yourself up if you need more support. Perhaps it's time to contact a counselor for help? I'm sorry I don't remember where you are with that.

I started to see a counselor but I didn't get good vibes from her. I saw her 3 times and we didn't even start talking about my disordered eating, only guilt.

I have a former counselor that might be able to help me put things into perspective. I haven't seen her since last December. We had ended our sessions because we were talking in circles and not getting anything accomplished. I had resolved one of my main issues and the eating disorder was just kind of swinging in the wind. I can talk to her at least once and see if she can help me find the cause. If I can determine WHY I developed the eating disorder, then maybe I'll have somewhere to start. I'm just so scared of gaining weight and I can't pinpoint exactly why.

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20 minutes ago, itsheresomewhere said:

A good therapist will take time to really get to the root of your disorder. So the one who you saw three times and you felt focused on guilt was still getting to know you.  Try her again for a month or so.  

I might. I made an appointment with my counselor from last year to see if I'm at place where she can help me. She's worked with disordered eating before so it's not a new subject  for her. It's just she couldn't help me get started with recovery because I was still in denial that I had a real problem. Now that I've recognized it and have taken true steps to recovery, I just a need an attitude adjustment. So I'm going to see her first. I have 8 free visits because of my DH's employee assistance program. The counselor I saw last February for 3 times isn't in their network but her fee was cheap because she was an intern. Her boss, the owner of the practice, wouldn't take me on as a patient with the employee assistance program because of some problems she was having with them. She didn't want anything to do with them so she suggested I meet with her intern. So if Shirley doesn't work out, I'll go back to the intern because I can afford her out of pocket.

Thanks.

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1 hour ago, Chris in VA said:

I will pray for you. Can you find a counselor that specializes in disordered eating? ♥️

That's what I tried last February and ended up with an intern. I felt okay with it because she discusses her cases with her boss so I felt like I was going to be getting good counseling. But she didn't ever talk about my disordered eating and I was getting tired of reaching back into my childhood looking for reasons I feel guilty today. Maybe I didn't give her enough of a chance. There were a few other names on the list for the employee assistance program but they were hard to get an appointment with so I finally settled on the one who had an intern.

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Praying for you. Have you thought about group therapy where you can talk to people who are walking the same path as you? Or have you tried the texting therapy? It might offer instant support.. just some thoughts. Best wishes - hang in there! Your honesty is so important and is such a huge step! 

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8 hours ago, Heartwood said:

I will be praying for you. I strongly encourage you to ditch the scale. You yourself said you were okay with gaining. It's the numbers that are messing with your head. You also wrote about getting back to your "comfort weight," but in that same sentence you admit it was when you were heavily restricting. That's not your comfort weight. Give yourself time to adjust. Be patient. Some days we eat better than others. Don't let the scale dictate your happiness. I'm serious about letting it go. My journey is not the same as yours, but not knowing what the scale says was the only way I could move forward. That's my trigger.

That dumb scale is definitely a trigger point but now it's also my clothing. What had been loose 3 months ago is now snug. I know what I weighed 2 weeks ago and that explains why my clothes are snug. I agreed on a new weight with DH and I went over it 2 weeks ago so our agreement was that I would back off eating so much so I'd lose back down at least 3 lbs. That shouldn't be difficult really because I've been eating way too many calories each day. That's why I've gained weight. I have a couple of donuts as breakfast in addition to toast and an egg, maybe a fast food burger and fries for lunch, a large portion of one of our Home Chef or Hello Fresh meals for dinner, and about 600-700 calories of snacks throughout the day. That's just the wrong kinds of foods to eat, not to mention too much. So I've done better over the past two weeks but I started panicking several days ago that I wasn't losing weight. That's what triggered this last backwards step.

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Beth, you've been one of my favorites here for a long time. You've taken such wonderful, brave steps in tackling this, not to mention in other areas like getting a job and going to church. You are on a path of healing, and I really admire you for it.

Have you talked to a therapist about this?

I appreciate your updates, as it does remind me to pray for you. Thanks for sharing. Hugs for you and definitely my heartfelt prayers.

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Guilt is a useful thing to explore. Maybe you need to approach from that direction as well as the more direct disordered eating approach?

You're not back to square one. 
1. You're not in denial any more.
2. You know you can work on this stuff because you've done it before. That intellectual component helps.

Because of those things, you can never slip further back than square three! And, ya know, that happens. Everyone is working on something.

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17 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Guilt is a useful thing to explore. Maybe you need to approach from that direction as well as the more direct disordered eating approach?

You're not back to square one. 
1. You're not in denial any more.
2. You know you can work on this stuff because you've done it before. That intellectual component helps.

Because of those things, you can never slip further back than square three! And, ya know, that happens. Everyone is working on something.

Thanks Rosie. You made me laugh and that felt good! Better square 3 than 1!

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