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chestnutpost · 5 years

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Former Nickelodeon Star Jennette McCurdy Opens Up About Her Eating Disorder

This post was originally published on this site

Note: This essay contains discussions and images that may be triggering for some readers.

In support of the recent National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, I’m coming out about my history with disordered eating, which I’ve never publicly discussed before.

I’d thought about sharing my story a few times in the past. Once I was asked to write an article for The Wall Street Journal on beauty and body-shaming. Initially I toyed with calling the piece “I Threw Up Three Minutes Before I Wrote This” and opening up about life in the trenches of bulimia, but ultimately I decided against it. It felt too vulnerable to talk about something I was struggling with (not to mention that I had recently written an article about my mom’s battle with cancer and I was self-conscious about coming across as one big cry for help).

But now I’ve been in recovery maintenance for two years. I’m no longer actively engaging in disordered eating. After spending a lot of time in therapy working on myself and confronting what I’ve experienced, I finally feel like I have the perspective required to write about what I’ve been through and maybe ― hopefully ― it might help someone who is going through the same thing feel less alone. (Plus, it’s been a good few years since mom died, so my quota for trauma sharing is ready to be refilled.)

My disordered eating started when I was 11. As a child actress working in Hollywood, I quickly learned that remaining physically small for my age meant I had a better chance of booking more roles. Unfortunately, I had a trusty and dedicated companion ready to help me with my burgeoning anorexia: my mom!

Courtesy of Jennette McCurdy Me, my mom and my brother in 2004 having dinner at a restaurant where you could meet Disney characters. Our trips to Disney were always so complicated for me. I loved Disney and wanted to be able to just enjoy it, but instead I’d spend the days leading up to the trip looking up the menu, planning exactly what I would eat, calculating the calories I’d consume, and starving myself as much as possible to “save room” for the “big meal” ― at which I’d wind up restricting myself anyway. At least I always got a hug from Baloo!

I don’t hold this against my mom at all. I don’t think she could help it. Mom had been hospitalized for anorexia on several occasions when she was a teenager and I’m not convinced she ever overcame her disordered eating. When I was growing up, the only dinner I ever saw her eat was a plate of steamed broccoli and cauliflower with a single pinch of garlic salt for flavor.

I always remember feeling that my mom really struggled with my body, weight and diet. She’d regularly compare my size to that of other girls. She’d portion out my meals for me. She’d help me count calories.

At the time, instead of being bothered by her suggestions, I remember thinking that she was actually helping me ― that she “got it” more than the other moms ― and that she wanted me to be successful.

“Are you sure you want ice cream? You’ve already had 900 calories today,” she’d remind me as I yanked open the freezer door. I’d pause, rethinking my decision, and then I’d lose my grip on the door and let it shut slowly as a wistful expression crossed my face. That’s mom, always looking out for me.

I didn’t really recognize that my mom was aiding in my disordered eating until one night riding home from dance class when I was 12. She turned around to face me from the front seat and said, “Angelica’s mom is really concerned about your weight. She said she brought it up to the other dance moms and they’re all worried you’re too thin. They’re thinking about calling to get you help.”

She paused. I processed.

“If anybody asks, just tell them you’re eating normally,” she directed.

Courtesy of Jennette McCurdy Me with my childhood friends Danielle Chuchran, Dylan Meyer, Megan, Tessa, and Caitlin Meyer at the Young Artist Awards in 2003. I was 12 and really struggling with anorexia, so any sort of social eating like at this luncheon was genuinely my nightmare. The woman sitting next to me at our table noticed I was fiddling with my roll instead of eating it and commented loudly, “You haven’t eaten a thing!” I seethed with anger that this woman almost blew my cover as a closeted anorexic.

I nodded numbly, piecing it all together as mom turned back around and made some comment to herself about how she really hoped we made it home in time for the new episode of “House” and how Hugh Laurie was a great actor and you just would never know he’s British.

In retrospect, that moment alone should have been alarming enough to make me question mom’s support. But even if I had wanted to stop at that point, I don’t think I could have. I was already too controlled by my eating disorder to see clearly what was happening to me. Plus, being small was doing wonders for my career. I booked six roles that year, all for characters several years younger than I was. I made justifications for my mom’s support of my disordered eating and I made justifications for my continuing down the road I was traveling.

At 14, I was cast in the Nickelodeon series “iCarly,” and by the time I was 15, the show was starting to get popular. The stress of having to be “on” all the time got to me. I became even more fixated on food and my body. I monitored every bite I took. I exercised obsessively. I measured my thighs with a measuring tape every night before bed.

When I was 18, my mom was diagnosed with cancer for a second time and this time it was terminal. “iCarly” had become a global phenomenon, I had a record deal with a fancy record label, mom was dying, and I just couldn’t handle the pressures of everything happening around me. But this time, instead of turning away from food, I turned to food. Lots and lots of food.

And so began my binge eating phase. I still tracked, calculated and obsessed about every single thing that went into my mouth, just the same as when I had anorexia. The only difference was that I was eating a lot more. I was constantly preoccupied with food. Nothing meant more to me than my next bite and nothing gave me more shame than my last one. I was in a toxic, self-loathing cycle.

By the time I was 21, I had just signed a deal for a spin-off series starring my character from “iCarly,” I was dating an NBA player, and mom was weeks away from dying. I had also become acutely aware that I was a role model for kids, which I felt like I was supposed to find cool but actually found upsetting. My great “contribution” to society was walking onto an overlit Nickelodeon set shouting lines about fried chicken (my character liked fried chicken) and that’s what kids were looking up to? Granted, we can’t all be Pema Chodron, but there was something about the shallowness of my success that made me resent it. That resentment festered, providing even more fuel for my disordered eating. I actively began to engage in anorexic behavior again.

But this time it was a bit different. Every day I’d try not to eat ― I’d give it my best shot, I really would ― but eventually, my mind and body would cave in and demand food. I would eat … and then I would throw up what I ate.

They say when one door closes, another one opens, and that was certainly the case for me when it came to disordered eating. Goodbye, anorexia; hello, bulimia!

When I first began to vomit after eating, I was honestly thrilled. Are you kidding me? I could eat whatever I wanted and then throw it right back up and avoid the consequences of eating (aka gaining weight)? It was the best of both worlds!

Plus, my disordered eating was reinforced wherever I went and by whomever I saw. I’d lose weight and go to a wardrobe fitting where the stylist would look at me excitedly, wag a pair of double 0 jeans, and happily singsong, “Down a size!”

Or I’d get a phone call from my agent, who would say, “You’ve never looked better. Keep doing what you’re doing.” Thanks, Steve ― little do you know that at this very moment you’re muted while I throw up my spicy tuna roll.

Or I’d be walking across the soundstage lot on my way to a table read and a producer would roll down his BMW window and tell me to “keep it up!” I’d flash my pearly whites (or ― more accurately ― slightly-stained-from-the-stomach-acid whites) and feel proud.

My disordered eating was reinforced wherever I went and by whomever I saw. I’d lose weight and go to a wardrobe fitting where the stylist would look at me excitedly, wag a pair of double 0 jeans, and happily singsong, ‘Down a size!’

Another thing I soon learned about eating disorders in Hollywood was that they can be highly competitive. Highly. Competitive. I encountered countless famous actresses, singers and entertainment personalities with eating disorders and found out there was a kind of “disordered eating hierarchy” in young Hollywood, with anorexia reigning over bulimia.

I’d show up at red carpet events and feel like I was getting side-eyed by girls I knew to be anorexic. They’d look at me with what I believed to be pity and I’d look back at them with admiration. In my mind, they were so poised, so full of control, so disciplined. And there I was, puffy-cheeked and swollen-knuckled from all my purging. I was unable to not eat and unable to keep down what I ate.

I started to feel ashamed that I wasn’t good enough at disordered eating. I’d analyze my bulimia and feel terrible. I told myself that if I were better at this, if I were truly committed, I would just be able to not eat. I was convinced that bulimia was nothing more than poor man’s anorexia. What kind of hack was I?

Inevitably, the shame snowballed and so did the bulimia. Before I knew it, I was having five, six or seven purging sessions a day. By definition of the disorder, I was truly succeeding. And yet my bulimia always felt like a failure ― like I was coming up short of what a true disordered eater could (and should) accomplish.

Mark Davis via Getty Images Me at the Creative Emmy Awards in 2013. It’s scary to me how easy it was to cover up what was really going on. If you throw on a nice outfit and smile big for the cameras, they’ll never know! I really want to help change this by encouraging people struggling with disordered eating to speak openly and honestly about it.

This hellish bulimic spiral continued for three more years. And during those years ― plus the 10 years before when I was wrapped up in other forms of disordered eating ― not one person in the entertainment industry confronted me about it. Maybe my destructive behavior was obvious to everyone around me, but if they were all monetizing the situation ― and essentially me ― then what incentive did they have to try to change it or help me?

The one person who did ultimately confront me was my sister-in-law. I was living in Toronto while shooting the Netflix show “Between,” and she and my brother came to visit me for Thanksgiving. We went out to a nice restaurant where I ate lots of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce … and then I made my way to the bathroom. I purged and purged and purged, celebrating the Pilgrims’ first harvest in the New World the way I knew best. Then I swung open the bathroom door and came face to face with my sister-in-law.

“You need help,” she told me. And I knew she was right. I felt a strange combination of terrified and relieved ― terrified that someone knew my secret and I would have to face my disordered eating, and relieved that maybe now I would finally get better.

Once I got back to Los Angeles from Canada, I met a therapist named Laura whom I really liked. Laura was a spiritual type who hugged me at the end of every session. She had long auburn hair and wore prairie skirts and used the word “beautiful” a lot ― often after I’d said things that were not even remotely beautiful (which was confusing to me until I realized that she used “beautiful” in spaces where most therapists would say, “I understand”).

I met with Laura three times a week for sessions and she attended particularly stressful industry events with me, since those events were often huge triggers for my bulimia. (Stress + crostini hors d’oeuvres = a bulimic spiral waiting to happen.)

Courtesy of Jennette McCurdy This photo was taken right around the time my mom passed away. I was really struggling with disordered eating and had just dipped my toe in the waters of bulimia. I was absolutely terrified of gaining weight and I would take a photo of myself every morning to compare it to a photo of myself from the day before.

Laura was my plus-one to the 2015 Kids’ Choice Awards. Nick Jonas called me to the stage, I locked eyes with a clapping Angelina Jolie, and I got through my lines. Then I walked backstage to meet up with Laura, who was trying to be discreet about taking a picture of Adam Sandler (she wasn’t very familiar with his films but loved “The Chanukah Song”). She beamed at me as I scarfed down a few sliders. Then she quickly sensed my inner turmoil. We rushed to the backseat of an Uber XL where I began sobbing as Laura made sure that I didn’t throw up. The Uber driver was very confused as I repeatedly wailed, “The sliiiiiiiders!”

Around that time, Laura told me she thought I needed a higher level of care and suggested an inpatient treatment facility in Colorado. And that was when I quit seeing Laura. I told myself I was tired of her spiritual approach, but in retrospect I think it might’ve had more to do with the fact that I wasn’t ready to get better. I wasn’t ready to let go of my disordered eating.

Over the next year and a half, I continued to purge even as I also began to face various come-to-Jesus moments. My throat frequently bled and I popped blood vessels in my eyes from vomiting so much. Once I lost a tooth after regurgitated stomach fluids wore down my enamel. Another time I passed out on my friend’s bathroom floor from dehydration. Finally, I decided it was time to seek help again.

At 23, I was back in Canada working on the second season of “Between” and it felt like the right time to go back into treatment. I met a whip-smart eating disorder specialist, Hank, who used a combination of cognitive behavioral, dialectical behavioral and schema-based therapies.

Hank was not spiritual and did not hug. He dressed impeccably and his hair was perfectly combed. He weighed me at the beginning of each session and gave me homework at the end. He consistently challenged me and urged me to challenge him. When I said something that wasn’t logical, he’d say, “That’s your eating disorder voice.”

I began to face various come-to-Jesus moments. My throat frequently bled and I popped blood vessels in my eyes from vomiting so much. Once I lost a tooth when I passed out on my friend’s bathroom floor from dehydration. Finally, I decided it was time to seek help again.

Identifying my eating disorder voice was the most pivotal aspect of my recovery. I had to learn to understand this thing in and out. I had to recognize that this part of my mind, this eating disorder voice, was not healthy and was not going away. So if I wanted to get better, I’d have to call out my eating disorder voice every single time it popped up. I’d have to confront my urges to obsess or indulge in disordered eating behaviors (which arose hundreds of times every day), work to avoid or correct them, and act based on my recently adopted healthy mindset instead.

Recovery was brutal. It felt like breaking up with a bad boyfriend whom I loved even though I knew I shouldn’t. He treated me poorly, he ruined my life, he consistently devastated me, and yet, without him, who was I really?

Since so much of my identity had been built around the framework of disordered eating, I literally had to relearn how to think in order to rebuild my identity, which was as painstaking and uncomfortable as it sounds. I thought recovery was about walking along white sand beaches with a soft smile while wearing crepe pants ― not sobbing for half-days at a time or falling into a dark hole of depression because suddenly the thing that determined the largest part of who I was for 13 years was now gone.

I had several relapses during my time with Hank and several more even after I finished the program, but Hank warned me about relapses and told me they were totally normal. The important thing was getting back on the recovery program anytime I had a slip so that, as they say in recovery, “the slip doesn’t become a slide.”

Courtesy of Brian Kimskey Me in 2019.

And so far, the slips haven’t become slides. Anytime I’ve had a slip, I’ve gotten back on my program. It’s been two years and I’m doing well, recovering and moving forward. I still get eating disorder urges, compulsions and occasional fantasies. I still hear that old eating disorder voice, but luckily I hear it less and less often. And when I do hear it, I now have the tools to muffle it. So, thankfully, I can now open up about my disordered eating without titling this piece “I Threw Up Three Minutes Before I Wrote This.”

Jennette McCurdy grew up acting and had leading roles on shows like Netflix’s “Between” and Nickelodeon’s “iCarly.” Not totally satisfied with the work she did as an actress and wanting to take charge of her own creative narrative, McCurdy began writing and directing her own projects in 2017. Her first short film, “Kenny,” was featured on Short of the Week and in The Hollywood Reporter, and is an official selection for the 2019 Florida Film Festival, where it’s nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film. McCurdy’s newest short film, “Strong Independent Women,” is about a mother who puts all her energy into helping her daughter overcome an eating disorder. For more about McCurdy, visit her official website, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Do you have a personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch!

If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorder Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237.

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nattynikolaos · 6 years

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Your best shot at getting the physique you want in the quickest, most efficient way possible, would be to figure out how many calories your body actually burns daily without excercise. This is called your BMR and you can find a calculator for this anywhere via google. For one person, that may be 1600 calories, meaning that as long as they eat exactly 1600 calories a day for a week, they will not gain or lose weight. This is called "maintenance". In order for you to lose weight, you need to have burned more calories than you put into your body, meaning you need to create a caloric "deficit" for yourself every week as opposed to a "surplus" which will only allow weight gain. Based off of the number each person gets from a BMR calculator, or maintence calorie calculator (I don't like these because they tend to over shoot and I don't typically lose weight using them). For some people it's 1600 calories, for others, 2000. Whatever your number happens to be is what you either need to eat below, or burn below every day to ensure weight loss. You will see better results doing by eating below your daily recommended calories and burning (exercising) on an every day basis. For example, if in order for you to stay the weight you are now you need to eat 1800 calories every day, then eating 150–250 calories less will result in weight loss every week.

1800 calories a day = 12,600 calories a week (you will stay the same weight)

1550 calories a day = 10,850 calories a week (this is what a deficit is and it will create weight loss because you would be under maintenance)

So 250 calories less everyday would equal a deficit of 1750 calories a week (exactly half a pound a week). At this rate, you would be losing 2 pounds a month, which from the sounds of your question, is not a speed of your liking.

This is why for you, I recommend exercise everyday of the week with a set goal of calories you want to burn through that excercise in addition to you already eating at a deficit.

Let's say you're me, and to maintain weight you need 1600 calories. If I want to lose weight quickly, I decide to eat 250 calories less, and to burn 500 calories daily working out (I run twice a day every day for about 20 minutes with a 5 minute cool down, adding up to an hour of excercise daily. I may even lift weights in the gym before or after running, in which case I may some days allow myself an extra 100/150 calories, but I'm pretty strict so emphasis on sometimes.)

All this means, is that by following this routine every day, I create a caloric deficit of 750–900 calories depending on the days I only want to do cardio training.

This comes out to anywhere between 5250-6300 calories a week.

Muscle is, in the end, what makes a body look spectacular, so if you're looking to get into fitness model shape (toned stomach, abs, etc) and not just be flat bodied all around when you lose fat, it's important that you get in some gym time or body weight training (no dumbbells or paid memberships required). It's imperative you train your body on top of cardio at least 3 days out of the week (5 days will give bangin' results in my experience, but you need to be getting that cardio in daily, no matter how days you choose to train body). Not only this, but you need to develop what I call a "split". This is a way for you to train different parts of your body through the week in order to have hit a majority of its parts as a whole unit after 5 days.

An example:

Sunday: Rest muscles/Do cardio

Monday: Cardio (before or after) Chest, Biceps, Shoulders

(Just biceps and shoulders if you're a girl)

Tuesday: Cardio (Before or after) Back, Triceps, Legs, Forearms

Wednesday: Rest/Do cardio

Thursday: Cardio (Before or after) Chest, Biceps, Shoulders

Friday: Cardio (Before or after) Back, Triceps, Legs, Forearms

Saturday: Rest/Do Cardio

Everyday or Every other day: Abs (This is the only way they will appear in addition to how you eat). "Abs are made in the kitchen" as they say, but a muscle has to be told to grow before it can show (no pun intended)

Thats twice a week you're hitting every body part! Killer dude!

Not only that but you're getting that cardio in almost every day? I'm proud man, seriously.

That's 1.5–1.8 (nearly two) pounds a week

That means in a 1 month/4 weeks alone (30 days of hard work and suffering)

I have 6–7.2+ pounds gone. Forever :)

If I kept that up for half a year (6 months), I'd be almost 50 POUNDS lighter on my feet. It's a magical thing if you truly dedicate to yourself.

Manipulate this advice into a plan that works for you weekly/monthly, and with all the effort you put in, you'll be truly surprised at all the changes your body goes through. Sooner or later those abs are gonna show up to the party uninvited lol.

Good luck, I hope this was helpful.

#fitness #fitblr #fitfam #health #goals #gymlife #healthy #gymrat #personal #diet #I gave the as an answer on quora #someone asked if they'd lose weight #eating like just two eggs #and to cups of broccoli #and thought they would lose more fat than muscle #I provided a life saving alternative #imho

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tolikmakarov7757 · 4 years

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How much weight will you lose eating 1,000 calories

New Post has been published on https://alisaqlain.co/how-much-weight-will-you-lose-eating-1000-calories/

How much weight will you lose eating 1,000 calories

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Take a look at the following important reasons why eating less than 1000 calories is a waste of time. Why youre gaining weight on 1000 calories? youre not actually eating 1000 calories. I try to explain 14 reasons why you are eating 1000 calories a day and not losing weight. I have been eating around 900-1000 calories a day and running miles daily for 2 weeks now.

This calorie calculator estimates the number of calories needed each day to maintain. Eating less but gaining weight is a common complain of people who want to lose weight. Weight management still comes down to the calories you take in versus those you burn off. Another study in obese people showed some under-reported by up to 2000 calories a day! my friend is eating 1000 calories and theyre not losing weight. (the other common reason is unknowingly eating more calories than they think they are due to some type of error. Some experts recommend reducing calories by around 500 calories per day for a weight loss of 1 pound ( kg) of weight per week.

1000, calories, eating, losing, under, weight

#1000 #calories #eating #losing #under #weight

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devinxewk781 · 4 years

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I like apples. Can I eat way too many?

Exercise is an important part of a healthy and balanced way of life and assists deal with and also protect against heart disease as well as diabetes. But the 3 Day Diet plan does not address this in any way. Neither does it instruct you exactly how to make modifications in your diet regimen that will certainly permit a lifetime of healthy eating.

Are apples good for skin?

"The health benefit differences are negligible. However, green apples may contain slightly more fibre and less carbohydrates and sugar than red apples," Tuck said. If antioxidants are your focus, then red apples win. Again, the difference is small.

A low-fiber diet, seniority and also physical lack of exercise can additionally contribute to bowel irregularity. This is an in-depth post about apples.

04/6What occurs if you eat apples in the evening?

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I have been eating on the initial 3 days 5 spoons of rice for 3 meals a day shich have to do with 500 calories a day. Currently 3 truly thin pieces of barbequed hen forevery 3 meals which are nearly 900 calories a day without fat. If im seeing a distinction yet I hope so, Sickness let you knowbut im not sure.

Stroll while you wait for your trip, and stretch your legs on a road trip. Limit alcohol, and eat fruits and vegetables-- cooked if you require to prevent salads or raw items in the area you visit. Right here's a straightforward but exact calorie calculator that reveals specifically the number of calories you must eat to preserve or shed weight.

Soluble fiber dissolves in water. It remains in beans, peas, as well as some other plant foods. This post analyzes the effects of probiotics on weight-loss. Several research studies recommend that they can assist you drop weight and also stomach fat.

Is pooping an.

One cup of baked acorn squash cubes might have 9 g of fiber, yet it likewise has 20 g of web carbohydrates.

So if you are attempting to lose weight, fill up on reduced calorie, water-rich veggies like leafy eco-friendlies, zucchini, peppers, broccoli and also cauliflower.

If it doesn not help me do not do it since it has actually been done exactly as created because I wished to see if it actually worked.

One cup (152 grams) of strawberries consists of under 50 calories and provides 3 grams of nutritional fiber, in addition to 150% of the RDI for vitamin C and nearly 30% for manganese (1 ).

Did you understand the pectin in apples helps lower bad cholesterol by as long as 16 percent? This raw apple dish is an easy means of enlivening your daily apples, and also turning them into a healthy gourmet treat.

That being stated, not all carbohydrates are created equal. A medium apple consists of 25 grams of carbohydrates, but 4.4 of those are fiber (1 ). One medium apple has 95 calories, 25 grams of carbohydrates and also 14% of the day-to-day worth for vitamin C (1 ). Apples likewise have various other nutrients as well as substances that aid promote growth of healthy germs in your digestive tract.

Develop a new password

So, is Pink Girl really the healthiest apple out there? It depends on that you ask and how they identify "healthiest," yet something is for sure-- eating one makes up a smart decision on your component. Below are 13 reasons why sweet soft drink misbehaves for your health and wellness.

Apples are chock-full of fiber that decreases digestion and also maintains you feeling full for longer. One research published in The American Journal of Scientific Nutrition revealed that individuals who ate more fiber lost more weight as well as had a smaller waist area. A medium-sized apple consists of around 4 grams of fiber, which is 16% of the advised fiber consumption for ladies and also 11% for guys. Just remember to consume the peel-- the majority of the apple's fiber is discovered there! By including fibrous, healthy and balanced foods like apples in your diet regimen, you'll start crowding out the junk food, ultimately minimizing your general calorie intake and slimming down.

Apples are the most affordable and wholesome sources of nourishment available throughout the year. They are high in anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. That's why eating them might avoid persistent conditions of the heart, mind, GI tract, bones, and eyes. Consume three apples daily, picking dishes from the menu plan (listed below). No need to consume milk with each dish, yet eat a pint daily.

Is Fruit Good or Bad for Your Health? The Dessert Truth.

Throughout the 3 days of the diet regimen, balanced nutrition is doing not have. Several of the foods that are suggested are high in salt and also fat and would not be appropriate for people with specific medical problems like heart problem, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, or high cholesterol. You may not be obtaining enough vitamins, minerals, and fiber while you get on the diet. If you are taking medicine for your diabetic issues as well as want to attempt the 3-day diet plan, it's important to talk with your doctor initially regarding exactly how to change your medicine. The 3 Day Diet regimen is low calorie, however it absolutely is not low-fat, low-salt, or reduced cholesterol, so it is not a healthy and balanced choice for the majority of people with specific clinical problems such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problem, and also high cholesterol.

What fruit is low in sugar?

If you have diabetes, it's perfectly possible to enjoy fruit such as bananas as part of a healthy diet. If you like bananas, the following tips could help minimize their effects on your blood sugar levels: Watch your portion size: Eat a smaller banana to reduce the amount of sugar you eat in one sitting.

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bloodgutsanchocolatecake · 3 years

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Talked myself down yesterday by finding a spot with an inbody scale to go get my measurements and compare to my renpho scale. While the renpho is fairly accurate with, like within 1.2 lbs for weight, it's way off on my muscle to fat proportions 🙃. My BMR is off by 120 calories. I thought my bfp was 34.8% but it's actually 43.3%...which is a huge amount to be off by(14 lbs). my skeletal muscle mass is off by a whopping 18 lbs but translated it's only off by 7% and my fat free body weight is off by 14 lbs/14%. My body water weight is actually fairly close and only off by like 3%. My muscle mass is waaaaaaaaay off and I've always wondered about that because my muscle mass seemed high for someone who is around 40% water, but I realize that number is the combined water+muscle which is misleading to call it muscle mass. So with that taken in account my lean body mass is only off by 3%. However my muscle distribution is within 8% of the ideal at any given part of my body, so I don't need to focus on building muscle so much as making sure I keep muscle and burn fat.

I would say out of all the measurements renpho takes, the ones you can trust are muscle mass (use that as your fat free body weight measurement too), body water %, and total weight. The accuracy with those is within 97-99% accurate. The inbody doesn't measure individually visceral and subcutaneous fat, but I think the renpho doesn't take into account visceral fat weight when calculating your body %, and it's off on subcutaneous fat %, which would explain the 10-ish lb/% difference in my body fat measurements. If you want to know how many lbs of fat you have and you have a renpho scale I would calculate using your renpho bfp number than add your visceral fat number to that result, then use that number to calculate your body fat %. It's lots of math 😅 literally the only math I've ever found useful or been decent at.

Anyways, I think I might be restricting too low. I took my measurements earlier and they haven't budged either. I'm going to increase my intake to like 1100 with the aim of netting 800-900 a day and see if that helps. My body is obviously desperately holding on to weight bc it thinks it's starving. Eat the blubber bitch we're eating enough food as is. It sucks that low restricting isn't working for me bc I was pulling it off pretty well and I could have lost a lot of weight really fast. Maybe I can ease into low restricting after my plateau breaks?

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no-itdonthave2bthisway · 5 years

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If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef

With one dietary change, the U.S. could almost meet greenhouse-gas emission goals.

The Atlantic |

James Hamblin

Ecoanxiety is an emerging condition. Named in 2011, the American Psychological Association recently described it as the dread and helplessness that come with “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations.”

It’s not a formal diagnosis. Anxiety is traditionally defined by an outsized stress response to a given stimulus. In this case, the stimulus is real, as are the deleterious effects of stress on the body.

This sort of disposition toward ecological-based distress does not pair well with a president who has denied the reality of the basis for this anxiety. Donald Trump has called climate change a fabrication on the part of “the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He has also led the United States to become the only G20 country that will not honor the Paris Climate Accord, and who has appointed fossil-fuel advocates to lead the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.

For people who experience climate-related anxiety, this all serves as a sort of exacerbation by presidential gaslight. The remedy for a condition like this is knowing what can be done to mitigate environmental degradation, from within in a country singularly committed to it.

Like what?

Helen Harwatt is a researcher trained in environmental nutrition, a field focused on developing food systems that balance human health and sustainability. She’s interested in policy, but realistic about how much progress can be expected under the aforementioned leadership. So, she and colleagues have done research on maximizing the impacts of individuals. As with so many things in life and health, that tends to come down to food.

Recently Harwatt and a team of scientists from Oregon State University, Bard College, and Loma Linda University calculated just what would happen if every American made one dietary change: substituting beans for beef. They found that if everyone were willing and able to do that—hypothetically—the U.S. could still come close to meeting its 2020 greenhouse-gas emission goals, pledged by President Barack Obama in 2009.

That is, even if nothing about our energy infrastructure or transportation system changed—and even if people kept eating chicken and pork and eggs and cheese—this one dietary change could achieve somewhere between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed to meet the target.

“I think there’s genuinely a lack of awareness about how much impact this sort of change can have,” Harwatt told me. There have been analyses in the past about the environmental impacts of veganism and vegetarianism, but this study is novel for the idea that a person’s dedication to the cause doesn’t have to be complete in order to matter. A relatively small, single-food substitution could be the most powerful change a person makes in terms of their lifetime environmental impact—more so than downsizing one’s car, or being vigilant about turning off light bulbs, and certainly more than quitting showering.

To understand why the climate impact of beef alone is so large, note that the image at the top of this story is a sea of soybeans in a silo in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. The beans belong to a feed lot that holds 38,000 cattle, the growth and fattening of which means dispensing 900 metric tons of feed every day. Which is to say that these beans will be eaten by cows, and the cows will convert the beans to meat, and the humans will eat the meat. In the process, the cows will emit much greenhouse gas, and they will consume far more calories in beans than they will yield in meat, meaning far more clearcutting of forests to farm cattle feed than would be necessary if the beans above were simply eaten by people.

This inefficient process happens on a massive scale. Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of red meat, holds around 212 million cattle. (In June, the U.S. temporarily suspended imports of beef from Brazil due to abscesses, collections of pus, in the meat.) According to the United Nations, 33 percent of arable land on Earth is used to grow feed for livestock. Even more, 26 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of Earth is used for grazing livestock. In all, almost a third of the land on Earth is used to produce meat and animal products.

This means much less deforestation and land degradation if so many plant crops weren’t run through the digestive tracts of cattle. If Americans traded their beef for beans, the researchers found, that would free up 42 percent of U.S. crop land.

“The real beauty of this kind of thing is that climate impact doesn’t have to be policy-driven,” said Harwatt. “It can just be a positive, empowering thing for consumers to see that they can make a significant impact by doing something as simple as eating beans instead of beef.”

She and her colleagues conclude in the journal Climatic Change: “While not currently recognized as a climate policy option, the ‘beans for beef’ scenario offers significant climate change mitigation and other environmental benefits, illustrating the high potential of animal to plant food shifts.”

The beans for beef scenario is, it seems, upon us.

“I think it’s such an easy-to-grasp concept that it could be less challenging than a whole dietary shift,” said Harwatt. The words vegetarian and vegan have stifled some people’s thinking on what it means to eat well—to consume responsibly, conscientiously. Rather the beans for beef scenario is the dietary equivalent of effective altruism—focusing on where efforts will have the highest yield. “It’s kind of a worst-first approach, looking at the hottest spot in the food system in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, and what could that be substituted with without losing protein and calories in the food system? And at the same time, gaining health benefits.”

In addition to the well-documented health benefits of a plant-based diet, this case also brings empowerment, or at least reprieve. Regardless of a person’s degree of ecoanxiety, there is some recourse in knowing how far individuals can go to make up for a regressive federal administration simply by eating beans.

James Hamblin, MD, is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He hosts the video series If Our Bodies Could Talk and is the author of a book by the same title.

“Beans, beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot the better you fell so eat your beans with every meal.”

Well, you’ve just read an 18-wheeler load of pure-grade Bullshit. Hamblin and Harwatt – come see me any time so I can instantly debunk your bullshit.

First and foremost, climate change is a ZERO threat to our Earth. Earth’s climate has changed many times and, yet, the Earth is still here in all its glory…and humans have survived it all, except for Noah and family. They were delivered.

Climate change is best described as weather. Here in Texas, we say if you don’t like the weather, wait a bit. Changes in weather happen all the time, 24/7/365, and there is no predicting weather and there is no explanation as to why weather does what it does. Weather is the same year after year and people get used to that consistency. So, when the consistency takes a turn, people tend to wonder what’s going on.

Then you get a few Brainiac’s like these two telling us it can change back if we eat beans instead of beef. I think most 3rd graders out there can see right through this load of bull. It really is sad to see my fellow humans fall so low as to believe this bull. Wake up, brother! Wake up, sister! The seas rise and the seas fall. The creeks rise and the creeks dry up. The wind blows and then it doesn’t. Ice melts and water freezes. It’s an endless cycle and humans have no control over the weather.

You can be like Bill Gates. The government made him one of the richest people in the world, yet he spends his big money on space particles to dim the sun. Friggin’ dim wit!

Our roads and bridges are shot, worn out, crumbling away. Millions of people go hungry everyday. A little boy dreams of the bicycle he’ll never have. A little girl longs to cuddle with her little doll she’ll never hold. All the while, governments run around professing this and that – all of which is actually meaningless to life on Earth but specifically designed to steal tax dollars for their own selfish gains. Satan is a master at manipulation, and watching the Democratic debates is an excellent example of the fun Satan is having with dim wits. Al Gore sold his soul years ago. He’s a multi-millionaire now with no worries over what the climate does so why not - let’s go out today and spread some more bullshit.

“Ecoanxiety is an emerging condition. Named in 2011, the American Psychological Association recently described it as the dread and helplessness that come with “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations.”

??Ecoanxiety??????????? Are you kidding me??? Get the hell up, snowflake, and go outside and enjoy that which the good Lord has so generously bestowed upon you. My God, how pathetic and totally lost you have to be to actually believe that you or your children or even your children’s children’s children are going to die from climate change?!?!?

Mankind faces the Tribulation as described in Revelation. During the Tribulation the weather will certainly change, and it will not be because mankind ate beef or beans. Laughing out load!!! I just can’t get over how completely dumb ass this article truly is.

And guess who these two twat-waffles blame it on? Trump. President Trump is to blame. President Trump is causing ecoanxiety. Friggin’ hilarious!

Here’s a really funny one: “In the process, the cows will emit much greenhouse gas, and they will consume far more calories in beans than they will yield in meat, meaning far more clearcutting of forests to farm cattle feed than would be necessary if the beans above were simply eaten by people.”

Far more clearcutting than necessary??? If every human was eating beans, you friggin dim wits, then there would be massive clearcutting as humans out-number cattle – 2018 est @ 998million cattle vs 7.4billion humans. With 7.4 billion humans eating beans everyday…well, you do the greenhouse gas math.

I truly do hate these morons who claim to be learned experts. Experts in dumb-ass is what they are!

Say NO to climate change. Don’t vote for anyone hawking Climate Change. Get smart. Go outside and play. The weather is just fine.

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cyan-nightshade · 5 years

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Instruction Manual

They've always told me that poetry is power, And I agree. Words flowing from a poet's mouth Stronger than any river could ever Hope to be. Enough force behind words to build an army Or to break one. I listen to these poets, To their powerful linguistics, Hearing the bravery in each articulation As they share their stories of struggle And overcoming. I hear the tales of rehab, relapse, Rehab, relapse, And the methods of which it is done. The power of the poet is unparalleled, A sharp kitchen knife with a tiny black handle, Its purpose mundane, But with the ability to be so much more. I listen to these stories And the knife grows closer to my skin, Only it is not the poet gripping this edge. It is me. The words of others my own justification As I allow the steel to slice my skin, Beads of crimson blossoming in the form of inspiration. Instead of learning from this power As it was intended, I'm learning everything I had done wrong. I begin to take notes in a margin As thin as she (I) wants me to be. I learned to count calories That's what All of the pretty girls in the poems do That's how they all start Shoot for under 1,000, No more than 1,500 Making mental notes of what I eat At a meal so I can look up The calories later That is, If I can't sneak a look at the box it Came in I start to memorize the values The numbers The calculator in my head ticking Every time something is put Into my mouth It's funny how much everything Can start to taste like calories Like self hate Like wanting to be thin All of the poets say "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" And I've learned that to be true Anger comes when I eat something I know I could've gone without Red anger, as red as an apple Did you know just how unhealthy an apple is? 95 calories 95 too many Tearing myself up for not being lower 1,000 is too much 900 is too 800 is It’s all too much I control this I count I count to numbers that might as well Equal infinity Any number becoming Far too high I remember a day my net was 300 And it felt like 3,000 It’s never enough I learned to starve, To empty myself to make room For love Hungry became comfortable Full became repulsive I listened to the stories of the Thin, pretty girls who talk about Being so empty, Of being able to feel cold water Slip down into an empty stomach And now I know what that's like Food begins to taste Like bile Water tastes like heaven Pure and empty and clean As pure and empty and clean As I want to be It was hard at first, Emptying yourself of all things Inside, But it became a second nature An instinct that I must pursue It became easy to be sick And starving Happiness and hatred became synonyms with the feeling of being so empty, somehow both so incomplete and complete as long as i'm curled over myself screaming at the pain that screams in my stomach, hands claws and fingers curled and hair falling out and nails breaking and scratches down my arms and pain Pain, but so blissfully empty So blissfully starving Eating in front of mirrors so I know just how disgusting i appear So I know better next time So next time it'll be a fetal position and soft sobs I feel the prettiest When I am starving I learned how to purge I used to shuffle my way to the bathroom an hour later as the self hatred began to set in, but i learned that you can't wait for the feeling to come that you must rush to the toilet and vomit up the loathing before it can attack Only the feeling still comes Just this time it's for not shoving your finger down your throat quite far enough I wonder often how i'm supposed to hide the habit when a mint has 25 calories and gum has 5 The taste of vomit that lingers my shame and my pride Knowing that it hurts but knowing that it's worth it Cheeks puffy and insides curling, twisting, trying to figure out a pattern of how and when I'll destroy them this time, a mind shouting yes as a stomach shouts no every time I kneel in front of a toilet Excuses of being sick and a stomach hurting, of just needing to use the bathroom at lunch when i stand to leave every day They must know Or perhaps I just hide it well enough Hide it beneath the surface Like a secret that could take the world down, only this one destroys only myself in being kept so well I learned to diet, something I'd formerly found so dumb and useless, something I'd turn my nose up to every time someone said they were starting one Now, a skeleton, I scour the internet for something that would work, that would make me thin I try everything and every restriction, trying to find something that will take away the hate but it only always adds Not strict enough Not taking it far enough Not committed enough Never enough Not enough I learn my ABCs all over again and fast when i'm told, doubling calorie amounts on the days i am weak Told to do the skinny girl diet instead, but those values are far too high I will practice my ABCs until I lose every last piece of myself I don't care about safe I care about loss About being thin About being able to see my ribs as if there were no skin at all Merely tissue paper on top of bone, protecting a heart that begs to stop beating, to stop taking care of a body that's being destroyed by its owner What's the point in a beating heart in a body that's falling apart? In a body that's controlled by a diet that involves fasting at least once a week? By a body regulated by a diet actually called boot camp? A diet where you bleed until you don't and cry until you can't? I learned that binging is normal Well, when you have ednos that is When you’ve starved yourself for So long And you just can’t take it any longer And you just break You give it Food tastes like giving up Of giving in to something so much Darker I feel the hatred rise as I take the First bite of 100 Trying to chew slowly But end up not even tasting It all tastes the same Like poison Like regret Like I will never be good enough Gorging myself on every last morsel I can get my tiny, pale hands on Did I take a sip of water Or is that my tears? Streaming down my face as I devour all I see Devour the semblance of love I had For myself Swallow it whole It hurts, Giving in so easily when I know I could’ve lasted I know the cycle too well though The disgust toward myself, The not taking care of myself, The binging until I feel like I’m going To vomit And at that point I might as well The food is all of the love I want Eliminating room for it No one can love this pig Rolling around in her own Self loathing As she stuffs her face with slop Bloated and full of poison This might kill me more than The starvation The despising nature I carry toward Myself Fingers and hands shaking as I Shovel more and more within me Broken Sobbing Eating Dying I learned to exercise A past source of depression and Exertion Something so studiously avoided Because it always made me feel So unworthy But now I know it’s necessary It is vital in become thin It becoming a skinny Legend Do the elliptical, do they leg lifts Burning calories Toning Trying to do anything to help The cause Exercising on an empty stomach Feels like floating Or is it dying? I can’t tell My mind is too foggy My body screaming at me to stop When I’ve already made so much Progress Wanting to vomit But wanting to be thin even more Is it worth it? This pain? My muscles aching the next day My body hushed by my hell brain That tells me this is what it takes When I feel like quitting I just think of all of the people I will have let down because I couldn’t do what was necessary To become as thin as I possibly could Giving up on a dream that Always seems to slip through my Fingers, like the handles of an Elliptical that I so weakly try to hold The calories I burn Never seem to be enough, Telling myself only 50 more, Only 100 more, Let’s burn 500 It hurts to the core To be so miserable And so unable to stop I think I blacked out eventually So tired So weak So incapable of even doing just this Of stopping Of taking breaks What a failure I’ve learned so much So much that contradicts All I’ve been taught The mirror reflecting an image that i can no longer tell is true Skin not spread quite thin enough across my ribs Bones resting not close enough to the surface Notches in my spins showing through like stones when i need them to look like mountains, jagged enough to keep away the love i don't deserve

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krausefx-blog · 7 years

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Cooking tips for your red wine sauce

Are you able to get intoxicated through pouring beer or even wine into your spices or stew? This particular question is important in case you are pregnant, have to generate a car or wish to track calories.

Brand new research from the College of Copenhagen and also the Carlsberg Research Middle creates a model with regard to how alcohol goes away from a sauce or even another liquid meal cooked in a saucepan. This model may thus be used to manage the alcohol content material. Medicine Research Information, Medicine Research, Wellness Research News, Wellness Research, Health Technology, Medicine Science Are you able to get intoxicated through pouring beer or even wine into your spices or stew? This particular question is important in case you are pregnant, have to generate a car or wish to track calories.

Postdoc at the Division of Food Technology at the University associated with Copenhagen Pia Snitkjaer has carried out a number of experiments with alcoholic beverages in liquid meals to figure out how to manage the alcohol content material during cooking for your benefit of large kitchen areas, the food industry, the actual gastronomy and eating place sector as well as with the food prep at home. "In the actual experiments I utilized 900 ml veal stock plus one hundred fifty ml beer or even wine. At this combining ratio, the alcoholic beverages concentration starts in approx. 2 percent, but drops in order to 0. 2% following a half an hour of food preparation, " explains Pia Snitkjaer, who underlines that this example is founded on wine. Precisely how a lot alcohol is remaining in, for example , the red wine sauce depends upon three factors that you should check if you want to manage the alcohol content material in a liquid meal or sauce, specifically how much the meal is reduced, be it cooked with or without the lid and how a lot alcohol is additional from the start (more concerning this in the facts area below).

"One ought to remember that you usually eat only 1/2-1 deciliter of spices. If we, for example , imagine you eat 100 ml sauce, with a focus of 2 vol % it compares to to an intake associated with 2ml of alcoholic beverages. There are 15 ml in a unit associated with alcohol, so the pregnant woman might also be able to manage it, " describes Pia Snitkjaer. Other factors the experts studied - such as the dimensions of the saucepan and the cooking temperatures - proved to be significant simply because they could affect exactly how quickly the spices was reduced.

Utilizing elementary physical biochemistry, which has to do with knowing the volatility associated with alcohol when combined with water and warmed, Associate Professor Jens Risbo from the Division of Food Technology at the University associated with Copenhagen has developed the model that displays how the alcohol acts in liquid meals.

That it is the volume from the dish that is the greatest parameter for identifying the alcohol content material - and not the actual cooking time -- matters in relation to that techniques you can use if you wish to reduce the alcohol content material in the finished meal.

"You can slow up the alcohol content rapidly by bringing the dish to a moving boil, because through boiling hard, the amount will also decrease quickly. But if you do not would like the food to steam down too much, you are able to keep adding drinking water as water evaporates, which will also reduced the alcohol content material both by dilution and evaporation, inch says Pia Snitkjaer. Put the lid upon for a reverse work

If you want to reduce the alcoholic beverages content, you can place the lid on the saucepan. "By placing the lid on the saucepan, there is a kind of invert distillation where the alcoholic beverages disappears even more quickly from the saucepan compared to water.

This is because alcoholic beverages is more volatile compared to water and thus may more readily escape. This is the same impact you use when you distil alcohol - a person heat it upward, so the alcohol evaporates more than the water, and then condense the vapours and obtain more focused alcohol, " describes Pia Snitkjaer. The actual lid does not sit down tightly on the saucepan, allowing the vapor escape under the cover so that the alcohol evaporates, while the water condenses more preferential within the colder lid as well as runs back into the actual pan.

As it at home cooks, more and more alcohol goes out under the lid, as the contents of the saucepan will contain a greater percentage of drinking water. Experiments show that this use of a cover has a dramatic impact on obtaining a low focus of alcohol. Vital for the calorie stability The study has an effect on the calculation from the calorie content within recipes. Alcohol includes a lot of calories, however will probably be listed in the recipe with the caloric content the alcoholic beverages has as an component before it is actually put into the dish, that results in a misleadingly high result. "How many fewer calories from fat there are depends on just how much alcohol is evaporated.

1 gram associated with alcohol gives around. 7 calories, therefore every time you escape 1 gram associated with alcohol, you have seven fewer calories within the saucepan, " describes Pia Snitkjaer, who else plans to develop the actual model to make this even more practical. "It would be nice in order to say precisely what what this means is for a tomato soups, a meat meal, etc . There are many stuff that can vary the result, you could get some ideas as to what happens when some of the most essential parameters are transformed - for example , what goes on if you have a lot of sugars or a lot of gelatines, like in a veal stock, " states Pia Snitkjaer

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minihappybaker-blog · 7 years

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A Short Story- Ice cream

The below story is fictional. The people in the story aren't real but it was very much inspired by my experience of life during my university years. If you can relate to any of this let me know.

I wake slowly from an uncomfortable, dehydrated sleep. Eyes slightly glued together with last night’s make up and yesterday’s contact lenses unremoved. Bladder full, I need to empty it. I try to lift my head but a sharp stab of fiery pain slices between my eyes and I crumple back onto my pillow, drained from the effort.

I blink and my dry eyes attempt to focus. I see that I brought a glass of water to bed with me (thank God I remembered this time) and reach for it cautiously with a shaking hand. I lift myself up again, slowly this time so as not to disturb the dragon in my head again and gulp back as much as I can. My stomach churns in protest. I lie still, hoping I can go back to sleep but the dragon is awake again and the my head pounds. I need 2 paracetamol. I scan the bedside table but they aren’t there, my heart sinks and I curse my own poor planning. I haven’t made things easy for myself.

I sit up, ignoring the blinding pain in my head. My mouth tastes familiarly sour and metallic. It tastes like the pain in my head. I grab the empty glass and somehow manage to coordinate my limbs to move to the bathroom. I’m wearing a t-shirt and last night’s knickers. I don’t have the energy to put on some pants or shorts, I just hope none of my housemates boyfriends are around, they’d be horrified if they saw me like this.

Safe in the bathroom I slump onto the toilet seat. The dragon momentarily stops breathing fire across my brain as I relive myself. The reprieve doesn’t last long. I rummage around in the bathroom cabinet and find the paracetamol. There are 3 left. I take them all, glugged down with more lukewarm tap water. 2 will never be enough today.

As soon as I have swallowed them, a wave of panic jolts through me like an electric shock. A hazy memory of taking some painkillers at some point tries to surface but I can’t remember when I took them. Was it before I went to bed last night? If so has it been more than 4 hours since the last dose? Did I take more than the recommended dose then as well? Can you even take them with alcohol? I’m not sure but my dehydrated brain whizzes through the worst case scenarios. I could accidentally overdose. My phone has no battery and I don’t know where I left my charger so I won’t be able to call for help. At what point would I call for help anyway? How would I know if something is wrong when I feel so horrendous anyway? I could see if my housemates are in and ask them to call an ambulance just in case, but then I’d just be having another one of my episodes, another overreaction, more drama from Clare again. This is the type of thing that happens to me. It will become a story they tell on nights out, “Remember when Clare woke us up at 7am to call an ambulance because she thought she’s taken an overdose of paracetamol but she actually just had a hangover?” They will laugh. I’ll laugh too but a part of me will feel like a fool. A part of them will think, “For fuck sake Clare!”.

My heartrate slows slightly, I tell myself I’m fine. I tell myself I won’t die from taking 1 extra paracetamol. If I start feeling worse I will call my housemates. I breathe deeply trying to get a full breath. My skin crawls and my head pounds again. I skulk down to the kitchen to make toast. The thought of warm carbs sitting in my stomach and then going back to bed to wait for the painkillers to work immediately soothes me. My mouth waters in anticipation despite my still churning stomach. I make 2 slices and eat a 3rd slice of bread with margarine while I’m waiting. The bread is slightly stale and I don’t enjoy it but it distracts me from my headache and my worries about the paracetamol.

Back in bed, the tension in my head starts to thaw. The metallic taste in my mouth is still there and the nausea is worse despite the toast. I look at the clock by my bed, 6.54am. I’m wide awake. My mind starts to race back to last night. A blur. Pub- wine and shots, club- wine then vodka, party back at my house, more wine, more vodka. Little white pills and bags of white powder. Money spent- I have no idea but it must have been over 200, a lot on my student budget. Deeper into my overdraught. I need to not think about that.

My head still throbs but it’s a duller now, the embers of the dragon’s fire instead of the blast itself. I try to piece things together. I’d felt uncomfortable at first. My size 10 dress felt too tight, my cheeks too chubby, eyes too small for my face. My calves and ankles packed into my tights and 6 inch heels gave the illusion of slimmer legs but my thighs rubbed together at the top reminding me I need to try harder, be smaller, suck everything in, don’t eat anything.

My anxiety increases, I can’t relax. I remember walking into the pub trying to look confident. Strutting my stuff in those heels, flicking my long hair over my shoulder and searching the room for cute guys. Trying to make eye contact, nothing. They seemed to be looking but not at me. Not surprising as my friend Liani was in front of me. They all saw her first, smiled, tried to catch her eye. Took in her long legs and tiny waste. Her simple tunic dress hanging loosely over her slim breasts and hips somehow seemed to enhance the ease with which she carried herself. She didn’t need to suck anything in, worry about tummy roles or rubbing thighs. She ate crisps and drank beer without worrying about weight watchers points. When guys came over to sit with us she thought about which one was cuter while I hoped that one of them would think I was OK. They would never chose me first, I was always the consolation prize. I drank.

As the night had gone on my confidence grew. The booze does that, the coke allows me to carry on drinking for longer. For a while I was carefree, attractive, not skinny but not taking up too much space either. I was funny, confident, sexy. We went to the bathroom, another pill, another line. I looked in the mirror as I stood next to Liani. I was still shorter and wider but the gulf that separated our looks had closed a bit. I felt lighter inside and out. We danced. All night, me still trying to catch someone’s eye and Liani trying to fend them off. The rest is fuzzy. The club was sweaty and hot. Liani was kissing a gorgeous guy on the dancefloor, the guy I’d been talking to looked disappointed. “Damn I was hoping to get your friends number, she’s gorgeous, but I guess she prefers him,”. My face had burned but it was dark so he’d never have known. He’d never have realised I had thought he was going to ask for my number. I went to the bar and bought a round of drinks.

My face burns again with shame as I remember. My legs twitch. I breathe deeply again trying to get enough air into my lungs. My head swims. I can feel every inch of my stomach and thighs and try to imagine if they were smaller, how much easier would life be. I look at the clock again, 7.15. I want to eat again. I’m not hungry but I want something nice, something to distract me. I want to be able to sleep and a full tummy will help me but I can’t use up any more calories yet. Eventually I must have fallen asleep again but I don’t rest. Yes that is possible to sleep without resting at all. I seem to do it a lot. When I come round again the clock says it’s 10.19 but my body is rigid, my neck stiff. I’m still trying to get enough air into my lungs.

I decide enough time has passed since the toast so I can allow myself to eat again. I have already had 385 calories from the toast and margarine. I don’t need to look at the back of the packets to know this. I’ve programmed myself to calculate calories automatically. People who don’t diet are amazed I can remember. I get dressed, brush my teeth and remove last night’s make up and contact lenses. I don’t shower. I don’t want to undress and have to see my body, feel the curves that are too big as I wash and see myself in the large bathroom mirror when I’m drying myself. My baggy tracksuit bottoms and hoody make me feel small by comparison.

On the way down to the kitchen I call out to my housemates. No one answers, they must all be at lectures. I should have been to two already today. I could make the third if I hurried up but then I’d have to have a shower, face my oversized body and try to find something to wear that looks reasonably OK on me. Easier said than done. Then I’d have to sit in my lecture while I try to breath normally and my stomach churns and I worry that people can hear it and I worry that I’m going to faint and that I might lose control of my body completely but I can’t leave because there’s no excuse to just walk out of the lecture and everyone will see me and know there’s something wrong with me because I can’t sit in class for an hour without having to dash for air. I wouldn’t take in much of the lecture anyway, I can never concentrate when I’m in this frame of mind, which is almost all the time.

Just thinking about being trapped in a lecture theatre makes my head start to thud again, the dragon stirring, I need to eat.

I make myself toasties with low fat cheese and ham. I use 4 slices of bread. 900 calories. After this I’ll only have 215 left for the rest of the day but that’s fine. I’ll sleep most of the day and then just have a cuppa-soup and another piece of toast in the evening. I east the toasties in front of the TV with a cup of milky sweet tea. I don’t count the calories in the milk and sugar. As I’m eating I feel calmer, my breathing slows. I stop worrying about missing my lectures and taking too many paracetamol and taking too many drugs and spending too much money and messing up my diet again and looking desperate and fat last night next to my slim and confident friend. I savour the delicious melted cheese and the crispy toasted bread and sip my tea and I focus on the smell, taste and textures and the feeling of swallowing the food and the warmth as it hits my stomach.

As I get towards the end of the last toasty my anxiety starts to return. I don’t want this to be over. What will I do next? What if I can’t sleep straight away? I’m going to crave something sweet. My brain anticipates the craving before I even start craving it. I’ve been here so many times before.

I return to the kitchen, I no longer feel small in my large hoody, I can feel the bread in my stomach and I think of the dress that was already too tight last night. I search my cupboard for something sweet. I don’t usually buy sweet treats because I can’t seem to stop at one. When I do buy them they rarely last longer than a day. The only sweet thing I have is a box of weightwatchers cereal bars. 88 calories. It says it on the box this time, not that my built in calorie counter didn’t already know. There are two left in the box. I take one back to the living room. I wanted to make another cup of tea to have with it but the thought of waiting for the kettle to boil before I can eat it feels impossible. I try to nibble the bar slowly but when I’m halfway down it I start to eat faster. I’ve already decided I’m going back for the other bar. It’s OK I reason with myself. I won’t need anything else all day after this and I can still have a cuppa-soup (55 cals) this evening and still be (almost) within my calories. It’s still not even 11am.

Second bar demolished, I then decide I might as well eat the rest of my calories for the day (39) now and really enjoy them. The day stretches out in front of me with nothing to break it up. No meals, no snacks to punctuate the hangover and comedown. I might as well just enjoy this now that I’ve started. I just need one more mouthful of something sweet and then I’ll feel satisfied and be able to sleep for a bit. After a search of the kitchen (my housemates cupboards as well as mine), I find a tub of Ben and Jerrys in the freezer. It’s not mine, it must be my Sarah or Lucy’s. “Please be open already” I hope inwardly. Jackpot, it is open and about a 5th of the tub has been eaten. This means I can easily sneak a couple of spoonfuls and no-one will notice. I check the door and call out again. No reply, the coast is clear. I spoon a thin layer of ice cream out of the tub and into a bowl. There is more than my 39 calories there but not much more. If I end up only going over by 100 calories for the day then it’s still OK. I can easily make that up tomorrow by having less then, and besides I must have burnt a lot of calories dancing last night.

I eat it in the kitchen standing over the sink so I can easily hide the evidence if anyone should come back. It’s delicious. The sweet, cold creaminess transports me to a world where there is nothing else but me and my taste buds. It’s heaven. I’m no longer just distracted from my worries, they are no longer significant. I know before I finish my serving I’m going back for more.

I take the tub up to my bedroom. I’ll replace the whole tub later today. As soon as I’m feeling better I’ll run to the shop and buy a new one, I’m sure they’ll have that flavour. They did the other day I think. I don’t plan to eat the whole tub. I know I can’t put it back in the freezer when too much is gone because they’ll know I ate some (There won’t be any doubt as to who it was, I’ve done this before although I always replace things). I think I’ll just eat down to the halfway mark and then throw the rest in the bin. I’ll have gone well over my calories for today but I can make up for that tomorrow.

At some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I lose any semblance of control I may have had. As soon as the rush of the first few mouthfuls wears off, each mouthful is accompanied by a bitter layer of guilt. I start to feel guilty about eating something that wasn’t mine, about missing my lectures, about being behind in nearly all of my classes, about ruining my diet, about doing drugs last night and shame about throwing myself at boys who prefer my friend. I try to put the tub down but the ice cream is making the guilt palatable, for all I hate myself for not stopping, to stop eating is worse.

By the time I finish the tub, the guilt is joined by disgust. I feel physically sick and even more dehydrated. I count the calories. I’ve eaten 2261 before 11.30am. 1876 calories within the space of just over an hour. I gulp back some water in an attempt to get rid of the sickly taste in my mouth. The ice cream that tasted like heaven before now tastes curdled and sour on my tongue. My teeth feel as though they are coated in a thick film of sugar. How could I do this? If I could just stop doing this I’d be thin like Liani and I’d be happy. Life must be so easy when you’re thin. What is so wrong with me? Why am I so greedy that I can’t stop eating even when I feel sick? If anyone could see me now they’d be disgusted too.

Making a snap decision I run to the bathroom and stick my fingers down my throat as far as I can. Nothing happens. I try to purge myself of the ice cream for the next 20 minutes. My throat is sore from ramming my fingers down to my tonsils and retching but I’m unable to get my stomach to return any of its contents. My entire body feels hard and round and crammed full. At last I admit defeat and return to my bedroom, tears of frustration running down my face. I can’t even do this properly! I’m fiercely jealous in this moment of people with bulimia. At least they are thin and people have sympathy for them. I’m just fat and greedy and have no self-control. No one would have any sympathy for a disgusting fat pig like me. It’s no wonder boys don’t look at me when we go out, I don’t deserve their attention. I lie in my bed, too hot in my hoody but unwilling to take it off because I need to feel covered. I need to be separated from the disgusting sight of my own body. And as I try to understand what just happened, after all this, still there is a little voice inside my head that tells me I could make all this go away, at least for a little while, if I eat something else. I know that while I’m actually eating I won’t be thinking and right now thinking is so painful I’ll do anything to stop.

So my day progresses in this way, sleeping but not really resting, worrying, eating and hating myself for eating. At some point I must have dozed off because I hear my housemates downstairs in the kitchen. I pray they don’t decide to have ice cream or any of the other goodies I’ve stolen today. I pray I didn’t leave any evidence of my binge for them to find. At 7pm at night I’m exhausted, disgusted, guilt ridden and ashamed. My built in calorie counter, no longer as precise as earlier on in the day, has logged over 4000 calories. I finally find a phone charger and plug my phone in. When it’s turned on I have two missed calls and four messages. My heart leaps, maybe the guy from last night did take my number after all? But the missed calls are from the Uni, one message is a voicemail telling me to call the faculty office as soon as possible regarding my attendance. My chest tightens and my stomach turns upside down with dread and excess lactose but my brain and body are too exhausted to provide any other response. The messages are all from Liani telling me the guy she kissed last night called her this morning and took her out to the beach for the day. She sends a picture of the 2 of them eating ice cream together and laughing, her tiny shorts showing off tanned legs.

I cry into my pillow until I fall into a deep sleep. As I’m drifting off I promise myself that tomorrow I’ll start again.

#binge eating #eating disroders #eating disorders recovery #anxiety #addiction #help #short story #fiction #food #self help #recovery #not alone #get through the day #tell me your opinion #no diet #happiness

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