I've drawn up my own meal plan, and I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. The last few months, I've been wrestling with the idea, but up until yesterday, I really thought it was beyond me. It wasn't a lack of knowledge that prevented me from doing it, but the overwhelming emotion I've attached to food. To do it, I had to detach myself from my anxieties, step out of my eating disorder and leap across a great divide to get at the rational, healthy side of my brain.
It had to be done. On my restriction days, I'm now down to 7 miserable items of food: carrot; apple; piece of frozen bread... The same things, in the same order, at the same time of day. If I'm not doing that, I binge and then spend hours with head stuck down the toilet. It is no way to live.
When I sat down to do the plan, I put on my 'clinician's' hat, and pretended I was doing it for somebody else. That kept the eating disorder beast quiet for a bit (it's actually not as clever as I thought). I could approach it with care, look at what 'the client' needed and make a plan that was safe. I added some challenges and variety, and stuck to the calorie requirements. When I was finished, I had a nutritionally sound eating plan, with none of the wishy-washy, Shrewsberry biscuit nonsense that my dietician had recommended. Better still, it's laid up in a nice tight, colourful grid, with plenty of boxes for me to tick. Exactly what I needed!
How's that for success?
I NEED CHANGE.
Tomorrow, I am doing this plan. That's it.
xx
