Going right to the wire...?

My emotions seem to have been as mixed as the weather this week. At times, I have felt stuffed, sick and bloated, despising myself and wishing I never had to eat again. These are the days when my stomach struggles to cope and balloons up uncomfortably with excess gas. But when this has finally calmed down, I have sometimes felt so different: stronger, more alive even slightly well. Chronic tiredness remains a problem (still working on getting to bed earlier) but the other day I simply powered up the hill to my home in record time. In these moments, I feel as though I stand upon the earth, rather than simply slump upon its surface.

Yet I am still dragging myself to the gym, with all the air of the condemned man walking to the gallows. Once there, I can't help comparing my shape to other people and looking at my "big fat legs" in distaste. On a more positive note, I am having fewer tearful breakdowns. The staff at the gym have been wonderful in supporting me - usually, just having someone to talk to while I do my weights is enough to take my mind off my inner turmoil and get through the session. I'm still waiting to see that massive improvement in strength in my puny arms but certain movements - press ups, planks - seem to be coming more easily!

Finally back on Kinder Scout

Last weekend, I even got out to the Peak District with my dad for a walk up Kinder Scout. I was pleased with how I managed the ascent but unfortunately I had forgotten just how windy it gets up there - there is a reason, after all, that there are so many weird rock formations up there! One of the hallmarks of anorexia is that sufferers struggle to keep warm and my hands are especially sensitive to this. Once I can't feel my fingers, I get very miserable and it takes me an age to thaw out. I need to have a serious think about how I can manage this when I attempt my walk in August...

The next time I check my weight will be a crucial point: I will only have one month left to reach my target. If I have not reached the half-way point by then, the pace will need to increase and fast. I can't afford to miss the target or I will lose my PhD, but I don't know if I am capable of eating any more than I am already, especially with my weakened stomach. But will I have the mental strength to give up my heavy-cardio exercise sessions - the hour long spin classes, the circuit training, the cross trainer?

It looks as though, rather than arrive comfortably in time, I am fated to be pushing it right to the wire. It's time to get a move on.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the Bank Holiday!

All change again! (But it's the last time I promise...)

I hope you have all been enjoying the recent sunshine: it's a shame Easter didn't fall this week! However, it is not just the beautiful weather that is giving me such optimism at the moment. I am still making progress on my weight target, inching up towards halfway. Even my therapist at the ED clinic had to agree. This week we had our shortest session ever as her advice was simply to "keep on with the plan".

But I only wish that this progress had started three months ago. It would have given me a little more leeway in case things start to plateau later. I'm still going up against the wire and can't afford to slacken the pace for a second.

Still, at least things are (finally) going in the right direction. I am feeling less desperate and hopeless, and am finally having more peace in my mind. It is a clichéd paradox in the ED world that it gets easier to challenge the negative thoughts as you start to put on weight - but that black voice makes it so hard to do just that! Yet it seems to be true for me. As the scales tip upwards, I am finding the mental strength to say "Shut up Anna" when she would make me feel guilty, bloated, sick and miserable. I still feel bad that so much of my life seems to be about eating and that I am having so many calorie-dense foods at the moment. Yet I do feel more able to justify this. I tell myself:

- This food is my ticket back to my PhD. If I don't make the target, I will feel a lot worse about NOT eating this food now than I could by eating it

- This is only temporary! Life can be about other things, once I get to where I should be.

After all, when cancer patients undergo chemotherapy, you would expect their life to be focused around their treatment until it ends. You certainly wouldn't advocate that they approach it half heartedly. But when the course is over, the illness can drop back to being a lesser focus in life insignificant part of life, if any.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid I have to admit that the walk plan has changed again. I have really struggled to "connect the dots" on Offa's Dyke and work out a plan for accommodation (it just wouldn't be feasible for me to try and heft camping gear all that way!). After sending hundreds of emails and only receiving two (negative) replies, I am admitting defeat. But there is also another reason - I was never truly drawn to Offa's Dyke and only chose it as it seemed the logical candidate after I gave up the Pennine Way (for now). What I really wanted was to complete a walk based in the Peak District. So I have chosen (and this is IT now, FINAL ANSWER!) the WHITE PEAK WAY , an 80 mile circuit of the glorious Peaks, with 13,000 ft of ascent. As this is based on the YHA network, accommodation shouldn't be a problem. It should also make it easier for any of my Sheffield-based friends to join me for a section if they so wish! I will be posting details of my planned stages on the "Walk" page on this blog soon so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy the rest of this week.

Feeling the Fear...

I don't like this....I feel so uncomfortable! So huge. That there is so much more of me, it must be spilling out of my frame. Whenever people talk to me, I can't help mentally comparing my shape to theirs and always conclude that I'm so much fatter. I can't bear to look at my legs - gross and elephantine compared to the gazelles in the gym.

This is the part of "recovery" I was dreading - feeling so hideous and miserably bloated that I just want it to end. Only the fact I have to go through this to get back to my PhD is keeping my resolve from crumbling. There is still a strong part of me that just wants to shrink in on myself, until I am just bone on bone, as small and inoffensive as possible. As though, by curling up into as small a ball as possible, I can make all my fears go away.

But I know now that the only way to overcome fear is to face it. I have just started reading Sussan Jeffers' book Feel the Fear and do it anyway, lent to me by a friend. Only two chapters in, I have felt my thinking become clearer. Rather than equipping me with 'secret knowledge' or confidence tricks however, her words have bought to light the truths I always knew deep down, but was too hesitant to acknowledge. Using the book's guidance, I have worked out my three 'Levels of Fear':

Level 1: The surface fears
For me, this is primarily the fear of gaining weight uncontrollably (unless I restrict and exercise obsessively) until I am so overweight that others look down on me and that I feel constantly disgusted with myself. Alongside this, I also have a constant fear of not achievening enough - so that I always feel regret at not having 'done enough' or that I will never 'leave a legacy' when I die. This expresses itself as a fear of not getting a stellar PhD thesis, not getting that dream job....and of course it made me put so much pressure on myself to get into the "right" university.

Level 2: The underlying fear
The all-encompassing fear behind my surface fears is that of failure and rejection. I have always had very black-and-white thinking, so I either totally FAIL at something or somehow (by lucky chance/a fluke) succeed. Hence I FAILED my GCSEs because I only got an A for Music. It is this fear that I will hate myself for not being good enough that feeds all my surface fears and behaviours.

Level 3:
The fear that everyone has deep down and that drives all others - the fear that "I CAN'T HANDLE IT!!" If I gained weight, I wouldn't be able to handle it, If I don't get that dream job, how will I live with myself? If I end up on my death bed regretting all the things I never achieved, how will I cope? It is this simple mantra that holds us back from everything we truly dream of. And yet, looking at the things that I have come through in the past, I know that I CAN handle more than I think I can when I have to. The same is true for all of us - yet we only usually find out when pushed into the unknown by illness, injury, bereavement, unemployment, etc. As a Christian, I believe that God is always with me, that he has promised "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5) and that "When you walk through the fire, I will be with you" (Isiah 43:2). If I can't handle something  on my own, he will give me the strength!

One of the key truths expressed in the book is that our fears of facing change are nothing compared with the fear that comes from doing nothing and feeling so helpless for ever. I understand this so acutely; for instance I live in dread that I will break my leg one day - how then can I keep up the exercise regime I need to do in order to feel safe?

I hope I can push through this barrier and reach that blessed reward of having more freedom with my life. Already I have felt some benefits. I feel STRONGER. And so much FITTER. As though I am held together with real muscle, rather than string that is fraying at the edges. I even almost enjoyed the most intense spin class I do each week and walked away feeling like I had worked hard and well, rather than feeling humiliated and drained.

Yesterday, on my rare "day off" from the gym, I took a trip to the Odeon to see "Eddie the Eagle". Apart from thoroughly enjoying the story, it got me yearning for snowy mountains and wondering if I could ever actually enjoy skiing again rather than it being a battle of endurance against feeling perishingly cold all the time... It would be wonderful to actually DO something with my body rather than cycle for miles and miles within the same square metre of space....

One day....?

I'm not saying I'm about to take up ski jumping, but the world looks more open to possibilities right now!!!!

Thanks for reading - I'll be updating on my physical progress next week

I want my life to be about more than this!!!

I wasn't dreaming last week - my weight has definitely gone up and I had improved even further today. Even my therapist had to admit it. But then she did point out...

"If you're going to get to your target on time then you are still WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaY off the pace you need to be gaining weight at..."

And so we launched into a convoluted discussion about calorie counts, timeframes and the exercise/no exercise question. I have to admit that, since embarking on this latest plan two weeks ago, I have never quite managed to make the total calorie intake agreed for heavy-exercise days. After all....3500 calories (gulp!!!!) is a LOT to squash in. And when I say "quite", I suppose the shortfall has been more like 300-500 calories...   Not good!

The agreed plan:
No exercise: 3000 kcal a day
Light cardio / weights session: 3250 kcal a day
Heavy cardio: 3500 kcal a day

I still wrestle with the exercise conundrum....can I/ should I do less? Do none whatsoever? Part of me is crying out for rest...and yet I do want to build an active body. I have been feeling better about exercise this week; fitter, stronger and more capable. But I have made a pact : I can ONLY carry on exercising if I make up the calorie amounts I need to gain weight. If I can't eat enough, then I will have to have more rest days.

Meanwhile, despite things improving physically, all is still far from plain sailing in my mind. Anna hates the fact that I have made progress and keeps waving her "Fat", "Greedy" and "Guilty" flags. The worst times are when people hear about my weight gain and say "Oh! I thought you looked..." !! I'm also still plagued by intrusive, obsessive thoughts about food. I hate the fact that I get so much pleasure from flicking through cookery books and food magazines (and playing "Guess which dish has the most calories?"). I hate the fact that I can spend AGES just browsing supermarket shelves before leaving with my usual lettuce and 10 kcal jelly. I HATE the fact that my life just revolves around food, eating, weighing, etc. The Bible says "Be clear-minded so you can pray". I would love to have such focus for my work and for life: to be able to engross myself so fully in something that I forget time passing, forget even to eat! (but then make up for it later!).

I want to have a real, deep think about what my strategy for the long-term is going to be. If I want to live a fulfilling, rewarding LIFE where I can serve others, then food has to have a lesser focus than it does now. The first step will be to not weigh out the dried fruit/nuts I have for breakfast! I have also decided to make a vow that every month I will have a mini-holiday : THREE consecutive days off without exercise. I used to be able to do this all the time -  go away on vacation and not worry about putting on weight; just listen to my hunger cues and trust that my body will ride out the variation in routine. The next time I go away, I don't want to be fretting about not burning enough calories, so I need to practice "trusting" my body before the time comes. You know you've really flipped when you have to "practice" resting!

So with battle lines drawn, let's hope for more progress again next week. Thanks for reading!

I will be posting my "manifesto" for living soon - stay tuned!

Progress ! (but with a price)

It has now been one week since I started the 'new' diet. A diet where I have eaten more than I ever imagined I could ( or would need to), seemingly gargantuan quantities. So much so that it makes me quite depressed at times, seeing how my life has come to revolve around food - weighing it, eating it, checking it, preparing it and planning how to fit it all in.

But has it made a difference?

YES! This morning there was definitely a move in the positive direction on the scales. Not just a slight wobble on the dial, a 'maybe, maybe not' but a definite little shift. There is still a long way to go - I can't afford to out my foot on the brake just yet - but at least I am finally moving onwards and upwards!

It has come at a price however: I seem to constantly oscillate between two very different but both unpleasant  states. At times my body has really struggled with the volume of food it has to process, leaving me feeling sick and hardly able to look at food, making it difficult when it is time to eat yet again. And yet my metabolism has also kicked into gear, meaning that I suddenly go from feeling bloated and blattered to being ravenously hungry. It is as though a fire has  erupted and even if I feed it with more kindling by eating something), the flames only leap up higher and burn more fiercely, leaving me hungrier still. Very annoying!

It is a pain, but I have to remind myself that however bad I feel now, it doesn't compare to how I would feel if I lose my PhD for good.

Unfortunately, I haven't progressed at all on the exercise front, still only managing one complete day off a week. Even when I fell down the stairs leading up to my flat and bruised  my left elbow quite badly, I still went along to circuits that day. Monday evening was another tearful showdown in the changing rooms as my exhausted body fought with the anorexic compulsions ( and lost).  

However, I have felt stronger in my mind and have experienced longer periods of clarity, when I am not disturbed by obtrusive thoughts of food and exercise. I have started to think deeply about who I want to be for the long term, not just during this 'fix it' stage to get back onto my course. At Church this week, the reading was from the book of James, on a verse saying that "he who prays should pray in faith or else he won't receive". The minister explained that this does not mean that anyone who has ever had doubts will not have their prayers answered - because even the best people experience doubts. Rather it is a warning not to be 'double minded' : to say that we trust God and turn to him for help, but then still try to fix it ourselves as well, 'hedging our bets' so to speak. I realised that this is exactly what I do ; as a Christian, I profess that Jesus is the centre of my life and the source of my purpose and joy. However, I still turn to stupid rules about food and exercise like a comfort blanket to make me feel safe and in control. This has. To stop!

More philiosphophical ramblings next time...and hopefully more progress to! Thanks for reading !