A Touchy Subject ~ Part III

I wanted to write this post before Christmas because it’s pretty specific to the holidays, but better late than never!

During the peak years of my disordered eating, I loved and dreaded the holidays. On the one hand, there was always an overload of food to binge on. I could eat and eat (and eat) until I literally had no room left in me. But then I would make room. And do it all over again. I’m not kidding when I say this, but I had zero self-control. I was basically a robot that shoved cookie after cookie and chip after chip into my mouth. In my mind, there was no point in eating anything at all unless I was going to eat everything.

On the other hand, I dreaded knowing that I’d have to be really sneaky so that my family wouldn’t catch on. I couldn’t eat masses of food in front of them, because I honestly ate abnormal amounts. They’d wonder why I wasn’t 400 lbs! And it was embarrassing. I certainly wasn’t going to help myself to thirds and fourths while everyone else struggled through their second helping. So I would consume as much as I could at any opportunity when no one was around.

I also dreaded the whole “getting rid of it all” part. In a house full of people, the bathroom is a hot commodity. “Shannon, are you STILL in there?” Because you see, I had to make sure not one tiny scrap of food was left in me. That took time. And then my face would be red, my nose would be runny, and my eyes would be watery. I’d have to spend a few minutes cleaning myself up before facing anyone.

Frankly, it was a huge pain in the ass. But I’d go for Round 2 anyway. Maybe Round 3 if there was time. I’d feel increasingly guilty with each bite, especially during the holidays. There were starving kids all over the world and here I was, wasting huge amounts of food. I really did hate myself for that.

To be honest, all these years later I do have quick bouts of panic that are very reminiscent to my past when I eat more than usual. But they are tiny in comparison and they don’t come with the warped perceptions about food and my body that I used to have. They also serve as reminders of how lucky I am to have fought and won this battle.

The holidays should be something to look forward to, not fear. Thankfully, I do look forward to them now, knowing very well that I’ll indulge more than I should. But I also know that that’s ok. It’s not something I do on a daily basis and if I gain 1 or 2 lbs, that’s ok too. Food is meant to be enjoyed and I am so grateful that I can do just that.

It’s funny (ok… not haha funny), but I get a little choked up writing these Touchy Subject posts. It’s actually a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I fear that I’ll be judged or that readers will think that what I’m sharing is really inappropriate. I also can’t help but feel a little embarrassed, even though I know it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. But at the same time, I realize with each paragraph that I write, this is something I needed to do. I never went to therapy, (it never even crossed my mind to do so), and I never talk about it with friends or family. I guess I figured, “I’m ok now, there’s no need to talk about it.” Turns out, I really did. So thank you for listening. YOU are my therapy :).

You can check out Part I and/or Part II here if you haven’t already.

Have a great FRIDAY!!!

A Touchy Subject ~ Part II

Hello & happy Friday & can you believe Christmas is in a week??!!! How did that even happen??? I’m ready-ish. Just a few more little things to buy (which i’m sure will turn into a lot of little things), and a few more cookies to bake. I have my work holiday party later today at a fancy restaurant that I could never afford to eat at otherwise, so that’s pretty exciting. And if we get a little break from the rain this weekend, I’m hoping to check out a couple of Christmas events.

OK, now onto a more serious note. You can check out A Touchy Subject ~ Part I if you want to get up to speed, as this post is a continuation from that.

I should probably mention how this all started. I was in grade 9 at the time. One night I made myself a bowl of ice cream with hot chocolate powder and Rice Krispies sprinkled on top. It was really good, so I decided to have another. A little while later, I went to have a shower but before I got in, I took a look in the mirror and for the first time, I saw a bunch of flab that seemed to have appeared overnight. I basically felt like a giant cow and I couldn’t believe I had let that happen to myself. And then I thought about the 2 bowls of ice cream I had just eaten and decided that it just couldn’t stay in my body. So, it didn’t. I remember thinking, “well that was easy.” And there you go. From that point on, for way too long, a vicious cycle had begun. In my mind, it was win-win. I could eat whatever I wanted but not get fat because I would simply get rid of the food.  And when I ate, I ate. Anything and everything in sight. I went back and forth between that and not eating anything at all and the weight just came flying off. I started to feel weak and sick, but it just didn’t matter.

It didn’t take long for friends and family to start commenting on my weight loss. Compliments quickly turned into concern, which was an even bigger compliment to me. One day, I went to the mall with my boyfriend at the time and I fit into a pair of size 1 pants. I was elated. My boyfriend basically said that I looked sick and gross, and as sad as it is, that made me happy.

It’s hard to believe that my body put up with that phase of my life. For a solid year at high school, my lunches consisted of a small bag of gummy bears and a can of diet coke. And nope, no breakfast to start my days. Even worse, I smoked cigarettes throughout high school and used them to curb my appetite on a very regular basis. I was consuming roughly 500 calories a day, sometimes less, which is way too low. Dangerously low. And those calories usually didn’t include an ounce of nutritional sustenance. But guess what? I was wearing size 2 jeans! Worth it, right? Not one little bit.

I had a part time job that I usually went to right after school which was great because I could get away with not eating dinner. I might have a few carrot sticks or rice cakes, maybe a plain bagel on a good day. If I happened to be at home, I’d sit down and eat dinner with my parents. Lots of dinner. Then I would sneak off after…and you know the rest.

I remember being at a friends party one night when I was about 15. Her parents ordered KFC for everyone and WOW did it ever smell delicious. Of course there was no way in hell I was going to let myself have any of the chicken, but I did give in and have one of the small little dinner rolls that came with it. I was SO mad at myself after. Seriously, just livid. I felt like a complete failure that had absolutely no self-control. When things like that happened, I would tell myself “ok, well tomorrow you have to make up for it,” and I’d basically eat nothing.

The farther I get in my nutrition program, the more I realize how lucky I am. There are so many health consequences that can result from eating disorders, both short and long-term, which for the most part, I was able to avoid. I deprived my body of the vital nutrition that it needed to keep me going, yet somehow it still didn’t fail me. I call that a miracle.

Thank you for tuning into Part II. As I mentioned before, writing about my disordered eating journey isn’t easy, but it’s good for me and I think it’s something that I really needed to do at some point, even all these years later. It’s helping me understand now what I couldn’t understand back then. A healing process that was a little delayed.

Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you soon!

 

 

“Fast Food” for Extra Busy Days

Something that stresses me out immensely is trying to come up with nutritious and tasty meals that all 3 of us will enjoy. This is especially difficult on days that are go, go, go from sun up until sun down. I really want to be one of those people that can write out a 5 day meal plan and spend 5 hours on a Sunday doing food prep, but i’m just not quite there yet. I also know it would make life sooo much easier so I’m going to try my hardest to become “one of them.” But for now, there are times when the basics have to make do.

I love my crockpot. And one of my favorite meals is this Turkey Chili. I can get everything ready the night before fairly quickly, throw it in the crockpot before work, and come home to a ready-to-eat dinner. This gives me some extra time to hang out with Ryland which is always my goal.

And then there’s good old breakfast for dinner. Scrambled eggs with green onions & wholegrain toast topped with hummus, cucumbers, feta cheese and fresh ground black pepper. Yes, a gallon of hot sauce was added to my eggs post-picture.

And lunch for dinner? Why not?! Sometimes a sandwich & smoothie is on par with steak & prawns. No?

This basically couldn’t be more basic. But no matter how simple some of our meals might be, I try to make sure they include healthy fats, protein and complex carbs (because if I haven’t already mentioned it, meals without carbs just ain’t my thing).

I currently have a Cornish hen cooking away in the crockpot. I’m not totally sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but if I come up with something decent, I’ll share the details on Monday. If there is no mention of Cornish hens, then it clearly ended in disaster.

On another note, I was up with a very congested and unhappy toddler from about 12-2:30 am so i’m just a tiny bit tired at the moment. Excuse me while I  zombie walk to the kitchen to pour my 18th cup of coffee :/.

Basically.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday Beauties

Hey there, Friday! It’s good to see ya!

I’m going to do less rambling today and post pictures of pretty things instead.

My office is walking distance to one of the most beautiful spots in Vancouver. It’s called Coal Harbour, which is very close to the world renown Stanley Park, and it’s just gorgeous. I spend a lot of my lunch breaks going for walks along the water there and I’m reminded every time of how lucky I am to live and work in this amazing province. I took these pictures last week on an exceptionally nice fall day. I felt like a tourist in my own town!

I like to pretend I’m a millionaire and pick out which one of these is mine.

Living on a houseboat…or floating home…whatever they’re called…would be so cool. Well, for a bit anyway.

A house in the sky.

Isn’t this the cutest bike rack??

On days like those, it takes a lot of willpower to get my butt back to the office ;).

There’s a community garden not too far from my house. I don’t have a plot there but I like to wander through it, admiring everyone’s else’s goodies. I really do want my own garden…I just haven’t found my green thumb yet.

A tomato…patch?

Minty freshness.

You can’t tell from the picture, but this sunflower was about 6 feet tall!

This picture makes me want to put rosemary on EVERYTHING.

And I took a million pictures at a local pumpkin patch a few weeks ago, but only posted a couple which revolved around my kiddo. Here are a few others that I think are pretty cool:

Squash squad.

The cutest little farmers market I’ve ever seen.

And finally, this. I personally wouldn’t eat mushrooms if someone paid me, but I thought it was picture-worthy anyway.

Meet the Mushroom Family.

I sure hope you felt like looking at pictures today. And I also hope you have a great weekend! Happy Halloween Eve!!

Halloween 2014

Breakfast for Dinner & Fall Things

I really need to start writing out weekly meal plans. During the week, I sit there at work thinking about what to make for dinner and sometimes, more often than not, it stresses me right out! I hardly get any time with Ryland on work days so I try to hang out with him as much as possible when I get home. Doing that while scrambling to put something decent on the dinner table (that is nutritious and manages to please my toddler and extremely picky husband), and leaving enough time for the bath*story*bedtime routine sort of feels like a little daily marathon. It literally makes me sweat. Well yesterday was one of those days. My train was late, it was pouring rain, and I had forgotten to take chicken out of the freezer before work. So while Ryland embarked on his daily routine of emptying out the entire Tupperware and pots & pans cupboard, I looked in the basically empty fridge and decided it was Omelet Night. I whipped up a spinach omelet for myself, dousing it with hot sauce (post-pic) because that’s just what I do to pretty much everything I eat.

I didn’t even bother putting anything with spinach in front of Duncan and Ryland because they’d both look at me like i’m crazy,  so they just had cheddar cheese omelets. We also had PB and toast because I do NOT have a meal that doesn’t include carbs. And the omelets needed a side dish, right??

It wasn’t the fanciest dinner, more of a breakfast really, but it did the job. I’m kind of obsessed with making sure we get enough protein and iron in our diets, especially since meat isn’t an everyday thing around our house, and eggs are one of the best sources of both. Ryland had some peas on the side because I’m also obsessed with making sure he eats veggies with dinner as much as possible. I’m working on getting him to love broccoli…we’re not quite there yet ;).

On another note, with Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, I decided it needed to look more like fall in our house so I went to Michaels and picked up a couple little pumpkins and totally fake maple leaf branches. I wrapped some twine around an old jar because I’m all really all about the twine lately. I have a big roll of it and use it whenever I can. It has a rustic sort of look to it, which I’m also loving these days. I think I hear Pinterest calling my name…

Speaking of Thanksgiving (here in Canada), woohoo for the long weekend!! We’re having a turkey dinner at my Aunt & Uncle’s on Sunday and I cannot WAIT. I LOVE turkey dinners. Stuffing, yams, gravy, brussel sprouts (yes, I’m a weirdo that loves those little guys), and some hard apple ciders – YUM. I’m also in charge of dessert. I could go the easy route and pick up a store-bought pie…but I think I can do better than that. What’s that?? Yup, Pinterest calling my name again. On that note, have a great weekend, and if you’re celebrating Thanksgiving, enjoy!!

FriYAY!

Well THAT was a fast week. And it’s October already…how did that happen?! Never mind Thanksgiving and Halloween, the stores are already bursting with Christmas. Every year I say I’m going to do my Christmas shopping early, and every year I do it last minute. I secretly love the crowds of last minute shoppers during the holiday season though. People are full of festive cheer, or maybe spiked eggnog…either way, it’s the one time of year that I actually enjoy shopping.

I mentioned in my bio that I’m a bit of a MAJOR bookworm so I thought I’d share my current reading material:I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book so I put myself on the wait list at the library a few months ago and it’s FINALLY my turn! I’m only a few chapters in, but I was hooked after the first two pages. It’s SO good. If you’ve read Gillian Flynn’s books, this is a must read. So far, it’s a little dark and edgy but also kind of humorous and relatable in a weird way. I’ve got a busy weekend ahead but I’m pretty excited to sneak in a few more chapters when I can. I don’t want to ready it TOO fast because it’s always so sad when you finish a really good book! Total bookworm talk right there!!

The weather’s still pretty nice so we might do a little bbqing over the weekend. I had some really delicious sangria on our cruise so I might try and throw a pitcher of my own together too. Other than that, we’ve got a birthday party, hopefully a hike, and a bunch of house stuff on the schedule this weekend. And I’ve obviously got some ripe bananas waiting to be baked into something because it IS Friday after all :).

Oh,and maybe i’ll get around to buying a little lemon tree ;).

Enjoy whatever it is that you get up to and I’ll see ya Monday!