Even if you're fat, is calorie counting healthy?

Trigger warning:  Weight and calories

Hello world, here's another controversial post for you!  Hear me out though.

I know, I used the word 'fat' in the subject line.  That was to get your attention.  Also because it's the excuse used.

"Oh I know counting calories isn't healthy for you because you have an eating disorder, but I'm fat, so it's okay."

I beg to differ.  Two days ago, Michelle Obama (for whom I normally have great respect) unveiled the FDA's newest updates to the ubiquitous nutrition label, as described here (trigger warning for calories).  I'm seriously disturbed.  The one line that is the most highly triggering for millions of people, is now practically doubled in size.  I've trained myself to avoid looking at nutrition labels like the plague, because when I do, my mind spirals.  And I know others.

But is triggering the disordered really the main problem?  No, it isn't.  I recognize that even though there are a lot of us who have battled eating disorders past and present, we're still a minority.  We are still not the 'typical' population at large.  (Oh but there's an interesting discussion right there - minority visibility for the eating disordered!)

Still, as I've seen, even for those with significant weight to lose in order to be healthy, counting the numbers of stuff entering your body is not the healthiest way to get healthy.  Not by far.  Perhaps the concept of just eating healthy is a distant memory for many, but it a person gently reduces the processed foods and sugars they are consuming, weight comes off.  Calories in, calories out, is a horrible way to live.  So quickly it becomes an obsession, as I've seen in the daily lives of my fitbit-ing friends.

Get a dog and walk it.  Eat more salad.  Do your own baking.  Make treats a special occasion.  Live life fully, not enslaved to some step counter, bite counter, stair counter, life counter.  You are the only one with the job of living your life.  Don't let some machine buckled to your wrist or program of numbers destroy your spontaneity!

Besides - have you ever heard of diets turning into eating disorders?  Oh yes, it's far more common than you think.  I was a normal human with a normal relationship to food, and then I dieted.  And look at me now.  Years of recovery and fighting!

Your overweight friend might just be fighting that big, bold number on the new-and-improved nutrition label, and you don't even know it.  For goodness sake, buy big, bad, stickers, and cover up all that crap on your boxes.  Even better, don't buy boxed food.  Eat fresh.  Live active.  Buy local.

Just be responsible for your own life and don't let some government-issued label run your life.

Breaking the Silence

Shattering the noise.  Cracking the ice-cover.  Thawing the frost.  Opening my heart again.

It's been a particularly shadowy part of the mosaic, a deep and dark-ish time to wade through.  There has been, through it all, immense joy and relief, and peace in the chaos, but overall, it's been hellish.

Yet still, God is faithful.  He upholds.  He sustains.  He has given me the most incredible gift of love.  His love, and the love He created for us to pursue.

My eating disorder still invades my mind sometimes, creates a hardened shell around every wise thought, so I cannot think.  Yet that has become more rare.  I'd average maybe 2-4 times per month.  Which is far better, I'd say, than last summer!

So I'm working on it, just like all of us.  And I'm grateful to everyone.  And I'm processing, I'm learning, I'm growing - we all are.

Let's journey on.

Spring and Peace

Today is spring and my mind is marvelously clear.  Flowers are springing from the ground, the trees are tossing petals from the tips of their branches.  I'm late to things, but I'm not concerned.  I've eaten well today (and enjoyed it), and it's alright.  I'm listening to fingers tickling keyboards as if it's the same trilling of the birds I heard this morning. My bare toes touch the classroom floor and my mind is transported to the sweet softness of fresh grass bending beneath my feet.

We're all together here.  So many stories thrown together in one room - an intensity of experience that we could never all handle alone.  I'm glad to breathe in the air that flutters past my face from the window across the room.  It's brushed by the branches outside and moved those little green leaves I see.

Life is not perfect.  There are multitudes of injustices all around me.  Discriminations.  Hurts.  Betrayal.  Abuse.  But somehow God allows me peace sometimes.

So I'll just rest there today.

Triggers

What are triggers and why does it matter?

Life is good, the day is beautiful.  The sun is shining.

Then the mention of weights, of highest and lowest body weights in a room, numbers are thrown around, numbers I recognize, and suddenly, my entire being is swirling in fear.  Not explainable, not shaken off with a mere thought or prayer.  Not passing after a moment's breath.  This is palpable, deep-seated, lung-collapsing fear.  My breath gone, my body quivering, I try to focus on the current task, head down, panic-stricken.  All the material seems suddenly 10x harder, deeper, more confusing.  Because my brain has captured those numbers, and try as I might, they won't go away.  They are a plague.

So how can we be mindful of triggers?  We can recognize our audience: a room in which 90% of the people are young women? In a conservative environment?  Weight is a bad idea.  Should I be speaking of waist size or the number on the scale or abuse statistics?   Can we not refrain from talk of obsessions and beauty?  Of our perfections and imperfections?

Because statistically, I was not the only one affected.

What other things should we be aware of?  How can we protect those around us, those we love, with our choice of words, of topics, of examples?

You tell me.

A Bulimia Update

Trigger Warning - ED behaviours.

So I've been thoughtful and vague for a while, and I do enjoy writing that way, but I think it's high time that I write a true recovery update, to face where I'm at and what's happening on the journey.

I'm still bulimic.

Working on recovery, yes.  Every week looks different.  Every day, actually.  Has progress been made?  Certainly!  Just a few months ago I couldn't see to the time I'd be able to go 4 days purge-free, and now that's common.  There have even been a few times where I went a week or two.

Some days I don't have any desire to binge, nor purge, and everything seems almost easy.  The next day might be fraught with all sorts of urges and yet, somehow, the will to fight.  Yet other days go by in a mist of depressive thoughts and yet bulimia does not rule my day.  Other days are bright and beautiful and yet I find myself full to bursting, and the eventual forthcoming of said food.  Completely blindsided.  Sometimes you just don't know it's coming.

Or perhaps some brief yet stressful season passes through - tests, conflicts, quizzes, projects, worries - and the healthy coping strategies fail me.  There is no intellectual desire to binge or purge, yet it happens, sometimes again and again, unstoppable, painful, horrifying, humiliating.

So slowly, tearfully, when the numbness wears off, I get back up, brush off the dust, run to Christ for the strength to keep struggling, to keep trying, to keep working hard to put this behind me.

Yeah, I'm making progress.  Yes, there is hope.  It is possible to overcome.  But it's a journey, it's not just a single step.

Pressing on.

Published!

Too exciting not to share:  I'm officially published on NEDA's www.proud2bme.org. 

I Will Not Remain Silent - Post on Proud2BMe.org

Activism!  Yes!

- Sheila

Breathing

We all start out so small, so insignificant to the world, yet so hopelessly important to two people.  This irony of existence, beginning before we begin ourselves, it calls for a mind far greater than mine, yet here I am, trying to explain it.  Before I was, I existed in a heart, a mind, a thought.

And now the entirety of my existence, of yours, hangs on the experiences we have had, on the heartaches we have born, on the creations of moments that hang suspended in my soul, and in yours.  We watch painfully, as the days float by, waiting for the place where we can breathe again.

When I breathe, I find myself shocked at the life-giving force in the air which rushes through my being.  Is it just air I'm breathing, or am I breathing in life?  Am I breathing in spirit, renewing my mind by the transforming grace of the God I live for?

Perhaps that's the majesty of the moment, of existence itself, that it's not about dealing with the moment, about the problems we face, or the chaos of current events.  It's the grace for existence, that we are all still here, still breathing, still alive, and we barely even chose it.

So we write love.  We hope life.  We create stories by breathing.

Are you breathing?