I know what happened and I've learned a lot (MORE) about myself, yet again. Those dang frequent learning opportunities!! What blindsided me is that I actually made it through the planned happenings pretty okay (conference, trip, meeting, vacation). It was the sort of sudden, train has left the station with no brakes thinking, that the 1 week during all the other planned happenings needed to be filled with um… (not relaxing and being on track) but buying a new car. Yep, buying a new car started my spiral out of control. Who would have thought. Well, I should have. It was that same sort of stressful situation mixed with heightened emotions that got me in this 286 lb mess to begin with (i.e. planning a wedding, buying a house, selling a condo, adding 2 dogs to our family). Before I knew it, I was at the donut shop buying 6 donuts and Sees Candy buying a box of truffles, at that was only the beginning. Holy heck. What did add to this car buying stress, is that they completely messed up my financing and it took a week to settle. I was also extremely fatigued and feeling really crappy post return from vacation. Every day was getting a little bit worse. Good excuses to need massive amounts of Starbucks drinks and takeout food, and not go to the gym!
ED (eating disorder) LOVES excuses! Every day I felt a bit worse, and let's see, today it would be helped by Thai…. the next day Mexican…. the next day burger, shake, and fries, etc. Now I was caught in the trap. The trap that yes I started feeling crappy for some unknown reason, but now I'm SURE the food was perpetuating this crappiness and making it even worse. Enough excuses, and I finally dragged myself to urgent care this week. Well, I was exhausted because I was seriously dehydrated. Hmm, all that caffeine I was adding, well that sure didn't help. They gave me a bag of IV fluids and I stayed home the next day and drank electrolyte water and gatorade. I also had a local infection and a bit of a cold. Explains the crappiness. I've been on the antibiotics 2 days now and I am starting to feel a bit better. Taking it easy this weekend for the most part so that I can feel better, get my head on straight, and get back on track.
As I was once told, with disordered eating, it is not if you slip but what happens when. Because, it will happen. Not once, not twice, but many times. As soon as you have caught yourself, you do the next right thing. And then, the next right thing after that. And after that, and after that…. Pretty soon, you've picked yourself up, dusted off, and started down the road again.
Sure, it's not fun losing and gaining the same 10 lbs, etc. again and again. It's definitely not ideal. But, it is still better than, and a long ways away from being all the way back where you started. This journey may be 1 year, it may take 5 or 10 years. Who knows. But as long as I'm on it, it means I'm alive and breathing and there is another day to see the sunset and another day to make a fresh start (and get out of the ugly!)
Cheers to that!
Jessica
