Day 46

“Have you lost loads of weight?” the Heartcore instructor said. “I meant to ask you last week.”

I’ll take the compliment, but I honestly have no idea (and suspect “loads of weight” is perhaps an exaggeration, given the way my clothes fit, which is pretty similar to how they fit when I got here.) I haven’t binged for 46 days now, but as I sadly know too well, just not bingeing is not enough to lose weight. I debate getting on the scale a lot of days, but I always end up deciding against it: First of all, I have nothing to compare it to (haven’t weighed myself for a few years now), and second of all, no matter what the number is, I’m 99 percent sure it would ruin my day.

I do know that despite the required pudding-eating (yes, seriously – I’m supposed to eat it once or twice a week and not cut back/exercise to compensate) I have lost a little bit of weight. I get blind-weighed every week as part of the treatment (sometimes, randomly, by male assistants I haven't even met yet), and my counselor told me last week the number has been gently going down. Of course finding that out made me immediately torn between wanting to eat a pudding (because hey, I’ve earned it) and restrict to make the weight peel off faster. Hmm, yes, I guess I do belong in treatment for an eating disorder…

Thirty Days

Today is 30 days without a binge, and quite possibly the first time I’ve ever achieved that without some kind of strict diet.

You’d think it would be easy to follow a food plan that suggests desserts two to three times a week, among other things, but it isn’t, at least for me. I struggle daily with the urge to cut back, in ways big and small, and am secretly kind of pleased on days I can go without my morning snack because there’s not as many hours between breakfast and lunch as usual. I’m supposed to have a yogurt every night – specifically not a diet or lowfat one – and yet I still look at the calories, and shy away from ones on the higher end. Last night I had a sticky toffee pudding and tried to make myself leave over a tiny bit, but the more I tried, the more I wanted it and the more resentful I became at the thought of it. I know that’s part of why I just have to eat it – to realize that I can, and that the world will not end if I do.

Almost every day I think about getting on the scale to check and make sure I’m not gaining weight from this, but I don’t have anything to compare it to, and I’m pretty sure the number would ruin my day. And so I don’t. I tried on a bunch of clothes the other day, only a few days after I’d already tried them on. I still can’t believe there might ever be a day where I don’t think about this stuff, but I’m trying to trust that it might happen.

I stopped writing as much because (a) I think it was getting boring and (b) I’m realizing that some of this involves trying to be where I am in the moment – in other words, not floating above it all (not in a superior way, just in an observing way) thinking about the story I could tell about it. Because for once in my life, I want something more than a good story. I want to get better.