Babysitting

My little cousins (5yo and a 4yo) have come to stay with us for a while because their mother can't look after them. I look after them so my days are spent in the world of children. I run around with them, forget to eat because I'm so busy making their meals. Then once they're in bed and my parents and sister are away I binge on everything I can find and purge - no change there. But there definitively seems to be a different pattern to my days. I have to get up so early so I usually binge around midnight and then stay up a few hours because I always find it hard to sleep.
I feel if I could only sleep well I could be all better.

I learnt today that skipping is probably one of the best exercises and I'm going to try and do some every day.

I have this plan for when I go back to university. My plan is to have melon for breakfast, boiled down tinned tomatoes with herbs for lunch and then brown rice and boiled veggies for tea. I can't wait but now I don't have the time, energy or freedom to be a perfect little girl so I'm just starving all day and b/ping in the evening. I'm such a perfect role model.

My week of camping and hiking went really well. I was around people the whole time and the outdoors and vigorous exercise I think did me a lot of good. I had dried apricots and very plain and simple ham sandwiches in the day and then a vegetarian meal in the evening, which I had very little of because of my discomfort at eating in front of people. I'd eat slowly and seeing as we were serving ourselves in front of everyone I couldn't take very much without feeling like a fatass.

Sorry these posts are so irregular. Hopefully, I'll be on the road to skinniness before long and then I'll have lots to say all the time. At the moment I'm just to tired too fight not to b/p. I need time in the day to plan what I'll eat so that I don't end up bingeing and the food in the house at the moment is just so unreliable that I can't seem to plan at all.

Tomorrow I will try harder (oh there's a phrase I say daily).

Anna

Sweet Tooth

So I dropped 12 pounds in a week and a half and have been absolutely STARVING and holding off so well. I even baked for my sister's birthday yesterday and held away from even licking fingers. But then I went and had two fillings just out of the blue, when I was convinced my teeth were fine. I kept thinking 'ah shit' my teeth are falling apart what have I done and just vowing to carry on eating healthily for the rest of my life (by healthy I mean 300 calories of veg a day basically) and thinking next time I come to the dentist I'll be stick thin and getting so excited. Then my older sister arrived home with these fancy white chocolate chip mahoosive cookies. And I held off for so long I had a two dried apricots and was thinking 'I don't even want it anymore - I am just so strong' when suddenly I was left alone with them and I'd devoured one.

Now I know to me usually this is like nothing. But this morning I was up four pounds and feeling like it had all been for nothing. Especially as today is my little sister's birthday and there is going to be so much food and no healthy options at all. Please let me stay strong. I've got to go camping on Monday and I need my stomach to be flat from being starved even if I can't get my thighs to stop jiggling in that time.

Anna

Melon

It has been just under a month since I last purged. I'm not going to think too much about anything but just keep fighting through until I don't even need to fight the urge anymore. I'm on holiday with my family at the moment in Italy and it is really hot here and I've been living off melon and reading. I just finished The Golden Notebook such a good book. In two weeks some of my uni friends (maybe including MM - this hasn't been confirmed) are coming up to north Wales to climb the peaks of snowdonia over 5 days and camping. Every time I think of it I feel sick to the stomach. I've gained so much weight and don't feel fit enough. The only other girl doing it is the thinest, fittest person I know.

I feel like a blob.

On the other hand I feel kind of proud of myself that I've organised to see people over the summer that I'm not 100% comfortable with i.e. not my best friend. I'm also going to wolverhampton next week to stay with a friend. All very social and in my ED head completely dangerous and scary.

The other day I saw a photo of myself at 12 years old. I don't look like a kid but a full grown woman and I was treated as such. I remember that I never acted like a kid but tried to be mature and sensible always. And now at nearly 19 I feel exactly the same only pretending to be mature and tough but really feeling as fragile and vunrable as a child. I don't know. When things started to go wrong for everybody I was close to and the guilt set in I couldn't cope with not being able to help and look after everybody. And so I gave up and concentrated on destroying myself.

Anna

Four Days In

I've been home four days. I've kept myself busy jogging two miles each morning, spending time at the beach, seeing family. I didn't binge and I was doing well eating around 300 calories a day. Then today I just broke. I'd had a 160 calorie salad for lunch made up of a little chicken smothered in spices, cooked in foil with chopped up tomatoes, salad leaves, cucumber and a tiny amount of potato. I'd had two rhubarb and custard boiled sweets - 58 calories. I was at 218 calories for the day and not having tea. Then I made a batch of pasta sauce to put in the freezer for my mother. I make a fantastic pasta sauce. And then I just made a whole heap of pasta and then just had bowl after bowl. Simple as could be without thinking at all. It didn't feel like I was doing it. I didn't have the internal argument about the pros and cons of binging and then the internal dialogue during the binge of 'oh god oh god I want to die what am I doing to myself?' I just ate and ate. And then went for a shower and purged and purged until my throat felt raw.

So that was my first slip up this holiday. Otherwise being back is setting me straight back into the 'I hate me' ways of thinking. Although at uni I feel loathsomely ugly when I came back I got this wave of just pathetic-ness, isolation and the feeling of having no real friends at all (and why should I have any? (although I did have friends at school)). And it gave me a shock to realise just how far my self esteem has grown by being at uni. I can't decide if it's because I've been away from my mother or away from school.

Either way I am determined to not turn to bulimia but to restricting. This summer I am going to sit in the garden in the bright sunshine, reading and being sophisticated and never eating at all except the odd grape or tomato.

Anna

Advice - Please Help me

Things are shit and I need some advice. At the moment I throw up daily and eat thousands and thousands of calories. Today for instance I ate a 375g box of cheerios, two cinnamon swirl pastries, a big bag of onion ring crisps, a 200g bar of chocolate, 8 pancakes, pizza, chips, garlic bread. That was hard for me to write. Not something I could ever admit to in the real world. I have an exam on Monday that I haven't started revising for because my days are filled with stuffing my face and vomiting.

A week on Saturday I go home for almost four long months of summer, most of which I am trying to fill up with going places and visiting people, but a lot of which I'll spend at home where there is no way I can go on like this. Before last summer I had so much freedom to buy food, eat what I liked and throw up in peace but when I finished school my parents found out and I put a lot of effort in to get better before I went off to uni. But now I feel I am a hundred times worse than I was and I don't know if I can just stop when I get home.

So advice: how do I actually stop?? Tips on how I can just get my mind to just behave would be great.

Anna

Sweet Sunshine

It's sunny here. Sunny and cold but the weather cheers me up. I feel very happy this morning though my b/p'ing is still going on as bad as ever. And my work is going badly. And my friends aren't too happy with me. And although I am becoming increasingly closer to MM he is too shy and me too awkward for anything to ever happen. I just feel content this morning. It won't last, I'm not sure if it's even real.

Yesterday I went to the weekly committee meeting after a long day's hard work (of labs going horribly wrong and having to be redone a million times). And then to the pub and I was the most social, fun person there could have been, putting people at their ease and all, asking questions about their interests that I don't give a damn about. I am nice to so many people that I don't care about but I get nothing in return. And it makes me want to scream and shout. I want them to notice that I'm not okay. I want them to be kind and caring and look after me the way I do to them.

But not today, today the sun is out and I'm going to enjoy a few moments of inner peace (because I'm already contemplating missing my morning lectures to buy some binge food... but let's just ignore those feelings).

One day I am going to be so perfect. I'll be the girl you can love.

Anna

Binges

It is not going well.

So Tuesday evening I went out to the committee meeting and then to the pub. There were three guys there that I am good friends with, one is the guy I seem to have gained a majorly-high-school-sih crush on but I flirted instead with the other two. Because that makes sense. I feel like the guy I like - let's call him MM - hates me. I know deep down this isn't true because he's really nice to me but my paranoid mind seems to just point out my flaws whenever I'm with him, making me feel like shit and making me feel like this must be because he hates me. Does that make sense? Basically the nicer he is to me the more I like him and then the more my mind makes me feel he hates me. So I flirt with everyone else to make him jealous and to show him what he's missing out on (by hating me, which he (probably) doesn't).

Anyway I came home when the pub closed and the urge to binge just kicked in, even though I'd had a lovely, happy time (except for the weird paranoia). I went to the kitchen at 1am to cook some pasta and saw that someone had left left-over pancakes in the fridge, with a label saying 'Anyone want one?', needless to say I ate them all and then my pasta. I then promised myself not to eat for two and a half days until the social I'm organising on Friday.

So Wednesday, I had a really productive day and I went to the gym and burnt off 700 calories and ate nothing. When I came home from the gym it was around 8pm and I felt really good and happy and then something changed. It clicked. I fought the urge for a long time but then I popped to the shops and bought chocolate muffins, heaps of crisps and some chocolate digestives. I got the biggest headache after throwing up, like I used to get when I first threw up.

This morning I still had half a pack of chocolate digestives and one and a half muffins left so after my first lecture of the day I binged and then missed my second lecture because I was throwing up. I guess the binge today was inevitable as I had food left over and better to get it over and done with right? No, I still feel like eating today. I can't even commit to the idea of not eating again.

What I would really like would just be to curl up in my bed and not face the world for a few days or just lock up all the food in the world so I didn't have to worry about not eating it, it just wouldn't exist. Tomorrow I have organised a social at a cafe with the most beautiful cup cakes in the world and the best hot chocolate and he - MM is going to be there and I am just stressed as this is the first social I've organised for the society and clever me it involves food.

Sorry for the shittyness and length of this post. I will try to beat this as motivation for you? I am running out of ways to motivate myself and maybe some responsibility would help. I swear to you a few years ago I was the only person I knew who could diet/fast successfully and I just couldn't understand other people and why they 'gave in'. Look at me now I guess I got my comeuppance.

Anna

ps. Thank you for the comments btw it's lovely to know there are people who really understand. I feel awfully alone most of the time.

Doughnuts and Cookie Dough

I want to binge. I want to binge. I want to binge. I want to binge.

I have already thrown up twice today once after eating four jaffa cakes and then again after eating a small portion of curly fries (it seemed small to me but then again do I actually know what a normal amount of food is any longer?). That is all I have had today apart from a portion of salad for tea. Neither of these were binges in any capacity. It was just food that went in and then came out.

And now I really want to eat doughnuts and cookie dough and macdonalds burgers and chicken nuggets and pain aux raisins but I can't. I can't. I can't.

Or could I? NO.

I won't. I won't. I won't.

I have to go to a meeting and then I'll go to the pub and socialise and then I will come home and do some work for tomorrow and then I will go to bed. Then I will get up tomorrow morning and not eat all day.

I DO NOT NEED FOOD.

Anna

Lasagne

So yesterday I went over to my friends house where we had lasagne and pizzas and garlic bread and cake. When we got there she just had pizza bases and toppings so I busied myself and made all the food and then dished out to everyone and I was the perfect hostess of someone else's dinner party. I could have easily just walked away without touching a mouthful of food, I'd already refused so much but then I was left alone with half a lasagne. I ate it. I don't know why. I never know why when I look back. I always think, I'm sure I could have stopped myself... but I can't. I physically can't. Anyway after that I pretty much just wanted to leave so I made my excuses half an hour later and said I had to work. When I came back to my room, after a creepy walk home, I wrote a very long list of reasons of why I didn't want to eat and I began to feel better but today I still failed.

Today started off well. I handed in a great assignment. I ate 109 calories for lunch then burnt off 500 calories at the gym. Then I was going to have just some turkey for tea - another 66 calories and be done with it. But I was late and they had run out of turkey and so I had a small tuna sandwich but because I'd got all anxious about it after preparing all day for what I was going to have that little thing inside me clicked and then the routine started. Walking hurriedly to tesco... buying as much food as I had money for... walking even hurriedly back... consuming a pot of half baked ice cream (after craving this stuff for a long time - it was a serious let down - I really should just stick to the binge food I know), 5 doughnuts and a pack of 24 jaffa cakes... cleaning up the sink in my room.

Lying on my floor feeling like shit and promising myself this would never ever ever happen again.

But it will. I can't even make promises to myself any longer. I don't know how to change. I don't know how to go back to that girl three years ago who could just refuse point blank all food. Where did she go? Everyone loved her.

Anna

Love Yourself and Starve

Things are changing.
I'm giving myself three weeks (until I go to Skye for the weekend) to drop as much as weight as possible following these rules:
- Burn at least 300 calories/day in the gym
- Eat no more than 400 calories/day
- Absolutely no binging or purging
- Only eat vegetables. fruit and small amounts of fish and turkey
- Drink obscene amounts of water
- Be FUCKING awesome

I'm not going to break. (Okay there is a very strong possibility that I'll be binging and purging before long but right now I feel pumped.)

Today so far:
Eaten:
-two slices of turkey - 66 calories
-some cucumber and lettuce - 25
-an apple - 43

Burnt:
rowing machine - 100
cycling machine - 200
treadmill - 50

Total: 134 - 350 = -216

Tonight we are going over to someone's house for pizzas but I think I can quite easily lie my way out of it as long as I stay STRONG, which I will.

I CAN DO THIS! Who's with me?

Anna x

(Also, life is going up and down so much that I feel sick from the ride)

Sticky Toffee Pudding

I really should write here more just as a way of telling people who understand or just the abyss how I feel.

The only problem is I am a complete failure. All I do is binge and purge. That is basically my life. Oh and the odd bit of feeling suicidal and when I don't feel suicidal I'm scared of going back to feeling suicidal again and doing something rash and stupid. At this rate I'm going to be dead or I'm just going to fail my degree and then die. I don't really understand either. I have pretty good friends here at university and I go out and I socialise and I'm part of a committee (social rep - if there is anything more ridiculous ever than me being a social rep then please do share). I surround myself with good people and things that make me feel good like helping out with charities and blah blah and all that and yet I still feel so goddamn awful all the time.

The night before last I had to go to a dinner party thing, where we all sat around and had pizza and tortilla chips and sticky toffee pudding and lasagne and wine and cake and all manner of things. The guy I like sat next to me and I was forced to eat sticky toffee pudding next to him and feel like the biggest pig in the world. If I'd been alone I would have scoffed everything in sight but other than the pudding that I couldn't escape I had one crisp, a glass of wine and two satsumas. I then spent the whole evening feeling awkward and ugly, which I despise especially as I had been witty and cool and sociable and felt great with the same group of people just the evening before. I really wish food just didn't exist in any capacity and then I wouldn't have to avoid it or binge or purge or anything, I could just go around feeling comfortable with a group of great friends.

None of that probably made much sense. I haven't weighed myself in rather a long time and I'm finding it hard to even imagine fasting as I just know every few hours I'll want to shovel food down my throat. I really need a slap or someone to just to wake me up and remind me that I can fast I am capable of it, I don't need food and there is a point to life and this whole thing.

Anna

Apologies

I apologise for the total lack of posts. It's mostly because I've had exams and then went to Berlin for a week and then to cardiff for a few days to visit a friend from home who's at uni there. I felt the exams went awful but I got the results yesterday and I got what I needed to stay on the course. Of course I'm disappointed but I would be with anything less than 100%. Berlin was fantastic but I suddenly found myself spending 24/7 with four girls, who are great friends I've made since starting uni and this led to me having to eat quite a lot to keep them happy which then led to me starting to purge again. It feels so unreal as though what happens in the toilet is completely cut off from the rest of my life and doesn't affect it and the bubbly person they see isn't the same girl who bends over the toilet.

I got back from Berlin on Monday evening and then travelled down to cardiff the next morning. I went to visit my best friend and pretty much only friend that I ever liked from school. She's also bulimic but purges a lot less than I do these days. We know each other inside out but we're a toxic mix when together. Anyway we pretty much didn't eat until Thursday when we went to an all you can eat buffet for lunch and ate fuck loads and of course I threw up.

I got drunk a lot in cardiff and acted like a complete slut pulling four people one of which was 33 but not as you might imagine a complete sleazebag. I also fell over on the last night and my left arm has a huge bruise all the way along my lower arm. I also locked myself in the bathroom and cut my arm while drunk. Stupid thing to do.

Now I'm back at halls in university back in my b/p habits and too scared to weigh myself. My goals totally need to be rewritten as well. Thanks to those who are following its great to know people are reading this but don't expect too much motivation from me as I tend to fail everything.

Anna

Why so slow?

I've been eating roughly 400-600 calories a day for the past week of mainly just fruit and veg and yet I'm only down 2 pounds to 124. Why is it so slow? Even if I was just losing water weight I should lose more than this at least at the beginning. I guess I haven't been getting much exercise but with exams and revision I just can't find the time. I hate this being so careful and getting no reward from it. It's as though I might as well binge it wouldn't make the slightest difference.

But I won't will I? I can't even put that thought in my head or the doubt will lead on to messing everything up for the millionth time. I'm going to a cafe later with some friends. I hope I don't just give in after coming this far. I know it has only been a week but for the last few months I've been binging and purging multiple times a day and I know if I only put a toe out of line they'll be no coming back from it. It's all or nothing, really.

Anna

Uni and Goals

So I'm back at uni and stressing a lot about exams. But it snowed last night so hopefully I won't be tempted to go outside to the shops and buy binge food, which I usually would when stressed. I still have to get through meals in halls but I tend to have more control when people are watching me eat. I can't just go into a mad melt down and eat thousands of calories.

I weighed myself this morning for the first time in a month and I'm 126 lbs / 57.3 kg. I never thought I'd see a number like that on a scale again - I am freaking out - only two months ago I was 8 stone.

So my goals.. I never really know what to aim for. But as an estimate and I'll change as things change:

GW1: 120 (20/01/2011)
GW2: 115 (31/01/2011)
GW3: 110 (14/02/2011)
GW4: 105 (28/02/2011)
UGW: 90

And roughly around 600 calories a day?

Today so far I've eaten a peach and an apple ~ 91 calories.

Anna

2011

The main thing is that something needs to change and if a blog helps then so be it. I've spent years going round in circles: fasting, binging, purging and feeling rotten throughout. Everything was meant to change when I started uni last September but nothing did. But now with a new year begun I am ready to start fighting again. I am going to use this blog to stay on track. I'll be going back to uni in two days but until then I can't weigh myself (utterly frustrating being home). Once I know my weight I will set myself goals and post them here so that I can't mess up.

Anna