Looking Back.

Hey Guys, how are you all ?

Wow, it’s been such a long time since my last post. I’ve really come a long way since then. I haven’t got the time to tell you all about it but I’ll give you a brief overview. (I apologize for the long post in advance). Back in February (when I was last posting) I was really not in a good place. Reading my old posts makes me sad, thinking about how much I was lying to myself. I was dangerously underweight, about BMI 14-15. I even lied about my weight, making up that the scales were wrong and I pretending was actually fine. Since then, I’ve gained over 10kg (22lbs) and I’m doing a lot better. I no longer need to be watched at meals (not for a long time), nor do I weigh all my food. I do still count calories and I’m working towards intuitive eating but I’m not so obsessive. If I’m offered a bit of cookie at school, I’ll eat it and forget about it. Not factor it in and way overestimate it as I would’ve done. I’m sad to admit I got a lot worse before I turned to corner. I narrowly avoided hospital but I’m embarrassed to say that was only due to water-loading. Once I started to gain weight properly life began to get a lot better. I was more involved in conversations; people began to include me because they liked me and not because they pitied me. In May-June I took my GCSE exams and whilst I was extremely stressed and lost a little weight I generally completed them in good spirits, and went on to have the most amazing summer.

During the summer I went to Australia with my dad and then my friend Grace and I went to France where we ate cakes and ice cream and generally acted like teenagers. I was the happiest I’d been in as long as I can remember. During the summer I gained the last 3kg that I needed to reach maintenance, something which I had been reluctant to do for the past month or so (I basically maintained at about 3kg below my goal for a few weeks). I got to my maintenance about 6 weeks ago and started school. Everything was going great; people said I looked fab, I received the most compliments I’ve ever received. But unfortunately it was not to last. A new girl at school who was developing an eating disorder came to me to ask for help. Unfortunately in doing so she tempted the anorexia that had been lying vaguely dormant for the past few weeks. It really hit me hard, scarily hard. I stopped eating, my intake dropped to below 100 calories a day and I began compulsively exercising again. In the space of 2 weeks I’d lost over 4kg and my treatment team were making arrangement for me to be admitted ASAP. Luckily, I managed once again to turn it around just on the brink of another admission.  I’m currently gaining back the weight I’d lost but I seem to be stuck. I’m finding it hard to break the 2000 calorie mark, and for the past 2 weeks I’ve been maintaining my weight. My treatment team are anxious for me to get back to where I was before my mini relapse and are pushing me to gain faster. I decided to start blogging again because I think I need to support and I enjoy the social side of it. I won’t be posting my eats today as my camera is out of battery and I can’t find the charger but I will be doing so very soon – so look out!

Just for comparison, this is what I look like now

Bye lovies <3

A new Cookbook.... A world of opportunity

Hey lovlies, how are we all ?
I've been having a great time this past few days, still improving (I think) and making lots of yummy things to eat aswell, I really feel i'm starting to enjoy food again, which is awesome!! I'm a bit worried atm because this week is the week that my rowing coach is deciding if I should be allowed to go on rowing camp in 4 weeks time. Eek! I so hope he'll let me, it'll be a challenge I know, not being allowed to exercise and with the unknown food and everything. But I really wanna do it, it was so good last year and I don't wanna miss out ya know? :-\. Anyway, i've been thinking through about the eats and I was thinking maybe I should take pre-weighed bags of oats and UHT soya milk? What do you think, I dunno I just think maybe that will make brekky easier. If I take my own bread for lunch then they will have chicken/meat etc for lunch and dinner I just have to have whats there. Grr... I'm so confused about if I'll be able to or not! Also, I was thinking, it's only 5 days including 2 travelling, so actually, if worst comes to worse, how much weight can I actually lose? A couple of kg? Not that much, and it won't be "real" weight so I'll gain it back quickly. But I have NO intentions of doing that. It's just like a fall back if things go wrong.

Ho hum, I guess what'll be will be. What do you guys think? Should I go? ahh I think i should stop worrying and get on with everything! I have so much to do this week with work, food etc I can't be worrying about this. Hmm, anyway, I made such a nice tea tonight. I got these 2 new cookbooks at the weekend. One is like "100 calorie meals", now I know that seems weird, but they're actually really nice. They've just like made them small, so I made them big again :) teehee. I've already had 2 recipes from the book and they were both so so good^. Oh yeh, and I had oatbran for brekky this morning insted of oatmeal/porridge, but my mum's a bit worried it's too "rough" for my sensitive stomach coz my old nutritionist made a comment once. Is it a harsh on ur system as all bran? Does anyone know? Just wondering :)

Anyway, I think that's quite enough of my ramblings. This IS a food blog after all, and so I think so food might be in order, non? Haha, so bascially my oatbran looks pretty similar to the normal oats, swimming in soya milk OFC:

Had it with some Choco Spread, Almond butter, Coconut, Blackberries, Blueberries, Jelly (Jello) and cottage cheese :)

Dinner Last night (from my new book) was Tuna and Sweet tater fishcakes, with brocolli, peppers, cucumber and a slice of toast with chicken and melty mozzarella :)

Which brings us on to dinner tonight, another creation from the book. I had Chinese Lemon Chicken, with quinoa (pretty yummy -never had it before), brocolli, peppers, cucumber and prawns. 

Oh and I threw in some spring onions just for the hell of it :)

Right, sleep now. School tomorrow, eugh :-\

Night night xoxo

Brunch, But not really

Hey lovlies :)
How are we all on this fine day ? I am good (as you can probably tell from the pleasantry lol). I've had a really pretty fabby day and am very proud of myself because I think I handled quite a difficult situation very well. Basically, what happened is last night I was staying at my dads, which was fun. But that means one thing. LIE IN ! Wooo. It was great, I got to lie in till like 11, but then I found the soya milk was off :O and so had to run to the store to get some more. Not too bad, solved that one, BUT it meant I was eating my breakfast at 12 (again, not that bad - done this before). Well, anyway, then my dad dropped me off at my mums which I was met with the announcement that we were all having an early lunch and dinner and then watching a film. Has teh penny dropped yet? Yes, thats right, less than an hour after finishing my breakfast (and I was absolutaly stuffed as I normally am for the following few hours - eugh, the side effects of starvation) I was informed that I HAD to have my lunch because everyone was going out so there would be no one to supervise me.

This, as i'm sure you can probably imagine upset me hugely. I'm not actually sure why, I think it was more to do with the huge gap between my lunch and dinner which was the most annoying thing but I really can't be sure. Anyway, instead of doing what I normally do and going to sit in my room and cry I sat down and wrote out what I was going to have for tea and had it. No fuss (well not much). And it was horrible, and when I went to meet my friend later I felt disgusting a bloated but hey! I did it, I ate 2 meals in the space of an hour and I got on with it. I was quite proud actually :) Oh and I forgot to mention breakfast. This was a challenge because I was at my dad's so, obviously, (even though I BOUGHT HIM A BLOODY PAIR OF SCALES) none of my meals were checked. I weighed them out and asked him to watch, but he just refused and said he was watching tv and I could do it myself. Normally, ED would've lept at this opportunity. But actually, today, I took control and silenced that stupid voice. I measured everything right, and it was all perfect and I didn't even feel guilty. Because I've realised that I DON'T have a choice. If there was a choice no one would eat. The choice isn't between eating and not eating, its between eating and dying, because thats what'll happen (well actually i'll end up in hospital again but you catch my drift). So yeah, a good day :)

Apart from that, nothing's really happened. I've had some yummy eats (ofc) and lots of jelly, haha i'm such a child. But apart from that it's been pretty boring. So I guess I should probs post the eaties :) Breakfasts have been good, two of my fave:

A yummy breakfast of Scrambled eggs, toast with jam and almond butter, cottage cheese and blackberries :)

Oatts :) (obvs added more soya milk ontop afterwards teehee) - Old fashioned oats cooked with soya milk, blackberries, blueberries, coconut flakes and a tsp each of almond butter and choco spread. Delish :)

On to some dinners, my lunches look pretty boring, don't think i've got any picks soz. 

My first Amy's meal. I was pretty impressed, I had the Black bean enchilada's, and I served it with my usual array of Broccoli, bell peppers, prawns and Chicken. 

At my dad's house I had me some Fish Pie, and I served it with the same extras as above :)

Dinner tonight was another fave of mine. So so good, gotta love Baked beans with melty cheese :) yum yum yum, had it with a sesame burger, and the same as above. 

Thank's for reading guys. Soz about the long post lol. I guess I had a lot to say for such a dull person :) 

Better get some shut eye now. I;m getting up earlier tomorrow to avoid the fail at meal timings of today. 

Night night xoxo

24th February

Hey lovelies :) How are we all doing? Well I hope. I am too actually, the last few days I have been getting better and better (small steps but still, every little helps right?). I have been managing my eats as well. Basically, a couple of days ago, my mum and I (mainly my mum) decided that I should up my cals from 1500 to 1700 because I was losing weight on 1500 ( she had no basis for this, just a"feeling"). Initially obviously I refused because saw no reason for it, but this lead my mum to start shouting, saying how I obviously didn't want to gain weight, that I was going to be stuck like this, go back to hospital etc etc. Well that just made me feel like utter crap , thanks mum. I tried to explain to her, but she doesn't understand that theres a difference between wanting to get better and put on weight in a controlled manner and being able to say "Yeah, now i'm going to eat 3000 cals a day" coz then I know i'll just put weight on really fast and relapse immediatly. Which wouldn't help anyone, at all. It's weird to think how little she understands, I mean, I don't fully understand but she's just clueless, yet to me it makes perfect sense. How odd.


So yeah the gist of it is now im on 1700, and for the past few day's its not been too bad. I just added in more for my snacks so its not like I feel i'm eating loads. I'm also managing to meet my carb and fat targets for the days (these are good targets set by me to make sure i'm getting enough of each) so I know i'm eating the right foods. The urges to cheat are also dissapearing, if somewhat slowing. For example, in the past few days, when my mum has left me alone with a meal for a few minutes, I have immediatly thrown as much as I can down the waste disposal. I've actually sat there and thought, why would I do that? It's a lose-lose situation. As I see it, by doing that I a) Don't get to eat the food (BIG negative lol), b) Lose more weight and end up back in hospital and c) Mess up my metabolism even more then its already been messed up. So I just carried on eating, and I was so proud. It made me think how I may have actually turned a corner, just a week ago all of my food would've been in the bin, but now, not a chance. :)


School hasn't been too bad, I mean its school so its never gonna be great, but it's defo been worse. People are being nice and I have a school trip of Friday to go to London so wooo, no lessons :) And I love english (its an english trip). Oo but there is a new girl 2 years below me with anorexia. She has to eat with the nurse in teh room next to me and my mate, nursie wanted to put us in together, but I was a bit like :S. Coz i really don't wanna be around someone who might trigger me when i'm literally JUST starting to feel a bit safer around food again. ho hum, I guess we'll have to see how things pan out. I have doctors tomorrow, and I get my weight done. I think it's gonna be stressful, I know I will have gained, possible as much as like 1kg, which doesn't seem like that much but actually I really dunno how ima react to it :-\. Also, I a bit worried coz we are having a big meeting tomorrow, which I THINK means they have applied for me to go back into IP. Well I refuse, I'm not joking, I damn well refuse to go back and miss a year of school. I can do this at home. I will. They can't make me go as I'm pretty sure they haven't got grounds to section me anymore so haha. Sucks to be them.

Anyway, I'm a bit tired actually, it's only 11.00pm but I havent slept well the past few nights :( any ideas? I dunno what it is, i'm usually quite a good sleeper but past few days I dunno. I think somethings been worrying me but I can't remamber what it is. Do you ever get that lol? And it's really late for me going to bed at this time coz my mum was out food shoppinf for the dinner party she's hosting on Friday and didn't get back till late, so dinner was late, and nw i'm tired :( Not great lol.)
Todays eaties:

For breakfast I had me some Good old fashioned oats :) with soya milk, blueberries, coconut flakes, a warm glob of almond butter and another of chocolate spread. So so so good and so satisfying :). Also had some cottage cheese and jelly (jello) on the side.

Lunch was a chicken and melted cheese sandwich of wholemeal bread, some blueberries and cottage cheese and jelly. Not forgetting the all important bell pepper and salad :) (soz forgot to take a pic)

Dinner was exactly the same as I had last night (haha I was too lazy to think of anything else to have). Twas, Prawns with lemon juice, chicken ( I have chicken at like every meal lol), a small piece of cod and a veggie burger, with a bell pepper, cucumber and broccoli :) Love it... and it's pretty healthy as well. It's got carbs, fat, veg and protein. Done and done.

Well thanks for reading guys. Hope I didn't bore you too much. Feel free to comment of whatever :) Ooo.. scrambled eggs tomorrow I think, and toast with jam. Yum yum.
Right, time for bed now. Night night. xoxo

Is that really me?

Well, I guess I should probably start off by explaining what happened when I went to see my N on Wednesday. It sucked, to say the least. She wanted to put me on a meal plan which she had no idea of the calories of and she was just like "erm.. It's about 1500, but by the time you've added all your nut butters etc it'll be more". Waaa? She actually expected me to be able to add things to a meal plan that weren't in it ? Excuse me, but isn't that just a tinsy winsy bit far fetched? So yeah, bascially it ended with me being being allowed to go back to my 1500 cal meal plan, problem is, yes I would like a meal plan so I don't have to be so strict on calories, but I really can't manage one that has like 4 things on it (no jokes, for the carbs exchange there were like 5 exchanges - what do they expect me to eat? ) and defo not one that isn't even planned for me. Ga, anyway, I could sorta see her point, I had lost weight. I knew I was going to but I didn't think it would be that much. I lost 1.4kg (about 3lbs) which I will agree is a lot. And actually I know its not right, a bmi of 15 just isn't healthy and I know I have to gain.

So since then i've actually done a bit better. I'm trying to overcome my fear of carbs and I think i'm doing pretty well. I met my target today, the same with fats actually - which I feel is a huge step forward and is really going to help me. I sick of all this counting, it's taking over my life (hence the need for a more structured meal plan). Ho hum, well I had a bit of a revelation today actually. I took a pic of myself in the mirror in my underwear and i looked at it and felt disgusted. For the first time in ages I didn't see a fat pig, I saw a very sick girl, whose bones stick out and who looks skeletal. I spent 20 minutes looking at it and trying to work out how that could be me. How my ribs could be the ones in the photo and how my shoulder blades could look so sharp :( Gosh it was horrible. But it made me want to change, oh so much and food was conseqencially a lot easier today. Unfortunatly I am not very well, I have an awful cold and a really soar throat and can't taste AT ALL! Arghh... it's so frustrating coz it's like, i'm not even getting the enjoyment out of the food. *pout*.  BUT... I did have oatmeal for breakfast, which I haven't for ages coz i've been too scared of the carbs. So big step forward I think :)

Anyway, I think I should probably go now. I have school tomorrow :( How annoying. Oh well, but I need my sleep, and I have yet to read todays blogs so au revoir and I leave you with some yummy eats from the past few days :

Such a good snacky :P - Prawns with some home made cocktail sauce.

Lunchtimee : Chicken sandwich with cucumber, mustard and alfalfa sprouts. 

Night night lovelies :) 

Maria xoxo

An issue with trust...

Hey lovelies :)

I hope your all doing well... I unfortunately am not. I have a really hard few days, since my last post i've been in tears so many times its stupid. I guess I should just explain, basically as i said in my previous post, i'm staying with my dad right now as my mum is away. I do love him and he is awsome but since being here I have gone backwards by miles and atm I am starting to hate the way he is. He's the sorta person who will just trust, end of... which is a lovely personality trait, but NOT WHEN YOU'VE GOT A F****** ED! I want to slep him sometimes, and I know I can't blame him but it is because of him that this has happened. I got really bad a couple of nights ago, he goes out to work in the morning after eating breakfast with me and then I have lunch with my mates and he's supposed to call them to check. So that night I reminded him and all he said was "Oh the moments past now, I trust you've eaten it". THAT was the turning point. I stormed out and started crying, because up until then I had thought he would check up on me, like check my food diary to make sure I was having my 1600 cals a day (I was having more like 1450 at this point but its better than normal). But I realsied that he wasn't going to do that, that he trusted me to do it myself - even thought everyone has told him not to. Well THANKYOU VERY MUCH, now i'm screwed for my N app tomorrow. 

I don't want that control, I don't want him to trust me. I'm not ready for that, if I'm given the choice my ED will take over, and I can admit that. I HAVE admitted that. So, to this I really tried, I couldn't bring myself to ask for help, because its just too hard. But I did deliberately try and get him to realise, I left my food diary out, I deliberatly did my measurements in front of him. But he just walked away, he couldn't be bothered to even look. He was just like, if you prominse to do it right, I'll leave you. ARGHH why? Why would you say that? That's like the worst thing to say, coz i can't contradict him, ED won't let me, but I don't wanna have that trust. GAAAAAAA. So yeah, the gist of it is, he hasnt checked anything, so my intake has dropped, I don't know how far, I have been too scared to check, but I can't imagine its more than 600 a day. I hate it, I feel so crappy but I just can't do anything. Luckily i think i'll try an explain this to my N tomorrow. Hopefully she'll help. I get weighed aswell. I think i'll have lost. I don't think a lot as it hasn't been that long but i'm really worried. Sorry about this, if its triggering for anyone I just don't know what to do. How can I get him to help, coz I can#t bring myself to ask, it's really such a big step. And I don't think asking'll change anything wither. He'll still just not check and trust that I can do it for myself. Well, I can't, at least I can admit that. Right ?

Some bits have been good though. My mates have been great and they came over for a sleepover last night and we had a porridge fest today :) Cooor it was awesome. Loved it so much, it's great being social again. :) And eating with people, not being the one avoiding food. Wow, it really makes me wanna beat this, i'm so glad i'm seeing my N tomorrow, we have A LOT to talk about. Also, I went to a party and slept there, AND made pancakes, which was fun. Didn't have any lol... but it was fun anyway. I really can't wait until I will be able to just eat without being so worried. I will get there, I know I will. 

Sorry about that rant, I just had to get it off my chest. I'll post tomorrow what my N said and my new plan, but for now I shall leave you with some of my eats from the last few days:

This was sooo good, I bought some marshmallow fluff from the American section at Bentalls... OMG YUM! I had Toast with almond butter, chocolate spread and marshmallow fluff - All grilled up and warm. Had it with some fruit and greek yogurt and scrambled eggs.

Out to lunch with my friends. Got myself a Vietnamese chichen salad from m&s. Pretty scrumptious. :)

This was part of my dinner a couple of nights ago. I got some Shirakiku noodles from the local Korean shop, cooked them up in some Chicken Stock, soy sauce and I added in some chicken and peas.

Me and my friend last night, raving till the early hours. 

And me cooking pancakes after about 2 hours sleep :) haha... a bit dangerous.

Right, im off for some sleep. I'll update you soon.

Night :)

Maria xoxo

Hey guys :)

Hows your last few weeks been. Gosh haven't posed in a while... a lot has happened I guess. I'm not sure, I can't really remember.. but I do know I have come up with lots of lovely foodie creations, lol! Erm.. well, I met with my N last week, got a new one. She was actually really reasonable, which was good. Oh yeah, basically, that week (last wed I think) I had gained 0.5kg (about a pound) in the week. Which is like the only time I've "officially" gained weight at home... BIG STEP! Well, I think she was happy with me but unfortunately I got really freaked and I guess I kinda started to restrict again.. not good :(

I'm not sure exactly coz i'm supervised for most meals, but I know I havent been hitting 1500 a day. I don;t really know what I have been hitting but I'm really worried, coz I maintained this past week but I think that was more to do with the fact that I had eaten lunch this time and I hadn't last time. Arghh, I hate this so much. Seriously, on the way home from school today I just randomly started crying. Basically, I had won this giant jar of sweets in a competition (oh the irony!) and I couldn't eat any of them. I felt so awful and abnormal, I was literally pleading with anorexia to just f*ck off and never come back. I hate this, I hate it, I hate, I hate it.

So yeah, not really a great time recently. Then there's the fact that school has finished for half term, (good for some) but my mum has gone away. Leaving me to stay with my dad. Now, don't me wrong, I love my dad, I really do. He's absolutaly awesome in my eyes, but he is also very trusting - meaning that ED feels it can get away with a lot around him. With my mum it's like no, she'll check and double check everything, I have to eat enough carbs, cals, fat etc at every meal. But with my dad, I really don;t think he'd object if I fixed myself an entire plate of veggies. :S Eugh, not good for me right now. Ho hum, anyways, I've been trying to keep up with the eating in some forms. Like last night I actually had RICE! Rice, yes thats right, a carb - and not just any carb, like my number one feared carb (along with pasta). Allbeit I didn't quite have a whole portion and mixed in loadsa stuff but still, this is big for me... like really big. And tomorrow i'm having choco spread on my toast, thats like unheard of in my world lol, Chocolate, for breakfast? What is this? :)

Just a short(ish) post today, I have been very busy but now it's half term I should be back pretty frequently, so look out for some more posts. Wow, I actually think people wanna know about my life? How sad I am lol. Anyway, I hope you all have a good day(s) and I shall write soon - reveal all about my choco brekky. Yum Yum. But for now I shall leave you with some lovely views of the highlights of my eats for the past weeks :)

This was a Good brekky - Toast with mango, strawberry, blackberries, cottage cheese and Almond Butter.

   Then theres The Rice :) - Mixed in some chicken, feta, peas, scrambled egg and tomato. So so good, pretty damn scary though!!

Tonight's dinner of A corn wrap, stuffed with a crumbled sesame burger. chicken, alfalfa sprouts, and some melted mozzarella. Yummmmy :) - had it with some tuna and mayo

Thanks for reading :) 

Night night 

xoxo Maria