I need a better way to keep track of time. Without tests and projects due, rotations are throwing me off. Since pretty much all I have to do is show up to my rotation site, there isn't too much to base the movement of time off of. I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post.
I wanted to post tonight about what I've been eating lately because I've recently realized how horrible my diet is. So here it is:
-Bagels with peanut butter
-Cereal
-Healthy Choice Garlic Herb Shrimp frozen lunch
-Smart Ones Fettuccine Alfredo (I'm cutting this out as it's done more bad than good lately)
Did you get that? That's it. There are some random, snack-like foods I eat like Ritz Crackers with peanut butter or Wheat Thins, but that's about all I can handle lately. How sad is that? I usually end up having a bagel & peanut butter for breakfast and dinner every day and my Garlic Herb Shrimp for lunch. Every.single.day. EVERY F*CKING DAY.
I don't express my anger very often on here, but it is SO exasperating to have such a limited diet. I'm sure I could expand it somewhat, but A) I'm anything but a cook, so I don't know what else to try and B) I'm so afraid of something going horribly wrong after trying something new. If I had more time off to experiment, I would, but even though I have Friday and Saturday to try out new things, I've been sick or feeling sick every weekend.
I know for a fact I'm not getting enough calories or nutrients which is depressing. I got so close to my goal weight of 140 (I'm 5'10.5") but then started going back downhill again after I started having more episodes. Now I'm hanging out around 130. I don't like looking or feeling this thin. While people always ask me what I'm doing and then ignorantly say, "Well I wish I could have IBS so I could be that thin," I would give anything just to be able to gain some weight without making myself feel like hell.
I'm loving the Imodium because I don't have diarrhea anymore except around my period and when I forget to take it, but the other IBS symptoms are killing me. The gas pains/explosions are unbearable most of the time, and I still just get that sick feeling after eating something bad. Even though it doesn't end with diarrhea anymore, I still get the feeling that it's going to happen.
I need to take the time to sit down and find more meal options to add to my diet, but with Career Day for my pharmacy school coming up in a couple weeks, I'm too busy freaking out about the SIX interviews I have that day to make time for it or to have time to deal with the consequences of trying something that doesn't work out.
I'm just so tired of having such a boring diet. Does anyone have any tried and true meal choices that don't cause a ton of gas or diarrhea?
Showing posts with label fear of food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear of food. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Gaining weight & ending the fear
Obligatory "I'm such a bad blogger" paragraph! School has been keeping me ridiculously busy, I've taken on almost double the hours I've been working, and well, I guess I just didn't really know what else to say on here.
You know how when you go out somewhere & get really bad service? What do you want to do when you get home? Give the restaurant a really bad rating & a critical review, of course! No? Well, maybe that's just me. What I'm saying is that when things are good, there's not much to say. But when they're bad, there just isn't even enough room to get everything out! Since I've been feeling better, I just didn't really know what to post about on this blog.
On my other blog, I've been participating in Nablopomo which has taught me to pull topics out of my ass when I have absolutely nothing to talk about. Who benefits here, you guys, of course! ;)
Ok, to the actual post. If you're like me you have a bad relationship with food. You might even fear it like I do. I just cross posted a post (see below this one) I wrote for my other blog about worry. As I eat, I'm constantly worrying about what's going to happen once the food starts getting digested. Will my body be able to handle it? Am I going to have to rush to find a bathroom soon? The thoughts are endless. Wait, check that- they WERE endless. But, honestly, after reading only half of this book, I worry so much less about how the food's going to affect me & I eat...you know, like a normal person. The thoughts are still in the back of my mind, but I don't let them control how I eat.
This fear of food has had some pretty bad effects on my health. Since this bout with IBS started, I've lost 15-20 pounds that I haven't been able to put back on. At the end of last semester, I was feeling so weak & kind of losing hope of ever feeling normal again. That's when I decided to go see a nutritionist. Obviously, after fearing food for almost 4 years, I'd forgotten how to eat like a normal person. As hard as I was trying to put the weight I had lost back on, I just couldn't do it. I mean- what is there to eat other than cereal, rice & pasta? I sure as hell couldn't remember.
Seeing the nutritionist might have been my best decision in the past 4 years. She gave me two measly pieces of paper that have changed my life. I'm now only 5 pounds away from where I want to be & I feel great! She gave me a simple list of foods (you can find it here- it's a link to a PDF file that you can download) grouped by type that are calorie dense. I found that I'd been eating the same types of food, but I'd been choosing the ones with hardly any calories. I started picking foods that I knew weren't trigger foods from this list & tracking my progress on Calorie Counter.
Even if you're not trying to gain weight, there are some great options on here to remind you about healthy foods to try out. Try to eat as big of a variety from this list as you can to help train yourself to eat normally again & develop a healthy relationship with food. I've been really working hard at trying to put an end to my fear of food & gaining weight since May, and it's been tough. After eating like I did for so long, it took a while to get to the point where I could open the pantry & pull out something I'd never tried before instead of just reaching for the cereal.
You might be at the point I was just a year or two ago. You might feel like there's absolutely no hope. That you're going to be stuck at home, next to your bathroom, just in case. Or that you're going to die eating only cereal & rice. One good thing about IBS is that it usually cycles. As bad as it might be now, it will probably get better. Oh great, now I sound like those movies- "It gets better," but it really does. Maybe in a few years I'll feel like absolute shit again & basically be chained to my bed, but I'm not going down without a fight again.
I really hope you guys can take something away from that food list like I did. And seriously, if you feel any type of stress when you eat, buy that book & do the exercises inside. If you don't have the money right now, at least just start a worry journal. Simply writing down every single thing I worried about (you can bet my hand cramped up quite often) made me realize how pointless it all is- completely unproductive worry- & that it's only making things worse.
You know how when you go out somewhere & get really bad service? What do you want to do when you get home? Give the restaurant a really bad rating & a critical review, of course! No? Well, maybe that's just me. What I'm saying is that when things are good, there's not much to say. But when they're bad, there just isn't even enough room to get everything out! Since I've been feeling better, I just didn't really know what to post about on this blog.
On my other blog, I've been participating in Nablopomo which has taught me to pull topics out of my ass when I have absolutely nothing to talk about. Who benefits here, you guys, of course! ;)
Ok, to the actual post. If you're like me you have a bad relationship with food. You might even fear it like I do. I just cross posted a post (see below this one) I wrote for my other blog about worry. As I eat, I'm constantly worrying about what's going to happen once the food starts getting digested. Will my body be able to handle it? Am I going to have to rush to find a bathroom soon? The thoughts are endless. Wait, check that- they WERE endless. But, honestly, after reading only half of this book, I worry so much less about how the food's going to affect me & I eat...you know, like a normal person. The thoughts are still in the back of my mind, but I don't let them control how I eat.
This fear of food has had some pretty bad effects on my health. Since this bout with IBS started, I've lost 15-20 pounds that I haven't been able to put back on. At the end of last semester, I was feeling so weak & kind of losing hope of ever feeling normal again. That's when I decided to go see a nutritionist. Obviously, after fearing food for almost 4 years, I'd forgotten how to eat like a normal person. As hard as I was trying to put the weight I had lost back on, I just couldn't do it. I mean- what is there to eat other than cereal, rice & pasta? I sure as hell couldn't remember.
Seeing the nutritionist might have been my best decision in the past 4 years. She gave me two measly pieces of paper that have changed my life. I'm now only 5 pounds away from where I want to be & I feel great! She gave me a simple list of foods (you can find it here- it's a link to a PDF file that you can download) grouped by type that are calorie dense. I found that I'd been eating the same types of food, but I'd been choosing the ones with hardly any calories. I started picking foods that I knew weren't trigger foods from this list & tracking my progress on Calorie Counter.
Even if you're not trying to gain weight, there are some great options on here to remind you about healthy foods to try out. Try to eat as big of a variety from this list as you can to help train yourself to eat normally again & develop a healthy relationship with food. I've been really working hard at trying to put an end to my fear of food & gaining weight since May, and it's been tough. After eating like I did for so long, it took a while to get to the point where I could open the pantry & pull out something I'd never tried before instead of just reaching for the cereal.
You might be at the point I was just a year or two ago. You might feel like there's absolutely no hope. That you're going to be stuck at home, next to your bathroom, just in case. Or that you're going to die eating only cereal & rice. One good thing about IBS is that it usually cycles. As bad as it might be now, it will probably get better. Oh great, now I sound like those movies- "It gets better," but it really does. Maybe in a few years I'll feel like absolute shit again & basically be chained to my bed, but I'm not going down without a fight again.
I really hope you guys can take something away from that food list like I did. And seriously, if you feel any type of stress when you eat, buy that book & do the exercises inside. If you don't have the money right now, at least just start a worry journal. Simply writing down every single thing I worried about (you can bet my hand cramped up quite often) made me realize how pointless it all is- completely unproductive worry- & that it's only making things worse.
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