#but still i’m like.... ok you could roast my disorder just a little as a treat dr house

[sharkselfies]

they literally got him the saddest looking cat imaginable

[rreeaahh]

“Then I want to be sick forever” | Pansy Parkinson

pairing: pansy x reader

word count: 2,374 (unedited)

summary: even the prettiest faces have their scars, and sometimes the tears make it worst. but this time, the tears transformed into a kiss.

a/n: pansy deserved better and you can’t change my opinion.

warnings: eating disorder; smoking; swearing

Pansy Parkinson. A name known by the whole Hogwarts, worn by a black haired, quite short and most importantly, pureblood witch. Whether her name was said by a silly boy who couldn’t have her or an angry girl who couldn’t be her, Pansy continued to be the young ladylike girl her mother taught her to be. She would always smile with superiority and talk like she was better than anyone else because, in fact, she really was. She was from a wealthy and respected family, she was friend with a lot of students from families with connections and she had a thing going on with Draco Malfoy – they were the perfect pair for any Slytherin: both of them very beautiful, strong and – again – purebloods.

You, on the other hand, were a simple student – muggleborn, known by your housemates and a few other students you were friends with. The only thing you had in common with Pansy were some classes where you two were forced to stay in the same room. You didn’t really have a problem with Pansy, you just wanted to avoid her so you could also avoid her mean comments or the looks her friends would give you. She didn’t know you – not even your name – but that didn’t make her stop from making fun of you.

You filthy mudblood. Why are you looking like that? Imagining you’re one of us? I guess they don’t have decent clothes in the muggle world.

And the list could go on forever. Sometimes her words were affecting you, especially because of her the jokes about you came to life. Her friends weren’t so harsh – Draco would totally ignore you, being too busy with bullying Harry and his friends, and dear Merlin, Blaise sat besides you in Charms and he didn’t say a word; he even asked nicely for a quill and returned it at the end of the class – but as soon as she made a comment about your presence, they all started. You really wanted to ignore her, but from time to time you would find yourself crying until you would fall asleep because of her words. You did nothing to her.

But one day happened something that shocked you. Pansy arrived earlier than her friends to Potions and she sat at her table, starting to look over her notes.

“Why does she wear so much make-up?”, ask out of the sudden one of your friends, a Gryffindor girl who was just as pure as Pansy – maybe that gave her the nerve to make a comment out loud about the girl who wasn’t very far from you.

It was true that Pansy was wearing make-up everyday – dark lipstick and her eyes always highlighted by some black eyeshadow; but she was beautiful, the colors were just pointing out her features. Her pale skin was perfect and her black hair was always straightened – her whole face seemed to be painted by a skilled artist and you would be a fool to deny it.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever saw her without it, I think it’s a part of her face”, laughed a boy from your table, Gryffindor too.

You thought they wanted to keep the rivality between the houses, but when a Hufflepuff girl joined their little roast you started to have a weird feeling.

“Hey, Parkinson!”, shouted the Hufflepuff, getting her attention. “I think the circus left some weeks ago, they forgot you?”

“Very funny, Puffy”, came her answer quickly, “I think they also left their hippo behind, but maybe you can catch them up if you hurry.”

“Me?”, laughed the Hufflepuff again, “Hunny, you’re the one whose shirt is a little too tight”, and with that comment she made the entire table laugh. You started to feel a little uncomfortable with the hole conversation going on, but you just couldn’t say anything.

Draco Malfoy entered the Potions’ class followed by his friends and sat down besides Pansy, not even looking at her. He was too busy to talk with Theo about Merlin knows what. Blaise tried to start a conversation with the girl, but she was caught in her own thoughts.

“Draco”, you heard her whispering, but your tablemates heard her too.

“Pst, Pansy”, said the Gryffindor girl again, “I think your boyfriend is too busy thinking about some Mudblood Gryffindor to pay attention to you right now”, she laughed and her friends started to do so immediately after.

“Draco”, Pansy said again, this time louder, but she was interrupted by the sound of Snape’s fluttering robes.

“Not now, Pansy”, was the only answer she gained as the boy started to pay attention to Snape’s comments about how the hole class was full with incapable students, with some exceptions.

The class passed by like it usually did. When you got your head out of your notes, the Slytherin table was empty and a feeling of anxiety grew in your stomach, knowing that maybe they were waiting outside of the class to say mean things as you walk by them. But the corridor was empty, and that was the strangest thing ever.

***

Three days later, you were questioning your choices. You made a promise to yourself in your fourth year, but you demonstrated yourself again how useless are those stupid words said only in your head. You swore to never go in the Forbidden Forest with Luna to feed the Thestrals again because everytime you went you were always scared to death or slightly injured and this time wasn’t any different. While Luna was laughing and having a good time, feeding a baby Thestral – you couldn’t say if she was doing so, you saw nothing – you went to have a walk near the place where the blonde girl was. The forest was always a beautiful place, mysterious and dark even in afternoon, and it was calling for you to discover it. But the feeling of fear was calling louder than the forest, your mind playing tricks by making non-existent sounds in your head.

“Luna?”, you called her when you found yourself alone, even if you didn’t go too far from her. You screamed from the bottom of your lungs when you fell into a hollow, all your body hurting from the impact. Maybe you fell three feet or so but the falling felt like an eternity.

“What are you doing there, Y/N?”, asked Luna while looking down to you, from the place you were before falling.

“Just admiring the sky”, you said nonchalantly, “The clouds are beautiful today”, but all you could see were the trees, the tall and leafy trees.

Luna looked up too, smiling a little. “You’re right”, she agreed, “but I’m afraid we need to go back to the castle. Get up.”

You would to that if you could, but your ankle was hurting like hell and it was impossible for you to walk. Luna helped you to move, little by little, and by dinner time you were in the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey looking at your swollen ankle.

“Why did you fell, Y/N?”, asked Luna who was standing at the left of your bed.

“Why did you went to the Forbidden Forest is a better question, Miss Lovegood”, said Madam Pomfrey with a little annoyance in her voice.

Luna shrugged and smiled to you. “These are some questions that will not be answered any time soon. See you tomorrow, Y/N, goodnight Madam Pomfrey”, and she left you alone.

Madam Pomfrey took care of your ankle and suggested to have a little rest in the Hospital Wing for that night, which was a good idea. You were exhausted so a good sleep seemed to be ideal.

But the voices that started to argue after an hour or two woke you up and didn’t let you to go back to sleep.

“I told you I’m fine, it wasn’t necessary to bring me here”, the anger in the girl’s voice was more than obvious.

“You nearly fainted when you got up from the couch, Pansy”, said the one and only Draco Malfoy to his girlfriend. “Blaise told me you didn’t eat in the last three days, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

You tried to see them from your bed, but all you saw was Draco’s back and Pansy’s bare feet.

“Wrong with me?”, she asked laughing. “If Blaise wouldn’t tell you that, you wouldn’t even know that I’m still your girlfriend.”

“Don’t start that bullshit again, Pansy”, warned her the boy and you saw his hand moving. Pansy got up and she was facing the angry platinum-haired boy. “You know that’s not true, do you?” You didn’t hear Pansy’s answer, but soon Draco called her a good girl. “You look sick”, he said before getting on his feet.

“I don’t wear make-up, dumb ass”, laughed slightly the girl. You could see Draco cupping her face with a hand and a smile grew on her pale lips.

“Then get better and put back on that pretty face of yours, ok?”, he asked and pulled away, taking her smile with him. “Night, Pansy”, were the last words he said before leaving her side. He looked at you with a blank face and left the room in silence. You looked back to Pansy and she gave you a dirty look.

“What are you looking at, Mudblood?”

“Nothing”, you simply said, “I just woke up.”

“I didn’t ask you anything, did I?”

And she laid back on her bed, her back facing you. Sighing, you did the same and tried to go back to sleep. But when your sleep was sweeter, the door of the Hospital Wing was slammed closed. Pansy’s bed was empty and by the dark outside of the window the time must have been around midnight. Some time went by and Pansy didn’t came back, so your curiosity made you leave the Hospital Wing as well, walking with a little difficulty because of your ankle. You walked on the empty and dark corridor hoping to don’t see Mrs. Norris or Filch on your way. Hearing sobbings near the Clock Tower, you struggled to go there.

Standind in the front of the big windows, only her cries and the ticking of the clock being heard, Pansy Parkinson was squatted near the wall, a little could of smoke leaving her direction.

“Why aren’t you on bed, Pansy?”, she seemed scared and wanted to hide the cigarette but relaxed a little when she saw you.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I asked first”, you returned the reply to her as you came closer. You sat down next to her and looked outside to the courtyard and then looked at her hand, pale and veiny, holding between her trembling fingers with painted nails the cigarette.

After firing another smoke she held out the cigarette to you and you took it a little confused.

“I didn’t know you smoke”, you told her.

“I didn’t care if you smoke or not but still gave it to you.”

You laughed and inhaled the toxic smoke.

“Yeah, you’re right”, you mumbled and gave it back to her.

You two sat in silence, smoking the cigarette together and after that one Pansy pulled out of her hoodie a packet nearly empty, handing you another one.

“I stole it from my father”, she told you like she could read your mind, knowing that was your next question. “My parents would kill me if they would see my right now.”

“They don’t want you to smoke?”, you asked even if the answer was obvious.

“They don’t want me to talk to Mudbloods”, she said smiling at you, but it wasn’t the mean smile she always gave you. It was a sad one.

“You’re parents are assholes.”

“Yes, they are”, laughed the witch again and suddenly you felt good with her. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. “The worst part is that they want me to be like them”, she continued while smoking.

“So you don’t want to be such a bitch?”, you laughed but she didn’t find your comment as funny as you did. “Sorry, I…”, you started but she laughed with anger.

“So you think you’re better than me? You’re just as bad as I am, Mudblood.”

You didn’t say anything in return.

“Why didn’t you eat, Pansy?”, you asked without looking at her. A part of you was scared by her possible reaction but a part of you felt bad for her. She was even paler than normally and her body seemed to be weaker, like she couldn’t support her weight.

“I don’t need to eat”, she simply said, “I ate before and it didn’t give me anything nice.”

“You need to eat, Pansy”, you spoke softly, suddenly concerned about her condition.

“No, I need to be pretty”, she said lighting another cigarette. “You heard Draco, I look sick, I need my pretty face back on.”

When you looked at her you saw tears running down on her face again.

“My mother is right, I need to be pretty or I’ll be worthless”, she said looking front.

“Pansy…”

“What happened to your ankle?”, she asked out of the sudden like she really cared, but she wanted to change the subject.

“Pansy, you’re not worthless”, you told her ignoring her question.

“I’m sick”, she said crying even harder. “You don’t know how it feels to be just a pretty face, good only to carry on that stupid line of purity. If I’m not beautiful, I’m sick! If I don’t have my make-up on, I’m sick!”

You cupped her face, wiping her tears away. “You’re beautiful without your make-up on, Pansy”, you whispered, your voice cracking at her pain. “You’re beautiful even if you’re sick.”

“What?”, she asked looking into your eyes. Her full lips were trembling as she wanted to say something.

“You’re beautiful even if you’re sick”, you repeated and then made the craziest shit you did in your entire life: you kissed Pansy Parkinson.

The kiss was soft, innocent and salty from her tears, but when she didn’t answer your actions, you pulled away.

“Then I want to be sick forever”, she told you before cupping your face in her tiny hands and crashing your lips together.

[faithhopeloveandtherapy]

Throw back to food diary 2012

I was looking back this morning to my very first journal entries, from soon after I started seeing T. I found a food diary from September 2012. I’d been in therapy for about 3 months by then, so bearing in mind this is an improvement on what my eating was like before I started therapy, I was.... well I’d like to say I was completely mad, but probably I should say I was quite unwell.

I’ll put it under a read more if I can, but if you do read it, be warned that eating like this will not make you skinny. It will just make you feel awful, tired, miserable, obsessing over food and grumpy.

Recovery is a hundred zillion times better than an eating disorder 👍

Saturday

Not feeling good today, my stomach is churning and I've got heartburn. I don't feel remotely hungry. Maybe eating doesn't agree with me. Or maybe I'm just a bit ill. My insides are feeling fragile.

4pm - Thinking about soup. Looking at soup. Can't face it. Why force it down when I could just wait and might feel hungry later then I would have something to eat that would feel ok. Very busy baking a ridiculously complex cake.

7pm - handful of pretzels

9.45pm - soup at last with chilli sauce. Finally felt like eating. Have had a g&t and a glass of wine and can only just walk in a straight line though.

10.30pm - raspberries, yoghurt and leftover raspberry syrup from cake baking.

10.45pm - I don't know what it was about the raspberries, maybe it was the syrup, sudden panic.....sat it out for 15 minutes but then I couldn't tolerate it any longer and threw up. Yesterday I ate a whole lot more in the evening and quite rationally managed not to throw up, today I couldn't seem to get past the aaaaagh it's awful I'm awful panic panic thoughts.

Sunday

1.30pm - half carton of soup & chilli sauce, 1/4 slice of bread, few graze box nibbles

5.30pm - salad, broccoli and 5 pasta shapes. I allowed the pasta because I'm going swimming this evening. (even though 5....5!....hardly counts! How ridiculous, there is more to life than counting pasta shapes)

*sigh* I wish there was a way to stop obsessing over food and all the rest, without actually having to eat any more.

Monday

1pm - half carton of soup

5pm - salad, 1 slice chicken, 1 roast pepper out of a jar (everyone else had a gnocchi bolognese bake which I enjoyed making while knowing there was no way on earth I was going to eat it....)

6pm - salad

7pm - salad then a tiny piece of chocolate

Tuesday

5.15pm - half a carton of soup. How can a soup that has only 110 calories in half a pot still have 3g of fat in it??

All the usual excuses for not eating earlier......was baking (coconut macaroons - yuk!) then cooking tea for later (cauliflower&broccoli macaroni cheese) then wasn't hungry, then forgot, then went out, then blah blah....

And now I left it so late to eat, it makes it harder to eat the next thing. The paradox of wanting to eat but at the same time feeling so terrified of eating. Sticking with the Empty feeling I know versus the Not-empty feeling of the dangerous unknown.

Wednesday

12.15pm - half a carton of soup, 3 little pieces of chicken, 3 spicy pepperdew peppers

1pm - 2 bites of a cereal bar

where is my Graze box?? It should have come yesterday. It's messing up my Graze box eating rules!

5pm - salad then yoghurt and maple syrup

8pm - little square of bakewell tart at school event

10pm - really hungry but cannot think of anything that feels ok to eat. That leaves the options of alcohol, coffee or Pepsi max. Or just going to bed.

Thursday

12.15pm - half a carton of soup, chicken, handful of pretzels

I need to eat more. Feeling rubbish.

6pm - tiny portion of chicken and fennel gratin. Without the chicken. Or the gratin. I just picked the fennel pieces out and scraped the sauce off them. So, that should probably read:

6pm - few pieces of fennel

9pm - raspberries and yoghurt, square of chocolate

[sandwichbully]

Sammy’s Avenue Eatery, 23 November 2018

   “When people are hungry, you feed ‘em.”

   OK, so about three years ago, I was working at UCare - “UCare, health care that starts with denying you your oxygen!” - and it was a slow afternoon one afternoon. Most afternoons were slow and the mail room was overstaffed for what we needed, so I logged a lot of time on Facebook and I saw this joint, Sammy’s Avenue Eatery, and I thought their sandwiches looked pretty good, so I made it a point to go there.    ... aaannnddd I never did.    I was broke as shit at the time, working fourteen hours a day six days a week between two jobs (and still being broke all the time) and feeling like shit because I was a terrible letdown to my then-girlfriend (the one from this episode) because I was always tired and just wanted a goddamned beer and two cigarettes. Eventually things improved but not by much and yadda yadda yadda, a whole bunch of shit happens, and going up to Sammy’s Avenue Eatery has been low priority.    But I never forgot it. It kind of even nagged at me. And today, with it being almost fifty degrees for what is surely the last time this year if it isn’t the next to last time this year, I made it a point to go to what is likely going to be the final Sandwich Bully episode for 2018 - unless y’all want to come pick me up in your petite bourgeoisie automobile with “the heat” on in December and January.    So I rolled up on the corner of Emerson and Broadway and walked in and looked over the menu and waited for the nice lady to finish making a chai latte for this other lady and I asked her which she preferred, the Hot Roasted Chicken or the Turkey Bacon Club.    She said honestly that she preferred the chicken but they were out of that so turkey and bacon (I had to specify because I’ve had exactly one experience with turkey bacon and that shit is fucking gross and it’s so gross that I’m compelled to put up a picture of my first ex with a caption mocking her voice in which she chides me for having high blood pressure but that is seriously some SD&A shit and - Hm? Oh, Sound Design and Assembly. That was my old record review blog but I didn’t review records so much as I bitched about pop culture and waxed poetic on having picked up nookie the night before.)

   Wait. Where are we?

   OK, let’s start that over.    She said honestly that she preferred the chicken but they were out of that so turkey and bacon (I had to specify because I’ve had exactly one experience with turkey bacon and that shit is fucking gross) it was and I grabbed a cranberry ginger ale and I found myself engaged in a conversation with her. Lot of personal stuff that isn’t my business to put up here but I guess maybe I can talk about the political side of it and that part was refreshing because nobody was bringing out words with “-ism”s on the end, we were just on the same wavelength, talking about how Minneapolis government is mishandling or outright ignoring a bunch of problems and how there are easy - very easy solutions to them. The homeless encampment whom the city couldn’t decide to house in either a warehouse or a vacant fucking lot? Well, hell, how many boarded up houses are there in north Minneapolis? I figured put the homeless at least in the warehouse out of the elements. The woman I was talking to told me they had plenty of empty houses in this neighborhood. A solution I never thought of. And even thinking about it now, I realize that there’s a lot of red tape and the banks own those empty houses but why does the bank own an empty house? Why is it held by a private entity and not by the state? What are the escheat and adverse possession laws in Minnesota? (And that’s over thinking it but that’s because capitalism doesn’t provide for simple solutions without the transfer of liquid assets.)

   And enough of that.    Anyway, at one point, this dude comes in and says he doesn’t have time to stop in and eat at the moment but he was just wondering what the soup of the day was for when he came back later and the woman said it was alright if he didn’t have time to eat, she’d fix him a “little” to-go cup (it was more like an eight ounce cup and I don’t know how metric people measure soup; by volume - 237mL - or by mass - 227g) and she handed it to him and told him to have a good day and he said thank you and he walked out the door and she stared out the window and she said, “When people are hungry, you feed ‘em.”    No conditions, no clauses, just simple straight to the point action and solution.    And she told me about how she wanted to start a homeless shelter, not like the ones downtown where you have to "tell ‘em everything about your life just to get in the door”, she wanted to start one where if you were tired, you could sleep, and if you got caught fucking up, you got kicked out. Simple as that.    And my brain goes to how dangerous that would be because what about all the rapists and murderers and then my privilege checks itself and I got to remember that homeless folks aren’t homeless because they’re murderers and they do just want a warm place to sleep and a little something to eat.    She told me she wanted to open a soup kitchen, too, and told me that one place downtown was in such a great location because it was centralized and somebody could even walk for forty blocks to get there, and they would, too, because, as she put it, “hunger travels”. I know that. I remember the time, it was like ten years ago or so, that I was with Georgie and we were starving and I walked two miles in a snowstorm to the food shelf and I lied on the paperwork and told them our twenty eight year old roommate was our four year old son because I thought I could get us more food that way (and, hey, there were three people in the house). I remember being dismayed at what we got and dutifully trundled it back home. I remember all that.    Maybe it was meant to be that I didn’t get to Sammy’s until today to have this conversation. Maybe as a (timely) reminder to be thankful for what I do have, maybe as a reaffirmation of my beliefs, maybe to just talk to somebody over lunch, which I never get to do because I live alone and work alone.

ANYWAY!    How was the sandwich!? How was the fucking sandwich, Charlie!? Remember how this blog is called Sandwich Bully? And it’s about sandwiches? And how it’s not a place for you to peddle your bleeding heart commie* beliefs or pontificate on how we need to be good and charitable toward our brothers and sisters!? HOW THIS PLACE IS MEANT FOR SANDWICHES!?!?!? TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING SANDWICH, CHARLIE!!!    It was good. As I was grabbing a pop, the woman (I know her name I just don’t know how she spells it) told me that if I wanted to bundle the sandwich and drink into a combo, that she had chips and I told her nah, I had to watch my salt and she said she knew that was right. I watched her slice my tomato right out of a whole fresh tomato which I’ve seen maybe only Trieste do - slice fresh to order. And she asked if I liked onions and I said I did and she asked if I liked pickles and I said I did and then she held the pickle slices over the container and gave them a little wiggle and told me, “Getting the salt off them for you,” which was cool. Aint ever had anybody do that for me before. And then we set to talking while I ate at the counter and you read about all that.    Well, let’s start with the size issue. I ordered a half sandwich (around seven dollars) and it was big enough that I feared what I might have gotten if I had gotten a whole one (around eleven dollars). Trust me, I beg of you, please trust me, I am on my knees begging you to trust me: Order the half sandwich. That is the reasonable human serving size.    The tomato was crisp (natch) and the pickles and onions added necessary sour and bite. The cheese, I don’t know what it was but it was white and it was creamy and, tag-teamed with the bacon, it kind of overpowered the turkey but the bacon-cheese combo overpowers most things. The mayo on the sandwich was applied to the bread pre-grilling which, a few years ago, I would have said “ew” to but recently I had the revelation that mayo is just eggs and oil (no, not that part) which are both things that are perfectly alright to be applied to direct heat (that part) and I’ve been waiting to try frying my grilled cheese with mayo on the outside but I never buy bread and I never buy mayonnaise - Why buy mayo when you can make aioli? - so I finally got to try this technique at Sammy’s and I have to admit I didn’t notice anything inherently distinguishable about it but, again, bacon-cheese combo. Overpowers everything but...    OK, probably the last time we get to do this this year unless somebody wants to drive me somewhere during December and January so we have to make this one good.    Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see...    [clears throat] But the real blackout drunk correspondent of Armenia Decides, 2018... No no no.    [clears throat again] But the real evil twin unplugging the good twin’s life support so she can assume her identity and run off with her husband... No. Come on, man, you got this. You have literally nothing else.    OK, I think I got it.    But the real guest star in the dangers-of-huffing-gas-as-a-pregnant-teen episode of this highly rated Saturday morning teen show never to be seen again as, metafictionally, her character had been shipped off to an island of misfit one-off characters, each themselves never to be seen again, turned cannibal after the last hunt didn’t yield the boar’s head required to appease the god behind the sun, he who in-turn took his great veil from the white ball in the sky and scorched their crops in anger and now, teen pot dealer and teen wheelchair basketball player and teen army brat and teen with an eating disorder and all the rest, none of whom were ever seen again, are forced to turn on each other for survival, their malevolence a dance for the god behind the sun’s enjoyment, for when enough blood is spilled he veils his white ball and grants them rest from the heat, but now, a new arrival - The Pregnant Teen Gas Huffer... is the house sauce, which I suspect is a honey dijon vinaigrette. It was sweet, a little complex but not so complex that I couldn’t guess what it was while I was eating it. It stood out and balanced the savory fattiness of the bacon-cheese combo.    The lettuce?    We don’t have to do the lettuce thing, do we?

   I mean, it’s probably the last time this year.

   Overall, not a bad bike ride, it was a pretty decent sandwich - it was good but I’m not falling over stupid for it. I mean, hey, it filled me up and I ordered the half sandwich. If there was a quarter sandwich option, I’d go for that. It tasted good, too. She asked me how it was and I told her it was wonderful and she said she was glad I liked it and I told her I was glad she made it.    I guess that there was a sense of openness, of community to the place, which we’ve been over before: I prefer to go to places that feel worn in and homey. Places like Band Box and Ideal where the proprietors and the patrons are literally neighbors, where people have been going for years, people who are eating there now worked there in high school because their parents knew the manager. Sammy’s has that vibe.    It’s kind of like Nye’s.    I liked Nye’s (yes, past tense) when you could walk in and say hi to Phil, sit down, and have an ice cold Żywiec and there was a college football game on you could ignore and it was red Corinthian leather booths and tacky martini murals on the walls and mirrors behind the bar to make the liquor selection look more impressive (or whatever the mirrors are back there for) and it was locals in there.    Last time I was in Nye’s, there was no Phil, the new guy didn’t know what Żywiec was, the interior designer clearly got all their ideas from IKEA (still love you, IKEA, but you are not meant for a bar), and the only patronage in there were literally tourists asking about the history of the Mississippi River.    I can’t fuck with that scene because it doesn’t feel like it’s a part of the community that supported it through the years. Ownership changed and nobody gave a fuck about preserving the community aspect of the place, it’s clearly a cash grab more cynical and distasteful than when they made Game of Death with B-roll of Bruce Lee and two actors who looked nothing like him.    Sammy’s, on the other hand, feels like it’s part of its community. Established in Near North, playing a role in Near North, employing Near North, feeding Near North.    GO.    GIVE.    THEM.    YOUR.    MONEY.

* I was once briefly involved with a Randian Libertarian who called me literally a “bleeding heart commie” because I told her Atlas Shrugged was “right-wing oriented”. Ah, to be young again.

[ghostlyfacedream]

um, good morning. or afternoon here, i guess. it's 1:25 pm. i'm going to start a diary. even if it's not official or fancy or well thought out. even if it's short blips here and there when i have a thought to share. i need somewhere to share, and my hands are too fucked up to write physically in a book, and that would just make it worse. i also know that i need to :post: or :upload: whatever i type because i feel the need to have an audience, to be seen and acknowledged. i know that there isn't anyone out there reading this, but typing it into a post that CAN be seen is different from typing into a doc where i am alone in a empty chamber.

ok, so... i'm hungry. i've been hungry since last night. i didn't eat though. tomorrow we are having pizza. i want to save up for that. maybe just two pieces with garlic dip. mm.

my tattoo is healing nicely. i'm 18. i walked into the shop off the street and asked for one a while back. it's still cloudy but it's been gradually clearing up. most people need 30 days to fully heal their tattoos; given my genetic disorders i wouldn't be suprised if it took double that time, or even triple. i like it, even though i keep getting caught off guard and thinking it's a bug on my arm. i guess that happens when you're so disconnected from your own body all of the time. i forget what i look like, i forget i have a tattoo now, etc etc.

i'm making a new friend at work, i think. their name is cecelia. they're very pretty, like their name - they remind me of a deer with their big brown eyes and gentle demure nature. i like joking around with them. i intrusively feel the need to let them know that i am not hitting on them - i'm incredibly aromantic. i'm socially inept though, and i'd like to have friends, but i don't know how to behave, so i sort of fumble over my lines and shuffle around in a costume that's three sizes too big for me. it's like i missed all of the dress rehersals and then boom, suddenly i'm in a play and everyone knows how to act but i'm flying in with my head in my back pocket.

anyways, cecelia invited me to hang out. and they talk to me about all kinds of personal stuff, like mental health issues. and like i said, we joke around. so i feel like we could be really close, if i don't make this weird somehow. i made them a pair of earrings - during our first week (we got hired on the same day) they complimented my green earrings. i make my own earrings out of little trinkets i find and collect, and one of the kitchsy little things i made was a pair of green clothespin earrings. they said they really liked them, asked me where i got them. so i made them a pair. yellow, which is their favourite color. i'll give it to them next time i see them. i plan on putting a little disinfectant wipe - the ones i use for my shots- in there for them to clean the earrings. covid times, and all that. i hope they like them. i hope it's not weird.

um, i tried to make this blog as ... bland as i could. i don't want to project an identity here. i was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder in 2016 and it makes life really hard. when i made this blog, it had yuri's art as the profile picture, and then that made it feel like HER blog instead of the collective MY blog. we are me. anyways. it's really hard. my identity is never the same. i mean, to some extent, it is; i have distingushed parts... but there's no solid me. i have many interests. i seem like someone who can't make up their mind on who they are. but the truth is, i just am... i'm just many people, and they all have their own interests and qualities and ways of thinking, and it makes interacting with me really really hard. it makes living as me really really hard.

i wish i was normal. i think about that a lot actually. maybe too much, lately. i promised when i started this blog that i wouldn't censor myself. my therapist - ex therapist, rather - said i spend too much time choosing what to omit when i speak to people. she used to say that she could see me picking through my thoughts, choosing which ones to share and how best to word them. i focus more on being presentable than what i have to present. so i needed a place to just spit out everything, uncensored, undevoured. the roast chicken, meat stripped off of it's bones and laid out for the guests - they are starving, there is nothing there.

so here's the first uncensored thought: i wish i was a woman. specifically, i wish i was an endosex cisgender woman. it's distasteful, but i find myself watching pornography and wishing for their soft and supple forms - silky skin, round, curvy bodies. beautiful lips, long hair, delicate hands. i've always been fascinated by drawing the naked form - i suppose there's just an alluring siren's call that i feel in my bones when i see the warmth of a lovely lady radiate from her very being. you see, i was born outside of the boxes. a messy smear. they made a choice when i popped out, raised me girl, gave me estrogen when my body wasn't doing what it was being asked to do. i grew girl, lived girl, tried girl. i tried so hard. you have no idea. i wanted it so badly. swirly skirts and long golden hair and painted lips. - now, i don't believe that these things are gendered. i believe that humans of any shape, size, form or spirit can do whatever they please in the means of self expression. but for me, there was always some underlying PRESSURE of NOT BEING GIRL ENOUGH. i was wanted girl. i had a broad chest, and large hands. i was hairy. i had a deep voice. my feet did not fit into girl's shoes. bits of me stuck out in women's clothing where women have no bits TO stick out. it hurt. it still does. i understand that i have some deeply rooted intersexism that leads me to apply the gender norms to myself, but i promise i don't think that way of other people. which leads me to... why them, but not me? why can other people be fat, hairy, wear makeup or no makeup, wear short skirts or cover every inch of their body - why do i praise and support gender nonconformity, women with beards and facial hair, men with long hair and makeup, shaving or no shaving, dyed pubic hair and jewelry - but when it comes to me, it's not okay? i rejoice in the trans community, femmes with voices as dark as tinted glass, or midnight, or the cat's rumbling purr. masculine entities with curves, and high voices, and typically "feminine" traits, because fuck that, traits are traits, and we can mix and match, and there is no restraint here because we are all living, breathing animals with vibrant souls and a taste for love and laughter. i accept everything. but i'm a hypocrite. my shoulders are too big for dresses. my skin is too hairy. my voice is too low for a woman, too high for a man. clothes do not fit me - men's pants cannot cling to my hips, women's tops cannot fit over my shoulders. i wear bags, or blankets, or nothing at all, hiding away in my room. i don't want to be seen. i don't want to know of the world and it's specifics around what shape my body isn't. my hands are big and clumsy. my chest didn't grow, and then when it did, it was incredibly lopsided. my bones don't even fit me, not sure what sex they belong to, pressing at the seams or curling grotesquely to fit inside my body. the only time i see others like me on tv... we are freaks. we are shemales, or wonders of nature, or abominations. we are hermaphodites, fucked up humans who grew the wrong parts or not enough of the right ones. we are misgendered, or prodded at on fictional doctor dramas and made spectacles, fucked up malformities to be gawked at. they want to guess what is in your pants, how you were raised - did they choose to mulitate you to make you more one way or the other? they want to know what's inside you, what is inside you, what's inside you? testes? ovaries? both? nothing? take it out, or put it in, fill you with hormones to make you normal, we joke about celebrities on the news - are they a hermaphodite? you have a girly face mr bieber, are you a hermaphodite? were you born with a penis, lady gaga? we are fetishized, but disgusting. horrific, and captivating, because people love the boygirl with their androgyny. i hate it. i want to rip my body to pieces. i want to sink my nails into flesh and bone and tear away. i want to throw my organs as far as i can, you failed me, you failed me, you failed me. i want to rip away until i am nothing but a floating concience. i hate it here. i always have.

[heylabodega]

how did you make friends in new york? i'm moving in two months and i'm only just realizing i'm terrified of having no one

Hey pal! You probably will have no one for a while! That’s ok! You’ve got yourself, the best person. You’re probably gonna have a month or two where on your days off you realize at 5pm that you haven’t spoken out loud. You’re gonna have some strange, wild, interesting, silent months. Treasure them, silent alone months are rare in life.

Pal, can I tell you about last night? It was my birthday drinks! My birthday is tomorrow happy birthday to me. I had them at a bar in Brooklyn that I hadn’t been to in months or years. We used to hang out there all the time because it was near my friend Anna’s apartment, but she moved to Colorado and we haven’t spoken in years. Last night I walked there with Liz and Robbie after we finished recording what we believe to be our best podcast episode yet. I met Liz and Robbie almost 3 years ago. Liz and I had been following each other on tumblr and she was in New York from D.C. visiting her best friend Robbie and there was slushy snow on the ground and I met them in a little dive bar in the East Village where Liz taught the bartender how to make a gin gimlet and we drank them, watered down and cheap, for hours. A few months later, Liz moved to Brooklyn to work for Hillary Clinton.

When we got to the bar, Eleanor and Emma were already there and had grabbed a table outside. Emma had brought two tupperware containers full of funfetti whoopie pies, my favorite. Eleanor had brought a signed copy of Hunger. I met Eleanor, oh 5 years ago now? Caroline and I had decided to plan a tumblr meetup to which we invited approximately 20 people and to which 2 came, Eleanor was one of them. We went to brunch the next weekend and in what was probably actually weeks or months but in my memory is condensed to practically an instant, we bonded over our confused feelings, our past eating disorders, books about young women in the city, in the bright sweatiness of summer in New York. Later, we lived together for a few months, and when I moved back to the city I slept in her bed while looking for an apartment, slipping in late, waking up in the morning to pick outfits and try to make it to the Subway before we started sweating.

I met Emma through Caroline and I hope she’ll forgive me for not remembering what our precise first meeting was.  But soon we discovered a shared love of old movies, musicals especially, and a shared wry-but-exhilerated frustration with dating. Once a month or so we meet at one of our apartments and watch an old musical. In the summer we go to the movies in the parks, sweating and drinking wine from plastic cups and being eaten alive by mosquitos as the sun sets behind Singin’ In the Rain or North By Northwest or Rear Window. She is who I text all day about dates and friends and terrible articles on the internet. She is wise and funny.

Shortly after we got to the bar, Lauren arrived, followed shortly by Timea, both of them looking glamourous in red lipstick and cool boots. Lauren was a friend of my friend Anna, the one who used to live near this bar. I knew Anna through a friend from middle school, and Anna knew Lauren from work. We all hung out in a foursome for that one weird summer where I thought I could be a different person than the one I am if I belonged to a group but Lauren and I were never close. Then Anna left, and then Emily, and then, a little bit later, me. When I came back Lauren and I started to hang out more and she has become one of my best friends. She is funny and kind and surprising and we have had a great deal of fun wheeling about the city. Timea and Lauren have been friends since middle school and Timea lives a few blocks from me. She’s an architect and is one of the most elegant people I have ever met.

Phoebe was next to arrive. We met I want to say 3 or 4 years ago when I messaged her on tumblr that we should hang out, after we’d been following each other for a while. She knows Eleanor from school. We met at French Roast in the village and drank white wine and talked about Frank O’Hara and The Beatles and loving the city. On Thursday she texted me to ask if I wanted an extra ticket to the Lizzo concert and I laughed and said I was already going and we met up there and danced and danced and it was perfect. She is always wearing an outfit that is at least 20 percent cooler than anyone else in the room.

Liz’s girlfriend, who I now call my friend, Lauren and her friend Claire got there after dinner both of them smiling and hugging me. Lauren and Liz met on the Obama campaign (I think) but started dating while they were both working at HFA. I met Lauren when she came to Caroline’s birthday party and then shortly afterwards to our Halloween party. She’s funny and beautiful and intimidatingly smart. Through her I got to start volunteer writing for HFA, an opportunity I will be forever grateful for.

A few minutes later, Thane texted, “Just got here, are you still here?” I met Thane through my friend Emma, in Portland. I met Emma because she was dating my friend Evan from high school and after they broke up, she and I  stayed friends. We drove all over Portland and various natures nearby. She introduced me to her friend Thane, and I’d say he and I actually got close in Brooklyn when he was visiting a few days after I’d moved back. I hung out with him and his friends in bars all over Wiliamsburg for like a week. We stayed in touch, and he moved here with his girlfriend about a month ago. Thane has always just read something fascinating or seen some cool art that he understands much better than I ever could. He’s much smarter than me. His girlfriend, Alicia, came a few minutes later. We haven’t spent much time together and she’s a little quiet but whenever she talks it’s to say something thoughtful and interesting. They brought me a brand new Moleskine.

Last to arrive were Sarah and Simon, my roommates. Sarah my old roommate and I found on Craigslist, and she and Simon are old family friends. Sarah was also at the Lizzo concert on Thursday, and we’re going to see the new Jenny Slate movie tonight, and Hamlet on Wednesday. She’s always down to do cool things, and I’m always interested to hear her opinions. She’s one of the smartest, most well read people I know. There’s no one I would have rather lived with through the election. We both volunteered before and followed the news, alternately stressed and put upon and excited. We both watched the results numbly, we both cried in our rooms, ours was a house of grieving for weeks after. Simon is one of the kindest people I know. Once he told me that when he was a kid he saw a group of people making fun of one kid and he promised himself that he would never–and I was going to say, “let that happen to you?” because I’m a monster–and he said let that happen to anyone when he was around. I have also in the 2 years I’ve lived here never had to change a lightbulb, even in the bathroom that Sarah and I share.

Shortly after them came Sarah’s boyfriend, who I really like he’s funny and smart, and his friends who I’d never met before but who all bought me drinks and chatted loudly and were generally boisterous and bright.

Sarah’s friend Erin pulled me up to dance, and I was happy to oblige. Robbie was sitting and talking to Simon about coding, in words I didn’t understand and I was delighted to watch them talk about something they’re both good at. But when ‘Sorry’ came on I ran over and tapped Robbie’s shoulder urgently and then ran back to Erin and Robbie followed and we danced to pop music until we were sweaty and grinning and full of gin and tonics, none of which I paid for all night.

This is, in case I am being too subtle, a love letter to my friends, and to the world in which I was able to find them, and an answer to your question. The internet is helpful. Friends of friends are good. Sometimes people come in and out of your life and that’s the most upsetting fact that exists and also the most important to come to grips with. Dancing is the best feeling in the world, especially if it’s to Whitney. The way I made friends is accidentally, by being alone for a while, by figuring out what I’m interested in, by doing those things and talking about those things until I found people that wanted to do and talk about the same things, by being excited to meet new people, by being willing to meet new people and have it not work out, by feeling a lot and often out loud, by being absolutely dazzled by every friend I have, and by drinking a lot of gin beverages.

[hotfitnesstopics]

I've been following the 16:8 intermittent fasting (IF) plan for over seven months now, which means I don't eat for 16 hours a day and only eat during the other eight hours. I find a lot of inspiration and information from watching YouTube videos on IF. Recently, I'd been seeing a lot about the Warrior Diet. It's a stricter form of intermittent fasting, during which you have a much shorter eating window of just four hours and then a fasting window of 20 hours. Before Warrior Diet: It seems crazy, right? Yet so many people rave about it. You're meant to obtain more mental clarity, increased energy, better digestion, reduced sugar cravings, and, for those looking for it, faster and better weight-loss and muscle definition results. I never gave it serious thought, though. I mean, how can you only eat for four hours?! But one day, it happened accidentally. I meant to eat at noon as usual, but I was running around doing tons of errands, and it was 4 p.m. by the time I realized I was hungry and able to eat. If I could do it one day, I could do it for one week, right? One of the best things I've experienced from intermittent fasting is getting a handle on my sugar cravings and food addiction. Not eating until noon was so freeing. It was beginning to help me not obsess about food all the time. I wanted to see how shortening my eating window to four hours would affect that. Related: I Did Intermittent Fasting For 1 Month and This Is What Happened I felt like an eating window of 3:00/3:30 p.m. to 7:00/7:30 p.m. would be good for my work, life, and family schedule. I decided to commit to one week on the Warrior Diet because I thought I'd be starving the entire time and wouldn't be able to stand another day. But by the sixth day, I was feeling so good, I wanted to keep going. I decided to commit to two weeks. Weren't You Insanely Hungry? (In Other Words: Didn't It Suck?!) This surprised me, too, but no, I wasn't. I felt a little hungry around 10 a.m., so I'd have a cup of black coffee or green chai tea. The first couple of days I felt a little hungry around noon, since that's when I was used to eating. But by the fourth day that passed, and I instead noticed noon was the time of day when my mental clarity, focus, energy, and happiness really started kicking in. Related: I Fasted For 16 Hours a Day For 6 Months and This Is What Happened How Did You Feel? One thing I noticed about the Warrior Diet compared to the 16:8 plan is that eating eight hours a day still didn't entirely prevent me from overeating or wanting sugar, which always made me feel uncomfortably bloated. Eating just four hours a day made it impossible to overeat - my belly filled up so quickly and I felt so satisfied that I didn't want to eat more. Because I had no desire to overeat, I didn't feel bloated at night or in the morning. Mentally speaking, before I started IF, I was always thinking about food, stressing about counting calories, feeling hungry and deprived, or feeling bad if I ate too much or ate "bad" foods. I realized I was so unhappy back then because all my hard work was just making me gain weight. Only eating in a four-hour window helped me think even less about food, and when I ate, I didn't feel restricted or bad about it. I wasn't expecting to feel such an emotional weight lifted, and this is what kept me inspired to stick with it. After 2 Weeks on Warrior Diet: What Did You Eat? When 3:00/3:30 p.m. rolled around, I felt a subtle sense of hunger but wasn't completely famished. I craved mostly healthy foods and would eat a big tofu kale salad, leftovers, or a bowl of roasted tofu, sweet potatoes, and red peppers. I followed that with a banana, sometimes two, with raw almonds or cashews and plenty of water. Dinner was around 6:00 p.m., and I'd have whatever was on the menu: black bean burritos, avocado pasta with Trader Joe's meatless meatballs and steamed broccoli, lentil soup and bread, or veggie burgers with roasted veggies. If I felt like it, I'd eat a little dessert after. Sometimes it was some trail mix and fresh fruit . . . annnnd sometimes it was a vegan brownie sundae. Related: This Is the Diet That Helped Me Get a 6-Pack I ate what I craved, and as much as I wanted. That was one of my favorite parts about the Warrior Diet. I never felt deprived. I was able to sit down to a huge plate of food and feel completely satisfied and not guilty because my meal was over 400 calories. Another surprising benefit was that my taste buds became so sharp that even basic foods like fresh mango tasted mind-blowingly delicious. Were You Able to Work Out? Yep, my 5:45 a.m. CrossFit classes still happened. I felt the same as I always do, but this shortened eating window made for amazing deep sleep, so I felt super rested and energized. I was still able to box jump and burpee as usual, and today I even got a personal record for my squat snatch. One thing I noticed was that from not feeling bloated, I felt lighter and more agile and just more excited to move my body. Did You Lose Weight? I was surprised that I lost about two pounds - I've been about the same weight for years! This doesn't seem major, especially since it's hard to tell from the before-and-after photos, but for me, it was all in my belly. I noticed zero bloating (zero!) and a flatter tummy. I've also noticed more muscle definition in my arms and thighs, but that's not just from the past two weeks; it's because I've been doing intermittent fasting for over seven months now. Isn't It Bad For You Not to Eat All Day? Someone expressed their concern to me that intermittent fasting is an eating disorder. I actually feel like it's the exact opposite. I feel more in control and have a healthier relationship with food than I ever had. I finally know what true hunger feels like and am learning to listen to my body to eat when I'm hungry and - this is the most important thing - to STOP when I'm full. I'm no longer overeating or obsessing about food, and I feel more free from the thoughts about how eating affects my weight. Will You Keep Going? I've been wondering this every single day over the past 14 days. Some days I'm like, "Hell, no!" I especially felt that way on the third and 13th days. But then on the other days I just felt so good; I felt like I wanted to keep this up. There are two main reasons I've contemplated sticking with the Warrior Diet. One, not being bloated has been huge for me, since I have been struggling with that since July 2016. It's made me so self-conscious and uncomfortable - on my worst days, I felt really depressed about it. So to look down and see a flatter tummy and not feel pain makes me tear up; I'm so happy. Intermittent fasting feels like free therapy. And two, I can't get over how I'm not obsessing about food. Even when I begin my eating window, I'm not scarfing food down or craving sweets, and I'm not overeating. And during my fasting window, I'm not daydreaming about the food I'll eat. Restricting my diet for over 20 years and obsessing about weight loss really f*cked me up, and intermittent fasting feels like free therapy. It's slowly curing me of all my worries and detrimental body-negative thoughts. OK, so the one thing that was hard was the weekends. I had my best friend visiting on the sixth day, and we went out for brunch. Sipping on coffee while she ate pancakes was tough - I'm not gonna lie. But that's what's cool about choosing IF as a lifestyle. I can tailor it to meet my needs, which means sticking with it most days and being lenient about not fasting when I want to. Related: Forget the 80/20 Rule! This Trainer Says to Follow the 90/10 Rule to Lose Weight I've loved the heightened benefits of the Warrior Diet vs. the 16:8 plan - I'm blown away that I haven't been famished all day and that I've been so energized. I'm over the moon that I'm feeling zero belly bloat because I'm not overeating all day long, and I love not obsessing about food. I think I'm going to keep going! I'm not sure I'll be strictly Warrior-ing it up every single day. Maybe some days I'll have a five- or six-hour eating window. Some days I'll do 16:8, and, well, other days (like on the weekends), I'll wake up and hit up my local vegan bakery for a sticky bun and keep eating all day long. Final Thoughts If you're considering intermittent fasting, I definitely would not try the Warrior Diet right off the bat. I'd start with a 12-hour fasting window, not eating from, say, 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Gradually increase the amount of time you're fasting by 30 to 60 minutes every few days. I took a few weeks to get on the 16:8 plan, so just ease your body into it, and you'll find more success. As always, chat with your doctor before making any serious changes to your diet. Aside from jumping into IF too fast, avoid these other intermittent fasting mistakes, such as eating the wrong foods. Once you get into a rhythm, you'll love the benefits of weight loss, increased energy, and the lowered risk of disease and feel inspired to keep going. You just might inspire someone else to hop on the IF train, too! from POPSUGAR Fitness https://ift.tt/2h8cS5L via IFTTT

http://www.fitnessclub.cf/2018/06/i-fasted-20-hours-day-for-2-weeks-and-i_20.html

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18

The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night.

A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with depression and anxiety, I learned that there’s such a thing as adult self-soothing, too. It may be an especially important skill to develop if you identify as a sensitive person or you feel the impact of emotions very strongly.

Self-soothing practices can take all sorts of shapes and forms; they may take one out of time and place, like going for a walk or practicing yoga in a special part of the home, or they might be as simple as listening to a particular song, sipping tea, breathing deeply, praying, singing, humming, reading poetry out loud, or smelling an essential oil. These, anyway, are my own favorite ways to self-soothe.

Two years ago at this time, my anxiety was so bad that I often didn’t want to leave the house. I did leave, going about my business and trying to perform as much competence as I could muster, but I felt as if I was falling apart. I was so on edge, so irritable, and so unable to hang onto a sense of safety or security. It really scared me, much more than my depression ever had.

Many months of therapy later, and I’m in a different place. But this week in particular gave me new skills to be grateful for. A few situations came up that triggered my anxiety, and I reacted, but I was able to stay connected to a fundamental sense that things would be OK. I’m not exactly sure what to attribute this to: my meditation practice? Learning to pay attention to my breath? Slowing down? Learning to say “no”? Reconnecting?

The answer is that all of these things, coupled with time and patience, have helped. I’m also starting to understand that quelling anxiety creates muscle memory; if you do it often enough, you start to believe, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s possible, and then it starts to happen more readily.

I know that I may manage my anxiety for a long time and possibly live with it always, just as I know I’ll always have brushes with depression and may always periodically encounter certain ED-related urges. In writing these words today, though, I realize how surprisingly calm I feel about my anxiety, which is sweetly ironic.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not alarmed by the fact that I have anxiety, not scared of it. I’ve been given signs that I have some of the tools I need to manage it. Maybe I’ll need to expand or change up my toolkit at some point, but that’s OK: toolkits can grow along with us. For now, merely knowing that I can get centered even in the midst of anxious feelings or thoughts is a major shift, one that gives me hope and a sense of spaciousness.

As always, wishing everyone peace and grounding as we head out into a fresh week. Enjoy these tasty recipes and reading links.

Recipes

There’s a mushroom miso barley soup recipe in Power Plates that I’ve become pretty attached to, but I can never get enough soup recipes, and I’m loving Natasha’s version, which is infused with Italian herbs and seasonings.

Wish someone had made these sweet buckwheat crepes for me on Valentine’s Day! Or that I’d gone ahead and made them for myself

This is my kind of potato salad: roasted potatoes, dill, vegan bacon, creamy garlic mayo. Perfect vegan comfort food.

Writing about Hannah’s book on Friday has me thinking about the art of creating really good food in very little time. It’s something I’m still figuring out. Lisa is one of the people I turn to for inspiration in this area, and her easy green curry noodles are a perfect example of a super speedy, flavorful, filling meal.

I tend to have lousy luck when I’m baking exclusively with grain free flours (I do OK when they’re part of a blend that has some wheat flour or gluten free grain flours in it). I’m always impressed with the way that Lindsay works wonders with grain-free baking that’s also vegan-friendly, and I’m dying to try her easy vegan white cake.

Reads

1. In spite of spending a fair amount of time around doctors—and anticipating a year of clinical work on the horizon—I had never really given much thought to what it must be like for doctors to return to full time work after being treated for an illness, especially the illness that they themselves specialize in.

That’s exactly the process that breast cancer surgeon Liz O’Riordon finds herself in now. I was touched by The Atlantic‘s profile of her, in which she admits to having new emotional challenges on the job, including sensitivities to hear certain diagnoses spoken of in dire terms and heightened awareness when delivering news to patients. The article says,

She [Liz] also takes more care with her language, and cringes at the memory of comments that were meant to be encouraging but now seem glib and unsympathetic. “I used to say: You’re lucky it hasn’t spread. No one is lucky to have cancer,” she says. “I used to ask people: Are you happy to sign this consent form? No one is happy to have cancer. As a doctor, you may give bad news 10 times a day. Until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t realize that when you get bad news, you remember every single detail of that conversation.”

There’s a lot of pressure for doctors and medical personnel to remain transparent, cool, and objective at all times, but my own limited experience in a helping profession is that personal struggle often gives way to empathy that can enhance one’s capacities as a practitioner. I hope that O’Riordan can indeed follow through on her hope to speak out more openly about her illness and encourage other doctors to do so with her.

2. Also on the topic of medicine and healthcare, a physician examines the concept of agape as it relates to healthcare. Agape is the ancient Greek term for selfless love of humanity; it’s seen as transcending difference or circumstance, which distinguishes it from filial or erotic love. Pooja Gidwani, a hospitalist, writes,

To me, agape means having the fortitude not only to empathize with patients or to provide compassionate care but to also habitually understand that each patient’s reactions may stem from their physical or mental suffering, past or current. To develop the ability to connect on a more spiritual level with the sufferer’s emotions despite their behaviors to truly be a healer. To put oneself in the shoes of each individual, remembering that everyone we meet is a product of what life has created for them.

I can’t think of a more beautiful summation of how agape can animate medical practice.

3. In the wake of the tragedy in Florida this past week, Vox sat down with Gerry Griffith, a crisis counselor with over 30 years of experience, to ask questions about what’s needed in the aftermath of shocking losses. She offers a lot of practical, detailed perspective on how crisis counselors respond to different stages of trauma among the people they’re helping, and she also has important things to say about the importance of addressing peoples’ sense of powerlessness after these kinds of events.

When asked how she continues to do this challenging work, she says,

I had a mentor, early, early on that said doing this work is learning how to keep your heart open in hell. I know what hell looks, tastes, like, and smells like.

I think, for me, there are people in my life that I can talk to about this. I have a husband, he’s proud of me and he supports me. When I’m out there in Oklahoma City or out in New York, I can call him and I can talk about how the dog, what she’s doing today. Because he’s not there.

Somebody asked me the other day: ”How would you know when you’re done?” I said, “When I stop crying.” When I stop feeling, when I don’t cry, my heart has closed and I have to quit.

I thought it was impressive that Griffith’s barometer of being fit for the task of counseling is having a strong capacity to feel. Something I want to keep in mind, in my own small way, for my future work with clients.

4. I really like Carrie Dennett’s reporting, and I was glad to see her in-depth consideration of orthorexia in the latest issue of Today’s Dietitian.

Orthorexia is a complex compulsion, often more difficult to address than other types of disordered eating because it is so often rooted in basically valuable efforts and intentions to eat healthfully and well. While anorexia put me in my most dire state of biological illness, I think overcoming orthorexia was in many ways a trickier challenge, because it was so hard to separate obsession and compulsion from the sincere value I place on mindful, conscious, health-supportive eating.

Dennett delves into all of the difficulties and complexities of addressing this syndrome, including the fact that, as of yet, there’s no consensus on a definition and no validated assessment tool. “Eating doesn’t become pathological until it becomes entangled with obsessive thinking, compulsive and ritualistic behavior, and self-punishment,” she notes, which echoed my own intuitive sense of what orthorexia is when I encounter it in my own work.

She also interviews Emily Fossenbeck, who is doing really important work in speaking up about her own experience with orthorexia and raising awareness on social media. Emily’s struggle with orthorexia began with elimination diets (a phenomenon I’ve observed often). She’s quoted saying,

“I only felt worse and worse but kept chasing this magical unicorn of the ‘perfect diet.’ The anxiety I felt about food was suffocating and totally overwhelmed most other parts of my life. I was afraid to eat out or travel or—the worst of it—to eat a normal meal with my family. I had to have complete control of everything I was eating.”

I’ve often seen the question posed of what distinguishes orthorexia from healthful eating, and I’ve written about it myself. I think the answer might be that anxiety and feeling of suffocation that Fossenbeck mentions. A particular kind of health-conscious eating style might be either self-caring or destructive; the difference rests in the mentality and subjective emotional experience of the individual in question.

I suspect that the dietetic and mental health treatment communities are just at the start of understanding this complicated expression of disordered eating. For now, the best we can hope for is more awareness, more observation and research, and an ongoing effort to enlist more people who have struggled with orthorexia to honestly share their stories. I’ve been giving lots of thought to recovery with NEDA week on the horizon, and this is nice motivation for me to use my voice.

5. I mentioned last week that the heart chakra and heart-opening are on my mind this month. With loving-kindness in mind, a sweet list to wrap up with.

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. I look forward to checking in with a hearty, colorful new winter salad recipe in a couple days.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 published first on

[cosmosogler]

hello. i didn’t go to bed until 12 last night. because i’m really cool.

so i got up at like 8:30 this morning and then didn’t want to do anything. i forced myself to shower around 9:30 or 10 and ate some breakfast. then i kept bumming around. at around 11:30 or 12 i decided to clean my apartment and wash my bedsheets. that went pretty well. cleaning the litter box was terrible because snoopy keeps missing the litter and then her waste gets caught in the folds of the box liner. 

phew!! i got distracted for like 4 minutes there.

i asked suzanne for a ride to the bowling alley at 5 since it is a 30 minute bike ride from my home and she said sure. then i made the rest of my tempeh tacos and then i took out the trash and stuff and went to the used bike place to get my bike looked at since it’s been handling a little weird. i walked in confidently this time and found the guy asleep on the floor in his back room. he startled awake when i knocked gently on the door. he rode my bike up and down the back road a few times and also replaced the batteries in my headlight since it sort of died. he didn’t let me buy the batteries myself. i wasn’t sure if i was supposed to tip him...? it didn’t occur to me until now that i might have been supposed to do that.

i didn’t spend long at the grocery store and i only used like half my budget money for it. when i was arranging my groceries on my bike i saw that suzanne had changed her mind about giving me a ride. it was after 4. she asked if i’d be ok with jennica taking me instead and i said sure. then i rode home and got ready for the party with like nice clothes and earrings and stuff. i know it’s just bowling but it feels nice to dress up sometimes.

then 5 rolled around and i asked jennica when she was coming to pick me up. when she didn’t respond i got suspicious and asked suzanne if she had actually asked if jennica was willing to drive me before she made the offer. she said no, that i was supposed to ask jennica for the ride myself. then she suggested i rent an uber. 

i got super mad SUPER fast. i didn’t say anything for a few minutes since it was texting. just kinda quietly let my temper run its course for a few minutes. i decided to try and figure out why i felt so angry so fast. i guess it’s because... i felt kinda betrayed? like she KNEW i couldn’t easily get there myself. and she volunteered jennica without actually letting jennica know i needed a ride. and ubers are technically an option but they feel so unsafe... and they’re really not a good business to patronize. 

and call-in taxis are just so unreliable... i would get left at my therapist’s office for hours and hours and hours back at villanova. i would get there in the middle of the day and then be left there until after dark.

that wasn’t the taxi business, it was the campus transportation, but i don’t really trust other people to drive me where i need to go or even pick me up any more haha. even at nau the taxi service was SUPER late. 

so i biked 55 blocks out to the bowling alley in my fancy skirt and dress shirt and the skirt got tangled in the back wheel before i figured out how to set it more securely in my lap. 

i had to go an extra 12 blocks because there was no stoplight so i could cross the road for 6 blocks past the alley.

i was still roasted when i got to the alley even though i was also now super hungry and very tired and sweaty. and it was a bowling alley so it’s not like they had much food i could eat. i had a piece of cheese pizza and i think it’s the worst pizza i’ve ever had.

alex’s twin ryan had made tons and tons of desserts though and i tried some of those. the cookies were super good but i stopped having an appetite extremely quickly. i knew my body was hungry but it just wasn’t gonna let me put anything else in my stomach. my mood did improve after a few cookies.

jennica apologized as soon as i got there. suzanne didn’t seem to think anything was wrong and congratulated me on all the exercise i got. i turned my attention toward getting the bathroom fixed because every single one of the toilets was clogged.

i bowled with everyone, just one game since there were 6 players and it took forever. i won. alex’s friend meredith would have won but she left. alex took over for her and she had such a lead on me that he actually did beat me with that score. i was going to beat it... then i dropped the ball on my last turn. 

like, i literally dropped the ball, my fingers slipped right out of the holes and it went straight into the gutter.

beforehand, while i was trying to rent some shoes, the lady behind the counter was very interested in telling me about how angry she is that people are really mean to “disordered kids.” ryan ended up by the counter while i was waiting to ask for shoes but didn’t want to interrupt. he said that he and alex get that a lot but i guess it’s easier now that they are very much adults. 

i felt kinda confused because i guess i just... don’t see why you would make fun of a disabled person? i mean i see people doing it all the time but it’s like, why? i said something like “i don’t understand because, like, who are you to judge someone else’s intelligence?” the lady behind the counter kept saying that it “doesn’t make them less human” but i wouldn’t even go that far. like it seems so obvious that i don’t even think about that. i guess i figure that even if something wasn’t human you don’t have an excuse to mistreat it. like a cat or something. 

like “they’re alive” is reason enough not to be an asshole. humanity is a gate check after that so the question shouldn’t even get there.

just because i don’t always understand or directly see someone else’s thought process doesn’t mean they don’t have one. sofia back at home only has a muscle/nerve disconnection thing and people treat her like she’s stupid because she talks slow and sloppy. but even then she’s just a normal kid with reduced fine motor skills. 

so... i don’t get it. it just sounds so frustrating.

and i guess i’m not a stranger to the insults either even though i ain’t got no diagnosis outside of depression and my heart defect.

anyway i stayed until about 8 and then i biked home. i almost got hit by a car that didn’t look both ways before making a left turn AGAIN. i’m glad that i didn’t hesitate when i saw them keep moving and did my best to get out of the way instead of slow down and hope they’d see me and stop. i got honked at but like... i have headlights on my bike. the light was green for me and “slow down” for them.

when i got home i hid cookies for snoopy and put some catnip on her walk-through brush. she had fun with that for a little while. when i got settled down and into my pajamas and had a snack it was like 8:40, so i checked out some youtube and checked my comics at 9 and then did some grading for 40 minutes and got about a third of the way done with the last section. it wasn’t as much as i’d wanted to get done today, but i spent so much time doing absolutely nothing that it’s probably a good thing i took a pen to the lab reports at all. also the EXTRA HOUR I SPENT ON MY BIKE. altogether i biked like six miles today.

tomorrow my goal is to get up early (since daylight savings will give me an extra hour to try to sleep) and get right to the office to start working. i guess i gotta make some pasta salad before i leave so that’ll take 20-30 minutes. i’m gonna finishing grading and do last week’s quantum assignment i think, since it’s supposed to be really short, and then try to make any headway at all on my mechanics homework until my food and energy run out. 

retaking the quantum test is gonna have to wait until after i have literally ANY time to review my quantum notes and try to remember this basic stuff that i have already known for over a year and still can’t seem to write on a paper if it has “test” written on it.

i get really frustrated with people who seem like they’re flaking on me. today was kinda my fault i guess... should have checked with jennica right away. i got confused by suzanne’s wording and the fact that it really didn’t make sense for her to volunteer someone she had not checked in with first.

makes me feel like i don’t matter. 

and like... i already feel like i don’t matter. but outside confirmation that i don’t matter to my friends makes me freak out. just like how i know i’m hella dumb but any outside confirmation just like... totally ruins my day. and sometimes my week. and sometimes it’ll seem fine at the time and then a week later it’ll ruin my day.

maybe, without these... disappointments? i can sort of convince myself that “i don’t matter” is a lie. but then when i ACTUALLY DON’T matter my “i was lying to myself, ha ha, maybe i can be confident” becomes the lie! and i hate being deceived like that. it makes me feel like all the progress i make with self esteem and stuff is just... an empty distraction. the reality is that i DON’T matter, and i just wasted all my time and energy pretending like i did, because i’m stupid and i let myself make these mistakes over and over and over and over.

like i had hope or something. but that hope is so fragile. i just want people to like me. i just want to matter to people. but it feels like i can’t. and it hurts every time because i’m stupid and i keep hoping even though it ain’t never done me any good.

something good today was that i did, in fact, bike six miles and i didn’t run out of energy. i was tired, sure, and sweaty, but i could still feel my legs just fine. it’s going uphill that always wrecks me. 

i joked yesterday that i’m so small and weak that this is the best shape i’m ever going to be in. barely able to get up the hill on the way home day after day. small. and weak. if i didn’t have a deformed heart i would have been like three or four inches taller and i got the athletic build that says i should be able to get pretty strong. but now i can’t get strong so i just look kinda lumpy.

i wasn’t able to develop the necessary muscle systems that normal little kids get when they scream and run at warp speed all day every day. and my immune system never really got off the ground. my body heals at like the slowest possible rate. that time i scratched my face like four weeks ago? it’s still healing. my pretty small gallbladder incisions from two months ago, which “shouldn’t leave scars”? still healing and even kind of still inflamed.

but hey! i biked six miles! that was ~ an hour total of sustained semi-heavy physical activity. i don’t spend a lot of time coasting. maybe i don’t have the sprint capability i need, but i seem to be building up endurance over time. i can live with that i think.

i’m nothing if not resilient. 

[mikeyd1986]

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 69, September 2017

On Monday morning, I had my second last Healthy Cooking on a Budget class at Balla Balla Community Centre in Cranbourne East. Today’s class honestly felt like a bad episode of Hell’s Kitchen minus the nasty chefs. Just a lot of sharing ingredients and cooking utensils. But on the positive side, I was gaining more confidence with making a dough mixture. The hardest part is getting the consistency right, so that it’s not too sticky or too dry. But with the help of Jodie, I finally got there.

Today we ended up making a pumpkin, red onion and feta pide (Turkish bread) and a vegan citrus cake. We started the class by dicing up the vegetables and roasting these in the oven whilst kneading the dough and allowing it to expand for about an hour. Next we worked on the citrus cake. Jodie claimed that this was the “easiest cake recipe” but everyone was looking confused as hell. It required a lot of juicing, zesting and patience but eventually it all came together.

The last part of the class involved assembling the dough mixture into pides. We had cut up the mixture into equal sections and then rolled them out flat. Next we layered the vegetable mixture into the middle of the pides and folded the edges up so that they resembled boat-like shapes. After baking, we seasoned the pides with danish feta, parsley, salt and pepper. http://www.ballaballa.com.au/progra...

On Monday night, I did my Body Balance class with Kaz at YMCA Casey ARC in Narre Warren. They say that the only way to get better at something is to keep practicing. This is certainly the case when it comes to balance and Pilates. I find both of these aspects quite challenging at times but it doesn’t mean I instantly give up because the poses are too hard. I make sure that I give everything a go, even if I’m uncoordinated and look ridiculous doing it.

In tonight’s class, we did the following exercises: Tai-Chi Warmup (Wide-legged stance with overhead sweeping circles), Yoga (Standing forward fold, Downward facing dog, plank, baby cobra, Warrior 2), Balance (Tree pose, Chair pose with raised heels), Pilates (Single leg raise and lower, Bridge pose with pulses, Double leg stretch), Hamstring Stretches (Seated wide legged forward fold) and Relaxation. https://www.lesmills.com/workouts/f...

On Tuesday morning, I had my first appointment with Dr. Yasmin Baliz at CNS: Comprehensive Neuropsychological Services in Narre Warren. Sitting in the large spacious waiting room outside the Waterman Business Centre, the nerves were already kicking in and I could feel myself getting hot and flustered in the chair. But thankfully those feelings began to subside when she walked in and introduced herself to me. She guided me into one of the suites which contained comfy leather sofas, fake plastic palms and oval-shaped lamps. Next door was the “Rainforest Room” which made for an interesting session, hearing these random frog and cricket sounds.

Dr. Yasmin is a clinical neuropsychologist and I was here to begin my assessment for the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Both my mum and my counselor recommended this due to a family history of the disorder and for the sake of clarity. During the session, Yasmin asked me questions about my childhood, school life, employment history, education, how my mental illness has affected my life and current interests. I felt like I was on episode of Millionaire Hot Seat though she was friendly, patient and easy to talk with which made the process easier.

My biggest concern was the cost of the sessions. At $200 a session, she really doesn’t come cheap though I do get some of that money back through a Medicare rebate. Still I really had to make some tough sacrifices this month in order to keep myself afloat financially. Money will always be a huge stressor in my life but I’m gradually learning ways to improve my spending and saving habits. Plus this assessment is really important and will be worth the money to do. http://www.cnspsych.com.au/

On Tuesday night, Mum and I attended a Mindfulness & Meditation workshop held at Balla Balla Community Centre in Cranbourne East. There were about 40 people who attended and it was great to see the community really get behind it. The facilitator Fiona talked about what mindfulness and meditation are and some specific research studies that show how implementing M&M into our daily lives can create such a positive change. This includes reducing stress and anxiety levels, switching defective genes off (epigenetics), rewiring parts of the brain (neuroplasticity), prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancers and forming better, healthier habits.

Fiona then guided us all through a 10 minute meditation, focusing on the breath, sensations and feelings in the body, any internal and external sounds and thoughts going through out mind. The idea behind meditation is to have a non-judgemental approach to it. So it’s okay that your mind is overloaded with thoughts or that you have to shift around in order to be in a more comfortable position or that you can only do it for a few minutes. It’s about the intention behind it and being kind to yourself. There’s no right or wrong way of doing it. http://www.ballaballa.com.au/event/...

On Wednesday morning, I had my Strength Training session with Luke Davey at Breakaway Fitness in Berwick. Sitting on the bench waiting for Luke, my annoying anxious thoughts were trying desperately to break through and ruin my day (Why isn’t anyone talking to me, paying attention to me or even acknowledging me?). So then I decided to use my waiting time productively instead of getting caught up in my thoughts. I did some gentle yoga stretches as I was still feeling sore and tight in my lower back and hips. And it certainly helped to take my mind off things.

WARM-UP...I started my session by rolling out my lower back and quad muscles before doing some scorpion stretches and 3 rounds of 10 single arm kettle bell lifts. I felt like I was getting better with it too and I focused my attention on keeping my lifting arm straight whilst using the other arm for balance. The pain was beginning to flare up a little in my lower back but no where near as bad as last time. I also did some stretches into my hips using the aerobic stepper. It was quite challenging keeping my other leg straight but I got there.

DEVELOPMENT...Today I was working on my deadlifts, doing 5 rounds of 5 reps with the last round being maximum reps. Initially, I was getting myself easily distracted by what the other trainers and clients were doing in our space and also getting frustrated because my technique and form felt really off. I was deadlifting 75kg and it felt harder than usual.

Thankfully after my first round, I was able to turn that self-talk around...”Come on Michael, you can do this. Just take your time with it. Be patient. Be consistent. Pace yourself. Take a couple of seconds to readjust if you have to. And remember to breathe!” And that’s all I really needed. It just takes a shift in mindset and focus. I wasn’t going to get myself upset or beat myself up because it wasn’t my best performance. In fact, I felt better about it after each round.

And smashing out 20 reps in the last round was beyond what I expected. After my 15th rep, I was starting to struggle heaps but Luke knew that I could do more and so I kept pushing for it. I’m more than what I think I’m capable of always. I surprise myself all the time. And thankfully a few of the trainers did start saying hi to me which made me feel a lot better about myself. Thank you Joel, Sheena, Kane, Brendan and Lachy.

WORKOUT...Today’s workout was a 500m sprint on the rowing machine in the fastest time possible. I got myself a little confused during my first round as I was expecting the numbers to increase not decrease on the display. But after that, I gave it 110% effort. The challenge for me was the consistency and after the 250m mark, the fatigue quickly set in. Still I gave it everything I got, even during the last round which was my slowest overall. My best time was 2 minutes and 4 seconds. https://www.facebook.com/breakawayfitnesstraining/

This Thursday was R U OK? Day! There are significant benefits to asking that question. It shifts the attention away from yourself and your own problems. It shows that you care about somebody else and how they're really feeling inside. And it's a great ice breaker. For somebody who has suffered with mental illness for a past 13 years, this day and cause is extremely important to me. Make sure you look out for one another. Stay strong. Stay positive. Ask R U OK? and you could change somebody else's life for the better.  https://www.ruok.org.au/how-to-ask

On Thursday night, I had my Water Workout class at YMCA Casey RACE in Cranbourne East. It was a much smaller class than usual tonight but that meant we had plenty of room to move around the pool. The class was instructed by Mary again who I remember from last time. We did our usual series of exercises including jogging, ski slopes, tuck jumps, pendulum, rock n’ roll and donkey kicks.

We also swam up and down the pool using the underwater dumbbells as a flotation device. I feel like my confidence when it comes to swimming is gradually increasing every time I do one of these classes. It just takes practice and consistent strong kicks in the water. I’m no longer sinking as much either which is always a good sign. Maybe one day I’ll consider doing some adult swimming lessons to further improve my technique. https://www.goodlifehealthclubs.com.au/...

On Friday morning, I had my second Strength Training session with Luke Davey at Breakaway Fitness in Berwick. After reading a chapter on dealing with the main causes of low self-confidence from The Confidence Gap by Dr. Russ Harris, I decided to put his advice into practice. This session seemed to be more mentally challenging than usual. I’m still learning to let go of things such as the perception that people are ignoring me or deliberately leaving me out socially, getting easily distracted by what’s happening around me and getting frustrated when I can’t perform a particular movement. It’s all a work-in-progress.

I’m still searching for a sense of belonging at UFT PLAYgrounds. I’m determined to make a difference, get involved, participate, matter and feel important. The fact that I’m shy and introverted is irrelevant. I feel like a lot of people do like me there. Sometimes it’s hard of get their attention but it’s fine. It doesn’t mean they don’t like me. They’re probably just busy training clients or in the middle of a conversation. Regardless, I deserve to be a part of the UFT Playgrounds family.

WARM-UP...This morning’s warmup was a bit more intense than usual. After my Y-T-I stretches on the bench, I had to do 3 rounds of the following: 100 skips, 10 squats, 10 pushups and 10 situps. I was doing pretty well until I got to the situps. I was beginning to get really hard on myself as I couldn’t keep my feet planted to the ground. But I reminded myself “It’s not like every trainer, coach and client is closing in around me and telling me how shit my performance is. I’m trying hard here and I’m doing the best I can.”

And eventually I did improve. All I needed was Luke to stand on my shoes in order to be able to do the situps and have enough momentum to keep swinging myself up. The fatigue was also starting to take its toll but I got there in the end.

DEVELOPMENT...Today I worked on doing bench press, doing 5 rounds of 3 reps at 42.5kg with the last round being maximum reps. Again, I was finding this mentally challenging. I kept colliding into the racking and my bar path was all over the shop. But eventually, I managed to re-focus on the task at hand with the help of Luke (Be strong, think strong!).

Even in the face of a seemingly impossible goal (beating 6 reps in the last round), I summoned all of my mental strength and energy to push myself through it. “You’ve got this Michael. Don’t give up. Stay focused. Take deep breaths.” I genuinely did more than I thought I could do, smashing 8 reps. Now that is a remarkable achievement to be proud of.

WORKOUT...Today’s workout involved a 7 minute AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible), doing the following exercises: 20 Russian twists, 15 butterfly situps, 20 mountain climbers and 15 hollow rocks. It seemed pretty full on especially with that tough mixture of cardio and core strength but I was up for it. The Russian twists and the hollow rocks were the hardest of the lot. The pain was a difficult distraction but I kept fighting it thanks to Luke’s constant motivation. I completed 2.5 rounds plus 13 butterfly situps. https://www.facebook.com/breakawayfitnesstraining/

“So I'll speak my truth though my voice shakes. Try to summon the strength to look fear in the face. But I'm kicking and screaming 'cause it won't be easy to break all the patterns. If I'm not evolving, I'm just another robot taking up oxygen.”                                                    Katy Perry - Bigger Than Me (2017)

“So, just take those punches on the chin, yeah. Don't fight the changes in the wind, no, no 'cause you'll find your way home, oh. If you find a way to let go, just let go. Don't try and reinvent your wheel, 'cause you're too original. Baby, just stay classic. Ain't broke, ain't broke, don't fix it. Your highs, your lows, just ride it.” Katy Perry - Pendulum (2017)

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Life Is Like a Box of... Diabetes Goodies? (Giveaway Contest!)

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/life-is-like-a-box-of-diabetes-goodies-giveaway-contest/

Life Is Like a Box of... Diabetes Goodies? (Giveaway Contest!)

The medium-sized priority mail box arrived by mail the day after Thanksgiving, on Black Friday. A label stating "D-Box" was stuck on the top, hinting at the mystery lineup of "diabetes goodies" inside.

And that moment, right before I ripped the box open, was probably the highlight of my experience with HealthEngage's new D-Box offering, that's pitched as a "Diabetes Products of the Month Club." Inside each box is a hodgepodge of D-item samples that can range from food, drinks, topical creams, books, electronics, jewelry, to "anything cool and useful for someone with diabetes."

I was pretty intrigued after talking to the head of the Arlington, VA, company behind this D-Box. It's a new service started this year that you can get for yourself or someone else as a gift - $35 for a single month, $75 for three months, $190 for six months, or $340 for a full year (!).

"We kept hearing from our users that it was difficult to find new and interesting diabetes-related products," HealthEngage president Michael Slage said about how the D-Box came to be. "It was troubling, getting emails from people saying they can't afford supplies and test strips... so we wanted to help them save some money. We decided to try to take the hassle out of finding and trying new products for people who can't spend all day on Google trying to find something."

So my imagination got away with me as I anticipated what might be inside my box: maybe it would be the run-of-the-mill sample packs you get at conference booths, but just maybe it would be something totally new and interesting and useful in ways I'd never thought of before.

Unwrapping the Box

When my D-Box arrived on Black Friday, I found seven sample items inside:

Roasted Seasoned Seaweed from Korea

A 6-oz tin of Bear & Wolf Pink Salmon

Nature's Hollow sugar-free maple syrup

A five-day sample pack of six Nature Made vitamins without any gluten or artificial flavors/preservatives

An 18-oz jar of gluten-free and blueberry-flavored bai antioxidant infusions Superfruit juice

a 1/4-oz sample of Formula II Skin Care Cream

Stick of ultra-hydrating Desert Essence lip rescue with shea butter

As soon as I opened the box and surveyed the contents, I started laughing and OMG-head-shaking, because I was thinking:

"Seaweed... are you freakin' kidding me?! And vitamins? And lip balm?"

My conclusion: What an utter disappointment. I was really hoping for so much more.

Honestly, it wasn't the kind of stuff that's "fun, interesting, exciting, or useful" to me. And it certainly didn't seem worth the price tag of $35 a box.

To me, what was inside was reminiscent of stuff I've seen at every diabetes or health conference I've ever been to (and I've been to a lot in my 28 years with type 1). Sort of neat, but just not stuff I would spend my hard-earned money on.

Opinions can vary, though. And maybe I should step back and give this particular D-Box a fair shake.

I may personally not take "healthy eating" to the level many fellow PWDs do, but there are a growing number of PWDs who make these D-Box items a fixture in their lives. People outside the U.S. eat seaweed and it apparently has some health benefits (so Google searches tell me). Vitamins are good for you and the mix included appears very health-focused for PWDs. And the rest of the package contents surely have their own health benefits and people certainly buy these.

Yet, it just seems to be missing something for me.

Was it the surprise element that let me down? The notion that I'm getting some mystery box of D-Goodies that could potentially surprise me or change my D-Life? Maybe that's it. The box didn't even contain a single one of its pitched "helpful diabetes tools" like medicine organizers, electronics, emergency or heat packs, self-exam mirrors for foot inspections, or USB identification bracelets, books or D-publications. There also weren't any coupons or vouchers as I was expecting.

I had higher hopes, to be sure, but that doesn't mean some folks won't enjoy this monthly grab-bag service.

The Man Behind D-Box

A telemedicine guru, Slage formerly worked with NASA on developing advanced technology for astronauts to manage their health while in space, and on sharing that data with docs and ground control. His focus was on telemedicine, space stations and astronaut health. He left NASA to start a company assisting Pharma companies worldwide with patient applications, doing glucose calculations on handheld and web applications. Slage - who doesn't have diabetes himself - later started his own company, HealthEngage, in 2010 to forge his own path to using technology to help people better manage their health.

Now two years old, HealthEnage offers free online tools for people with diabetes (PWDs) to log blood sugars and other health stats and share info with docs. They offer a free diabetes widget that can be added on Google, Facebook, or mobile phones to log and track BG data.

The D-Box mailing offer has been around for about six months now and is the latest venture of the company that now reaches people in 176 countries speaking 58 languages. Diabetes is just one of the company's main focuses at this time, Slage says. The company works with about 300 diabetes vendors across the globe and proudly notes its support from Pharma's JnJ, NASA, and the Department of Homeland Security.

"We want to focus everything on the patient, to help them feel better and do better in their health. So much of this can get lost on insurance claims and product pitches from Pharma, so we want to make this all a little easier for people," Slage said.

Each D-Box includes five to ten "conference sample" style items (really whatever fits in the box), and Slage says his staff tries to mix it up between small and large vendors and include newer and lesser-known items that might not be available to everyone everywhere.

Curious about the dollar-value of this offering, I turned to Google and did a quick search, that showed the seven-item list might cost somewhere around $25. After paying somewhere around $10 for shipping, we're not too far off from the price actually paid... but it's certainly no discount deal.

And then there's the wait time. I placed my order a few days before the end of October. My D-Box arrived the day after Thanksgiving — just about a full month later. Wow!

According to Slage: Items are pre-selected and then boxed once an order's placed, though sometimes they add a last-minute surprise. Four staff members are specifically assigned to "scouring diabetes vendors around the world to find the coolest items from a wide variety of categories related to diabetes to send to our subscribers." At least one of those individuals has type 2 diabetes and another has a mom with type 1, he said.

So far, Slage says HealthEngage has sent out several hundred boxes already, and interest has gone up with the holidays approaching. They recently did some Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions and discounts. If you're thinking of gifting, Slage says the deadline is Dec. 14 for orders to be sent and received by Christmas.

The company's planning some holiday-specific items, and in the future also plans to toss in some kid-friendly stuff. Preferences can also be included, Slage said. They also plan to add a review feature to the company website allowing people to add feedback about the included D-Box items they receive.

"We understand people aren't going to like everything in there, but this is an ecosystem we're building that's all centered around a person with a chronic disorder."

OK, I get that. YPMV (your preferences may vary).

Still, I don't find the D-Box is worth the cost or the near-month it takes for delivery. Not by a long shot. However, if a D-Box was offered as a giveaway that I wouldn't have to spend my own money on, that could be different...

A DMProducts Giveaway

And here is your chance to try D-Box! We're giving away one D-Box full of mystery goodies to a lucky winner! Who knows what YOU will get inside yours...?

As always, entering for your chance to win is as easy as leaving a comment.

Here's what to do:

1. Post your comment below and include the codeword "DMProducts" somewhere in the comment (beginning, end, in parenthesis, in bold, whatever). That will let us know that you would like to be entered in the giveaway. You can still leave a comment without entering, but if you want to be considered to win the contest, please remember to include "DMProducts."

2. You have until Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, at 5 p.m. PST to enter. A valid email address is required to win.

3. The winner will be chosen using Random.org.

4. The winner will be announced on Facebook and Twitter on Monday, Dec. 3, so make sure you're following us! We like to feature our winners in upcoming blog posts, too.

This contest is open to anyone in the world who's in search of a D-Box, and willing to share their feedback with us. It could also make a great gift for a fellow PWD too. Best of luck!

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

[hotfitnesstopics]

I've been following the 16:8 intermittent fasting (IF) plan for over seven months now, which means I don't eat for 16 hours a day and only eat during the other eight hours. I find a lot of inspiration and information from watching YouTube videos on IF. Recently, I'd been seeing a lot about the Warrior Diet. It's a stricter form of intermittent fasting, during which you have a much shorter eating window of just four hours and then a fasting window of 20 hours. Before Warrior Diet: It seems crazy, right? Yet so many people rave about it. You're meant to obtain more mental clarity, increased energy, better digestion, reduced sugar cravings, and, for those looking for it, faster and better weight-loss and muscle definition results. I never gave it serious thought, though. I mean, how can you only eat for four hours?! But one day, it happened accidentally. I meant to eat at noon as usual, but I was running around doing tons of errands, and it was 4 p.m. by the time I realized I was hungry and able to eat. If I could do it one day, I could do it for one week, right? One of the best things I've experienced from intermittent fasting is getting a handle on my sugar cravings and food addiction. Not eating until noon was so freeing. It was beginning to help me not obsess about food all the time. I wanted to see how shortening my eating window to four hours would affect that. Related: I Did Intermittent Fasting For 1 Month and This Is What Happened I felt like an eating window of 3:00/3:30 p.m. to 7:00/7:30 p.m. would be good for my work, life, and family schedule. I decided to commit to one week on the Warrior Diet because I thought I'd be starving the entire time and wouldn't be able to stand another day. But by the sixth day, I was feeling so good, I wanted to keep going. I decided to commit to two weeks. Weren't You Insanely Hungry? (In Other Words: Didn't It Suck?!) This surprised me, too, but no, I wasn't. I felt a little hungry around 10 a.m., so I'd have a cup of black coffee or green chai tea. The first couple of days I felt a little hungry around noon, since that's when I was used to eating. But by the fourth day that passed, and I instead noticed noon was the time of day when my mental clarity, focus, energy, and happiness really started kicking in. Related: I Fasted For 16 Hours a Day For 6 Months and This Is What Happened How Did You Feel? One thing I noticed about the Warrior Diet compared to the 16:8 plan is that eating eight hours a day still didn't entirely prevent me from overeating or wanting sugar, which always made me feel uncomfortably bloated. Eating just four hours a day made it impossible to overeat - my belly filled up so quickly and I felt so satisfied that I didn't want to eat more. Because I had no desire to overeat, I didn't feel bloated at night or in the morning. Mentally speaking, before I started IF, I was always thinking about food, stressing about counting calories, feeling hungry and deprived, or feeling bad if I ate too much or ate "bad" foods. I realized I was so unhappy back then because all my hard work was just making me gain weight. Only eating in a four-hour window helped me think even less about food, and when I ate, I didn't feel restricted or bad about it. I wasn't expecting to feel such an emotional weight lifted, and this is what kept me inspired to stick with it. After 2 Weeks on Warrior Diet: What Did You Eat? When 3:00/3:30 p.m. rolled around, I felt a subtle sense of hunger but wasn't completely famished. I craved mostly healthy foods and would eat a big tofu kale salad, leftovers, or a bowl of roasted tofu, sweet potatoes, and red peppers. I followed that with a banana, sometimes two, with raw almonds or cashews and plenty of water. Dinner was around 6:00 p.m., and I'd have whatever was on the menu: black bean burritos, avocado pasta with Trader Joe's meatless meatballs and steamed broccoli, lentil soup and bread, or veggie burgers with roasted veggies. If I felt like it, I'd eat a little dessert after. Sometimes it was some trail mix and fresh fruit . . . annnnd sometimes it was a vegan brownie sundae. Related: This Is the Diet That Helped Me Get a 6-Pack I ate what I craved, and as much as I wanted. That was one of my favorite parts about the Warrior Diet. I never felt deprived. I was able to sit down to a huge plate of food and feel completely satisfied and not guilty because my meal was over 400 calories. Another surprising benefit was that my taste buds became so sharp that even basic foods like fresh mango tasted mind-blowingly delicious. Were You Able to Work Out? Yep, my 5:45 a.m. CrossFit classes still happened. I felt the same as I always do, but this shortened eating window made for amazing deep sleep, so I felt super rested and energized. I was still able to box jump and burpee as usual, and today I even got a personal record for my squat snatch. One thing I noticed was that from not feeling bloated, I felt lighter and more agile and just more excited to move my body. Did You Lose Weight? I was surprised that I lost about two pounds - I've been about the same weight for years! This doesn't seem major, especially since it's hard to tell from the before-and-after photos, but for me, it was all in my belly. I noticed zero bloating (zero!) and a flatter tummy. I've also noticed more muscle definition in my arms and thighs, but that's not just from the past two weeks; it's because I've been doing intermittent fasting for over seven months now. Isn't It Bad For You Not to Eat All Day? Someone expressed their concern to me that intermittent fasting is an eating disorder. I actually feel like it's the exact opposite. I feel more in control and have a healthier relationship with food than I ever had. I finally know what true hunger feels like and am learning to listen to my body to eat when I'm hungry and - this is the most important thing - to STOP when I'm full. I'm no longer overeating or obsessing about food, and I feel more free from the thoughts about how eating affects my weight. Will You Keep Going? I've been wondering this every single day over the past 14 days. Some days I'm like, "Hell, no!" I especially felt that way on the third and 13th days. But then on the other days I just felt so good; I felt like I wanted to keep this up. There are two main reasons I've contemplated sticking with the Warrior Diet. One, not being bloated has been huge for me, since I have been struggling with that since July 2016. It's made me so self-conscious and uncomfortable - on my worst days, I felt really depressed about it. So to look down and see a flatter tummy and not feel pain makes me tear up; I'm so happy. Intermittent fasting feels like free therapy. And two, I can't get over how I'm not obsessing about food. Even when I begin my eating window, I'm not scarfing food down or craving sweets, and I'm not overeating. And during my fasting window, I'm not daydreaming about the food I'll eat. Restricting my diet for over 20 years and obsessing about weight loss really f*cked me up, and intermittent fasting feels like free therapy. It's slowly curing me of all my worries and detrimental body-negative thoughts. OK, so the one thing that was hard was the weekends. I had my best friend visiting on the sixth day, and we went out for brunch. Sipping on coffee while she ate pancakes was tough - I'm not gonna lie. But that's what's cool about choosing IF as a lifestyle. I can tailor it to meet my needs, which means sticking with it most days and being lenient about not fasting when I want to. Related: Forget the 80/20 Rule! This Trainer Says to Follow the 90/10 Rule to Lose Weight I've loved the heightened benefits of the Warrior Diet vs. the 16:8 plan - I'm blown away that I haven't been famished all day and that I've been so energized. I'm over the moon that I'm feeling zero belly bloat because I'm not overeating all day long, and I love not obsessing about food. I think I'm going to keep going! I'm not sure I'll be strictly Warrior-ing it up every single day. Maybe some days I'll have a five- or six-hour eating window. Some days I'll do 16:8, and, well, other days (like on the weekends), I'll wake up and hit up my local vegan bakery for a sticky bun and keep eating all day long. Final Thoughts If you're considering intermittent fasting, I definitely would not try the Warrior Diet right off the bat. I'd start with a 12-hour fasting window, not eating from, say, 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Gradually increase the amount of time you're fasting by 30 to 60 minutes every few days. I took a few weeks to get on the 16:8 plan, so just ease your body into it, and you'll find more success. As always, chat with your doctor before making any serious changes to your diet. Aside from jumping into IF too fast, avoid these other intermittent fasting mistakes, such as eating the wrong foods. Once you get into a rhythm, you'll love the benefits of weight loss, increased energy, and the lowered risk of disease and feel inspired to keep going. You just might inspire someone else to hop on the IF train, too! from POPSUGAR Fitness https://ift.tt/2h8cS5L via IFTTT

http://www.fitnessclub.cf/2018/06/i-fasted-20-hours-day-for-2-weeks-and-i.html

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18

The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night.

A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with depression and anxiety, I learned that there’s such a thing as adult self-soothing, too. It may be an especially important skill to develop if you identify as a sensitive person or you feel the impact of emotions very strongly.

Self-soothing practices can take all sorts of shapes and forms; they may take one out of time and place, like going for a walk or practicing yoga in a special part of the home, or they might be as simple as listening to a particular song, sipping tea, breathing deeply, praying, singing, humming, reading poetry out loud, or smelling an essential oil. These, anyway, are my own favorite ways to self-soothe.

Two years ago at this time, my anxiety was so bad that I often didn’t want to leave the house. I did leave, going about my business and trying to perform as much competence as I could muster, but I felt as if I was falling apart. I was so on edge, so irritable, and so unable to hang onto a sense of safety or security. It really scared me, much more than my depression ever had.

Many months of therapy later, and I’m in a different place. But this week in particular gave me new skills to be grateful for. A few situations came up that triggered my anxiety, and I reacted, but I was able to stay connected to a fundamental sense that things would be OK. I’m not exactly sure what to attribute this to: my meditation practice? Learning to pay attention to my breath? Slowing down? Learning to say “no”? Reconnecting?

The answer is that all of these things, coupled with time and patience, have helped. I’m also starting to understand that quelling anxiety creates muscle memory; if you do it often enough, you start to believe, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s possible, and then it starts to happen more readily.

I know that I may manage my anxiety for a long time and possibly live with it always, just as I know I’ll always have brushes with depression and may always periodically encounter certain ED-related urges. In writing these words today, though, I realize how surprisingly calm I feel about my anxiety, which is sweetly ironic.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not alarmed by the fact that I have anxiety, not scared of it. I’ve been given signs that I have some of the tools I need to manage it. Maybe I’ll need to expand or change up my toolkit at some point, but that’s OK: toolkits can grow along with us. For now, merely knowing that I can get centered even in the midst of anxious feelings or thoughts is a major shift, one that gives me hope and a sense of spaciousness.

As always, wishing everyone peace and grounding as we head out into a fresh week. Enjoy these tasty recipes and reading links.

Recipes

There’s a mushroom miso barley soup recipe in Power Plates that I’ve become pretty attached to, but I can never get enough soup recipes, and I’m loving Natasha’s version, which is infused with Italian herbs and seasonings.

Wish someone had made these sweet buckwheat crepes for me on Valentine’s Day! Or that I’d gone ahead and made them for myself

This is my kind of potato salad: roasted potatoes, dill, vegan bacon, creamy garlic mayo. Perfect vegan comfort food.

Writing about Hannah’s book on Friday has me thinking about the art of creating really good food in very little time. It’s something I’m still figuring out. Lisa is one of the people I turn to for inspiration in this area, and her easy green curry noodles are a perfect example of a super speedy, flavorful, filling meal.

I tend to have lousy luck when I’m baking exclusively with grain free flours (I do OK when they’re part of a blend that has some wheat flour or gluten free grain flours in it). I’m always impressed with the way that Lindsay works wonders with grain-free baking that’s also vegan-friendly, and I’m dying to try her easy vegan white cake.

Reads

1. In spite of spending a fair amount of time around doctors—and anticipating a year of clinical work on the horizon—I had never really given much thought to what it must be like for doctors to return to full time work after being treated for an illness, especially the illness that they themselves specialize in.

That’s exactly the process that breast cancer surgeon Liz O’Riordon finds herself in now. I was touched by The Atlantic‘s profile of her, in which she admits to having new emotional challenges on the job, including sensitivities to hear certain diagnoses spoken of in dire terms and heightened awareness when delivering news to patients. The article says,

She [Liz] also takes more care with her language, and cringes at the memory of comments that were meant to be encouraging but now seem glib and unsympathetic. “I used to say: You’re lucky it hasn’t spread. No one is lucky to have cancer,” she says. “I used to ask people: Are you happy to sign this consent form? No one is happy to have cancer. As a doctor, you may give bad news 10 times a day. Until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t realize that when you get bad news, you remember every single detail of that conversation.”

There’s a lot of pressure for doctors and medical personnel to remain transparent, cool, and objective at all times, but my own limited experience in a helping profession is that personal struggle often gives way to empathy that can enhance one’s capacities as a practitioner. I hope that O’Riordan can indeed follow through on her hope to speak out more openly about her illness and encourage other doctors to do so with her.

2. Also on the topic of medicine and healthcare, a physician examines the concept of agape as it relates to healthcare. Agape is the ancient Greek term for selfless love of humanity; it’s seen as transcending difference or circumstance, which distinguishes it from filial or erotic love. Pooja Gidwani, a hospitalist, writes,

To me, agape means having the fortitude not only to empathize with patients or to provide compassionate care but to also habitually understand that each patient’s reactions may stem from their physical or mental suffering, past or current. To develop the ability to connect on a more spiritual level with the sufferer’s emotions despite their behaviors to truly be a healer. To put oneself in the shoes of each individual, remembering that everyone we meet is a product of what life has created for them.

I can’t think of a more beautiful summation of how agape can animate medical practice.

3. In the wake of the tragedy in Florida this past week, Vox sat down with Gerry Griffith, a crisis counselor with over 30 years of experience, to ask questions about what’s needed in the aftermath of shocking losses. She offers a lot of practical, detailed perspective on how crisis counselors respond to different stages of trauma among the people they’re helping, and she also has important things to say about the importance of addressing peoples’ sense of powerlessness after these kinds of events.

When asked how she continues to do this challenging work, she says,

I had a mentor, early, early on that said doing this work is learning how to keep your heart open in hell. I know what hell looks, tastes, like, and smells like.

I think, for me, there are people in my life that I can talk to about this. I have a husband, he’s proud of me and he supports me. When I’m out there in Oklahoma City or out in New York, I can call him and I can talk about how the dog, what she’s doing today. Because he’s not there.

Somebody asked me the other day: ”How would you know when you’re done?” I said, “When I stop crying.” When I stop feeling, when I don’t cry, my heart has closed and I have to quit.

I thought it was impressive that Griffith’s barometer of being fit for the task of counseling is having a strong capacity to feel. Something I want to keep in mind, in my own small way, for my future work with clients.

4. I really like Carrie Dennett’s reporting, and I was glad to see her in-depth consideration of orthorexia in the latest issue of Today’s Dietitian.

Orthorexia is a complex compulsion, often more difficult to address than other types of disordered eating because it is so often rooted in basically valuable efforts and intentions to eat healthfully and well. While anorexia put me in my most dire state of biological illness, I think overcoming orthorexia was in many ways a trickier challenge, because it was so hard to separate obsession and compulsion from the sincere value I place on mindful, conscious, health-supportive eating.

Dennett delves into all of the difficulties and complexities of addressing this syndrome, including the fact that, as of yet, there’s no consensus on a definition and no validated assessment tool. “Eating doesn’t become pathological until it becomes entangled with obsessive thinking, compulsive and ritualistic behavior, and self-punishment,” she notes, which echoed my own intuitive sense of what orthorexia is when I encounter it in my own work.

She also interviews Emily Fossenbeck, who is doing really important work in speaking up about her own experience with orthorexia and raising awareness on social media. Emily’s struggle with orthorexia began with elimination diets (a phenomenon I’ve observed often). She’s quoted saying,

“I only felt worse and worse but kept chasing this magical unicorn of the ‘perfect diet.’ The anxiety I felt about food was suffocating and totally overwhelmed most other parts of my life. I was afraid to eat out or travel or—the worst of it—to eat a normal meal with my family. I had to have complete control of everything I was eating.”

I’ve often seen the question posed of what distinguishes orthorexia from healthful eating, and I’ve written about it myself. I think the answer might be that anxiety and feeling of suffocation that Fossenbeck mentions. A particular kind of health-conscious eating style might be either self-caring or destructive; the difference rests in the mentality and subjective emotional experience of the individual in question.

I suspect that the dietetic and mental health treatment communities are just at the start of understanding this complicated expression of disordered eating. For now, the best we can hope for is more awareness, more observation and research, and an ongoing effort to enlist more people who have struggled with orthorexia to honestly share their stories. I’ve been giving lots of thought to recovery with NEDA week on the horizon, and this is nice motivation for me to use my voice.

5. I mentioned last week that the heart chakra and heart-opening are on my mind this month. With loving-kindness in mind, a sweet list to wrap up with.

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. I look forward to checking in with a hearty, colorful new winter salad recipe in a couple days.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18

The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night.

A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with depression and anxiety, I learned that there’s such a thing as adult self-soothing, too. It may be an especially important skill to develop if you identify as a sensitive person or you feel the impact of emotions very strongly.

Self-soothing practices can take all sorts of shapes and forms; they may take one out of time and place, like going for a walk or practicing yoga in a special part of the home, or they might be as simple as listening to a particular song, sipping tea, breathing deeply, praying, singing, humming, reading poetry out loud, or smelling an essential oil. These, anyway, are my own favorite ways to self-soothe.

Two years ago at this time, my anxiety was so bad that I often didn’t want to leave the house. I did leave, going about my business and trying to perform as much competence as I could muster, but I felt as if I was falling apart. I was so on edge, so irritable, and so unable to hang onto a sense of safety or security. It really scared me, much more than my depression ever had.

Many months of therapy later, and I’m in a different place. But this week in particular gave me new skills to be grateful for. A few situations came up that triggered my anxiety, and I reacted, but I was able to stay connected to a fundamental sense that things would be OK. I’m not exactly sure what to attribute this to: my meditation practice? Learning to pay attention to my breath? Slowing down? Learning to say “no”? Reconnecting?

The answer is that all of these things, coupled with time and patience, have helped. I’m also starting to understand that quelling anxiety creates muscle memory; if you do it often enough, you start to believe, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s possible, and then it starts to happen more readily.

I know that I may manage my anxiety for a long time and possibly live with it always, just as I know I’ll always have brushes with depression and may always periodically encounter certain ED-related urges. In writing these words today, though, I realize how surprisingly calm I feel about my anxiety, which is sweetly ironic.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not alarmed by the fact that I have anxiety, not scared of it. I’ve been given signs that I have some of the tools I need to manage it. Maybe I’ll need to expand or change up my toolkit at some point, but that’s OK: toolkits can grow along with us. For now, merely knowing that I can get centered even in the midst of anxious feelings or thoughts is a major shift, one that gives me hope and a sense of spaciousness.

As always, wishing everyone peace and grounding as we head out into a fresh week. Enjoy these tasty recipes and reading links.

Recipes

There’s a mushroom miso barley soup recipe in Power Plates that I’ve become pretty attached to, but I can never get enough soup recipes, and I’m loving Natasha’s version, which is infused with Italian herbs and seasonings.

Wish someone had made these sweet buckwheat crepes for me on Valentine’s Day! Or that I’d gone ahead and made them for myself

This is my kind of potato salad: roasted potatoes, dill, vegan bacon, creamy garlic mayo. Perfect vegan comfort food.

Writing about Hannah’s book on Friday has me thinking about the art of creating really good food in very little time. It’s something I’m still figuring out. Lisa is one of the people I turn to for inspiration in this area, and her easy green curry noodles are a perfect example of a super speedy, flavorful, filling meal.

I tend to have lousy luck when I’m baking exclusively with grain free flours (I do OK when they’re part of a blend that has some wheat flour or gluten free grain flours in it). I’m always impressed with the way that Lindsay works wonders with grain-free baking that’s also vegan-friendly, and I’m dying to try her easy vegan white cake.

Reads

1. In spite of spending a fair amount of time around doctors—and anticipating a year of clinical work on the horizon—I had never really given much thought to what it must be like for doctors to return to full time work after being treated for an illness, especially the illness that they themselves specialize in.

That’s exactly the process that breast cancer surgeon Liz O’Riordon finds herself in now. I was touched by The Atlantic‘s profile of her, in which she admits to having new emotional challenges on the job, including sensitivities to hear certain diagnoses spoken of in dire terms and heightened awareness when delivering news to patients. The article says,

She [Liz] also takes more care with her language, and cringes at the memory of comments that were meant to be encouraging but now seem glib and unsympathetic. “I used to say: You’re lucky it hasn’t spread. No one is lucky to have cancer,” she says. “I used to ask people: Are you happy to sign this consent form? No one is happy to have cancer. As a doctor, you may give bad news 10 times a day. Until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t realize that when you get bad news, you remember every single detail of that conversation.”

There’s a lot of pressure for doctors and medical personnel to remain transparent, cool, and objective at all times, but my own limited experience in a helping profession is that personal struggle often gives way to empathy that can enhance one’s capacities as a practitioner. I hope that O’Riordan can indeed follow through on her hope to speak out more openly about her illness and encourage other doctors to do so with her.

2. Also on the topic of medicine and healthcare, a physician examines the concept of agape as it relates to healthcare. Agape is the ancient Greek term for selfless love of humanity; it’s seen as transcending difference or circumstance, which distinguishes it from filial or erotic love. Pooja Gidwani, a hospitalist, writes,

To me, agape means having the fortitude not only to empathize with patients or to provide compassionate care but to also habitually understand that each patient’s reactions may stem from their physical or mental suffering, past or current. To develop the ability to connect on a more spiritual level with the sufferer’s emotions despite their behaviors to truly be a healer. To put oneself in the shoes of each individual, remembering that everyone we meet is a product of what life has created for them.

I can’t think of a more beautiful summation of how agape can animate medical practice.

3. In the wake of the tragedy in Florida this past week, Vox sat down with Gerry Griffith, a crisis counselor with over 30 years of experience, to ask questions about what’s needed in the aftermath of shocking losses. She offers a lot of practical, detailed perspective on how crisis counselors respond to different stages of trauma among the people they’re helping, and she also has important things to say about the importance of addressing peoples’ sense of powerlessness after these kinds of events.

When asked how she continues to do this challenging work, she says,

I had a mentor, early, early on that said doing this work is learning how to keep your heart open in hell. I know what hell looks, tastes, like, and smells like.

I think, for me, there are people in my life that I can talk to about this. I have a husband, he’s proud of me and he supports me. When I’m out there in Oklahoma City or out in New York, I can call him and I can talk about how the dog, what she’s doing today. Because he’s not there.

Somebody asked me the other day: ”How would you know when you’re done?” I said, “When I stop crying.” When I stop feeling, when I don’t cry, my heart has closed and I have to quit.

I thought it was impressive that Griffith’s barometer of being fit for the task of counseling is having a strong capacity to feel. Something I want to keep in mind, in my own small way, for my future work with clients.

4. I really like Carrie Dennett’s reporting, and I was glad to see her in-depth consideration of orthorexia in the latest issue of Today’s Dietitian.

Orthorexia is a complex compulsion, often more difficult to address than other types of disordered eating because it is so often rooted in basically valuable efforts and intentions to eat healthfully and well. While anorexia put me in my most dire state of biological illness, I think overcoming orthorexia was in many ways a trickier challenge, because it was so hard to separate obsession and compulsion from the sincere value I place on mindful, conscious, health-supportive eating.

Dennett delves into all of the difficulties and complexities of addressing this syndrome, including the fact that, as of yet, there’s no consensus on a definition and no validated assessment tool. “Eating doesn’t become pathological until it becomes entangled with obsessive thinking, compulsive and ritualistic behavior, and self-punishment,” she notes, which echoed my own intuitive sense of what orthorexia is when I encounter it in my own work.

She also interviews Emily Fossenbeck, who is doing really important work in speaking up about her own experience with orthorexia and raising awareness on social media. Emily’s struggle with orthorexia began with elimination diets (a phenomenon I’ve observed often). She’s quoted saying,

“I only felt worse and worse but kept chasing this magical unicorn of the ‘perfect diet.’ The anxiety I felt about food was suffocating and totally overwhelmed most other parts of my life. I was afraid to eat out or travel or—the worst of it—to eat a normal meal with my family. I had to have complete control of everything I was eating.”

I’ve often seen the question posed of what distinguishes orthorexia from healthful eating, and I’ve written about it myself. I think the answer might be that anxiety and feeling of suffocation that Fossenbeck mentions. A particular kind of health-conscious eating style might be either self-caring or destructive; the difference rests in the mentality and subjective emotional experience of the individual in question.

I suspect that the dietetic and mental health treatment communities are just at the start of understanding this complicated expression of disordered eating. For now, the best we can hope for is more awareness, more observation and research, and an ongoing effort to enlist more people who have struggled with orthorexia to honestly share their stories. I’ve been giving lots of thought to recovery with NEDA week on the horizon, and this is nice motivation for me to use my voice.

5. I mentioned last week that the heart chakra and heart-opening are on my mind this month. With loving-kindness in mind, a sweet list to wrap up with.

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. I look forward to checking in with a hearty, colorful new winter salad recipe in a couple days.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18

The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night.

A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with depression and anxiety, I learned that there’s such a thing as adult self-soothing, too. It may be an especially important skill to develop if you identify as a sensitive person or you feel the impact of emotions very strongly.

Self-soothing practices can take all sorts of shapes and forms; they may take one out of time and place, like going for a walk or practicing yoga in a special part of the home, or they might be as simple as listening to a particular song, sipping tea, breathing deeply, praying, singing, humming, reading poetry out loud, or smelling an essential oil. These, anyway, are my own favorite ways to self-soothe.

Two years ago at this time, my anxiety was so bad that I often didn’t want to leave the house. I did leave, going about my business and trying to perform as much competence as I could muster, but I felt as if I was falling apart. I was so on edge, so irritable, and so unable to hang onto a sense of safety or security. It really scared me, much more than my depression ever had.

Many months of therapy later, and I’m in a different place. But this week in particular gave me new skills to be grateful for. A few situations came up that triggered my anxiety, and I reacted, but I was able to stay connected to a fundamental sense that things would be OK. I’m not exactly sure what to attribute this to: my meditation practice? Learning to pay attention to my breath? Slowing down? Learning to say “no”? Reconnecting?

The answer is that all of these things, coupled with time and patience, have helped. I’m also starting to understand that quelling anxiety creates muscle memory; if you do it often enough, you start to believe, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s possible, and then it starts to happen more readily.

I know that I may manage my anxiety for a long time and possibly live with it always, just as I know I’ll always have brushes with depression and may always periodically encounter certain ED-related urges. In writing these words today, though, I realize how surprisingly calm I feel about my anxiety, which is sweetly ironic.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not alarmed by the fact that I have anxiety, not scared of it. I’ve been given signs that I have some of the tools I need to manage it. Maybe I’ll need to expand or change up my toolkit at some point, but that’s OK: toolkits can grow along with us. For now, merely knowing that I can get centered even in the midst of anxious feelings or thoughts is a major shift, one that gives me hope and a sense of spaciousness.

As always, wishing everyone peace and grounding as we head out into a fresh week. Enjoy these tasty recipes and reading links.

Recipes

There’s a mushroom miso barley soup recipe in Power Plates that I’ve become pretty attached to, but I can never get enough soup recipes, and I’m loving Natasha’s version, which is infused with Italian herbs and seasonings.

Wish someone had made these sweet buckwheat crepes for me on Valentine’s Day! Or that I’d gone ahead and made them for myself

This is my kind of potato salad: roasted potatoes, dill, vegan bacon, creamy garlic mayo. Perfect vegan comfort food.

Writing about Hannah’s book on Friday has me thinking about the art of creating really good food in very little time. It’s something I’m still figuring out. Lisa is one of the people I turn to for inspiration in this area, and her easy green curry noodles are a perfect example of a super speedy, flavorful, filling meal.

I tend to have lousy luck when I’m baking exclusively with grain free flours (I do OK when they’re part of a blend that has some wheat flour or gluten free grain flours in it). I’m always impressed with the way that Lindsay works wonders with grain-free baking that’s also vegan-friendly, and I’m dying to try her easy vegan white cake.

Reads

1. In spite of spending a fair amount of time around doctors—and anticipating a year of clinical work on the horizon—I had never really given much thought to what it must be like for doctors to return to full time work after being treated for an illness, especially the illness that they themselves specialize in.

That’s exactly the process that breast cancer surgeon Liz O’Riordon finds herself in now. I was touched by The Atlantic‘s profile of her, in which she admits to having new emotional challenges on the job, including sensitivities to hear certain diagnoses spoken of in dire terms and heightened awareness when delivering news to patients. The article says,

She [Liz] also takes more care with her language, and cringes at the memory of comments that were meant to be encouraging but now seem glib and unsympathetic. “I used to say: You’re lucky it hasn’t spread. No one is lucky to have cancer,” she says. “I used to ask people: Are you happy to sign this consent form? No one is happy to have cancer. As a doctor, you may give bad news 10 times a day. Until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t realize that when you get bad news, you remember every single detail of that conversation.”

There’s a lot of pressure for doctors and medical personnel to remain transparent, cool, and objective at all times, but my own limited experience in a helping profession is that personal struggle often gives way to empathy that can enhance one’s capacities as a practitioner. I hope that O’Riordan can indeed follow through on her hope to speak out more openly about her illness and encourage other doctors to do so with her.

2. Also on the topic of medicine and healthcare, a physician examines the concept of agape as it relates to healthcare. Agape is the ancient Greek term for selfless love of humanity; it’s seen as transcending difference or circumstance, which distinguishes it from filial or erotic love. Pooja Gidwani, a hospitalist, writes,

To me, agape means having the fortitude not only to empathize with patients or to provide compassionate care but to also habitually understand that each patient’s reactions may stem from their physical or mental suffering, past or current. To develop the ability to connect on a more spiritual level with the sufferer’s emotions despite their behaviors to truly be a healer. To put oneself in the shoes of each individual, remembering that everyone we meet is a product of what life has created for them.

I can’t think of a more beautiful summation of how agape can animate medical practice.

3. In the wake of the tragedy in Florida this past week, Vox sat down with Gerry Griffith, a crisis counselor with over 30 years of experience, to ask questions about what’s needed in the aftermath of shocking losses. She offers a lot of practical, detailed perspective on how crisis counselors respond to different stages of trauma among the people they’re helping, and she also has important things to say about the importance of addressing peoples’ sense of powerlessness after these kinds of events.

When asked how she continues to do this challenging work, she says,

I had a mentor, early, early on that said doing this work is learning how to keep your heart open in hell. I know what hell looks, tastes, like, and smells like.

I think, for me, there are people in my life that I can talk to about this. I have a husband, he’s proud of me and he supports me. When I’m out there in Oklahoma City or out in New York, I can call him and I can talk about how the dog, what she’s doing today. Because he’s not there.

Somebody asked me the other day: ”How would you know when you’re done?” I said, “When I stop crying.” When I stop feeling, when I don’t cry, my heart has closed and I have to quit.

I thought it was impressive that Griffith’s barometer of being fit for the task of counseling is having a strong capacity to feel. Something I want to keep in mind, in my own small way, for my future work with clients.

4. I really like Carrie Dennett’s reporting, and I was glad to see her in-depth consideration of orthorexia in the latest issue of Today’s Dietitian.

Orthorexia is a complex compulsion, often more difficult to address than other types of disordered eating because it is so often rooted in basically valuable efforts and intentions to eat healthfully and well. While anorexia put me in my most dire state of biological illness, I think overcoming orthorexia was in many ways a trickier challenge, because it was so hard to separate obsession and compulsion from the sincere value I place on mindful, conscious, health-supportive eating.

Dennett delves into all of the difficulties and complexities of addressing this syndrome, including the fact that, as of yet, there’s no consensus on a definition and no validated assessment tool. “Eating doesn’t become pathological until it becomes entangled with obsessive thinking, compulsive and ritualistic behavior, and self-punishment,” she notes, which echoed my own intuitive sense of what orthorexia is when I encounter it in my own work.

She also interviews Emily Fossenbeck, who is doing really important work in speaking up about her own experience with orthorexia and raising awareness on social media. Emily’s struggle with orthorexia began with elimination diets (a phenomenon I’ve observed often). She’s quoted saying,

“I only felt worse and worse but kept chasing this magical unicorn of the ‘perfect diet.’ The anxiety I felt about food was suffocating and totally overwhelmed most other parts of my life. I was afraid to eat out or travel or—the worst of it—to eat a normal meal with my family. I had to have complete control of everything I was eating.”

I’ve often seen the question posed of what distinguishes orthorexia from healthful eating, and I’ve written about it myself. I think the answer might be that anxiety and feeling of suffocation that Fossenbeck mentions. A particular kind of health-conscious eating style might be either self-caring or destructive; the difference rests in the mentality and subjective emotional experience of the individual in question.

I suspect that the dietetic and mental health treatment communities are just at the start of understanding this complicated expression of disordered eating. For now, the best we can hope for is more awareness, more observation and research, and an ongoing effort to enlist more people who have struggled with orthorexia to honestly share their stories. I’ve been giving lots of thought to recovery with NEDA week on the horizon, and this is nice motivation for me to use my voice.

5. I mentioned last week that the heart chakra and heart-opening are on my mind this month. With loving-kindness in mind, a sweet list to wrap up with.

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. I look forward to checking in with a hearty, colorful new winter salad recipe in a couple days.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 published first on

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18

The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night.

A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with depression and anxiety, I learned that there’s such a thing as adult self-soothing, too. It may be an especially important skill to develop if you identify as a sensitive person or you feel the impact of emotions very strongly.

Self-soothing practices can take all sorts of shapes and forms; they may take one out of time and place, like going for a walk or practicing yoga in a special part of the home, or they might be as simple as listening to a particular song, sipping tea, breathing deeply, praying, singing, humming, reading poetry out loud, or smelling an essential oil. These, anyway, are my own favorite ways to self-soothe.

Two years ago at this time, my anxiety was so bad that I often didn’t want to leave the house. I did leave, going about my business and trying to perform as much competence as I could muster, but I felt as if I was falling apart. I was so on edge, so irritable, and so unable to hang onto a sense of safety or security. It really scared me, much more than my depression ever had.

Many months of therapy later, and I’m in a different place. But this week in particular gave me new skills to be grateful for. A few situations came up that triggered my anxiety, and I reacted, but I was able to stay connected to a fundamental sense that things would be OK. I’m not exactly sure what to attribute this to: my meditation practice? Learning to pay attention to my breath? Slowing down? Learning to say “no”? Reconnecting?

The answer is that all of these things, coupled with time and patience, have helped. I’m also starting to understand that quelling anxiety creates muscle memory; if you do it often enough, you start to believe, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s possible, and then it starts to happen more readily.

I know that I may manage my anxiety for a long time and possibly live with it always, just as I know I’ll always have brushes with depression and may always periodically encounter certain ED-related urges. In writing these words today, though, I realize how surprisingly calm I feel about my anxiety, which is sweetly ironic.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not alarmed by the fact that I have anxiety, not scared of it. I’ve been given signs that I have some of the tools I need to manage it. Maybe I’ll need to expand or change up my toolkit at some point, but that’s OK: toolkits can grow along with us. For now, merely knowing that I can get centered even in the midst of anxious feelings or thoughts is a major shift, one that gives me hope and a sense of spaciousness.

As always, wishing everyone peace and grounding as we head out into a fresh week. Enjoy these tasty recipes and reading links.

Recipes

There’s a mushroom miso barley soup recipe in Power Plates that I’ve become pretty attached to, but I can never get enough soup recipes, and I’m loving Natasha’s version, which is infused with Italian herbs and seasonings.

Wish someone had made these sweet buckwheat crepes for me on Valentine’s Day! Or that I’d gone ahead and made them for myself

This is my kind of potato salad: roasted potatoes, dill, vegan bacon, creamy garlic mayo. Perfect vegan comfort food.

Writing about Hannah’s book on Friday has me thinking about the art of creating really good food in very little time. It’s something I’m still figuring out. Lisa is one of the people I turn to for inspiration in this area, and her easy green curry noodles are a perfect example of a super speedy, flavorful, filling meal.

I tend to have lousy luck when I’m baking exclusively with grain free flours (I do OK when they’re part of a blend that has some wheat flour or gluten free grain flours in it). I’m always impressed with the way that Lindsay works wonders with grain-free baking that’s also vegan-friendly, and I’m dying to try her easy vegan white cake.

Reads

1. In spite of spending a fair amount of time around doctors—and anticipating a year of clinical work on the horizon—I had never really given much thought to what it must be like for doctors to return to full time work after being treated for an illness, especially the illness that they themselves specialize in.

That’s exactly the process that breast cancer surgeon Liz O’Riordon finds herself in now. I was touched by The Atlantic‘s profile of her, in which she admits to having new emotional challenges on the job, including sensitivities to hear certain diagnoses spoken of in dire terms and heightened awareness when delivering news to patients. The article says,

She [Liz] also takes more care with her language, and cringes at the memory of comments that were meant to be encouraging but now seem glib and unsympathetic. “I used to say: You’re lucky it hasn’t spread. No one is lucky to have cancer,” she says. “I used to ask people: Are you happy to sign this consent form? No one is happy to have cancer. As a doctor, you may give bad news 10 times a day. Until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t realize that when you get bad news, you remember every single detail of that conversation.”

There’s a lot of pressure for doctors and medical personnel to remain transparent, cool, and objective at all times, but my own limited experience in a helping profession is that personal struggle often gives way to empathy that can enhance one’s capacities as a practitioner. I hope that O’Riordan can indeed follow through on her hope to speak out more openly about her illness and encourage other doctors to do so with her.

2. Also on the topic of medicine and healthcare, a physician examines the concept of agape as it relates to healthcare. Agape is the ancient Greek term for selfless love of humanity; it’s seen as transcending difference or circumstance, which distinguishes it from filial or erotic love. Pooja Gidwani, a hospitalist, writes,

To me, agape means having the fortitude not only to empathize with patients or to provide compassionate care but to also habitually understand that each patient’s reactions may stem from their physical or mental suffering, past or current. To develop the ability to connect on a more spiritual level with the sufferer’s emotions despite their behaviors to truly be a healer. To put oneself in the shoes of each individual, remembering that everyone we meet is a product of what life has created for them.

I can’t think of a more beautiful summation of how agape can animate medical practice.

3. In the wake of the tragedy in Florida this past week, Vox sat down with Gerry Griffith, a crisis counselor with over 30 years of experience, to ask questions about what’s needed in the aftermath of shocking losses. She offers a lot of practical, detailed perspective on how crisis counselors respond to different stages of trauma among the people they’re helping, and she also has important things to say about the importance of addressing peoples’ sense of powerlessness after these kinds of events.

When asked how she continues to do this challenging work, she says,

I had a mentor, early, early on that said doing this work is learning how to keep your heart open in hell. I know what hell looks, tastes, like, and smells like.

I think, for me, there are people in my life that I can talk to about this. I have a husband, he’s proud of me and he supports me. When I’m out there in Oklahoma City or out in New York, I can call him and I can talk about how the dog, what she’s doing today. Because he’s not there.

Somebody asked me the other day: ”How would you know when you’re done?” I said, “When I stop crying.” When I stop feeling, when I don’t cry, my heart has closed and I have to quit.

I thought it was impressive that Griffith’s barometer of being fit for the task of counseling is having a strong capacity to feel. Something I want to keep in mind, in my own small way, for my future work with clients.

4. I really like Carrie Dennett’s reporting, and I was glad to see her in-depth consideration of orthorexia in the latest issue of Today’s Dietitian.

Orthorexia is a complex compulsion, often more difficult to address than other types of disordered eating because it is so often rooted in basically valuable efforts and intentions to eat healthfully and well. While anorexia put me in my most dire state of biological illness, I think overcoming orthorexia was in many ways a trickier challenge, because it was so hard to separate obsession and compulsion from the sincere value I place on mindful, conscious, health-supportive eating.

Dennett delves into all of the difficulties and complexities of addressing this syndrome, including the fact that, as of yet, there’s no consensus on a definition and no validated assessment tool. “Eating doesn’t become pathological until it becomes entangled with obsessive thinking, compulsive and ritualistic behavior, and self-punishment,” she notes, which echoed my own intuitive sense of what orthorexia is when I encounter it in my own work.

She also interviews Emily Fossenbeck, who is doing really important work in speaking up about her own experience with orthorexia and raising awareness on social media. Emily’s struggle with orthorexia began with elimination diets (a phenomenon I’ve observed often). She’s quoted saying,

“I only felt worse and worse but kept chasing this magical unicorn of the ‘perfect diet.’ The anxiety I felt about food was suffocating and totally overwhelmed most other parts of my life. I was afraid to eat out or travel or—the worst of it—to eat a normal meal with my family. I had to have complete control of everything I was eating.”

I’ve often seen the question posed of what distinguishes orthorexia from healthful eating, and I’ve written about it myself. I think the answer might be that anxiety and feeling of suffocation that Fossenbeck mentions. A particular kind of health-conscious eating style might be either self-caring or destructive; the difference rests in the mentality and subjective emotional experience of the individual in question.

I suspect that the dietetic and mental health treatment communities are just at the start of understanding this complicated expression of disordered eating. For now, the best we can hope for is more awareness, more observation and research, and an ongoing effort to enlist more people who have struggled with orthorexia to honestly share their stories. I’ve been giving lots of thought to recovery with NEDA week on the horizon, and this is nice motivation for me to use my voice.

5. I mentioned last week that the heart chakra and heart-opening are on my mind this month. With loving-kindness in mind, a sweet list to wrap up with.

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. I look forward to checking in with a hearty, colorful new winter salad recipe in a couple days.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 published first on