Eating, but want to be free...NEED YOUR HELP!

So I have to come clean. Yes, I am doing meal plan. Yes…I am occasionally pushing fear foods, but there are still some ED behaviors pissing me off. They piss me off, because I don’t want to do them and I feel I just can’t stop. But I can. I am the only one who can make them end. Figure when I went to treatment in the past they all went away overnight, so now I can do it slower….so it’s definitely doable. But I need your guys help. It’s all at the very bottom in bold.

With that being said, I am starting by admitting my struggles. You can’t help me if you don’t know what I am doing. I have broken the behaviors into groupings and prioritized them based off fear of changing them.  This is step 1….admitting. Step 2 is below.

Step 1…admitting I still have problems

Food scale use

1. Fruit/Veg
2. Measurable/Spreads
3. Banana (will be fine not to weigh once not skimp)
4. PB (same as above)
5. Breads

Skimping

1. Leave behind (this is rare and usually like a pea or two)
2. Spill cereal/oatmeal at b-fast (again its minimal)
3. Decrease prunes if using sweetener/gum/cayenee pepper
4. Banana (keep below 70 g)
5. PB (have divet, not full level PB)

Food choice

1. Safe Veggies: want to try and do scary (aka steamed) 1x/day
2. Spread: want to try and do higher cal 3 x/week
3. Dairy: only allow 80-cal one 1 x per day, want to try 2x per day 3 day a week

Not as crucial but need be aware (not prioritized by fear)

• More freedom with fruit choice
• Be okay with not having peas on day
• Be okay with not having tuna one day
• New b-fast ideas

Step 2: Make a plan

It’s crazy how hard it is just to admit that I am doing these behaviors. Especially when family and friends read this blog. They may know I do it, but they may not realize I don’t want to. Especially with food scale. But these are things I don’t want to do the rest of my life. And it’s time to build the rest of my life starting now.

Now I know I said earlier that in treatment they strip you of all of your behaviors at once, but reality is I just don’t think I can go cold turkey off all of them. I don’t have a full 24/7 treatment team around me or support groups or whatever…aka I am not in treatment. It’s just me and my friends/family and starting next week a therapist. So I feel I need to gradually change the behaviors. So I decided to make them into groupings I think are doable.  Again grouped in order of increasing fear.

1: No measure fruit/veg, no leave behind, full banana, scary veg 1x/day

2: No weigh banana, no weigh measurable, no skimp prune, , 80-cal dairy 2x day 3x per week

3: Full T PB, no spill b-fast

4: No weigh bread/packaged, no weigh PB

5: No spill seeds (not scariest just don’t care as much that doing so leave last), higher cal spread 3x/week

Now time for second round of honesty. I am scared to change these because scared all the calories will add up and I will start ballooning. I know, it may not…but I’m scared. That’s also part of the reason I have separated them as I have. I feel it gives body time to adjust and doesn’t overload with more calories. I mean if I did it based off what I just want to get the heck the rid of it would be more like this

1: No measure fruit/veg, no weigh measurable, full banana, full T PB, no leave behind, scary veg 1x/day

2: No weigh PB, no weigh banana, no skimp prune, no spill b-fast

3: No weigh bread/packaged, no spill seeds, higher cal spread 3x per week, 80-cal dairy 2x/day 3x/week

My plan is to do one group per week or per two weeks depending on how it goes.  Once I face a group and move onto another I won’t go back to the behaviors I changed the week/weeks before…I will just be changing more behaviors so once I work through all the groups I won’t have any behaviors. And so I am scared to do this last grouping as the groups because terrified if did all group 1 weight would skyrocket and whole plan would go in trash. But I know if did groups this way, once I got through group 1 all others be much easier. This brings me to step 3 where I need your guys help.

Step 3: Execute

Step 3 is probably the hardest. I have to actually do it. I know I will log behaviors in my food diary every day how I did on goal and check-in/text my support when feel like using behavior. But here is the problem. I don’t know where to start.

I don’t know which grouping to do. Should I do the 5 groups based off fear or the 3 groups based off my frustration and what I want to stop doing?

If I do the groups based off fear do I just start at easiest and work my way up? Or do a scarier one to start and just choose next group to face based off how I feel?

I am scared. These behaviors have given me a sense of control over my food, but they also make me feel out of control. I guess they have become a twisted coping tool, but I just don’t want to be stuck with them forever. As scared as I am…I need to change. I want to change. And I need and want your help.

Please comment or message me with what you think is best in the bold part aka groupings and when to face. I wish I could say I won’t let weight affect this, but I know that isn’t true. So please send your thoughts and prayers as well. I want to start tomorrow (Mon), so please respond ASAP. Oh, and I will post weekly updates every Sunday J