"Experiment" View of Recovery=My Newest Success

Walk to my first ceremony

Well…I am home and officially a college graduate. I won’t lie…being home has been harder than I remember and very scary, but I haven’t restricted and have challenged myself quite a bit. In fact, I want
to share quickly something that has been helping me.

I talked about this in post before, but pulled it out of my toolbox again yesterday and it paid off. Basically when ED is yelling I can’t do something, or can’t eat something, or have to do this or that…I take that as an opportunity to do an experiment. To test ED’s theories even if just for that day or week or whatever…and see if ED is right. I figure if I do that, the worst case scenario in my mind is just rapid/large amount of weight gain and let’s be honest..I can lose weight. But best case scenario is finding out ED is wrong. However, this can only happen if I fully give into this experiment.

This mindset helps me a lot, because it also keeps me from compensating for challenging ED through slightly obeying him in another way. For example, eating a really scary food at a meal, but then playing it really safe at a later snack even if I don’t want the safe item. With the “experiment” mindset I don’t do the safe option because I don’t want ED to be able to somehow counter all the hard work of the challenge and blame that safe choice for why the rapid gain didn’t occur. Maybe it will make more sense if I explain using yesterday.

Yesterday (Mother’s Day) was my first full day home. I moved back on Sat, but yesterday was first full one. It was also the first day back on my meal plan. Friday I wasn’t able to get in all exchanges just because of hectic graduation schedule, and Sat had to replace b-fast exchanges with cal equivalent due to some unforeseen medical issues. So Sunday was….terrifying to say the least.

I started the day with spin class and it didn’t help the instructor decided he was a nutrition expert and began talking about the horrid effects of sugar (all of which were inaccurate and moronic…but ED was listening). This made spin, which I have tried to keep separate from my food, all about food and had me flipping out. I came home and did my strength training and then it started. The fear I forgot I had…the fear of being lazy.

The past few months at school have been hectic and (even if I was sitting to do them) I have been constantly going and working. This has made me feel active because I was being productive. Now at home and graduated…there was no work to do…and even though I had worked out I felt lazy. ED started in on how I needed to do more exercise or not do plan. And so..I decided it was time to experiment. I was going to try and be as “lazy” as possible. Even though I wasn’t at all “lazy.” ED just calls any time not spent in the gym/studying/working/being miserable as “lazy.” And I REFUSED to not do plan.

This wasn’t that hard action wise as I knew I was taking my mom to the movies for mother’s day and thus would be sitting for that. I won’t lie…my mind was going off the whole time, but I just tried to focus on the time with my mom and the movie (it was The Other Woman….and was quite good…a little long for me…but good). But….then the movie ended, I only had one errand to run, and when I got home everyone went off to do their own thing. That left me with my mind and my exercise temptations.

But I held onto the experiment. I was just too tired to do anything other than sit and chill. I don’t know why I was so tired (may have been from issues with plan previous two days) but I wanted to see once and for all if I could sit and be okay. So I tried instead to concentrate on good timing with my meals and even watched some sermons online. Before I knew it…it was time for dinner and I had been sitting and eating and relaxing and enjoying life. Yes…ED was screaming…but I just knew I wanted this experiment to go right. And I had made it this far…I wasn’t about to exercise now.

So I kept pushing and honestly….started getting big motivation and big hunger. That led me to recovery decision number two come dinner. I was thinking about eating a turkey burger I had smuggled out my last day at University. But I couldn’t give myself permission especially with how loud ED was…so I told my mom it was Mother’s Day so she could choose my protein at dinner. And she chose the turkey burger! This was huge. But I did it. Figure it would help make the “experiment” better because ED was sure I would balloon now.

Even with all this fear…I was feeling increasingly daring. I felt like a rebel. A rebel against ED and I was ready to prove him wrong. I think I was just fired up from the sermon and prayer time with God. I was feeling like I could do anything because God was with me and I felt sure this was going to all end well. This led me to end up doing a HUGE bagel for my snack. Another HUGE fear. And before I knew it, it was time for bed..I had eaten fear foods, and had had what ED would call a “lazy” day. I hadn’t stayed standing all day or forced myself to do chores…I had just relaxed…and I felt good.

Now when I woke up this morning I felt like a kid at Christmas who was also stuck on a roller coaster going up the first hill. I was so nervous to weigh in. I started thinking about all the decisions I made the day before and ED made me start regretting every one. But..it was done..and it was time. And (no specifics needed) but ED was wrong! HUGELY wrong! And I can’t explain how free I feel and how much I was praising God.

So all that fear…that experiment…it was worth it. So worth it. Did it make me completely fearless today…no. But I feel like the more I experiment and test ED…the less fear I will have. At least I think. All I know is for now this is working…and I can’t wait to test ED again.

You see I can’t just take people’s word for it. People’s word that I can eat what I want. That I don’t have to be busy all the time. That I can (and should) relax. I just have to find out for myself. And recovery…it gives me that chance. It gives us all that chance. The chance to discover the truth. To discover life. To discover who we are.

So how are you going to test ED? What do you think about this method? Do you think it could help you? I hope so. I hope some of my ideas encourage people. Even just one person. If I can find out my blog helps just one person….it will all be worth it.