150 DAY OF PROGRESS not perfection!

WOW! Today was a bad start to a day at work, but it’s ending up being amazing…and no matter what it’s a HUGE DAY for me….today I am celebrating 150 DAYS OF RECOVERY! I feel so blessed and honored to have made it to this point. Thank you to friends, family, prayers, God, my amazing N…..just everyone and everything that made this possible. Words can never express what this day means to me. To feel the joy I feel now..it’s priceless.

For years doctor’s told me I could never fully recover because of my long history with anorexia and other disorders, but look at me now! No…I’m not fully recovered and I don’t think anyone ever really is, but I am in recovery…and I did it all outpatient. Something everyone said I never could. People waited for me to relapse one more time, like I always do…but this time I didn’t. Thank you God for that.

Has it been a perfect 150 days..NO! There have been times I messed up, times I have slipped, and lessons I have learned the hard way. But recovery isn’t perfect. So I could think of no better way to celebrate than with thankfulness for all the progress that has come. Because that is true recovery, its about progress, not perfection. It’s about the tiny steps we make each and every day towards our recovery. It’s about the times we slip, but brush our knees off and get back up. IT’s about the times we fall flat on our face, but lift out hands up to the sky and ask God for the strength to get back up. God is so amazing….I owe this list of progress completely to Him. Without Him…this would be impossible…and I doubt I would be alive. So without further ado….MY PROGRESS!

• 150 days ago I would never eat even a tsp of Peanut Butter…Now I have my own collection of all sorts of flavors and get a FULL (emphasis because I had been skimping and corrected it) 2T EVERY DAY!
• 150 days ago I would never eat a banana…Now I eat one EVERY DAY and LOOK FORWARD TO IT!

• 150 days ago I never took a rest day…Now I have 3-4 rest days a week and have learned I NEED THEM! I have learned it’s okay to not exercise and today I even went to spin more focused on having fun than pushing myself.
• 150 days ago I would always burn my bread products so I could leave some behind…Now I eat my full (though torn to correct wt size) bread portions. In fact, for the FIRST TIME TONIGHT I ate an English muffin at dinner and didn’t burn or tear it.
• 150 days ago I would never imagine eating dessert without it being mandated….In the past two weeks alone I have eaten 3 jumbo cookies and had fro-yo too many times to count! Cause who needs to count anything anyway J

• 150 days ago I weighed everything I ate…Now I don’t weigh fruits/veggies or my PB and am working towards not weighing other things.
• 150 days ago I always overcooked my oatmeal so it overflowed so I could leave some behind….TODAY for the first time I didn’t spill it J
• 150 days ago I would never imagine being able to stick to my meal plan without my nutritionist….this summer has taught me with God I have the strength to be my own source of accountability and to continue to eat when no one else is watching.
• 150 days ago I wouldn’t eat any non-diet ice cream (aka not Arctic Zero)… now I pass right by the Arctic Zero to get my loved Breyer’s Fat Free
• 150 days ago I would never cook myself any protein other than Flounder..now I have tried veggie burgers, veggie dogs, whiting, mahi-mahi, chicken…and cooked it all myself (would eat some of these if was in dining hall).
• 150 days ago white potatoes were never allowed and no potato skin of any type allowed…now my DAILY POTATO WITH SKIN is one of the favorite parts of my meal plan. In fact, now sweet potato is scary and I need to work on that.

• 150 days ago I would never eat any fruit besides apple or pear…now I eat plums, bananas, nectarines and tonight even faced blueberries!
• 150 days ago I would never eat any veggie besides spinach….now I eat slaw, carrots, broccoli, okra..though a lot of progress still needs to be made there.
• 150 days ago I would never imagine eating based on exchanges not choosing things off calories…now exchanges are the thing I cling to. I still think in calories, but am learning to go with my cravings. It’s just a start, but it’s progress.
• 150 days ago I would never change my planned meals because I wanted something else….tonight I chose based off a change in craving even though it meant scarier options.
• 150 days ago I planned every single part of my meal plan days in advanced and made sure to eat super safe if any fear food was involved…now I don’t plan what I am eating till the day of and all starches are chosen based off a RANDOM draw from a box! It’s completely up to chance (or as I tell myself to God) what I eat that day in my scariest exchanges.

• 150 days ago I would never allow myself to eat or drink late even if it was just water because of fear of weigh-ins….now I eat/drink in my meal plan no matter the time. In fact, because of work am usually up till 12 AM  eating!
• 150 days ago I would never add calories if my exchanges were too low or spilled…now I make sure to hit the minimums and to add spreads if skimp cals. I do want to get to point I add spreads just for the heck of it, but this is progress.
• 150 days ago I would never imagine actually going to graduate school…on Aug 6^th I will be moving to Knoxville to go to a dream graduate school and am fully funded through two assistantships and waitressing!
• 150 days ago I would never imagine sharing my story of recovery as a motivation for others beyond my blog….today my celebration of 150 days aired on 104.7 The Fish as the Encouragement at 8:30 pm! I felt so honored and blessed to be able to give glory to God!

• 150 days ago I would never have opened up to my family about my struggles….now I share my recovery and the slips and successes with my mom.  I got to her and my stepdad when I am questioning parts of my recovery. It’s been amazing.
• 150 days ago I wouldn’t let my family make any decisions about my recovery…now every week my mom and stepdad select my fear foods for the week….with NO INPUT FROM ME! THEY HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL AND IT’S THE BEST DECISION I’VE MADE. They are also the reason I only work out 3-4 days a week.. I now listen and respect their input.
• 150 days ago I would never have imagined 150 days of recovery heck I couldn’t have even imagined getting through the day in recovery….TODAY I AM CELEBRATING 150 DAYS OF RECOVERY!

Every time I think I am done with this list I think of another thing these 150 days have brought….but I had to stop writing at some point :P I feel so blessed or these 150 days and all of you have made it possible. And I never thought this would be possible. 150 days was never on my radar. In fact..I didn’t even think about it till last week. I have just taken it day by day, step by step…and 150 days came to me.

These 150 days were filled with tears and smiles, slips and successes, ups and downs, highs and lows…and that’s okay. These 150 days have been far from perfect, but as you can see full of progress. And that’s recovery….it’s about progress not perfection. That’s something an amazing therapist named Wade once told me..and now I see what he meant. Sometimes we need to stop looking at the ways we have slipped or how far we have to go and appreciate how far we have come.

I know I have a long road ahead of me and plenty of changes to make….but I didn’t want to think of that today. I wanted to focus on how far I have come…because I rarely do that for myself. And it has made today AMAZING. I just lived and appreciated today for being 150 days and I stayed in the moment. This allowed me to not spill my oatmeal, to eat the dinner I wanted…to feel I was eating normally for the first time. It allowed me to use my money on things I wanted…new clothes and my first ever own set of pots/pans (I’m growing up!). It allowed me to go to spin class and focus on having fun not pushing myself. It allowed me to face my mom’s selection of blueberries as a fear food even though I didn’t want to. There have been 150 days of freedom…and today was definitely one where I felt free.  Thank you all and thank you God and my daddy watching over in Heaven for making this possible!