My new years resolution is TO NOT DIET. ....

Every year, like everyone else I say my new years resolution is to diet and lose weight. However for the last 16 years I have also said I need help to recover from bulimia/unspecified eating disorder (that is my official diagnosis). If I diet it just triggers the eating disorder to get worse...in fact it triggers the same in everyone who diets....obsession with food, guilt about eating, extreme hunger which leads to unstable moods and bingeing which then makes the guilt worse and so you feel you have to compensate for the binge. (I will do a blog post about an experiment called the Minnesota study where some men were starved and the effects on their psychological health). I used to be sick daily and even the physical health problems it caused wouldn't or couldn't stop me. (I have a heart pacemaker as it caused a hereditary heart condition to get worse)...fortunately for the last year I am rarely sick apart from if I have physical pain but psychologically I resist the urge to purge (being sick isn't good for singing...obviously....so that's one reason I tell myself not to be). It's weird in a good way that choir has helped so much with it. Last year I had my gallbladder out due to gallstones and the stitches took a while to heal due to me constantly being sick. I think because I'm feeling so much more positive in general I want 2020 to be the year to fully recover....or be well on the way so I can live a good life and get back to helping other people.
I'm not saying it will be easy....I have been trying for the whole of last year but I was still calling it a "diet" and still following stupid restrictive fad diets but from the bit of eating disorder therapy I have had I was told to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks, don't cut out food groups and see food as medicine. The other reason it isn't easy is I do still constantly have an "eating disorder voice" that constantly makes me feel guilty for eating and just wants me to restrict. Even though I have had a really good Christmas food was an issue but a lot less than other years. I got overwhelmed at Christmas dinner on Christmas day and did end up leaving my main dinner and crying and going to bed but I didn't want to eat so much I had to be sick. In past years I would leave the dinner table to have "a shower" halfway through dinner (to be sick)....I hated it....I got suicidal because I never thought I could get better.
So my new years resolutions are resolutions to be healthier (including carrying on with some I had already and need to continue).
1. To eat 3 meals and 3 snacks.
2. To go to bed before midnight (this will prevent night time munchies and is a good routine to have.
3. To exercise 3 or 4 times a week. (Not obsessively).
4. To shower at least 3 times a week (self care isn't always priority when your mood is low and regular self care makes you feel good so it's easier to feel positive...
5. Go to therapy 3 times a week to deal with emotional stuff.
6. Go to see Warwick my horse 3 or 4 times a week.
7. Go to choir every week and all the gigs I say I will do.
8. Start voluntary work helping others.

Although I'm not calling it a diet I'm hoping to lose the weight I've gained over Christmas which I should just from being healthier again but my main aim is to be healthy.  I want to prove to myself and others that "diets don't work" plus they make you miserable and annoying to be around. I will do a blog about why diets don't work ( I'm still trying to convince myself even though my bulimia, and the physical health problems and mental health medication ironically caused me to be fat). My resolutions aren't just food related as things in life that make us happier make it easier to stick to the harder stuff. Happy new year may 2020 be the best year yet (it's my last year in my 30s and I'm aiming for life to begin at 40....

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