A few weeks ago I posted about plateaus and I talked a little about my recovery from my eating disorder, and my food plan. I want to revisit that a little bit today.
The end of November was tough. I did really well when I was visiting my family for Thanksgiving, neither overeating nor undereating, and avoiding my worst trigger foods. Then when I got home it all went to shit. Maybe that's why I still haven't written that Thanksgiving dinner post I've been promising. I started bingeing. I started sneaking food. I started feeling like crap physically and mentally. The very worst thing, when I'm bingeing, is that I will eat candy and baked goods that aren't even vegan. Anesthetizing myself with food becomes more important than my most deeply held moral beliefs. And then I really feel like crap.
That went on for about a week. Sometimes I fall into the trap of thinking that when things aren't going well in life, the solution is to change how I eat. But this time I decided I really did need to change how I eat. On December 1, I woke up early and went through the kitchen, throwing away anything that seemed like it might be a trigger food. I threw away sources of hidden sugar, like vegan Worcestershire sauce, and cheap balsamic vinegar that contains caramel coloring (the expensive kind does not). I threw away rice flour and chickpea flour. I threw away a bottle of blackstrap molasses. I threw away vital wheat gluten -- I have come to the conclusion that seitan is a trigger food for me. A lot of people think wheat is a trigger. I have always rejected this idea as bullshit, but I started to think there was maybe something to it. So I threw away a bottle of Japanese soy sauce (wheat) and have been using Bragg's instead. I kept a few items for my girlfriend, who does not have the same issues I do, but everything else with sugar, flour of any kind, or wheat in it went in the trash.
Then I ate breakfast, and went to a meeting of my support group. I haven't binged since. I have stuck to my dietitian's plan. I haven't eaten any added sugar that I know of, with the exception of my B12 and iron supplements (why is there sugar in these? Why?).
Here's what a typical day looks like (yesterday):
Breakfast: 1 cup chickpea and dill curry from the always brilliant Indian Slow Cooker. 1 cup cooked millet. 1/2 cup cranberry applesauce.
Lunch: 1 cup chili. 1 cup brown rice. About 2 cups baby spinach leaves, wilted in the microwave. 1 apple.
Dinner: 1 1/2 cups millet. 1/3 cup vegan kheema. 1 1/2 cups punjabi cabbage (all pictured in my previous post).
That's how I've been eating every day. The grains, beans, fruits, and veggies change up, but the structure and portion sizes stay the same.
I have also stayed off the scale. The batteries in my nifty digital scale died just before Thanksgiving, and I decided that was a sign. I have not replaced them. I read somewhere that if you weigh and measure your food, there is no need to weigh and measure the size of your body. That makes a lot of sense to me. I can control what goes in my mouth. The physical result is up to the universe. I had been thinking I would replace the batteries at the end of December, but I'm starting to wonder if that is such a good idea. Maybe I'm just done with the scale for a while.
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