General Discussion > Accountability and Motivation
I need to eat more.
Poet:
--- Quote from: miniturtle on November 04, 2018, 10:50:42 am ---If meat nauseates you how about falafels, mushrooms, legumes, tofu (I don't line the plain stuff but Malaysian satay is good), textured vegetable protein, veggie burgers or tempeh?
Maybe you could buy frozen veggies, microwave them and add them to your rice (or 2 min noodles or w/e) ?
Obviously I'm not a nutritionist but I'm happy to volunteer easy recipes if that can potentially help
Thank you for intervening by having some stuff now <3
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the advice, mini - I've been eating a lot of avocado and toast, nuts, and fish lately instead of poultry and more common meats. Also, cucumbers and capsicums are so good for snacking :)
Hello. I have some breathing room before my Legal exam, so I'm less stressed and looking after myself a little more. I just had a lunch of cheese and bean toasties, and I had breakfast this morning like a good girl. My family has been an amazing support and forced me to eat more lately, too. I've had a whole cup of water today (crazy!) and have brought a water bottle into my exams/just around the place with me. Still not feeling too good but oh boy it'll be a weight lifted when I finish on the 14th (that's also the day that Antman and the Wasp comes out for rent!!)
See y'all!
Edit: spelling because I am a dweeeeb
Poet:
So here we stand, with no excuse to forget to eat, and here I am, still forgetting to eat.
I've been kind of scared to update this thread for fear that I'm gonna get roasted by you regulars! pls don't hurt me
Anyway, with nothing much to do lately but worry about things completely out of my control I seem to have forgotten how to eat. I went back to work Saturday and my boss, bless his soul, is a very straightforward Chinese immigrant. He took one look at me and said, "Nina, you skinny. No good, you shrink. Why?" I said it was an accident and he just shook his head. "Girls like skinny, you look bad". Thanks, boss.
I ate at the meetup but to be honest with you all I just haven't been a fan of using my mouth and, like, making the effort to actually ingest things lately. To counter this, I'm posting here and making a burrito. Like right now. I need to be kept accountable more!!
Bri MT:
I had a relatively good diet before semester 2 which declined during that and has kind of been crashing since exams - so although generalising from a sample size of 1 is a very bad thing no science'y person should ever do - I think that the shift to lack of routine and not actively having to do things makes it easier to crash in the short term. So even though you "have no excuse" it makes sense, and we'll do our best to counter that from now on by asking :)
No judgement - just support and hoping you keep helping yourself feel better
AlphaZero:
Well, I haven't been an AN user for too long (I really only started getting into it when I posted maths exams solutions), I'm not a regular, and I only really know some of you from the meetup, so I hope I'm not 'stepping over the line' by giving advice given I hardly know you.
Firstly, @poet, I think it's amazing that you're sharing your experience with us. It really takes a lot of courage both to put your story out there and to seek help / tackle the problem. Though I cannot relate to the food thing, I can relate to the consequences of partially 'neglecting' things that are important in life, either intentionally or not intentionally. I for one, even after 5-6 years of successfully managing my 'issues', struggle to muster up the courage to tell people, including some close friends. Everyone has their quirks, problems, etc., but not many try to act on them, and I really admire that you're putting in effort to doing so.
Here's some context about me. (I'll only provide enough info so that you can understand where I'm coming from. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to explain everything here, but anyway). My 'problem' revolved around a few obsessions I had as a result of a nightmare I had when I was younger, mainly, I felt the need to ensure that people knew the truth about anything - even if the truth would hurt. As a result, my personality changed. I could be a real jerk at times, and I just stopped doing things I loved like playing soccer with certain friends (fortunately, music stayed in my life). I turned everyday tasks and everyday interactions with people into mechanical problems. I have no idea why, but I think it was because I felt more comfortable dealing with them that way. I lost a few good friends then because I decided to push them away (pushing them away being my solution to some problems). (I mean, I could attribute losing some friends to moving schools at the end of Year 5, but deep down I know I was a real jerk to certain people). Moving schools actually was slightly a relief though. It was a chance to start on a 'fresh slate', tackle any problems I had (I had more than 1), and make some friends that I would keep throughout high school and beyond (and we're still friends today and all at the same uni (UoM)!).
That doesn't mean my 'old self' doesn't cause any problems anymore. In fact, it became quite an issue during term 2 of Year 12 (I made my specialist maths teacher cry), but I've largely been able to manage it, and that's the important part. So, I'm happy to share some ideas and things I did.
1) Everytime I had obsessive thoughts or the need to do something, regardless of whether I carried out the task or not, I would write it down. Eg: "22:00 - couldn't sleep because I couldn't help but try to brainstorm ways to make progress in solving the world's problems". I think writing into a journal or diary of some sort is good because you can keep track of your progress and it forces you to think, even subconsciously, about ways you could possibly recognise the problem before they arise in the future. I think you would benefit from, at the end of each day, writing down the day's events and what you ate (if anything), around those events. You should be able to find a pattern on when you don't eat. In a weird way, this technique worked for me twice as well, because I obsessed over solving logical problems, and so I used my gift of affinity for numbers, patterns and logic to my advantage to try and solve my own problems. (See, normally I would go out of my way to explain that paradox, but I'll let you guys sort that out :D).
2) Try to associate things you like doing such as art (I listened to the podcast lol) with eating. There are a few ways to go about this. One way is to, before going about your hobbies, have something to eat beforehand, and to restrict yourself from, say, drawing/painting until you have had something to eat. Eventually the goal is to create good habits alongside things you already love doing so that eating can become something of the same nature. (If someone could explain the psychology behind that, that'd be cool). For me, I found tranquility in mathematics (no surprises there lol).
Anyway, I hope these help, and, as @mini said, no one is here to judge ;)
sarangiya:
Hey Poet!
I'm always rooting for you to kick those eating goals! Sorry to not have replied to this thread for a while.
I wanted to ask whether you have thought of consulting a dietician or psychologist, or other professional that might help with building eating habits?
I know that I see a lot of myself in your posts. A couple of years ago, I collapsed because I had so little to eat I couldn't even function. It was really scary. I was just sitting in a chair in the lounge room and everything came out of focus, my heart began pounding and I began shivering violently. I picked and told my mum "I need to go to hospital, I need to go to hospital". I went through triage and forgot the rest - I just woke up in emergency unsure of what had happened. These days, my weight still means I am 'at danger'. I don't have any reserves if I get sick. It can be a really big thing if I get a serious cold or flu. I even went to a room for special needs students during my free periods because I wasnt allowed to eat in the library. They couldn't understand that if i didn't have time to eat, it had a massive impact on my life - moreso than the average person.
I very occassionally think I subconsciously modelled my older cousin. When I was little, she and her sister were high school girls - beautiful and very cool (haha). I adored my cousin. I wanted to have what she had, see her when ever I could, I pined for her attention. I wanted to look like her beacuse she was so beautiful (I don't know if back then it was her hair and face, or rather her body I was idolizing). I never saw the brunt of it because I was young, but even I saw that at some point she was never without a bar of nulax. When I was in high school, she began to have trouble emptying her bowels. She was always constipated and her stool was irregular. She went to the doctor, and found our also that she had osteopenia (a precursor to osteoporosis).
When she got pregnant she had slipped discs, dislocations, you name it. She had to be in a wheelchair for most of those 9 months. She has gained weight since then but still has many struggles.
I suppose what I want to say is that I'm lucky and unlucky. I had a good model for developing an eating disorder. I also had a good "bad" example to stop that from happening.
I don't mean to say that I think that you have an eating disorder. I think, though, that developing a better relationship with food was pivotal for my cousin and I. I think it is essential for every person.
Only you know yourself, and you don't haven't to reply to this, but I think that when you know you're struggling, and when people around you notice it too, it can be easier to bear the weight of that challenge with other people. (and not just ATARNotes users, as great as we may be).
Sorry that this was so long winded. I hope you are doing well!! Good luck
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