I Won't Quote

I have always avoided writing about it, because it just doesn't make sense and I don't know what to believe. But at the same time I need to admit that this is in full force and I don't know what to do. I guess I just need to run with it. What am I talking about? About my new friend - extreme hunger.

This is awful, honestly. I just eat and eat and eat and cry and eat some more, because I am ne-ver full. I doesn't matter how much food I have, I still feel like I could go for more. I do understand it a bit though - my body has been starving and it wants to eat all that I missed. But it is awful. It is difficult both mentally and physically, because I am always super full and bloated.

But at the same time I am not the only one living through this thing. I have talked to many oter sufferers who say that they are in a same place. As soon as you finish one meal, you start to dream about the next one and this continues every single day.

Up until now I haven't really let myself go. I have had all the meals in my own tempo and during "mealtimes". But I have done it more recently! Like when I am still hungry after lunch, I let myself have something else and I think that this is right and it is how I should do. I don't think I should suffer hunger. But at the same time I still have this fear of overeating and I wonder if I end up in TV on some freaky show about food addicts.

Regarding this, I was told about an Estonian TV show called "Expensive calories" and ohhhhhh boyyyyy how angry it made me. I am pretty sure that these people just need psychologist appointments, not put into one room with a fridge full of unhealthy snacks, food and drinks. Honestly, most of their problems are mental and they should start with this. But nooooo, let's think about how to make money and ruin these people. If you are thin and all that, you are pretty and all the other problems just disappear. People admire you and you feel good and you are healthy. NO. Believe me, I have been through this. I lost over 20 kilos and do you think I felt better? Do you think my life was good, I got attention and all of my dreams came true? No, no and no. Honestly, things became much worse. I couldn't focus on anything, my attention span was really bad, I couldn't think about anything else than food. I didn't CARE about attention, I was too tired to do anything. This TV show will make it's participants' relationship with food even worse. And they can say that omg, this is the best thing that has happened to me and I feel so good and everything is fine, but is it really? I guess they need to keep up good attention and they will get a lot of spotlight. But, for God's sake, don't people think about the results? How this may affect people with eating disorders? There are a lot of people suffering from ED-s, I am too lazy to Google the percentage, but it is not small! A lot of people suffer without realising it. And then let's just make it into a TV show and make people feel bad about eating? Like, hell, this makes me angry.

I know that this TV show will have triggering effect on me and I am sure I want to start restricting again. But I can't NOT watch it either, so on Wednesday you will find me in front of my TV, angry and upset. But I am curious. I have this weird feeling. I just wish that they didn't do this experiment on people who have completely other kind of problems. Aaah. I can't even write my thoughts down in a way that it would make sense. Maybe some other bloggers can. I just wanted to share my frustration.

What else has happened? I completed a huge challenge. I hadn't had rice this year yet, but I was really craving for it. And then I thought I have a lot of beans Globus sent me, I should try and make some chilli or something. I really like chilli, but I hadn't made it in ages. So I went to the store and got rest of the ingredients.

My completely random recipe had garlic, onion, carrots, red kidney beans, green pepper, can of crushed tomatos, some corn and from seasonings I added chilli powder, Korean chilli paste, salt, pepper, coriander and cumin. Oh, and some sugar to balance out the tartness of tomatos. But you can leave it out. And I made some porridge rice. I like this more than normal kind, because it reminds me of sushi rice, a bit sticky. And it is chepaer than sushi rice, so this is a great hack. :D

Anyway, I had a lot of it. I made it enough to have three portions, but considering I am a volume eater, I knew I would have it twice. I put half of it in the fridge to have on the next day. As my sister is about to move, I needed to go to her place and help with packing and I wouldn't have had time to cook anyway, so it was nice to have leftovers.

It is always difficult for me to make food for several days in a row, because whenever I have cooked food at home, I always want to finish it. So then I keep saying that I don't like to have the same meal several days in a row. Though in all honesty, it is no problem, especially if the food is tasty.

Now in January I have this breakfast challenge going on, where I take pictures of all of my breakfasts. I am wondering if it would be interesting to see what I have for dinners? Maybe it would be an idea for February. I wouldn't do it with lunches though, because I eat at work where taking pictures is just weird and my lunch is usually some packaged food from the store. It would be challenge to cook at home and take it to work though. I will think about it. :D

But yeah, that is all from me for today. I want to tell more about my challenges, but they are still ongoing, hehe. :D

I don't know if you have felt it, but there are different kinds of hunger. One is like physical and the other one is mental. And I don't mean mental hunger as in craving for information. :D Anyway, one of them is like a physical feeling of emptiness - sometimes you feel a bit nauseous, you may get a headache and you feel empty. And then the other hunger is when you are physically full, it seems like nothing even goes down anymore, but you still think about food and about what you would like to eat.

I got addicted to the feeling of physical hunger. If I didn't feel it, I felt weird. I didn't like the moments after eating, because my stomach was bloated and it was so uncomfrotable. Even though it is just a normal feeling you get after eating. The only time I was okay with it was after dinner. Then I was used to feeling full. It was most difficult to handle this during lunch. To say it shortly - I lived in starvation.

The mental hunger also causes eating binges I think. Really - you may be super full, but at the same time you feel like eating SO MUCH more. I am kind of scared that recently I have been feeling it more. Like I still feel mentally hungry after having dinner and 1.5 kgs of watermelon. It is like... I can somehow feel hunger in my throat? :D It is really weird to describe it, but it is exactly like this.

At the same time I have understood that you shouldn't ignore mental hunger. Because if you do it, at some point you break down and eat so much that only throwing up seems like an option. I have never done it myself, but I have fel like this.

But for real... if you think about food, you are probably hungry. If you think about if you are hungry, you probably are. If you think about your next meal, you are also probably hungry. Yeah, sometimes it is also cravings and you could ask yourself "would I have an apple instead of chocolate" but in general... you should listen to your hunger. And if you get these thoughts, you should eat. Especially when you are recovering from anorexia.

I have noticed about myself that when both of my hungers - mental and physical - are not present, I have so much more room for different thoughts. And it feels good. It is like you take your desktop and clear all the saved stuff. There is more room. Everything feels so much... cleaner.

I am fighting adn getting used to feeling full. At the hospital as well, every time after a meal we gathered together and you could say if you are too full, full enough or something like this. I know that I in this 2 months I spent there, always said that I am too full. Especially after lunches. So another goal for this week is getting used to feeling full.

Why this kind of blog post - I went for a walk with a friend and I analyzed and described this aspect of an eating disorder. That you get addicted to the feeling of hunger in addition to seeing the number drop. It is like a high, like you are drunk. You get a boost of adrenaline. :D Oh my god it sounds so stupid and ridiculous and weird. I cannot believe myself. But it is so. Exactly like so.

I am quite interested if someone agrees? Have you thought about it? Does this speak to you?

How is it going with my weight? Well, as of today I have gained 600 grams. First 400 was okay, because then it wasn't the change in Big First Number. But now today it is a bit more difficult to accept. But at the same time with the first 400 grams... when I gained it, for the first time I thought that WELL DONE! :D And today I also thought that maybe I should have something less for breakfast but I didn't do that!

Okay, I should go over my goals for this week and make some comments.

Firstly, I wanted to add something extra for each porridge I had. Every day. I have done it only three times, but I will keep doing it at least until next Friday. Anwyay, on Saturday I added some cocoa, then on Sunday I added peanut butter powder and today I added peanut butter powder with vanilla. I had my porridge and thought that wow, today it is extra good. :D Even though at first I was like do I really need it. I am glad I did.

Then my next goal was to try something vegan. And this time I had this "like meatpie" one store sells in Estonia. And it was... amazing! I had a big fear regarding it - I didn't know the calories and it felt so big and greasy. And then someone told me it has calories in myfirnesspal and of course I had to check and then I cried and everything went shit. Today I am over it, but I really felt awful yesterday. Yep. Just because one pastry.

And thirdly - have a savoury snack. This was also done thanks to this pastry I had. I don't know, but I feel like I enjoy sweet snacks more. :D But anyway, I recommend this pastry to be honest. I also put it into a microwave for half a minute, so it was nice and warm.

On Friday it is my last day of work before two week vacation and I am thinking of baking something. For example some banana muffins, which I still haven't done in like three months!

Do you have a good banana muffin or banana bread recipe? I have one that my friend used, so I might use this...

But all in all, I need to step up my weight gain game. Weight gain is a goal. My friend and I had 31st as the agreement date and also I am seeing my doctor on the 6th so by then I need to show some progress. I will also continue with the three goals I described in my previous post and here... let's see how it goes. :)