New week, time to start with a new challenge which was the letter G.

G was gummies, and I picked some I bought in Japan. They were plum ones and covered in sour sugar and they were soooo good. I didn't even feel guilty, which was surprising. But maybe because I really liked them and I didn't get this feeling of wasting calories, which usually comes when something is less than perfect.



I would have done all the challenges on one day (meaning hot chocolate and extra fat ice cream as well), but we had some rum cake (which my sister's friend made) and we needed to have those first. About this, you can say I was put into an unexpected situation a bit, as I was not ready for it. And this was one of the goals for this week. Also the weekend in general was like this, because my sister's friend came over and we made tortillas. It is easy to 1) overeat 2) not know how much you are eating and both of these things happened. Also we snacked a lot. But well, at least I can say I fulfilled my goal. :D

With the letter H, it was hot chocolate. I picked a dark chocolate one (I have a bunch of different one serving pouches at home and I just took one at random). With dark chocolate it sort of feels like it is healthier (even though there actually is NO DIFFERENCE), but I really like dark chocolate. For example my favourite one is dark chocolate with cranberries and oats. This is 2020 special chocolate so I should maybe stock up... it is also completely vegan too.



This hot chocolate was... okay. Nothing special. I was surprised that it wasn't bothering me that it was liquid calories and all that. It was nice to have it, especially at the office, because it was a bit chilly.

With the letter I it was ice cream. Extra fat one with cookie pieces and strawberry jam. And I am glad to say it was amazing! Highly recommend. And it was a proper big ice cream cone, not a small, measly one I am used to. :D



What was a bit difficult, was the fact that my weight had gone up on the next day. I automatically think that see, you had this ice cream and it was bigger than a normal one and it means you gained weight from it. And this just makes this negative connection in my head, even though they are sooooo not connected. In reality it didn't affect me at all. It could well be that I have been making progress with eating recently, have had more food, moved around less and so on. But no, in my head it is the ice cream's fault. :D Just, what the heck.

Anyway, despite this I didn't change my usual routine and still had proper breakfast and I am going to have proper lunch and snacks as well.


I read this one girl's blog, who wrote about the situations when she was offered something. She also shed a new light on some og my thoughts. And I think this is really good.

Let's say that I am at home and my sister makes us food. And she makes pasta. My first reaction would be that this is too scary, I don't want it, why can't we have something else, something that is safe, and so on. At this point I should turn to myself and ask - do I want to be afraid of pasta in five years time? If someone offers me food or I go out to eat, do I want to accept it? Do I want to live in fear? No.

Also let's say that it is someone's birthday. My first reaction is to say no to dessert. Do I want to be the same in five years time? If I am 32, do I still want to just say "no, thank you" and give up what I was offered? Do I want to live rest of my life like this? NO. NO NO and NO. I want to accept the cake in five years. And to do this, I have to start today.

This brings me to the next point. Why people with eating disorders give up things so easily. The main reason is, of course, fear. Because the things you are offered are extra. These are usually cakes, candies, cookies, desserts in general. And the answer "no, thank you" is so automatic that I actually even don't think, if I would really like a thing. At the same time I understand that the same answer (no, thank you) all the time is becoming annoying, so people are not asking it at all at one point. I would be the same. But anyway, when someone offers me something and I say no to it, the reply is automatic and I haven't even analyzed it in my head.

The oritinal post about this topic is here.

But yeah, accepting things people offer is one of the most difficult things. Even if I manage to say yes and eat it, after it I get a lot of guilt and this "I shouldn't have" emotion and so on. Here I think I should use this "would I have regretted NOT having it?". Probably yes. Which means that accepting things is okay and I should do it more.

I will try to come up with three new goals and then I will write a little about last week's goals as well.

1. I accept something when I am offered. I will try to do it on the first try and not let the person offer it multiple times. I will try not to say no, thank you, even if it is scary. I know I will feel shit after it, but this won't last forever. Also, if I happen to go out to eat with someone and let's say that you want a dessert, please ask me if I would like some twice. :D I will try to change myself, but it is hard. But it has been written down as a goal now, so there are no excuses...

2. I have snacks out of my regular food plan. I don't mean that I have something at the different time (although this may happen as well), but I mean that I don't buy a snack several days earlier. For example I will go to the store and decided there and then what I WANT. Or I accept a cake that someone offers on their birthday. And so on. Things always seems safe when I have planned them in advance. But most of the people don't even think about it. Maybe it is still a bit too early for this in my recovery, but trying doesn't hurt.

3. I will eat out or eat something I have not prepared myself. This also means ready made foods from the stores (like stews, hearty salads, frozen meals etc). I have this weird thing that I have to prepare all food myself, because then I can control what goes into them, how much, and so on. I mean, it is good to have homecooked meals, but I want to make it possible that it doesn't HAVE to be made by me. It would suck if for example I went out to eat with friends and then only would have coffee or something. Or even worse - if I took my own food with me. I am not sure, but I don't think restaurants or cafes even allow it. :D So it would be a good thing to practice. My sister's friend is coming over on Saturday again and we are going to order sushi. This will be a good challenge, I mean, food prepared by others, a lot of cream cheese and calories (I have already gone through the menu and made myself scared).

About last week's challenges... things went somehow.

My first goal was not to compare mine and my sister's portions. I think I handled it well. Even when we had completely different things, I could tell myself that we are different people, we have different bodies and it is okay to have different things in different amounts. I won't lie - a lot of the time I felt shit about it. Almost everything caused a lot of guilt, but... I won't feel shit for forever. Usually by the evening I had already forgotten all the hard parts. I still compare a lot, but I am not acting on it and I think this is a first step. I won't say I have fulfilled this goal, but it has definitely become easier. I will still try to follow it next week. And then the week after that. And after that. And until I need to. Even if it is all my life.

My second challenge was not to have smaller snacks or lunches or pick the snacks that would have less calories. This was... really difficult. But I think I managed quite well to be honest. For ecample I had told my sister that I am not going to have those rum cakes made by her friend, because unknown calories and all that. But I have done it and I have enjoyed it sooooo much. These rum cakes are amazing. And now I have a good memory with those (my last memory was that we made them at the hospital and were forced to eat them). And at work I have had proper meals, I haven't skipped anything, thinking that no one is controlling me. I am glad. Yeah, there are some thoughts about restricting, but I am trying to handle them. (Look at me go, I feel so motivated right now. :D) I have also managed to think that I will now pick waffle, cookie, candy and done, but then picked cake, several cookies, a lot of chocolate instead. And even though a lot of guilt comes with it, I can think for a moment that YAY, well done, Signe!

My third challenge was to put myself into an unexpected situation. And I also did this. On the evening when me and my sister and her friend made tortillas. It brought a lot of fear. Also at one point in the evening I decided that I need to go to the store and bring us some more snacks. I picked some grapes, something to drink and then we also had those rum cakes. We also tried different Japanes snacks, for example wasabi KitKat and guess what, I am still alive! I don't know if my weight gain was caused by this weekend or not, but honestly, I don't even care. Being in this kind of unexpected situation was of course hard. Automatic reaction was going back to safety. This week I will have at least one more moment like this and I don't know, I feel hopeful, as this week went well. Also I had dinner with some friends the other day, and it went pretty well. We had a lot of sushi, some snacks and cake. Well... it was okay... the next day was absolutely worst, but I am going to repeat myself - I am still alive.

Last week I also set a fourth challenge, which was to try and think if I regretted something if I didn't do it. This I didn't really manage to do, because there just weren't any moments like this. So I guess this will be what I try to do next week again. I know that there are several moments presenting themselves this week. So we shall see.

I feel that these alphabet challenge posts are becoming longer and longer. :D Anyway, in my head I am already thinking to make the same challenge once more. Just picking new things with each letter. Just to confirm that this is fine. Because doing everything once is not enough. For my brain to learn new things, I need to constantly challenge and repeat myself. Only then the change will follow.