It has finally arrived - last letters!

First one of them was V, and I picked vanilla pudding. I couldn't come up with anything else starting with V. There is this company in Estonia that just came out with three new puddings (vanilla, chocolate-hazlenut and caramel) and I tried one of them.



Again I have to repeat that Estonia doesn't have as good puddings as Japan. :D I really miss them... but I don't think sending them via parcel is a good idea. But yeah, this pudding was a lot more than usually, meaning more claories than my snacks usually have. But I really enjoyed it so that was good. I got a different one, the chocolate-hazlenut one for today and I will try it out. / I have tried it now and it was so so good. Really one of the best new products I have tried recently. I will definitely have it more often.

Next letter was W meaning waffle or wafer. At first I wanted to get this Belgian waffle, but they only had packs of like 8 in the stores. So instead I picked Gesha's chocolate-wafer. I got it a whiiile ago, but I was too scared of trying it. I also thought that I would have liked to have this old retro waffle made in proper waffle maker, but I was too lazy to look for it in the cafes or something.



Anyway, eating this was indeed a challenge, as on the same day I went to visit a friend who cooked us dinner. And I had too much food. Like really too much, not just my too much. All of my mind and body told me that I should skip snacks or my lunch, but I didn't do this. Even though this was one of the most difficult days recently. Also I get to be proud of myself as I didn't WEIGH myself the next day! This is such a huge thing for me. :D I really wanted to, but I knew that would lead to restricting.

Also I don't want to live rest of my life having to know if I am having a meal outside from home. I don't want to be scared of having food at someone else's place and also having snacks. I want to enjoy life and eat more on some days. I want to enjoy spending time with friends. I want food to not be as important and I want to think about different things. I want my problems to be different from "what's for a snack or meal". Honestly. I am just tired of it.

And with Z it was zucchini. I made it in the oven and marinated beforehand, using oil! Which made it a challenge. I marinated it with some mushrooms and in sauce that had soy sauce, oil, a little bit of vinegar, pepper and a lot of garlic. And the taste was great, I highly recommend! One of my friend said that she has a lot of zucchinis growing, meaning we will get a lot of them. So it will probably become a normal part of my diet.

As I didn't use the whole of zucchini, I have been grating rest of it into my porridge. It doesn't mean that I add less oats - no. Zucchini has very little calores, but it is a good way of having more greens in your diet. Even though I have a lot of veggies in general. But this seems to be a popular hack.

At some pint I thought that everyone are baking banana breads (which I still haven't done, even though I have been meaning to bake something with bananas, for example muffins), but zucchini bread is also quite popular. During the lockdown there were tons of recipes going around.



For last week I had a lot of goals:

First one was to pick something in the store without seeing the calories. I mention on my last post that I would like to get poppy seed pastry. And I did it! I got a pastry covered in icing sugar and enjoyed it a lot. It was really great. It has been my dream for a while to go into a store and just get a pastry. Finally I did it and nothing bad happened. Who would have guessed.



My second goal was to have cereal with normal milk. This I haven't done yet, as I have been home alone (my sister is still at my parents' place) and I got some almond milk, as this lasts longer. I am too lazy to make several trips to the store just to get milk, especially because I only use it ony my coffee.

Thirdly I wanted to eat something outside of home. And this did happen - for example when I went to visit a friend and we had dinner together. And snacked a lot. I have this ritual; I always eat at certain times and what I do while eating (for example watch some travelling videos). And I like it. But I also want to enjoy social aspect of eating and feel more at ease when spending time with people. I don't want eating to be so called my time. I want to focus on talking to people, communicating with people. I don't want to focus on food being perfect and eating being perfect experience. I keep thinking that this time has not come for me yet, but I NEED to challenge this. Or I won't get out of this, ever.

Like when my friend was over and we had instant noodles together. :D It was good, it was nice and it really made eating more normal. I just... need to do it more. There is no other possibility. I want to enjoy eating alone but also eating with someone else. I don't want it to be like a special occasion or something.

Also I have stuck to having 4 snacks in a day and my weight shows it is woeking. Even though now this is the last post of the alphabet challenge, I still think I need to set new goals/challenges. At least one.

So next week I will add something to my porridge, which I haven't done or tried in a while. For example some cocoa, chai spice or peanut butter. Or something like that. It used to be regular thing with my porridge, but it became scary at some point. I dunno why though, the taste is amazing. So it is about time to set this goal again.

What I also wanted to talk about are the tips for recovery. Because there are some. But firstly...

What works for one person, may not work for the other. And this needs to be remembered. Even tricks that are really useful for someone, may not be useful to you. For example someone may find this alphabet challenge completely useless. And in general getting used to fear foods. For someone it may be good to eat 5000 calories per day until they reach normal weight. Just FOR ME it is better to have this gradual weight gain happening. So I could manage the nerves and anxiety.

Next... DO. For you to get better, you need to be active and really behave like this. Thoughts are not enough. Motivation or commitment are not enough. You need to show (especially to yourself) that you are really taking action. It is easy to say this, more difficult to do this. All kinds of knowledge you may gain from books or internet or blogs is useful, but nothing changes if you don't take the lead and don't act like you ar ein recovery. You need to remember your goal and DO things.

For example after being with friends and eating and snacking a lot, the next day I felt very full. I could have easily skipped snacks or an entire meal. I could have had a bottle of coke and told myself it was fine. But no. I didn't do that. I actively worked on having all the snacks and meals. It didn't matter that I was full and had had too much food. At the moment I can't allow myself to skip things. Not even once. It would start a relapse and I don't have time for this shit. Also I am not eating "too much" every single day. I happened once. And if you keep eating normally, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. I need to repeat this to myself sometimes, this is what I have learned now. And it is good to say so.

Another thing is educating yourself. You should know what will happen if you are undereating. But you also need to know what is happening while you are in a process of recovery. For example I can say that when I eat more, I get these night sweats. I never knew what happened, until someone told me it is because your hormones are starting to balance themself. I used to be scared and thought that something was wrong with me. It really helped to do some research and talking to nurses at the hospital. So I really recommend searching for information and reading someone's experiences. You may not get all the symptoms, but at the same time you may and it gives you some peace of mind.

You also need to set some rules for yourself. Rule about not skipping meals or snacks. Rule about not giving an inch to your eating disorder. Rule about not compensating if you have had more food than usually. You need to be like a parent to yourself. You need to act according to your brain, not according to your eating disorder.

Eat and rest. The only medicine to your illness is eating. Food is medicne. Ig you have, let's say, an infection, you don't tell yourself that hey, let's not take meds today. You will have meds to get better. You need to eat to get better! I think this is a great example. And also, you wouldn't advice anyone else to not take meds during their illness. NO!

Set yourself as your priority. You need to be selfish. You are important and you need to remember this.