Realizations

Hey loves

Happy Weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed their week. Before I get into the point of today’s post I want to thanks everyone that commented on my last post. Thank you all for your concerns and comments. Each comment means a lot to me and helps me more than you all realize.

So as you might have guessed from the tittle of this post I have done some major thinking this week. I have dealt with a lot this week and it has mainly from my battle with food. As some of you may know I lost a significant amount of weight the correct way but toward the end I started to do it the wrong way only eating at around 700 calories per day and working out at the gym burning 1000 calories or more at the gym. I am not going to go to much in depth about this as I have wrote a previous post regarding this which can be read here. I have been working on this and getting better with each day. Some days are better then other but I have gotten better. I am not underweight, in fact I am toward the high end of my weight range but for the way I am built it is easy for me to look thinner then I am but I know I do not eat enough. I slowly have increased my calories over time and have been making progress but recently I have stalled. I have been adding 50 calories every week I do not gain. The last three past weeks (not including this week that just came) I have not gained weight so according to my logic I should have added 150 more calories by now but I have not. I have been afraid to and really freaked out over the whole issue. I was making progress and my relationship with food has gone better but what is crazy is that for some reason my thoughts came back. My thought about how I cannot eat foods because they will make me fat and the thought about restricting foods is a must. I got myself up to about 1300 calories a day and then for some reason this past week I was lucky to get myself to 1200.  I do not understand why I had the urge to restrict in the morning. This restriction in the earlier part of the day lead me to go crazy at night. My body would be starving and I would go crazy picking on anything I can get my hands on, nuts, raisins, animal crackers, and cereal. I would keep getting up and getting more and eating until my stomach hurts and it feels uncomfortable. I think me doing that is probably because I starved myself all day and my body was screaming for foods. Especially since I still work out in the day so I am burning about 400-600 calories at a time depending on what I am doing. It was making me miserable all week. I was mad at myself for eating until my stomach hurt, then eating in general, then mad at myself for restricting because I know I need to eat more. It was a vicious cycle of hate this week but in a way I am sort of glad that this happened because I think it is what I needed.

On Friday morning I weighted myself like I always do and it said I gained 6 pounds. Now I know the number on the scale is just that a number but when that number goes up it terrifies me because I am afraid to go back to being that fat girl. The logically side of me knows that wont happen because I have made major changes in my life but the irrational side, the side that is consumed with disordered eating, is always there telling me to watch out because you will be that person again. So when I saw that number I freaked out a lot. I just broke down crying because that is a huge jump. The jump can be contributed to how bloated I felt because of all the stuff I ate that bothered my stomach and the fact that I am doing more strength training so I am probably getting some muscle. So after a while of crying and a relaxing shower I came to some realizations.

It was like a light bulb in my head. I have been thinking about doing the insanity workout ( I am starting it Wednesday) and I have been reading about Shaun T’s plan and his advice and while I was in my little break down mode I thought of this for some reason. I looked at his plan and according to his plan I should be eating 2369 calories a day since I work out about 5 days a week. When I start the insanity workout it says I should be eating 2598 per day. When I saw that number the first time I was freaking out and saying no way but now I am thinking maybe he has a point. I am working out my body so much and it is starving for food so it is probably causing me to hold on to my fat instead of the opposite. Now I am not ready to dive head first and all of a sudden eat that much a day because I know I could not handle it. I wouldn’t even know how to do that just yet but I am going to increase and increase more each week. Instead of falling back into the pattern and restricting my calories I am adding them. Yesterday I ate 1400 calories and I felt good. Shaun T suggest eating light to heavy, meaning eat the most heavy meal in the day with carbs so you feel better during the day. I also ordered protein powder from iherb that should be here Monday so I am going to incorporate that into my daily routine by putting some in my oatmeal in the morning or my post workout meal depending on what day it is. When I go to the gym early like after I wake up I cannot have such a big breakfast otherwise it makes me sick when I spin. Those days I will stick to regular oatmeal.  Shaun also recommends eating about the same calories per meal like 400 meal for five meals a day or like 500 for the first and 300 at the end to even eat out since he suggest a light meal at night. I really think what he says makes sense. I know that if I could eat a more things that fill me up throughout the day would be better and not make me want to grab the “bad” food that does not make me feel good and I would feel better. Like I said I tried that yesterday and it really works. I liked how I felt. Eventually I will add more and I hope to me up to my calorie need or at least 2000 by the June. Now I know that sounds like it is far off but that is just a goal. I can do it sooner but I do not want to set it where I cannot reach it. I rather push it back a little farther then to soon that way I can adjust myself and prepare myself for what comes a head. I like a plan, I am a big planner and goal person so having this plan and goal in mind helps me a lot. I want to thank my friend Michelle for telling me about this workout because if it was not for her I would not have come to these realizations and making progress agaisnt my disordered eating. I am also thankful to Shaun T. Something about him really motivated me to see the light. Maybe it was timing I do know but I thank him a lot. The best part of this is that I am excited!

A couple of months ago the thought of doing this would make me sad and upset and I probably would have failed at it because I would not want to. But now that has changed. I am excited for things to come and feel better. I know that eating more will make me feel better and I will function better because it is what my body needs. Now by eating more I want to point out I do not mean eating junk foods I mean eating good wholesome foods like things I eat but just normal quantities, not restricting quantities. I am going to stop working the numbers to save calories and instead focus on working the numbers to increase calories. I am looking forward to the changes I am making and plan on sharing them here in this blog. I hope you are ready for things to come and enjoy this new ride that I am going on. Maybe even some of you will jump on it with me.

Well thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

-Ashley

I would love to hear from you-

-Anyone making some changes to themselves for the better?

-Anyone have some weekend plans?