Jingle Bells, Anxiety Hells (?)

I am not quite sure how I feel about things right now. Like I mentioned earlier, my dear friend J. is having Christmas with my family this year. I thought that would be helpful, because I tend to regress majorly with the ED stuff when I stay at my family's house, but now I really can't tell if it is making things better or worse.

1) He is timid about asking for food or eating too much in a house that is not his, so I feel like I am always the one initiating food events, which makes me self-conscious.

2) My family has absolutely no structure to their eating. They nibble and graze and snack and just eat whatever and whenever strikes their fancy. We will have one formal sit-down meal for Christmas today, but that's it. Basically, they are all intuitive eaters to the max, but that makes it really difficult for me because now that I'm out of fieldwork mode and back to domestication, I am having a hard time with "shoulds" when it comes to food, and the continuous stream of munching from everyone around me makes me question whether I'm really hungry or just want food because someone else has it.

3) Exercise, exercise, exercise. Having J. here makes me feel very guilty if I sneak away to my room for even 15 minutes. So yesterday I had almost no "formal" exercise, although we walked the dogs (he has his here along with G. and my parents' dog) for miles and miles, and then ran errands at a couple of stores, did some cooking/decorating, and other things that kept us on our feet.In this case, J's presence is probably good for resisting ED but bad for my anxiety.

4) I also managed to fall down and hurt myself the last day on the trial. I have a light sprain in my wrist and this weird thing with the tendons that connect my ribs to my sternum. I didn't know you COULD sprain them, but apparently I have and it is the most annoying thing ever, for a few days it even hurt to draw in deep breaths. Now it just hurts if I bend backwards, bend forwards, move my arms laterally, or reach across, up, down, or twist my torso around. This is making me move a little bit like an old lady, despite gobbling double doses of Aleve several times a day. Technically I have workouts I know that I COULD do if I really tried.

MAJOR ANXIETY AND FATISHNESS FEELING. But only sometimes. Other times I am amazed at how calm I feel about the situation. Like now. I woke up early to work out, but I'm sore and tired and fired up the internet instead of playing the cardio DVD on my laptop. And I think I'll be ok. But then I have short bursts of panic/guilt over it. Argh.

I've sort of compensated with food, but did have cookies, wine, cheese, etc last night in a Christmas Eve splurge. I am not sure how I feel about that. J. is leaving tomorrow morning, and then I'll feel more free, and I keep telling myself that taking just a few days off is not going to change my weight that much. And honestly, I was down a few pounds when I got back from my trip (separate post on that at some point in the near future), so I know that it's not the end of the world even if I did gain some.

Ok, just needed to vent that out. By the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I am trying super hard to push the ED thoughts away and enjoy the holiday with loved ones, and I hope you are too, you deserve it, my lovely friends! Your support and watching you fight for your own recoveries are the best gifts I could have asked for this year.