On the Road Again

It has been a CRAZY week, I leave at 7 AM tomorrow for my next research trip to Tropical Field Site.  This one really snuck up on me.  I think I have everything ready, but there is still definite trip anxiety going on.

Reasons for being anxious:

1) This is my most autonomous research trip yet.
Previously I've always had at least a professor or 2 with me, and last time there were 10 people total, almost all of whom had been there before.  This time, it's just me with one assistant, who has never visited the country before, much less our specific site.  My language skills are better than they were at the start of the last trip but still not as good as I'd like them to be.

2) Usual travel issues
Will my flight be cancelled/delayed, will my bags arrive (I'm carrying several thousand dollars worth of equipment), will I have to sit next to a kid that spills stuff in my lap, etc.

3) Food/exercise
I had a major relapse on the last trip.  I will be there for a shorter duration this time, not as much time to develop/sustain harmful habits, but I still need to try harder to do better....which brings anxiety about gaining weight.  My relapses have rarely, if ever, been conscious attempts to lose weight, they've just results from attempts to not gain gone wild.

Ways to deal:

 1) Even though I won't be supervised, the truth is that none of my professors have used the techniques that I'll be doing, and they were never hands-on with the work in the field last time.  So mostly I let them know what I'm doing and seek approval for making changes if needed (NOTHING ever goes exactly as planned).   So this shouldn't be that much different....but the feeling of flying solo is definitely more significant.  If something goes drastically wrong, chances are they couldn't have prevented/fixed it any better than me, it's just dread of coming back and having to deliver bad news to them if that does happen.
BUT they've both done a lot of tropical field work themselves, even if it's not using my exact methods, so in short they know and accept that shit happens and trust that I do my best to make the best of it...

2) See last sentence above.  Shit happens.  It can and probably will; I'll survive.  On the last trip, I a) was wait-listed on my 1st flight and almost missed it, b) my next connection was cancelled completely and I risked being stranded overnight, c) the next available flight landed only 20 minutes before my international flight left, nowhere near enough time to re-check in and do security and customs, and d) my luggage was left in the United States and I didn't get it for over 24 hours.  And I'm here to tell the tale!  In every situation (even item c, which involved major pulling of strings), things were worked out and I arrived safe and on time that night.

3) Food and exercise....I need to work on keeping my priorities straight and the big picture in mind.  Since it's just me and an inexperienced assistant, if I am not on top of my game, or if I get sick or hurt, the work just won't happen and not getting my data is the WORST thing that could occur on this trip.  So I have to make sure to do everything I can to avoid that, which includes fueling myself appropriately and not over-working my body with extra hiking and activity.
     I'll be on a much stricter timeline than over the summer, with less total days at the site, which will be a help.  I tend to use free time destructively, and so having fewer free days and afternoons to myself will probably be a huge help in keeping me on track.
   Also, during and immediately following my last trip, I was in intense turmoil over my relationship with Match.  As you poor people have had to read way too much about in recent posts, we've worked through tons of things and really cemented our relationship more firmly than ever over the last 6-8 weeks, and I am feeling extremely secure and confident about the situation now.  Last time involved a lot of life changes. I was leaving for the tropics, and when I came back I was moving to a different state, and while I was gone HE was moving to a different state as well, and putting us 10 hours apart.  We've gotten into the swing of this Distance Couple thing, though, and I trust him and us more than I ever really thought possible.
   I have packed a TON of supplemental food, because I don't tend to be comfortable with what they serve at the field station.  I have enough that I could probably make it off of just what's in my luggage, although I do eat some of what they give us.  But rice and fish heads for breakfast?  Hopefully even a non-ED person would understand me turning my nose up at that...anyway, I did pretty well with food on my December '09 trip, so I need to use that as a model and not be tempted to repeat the July '10 trip.

So those are the challenges.  I'm SO excited to be back on the ground and bringing back the crown jewel and purpose of my academic and professional life right now....DATA.  Gimme gimme, I wants, lemme at it.  Really itching to see the results of the work I did when I was there over the summer, it's like Christmas!  Even though I stress over these trips, I'm going down to do what I'm really passionate about, and wouldn't trade it for the world.

Also, we're going to a new part of the country with TOTALLY new habitat and wildlife, I'm really looking forward to that.  Considering what a ritualistic and routine-dependent personality/lifestyle I have, I actually really love adventure and seeing new places, so this is going to be super exciting. One of my least favorite things about not writing under my own name is that I can't show you the AWESOME pictures of where I work!

I'll miss my family, my dog, Match.  I won't have any phone or internet for weeks, and it's hard to be completely cut off from contact, imagining them going about their daily lives while I'm down there scrambling around in the jungle.  BUT I know that they will all be here for me when I get back, and in my experience the joy of reunions definitely makes up for difficult good-byes.

Which brings me to y'all!  I'm going to miss you, and really appreciate both the support you give me and, for those that blog themselves, the insights I am privy to from your awesome and thoughtful posts.  Don't forget me while I'm gone, love you muchly!

<3
Cammy

Dish Overhaul

So, the big non-revelation of the day is that I tend to be a teensy bit extremely habit forming.  Sometimes, obviously, it has reached pathological proportions, other things are just little preferences and benign quirks that are solidified into my daily routines.  Everyone, ED or not, has them, right?  I had a friend in high school that wouldn't drink of bendy straws, my brother refuses to sleep without socks, even in summer, etc etc.  My mom has to have her desk arranged just so before she can study.  People are funny.

But obviously, with EDs many of those things are more food-centered, some more harmful than others.  Some are just habits that can be broken when necessary, while others are unhealthy "laws."

One thing for me is that I find have sort of a meal ritual, always eating foods in the same sequence, having fruits cut into a certain number of pieces, etc.  I used to eat the same food every single day, with only one acceptable breakfast, one lunch, one dinner to choose from.  Thank god I left that stage years ago, boooring! 

I hadn't really realized it until I moved back in with my parents, but eating out of the my standard bowls and plates is apparently a habit I didn't know I had, until I was back in their environment instead of among my own things.  Note that this is NOT a mega anxiety issue, I function just fine when I'm away from my personal Pfaltzgraff, it's just something that I notice enough to, well, notice.  Plus, our dishes are similar enough that it wasn't all that significant.

So I'd adjusted to the dishes here and established my standard bowls, cups, etc....and when I came home from last weekend's trip, they'd bought entirely new kitchenware!  Out with the old dishes, because my mom was tired of them after 10 or so years, and in with an entirely new kind.  We used to have nice round plates and now there are these thing, super-modern looking square ones.  None of the bowls are exactly the same size as the ones we had previously.  The coffee cups don't have handles.  The food does not arrange the same way on these things!

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, except to mention kind of a funny issue that I suspect people might be able to relate to.  This overhaul in dishes has NOT affected my eating or caused real anxiety, I must reiterate, it's just *weird*.  I know such reactions are not restricted to people with EDs.  I guess I just wanted to invite people to comment: do you have a similar issue with plates, do you have standard or special dishes you prefer to use, what's special about them, does it take you a while to get used to new items like dishes or kitchenware?

Seems like a silly issue when I write it out like this, but I had an inkling I wasn't the only one that becomes easily set in my ways...

Weekend Wins

So, the trip over the weekend went very well. I actually had a ton of challenges come up, because it seemed like nothing went as we planned, as far as meals at least. Match always wanted to sit down and look up menus online before we chose a restaurant to make sure there was something I'd be comfortable with...but our lunch pick on Saturday turned out to be close on weekends, our dinner pick one night was closed by the time we got there, the food at one place sounded ok but was awful when it came out, we got behind schedule and ended up not eating until pretty late one night, our breakfast spot on Friday was closed for renovations, etc etc etc.

And I have to say, I think I earned some gold stars for adaptability. I didn't have one anxiety episode about any of it, and each time we adjusted and had a good time. When my food was bad at one restaurant (this wasn't an ED pickyness thing, it was an Ew That's Gross Fish issue, Match agreed with me), we went to Starbucks afterwards so I could get a snack to make up for it. When our lunch spot was closed, we wandered through Italian district downtown and found a fantastic little place by chance. When my portobello meal came out as a sandwich instead of just plain, I saw how awesome the home-made bread looked and ate the whole damn thing. And had gelato afterwards. And it was good.

I just remembered I did have one Anxiety Episode. We decided to go to a play at a community theater by his house one night, and it started at 7, the time I prefer to eat dinner. It was a long show, so we had to eat beforehand if we were going to. The thing is, we'd had a very late lunch, and neither of us were really hungry, but we knew we wouldn't be back until 11...I decided to just make a light something and have a snack when we got in. My light something did involve cooking. Match said he'd do the same, but then decided he'd just "have a little snack now and one again later," not cooking anything. This really stressed me (I know it doesn't sound rational) because I didn't want to be cooking "real food" if he wasn't, a major self-consciousness issue. I got very frustrated with myself for being upset, and even though I tried to escape to the bathroom to collect myself while ostensibly getting ready for the show, he definitely picked up on it and was unhappy about not knowing what to do, he looked distressed for a few minutes. He asked me if I wanted to talk about it and I said no, which is not the norm for me with him.

Anyway, in the end he handled it in the best possible manner: he didn't say anything, but just went into the kitchen and started cooking himself some dinner. I did too, we went to the show, and it was a good night. I don't want him to feel like he has to eat when he's not hungry just to make me happy, and told him so, but he just replied that he would need to eat eventually and would rather do it in a way that made me more comfortable with the situation, since it's not a big deal for him but it is for me. There are some cases where it's ok; the day I mentioned above when my food was bad and we went to Starbucks afterwards, he didn't get anything, but he had just eaten a meal and I hadn't.

So besides that blip, it was an AWESOME trip. We did a lot of active things, so I wasn't very stressed about a few days away from exercise routines.

Some of the things I felt were biggest victories:

-The number of liquid calories I consumed, which is something I didn't allow myself for many years. I'm still not quite comfortable eating the volume of food my mp demands when I'm around other people, so I'm learning that the liquid option is a good way to stay fueled if I don't get enough at a meal. At one point I mentioned I always take longer to eat than he does, and he responded that he's aware that our volumes of food don't usually have the same calories, since he eats like a stereotypical bachelor with cheeseburgers, fries, cokes, etc.

-The gelato I mentioned above, not only did I eat it but I'm the one that suggested it.

-We only went to one chain restaurant the entire weekend, and that was as a back-up for a local place we'd picked that was closed. This is a win because often I'm super uncomfortable eating at non-chain places because they don't have nutrition info available online.

-Cooking with Match. We ate in at his place for most breakfasts and a couple of dinners, and the little domestic scene of cooking and eating meals at home together is a new thing for us. We ate none of the same food, since our preferences are completely different, but it was nice just to be sharing the space and time.

Situations that would really stress me out at home are much easier to deal with around Match (I don't mean this post to be one long brag on him, but he is really good at understanding and handling every thing), I guess partly because I really just want to focus on having a good time and partly because I know he's aware of the issues without judging me for them.

So that's the weekend from the angle of how ED stuff went, but my favorite thing about the trip was how little I actually thought about ED stuff in the moment. We went a lot of places, did a lot of things, talked, saw shows, walked his dogs, etc, and ED stuff was an issue, as always, but not the focus. And that is such a nice change, can't believe it.

Match Weekend

Sitting in the airport waiting to board the plane that will take me to Match for the weekend, first time I've visited his new city. Adding a new state to my life list, too! I'm really excited, and a bit proud:

1) I am ridiculously pampered and spoiled by him. I'm very much a down-to-earth and do-it-myself type girl, but damn if I don't sometimes enjoy a princess weekend too.

2) I have NOT increased any ED behaviors leading up to this trip. Not that I wasn't tempted. I know I've put on weight since I last saw him (exactly a month ago) but I can rationalize to myself that a) it's not much weight, b) I'm still less than I've weighed for most of the time we've been dating, and c) I am secure in the fact that he loves me, not a number.

Match knew I'd been trying to get back on track ed-wise this month and was worried I'd regress leading up to the trip, he specifically brought it up and made sure to tell me he wanted me to take care of myself and be happy and healthy, for both me and him. And yesterday when we were chatting and I told him I've done zero extra ED behaviors, he said he was proud of me, and just the way the words came out made it one of the most touching things anyone has ever said to me.

So anyway, I have been promised a zoo trip, all the Starbucks my kidneys can handle, and anything else I want this weekend...but really I just can't wait to be around Match, he really has become my best friend.

Brother's Brain

Had a rather awkward experience today, sort of frustrating too. I went to coffee with my mom and one of her friends, and they started talking about my 17 year old brother, who has been having some major anxiety/depression programs and just started on Zoloft this week. My mom was talking about his latest doctor's appointment, and what a revelation/help it had been for the doc to explain to this that this is something wrong with his brain, a true physiological imbalance/miswiring that is causing this, and will never go away on its own if it's not given the proper attention and treatment.

The whole time I was sitting there thinking "what the fuck do you think I've been dealing with for almost 11 years now? A fad diet?" My family has always shied away from addressing my ED, and I'm not sure they will ever really get it.

I don't know how to explain exactly what I felt. It probably sounds petty; I'm not jealous at all of the concern for my brother and I am so incredibly glad he's getting treatment. I don't want my family to push me into treatment or spend more time talking about my ED. I just don't want to feel like it's a completely unrecognized issue. I'm having a hard time articulating everything exactly. It was just a little invalidating for my mom to act as though hearing that an anxiety or other behavioral issue having organic origins was such a revelation, when that is the main thing underlying my issues too, but no one seems to recognize that.

At this point, after so long, I don't know if they even think of the ED as a disease anymore, it's just Cammy's weird personality.

Needing Balance

I really, REALLY wish I could somehow make my body feel balanced and ok. I am hungry when I'm overstuffed, I'm fatigued despite eating, I'm light-headed sometimes when I think I shouldn't be.

2 ways I know I could help the problem, yet haven't:

--Mo better breakfast. I have always been one of those I'm Not a Breakfast Person people. And I'm not. So breakfast is by far my lightest meal of the day, and with that plus the way my workout load is highest in the morning, I usually don't have lunch before 1:30, it means I spend about half the day bordering on hypoglycemic and worn out. I think this is the main reason I feel physiologically unbalanced all day.

I think another reason I push calories back later in the day is that for so many years I had such a meager daily allowance of food, that I was super-conscious about not "using it up" too early in the day, so I wouldn't have to go to bed completely hungry (just mostly hungry). Now I am eating enough that I can space it appropriately if I so choose, I just haven't been choosing to because of that old instinctive calorie budgeting habit.

--Workout load itself. Is very high. More than it was before I moved this summer. And it's really just breaking me down. I had good goals about rock climbing and bike riding instead of ritual workouts, to get some fun/functional/non-obsessive activity in, but I haven't been able to give up any of the ritual to make room for them, and have zerozilchnada energy left over after ritual exercise, which means those plans are just not working out. I have way too much free time in between research trips this fall, but I'm spending all of it getting caught up in the same pointless cycle as always.

Despite that, my weight isn't really suffering. Over the last 5 weeks or so I've gained maybe a little under half of what I lost over the summer, but the trend has been positive on that.

Ok, general vent/status update. I'm taking a trip back to my university town to lecture for a class tomorrow. Looking forward to that, although obviously the change in routine always creates some anxiety.

One positive is that my brothers went back to school today, and with mom at school also and dad at work, now I have the house entirely to myself during the day, which makes it way easier for me to cook real meals in the kitchen, at least for breakfast and lunch.

I hope everyone had a fantabulous Labor Day!

The Mitochondria Awaken

So my body is starting to react to my re-committal to the meal plan, and I think I'm in hypermetabo-mode (again). I was starving all afternoon yesterday despite a massive lunch, had a good breakfast this morning but was more hungry 10 minutes after eating than I had been to start with. Been having night sweats too. Hello, mitochondria, nice to see you awake again!

Nice to be reminded my body still works. But it still bugs the hell out of me. I'm following prescribed mp (I'm not seeing D anymore but still following what she laid out for me before) but I have an ultra-hard time straying from the mp even if I feel I need more, so I just end up being hungry a lot and frustrated that my body still annoys me when I try to treat it better.

Whine! Off to the bike shop to buy a pump and get info about group rides that they do several times a week. I do the recumbent bike at the gym, but biking on the road is much different and I'll need to practice on my own for a while before riding in a group. I'm really trying to use biking and rock climbing as ways to channel the exercise urge into something fun and functional, and less rigidly quantified than machines at the gym. Anecdote related to this in a post soon to come.

Happy weekend my loves!

Meet-Up, Melting, and other Miscellany

There probably will be little organization or theme to this post, apologies! Kind of swamped with work, so this is a catch-all for the week.

I got to meet the fantabulous Carrie on Tuesday. We first met way back when I was in high school, bonded over our mutual love of science books, and the rest is history. It's always kind of surreal to meet someone you've only known online, but definitely interesting, and, at least in this case, definitely a lot of fun. :) And, as Carrie pointed out, it was interesting that we chatted for hours (time flew!) but had so much to talk about that EDs never came up once. It's nice to be around people that reinforce the fact that there are so many other, more rewarding things to build our lives around.

A few stressors from the homefront:

-Our big chest freezer in the garage broke down today. The one, of course, that was holding a ton of groceries I bought at Trader Joe's over the weekend. When it comes to food management, I got stress, people. So the thought of the food going to waste, not having available what I'd planned to eat, etc etc, was very bothersome. And my parents were at work/school so I was dealing with it myself today, Brother and Littlebro were decidedly unhelpful.

-Which leads to the fact that I've been eating a lot more frozen/packaged foods since I've moved back in with the family. I'm self-conscious about being watched in the kitchen, so I resort to whatever gets me in and out of there fastest. I'm not a super-puritan on preservatives and all that, but I do definitely notice that I feel different from all the sodium and such. I'd gotten to the point over the past year where I cooked mostly from real ingredients, and I miss that. Of course I could very well do that here, I just need to get over my hang-ups about other people seeing me preparing food.

-I've been doing well with adhering to the meal plan, great in fact. But exercise, as always, is definitely keeping me out of balance, in a big way. Considering I'm not taking classes and work from home, I should have time to get plenty done, but I know my productivity is WAY, WAY below what it could be if I wasn't burning so much time at the gym. Really need to work on breaking rigidities with the exercise.

Starting to doze off, so I better go. Love y'all, have a great Labor Day weekend!

AM

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