Bad News, Sexy Shoes, and I Ain't Tellin You's

Hey y'all. I'm having a pretty down day. Got the news that Match will officially be moving 11 hours away in the fall for grad school (we were holding out hope he'd get accepted somewhere closer). That's part of life as grad students, unfortunately.

I have been kind of ambivalent about food, having an uncomfortable body day, etc. Bad body days are coming less and less frequently, luckily, so I guess I'd kind of forgotten how much they suck. I have learned that they pass and are usually unrelated to my actual size/weight, trying to ride it out.

I'm on placebo week from the Pill and I MISS it. I was a basket case about starting it, but totally love it now. Makes my skin and boobies so much nicer. Also, remember I had never menstruated before starting the pill, so this effing bleeding for days at a time is still new to me and not really a thrill ride. I am going to have to skip the placebos when I'm out doing my field research, wandering around the jungle smelling like a wounded animal for a week is asking for trouble. TMI, TMI, moving right along...

Big professional event happening tomorrow, at which I'll be subjected to public scrutiny in front of the entire department (faculty and grad students). It's a rite of passage, and all the other 1st year grad students are in the same boat. I do have sexy shoes to wear, which helps.

Formspring produceth:

What one thing are you exceptionally good at?

I am a fantabulous tree-climber.

What was your lowest weight? How much weight have you gained in recovery and are you still trying to?

I don't think that sharing that would have any healthy result for either me or the readers, so I shall demure instead of divulging. In other words, I ain't tellin'. I will tell you that I was low enough that it damn near killed me, and have absolutely no desire to weigh anywhere near that ever again. I have gained a significant amount in recovery. My weight is still not quite up to where my team wants it, but I'm healthy and stable enough that they're focusing more on normalizing behaviors than boosting calories, to try to get me settled into a healthy lifestyle so that my weight will follow. I will tell you I'm at the highest weight I've ever been in my life, due to the fact that I started with AN when I was pre-adolescent. One major challenge in recovery has been that I couldn't go "back" to my pre-ED body, and it was pretty anxiety inducing to go forward and not have any idea what my body would end up like.

One other thing I will mention about weight, because it is something that I think can be an issue for many people: when I started gaining weight, eating X calories, I was afraid that as long as I ate X calories, I'd keep gaining weight. Forever. This is NOT true. I hit a plateau roughly every 5 pounds or so, and couldn't budge above it until I made an additional change in my lifestyle. The calories-in-calories-out calculations, like the ones that tell you however many extra grapes per day add up to however many extra pounds per year, which accumulates year after year, is simply not reality. Your body is smarter than that.