Baby Steps

Do you ever have to eat something or at a certain place you’re not exactly confortable with? I hadn’t experienced this in a few months, but all that changed last night.

My good friend from my dorm invited me to dinner with her…at the cafeteria. Keep in mind, neither of us really like the dining halls, and when we go out to eat, it’s always to a pretty healthy fast-casual place, such as Qdoba or Noodles. I can plan ahead of time what I want to get, and even be reassured that I’ll like it and it’s ‘safe’, ED-wise. I honestly try to avoid the dining halls as much as possible, mostly because the food offered there isn’t really appealing to me and they tend to repeat the same things a lot. When I’m away from home at college, I eat the food my parents bought for me to make in my room or I grab something to-go from the express store, which has a few things I like. Really, the only things I ever get at the cafeteria are a bowl of pasta with fresh veggies & beans or some brown rice with tofu from the salad bar or occasionally the Mongolian stir-fry. That’s what I had last night: some rice noodles with fresh bell peppers, a little sauce and chicken.

I challenged myself to eat normally, since my friend doesn’t know about my ED. But I really didn’t care for my meal. I totally avoided the chicken, because it looked and felt fake. I had to dump a bunch of red pepper flakes on the noodles to make them taste like anything, since I didn’t my ED didn’t want to use a lot of sauce. That’s the first time in a long time that I ate something I didn’t like one bit. I didn’t eat a lot, but I did eat some of it. I did enjoy spending time with my friend, but I couldn’t help wishing we had gone out to eat.

It was a good experience for me, though. I learned that sometimes you have to eat something you don’t necessarily care for—especially if you’re in recovery. If you are a normal eater, you can get away with skipping a meal or two because it wasn’t something you liked, but those of us who struggle with an ED of any kind absolutely have to nourish our bodies and banish the voices of the disease so we don’t slip back after one day of restriction. I know it was a baby step, but it’s encouraged me to keep going with my healthy habits.

Also, I changed the look of my blog and I hope you like it. I think it fits me more because it's a picture I took last year over spring break in my hometown of Phoenix, AZ. I feel like this blog is about going back to my roots and trying to discover what lead me to my anorexia and ultimately, my recovery process.