…   I just want to say wow.
My last post got hits from Australia, India, and the U.S.
That is just awesome.

You like me.   You really really like me.
—  Cliche, yeah, but it helps bring some sort of validation to my life.   Thanks.

Okay, moving on…

I’ve had this mantra running through my head for about a week –

2 – 1 – 4 no more.
2 – 1 – 4 no more.
2 – 1 – 4 no more.

That’s because I have weighed a constant 214 pounds for about two years despite near-constant worrying, guilt, and going to the practically every day —  by every day, I mean every day for multiple hours.

I could just not drop the weight.

Of course, I had a lot of other threads running around in my noggen.  I felt that I needed to eat everything.   Not so much to prove to myself that I could, but to prove to others that I could as some sort of payback for making them worry about me all the time.  They wanted me to eat and so I ate.

I was also a bit brainwashed by the House.  Being even slightly hungry was somehow a sin and I think I was eating some seven to eight times a day, if not more.   Three meals.   Three snacks.    Two shakes.

Crazy.

And, of course, food actually tasted good.   When I was 55 pounds, food tasted like ash with a bumpy texture.  It made me physically ill and made me feel so cold — deathly cold — which was actually a good way to think about it since my body didn’t have the capacity to digest food and maintain body temperature.

Sweet and spicy actually meant something again.

For all of these reasons and probably some more that I’m not admitting to myself, I hit 214 and didn’t go back down.

Until I went to the cancer doctor.  The magical digital scale there said I was 201. – even.

Holy crud.   That’s down 13 pounds when I suspected that I would have increased a bit from being on Florida rain house arrest for multiple weeks.  Not going to the gym and being overall a lot less active than what I was in Indiana.

I don’t know what I’m doing right, but I want to do a lot more of it… which might be a bad thing if it leads back to being 55 pounds again.

But I like to think that this time the situation is different.

Last time, the primary not eating thing was developed from not believing that there was enough income to provide the best possible life I could afford.  It made absolute logic to my panic attack riddled brain that I was saving hundreds of dollars on groceries a month that could be used towards bills, car insurance, and mortgage.

I valued keeping up on payments more than I did my own life, apparently.

But, it’s also important to remember that I’m an exceedingly stubborn person when it comes to some things.   I felt like I was doing the right thing and all of those who told me I wasn’t was just blowing smoke.

I could stand.   I could move, although really carefully, and I felt I was fully functional.   As long as I could stand, I was alive.  No matter who they were — sister, mother, brother, boyfriend, strangers — they didn’t know me and what I could handle.    I could stand.

Well, there’s a bit more to being alive than just standing —  I suppose.

Anyway, la la la, I’ve dropped 13 pounds.

I don’t think it’s official since I’ve decided that the scale at my primary physician is the standard, but 13 pounds is too much of a drop for it to be an error.   Or, at least I think it’s too much to be an error.

I even have an idea of where it might be coming from – thighs and upper legs.

Well, it’s a great place to start to get back to my personal goal of 150ish.

For some reason, I think 140 to the 150-pound range is magical.   Maybe that will be enough where my osteoporosis and cyborg implant won’t be so worrisome as I go into the late 40s and 50s.

Maybe that’ll be the weight where I can wear the styles that I like again and actually think I have some small iota of physical attractiveness.

…. which isn’t the most soluble reason.
My teenage self would severely kick me if she knew that’s what I was thinking.   Physical appearances were important, but not important enough to let ruin or rule my life – let alone how I feel about myself.

Well, my teenage self was never in a relationship either.
My teenage self also thought that there was an ending somewhere.  While it might not be 100% happy, it would be satisfying and that would be enough.

Me today don’t see an ending — or at least not one that comes easily and it’s more than likely not happy.

But, sometimes it’s about the journey, right?
All who wander are not lost.

I know this is a rehashed topic… but anorexia is still with me.
According to Dr. S, it’ll always be with me.

Doubting
Self-loathing
Fear of not living up to personal and other expectations…

Which is probably run of the mill for a lot of people.

Just, for me, it became a physical manifestation.
I’m my own IT.