pride comes before a fall.

hey guys! i'm gonna keep nagging gently reminding y'all of my giveaway to win a $45 giftcard to CSN! enter before wednesday, september 15th at midnight to win sweet stuff!

and p.s. - i am absolutely thrilled to see all the new-to-me faces that entered! thank you so much for stopping by, and i can't wait to catch up on all your blogs!

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so i woke up this morning with a dull sense of dread. not because it was 3:00am (yeah, my body goes there quite often), but because i would need to eat again.

wait... what?

yes, those words came from my mouth. my mouth! yes, i'm still the same old rebekah who thought that i was doing wonderfully with my body like ten seconds ago, i promise. and yes, apparently i still have more issues hanging around than i realized.

maybe i should get this shirt.

source.

on a more serious note, though, for years i just let my emotions run away from me. i never stoped myself to figure out what was really wrong and why i was really struggling with food. i truly believed i must not have been strong enough to be skinny and never associated emotional stress with my eating habits.

instead, i absorbed every bit of knowledge i could from diet books, fashion magazines, and health articles. thank god that didn't last long! it took me a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears to realize that my insecurities weren't about my body, but about my life!

i've felt (nearly) totally freed from the "diet mentality" for a while now, so i was a bit taken back to feel myself... dreading eating???

source.

during my run, i realized i was subconsciously still holding to some old baggage:

1. my new eating habits sorta scare me. eating to appease a testy fibromyalgia-y stomach is like trying to feed a colicky newborn: i eat all day long. while i know this is what my new body needs (hence this week's post about eating enough), to a chick who's had a few run-ins with binge eating, eating like this kinda can look "like a binge." i didn't realize i even still had that fear of binging, but i guess a few really hungry days was enough to bring those old feelings to the surface.

just to clarify, i haven't felt the need to emotionally eat in years, but i guess i still haven't gotten over the fear of possibility... follow me?

2. new schedule means packing and thinking about food A LOT. since i've been sick, i've basically been home all day. i've eaten when i was hungry and didn't really have to worry about packing it up, getting enough, or fitting in to a schedule. with school, all that changed. suddenly i had to plan my meals, and i think the sudden attention to how much food i actually eat in a day kinda freaked the old "diet rebekah" out. stupid, but true.

3. i break every get-slim-diet-trick daily. i eat almost entirely from the dreaded food group: carbs (*GASP*). i don't eat any of the recommended bikini diet foods: grilled chicken, egg whites, greek yogurt, nut butters, or protein shakes. half my diet consists of simple sugars: fruit. i eat about 50 times a day, don't drink water before meals, don't chew gum, don't distract myself from my hunger, and always eat after 7 pm. a lot.

do i know this is best for me? of course! would i change it? probably not. but that doesn't mean that every once in a while, i still don't wonder if i'm the crazy one. i mean, i'm crazy, but am i being food-stupid? i know the answer is no, but still, i'm not emotionally invincible.

so am i totally over my fears yet?

probably not. i am, however, very grateful for the body i do have, and am at peace with the lifestyle it takes to get this body out of bed each day. i know what makes me feel my best, and i also know my weight is fine! but this is all head knowledge. the heart is a touchier subject!

i see this as a life-long process for me, and at 21, it seems i still have a bit of growing up to do :)

thoughts?
struggles of your own you're working on?
-rebekah