Fruit

This is going to be an eating disorder post mostly.

I consider myself pretty much recovered from bulimia.. compulsive eating still can be a problem.. mostly I eat so I don't get sick when I drink. Definitely not a recovered alcoholic.

I still have some weird things. My biggest one is especially since I moved into my apartment and lived alone is that I hate wasting food. This is kind of illogical when I wasted a lot of food when I was bulimic. Eating and purging is wasteful, but that didn't bother me much.

What I hate is buying food and having it go bad because I didn't eat it.This happens sometimes because I eat at restaurants too much. It happens if I buy too much of something. It mostly happens because I go through phases.

I'll like yogurt for a while and then stop eating it. I like milk, but for a long time since ED I only ate cereal dry.. so no point buying milk. No point buying yogurt.

Then there's fruit and vegetables. When I was at my worst, fruit scared me. Not exactly because of calories or sugar, I hated anything that did not come from a box or package with nutrition facts. I'd look up calories online, and I'd find myself actually measuring an apple or a plum with a ruler so I could be more accurate. Also odd because some of my safe foods were not packaged. Like I ate a lot of bagels. I think because I could take forever to eat them. Peel off the outside first. Then tear up the inside.. major ED behaviors.

In treatment I had to eat fruit. There the challenge was when the only option was fruit cups with fruit packaged in anything other than water or containing added sugar. When I went home, I was supposed to eat fruit as an evening snack.. I finally negotiated with my dietitian that I could substitute a starch (this was an exchange system). And when I got out, I ate fruit if my parents served it as a meal and I ate one type of apple.

I was never good at challenging my old rules even in recovery. When I was sick, I only ate vanilla flavored yogurt because it had I think 10 less calories than the fruit ones. And fruit just wasn't something I bought or got excited about. I'd buy some occasionally.. mainly weird ones like pluots. Then they'd tend to go bad in the fridge.

When I moved out, this has gotten progressively worse. Especially when the drinking started, I started eating all frozen food or canned soup or boxed mac & cheese. I didn't buy milk. I didn't buy fresh fruit or vegetables. I'd buy yogurt and never eat it. I stopped buying yogurt. I never bought bread.

None of this was really ED related anymore. I remember the last time I bought fresh vegetables was for a class at school.

To make that make sense. I was taking a class on using an electron microscope. From left to right: Broccoli   Green Bean   Celery

I haven't managed fresh vegetables yet, but I have been so proud of myself to buy fruit. A while ago it was apples. Then a month or so ago I bought strawberries. Today I bought bananas. I also buy milk now. I eat cereal with milk on it.

I still mostly east frozen food because my kitchen is a mess. It's filled with empty vodka bottles and empty food packages. Still, fruits is a challenge I've managed. Milk is one I've managed. I feel like buying yogurt, but I haven't managed that yet. I stare at it and remember that I actually have one yogurt in my refrigerator that expired before I ate it.

So yeah, wasting food upsets me. Spending money on food upsets me. I am ok buying vodka if it's the cheapest one. I buy food, but I hate seeing the price. I'm weird about spending money on clothes, but that's another issue.