Hey Everyone!

Sorry it's been so long since I've been on here. Just to remind everyone... Eating Disorder Awareness Week starts tomorrow!

Love Jasmin

I've binged....now what?!

Someone recently explained to me that she had been through a few days of eating a lot and didn't know what to do next. Of course she wanted to restrict to make up for it but she also wants to recover.

This is a situation I faced many, many times. When you're trying to learn how to eat more again it is very easy to feel unbalanced at first or doubt yourself. Sometime you may not even be overeating but you feel like you are. On the other hand it is very easy to overeat. The binge part of your brain might be tempted to give in or you might find yourself experiencing days where your calorie intake is a lot higher than you would like which can be overwhelming.

I'll admit to begin with all I wanted to do was to restrict to make up for it. It avoided me purging but allowed me still to have some control so it seemed like a great idea but it isn't....at all! By doing that you're just asking for your eating disorder to continue!!
Here's why it's a bad idea:

- When you restrict your body goes into starvation mode and slows the metabolism down....this makes your body a lot more likely to store what you've eaten over the past few days.
- When you restrict your body tries to protect you. It thinks you are starving so it causes the urge to binge. So you will be more likely to binge again and once again you will want to restrict, then binge, then restrict, then binge, you get the idea.
- You will feel depressed, energy less and miserable.
- You are preventing yourself from getting better.

The best thing to do would be to continue as if it hadn't happened. WHAT?! I hear you say...that's impossible? That's what I thought and you have to take lots of small steps to get to that point but you can get there. If you go back to eating a regular amount of calories your body will use what you have eaten over the past few days as it doesn't need it all and fairly fast as your metabolism will have been given a boost from eating more.
At first you may want to just try to eat regularly even if its just small amounts. Then next time you can see if you can try to eat a bit more following a binge. If I have a weekend that involves quite a bit of eating now I usually continue to eat as often as I usually would but for a few days after I'll go for slightly healthier options. I think that's a healthy way of dealing with it. I don't restrict and I don't obsess over it. I can also safely say that since using that technique my weight has stayed a lot more stable compared to when I binged...restricted...binged...restricted which often caused my weight to go up.

Hope that's helpful.
Love Jasmin

Food Phobias!

I recently got asked a question on how to overcome the fear of 'bad' foods. I remember the endless arguments with my therapists when they told me I just had to do things and I felt like they didn't understand because it was a phobia and I just couldn't. I feel hypocritical saying it but after years of learning to face 'bad' foods the best thing you can do....is just eat it. I know that's not what you want to hear and you might be thinking...but I CAN'T. But truthfully and I'm sure deep down you know this, the only thing stopping you is your fear. Here is a few tips to help you break your phobia.....

- Start with slightly scary foods and gradually move on to scarier foods
- Take it slowly, start off with just a bite of certain foods every now and then
- Remember: 'THERE ARE NO GOOD AND BAD FOODS, ONLY GOOD AND BAD DIETS'
- Ask yourself what makes that food bad and why your scared of it....is there 100% proof behind your thoughts?
- Set yourself small targets like trying one scary food a week
- Have a distraction planned for afterwards to take your mind off it
- Reward yourself for facing your fear
- Do research on the food to find positives about it

Honestly....facing scary foods is one of the hardest parts of recovery...Before eating certain foods I would feel scared, anxious, sick, worried and afterwards I would cry and cry and cry. But gradually I started to see that those foods weren't having the affect I always thought they would....they didn't suddenly make me gain weight and I very gradually started to overcome my phobia.

Remember it's not impossible, it just takes a lot of strength, courage and desire to recover. If I can do it, so can you.
If anyone ever wants to ask me a question or needs some support feel free to email me at jas_1211@hotmail.com

xxx

Buddies?

OK...so I had an idea for a charity and would love your opinion...

I have recently been kind of mentoring a homeless man and a girl with an eating disorder. It has made me think about how much easier it can be to talk to someone that can relate to us other than a psychologist. Many people often feel like a psychologist is just analysing us and it is hard to open up to them. But what if we all had a friend that had recovered from whatever it is we are going through whether it is an eating disorder, addiction (achohol, drugs etc), self harming, depression or even an illness we cannot prevent? What if we had a friend who could guide us through recovery/the illness? I personally found the beat message boards one of the most helpful things during recovery because I was able to release my thoughts and feelings to someone who could completely understand where I was coming from. It helps us feel less lonely and gives us faith in the place we could get to once recovered.
So what if there was a charity that promoted this and paired people up so that people had a 'buddy' to guide them through their problem?

Let me know what you think!!

Hope you are all ok :)

People like to talk about food and eating...that's life. But there's still that part of me underneath that thrives on it. Part of me hates it because I've worked so hard to gain the views I now have on food but part of me loves it because it's justification for those old eating disordered thoughts.
What I believe now, whether it's true or false helps me to stay healthy and feel safe around food. It helps me to block out the eating disorder. But as soon as someone starts talking about food and dieting it's like the eating disorder wakes up. I try to argue against people as a way to prevent those eating disordered thoughts making their way into my subconscious but it's a struggle. People don't always understand and might think I'm annoyed with them when really I'm just annoyed with the situation because it creates such a difficult battle in my head.
It's like the eating disorder grabs on to what that person is saying in an attempt to make its way back in. I go off into my own little world where I'm trying to reassure myself that my way of thinking now is healthy and I don't have to let anyone influence that while the eating disorder pokes at me to hold onto those negative thoughts so that it can get its own way by persuading me to give into it.
Sometimes there may be a lot of truth in what is being said...but while a simple statement might be a small healthy belief in that person's life, for someone who has had an eating disorder it has the potential to grow into a self destructive belief system that destroys them as a person when the eating disorder takes over.
Talking brings back memories. Once again the eating disorder loves it and pulls on them until I give in to the positives of that memory, of course it will never allow me to focus on the bad when it's trying to persuade me. It's proud of those memories of fasting and weight loss and I feel that part of me take over when I can't help pointing out those "successes" to others. That's not the kind of person I want to be, I'm not proud of hurting myself. Those memories are a part of my past to remind me why I chose to recover and have the life I have now, not to point out to other people how good I was able to starve myself...it is not a talent or achievement!
This might be a challenge I face now. But gradually I hope to develop the resilience I need in these situations to block out the negative thoughts. It will be difficult but it will make me stronger!

Love Jasmin x

I'm back!!

Heyyy!

Sorry I haven't posted on here in such a long time! I've had internet problems which have only just eventually been fixed. Hasn't been good...haven't been able to follow my favourite blogs either :( But....I'm back and I have lots to come.

Quick catch up on me... I'm running the British 10k for Beat on the 10th of July. If you would like to sponsor me you can do so by going to www.justgiving.com/Jasmin-Turner

I also went to the my personal best/body gossip event a couple of days ago to celebrate beats new website which helps people with their self esteem and to reach their potential...my personal best. A few of the my body gossip cast came to read monologues written by beat young ambassadors...it was an amazing day. You can look at the website yourself by going to www.mypersonalbest.org.uk

Hope you're all well
Love Jasmin

The benefits of an eating disorder...

I know what you're thinking....there are benefits? Yes and I'm not talking about losing weight because remember weight loss caused by our eating disorder is NOT an achievement even if it feels that way at the time. And I'm not just talking about the benefits of recovering. I'm talking about the benefits of the whole experience, the benefits we gain from the battle, the benefits we gain in growing as people because of our eating disorder.

When you get to a point where you are sick of the eating disorder and are ready to recover it is easy to look at the eating disorder and see all the negatives and hate it for what it does to you. That's good because you are seeing the eating disorder for what it really is and it drives you to recover. But there comes a point when being so angry about having an eating disorder and hating yourself for it can have the opposite affect. You might have even recovered already but looking back with regret and sadness at that experience isn't going to change what happened and is only going to affect your happiness that you deserve now that you're free.
If you had a choice would you like to look back on your life with regret and anger, wishing that things had been different or would you like to look back with acceptance and happiness because everything you have been through has lead you to be who you are today (hopefully that's a recovered and happy person). It doesn't matter what we've been through in our lives, we all deserve to be happy and accept our lives as they are because no amount of worrying, regretting, or anger is going to change the past. But we can change how we feel about the past if we look at our experience in a new light.

So we have had/have an eating disorder, we can't change that. But as it's eating disorder awareness week I thought it would be the best time to try to look at our eating disorder from a new light and appreciate the person it has helped to make us today...

- Everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that every situation we face no matter how good or bad, happens to help us learn something new or change the course of our life in a positive way if we are able to see the opportunity or to meet new people who in turn affect our life. We might not see it straight away but there really is something to gain through everything we experience.
"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."

- We discover ourselves. Recovery from an eating disorder takes a lot of soul searching. You learn to dig beneath the ed and find out who you really are. Most people go through day to day life never really questioning themselves or as silly as it may sound getting to know themselves. They don't have a reason to. But we get that chance and we come through the other side being a lot more in touch with ourselves. When you understand yourself as a person I find it makes life more rewarding. I feel more like an individual and like a worthwhile person because I can see what makes me, me. I think for me the most important thing I learnt about myself or learnt to use from within myself is my spirituality. I'd definitely call myself a spiritual person which I never did before. Having that spirituality has made me a much happier person and I doubt I would have discovered it or realized it's potential if it wasn't for my eating disorder.

- We learn to love and respect ourselves. For most of us our low self esteem probably played a big part in our eating disorder. Of course many people without eating disorders and low self esteem often have a higher sense of love and respect for themselves than we start off with but do they stop to question it or appreciate the skill of loving and respecting themselves. Do they question if they could love themselves more? Be nicer to themselves? Or see it as a priority? We learn the importance of these skills and it is such a good feeling when you reach that point where you can accept yourself and feel good about yourself. We learn the techniques to increase our self acceptance more and more giving us the potential to have such good self esteem if we allow ourselves to.

- We become stronger. All I want to do to elaborate on this is share some quotes with you which I really think emphasis the strength we are able to gain through suffering.
"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength."
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."
"In the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer."
"Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you."

- We learn to manage our emotions and understand them. We have the opportunity to become emotionally healthy people who not only stop using food to deal with emotions but learn the healthiest way to deal with them. When we understand our emotions and why we feel the way we do they become easier to deal with. Now we understand them we are prepared for life. Of course they will affect us but we have the potential to be in a place where we can deal with them in the best possible way.

- We are able to appreciate other people's problems and understand other people better. When you learn so much about the connection between thoughts, feelings, behavior and life experiences you begin to have a lot more sympathy for people. I find I am now a lot less judgmental about people because you never know what is going on in someone's life. You are able to understand the layers there are to people and see beyond the exterior.

- We are able to appreciate life. When you've been through hell and back the freedom of recovery feels amazing. You are able to appreciate every breath of fresh air, every moment of happiness, every bit of energy you have, every moment of enjoyment, every thing that makes you smile. You are thankful for getting through to the other side to such a beautiful new world and you are ready to embrace it and love every moment of life.

So if I could go back and change my experience, would I? Probably not. It has made me who I am today and that is a much stronger and happier person. It has taught me to see life in a new way and understand life and myself in a new way. Recovery has provided me with skills for life not just connected to beating my eating disorder but in continuing to be a happy, healthy person. So I won't look back at my eating disorder with regret but with relief and a sense of achievement because I got through it and it has given me so much to be thankful for.