“How long should you try? Until.” – Jim Rohn

Destination Recover(ed): Day 678

I've been carrying this poem around with me in my life for about 8 years. It finally seems fitting.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver ~

How Changing Visual Cues Can Affect Attitudes About Weight by NANCY SHUTE

With most Americans fat or fatter, you'd think we'd be lightening up on the anti-fat attitudes.

Alas, no. Even doctors often think their overweight patients are weak-willed.

But changing negative attitudes about body size might be as simple as changing what you see. When women in England were shown photos of plus-sized women in neutral gray leotards, they became more tolerant.

When the women were shown photos of anorexic women, attitudes became more positive there, too. "Showing them thin bodies makes them like thin bodies, more, and showing them fat bodies makes them like fat bodies more," says Lynda Boothroyd, a psychology researcher at Durham University in England, who led the study. She calls it a "visual diet," changing what your eyes eat.

Why the unflattering leotards? Boothroyd and her colleagues wanted neutral clothing to sever the link between thinness and success that's so strong in Western cultures.

The researchers also tested photos of women in designer clothes and found the test subjects thought better of the well-dressed women, fat or thin. The glamour effect existed independent of the change in perception caused by repeatedly seeing the leotard-clad women.

All the study participants still preferred thinner-than-average bodies, but their preferences did move up or down depending on what they saw.

Perhaps that's why we're so obsessed with thinness, even if most of the people around us are found to be larger. We're constantly fed images of very slim actresses and models, all beautifully dressed. "All you have to do is watch five minutes of TV and you see more thin bodies than you would all day on the street," Boothroyd says.

There's no question that culture affects not just attitudes about weight, but body size itself. When Zulu women move from South Africa to England, their body size preference shifted from the full figures favored in Africa to a midway point between that and the thin ideal in the UK, Boothroyd says. Her work is published in the current issue of the online journal PLOS One.

But that shift clearly hasn't happened in doctors. Another study in the same issue of PLOS One found that doctors are strongly biased against fat people, even if they don't think they are.

This comes from a fascinating crowdsourced study, Project Implicit, which is designed to tease out attitudes that people are unwilling or unable to articulate. Led by psychologist Brian Nosek, an associate professor at the University of Virginia, the project offers dozens of free online tests that let you test your implicit biases – and contribute to science, too.

Participants are shown photos of faces, and are tested on their speed to identify them and associate them with positive and negative words.

More than 359,000 people took the project's "Weight Implicit Association Test" online, and about 2,300 said they were doctors. Even though physicians are constantly reminded about their need to work with patients to maintain a healthy weight, they had the same strong anti-fat bias as the public.

"We don't know if this affects how doctors behave clinically," says Janice Sabin, an assistant professor in bioinformatics and medical education that the University of Washington in Seattle, who led the new study.

But other studies have shown that many doctors view obese patients as unattractive and difficult to work with, and that obese women get inappropriate comments about their weight from their doctor.

Given that, maybe it's time to show doctors some plus-sized photos — of hefty physicians.

Destination Recover(ed): Day 677

Thanksgiving was pretty awesome this year. In the past it has always been a chaotic time. Ever year I intend on arriving at my Dad's early in the morning so I can feel like I got to spend enough time over there before having to leave to go to my Mom's for second Thanksgiving (which is a fucking nightmare if you have an eating disorder. As if ONE Thanksgiving dinner isn't traumatizing enough). I never want to leave my Dad's house when it comes time to go and I always wish I had gotten there earlier so it could feel like I stayed longer. So far this has never happened. I'm always running late. If I want to be at Dad's by 9am it's almost guaranteed that I will actually make it there around noon. We do a pot luck Thanksgiving at my Dad's. Dad and Mom always do the turkey (this year they deep fried it. *Awesome* fun times not blowing the house up!) and stuffing and then everyone else brings a side dish. We sign up on the list. It's fun. I made fresh from scratch (NOT from a can) green bean casserole and also fresh homemade cranberry sauce (plus I brought the kind in a can for my sister, who loves it). This year I was ready! This year I was on schedule! Car loaded Thanksgiving Eve, ready to roll out of my driveway at 7am to drive from Stanwood to Shoreline to pick up my friend Natalie by 8am and then make the 1.5 hour drive to my Dad's arriving around 9:30am! No muss, no fuss, no chaos, no anxiety. 
Per usual I was late this year ... BUT not as late as the previous years, so we're making progress already! Last minute I decided to  prepare everything for my Mom that she wasn't able to get done because she was working back to back to back to back schedules at work. I think it's awesome that my Mom is the big head honcho where she works but it requires an obscene amount of her life, especially during the holidays where she is on blackout and isn't allowed to take days off and her company requires that she work until midnight on the eve of eves, and eves of holidays, and then turn around and be there at 4:00am the following mornings. So I felt bad this year and prepped all her food and recipes. I got in my car by 9:00am to go get Natalie. 2 hours late. DEAD FUCKING CAR BATTERY. Apparently when I loaded my car up before I went to go to bed (aka watch a movie because I actually didn't sleep for one second that night) I left the light on above the console. Awww MAN! Are you effing kidding me?! Unfucking believable! :::*pouty face*::: Mom to the rescue (which is completely out of character and uncommon for my Mom). She hands me her keys and says, just replace the gas so I can drive to work in the morning. OMG, am I actually going to be THANKFUL for my MOM this year?! Keys in hand, food and supplies transferred, on the road. I picked up Natalie, and after making a few stops (Walgreens and QFC for the alcohol my Mom called to see if I could pick up) We were at my Dad's house 11:45am. Record Time. I may or may not have sped, but the fact that there was absolutely NO TRAFFIC may have also contributed. And the best part? We were the first to arrive! Everything else basically went off without a hitch, not exactly on schedule, but whatever, family was together, we food was eventually cooked and everyone was set at the table. We started a new Thanks Giving tradition, too. Normally we would go around the table and each give thanks for what we were thankful for that year, but this year was different. This is the first Thanksgiving since my grandpa passed away on December 1st last year. Last year he wasn't present at the table because hew as in the hospital, but we were all kind of in an emotional cocoon last year, everything was awkward without grandpa who was the always the Turkey Carver and giver of thanks and Grace sayer. This year, without grandpa, we started new traditions in his memory and it was beautiful and sad and I cried at the table. Mom carved the Turkey this year (because my DAD doesn't know how to carve a turkey and pulled out the power tools, so Mom took over). My sister Rashel was home this year after a very long year of her taking off to find herself. Dad & Mom weren't wrought with the pain of dealing with Rashel's absence and grandpa's last few days. My Sister Crystal is pregnant with my nephew, Jonah, and she is so beautiful at 8.5 months pregnant (and always) and her and her husband are so happy. My other sister, Shannon wasn't going through (and as everything panned out, never went through) a divorce. We weren't in the emotional turmoil of being at the hospital every single day for a month to be with grandpa and see him so ill. I wasn't just discharged from the hospital, the same hospital and subsequently the exact same room as my grandpa. Grandma wasn't crazy, or withdrawn from the grief. We were OK. We made it through the year. We survived. We had an abundance of love and reasons to be thankful this year. We do every year. I have an amazing family, and not just at holidays. I gave thanks for that this year. I gave thanks that I know we are not "normal" in the way that my siblings talk to each other every day and my sisters are my best friends. I gave thanks that we say I Love You when we see each other on holidays as well as Tuesdays or because it's a Saturday. I gave thanks that I can send my Dad a text at 4am on Monday morning because I just felt like telling him I was thinking about him and he'll text me back and say he loves me and thanks for making his day. I gave thanks that I can open my email and see a random message from my grandma that she loves me and "That Is All". I gave thanks for Scarlett and Sandy for their patience, unconditional love and belief in me. And I gave thanks that for this day, I was able to be present in my life and not worry about the food I was giving thanks for. I was able to engage in conversation and comprehend when people talked to me. I gave thanks that I wasn't bundled up in blankets, looking gaunt and dead, just trying to make it through sitting at the table because I didn't have the strength to hold myself up and the chair was so painful to sit on because my bones protruded and there was nothing to protect them. I gave thanks that my mind wasn't cluttered with my eating disorder, although it was still present it wasn't loud, and it wasn't in charge. Another day with my eating disorder so present is what I strive for. It's my proof of my recovery. It's the bounty of all the hard work and the painful days. It's something tangible that I can say OK, so this is what it's like. Now I know. It's not just like working your ass off doing the the fucking impossible without a clue of what you're actually working towards ... you can't miss what you don't know, and I feel like sometimes I'm just working blindly, not knowing what exactly the payoff really is going to be, other than this "word" recovery ... which means "not dying" "healthy" "not sick" but you don't know what the FEELS like, you just know that you don't want to die, that you don't want "this" anymore, that you're tired of fighting, that "something" has to change. Recovery. You just want recovery. So you do the work. You cry the tears and you scream because it's hard. Some days it's impossible. And you fight, anyway. But you don't know what it's going to be like. You're taking a giant fucking leap of fate, feet first without knowing where you're going to end up ...  I suppose it's like a blind person trying to imagine color. How do you do that? Where would your brain go to know what the color RED is if you've never seen it before? I decided to blog about this because for one day, for one meal, I was free. Whether or not I decided to eat or try food, it didn't matter. I was thinking about my family, present, engaged in conversation, laughing, crying, being alive. This is what it's going to be like to be recover(ed), and while I may be a long long ways from recovery, I am recovering.

Destination Recover(ed): Day 676

Ok, I've been putting off writing this blog because I want it to be perfect. I had the most special spectacular day a week and a half ago and it was such an emotional and perfect day that I'm having a hard time putting words to my feelings in such a way that I can perfectly express how and what I was feeling. But I'm realizing that my need for perfection is what is constantly holding me back. So I'm just going to dive in and hope that I can get it across without jumbling it up and rambling on too much :) so bear with me here ...

 

So I had a spectacular day last week. It has taken me a while to blog about it because I had a difficult time wrapping my head around it to put words to my feelings. So that day started off as a not so good day. I had just left a particularly emotionally difficult appointment with Sandy. EMDR is fucking hard and it's so incredibly taxing on my body. I leave those appointments with the same empty euphoric feeling I used to crave when starving. The "nothingness" feeling. Empty. Only now instead of reveling in the feeling as "success" or "comfort" my brain instead automatically screams "Jesus Christ! I need an Ensure STAT!" (yay for small proofs of recovery!). So I show up for my appointment with Scarlett right after my appointment with Sandy and I'm beat. I'm exhausted. Trauma work is never fun, so I'm a little emotionally blah, not exactly feeling super awesome. I had just spent the last hour and a half realizing that I am affected by my sister's pregnancy in a traumatic way. That while I am so excited and proud and ecstatic and anxious and thrilled and happy, it brings up trauma issues for me. And no matter what I want or how I tell myself I feel, I'm not getting away from the underlying trauma. I can still be happy and excited for my sister, and be traumatized by it at the same time. But I can't pretend that it doesn't bother me, that it doesn't trigger trauma for me just because I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to go there or process it because I don't want to relive it, but there's no denying it and I'm coming to terms with the fact that I have to deal with it even though I don't want to. So it had been "that kind of a day" when I walked in the door at Ramey Nutrition. It actually kind of makes the whole day perfect actually. To have such a wide spectrum of emotion all in the same day and survive it as one of my most favorite days of my life ... it really makes it that much more fucking awesome of a day. Complete. So I had been set up to know that there was something special that was going to happen at my appointment with Scarlett, so I knew that going in but I never thought or expected what was going to happen. Appointment is going as normal and I'm giving the Scarlett the play by play from my appointment with Sandy, discussing intake and body image issues and then ... AND THEN ... there's the knock at the door ... and in walks this guy, who I recognize from Scarlett's pictures on Facebook, and I know his name but I've never met him before. So I'm a little confused as to what is going on and wondering why he's coming in and joining my appointment. I mean, not like "WTF is he doing here", but more like "I wonder what is going on". I won't give his name because I didn't tell him I was going to blog about him, but I so want to tell the world how awesome he is and how he touched my life and filled my soul. He was there because he reads my blogs and wanted to do something for me. What makes it so emotional for me is that I never fully realized how far this blog goes and how many people are reading it and how many people it's helping, whether it be support for someone with an eating disorder or just bringing to light what it's like for someone who doesn't have an eating disorder. A piece of my life and journey that one wouldn't otherwise know anything about. So in one of my blogs I wrote about not looking forward to winter because of the cold and what it felt like to be so cold because of my eating disorder. If you suffer from an eating disorder, you know what I'm talking about ... the cold gets down into your bones and you just can't warm up. Your body is tense all the time and it's exhausting. It's painful. My lips turn this purplish blue and feel like I look as though I'm being preserved on ice. It wears you down. I hate it. You don't have to have an eating disorder to know what this feels like either and it was something that he could identify with. So, as the story goes, my blog affected him. It's weird, it's like my life, what I go through as an every day thing affected the life of someone I don't know, have never met or crossed physical paths with. It's a concept I'm still wrapping my head around. To me, it's just my life, it's what I go through every day so nothing I do or say or write seems profound to me because it's just the way it is, it's just the way things go and I'm just writing about it. So he decided that he wanted to do something and here he was sitting across from me telling me how he reads my blog and explaining how he felt and how he wanted to get me something and he pulls out this coat. But it's not just a coat, it's an awesome coat, a coat that was special made. A coat that he had to call around to different companies to find someone who would help him with this coat. He read everyone he called my blog until he found someone that wanted to help him. (on a side note this coat did NOT come from REI who could care less and didn't want to help and now there is a year long boycott against them ...) A coat, because I get cold and I'm not looking forward to winter. A coat because he knows what it's like to feel that cold, even without having an eating disorder. Now I don't know how to articulate my emotions from this point. It's so much more than a coat. I mean, to have someone you don't even know do something so profound that you can't even speak ... it's surreal. To not have to worry about the cold this year because this coat is so fucking warm and enveloping and to have one less thing to worry about, to not have to dread that pain ... I'm just so touched. It's more than a coat to me. I feel safe in it. It's my armor. I've had a few rough days since then and in the midst of crying and dealing and feeling just so defeated and emotional, I put my coat on and curled up and created this safety nest inside my coat. And it may sound ridiculous, but I don't really care.  I updated my Facebook status that night (yes I'm a FB'er) because I felt this overwhelming gratitude and I needed to get it out but all I could say was this:

 

November 14 near Stanwood

At the moment I am at a loss for words to describe the most amazing day I have had. Today I feel beyond honored and blessed, enveloped by love and safety and truly inspired and motivated. I wish I could find the words to express the immensity of my emotions but for now I will revel in the comfort and joy of knowing that everything is exactly at should be and everything is going to be just fine. Thank You, with all my heart.

 

So I wanted to blog about it so I could say Thank You, you have truly touch my life in ways I may not ever be able to fully express ... and you have warmed my soul and made such a profound impact on my heart and will always be remembered for for helping me to my ultimate destination: recover(ed).

One of the best days of my life.

Great PHP Small Step!

Become Aware, Eating Disorders are Growing Rampantly!

Become Aware, Eating Disorders are Growing Rampantly!
Thank you Ashley! This will help a lot if people understand what you all are going through at Ramey Nutrition
http://www.rameynutrition.com/eating-disorder-recovery

Destination Recover(ed): Day 675

I have this horoscope that I have been carrying around since circa 2003. Well, I don't "carry" it around per se but this piece of paper that I've written it on has this way of resurfacing in my life at just the perfect moments. Oddly enough, each time it shows up on it's own, it leads to some sort of encounter with Scarlett ... which is an odd connection that I just made right now in this second, lol. It was this horoscope that either gave me the courage or confirmed my decision to start treatment in Bellevue, which eventually led to how I met Scarlett for the first time (I wasn't very nice and found every and any reason to hate her back then). The last time it showed up was during a life crisis. In fact, I had completely forgotten about the horoscope and I was in the middle of packing my things to move from Reno back home to Seattle .... I've vaguely touched on that time in my life in previous blog entries but that time in my life is what I will consider ground zero for me. Those were the darkest days of my life, my very bottom ... The horoscope fell out of the user's manual of my Netbook while I was packing. It literally fell in my lap while my friend and I were packing my things. I came back home to change something (anything) and shortly after moving back home in 2010 I was sitting in Scarlett's office hoping she would forgive all my shitiness from previous years and join my "Team Jessica". I also got the coin tattoos on my wrist the day after I moved back to Seattle in honor of this horoscope. Well, it showed up again last night ... at a really random place, my Grandparent's house. I'm not really sure how it made it's way here. I mean, it's not exactly impossible or strangely unusual, I have my own room here for the 1 night a week I spend here. It is kind of weird, though. Anyway, yesterday is hands down, going to be one of the best days of my life ... and I will blog about it later today because I think it's important to share ... but right now I wanted to share my horoscope from about 10 years ago, lol ... because I think it's important, too.

With the sun swimming in the glittery waters of the Piscean Sea, you're more inclined than usual to relish the glamors of things you can't understand, to be drawn to mystery, and surrender to the unknowable. I applaud your courage, imagination, and passion. Just one warning before you wade in over your head: The places you want to go will probably be good for you but may require a huge shift of personal paradigm. What I mean is, for months or years you've kept the royal coin of your kingdom POWER side up. If you want to venture into these new territories, it's time to flip the coin. The other side, of course, says: LETTING GO.

Destination Recover(ed): Day 674

November 14, 2012, 11:11pm

Sometimes I feel really motivated and I want to blog something great, I want to feel great about my choices to make progress in my recovery. Some days I feel like a positive ball of inspiration. Today is not one if those days.

Shit, I can move mountains and fly, why not swim? Today is a day if just getting through it. No drama. Nothing extreme. Just Wednesday... Hump Day... Humpback Whales... Whales swim... See, today's a good day to just swim.

Your Thoughts on How this Story Parallels Recovery

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19940 Ballinger Way
Shoreline, WA 98155

"People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them." ~George Bernard Shaw

Thanks Ashley!

Thanks Alice!

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No more risking me and my life on the eating disorder it's time for a new fear..it's called recovering (life)" -Alyssa G. http://www.rameynutrition.com/eating-disorder-recovery

A More Creative Version of Counting Sheep to Get to Sleep

For many patients at Ramey Nutrition, anxiety can get so high, that sleep can become almost impossible. This article comes from PubMed and was found helpful! Read on!

For insomniacs, focusing on personally engaging but nonarousing thoughts instead of ruminations seems to be more effective than standardized sleep hygiene.

Sleep-onset insomnia continues to be a widespread problem. Cognitive-behavioral approaches such as stimulus control therapy and more recently developed treatments (JW Psychiatry Feb 6 2012 [Free full-text Sleep article online | PubMed® abstract]) are quite effective, although used less often than medications. This small study introduces a very practical one-session intervention, cognitive refocusing therapy (CRT), to eliminate bedtime ruminations that many poor sleepers identify as the major stumbling block to getting to sleep.

Sixty-two college students were randomized to CRT plus standard sleep hygiene (SH; similar to stimulus control therapy) or SH alone. CRT participants were taught to identify personally engaging but nonarousing thoughts (e.g., song lyrics, TV program plots, recipes) that they would focus on when preparing for sleep or if they awoke later. Data on 51 students were analyzed.

After 1 month, both interventions were associated with large reductions in insomnia from baseline (within-subject effect size: CRT, 1.57; SH, 0.81), yielding a moderate improvement for CRT compared with SH after controlling for anxiety and depression (effect size, 0.60). The CRT group also showed a trend toward reduced nighttime arousal.

Comment: Insomnia is a complex problem with multiple causes, but this intervention is simple, brief, logical to the lay person, and effective. Clinicians, especially those in primary care, could offer this technique to their patients as a first-line intervention before prescribing hypnotic medications. The intervention seems to be a creative variant of the old "counting sheep" method, but is more likely to be effective because it employs personalized cognitive scripts that are more appealing and easier to focus on. The use of college students limits generalizability, although they are likely to have disturbed sleep and chaotic routines that make sleep more difficult.

— Peter Roy-Byrne, MD

Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry September 17, 2012

CITATION:

Gellis LA et al. Cognitive refocusing treatment for insomnia: A randomized controlled trial in university students. Behav Ther 2012 Jul 27; [e-pub ahead of print]. [Link to Behav Ther article abstract]

Copyright © 2012. Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.

Of Monsters and Men "Little Talks"

Of Monsters and Men "Little Talks"
Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I don't like walking around this old and empty house.
So hold my hand, I'll walk with you my dear

The stairs creak as I sleep,
it's keeping me awake
It's the house telling you to close your eyes

Some days I can't even dress myself.
It's killing me to see you this way.

'Cause though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

Hey! Hey! Hey!

There's an old voice in my head
that's holding me back
Well tell her that I miss our little talks.

Soon it will all be over, buried with our past
We used to play outside when we were young
and full of life and full of love.

Some days I feel like I'm wrong when I am right.
Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear.

'Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same.
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

You're gone, gone, gone away,
I watched you disappear.
All that's left is a ghost of you.
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,
there's nothing we can do,
Just let me go, we'll meet again soon.

Now wait, wait, wait for me, please hang around
I'll see you when I fall asleep.

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same.
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Don't listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same.
Hey!

Though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore (x3)

Destination Recover(ed): Day 673

In the past few days I have heard from several people that I seem depressed lately... Thing is, I'm not depressed. I'm kind of really sad, but certainly not depressed. I've been really in my head these past few weeks, contemplative. I'm a little confused about where I am and I'm trying to figure it out without "figuring it out" ... I have an INSANE need for control that always has me trying to perfect this journey ... I always have to know what's going on, I need to understand what happened, I need to know what's next, what I'm supposed to be doing next. I have a hard time letting go and "trusting the process" because I don't want it to just happen. I want to be prepared for what's coming. I want to be able to expect whatever is going to happen every step of the way.
In my mind I'm always thinking, "Ok I did that, now what I do? Ok, that happened, and I did this. Ok, now what? What's next?" That's not trusting the process, that's controlling the process. It's frustrating. It's confusing. I feel like I'm always doing everything the wrong way. Maybe it's because I'm terrified that if I don't do it "right" then it won't work for me. Maybe I'm scared shitless that I might miss something and then I'm fucked ... as if recovery is going to hurl towards me and if I'm not prepared for it, standing in just the right spot, arms outstretched with a big giant "X" on my forehead, that it's going to hit me at the wrong angle and somehow skip off me, bounce off into the atmosphere and I'll miss it. It'll be gone. And now, because I'm overwhelmed by all of this and I keep trying to process it and process all these other emotions that don't even have shit to do with shinola that my genious fucking brain has decided that the best thing to do is to shut down a little, curl up into the ever so warm and comfortable eggshell. Safe and protected from everything bad and in turn, everything ... good.
I feel like I've got all this shit in my head that I want to explore and my outlets are all plugged up or off limits. One outlet says use me! But it's only going to electrocute me. The other outlet says don't use me anymore, use that outlet over there. That outlet isn't available all the time and besides, that outlet actually works but I'd have to deal with shocks and jolts of electricity every once in a while .... Well, that's terrifying. So I'm feeling safe in my retreat back in my egg right now because I'm really not sure what to do at the moment. I want to cry. Some more. This feeling ... this non feeling ... is familiar. It's all too familiar and I know I can't stay here long or I'll just end up getting cooked, one way or another.

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

Ashley can't be stopped!

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

Ashley's awesome inspiration!

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

“Perfect is a word; without human language, it would not exist.” - Ramey Nutrition PHP Patient

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

“If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate.” – C. Joybell C.

Dena Cabrera, Psy.D., CEDS Helps Us Deal with the Holidays!

The holidays are fast approaching and for many people with eating disorders this can be a very stressful time of year. The already cramped holiday schedules, get-togethers, and large to-do lists combined with trying to do their best to continue following the Meal Plan and maintaining recovery can be very difficult. Clinicians can work with clients in advance to help them better navigate some of the struggles that surround the holiday season. Clinicians can work with clients to:

1. Set realistic expectations - Holiday excitement also brings demands - between shopping, baking, feasting, crafting, parties, and entertaining, it can get quite overwhelming. By setting realistic expectations, we don't set ourselves up to become stressed or freaked out because we overextended ourselves. Understand that, oftentimes, pressure during the holiday season frequently comes from consumer-media to buy, spend and do.

2. Stay Balanced - As we become busy with holiday tasks, activities, and demands, we can lose ourselves. Sleep, eating, and exercise often become out of balance and compromised. It's important to stay consistent and not neglect healthy living. Thus, put yourself as your #1 priority - be active, eat balanced meals, and get adequate sleep. If we wear ourselves out, then holidays become a chore and we lose the fun.

3. Find meaning in the season - It is easy to get swooped up in the hustle and bustle, but for everyone it is not a season of ultimate "joy." There are lots of emotions that surface for people at this time of year. In fact, many people find the holidays difficult and challenging. It's important for those who do struggle with the holidays to reach out for support. Recreate meaning in the holiday season that is comfortable or at least tolerable for you, as well as planning ahead. If you know the difficulties the holiday season may bring, prepare to take care of yourself emotionally and physically during this time.

4. Preparing ahead - Time goes so fast. Make a list and check it twice. Don't wait until the last minute as this only creates stress. Just remember, time goes fast and getting it done now is a way of taking care of yourself.

Recovery at Ramey Nutrition, Where Your Recovery is YOURS!

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Destination Recover(ed): Day 672

November 8, 2012

Lately recovery sucks. I want so bad to just be done with this process. I want to be able to go to bed at night and wake up recover(ed) and not have to go through the re-feeding, not have to experience the weight restoration process or put myself through the EMDR and trauma issues. I just want it to magically happen while I'm asleep and wake up healthy; mind, body and soul. I don't want to celebrate surviving eating a slice of pizza. I just want it to not matter. I want to cry over spilled milk and not the fucking milk. This morning I just feel ridiculously emotional. I'm worn out and worn down and don't feel like being strong. I'm worried that my sense of "being strong" has come int he form of ambivelance, and maybe "being strong" means I have to let go and fully give in to recovery, trust the process. Yesterday I made the choice to increase my intake on my own. I want to catch my metabolism, I want to just put a little weight on and go from there. I want my body to stop over-reacting and just trust me. I'm feeling a little defeated today. This is when I just want to hunker down, do the fucking shit, and be held safe ... "I know, buddy, I know." This is the ugly part.

Saving Private Dale

"Acceptance of yourself is more life enhancing than gaining the acceptance of others."

-I have the ability to maintain & hold the truth that I am worthy of life & the opportunities it brings me. I don't need to transform or mold myself into something that the world wants me to be because more often than not it doesn't match my "squirrels" (values) or true meaning. By honoring myself, perception, & belief, I can hold on to the realization that I am good enough just as I am & I don't need to prove to anyone that I am capable of living a fulfilling life.

Alyssa's Overwhelming Small Step!

"Gaining weight is like giving birth. Painful as Hell, but worth the life at the end."
-Alyssa Dale