Thursday 21 January 2016

How did I end up like this?

I guess a question most picky eaters like me ask themselves is how did I end up like this? or even why me?

I know its a question I often ask, I wonder why I am the way I am. I honestly think if I could figure out why I am the way I am, really find the root of the problem then maybe I could fix it.

I think about phobias and how they often start with a bad experience. I have never had a bad experience with food that either myself or my mother are aware of. I am not scared of food the way I would be if I had a phobia, other people's food doesn't bother me at all.

Was I just a fussy child that was allowed to get away with it? That's what the internet wants you to believe. Most articles about adult picky eaters will have at least a dozen comments along those lines, if it isn't the theme of the article itself that is. This is the hardest question to answer because I was never force fed anything as a child, never left sitting at the table with the same meal in front of me till I ate it the way some folks are. I never felt forced to eat things I didn't like so that would suggest I was allowed to get away with my fussiness. However I was always like this, at school, at home, at friends houses. Surely if it was just to get my own way I would have eaten those bloomin' potatoes in school so I could get outside to play, but I just couldn't they were a bizarre texture and I was always sitting in the lunch hall till lessons started again.

Lets just say for a minute that I was a fussy kid who was allowed to get away with being that way - then why as an adult cant I change? I desperately want to eat better, am at my wits end trying to lose weight and literally begging doctors for a solution I know they will never find. If I was just a fussy kid then why didn't I eat salad like my friends did when I was a teenager? Why did I refuse to go to events that involved food because I was too scared there would be nothing I could eat? I didn't choose to be this way.

Why does even the thought of some foods make me sick? Why did I once vomit because my hotdog had touched an onion and I could taste the offending onion even though there were no onions there? I just don't understand why I am like this, why me? I want so badly to change.

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Finally done the food shop

I was supposed to do the food shop the other day but I ended up doing a whole load of other stuff and simply didn't have time.

Today I went to Costco and got my usual supplies from there. I buy things like bottles of pepsi max out of there because they work out a lot cheaper but I don't buy much of their food because its usually very expensive. Today they had a deal on steak mince so I bought a 2.5 kilo packet which I will use to make lasagne and bolognaise tomorrow.

I promised myself I would use at least one day this week to cook some meals up that I can freeze so that gives me plenty to be getting on with. I also went to the regular supermarket and bought some chicken so that I can make that slimming world chili chicken thing that I made last week. Again I bought quite a big packet so I can make a good amount to give some for freezing.

I am very much looking forward to having some meals pre-made in the freezer just waiting to be reheated and eaten. Sometimes my biggest problem is that I cant be bothered cooking or that I don't have the time it takes to make a decent meal. When you have SED it takes twice as long to cook because you need to cut everything a certain way or cook it just so. For example if I am cooking chicken I cannot just chop that chicken into chunks. I must first cut all the fat or whatever that white stuff is off it, remove the cartilage and take out all the veiney bits. As I am chopping if I come across a vein or something like that then I need to get rid of it, that means checking every chunk as I cut it. It probably takes me twice as long to chop chicken as it would a normal person.

I used to be quite good at making things in advance to freeze but I somehow got out of the habit over the years but it is a habit I plan on returning to. Once I get back into the swing of buying and cooking the extra. Its not like it takes much more time and effort really because I am simply making bigger portions of whatever I am making at the time and freezing what I don't use.

I think being organised is going to be the key to my healthier eating/weight loss plans because it is too easy to turn to the same old junk when you are busy. It also gives me the chance to experiment (as much as someone like me can anyway) with foods in the comfort of my own kitchen. If I like them then its something else to add to the safe food list and I can potentially take it to work with me for lunch.

I still think work is my biggest barrier and this is one way round it. all I have to do is get a little more organised, surely it cant be that hard.

Monday 18 January 2016

Need to do a food shop

Food shopping is something I struggle with, not necessarily because of my SED but because I just hate shopping. I hate the crowds and the waiting about, most of all I hate wondering around trying to find things that I just cant find.

This usually leads to me buying the same old stuff every time which does nothing to help my pitiful attempts at eating better. I buy foods I know are safe, foods I know I can eat and nothing else an while it might make sense to buy things I know I can eat what happens is I buy the same old junk week in week out.

I sometimes think its because I simply cant be bothered checking the ingredients of every single thing I buy, other times I think its because I am scared of trying things only not to like them and have to throw them away. I cant afford to throw food away, its as simple as that.

I am off on holiday just now and one of the things I promised I would do is cook and freeze some meals ready for going back to work. I managed to cook a slimming world meal last week (with a few minor variations) so I plan on making a massive pot of that and freezing it. I also like bolognaise so I will make a big pot of that too, I might make it in the slow cooker actually.

Other than those two dishes, I have no other meals planned. Perhaps I should work on my meal planning skills before I head out for my shopping. I did manage to find four slimming world recipes that I could adapt to make them edible, the only problem was they were all chicken based. I love chicken don't get me wrong, but I really don't want to eat nothing but chicken for weeks at a time.

I am going to go back to the website where I got the four recipes from to see if I can find some more meals that I can adapt to suit my impossible eating habits. This could take a while!

Saturday 16 January 2016

Going to give the doctor another try

I am on annual leave next week and I plan on trying to see the doctor. I say trying because it is about as difficult to get an appointment at my surgery as it is to get a lunch date with the queen but I will call and ask.

I have a few issues niggling away at me that I want to discuss with them. My weight is an obvious one and I am sure the subject of my picky eating will come up so I will try my best to explain it to them and not get frustrated when they don't understand.

I have a few other things that I want to get checked out but I have a feeling my weight will bear the brunt of the blame in their eyes. This time however, I can at least show them that I am trying to do something about it.

I may have gotten disillusioned for a while, you could maybe even say I gave up briefly but I have come to the realisation that I cannot let food control me any more.

I am back using the noom app on my phone and have found a pretty supportive group there and I have even found some slimming world recipes that I have been able to adapt in ways that mean I might eat them. I have only actually made one of them so far but do you know something? it was actually quite nice!

My partner has agreed to try to eat better too. He doesn't have a picky eating problem, in fact before we lived together he would eat everything and anything, apart from mushrooms. He does however have a problem where he eats junk when I eat junk, both of us have gotten lazy when it comes to food. We rely on the same old rubbish food time and time again because we know I will be able to eat it.

We have both realised that it will take the two of us working together to really make a change. I think it will be much easier with us both trying hard to think up and make healthier meals. I just have to trust him to cook for me, something I still struggle with even after all these years.

Sunday 3 January 2016

New year, new me

Who am I kidding? I would give anything to say that this is the year I will finally change. I will somehow resolve to eating better and it will magically happen because I willed it so. That I will put in hours at the gym and that for the first time ever it wont all be for nothing. I don't see any of that happening.

When I first started blogging about my life as a picky eater I was so full of optimism, I had found support, found other people like me and that was somehow all the validation I needed to realise that I did have a real eating disorder. If people could overcome disorders like anorexia or bulimia then I could overcome this.

Now I am so disheartened that I haven't even updated my blog since September! You see I have realised that there are some major differences between selective eating disorder and the more well known eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. The first major difference is that no one knows that selective eating disorder is even a real thing, not even medical professionals! The look I got when I tried to explain to my doctor is something that will forever stick with me. The other major difference is that there is help available for the more known disorders, there are clinics that specialise in treating them and all sorts of therapies for people to try. For selective eating disorder there is nothing at all, except advice to eat better which is impossible.

I have myself convinced that there is something medically wrong with me, perhaps an underactive thyroid or polycystic ovaries. As a nurse I do know that I have many of the symptoms of both of these but I also know how dangerous it is to get yourself convinced that there is something wrong with you, you start thinking you have all the symptoms, even if what you actually have is the complete opposite.

Surely there has to be something wrong with me though? this just isn't normal. No matter how much better I try and eat, how much less I eat and how many hours I have spent in the gym. No matter how active I am at work as a nurse on my feet for thirteen hours a day I have yet to lose anymore than the six kilos I originally lost in the first few months of starting this blog. No matter how often my phone tells me I am not eating enough, I cannot lose another pound. That cant be normal surely?

Having vile hatred for food I have never even tasted is not normal, neither is only eating four vegetables or having to have your food cooked a certain way before you could even consider it as being food. Recognised disorder or not, this is simply not a normal relationship with food.

I think back to my childhood. Did I ever have a bad experience with food? Not that I can remember. Well apart from that time I went to the boy next door's house for dinner and his mum made hard boiled eggs, I didn't even know what they were. I literally didn't recognise them as being food. To me eggs were those things with the yellow stuff that you dipped your toast into after you had scraped away all the horrible looking white stuff. I had no idea what to do with a hard boiled egg!

I have had issues with food quite literally since the day I was born according to my mother. Surely I didn't learn that behaviour at a day old??

I am so worried for the future. I know where I am headed - type two diabetes that I will be unable to control with a diet like mine, a lifetime of tablets or maybe even injections because of it. Knees that will buckle under my weight due to osteoarthritis, an inability to climb stairs, having to give up the job I love with every fibre of my being and that I have worked so damn hard to get because I simply cannot stand for thirteen hours a day anymore. Eventually I will become housebound because of the pain, I wont be able to get up and down the stairs to get out. I wont be able to go shopping or out with friends. Everything I have worked so hard for will be gone and I will be stuck in the house getting fatter because I cannot exercise and I eat like a toddler.

I don't want any of this. I know I have to change, get healthier, get fitter, get thinner. The question is how the hell do I go about doing that? I honestly have no idea but if I want the life I have finally made for myself I know I have to find a way.