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!

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.

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.

So I went hungry again today, I really should know better

I was in such a rush this morning and if I am honest I just didn't fancy the pasta I had prepared yesterday for my lunch so I decided to take my chances with the canteen. The food is rotten but they usually have paninis or toasties I can eat and I figured that would do.

Unfortunately we were so busy on the ward that by the time I had gotten to go for my break all the decent ones were gone. I was stuck with the actual canteen food. The only think on the menu I can stand was roast beef. Problem is I don't actually like roast beef, its always fatty but it was the only thing without loads of veg through it so I tried it.

The beef was so fatty I didn't even have more than one bite and the potatoes were rock solid so I had nothing to eat at all for my whole twelve hour shift. I wonder why I have a headache now?

I actually meant to check my blood sugar when I got home but I forgot all about it until after I had eaten and it would have been pointless then. I have mums old meter for just this type of occasion, I want to know what living like this is doing to my body. I want to know if I really am killing myself slowly and what, if anything I can do about it.

I have been trying really hard this year but I don't feel like I have accomplished anything other than adding a daily multivitamin to my morning routine. I don't feel any better and I have lost such a small amount of weight that I am honestly beginning to wonder if any of it is really worth it. I literally feel sick at the thought of changing my diet, but yet I want so badly to eat better.

You hear all these stories about people who start eating better and almost instantly they have all this energy, not me. I still feel tired all the time, still don't sleep anything close to enough and still work twelve hour shifts that might kill me if I don't do something about my lack of energy and sleep.

I have all but given up alcohol, not actually through choice but because I have a car now and I am always thinking that I might need to drive tomorrow and I wouldn't drive if I had been drinking the night before. I don't feel any better.

I take a multivitamin every day, I don't feel any better.

I eat more vegetables than I ever have in my life. I don't feel any better.

I am more active than I have ever been. I don't feel any better.

I have lost a little weight. I don't feel any better.

What exactly do I have to do to feel even just a little bit better?

I just want to be accepted for who I am

I have said before that my picky eating doesn't really bother me, and for the most part it doesn't. There are a few exceptions though, one of which is when I have contact with health professionals.

I am a health professional myself and I cannot imagine being as judgemental about people's life choices as some are about my picky eating - and that's not even a choice! I mean take smoking as an example, its a choice some people make and it can, and often does lead to health problems. However health professionals seem to understand that smoking is an addiction and that while it can be overcome, its very difficult for the person to do that. Sure they offer advice to stop, but it usually ends there.

With my picky eating however its almost always 'you need to eat more vegetables' well sorry but I cant do that! I ate my first vegetable in my early 20's so as far as I am concerned, the four vegetables that I do occasionally eat are an improvement. I am not asking for a pat on the back for managing to eat four vegetables, I understand how ridiculous that would be. But I do expect people to try to understand.

I know that there is not a lot of information out there on selective eating disorder, and that most health professionals have never met someone like me. I understand and appreciate that. However I also remember a time when there was no support for people to stop smoking, there is now. Everything has to start somewhere, all I want is support, or even understanding.

I was at the nurse last week, she informs me that I have lost around 8 kilos since I seen her last year. She told me she was happy that I have lost something and that things seem to be heading in the right direction for me, she even said she was proud that I had managed to lose weight despite my limited diet which she understands a little.

The doctor on the other hand tells me I should consider seeing a dietician. I told her I have done that before and it didn't work out, all they did was try to get me to eat more vegetables. The doctor reliably informs me that the field of dietetics has come a long way since I was a child so I asked her 'well what will they do then? if it will help I will go' She tells me 'oh they will look at what you are eating and advise you on how to eat better' I swear its like she doesn't even hear me!

I told her that simply isn't possible for me, if it was as easy as simply being told whats good for me I would have been 'cured' a long time ago. I know I could lose all this weight no problem if I could eat nothing but salad for a few months, I cannot do that it is not possible! She then basically accused me of not being willing to try and I did something I have never done in my life before - I got up and walked out!

All I want is for her to understand how hard I actually am trying, and I am getting there, just very very slowly.