Sunday

It's a beautiful day today and I'm glad to be back home in Atlanta. I am going to have a difficult week ahead of me as I'll be staying alone at P's apartment to dog sit Lula while he's out of town.

I figure if I'm going to succeed, I have to make plans and if/then statements now. I am almost always okay at work. I go in at 8 am and leave at the end of the day, usually 4:30 or 5. On most days, I run immediately after work, occupy myself by taking a walk to get a snack or doing some more work at the office, then go to an AA meeting, support group, or out with my friends after that. My day is going to change pretty drastically since I'll have to come home and let Lula out of her crate.

So here's what I'm thinking (I know this isn't interesting to readers, but it helps me tremendously to outline this for myself!). I'll get to work early as usual, and run after work right at 4:30 for 30 minutes, since that's all I'm supposed to do anyway. I'll head right over to P's apartment after that and walk Lula for a little while, stopping at my favorite coffee shop in P's neighborhood for my post-run snack. After that, I'll still go to my support group or AA meeting, then eat dinner after and that should work out fine. If I sense any trouble, or room for screw ups on Monday, I'll dig a little deeper and figure out what I can do to avoid these situations during the rest of the week.

I really want to be able to trust myself alone soon. I hate that I'm still very reliant on my routines and others, particularly P, to "monitor" me, even though he doesn't even know he's doing it. Just by hanging out with him every evening while I eat dinner and an evening snack helps tremendously and I truly hope I can rely on self-accountability in the immediate future.

In the mean time, I want to enjoy my beautiful Sunday and get some beautiful sun and outside activities in today, particularly the farmer's market (which I love and have money for today!!) and a neighborhood festival that I'm particularly fond of. To Sundays!

Last day of the conference

Today is the final day of the conference I've attended for the past 3 days. I wish I could say that it's been a dream of a 3 days and I've been 100% accountable to myself, but that wouldn't quite be the truth.

In the past, I've spent most of my time at conferences starving in sessions, slaving away in the hotel gym, drinking too much while alone at the bar, then reaching my wits' end and ultimately purging, cycling into binging and purging, the conference away. It's a depressing, devastating cycle, and one that I fall into each time I'm left to my own devices.

This conference was going to be different.  I resolved to avoid eating disorder and compulsive behavior at all costs and choose to enjoy my time exploring a new city instead. Each (very early) morning, I dragged myself out of bed and did my run. I think this was a much better strategy than waiting til the evening after the conference concludes because I'm much more likely to eat what I want, when I want, if I've already finished my run. When I save my run for later in the day, I tend to resort back to safe foods high in protein and carbohydrates and devoid of any fat. I think it's this disordered differentiation of foods as allowed and not allowed that really sets me up.

Anyway, after my run, I ate breakfast at the hotel buffet, free to conference attendees (!!) and it was probably my favorite meal of each day. I love experimenting with different combinations of granola and yogurt, adding a variety of sweeteners like jelly or honey, fresh and dried fruit, and almond slivers or walnuts. I missed my usual oatmeal combinations by today, the last day of the conference, but not too much! I'm definitely going to start rotating oatmeal with the yogurt/granola combo, especially because I feel my weight has dropped over the past week or so. But that's for another discussion.

Each morning at breakfast, I grabbed an apple and granola bar to eat for snack since I noticed intense hunger by 11 or 11:30 am. I'm proud of myself for adding this snack since breakfast concluded at 8 am and lunch didn't start until almost 1 pm, way too long for this revved up metabolism. Lunch was fine each day and consisted of a veggie sandwich and salad from a wonderful spread of food. It made me really appreciate the food I've been keeping myself from for all of these years. I'm truly sad by how much time I wasted and opportunities I let slip by in my 9-10 year struggle.

I ran into roadblocks each evening, mostly due to the fact I had to present my poster and run a booth in a conference room with an open bar. This is still so difficult and anxiety inducing that I'm almost positive the slip-ups I've experienced during recovery have stemmed directly from situations with alcohol involved. Anyway, I managed to get a healthy and tasty dinner each night, but ended up purging since I was alone in my room for each meal. Next time, I have to eat outside or somewhere without a beckoning bathroom, and in the company of others. I did find something to snack on each night before bed though, a small victory in itself.

Anyway, I was hoping to have time for more updates during the conference, but I was very busy, running from sessions to our booth, to my room to finish work, etc. I'm ready to head home to my P and his Lula dog now, and I'm glad I've managed to (mostly) enjoy the conference and show myself I can be somewhat accountable to myself at this point in recovery.

Can't wait to be back in Atlanta for my next post! P and I and another couple are going to the Lion King this evening!