This was my dinner last night:

Beautiful, right?  And I’m still struggling with whether or not it is/was enough.  These days I am drawn to grilled veggies and salads when I go out.  Okay, that doesn’t sound SO bad.  But then I end up snacking when I get home on flatbread crackers and cheese.

I struggle so much to let a meal out, or with others, be the end of my eating.  I always am looking to leave a little bit of room so that I can eat more when I am alone at home.

Why? I vacillate on the reaons but I think it is association with comfort and relaxation.  Maybe. But even that doesn’t quite ring true.  It certainly is a good thing to explore if I am to change this pattern.  This pattern that makes it a heck of a lot easier to be alone.

Now that I write that, I wonder if part of that drive right now is this weird state I’m in of spending quite a bit of time with others (who I don’t know that well) contrasted with a loneliness BECAUSE I don’t know people well here.  I gravitate toward tending to my feelings by restricting when out then eating alone later.

I also need to admit that a part of it is that there are things I want to eat and I am denying myself b/c I remain scared of gaining weight.  Of losing my attractiveness and appeal.  Things that I know will pass anyway yet I cling to now.  

So fickle and shallow are my ways and yet so deep are the emotions and thoughts beneath.

My nemesis – pizza.

Sometimes I’m not sure exactly the purpose of writing this blog. Yet really I do. It is keeping me accountable for my food issues at a time when it can be very easy to pretend things are fine just because I’m eating food I wouldn’t at home.

Which brings me back to that nemesis of pizza.

Last night I went out with an old friend. I’ve been wanting to try pizza again and this seemed a great opportunity. By “try”, I am referring to both conquering the fear of the calories and just as significant, conquering the BS challenge.

For the first challenge, I did… okay. My mind was on the calories and I did leave pieces at the end. Yet I ate and enjoyed so those are success points.

The second? Better than in the past, yet still not good. It’s the combination of cheese and carbs. The rise is slow and steady and insidious (kind of like developing an ED… hmm). I used a mix of regular and square bolus and ended up hovering at 15 for most of the night (of course with then some added correction boluses). Being away, it’s hard, b/c I really don’t want to have a stubborn low while here. That gets too scary.

It may be that pizza is something that I just have to forego. It’s hard to say that with a clear conscience of it being a diabetes health choice and not an ED choice.

Sometimes it is murky. 

Tonight’s challenge? Pasta.

I just finished writing in my journal and it was, as always, illuminating

The entry started with a statement of how bad my eating has been today because “I was really hungry this morning and so I ate an early lunch.”

It is, again as always, shocking to me how insidious and deep the ED voice is and how difficult it is for me to hear its presence. Because in reality, eating an early lunch when I was hungry is precisely what a healthy, non-ED person would do. So the failure was actually a success. Even if it still sits funny with me.

Less of a success has been too much time today spent trolling the Internet for where to eat. It is one of my most stubborn ED behaviours and one that pops up whenever I feel some conflicted emotions such as today’s feeling of uncertainty about the future (both of the day and also of my life – the big and the little questions).

I did buy a really yummy looking panino for after my hike tonight.

There was, however, an awkward moment. The gentleman in the paninoteca heated the sandwich up and gave it to me clearly assuming I was going to eat it right away and I lacked the words to explain it was for later. I managed to pay and leave but I was very close to tears. Even now I can feel them close. Food does such funny things to my emotions. Let me try to rephrase that, my reactions to food carry emotional content. In this case, perhaps, the experience was capturing my overall strong desire to be a part of this culture and place and, in my mind, the clear gap that exists before that reality.

Food is where I place all of my emotional content. Still.

Now I guess I better plan a bit about how to manage my insulin with that – hiking is tough for me to get the balance right. Throw in some whole grain bread for the panino and it might be a challenge tonight. I’ll try not to get frustrated.

I got to have a naked shower tonight!

I think this might be a term and a concept particular to me but I do hope that there are other diabetics out there who can relate. Maybe you have your own special term?

What do I mean by naked shower? I mean when the stars and the days align and I get to shower on a day when I change both my CGM sensor and also my infusion set. It happens every 3rd or 4th sensor which, I know is not that rare, but typically my daily shower includes an awareness, even if muted, of adhesives and water and detach-ment. Because of this, it feels incredibly freeing when I get to have a shower with no thoughts of soap and sticking and where I can safely use my loofah sponge.

Some days it truly is the small things for me.

My shower was blissful.

Well, if I am going to write here then I shall strive to do so with honesty, not just the highlights.

This little story started out as a highlight… I went to a caffe for my cappucino and cornetto alla crema.  It’s a place I went on my first trip to Turin.  The barman was extremely friendly and helpful and I remember how energized I felt last time.  Anyhow the barista today put a tiny spoon with cream on my plate along with the coffee and I wasn’t sure what to do and decided to be brave and ask someone else at the bar.  The woman I asked nodded that yes, I was to stir it into the coffee.  The man next to me was watching and added that it’s like sugar, and also better with plain coffee.  I think he was a little amused by me.

In this caffe, you pay after and he was behind me in line and pointed out the sweets in the case and mentioned they are specialties of Turin.  So I asked some questions and bought a couple of kinds.  The one he named was “bacio di dama” – “lady’s kiss”.

By the way this was all in Italian so I was feeling, again, energized and proud.

Then the ‘not-so-proud but I’m here to be honest’ bit.  I walked in the park was was running a bit low so decided to try the sweets.  Almost without even thinking I bit into each of them in turn, chewed and spit them out.  The habits of my ED are so ingrained that it really took me a few moments to recognize how eating disordered that was.  I wish I could say I only feel shame and disappointment but I admit there’s still that small part of me that is cheering the whole thing on and celebrating the avoidance of extra calories.

However, the positive is that I don’t want that part anymore.  Even as I feel this slight joy, I recognize how unhealthy it is and how much I don’t want that life.  I want to eat the bacio di dama not just taste it.

I’d love to say “that’s it.  I will never do that again” but I recognize that’s too cocky.  However, I will say that I plan to be more aware and strive to only put in my mouth what I feel capable of eating.  That is a goal I can work with right now.