Hungry?

I wouldn’t know. I don’t think I grow hungry. There are times, occasionally, when I think I might be hungry. But when I try to identify the sensation, it’s gone. I can feel when my body needs food. I grow lightheaded, feel weak, etc. But I don’t know, nor do I understand hunger.

Today, I bought food. Cheryl (my therapist) suggested I buy some. I didn’t really want to because one of the things that keeps me from b/ping is that I’m eating Tara’s food. However, I had a little money so I bought some groceries. Tara offered to come as moral support and I wanted her to, but I decided to try it on my own.

I didn’t really know what to get. Brain-Alice and ed were arguing in my head. Ed suggested a diet of yogurt because, as Alice has mentioned, it has protein, carbs, and fat. And since there’s only 110 calories per cup, ed said we could make everyone happy. I really liked this idea. So all the way to the store, this was my plan and I wondered how much yogurt you could get with $25.

About the time I got to the grocery store (I stopped at the Provo Craft factory outlet store to grab paper for the sisters book I’m working on) another voice had said that eating just yogurt wouldn’t make real-Alice happy. It might have actually been my brain-Alice talking instead of ed talking about what would make brain-Alice happy.

So I tried to figure out what I should buy. I still wanted yogurt because, even though I don’t like the texture of yogurt, it’s easy when I don’t want to have to think about what fits in Alice’s rules (guidelines, she calls them, but they seem like rules to me). I decided also on rice cakes cause they’re yummy (and maybe cause they’re 45 calories) and some cream of wheat and some soup mix.

I tried to find stuff that was a protein, carb, or fat, but I don’t really know what qualifies a food as one or the other. If it has the same amount of carbs as yogurt, is it a carb? What if it has both carbs and protein but has a lot more of one than the other? Is it only the higher one or just more the higher one or can one be higher but be equal? I don’t really know.

While walking home, my mind went automatically to calculating calories. If I eat this many of these and that many of those, I’ll have this amount of calories per day. Now, while eating Tara’s food, I didn’t know the calories for everything (some I just know, like there are 70 in an egg) and I tried not to look up what I didn’t know. But shopping for food is way different. I know the calories for everything I bought. The yogurt is 110, the cream of wheat is 100, the soup is 90, the rice cakes are 45. Now, in times past, when I wasn’t in a b/p mode, I would eat 2 or 3 of those a day (and quite possibly purge afterward). But Alice wants me to have 8 food items a day.

If I eat one packet of cream of wheat, one cup of soup, one yogurt, one rice cake, 2 boiled eggs, 1 packet of oatmeal, and one protein shake, that’s 772 calories! (I won’t even mention the calories from the multivitamin and Xocai chocolate, both of which I’ve stopped taking) I feel like all I do, all day long, is eat! Seriously, 3 meals and 2 snacks?? Do people actually eat that way? (Other than Heather’s kids)

So now, I have all this food sitting on my bed, taunting me. I really want to just not eat any of it. I really want to fast. I miss fasting. I used to fast at least once a month. I haven’t fasted all of February. I really want to. I miss it. (Insert sad face here) I really want to see if I can go longer than my record. And I feel like now it’s too late because I’ll never be allowed to fast again. I don’t think it hit me until just now, as I’m typing, that I’m not allowed to fast anymore. I’m in tears. I am very distraught right now. It’s like finding out a friend is moving out of the country. They’re still there, but you never get to see them again. And you hope that eventually your heart will stop aching for them, but for now it just hurts.

Excuse me, I think I’m going to go find a rock. I think I saw one on my way home that will do. I’ll explain the rock later.