Bye Bye MyFitnessPal

Today I finally deleted my fitness calorie counting app. You are probably thinking "Well Stacey, that's not much? What could that possibly do?". I guess I understand that not everyone has such an attachment to calories and calorie goals, but for me this feels like a huge step. That app is the lifeline to my Eating Disorder, it keeps it alive with its constant notifications blurting out from the screen. It is (was) both a source of comfort and fear for me, it put me both at ease and on edge, depending on what sort of stuff I had eaten that day. I probably should have deleted it a long time ago, because perhaps if I did, then I would not have gotten so deep into this rather intimidating world of calories and weight. But I cannot change that now, but I can change what happens from here on out which is exactly what I am trying to do. I have managed to not restrict for 5 days now, but I can already feel myself telling myself that it's okay if I don't eat all day, or it's okay to calorie count and want to lose weight. It feels that no matter what I do then this is going to be here forever, to some degree. I can feel myself getting upset with myself when I think about food, I'm starting to check my body excessively and I am not really sure how to combat that, without resorting to starving myself slowly. It still occupies most of my thoughts and makes it so hard to concentrate on work, when I am just about able to make it through the day. I have deleted the app in the past, but everytime I have gone running back the next day and continued on my quest to lose weight and become ever and ever smaller. I know that if this happens again, then it is not really anything to be ashamed of, as you cannot expect to reverse over 20 months worth of behaviours in a week, as much as I would love for that to happen it is completely unrealistic. Even though I am eating more, I still feel fat and want to lose more weight, but I remember reading on some support page that positive body image is the last thing to come back and is a lifelong battle for some people with Eating Disorders- regardless of the type they have. I'm trying to not let myself get too upset and distracted by what I have eaten today, but it's nagging at me the more and more I go out of my food comfort zone. Although yesterday I managed to eat some pasta in a class environment- and I did not feel judged or overwhelmed by eating one of my "Fear foods" in front of my peers. I've not counted my calories for 5 days now, such a short amount of time but it truly feels like forever to me! I hope this day does not take a turn for the worse and that my emotions won't get the best of me today. I will say though, not feeling hungry/hangry all the time is probably the best feeling every, I had almost forgotten what it feels like to be normally full (and not full because you did not eat for so long that you binged on food, which happened to me from time to time). If anything, at least that's motivation to eat more.