About the Author by athina Blog entry

Blog: * in pursuit of perfection *
by athina

About the Author

This is not going to be a short blog, so let me fill you in a few things...

Date: 11/3/2006 12:49:37 PM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 3341 times

So allow me to introduce myself. My name is "Athina" and I'm somewhere between 20 and 40 years old and live somewhere between London and Bombay. The music I like ranges from Jazz to Glam Rock, and I'm currently reading two books: a masterpiece of Russian fiction and a computer book on client-side scripting. I know three languages fairly well and like watching documentaries occassionally peppered with trash TV. My life events, as you might suspect, have also been a series of fluctuating extremes.

I think that most eating disorders have psychological roots. I eat to comfort myself, so will attempt to address my psychological problems throughout this process. I'll do all that here, on this blog, and hope that the input of others will help me overcome much of what has happened. I don't believe in paid psychologists, as I was quite the hellion as a teenager and visited my fair share. Most of the time they weren't on point, and almost all prescribed pills, some of which I took.

I think the most cruicial event that shaped my life occured when I was 8 years old. You see, I was a large baby, and a fairly large child. I usually was one of the the tallest in the class, and developed large bones early on. Stocky? Yes. But fat? Definitely not.

I was eight years old and on vacation. My grandmother commented to me that I was 'getting fat' and that I should watch what I eat. And from that point on, I made a concerted effort to sneak food to avoid their condemnation - a habit that persisted into my teen years and continues to this day when I visit my sweet well-meaning 86-year old grandmother, in pursuit of hidden chocolates in the china cabinet.

I was 130 pounds by the time I was 12 years old. That's when I learned to count calories. Afterwards, at 15, I read a fictional story on a girl with anorexia and bulimia and thought, 'well there's a good idea...'

Following this, was another ground-breaking 'great idea': that smoking, rather than eating, is a better way to keep my idle hands busy. Besides, all the top models/actresses were doing it, with great results!

The rapid weight loss/gains associated with my new-found revelations brought on cellulite by 16, and the binge eating made my weight skyrocket to almost 190 pounds. I developed several hormonal problems by my mid-teens, where my weight settled around the 170 mark, and stayed there until my early 20's.

By then I finished college, moved out, and got my own apartment in the city. At this point in time I started smoking a lot of dope, so I stopped eating so much, and my weight dropped to about 145.

Regretably, in the absense of pot in the country where I now live, I've taken to drinking every night. Maybe that's a blessing in disguise, cause I think I smoked myself retarded from being high non-stop for six years. Additionally, all the stress made me turn to food as a source of comfort and I've put on 10 pounds.

I tried the various cleansing fasts found here, but quickly regained the weight. In fact, over the past two years I've lost and regained the same 10 pounds several times. And all this has taken a toll on my body shape, skin tone, mental well-being and outlook on life. Sometimes I get crazy mood swings, other times I can't remember why I walked into the kitchen. I don't have the motivation to get out of bed in the mornings. I'd like to think positively, but can't fake those emotions, at least not to myself.

I think the approach I've taken is wrong. For me, it's always been all or nothing. I'd start these fasts from eating like a pig the day before, to virtually nothing the next day. Once I stopped eating for 20 days, but had to smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes to keep myself from going insane. I can't take these extreme measures with my health any longer. I'm not going to put up a blog saying '30 Days Juice Fasting, who's with me?' - cause I know myself well enough to predict that it's a) either not going to last, or b) be a failure in the end.

Should I juice fast or water fast? Should I master cleanse or do raw foods? Should I liver flush or parasite flush? How about Atkins, how about South Beach? What about the Mediterranean diet?

I don't believe I'm the only one who feels this way. It's like there's 2000 voices in my head, all screaming 'do this, do that' - and that I can't find the peace of mind needed to make my own decisions.

What's certain is that I've got residues of drug abuse, tobacco, Prozac, growth hormones, birth control pills, chemicals and pesticides (among other things) sitting in my 30+ pounds of fat reserves. These are the obstacles preventing me from achieving the perfect health and mental clarity I desire.

So the only solution is not to pressure myself to come up with a solution. I'm going to take this one day at a time with changes to my lifestyle that I am certain will be permanent.