Restricting doesn't take away the pain

So I haven't written in quite a while..
The last post was almost a week ago.
The next day, Friday, I found out some really devastating news. My closest friend on the team and in Starkville, really, took some prescription pills that were given to her a long time ago and mixed them with a large amount of alcohol. She went to the hospital Thursday night, and her parents came into town.
Since then she's been kicked off the team, and I'm assuming that her parents are going to withdraw her from school soon. She doesn't have her phone or a facebook account anymore, so we have no way of contacting her. I heard that she is going inpatient in Memphis where her dad lives.
As horrible as it is, I had a feeling something like this was going to happen. She has been going off the deep end for quite some time now. She has anorexia bulimia, and she also has an alcohol problem.
When I found out that she was gone basically for forever on Friday, though, I broke down. I was in this stupid team meeting where our coaches are telling us that everything's going to be okay and this is why you don't make stupid decisions, and the tears just won't stop coming.
Then I'm supposed to do an easy hour long run two minutes after this talk ends? Yea right.. I flew. I had to. I wanted to hurt. I had a workout the next day, but I wanted so badly for it to be that day (Friday). I wanted to run until I couldn't any longer.. 


Anyway, the feelings that came over me were just tremendous.. I felt guilty, grateful, shocked, devastated, and angry all at the same time. I didn't want to eat dinner Friday night. I got home, took a shower, and just laid in my bed naked for two hours.. I didn't have on the tv; the computer wasn't up. I just laid there.. numb. 
Once Connor came over things got a little better. I finally was able to process some of these emotions I was feeling. I cried a lot, sure, but I also realized some of the reasons for my being so upset. Well, she was one of my best friends, especially here. We got so close over Christmas. It hurts to lose someone like that, especially since we had so much in common that it's ridiculous. I felt guilty because of this; I had gotten through it all, and ultimately I'm fine. She, on the other hand, is having to go inpatient and leave her school, friends, and family behind. Why her? Why not me?
I was angry with her. How could she be so stupid?
I was grateful that I'm not in that position. I am so much farther along in my recovery. I'm not at a point where inpatient or death are my only options. And I have a great support system of God, family, and friends to thank for that.

Even so, it's still hard dealing with this.. It's hard not hearing her make fun of my outfits at practice or seeing her in the Union between classes. I'm thinking about her, a lot.


But I had been planning on going home this weekend. I almost didn't because of what happened to my friend, but I figured I needed to get away. I had a horrible workout Saturday morning which made me feel even less deserving of going, but Connor kinda convinced me, and I'm so glad I did.


I had a great evening with my friend Nick and my best friend Sam Saturday night. We went to a Mexican restaurant, and I order the Chicken Fajita Salad. Yumm. It was really good. I was still hungry after, so I had lots of chips & salsa, something I had been restrictive with at the beginning of the meal.

This is a picture from Google. I forgot to take one. It pretty much looked like this, though.

Then we went back to Nick's and watched Jennifer's Body. Nick wanted to, of course, because he (along with way too many other people, btw) claims that I am Amanda Seyfried's twin. It was really dumb, but hilarious, and I had a really good time.

I came home to see that I had a box of four giant delicious cupcakes awaiting me from my mom for my birthday. Ohmygosh, why??

It's freaking 11:00 on a Saturday night. Am I hungry? Umm.. kinda.

Do I want a cupcake? Heck yes. So I eat half of one. That is so good that I want another. So I take a bite out of the next one. Then the next one. Repeat. 

Anyway, I had half a cupcake + 3 huge bites out of the others. All in all, I'd say 2 cupcakes. And this icing is HUGE. Seriously. They're from one of those fancy bakeries known to all in Memphis.

Ugh.. I was still hungry. Of course, cuz now I'm in eating mode. So I grab the pb+rice cakes and go upstairs. Mistake.

Why do I always isolate myself when I binge? Well I guess it makes sense, but ughh.. I wish someone had made me stay with them, ya know? 

So anyway, it wasn't too terrible of a binge. I probably had two-three tablespoons of pb & almost two servings of the Quaker caramel mini rice cakes. But I still wasn't happy.

Sunday I didn't run! It was ED telling me that I needed to run in order to burn off last night's cupcakes PLUS I knew I was having bbq nachos for dinner. But I didn't run. Go me. I'm proud of myself for differentiating love for my sport and that stupid ED voice telling me I have to burn calories.

So anyway, I've been doing okay this week, but my 'baseline' is still down, like Kelly *nutritionist* said last week. I saw her today after lunch and before practice. I went in, took off my sweatshirt & sweatpants, (I had on running tights underneath, ha) and stepped on the scale. 115.2. Hmm, that's good. However, I had just eaten. Plus I had to pee like a racehorse. So I went to the restroom and then snuck into the room next to Kelly's office with the scale. I weighed myself again. 113.6.

So which is my real weight?

I'm kinda surprised, but kinda not about my weight.. I mean, how could I have NOT gained weight? I had that chicken fajita salad + tons of chips & salsa + cupcakes + pretzels and rice cakes + tooons of bbq nachos on Superbowl Sunday night. Btw, BBQ nachos=tortilla chips, queso, bbq sauce, pulled pork, and Rendezvous seasoning. So delicious, but definitely not low cal or healthy by any means.

These are Corky's bbq nachos, but mine look almost the same.
I added less nacho cheese than that, but I had two big platefuls.

Well I go back into Kelly's office and admit to her what I just discovered.. 

She's disappointed and tells me that we're in gaining mode agaaaain. 

So I need to stop restricting. Sounds easy, right?

But the thing is, I'm scared to get to my calories at the end of the day cuz I'm scared I'm going to binge when trying to get there. Ya know? If I'm down 1000 cals (like right now, for instance), I know that I need something dense to get me to my goal. Yet that means a scary food, one that I might binge on. Before I never used to have to worry about this. So ughhh, why now?

Anyway, she tells me that if that's a concern of mine I should just pre-portion my snacking. Get the peanut butter, put it in a bowl with my vanilla yogurt, and then set out a certain number of pretzels. Put everything away and out of sight, and then really enjoy my snack. Don't scarf it down, but think about how I'm deserving of this treat. So that's my goal. I guess I'm about to do it after this post. *Wish me luck* :P

I guess the last thing I wanted to say in this extremely long post *sorry!* is that I am leaving for College Station, TX tomorrow afternoon for a track meet at Texas A&M. I feel like gaining weight should be easy this week since I'll be gone from tomorrow until Sunday evening. And we always eat out at places like Cracker Barrel. *Seriously, every single meet we eat here at least once. My older coach is obsessed. ha*

But I really need to get back on track with my eating and thinking. I was doing so well. Now with everything that has happened food has become one of those scary things. Today I didn't put cheese on my sandwich.. This is a bad sign. I've gotta snap out of it! My body needs fuel in order to race fast! I need fuel in order to be happy!

Ok, so I'm gonna go now. This has been way too long. And even though I don't feel the hunger, my stomach is flopping around right now, and I'm assuming food would do it some good.

P.s. One last thing! Tonight with my dinner I had the biggest sweet potato ever (not really, but it was much bigger than my normal small-ish ones), and I put butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar on it!! I usually only add cinnamon, sometimes lime juice, and maybe a tiny, tiiiny dab of butter. But tonight I didn't care. I put as much as I thought I needed so that I could actually taste the buttery, sugary, deliciooous potato, ha! Yay. So look, already there is progress! :)

One last question: I still have three half-eaten cupcakes downstairs.. What do I do with them? I tried to give them to Conrad/the roommates, but they're still untouched.. Just wondering what you guys think..

Thanks for comments, as always. They get me through the days.

<3 Haley