Christmas Day

This year we spent Christmas Day at my dads sisters house on the beach, which was so nice! We just swam and chilled out together and then slept because we were all super exhausted! I got a really nice backpack from my cousin and some other stuff too.

The only downer is that my grandpa don't come. He said it was because he didn't want to drive down four hours because he is going blind which is true but my cousins who live closer to him offered to drive him and he still said no. Ever since my nanna died in 2006 he hasn't been very warm towards us which is sad because he pretty much just plays golf. His new partner is also no lt keen on spending time with us which doesn't help.

This morning I woke up to a sack of presents on my bed, the same as every year. Santa doesn't disappoint ;) (thanks mum) this year I got new converse,

Some DVDs, body stuff, socks and undies, jewellery and clothes which were all really nice :) 

So overall a really good day. For Christmas lunch I had some chicken with pumpkin, potato and sweet potato so overall pretty successful on the food side.  

I love spending time with family, it feels so natural and happy :) 

The water was cold because a storm came over, but my cousin was still keen.

He surfs every single day! #commitment

My dad made pavlova which is a massive thing as he doesn't cook ever apart from barbecuing meat and making bacon and eggs haha

Christmas Lights

Near my house we have this suburb who pretty much all do Christmas lights and line their streets with tea light candles in the bottom half of milk bottles and in the dark it looks super pretty. It's especially nice on Christmas Eve because everyone from the community walks all the streets.

You see people you know in the street and everyone who lives there has street dinner parties and its a great time to just relax with family and friends. My cousins who live three hours away came over to stay for a few nights and they have four kids, so there was 8 kids in my house all together which was so much fun! 

Mums family Christmas

My family all live pretty close to me on my mums side which is nice, the furthest is about 45 mins drive from my house. My grandparents (mums parents) live about ten doors down from my house which Is nice.

So on the 20th my mums family had a get together, which was a lot of fun and caused me less anxiety around the food than I originally thought. While I only had fruit for dessert, I had some pumpkin, quinoa, feta and walnut salad and some pecan pilaf which were both fear foods :O so I was pretty proud :) 

There's 12 of us kids on my mums side ( my grandparents grandkids, so my cousins) so we do a Kris Kringle where everyone gets one nice present for one other person instead of getting smaller presents for everyone. I got a voucher for a nice sports store so I was happy :D we then went for a sunset walk in my cousins back paddock which was beautiful and a really peaceful way to end the day. Sometimes I wish I lived more in the country like that but then I think about all the stuff I'm closer to and I love my house so I don't know... It would be cool to ride horses and stuff though! 

I want to recover but I don't...

I am so confused at the moment. I really do want to recover, but at the same time I want to be healthy and mum reckons that for me being recovered means not wanting to eat healthy.... 

I've become so used to the way things work having an eating disorder now that I don't think I know how to do anything else anymore...even if I wanted to, I just wouldn't know where to start or when to stop. 

I feel like for months I've just been stuck in the same place and I've been trying to tell my parents that I feel like I might need some more help. I went to hospital for five weeks at the beginning of this year but that was just to make me gain weight really quickly using a nasal tube and they didn't halo us on the mental side at all which didn't help anything because it means most people end up losing most if not more than the weight they gained again. 

I have managed to stay at a reasonably stable weight this year (within a 3 kilo range) but still this is only just not underweight and a few kilos away from my goal weight. I don't know why I find it so hard to gain those last few kilos...actually I do. If I am at goal weight it will feel like I have failed anorexia, which should be a good thing but it feels like I put so much effort into this thing and it does make me feel better about my body when I restrict, however I know that this is not healthy and will only lead to eventual death. 

Anyway, at the moment I only have a hospital appointment once a month where they check my weight and stuff and one therapy session a month for an hour. After a year the thoughts haven't really changed and I'm starting to think I need some more help... My parents don't want me to go anywhere else which I do get and id rather just do it at home too but I also don't want to have this hold me back when I'm going to uni and stuff in 

2016. 

Anyway, sorry I haven't posted in ages, Christmas time is always really busy in my family. Lots of present buying and family get togethers. I'll try and fill you in on all my Christmas details soon :) 

So bloated!!!! :O

Went to the beac yesterday and got sunburnt :/ silly me...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! It's 11pm here at the moment so not sure if it's already been your new year?! But yeah :D

Sydney Siege (R.I.P)

You may have heard it on the news but the Lindt cafe in sydney was under siege a few days ago and there were seventeen hostages, two of whom were killed by the gunman. 

I think it's interesting how people get so scared about things like this, when in realty it's a possibility all the time. We don't know what could happen to us any minute, but if we live our lives petrified of all the what ifs we will never just live in the moment and we will miss out on life itself.

This was pretty big for Australia though because there is this unspoken belief that nothing bad will happen to us because we are far away and not very threatening. The sige really shook people up because when things like this happen it makes you realise that you aren't living in a protection bubble, bad things happen to people who often don't deserve it. 

We are still extremely lucky in Australia because of the very low amount of shootings we have, which is probably largely down to our strict gun laws. Just today 132 children and 8 teachers in a school were massacred in Pakistan, so many more than here. I pray their families are not filled with too much grief. 

I guess for me this happening made me think about all the time, pain and effort that has gone into fighting anorexia this year for my family and I. It all seems pointless and looking from an outside perspective with no understanding it doesn't make sense. Why would you be worried about food?? It's not like it's a gunman that could kill you. But what they don't see is that for someone with anorexia it is that severe. It's like the fear of a hostage at every meal, except it's all in our minds. that's what makes mental illness so deadly. You can't solve the problem because it isn't logical in the first place. 

I think that love is what overcomes mental illness. For example, anorexia tells you not to love yourself, that no one else loves you and that you are not worthy of love. But once you are able to see that people do love you and that ultimately you are the one that has to come to terms with accepting yourself for who you are, it gets easier to fight the thoughts, although in my case they still come pretty strongly. 

It just was a wake up call to make sure I'm spending time with the people I love and making sure they know I love them :) 

Also, good news! Out of 160 people in my grade, only three people got full marks in their English speech and I was one of them!! Wooohoooo!! 

On holidays after a long year of school! :D

Test Stress

I haven't posted for so long aahh..... Probably have no readers now....

So anyway, all my tests are over!! And I only have three days left of school before 5 and a half weeks of holidays wooo!!!!

I got the result of my maths test back, and I got 82% which was ok but for the first time in maths I worked really really hard and was expecting above 90% so I was pretty disappointed. 

And the worst part is that from now on every test counts towards the final mark we get which determines which university courses we can get into... 

When I get bad marks, I automatically feel like I'm not good enough as a person, like I equate my personal value with how successful I am in school, how I look etc even though those things don't  have anything to do with your validation as a human being. Being smart doesn't make you a kinder person, but sometimes I feel like my personality isn't worth the approval of others and I have to try hard to please everyone. 

I'm not sure why I am this way, maybe it's just part of who I am. I've always been naturally good at a lot of things, which is great and I am thankful for it but it also brings a lot of pressure both from myself and others to meet a certain expectation and standard. 

Anyway, it's almost christmas, which is definitely the most fun part of the year! Last night we went to our local carols which was fun and we set up our Christmas tree las week. This year mum decided on a red theme :) 

Fad Diets

The other day in chemistry my teacher told us to have a look at this abc video where they were looking at a low carb high fat diet for athletes instead of carb loading before a match which is common.

They were talking about all this stuff that I didn't really understand so I looked up another video on it and then this other one came up that was the opposite, that you should heaps and heaps of carbs and no fat.... Both were claiming that their way was the healthiest, so which one actually is?

I have learnt pretty confrontingly that restricting one/some/all foods isn't healthy, and that the best way to eat and still have a life apart from food is to have a balanced diet. Everything in moderation works fine :) 

People who go on diets but it doesn't work, because when they revert back to what they ate before, which made them put on weight in the first place. They need to find a middle ground.

Same goes for eating disorders. If we just go back to what we ate pre-weight restoration, we will lose weight, even though the anorexia says that you have to restrict to not gain weight. What we need to do is find a middle ground :) 

So yeah, any of these extreme lifestyles, eat what you want I guess, but if you think you can't eat something, as opposed to you don't want to, then maybe you should have a think about why... 

Have a happy 7th of December!!! Less than three weeks till Christmas!

Made a new breakfast yesterday- apple and cinamon eggwhite oatmeal. It was really good :)

So tired.....school exams start tomorrow :o

Internal Filter

Hey guys, 

Hope everyone is doing well and having fun in the lead up to Christmas. I have so many presents to buy and not enough time! :O

The unfortunate thing about Christmas for someone with anorexia is that it often involves lots of decadent feasts...but I guess it's also the perfect time to challenge myself and overcome fears.

Once you have realised that you have an eating disorder and you do want it to go away, it doesn't automatically stop. The thoughts still come, sometimes even stronger than before because they're angry you're saying no. And people think it's just at meal times that it's there, but that's only scraping the surface.

It's constant. Walking past a mirror, window or train door. Standing or sitting. Wondering how many calories are being burned and if there is anything you can do to make more burn off. Being so tired but keeping on exercising because you think you have to. Sitting down to do your homework but not being able to concentrate because you're more concerned with jiggling your leg as fast as you can...

All this on top of having to eat 6 times a day is tough, and there are so many times we have to try and overcome them. I pretty much have to set up an internal filter that is sort of like a balance in my head. I need to take a step back, think about the pros and cons, and ask myself why I am thinking the way that I am before I can/cannot eat whatever it is. This is really hard sometimes when my parents are just yelling "just do what you're told" and I try to tell them I'm trying to process it and work it out in my head but then they just say "you can't work it out, just do it." 

They think that when I'm thinking it's just the anorexia telling me all the bad things about eating it, but the opposite is true. Those thoughts come straight away, it's the good ones I need time to get into my head, because they don't come automatically. 

Exams in 6 days :( ... But only just over two weeks until summer holidays for six weeks!!! Woohoooo so much beach and relaxing but also a lot of school work... 

Have a lovely day and I'll be back soon xx :D

On the train, my favourite plae to blog haha not really just the only place I have time.

Other 5 things I love about Australia

6. Wildlife- Australia has a lot of unique wildlife that are super different to the animals found anywhere else in the world! The koala, kangaroo, echidna, emu, cassowary, kookaburra, platypus, cockatoo, are just some of the weird animals we have. 

Australia also has some of the deadliest animals in the world which I reckon is pretty awesome. The great white shark, king brown snake and sydney funnel web spider are always waiting to welcome tourists haha jk it's not as bad as everyone makes out 

7. Schooling- pretty much just that in Australia if you work hard you can do whatever you want, our school system isn't discriminatory and the government gives you a good loan for uni.

8. Security- Australians are mostly too lazy to be bothered with conflict, they'd rather just have a beer and flick the problem onto someone else, which can be really frustrating sometimes but it also means we don't have arch enemies in the world, which could eventually be an advantage to our safety in the future. Who knows?

9. Food- my favourite Aussie food is probably either vegemite or pavlova. Vegemite is so good on toast in the mornings and pavlova is this really good meringue cake with heaps of cream and fruit on top (I haven't had the cream part for ages...)

10. Sport- for the small amount of people we have in our country, Aussies dominate at summer sport! We pretty much rule the surfing world, are no. 1 in cricket and we are also awesome at swimming, our best Olympic area :) 

Everyone should come and visit, it's awesome!!!!!! What do you love about Australia or your country?? 

10 reasons why Australia is the best!

This is going to be a long post so I think it'll end up being two separate ones... I had a wave of patriotism today, and I realised just how lucky I am to live in Australia. It is honestly the best country in the world, with the second highest HDI (a statistic that combines life expectancy, education and income) in the world behind Norway, and we have way better weather :D so here are ten reasons why Australia is the best! 

1. Weather- during the day in winter here in sydney it doesn't usually go below about 15 degrees celcius, which is actually still pretty warm. The only problem is our school uniform doesn't change in winter so going to school is a but cold :( but in summer the weather is around 30 degrees every day which in my opinion is perfect! When it's 40 you can't do much other than sit in front of the air conditioner but 30 is perfect beach weather :) 

This is the beach just down the road from my school! How lucky am I!?

2. Lifestyle- Australia is such a chilled, laid back place, and the things that are held in high importance are friends and family, which i think is really good because there are some cultures that put heaps of pressure on education or talent or money but the overall vibe in Australia is really relaxed, everyone's just here to have a good time :) 

3. Beaches/Landscape- Australia has amazing landscapes! In one country you can go to rainforests, desert, snow, beaches, reefs...it is a pretty big country but still I don't think most other countries can claim that :D

Great Barrier Reef in Queensland:

Uluru, the big red rock in the centre of Australia (sort of like its heart haha): 

4. Island- we're all alone :O, which is annoying because we have to fly everywhere which costs a lot of money but if there was ever a world war we'd probably be the last ones to be reached because no one can be bothered to travel all the way here.

5. Mates- Aussies are really great at supporting each other in hard times. I don't know what it is but we have a really strong patriotic spirit. Whether it's sport, other achievements or a natural disaster, Aussies will support other Aussies 110%, which gives you a really nice sense of belonging.