Fatty sausages and cheese - two fingers up at the anorexia!

Two massive challenges in one meal: fatty sausages and cheesy mashed potato. Both are things which would have sent Ben into a frenzy a few months ago. But yesterday he ate both, without any problem at all. In fact, for the first time for AGES, he actually saw the sausages cooking, surrounded by oozing fat and it didn't faze him at all.


Another thing we talked about on our Tuesday walk was how he is now relaxed about 'condensing' his calories, as he describes it. The days of elaborately prepared meals comprising loads of low calorie stuff that took ages to eat are over. Now he's able to include higher calorie foods, including fats, which make preparation and eating easier, quicker and much more 'normal'.

Also, he said, "On Saturday I bought and ate a high calorie sandwich... AND I ate it in Dad's car... AND I ate it at 2pm... AND I came home and had a snack in the middle of the afternoon knowing that our evening meal wasn't far away". In the old anorexia past, he would have had to eat in a certain place (at a table, for example) and at a specific meal 'time' (i.e. 12.30pm). Plus, he couldn't rush it. In the Bad Old Anorexia Days, every single meal had to be 'perfect', or else...

And, despite the fact that recovering anorexics are really supposed to have mid morning and afternoon snacks, Ben has never been able to do this. So an afternoon snack, entirely of his own choosing, is massive progress.