Meet Paige

Name: Paige Elan
Height: 5'9"
Favorite Junk Food: any combination of potatoes & cheese
Favorite Healthy Food: broccoli & peas
Least Favorite Junk Food That I Still Find Myself Eating for Unexplained Reasons: chocolate (gives me migraines! I don't really like it! But once a month I still get into it!)
Least Favorite Healthy Food That I Need to Learn to Like: mushrooms & lettuce
Feel-Good Movie Recommendation: Labyrinth
Best Workout Music: LCD Soundsystem
I Love: animals, animals, animals.
I Hate: cruelty to aforementioned animals
I Am: a mental stormcloud
I Will Be: content

Goals for 2013:
1. To be vegetarian by early in the year
2. To be vegan (or mostly so) by Dec 31st
3. To incorporate at least 1 hour of physical activity into daily life
4. To cut out refined sugar and heavily processed foods
5. To get out of debt and maybe even build some savings!
6. To apply myself in creative outlets more often
7. To eat a more organic and local diet

Hello, my name is Paige.
I am a young adult. I survived my teen-aged years fairly unscathed by mean girls and self esteem issues.  But one year of college was all it took. I fell hard into depression, and, having a dorm room to myself with no supervision, I found myself testing the limits on how much I could eat in a sitting. To this day, I'm not sure why it manifested itself in binging, but it did. Oh, how it did. I gained 42lbs in 8 months. I ate myself sick many a night. A box of Oreos a day for a while (that's in addition to all my other daily foods)... I soon bailed on college but continued binging. One day, my boyfriend at the time said, "we're getting fat". It was true, my eating habits were a bad influence on both of us. He didn't even mean much by it. But those three words changed everything and sent me to the other end of the spectrum. Suddenly I was eating 400 calories a day and working out for 2-3 hours. I'd fast, scared that a meal would turn into a binge. It wasn't uncommon for me to have just an apple and a diet coke in a day. I took diet pills and appetite suppressants. I dropped all the weight in 3 months. Now I was throwing up because I didn't have enough in my stomach.
And so, this was my new life. Waking up in the morning, I didn't know which person I would be. I had a great grip on extremes, but moderation eluded me...

This isn't a blog about eating disorders. It is about disordered eating, but also how it affects so many aspects of my life, from social gatherings to intimacy to finances (a trucker's diet is expensive).
This year, 2013, I am attempting what seems like the impossible: to relax. I have to learn how to eat all over again. If I can get the hang of that, I can stop thinking about it so damn much and spend energy enjoying life instead of fretting it. Imagine what I could accomplish if I converted 50% of my energy to productive endeavors!? An exciting prospect. My hope for this blog is that if I can actually help myself, maybe I can help someone else with the same experience. Words can't describe how relieving it was to learn that my good friend Jess struggled with the same issues as me. Not because misery loves company, but because misery loves knowing she's not a freak.