A different coffee shop this morning. Smaller, more intimate - perhaps slightly more intimidating. But! They have breakfast. I'm hanging out enjoying a mocha and the music. Soon one of my sisters will join me for breakfast. A nice start to the morning.

It was strange ordering my mocha this morning. I haven't had one in ages. Without going into too much detail about my meal plan, I am supposed to hit a certain amount of food groups each day - no regard to calories, fat grams, etc. So whether I order skim or regular milk in my mocha it doesn't matter on the meal plan because it's calcium and my dietitian said there's the same amount of calcium in skim as there is in regular milk. So I figured I'd order regular milk this morning - sooo yummy. Geez, probably more than you ever needed to know about ordering a mocha.

I think I'm going to start sounding like a broken record. It's been another tough week. Therapy was pretty brutal this week. Good though cuz we got into some stuff but very emotionally taxing. I'm debating right now on whether I feel comfortable sharing the next bit. I'm feeling, for myself, I just want to get this down - not necessarily for the sharing, if that makes sense.

After therapy with Doug each week I see Amy, my dietitian. We talked about how I've been having a hard time with my diet mentality and my menu plan. The menu plan itself is fine. There is plenty of food to feel satisfied. However like I mentioned before, there are a certain number of exchanges within each food group that I am supposed to strive for. I've been told this is a guideline - not a diet. Well I try to hit the numbers everyday and if I go over the numbers I feel bad and if I go under the numbers, I think great - I probably shouldn't have eaten so much anyway. This is my diet mentality. I feel bad if I don't eat all the fruit I'm supposed too or if I ate too much fat during the day, etcetera, etcetera.

Bare with me, I'm getting to the tough stuff. So after we talked a little more about this (because we've talked about this before) Amy said she had a suggestion - something for me to think about. She thinks I could really benefit from their Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). She basically was planting a seed, not saying I should definitely be there but saying that it is an option that could really help me. This pretty much freaked me out for the rest of the weekend. First of all, the program is three days/week (in ADDITION to my regular therapy, dietitian and group sessions) 2-3 hours at a time with a minimum 12 week commitment. Two of the days include meals with the group and various other class type things and group therapy. That in itself is overwhelming, not to mention the financial cost involved with all that. I think what really hit me was (even though I think I know this) I have got some monster issue. I truly have a ferocious eating disorder. I guess since I'm not purging or starving myself, it's like mine isn't so bad but I'm getting the gravity of it all. I've got one hell of a problem.

So that and the sadness I've carried with me from therapy on Thursday are the underlying current of my weekend. It's been a very weepy weekend. Along with the weepy is the guilt of not using my skills and feeling bad for the way I've eaten the past few days. Here I am - warts and all. Today seems to be a better day, so hopefully I can keep that theme going throughout the day. I think it's possible today.