Hunting High And Low

Good evening everyone,

Today was quite a good day for me. I managed to keep my appetite in check and didn't succumb to any of the terrible temptations that were dotted around the office.

I'm forever spending time hawking through shops, stores, supermarkets and stalls trying to find the lowest calorie, lowest fat, most unusual, convenient and nutritionally sound items out there. It's amazing what you discover when you actually take the time to trawl through every last nook and cranny in every square foot of floor space on the high street and beyond. I guess when you're not taking the time to watch every single little morsel you put into your mouth, you can afford to be cavalier with your shopping habits. Those of us with food allergies, intolerances and specific dietary needs however, need to go through shops with a fine toothed comb in order to procure the safest, tastiest, healthiest and most suitable food stuffs available.

And I suppose, when you think about it, those of us following the Pro-Ana Lifestyle DO have extremely special and specific dietary requirements. We aren't consuming anywhere near as many calories as the average person and each and every one of us has our own particular standards, tastes, controls, requirements, rules and levels of restriction. Whilst the general consensus amongst the general public is that anorectics despise food and don't want to have to put any real thought into the consumption of it, in reality this couldn't really be further from the truth.

One only has to refer to the almost gospel memoirs Wasted - Marya Hornbacher and Thin - Grace Bowman to learn of how anorectics and bulimics actually LOVE food; they just don't love what happens when they put it into their bodies. And those of us living the Pro-Ana Lifestyle are different again to those who have let their own lifestyle choice become an unhealthy obsession: we aren't 'unable' to eat. Nor do we necessarily find it easy or simple to refuse food all the time. We too love food, regardless of our own particular idiosyncratic bette noir. We simply understand that it can simultaneously be our best friend/closest confidante and worst enemy. We know how much havoc can be wreaked on our bodies, our minds and our lives, simply by failing to take control of what we put in our mouths and THAT is why we do what we do.

It's not easy. But that's both the misery AND the bliss of it. As Anas, we strive for perfection in a world that wants us to fail; we struggle to adhere to self imposed rules in a society lacking in discipline. In short, we work damn hard at being the best we can be and sometimes, it's nice to find that little something that just makes life that little bit easier.

Please don't misconstrue my meaning here. I'm not trying to absolve myself of the trials and tribulations involved in this way of life. I'm not looking for an easy way out either; THAT goes against everything Ana stands for, everything we want to encompass and everything I work hard at maintaining every day. What I do try and do however, is invest a lot of time and effort working at constructing an eating plan that whilst being very low in calories and fat, still gives me the nutritional requirements I need to maintain my youthful good looks and vitality.

I guess I'm actually a little bit obsessive when it comes to food shopping. I tackle it with almost military precision and spend every lunchtime wandering around shops making that one hour as useful as possible. It has the added bonus of giving me an hour's exercise (nothing too strenuous that would see me heading back to my desk shrouded in sweat and glowing like a coal furnace, but enough to burn off a few calories!) and it keeps me from spending my break, sat at my desk, munching - which is how my arse got so fat in the first place.

The devil is in the detail so they say and I think that as Anas it's our strict attention to detail that decides whether or not we're going to be successful in our dietary discipline. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Being Pro-Ana is a difficult, stressful, tiring, time-consuming and can wreak havoc on our day to day lives. Relationships, careers, schoolwork, religious involvement, hobbies, habits and health, can all suffer as a result of this lifestyle choice we make and we should all know and understand this before embarking on the Pro-Ana way of life. What we are intending to do goes against every fibre of our being; we are choosing to deny ourselves the very thing our body craves, wants, desires and needs. We are putting ourselves up against the might of our hormones, our instincts, our internal body clocks and our own minds EVERY waking moment of EVERY single day. We're not making it easy on ourselves.

Which is why we need to equip ourselves as best we can.

I tell everyone who wants to change their eating habits that before they do ANYTHING else, they need to make a plan. And by plan I don't mean some intangible wish like "I plan to eat healthier and do more exercise so I can look good in my bikini." That's not a plan. Plans should be detailed, unambiguous and goal oriented. You should have a particular target you wish to reach and a step by step breakdown of what it is you plan to do in order to get there. It might sound a bit like boring old school-work, but I'm willing to bet that to the majority of us Anas, planning and preparation is something of a past-time and/or a challenge. I'm actually a complete stationery addict! I simply adore pens and notebooks and files and folders and stickers and envelopes and inks! I have a filing cabinet in my house full of journals and notebooks and pens and inks of all colours that I buy religiously despite not actually needing any more. Needless to say, I don't need ANY encouragement when it comes to spending a bit of time putting together menus, food diaries, exercise regimes, weight loss records, supplement schedules and charts - I just hope some/a lot of you share this little peccadillo with me, because it truly will make your Pro-Ana lifestyle much more organised and easier to stick to if you do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not holding myself up as some kind of perfect Ana who knows it all - far from it. I'm as fallible and prone to fuck-ups as the next person. I just know how much easier it makes my life when I've put in a bit of time and effort to figure out what it is I want, where I want to go and how I mean to get there. Which is why I'm so keen to get out to the shops, hunt about and procure as many suitable items as possible in my free time. I want to know that I've got everything I need, close to hand in order to be able to get through each day consuming as little as possible, whilst still paying attention to my overall health. I want to succeed and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure I do.

Today I consumed 501.8 calories.

I think that's pretty good. I aim to consume about 500 per day. Here's the breakdown:

2 cans of Sugar Free Red Bull (250ml per can) - 20 cals
1 can Vitabiotics Wellwoman Drink (250ml) - 13.3 cals
1 cup of Clearspring Mellow White Miso Instant Soup with tofu - 29.5 cals
1 pack of 4 Belvita breakfast biscuits -  224 cals
1 greek olive and feta frittata topped with spinach and courgette - 170 cals
100g of steamed trimmed green beans - 25 cals
4 mugs of Pu-er tea - 20 cals

Two of the items from today's menu were things I found in my local Holland & Barrett health-food store. The Wellwoman drink and the Miso Soup.

I've included a bit of information on both of them here, in case any of you are interested:


Vitabiotics Wellwoman Drink

Per 250ml can.

13.3 kcal
0.08g protein
2.8g carb
trace fat

80mg - Guarana Extract
80mg - Green Tea Extract
50mg - Artichoke Extract
50mg - Grape Seed Extract
50mg - Elderberry Concentract

"Made with pomegranate and cranberry juice and contains 'botanical extracts, nutrients and Sucralose Sweetner

Wellwoman drink delivers nutrients for energy release, grape seed juice as a natural source of antioxidants plus artichoke extract which many aid digestive health."

They cost 99p in Holland & Barrett and they're not bad. I don't know how much good they're actually doing, but they're a hell of a lot better for me than Red Bull that's for sure (that said,  I'm not about to give up my caffeine fix any time soon!) They're very sweet and you can definitely taste the artificial sweetener in them, but it's not unpleasant. I like the fact that they're low calorie, sugar free, offer another alternative to regular soft drinks and could have added health benefits to boot. Am always on the lookout for anything that might improve digestive health, especially if I've had lunch with Mia.


An added bonus of being seen to have a drink like this in my house, in my desk, in my bag or in my hand, is that it is marketed as a health drink, by Vitabiotics, one of the biggest and well known/respected manufacturers of health food supplements. Anyone who sees you with one of these will instantly assume, however subconsciously that you are on a health kick and looking after yourself. It's a positive identifier that will look good to other people. I love finding stuff like that. Anything that can not only help you lose weight by filling you up a bit and not using up many calories that also has great nutritional value WHILST acting as a sort of decoy to keep people from discovering your Pro-Ana mission. Perfect. Because when you're not taking in a huge amount of food, you should always make the most of everything you do consume by choosing items with a multitude of benefits. 


The other thing I found on a shelf at the back of the Holland & Barrett store in my high street was:

Clearspring - Mellow White Miso Instant Soup with Tofu.

Per sachet

29.5 kcal
2.4g protein
2.2g carb (of which sugars 1.9g)
1.3g fat (of which saturates 0.2g)
0.8g fibre
0.9g sodium

Ingredients

Freeze dried miso (whole soya beans, rice, sea salt) - 89%, dried green onions, tofu, (soya beans, kuzu, nigari [coagulant] - 4%.

You basically put it in a cup or a bowl, add hot water and leave it for a minute. I will warn you though, for those of you who haven't tried it before, it smells a bit funky. Like wet dog covered in soy sauce! And it does look a bit mad. Kind of murky with bits in it, but bear with it!

Tastes....well it tastes of very little really. It's quite salty so you won't need to add any more, but I added a lot of pepper to it because I add a lot of pepper to EVERYTHING and instant soups tend to need it.Would be quite nice if you infused it with some herbs when you make it. I'm thinking that some chilli flakes and some smoked paprika would help bring it to life. Or you might prefer some tumeric, cumin, garam masala and a snatch of coriander in it. Basically, it's a very plain broth, despite the smattering of green onions and small pieces of tofu in it. Depending on what you want to get from it, you might want to jazz it up a little bit.

Is fairly filling, satisfying and at 30 cals a sachet, you would do well to try and incorporate it into your diet. It would be great for those occasions when you just can't skip your lunch, need something hot to warm you up or if you're not hungry and don't want to eat something but HAVE to, perhaps because your family, friends, partner or room-mates are hassling you. You can make it in a bowl and it looks just like a regular bowl of soup you might have for your lunch or supper. It also has the added bonus of being marketed as a vegetarian product (I know some Anas convert to vegetarianism as a way of legitimately cutting out highly calorific proteins and animal fats) and something that is known to promote good digestive health. People with IBS are often told to try and consume some, so you can always tell folks that you're suffering from a bit of a dodgy tummy but you're still hungry and 'need' to eat something. They'll be glad to see you've put a bit of thought into what you're consuming and maybe leave you alone. They don't need to know it only has 30 cals in it!

By now, you're probably beginning to realise just how much thought I put into each and every thing I put into my mouth. A good many of you will be thinking I'm a lot like you and in many ways I guess I probably am. Like I've said before, it takes a certain kind of person to do what we do. It takes strength and discipline and an inner resourcefulness that you just don't see in the majority of people these days. We Anas are set apart from the rest. Partly through our conscious choice and decision not to affiliate ourselves with our weaker, less disciplined counterparts and partly down to our inherent subconscious psychological make up that deems us different, special and strange.

Being Ana sets us apart from the rest, yet being separate from the rest is what makes us truly Ana. It's a cycle of psychological behaviour and reasoning that feeds into itself and creates that which it requires.

And on that rather baffling note, I do believe I shall call it a day. I hope your day was as good as mine was, feel free to drop me a line or a comment and share how you're feeling right now. We're in this together ladies.

Stay Strong

Ana Catch The Bus