The Perils of Food Shopping

          Food shopping is one of those activities which I have a love/hate relationship with.  As corny as it sounds, I enjoy cutting my coupons, scanning the sales fliers, making my list, and heading out to the store.  Yet even with the best intentions, oftentimes the minute I set foot in the store is where my ed rears its ugly head.  Some foods, the "safe foods," I have no problem buying, like fruits, vegetables, and diet soda (notice the trend?).  But then other foods, some legitimate fear foods, some "just kinda scared of" foods, are a completely different story.  Take peanut butter and ice cream, which happen to be two of the most troublesome foods for me to buy.  While I highly enjoy the taste and texture of both, I don't enjoying eating them frequently--they both rank pretty high on the "Under No Circumstances Will You Eat This" list.  I can't get through a peanut butter purchase without comparing at least five to seven different kinds.  That one fat gram or measely twenty calorie difference in different brands could clearly make or break my waistline!  Let's get real:  that's ridiculous!  (Of course, just because I know in my head it's ridiculous doesn't stop me from believing that those twenty calories or one fat gram does affect my size.)  After awhile, the nutritional facts become etched in my head to the point where I no longer need to read each label to know the contents of the food; however, the still doesn't stop me from standing in the aisle for a solid five minutes every time.  It's sad that I know how many grams of fat are in a typical serving size of peanut butter.  Actually, now that I think of it, I know the fat, calorie, and carbohydrate content of way too many foods--but who with an eating disorder doesn't?
          It might seem counter-intuitive to continue to eat foods such as peanut butter and ice cream since I spend way too long agonizing over buying them, both in the planning and selecting stages of purchasing.  Yet I know in order to get over this eating disorder, fear foods need to be conquered.  Foods shouldn't be labeled as "good" or "bad," and therefore there is no food that I need to be scared of.  Of course, this is much easier said than done.  On my shopping list yesterday afternoon was the dreaded ice cream, and I had a fabulous run-in with the ed thoughts as I progressed down the frozen dessert aisle at Safeway.  The ridiculous monologue that went on in my head, or rather, my dialogue with the ed, looked something like this:
Me: "Ok, just go down the frozen aisle, suck it up and just get the ice cream."
Ed:  "Are you sure you want to do that?  It's ice cream!"
(Momentarily ignored the ed, found the ice cream section, saw that the Safeway brand was on sale and they had flavors I liked...perfect.)
Ed:  "You know you shouldn't be getting ice cream."
Me:  "I'm getting ice cream.  I need to get the ice cream.  There's nothing wrong with ice cream."
(I was trying to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with ice cream since I wasn't quite feeling it in the moment, and it ended up working.  I pick up the ice cream, put it in the cart, take two steps down the aisle, where I see more ice cream.)
Ed:  "Here's the light ice cream.  Put the regular ice cream back and get the light ice cream."
Me:  "Okay, I'll give in here, I'm not too comfortable getting regular ice cream so I'll go with the light--it's not like I'm giving in to the low-fat/low-calorie temptations of sorbet or sherbet."
(Switch ice creams, then take two more steps down the aisle, where I see more ice cream.)
Ed:  "Are you crazy, stupid, or both?  Look, here's the "no sugar added"  and "fat free" ice cream.  What you really need to do is get a container of each and compare the nutritional facts, especially the calories and fat content."
I was literally reaching into my cart to put the light ice cream back into the freezer and compare labels on the "better" ice cream when the thought of "What the hell am I doing?!" ran through my head.  Imagine how ridiculous I would have looked (and quite honestly, how I often do look when I buy foods such as ice cream, peanut butter, cereal, crackers, granola bars, etc.) had I carried out this plan.  Even though the previous "conversation" between me and the ed lasted all of 60 seconds in my head, talk about letting your eating disorder control you!  Once I got out of the moment, and even looking back on it now, it's ridiculous to the point of being comical.  I was having a legitimate conversation withmyself over ice cream and debating a mere handful of calories.  It's not like I was fighting with myself over consuming lettuce compared to Crisco! It shouldn't be that hard to pick out some damn ice cream without battling inner food demons.

          As a random yet pertinent side note, I'm a nervous wreck for tomorrow morning, which is when I have to tell my current dietitian that I can't see her anymore because I won't be able to afford her private practice rates.  Since I'll be traveling the following week, tomorrow will be the last time I'll see her.  I'm scared for several reasons, but the most important being that voicing it to her will make it real.  I will be officially ending our working relationship.  As previously mentioned, she and I have come so far in the work that we've done and the thought of not having her support is painful and scary.  I already have major abandonment issues thanks to my parents and other people who have hurt me in the past, and while this situation is nobody's fault, it's still painful nonetheless.  With the relapse and food thoughts/actions much worse than they have previously been this semester, I need that last third of my support team (doctor and therapist being the other two-thirds).  With the holidays coming up and me being out of the state for a week, I'm going to be waiting longer than I'd like to for an answer.  I'm incredibly nervous and anxious to be officially without a dietitian, but I know it's what needs to be done since I just can't afford it.  If I wanted to pay a bit less to see her, I could do so by agreeing to meet in a public place, such as a coffee shop, since she doesn't have to pay to rent space for a session.  Another possible option was to only see her bi-weekly.  Frankly, I'm not comfortable with meeting in public nor only having appointments every other week--it's not what I need.  I'm eagerly and anxiously anticipating having a full support team again--I want to get better.  But in order for that to happen, I need to essentially suck it up, not chicken out, and tell her that in order for me to make full strides in recovery, I won't be able to afford the amount of support I'd need if I was going to continue to see her.