#i hate having issues with food texture i hate being a picky eater im going to kill myself

[saesyndrome]

"examples of small nutrient rich meals" "yes okay. slop. slop. slimy slop. raw carrots. the dryest piece of bread on earth with peanut butter. more slop."

[riderandspider]

I just have to vent.

Having an arfid is miserable.

Growing up being told "I feel sorry for whoever wants to take YOU on a date" and "If you were my kid I would've made you starve!" And "you're so spoiled because you are a picky eater" is so fucked up when none of it is your choice.

Living your life worried about how *other people* look at your meals is fucking awful. Coming home from dinners hungry is fucking awful. Being seen as a problem bc of your limited diet is fucking awful.

And trying to explain it when people get so offended. "It's not a texture issue because these two foods are pretty much the same texture so you should like both!" and "but this is my family recipe and I made it so im going to be hurt if you don't suffer through it and pretend that you like it!"

I just hate food. It's not my bc of my body, it's not my weight, it's not bc I'm disrespectful or vain or spoiled or whatever else.

Neurotypicals stop caring what other people eat or don't eat challenge.

[aikalie]

What my autism means to me

To me, my autism has affected almost every aspect of my life without me realizing it. I've always been a really social person, but it's always been easier to be social online. I've been praised many times for how easy it is to make friends, except it rarely feels like people genuinely want to be around me. When I was younger, I saw interacting with people as a form of "practice" to learn how to interact better. At some point in each friendship, if they go on long enough, someone will misunderstand something I say. I'll say something matter-of-factly and they'll get unreasonably upset without me knowing why. Trying to resolve these issues usually just makes it worse. Without me realizing, the very literal things I was saying were being interpreted as having some kind of hidden meaning that was seen as highly offensive. Realizing I'm autistic, at the very least, gives me an understanding of why this is happening and gives me a chance a fixing the problem instead of just being abandoned without knowing what I even did.

Knowing I'm autistic has also let me learn how to communicate. I'm able to tell people "I mean this literally but" or work out ways of communicating with people who don't get it. There's still hiccups sometimes where people want to believe I'm some demon but I do my best. My girlfriend is also autistic and our communication, while not always perfect, is something special. We're able to communicate our needs clearly and explain if something upset us or if we dont understand something. Communication is always a work in progress, but knowing I'm autistic was like a huge arrow in the right direction to learning.

Social etiquette is another beast entirely. Following specific rules for specific places made little sense to us. If you're in a fancy place why should you wear clothes that are restrictive and only act in certain ways? Why should I do this or that when I just wanna act like myself? Acting how we want has made us come off as carefree or childish to a lot of people, or cool to others; Meanwhile I simply just don't understand the social rules well enough to follow them or care. It's inappropriate to bring a plushie into the office and cuddle it while working? Why though, like serious answer. They're something I love, and I'm here all day and they help me get my work done better, why should I not have one aside from social etiquette.

Stimming is another thing I've had a lot of internalized shame about. There were a lot of things I do that I didn't quite realize were stimming, like playing with my hair or cracking my knuckles. But something like rocking back and forth when im happy or sad has always been see as a negative autistic trope, so I forcibly stopped myself from doing that and felt a lot of shame. I've felt way more comfortable with myself since I let myself enjoy these things. Holding some kind of toy or a plushie to stim with helps me keep focused. Knowing I'm autistic has helped a lot in letting myself stim more for positive effects and not guilt myself about it.

I've always had a weird relationship with food. The types of foods we like depends on who's fronting in the system, but oftentimes we prefer foods without too many conflicting flavors. After learning about autism, we realized texture plays a massive factor in our diet. One food we all universally hate is mashed potatoes, we cant even eat french fries if they're too soft. People always gave us shit about this like "who doesn't like potatoes what even are you". I cant stand their texture, it repulses me. A bunch of other foods are like this too. We always were believed to be a picky eater, but most of the pickiness comes from texture issues. We also tend to have foods that we can eat 3 times a day for weeks on end, nothing but that food. Even people we were close to kind of thought this was weird but just went along with it. One day we just stop eating that food suddenly. Everything made a lot more sense when we realized it was the autism, and we're able to not hate ourselves for being so picky now.

Not only with food, but our senses play into things a lot more than we realized. We're not as averse to fabrics as much as others may be but we still keep to comfortable clothes and materials. We really like blankets and plushies, they're really soft and make us comfy. When it comes to sounds, something like a crying baby or sirens are miserable. We were told we were being immature when we were younger for covering our ears from bad noises, we didn't understand why noone else did. I realize now that because I'm autistic, those bad noises actually cause my physical agony, like my body is screaming out, while for neurotypical people those bad noises are merely uncomfortable. We prefer small, dim spaces with lots of soft objects over anything else. We often have trouble processing speech, so it can take a few tries to recognize what someone said. This makes listening to music hard as after a dozen listens we still probably won't understand what the lyrics in a song are. We tried noise canceling headphones before, and cutting out the bulk of sound really helped our mood. Sensory input can become incredibly overwhelming without realizing it.

Stuff like pattern recognition with autism? We're not amazing at patterns persay, but sometimes we're great at figuring things out in our own ways. Routines never made sense to us, but with the magic of autistic literal thinking, we thought routines were like "you only follow a planner of what to do every hour". In actuality its more like, you prefer doing certain things in certain ways or orders. We shower every morning, we dont feel properly awake if we don't. After a shower we need to put lotion on our whole body or we feel wrong. We put silverware away specifically spoons, then forks, then knives just because that feels like the way they should be ordered, even though it really shouldn't matter. A weirder one we didnt understand why others didn't care but our blanket needs to be on the right way, with seams downwards and the tag by our feet, anything else feels wrong.

Realizing we had autism made us feel less like we were quirky little weirdos and let us learn to be happy with the way we are. It's impossible to explain every example of autism in our life, but since learning we had it we've been constantly realizing why we are certain ways and make sense of ourselves in a positive way for once.

[buck-yyyy]

ew ew ew i’m just trying to get comfortable in bed so i can go to sleep but my hair is rubbing on my ear and i HATE IT it feels so gross and makes my brain go EUGH, and i can’t put my hair up because i also hate sleeping with it tied back, and just. my sensory issues can suck my dick, i swear to fucking god- i’m so fed up with it. all of it.

i hate it!!! i hate that i have to wear shoes and socks, because while i know they’re important, if i’m not actively walking or doing something in them make my feet feel like they’re gonna throw up- most shoes are tolerable, and it goes away after a while, but DOC MARTENS ARE HORRIBLE FOR IT (i still wear them anyways because they were expensive and also i need every other gay person in a 90 foot radius to know be hat i am also gay lmfao)

socks are NOT to be worn unless i am wearing shoes as well. the second i take off my shoes and get back to my room, the socks go into the laundry basket, because otherwise i will LOSE IT (fun fact, im so used to not wearing socks that ibe learned slide super far on hardwood floors without them- it’s a special skill of mine that absolutely blew my 12 year old cousin’s mind lol)

i hate that there’s a huge list of foods that i don’t like, solely based off the texture. beans, mashed potatoes, actually just potatoes in general, fatty steak, tomatoes, etc etc, because it’s so limiting and i’m judged by everyone around me for being a picky eater even though it’s not my fault

i hate that certain sounds make my brain short circuit; that there’s a particular pitch of voice that, if the person talks too loudly for too long, starts to physically hurt me. i especially hate that my mom has that exact pitch- because it means i just have to grin and bear it.

i hate that i can hear electronics buzzing at night, because i have led lights above my bed and chargers right next to my pillow and sometimes they’ll start to buzz and it’ll drive me nuts- but i can’t unplug them, because i have to charge my phone

i hate that the sound of blowing a raspberry with your tongue makes my entire body recoil and my mouth feel absolutely disgusting. it’s the most physical reaction i have to any kind of sensory input, and it’s horrible. you know that feeling when you eat way too much super sweet frosting and your whole mouth feels tingly and gross? that’s the best way i can describe it. it’s mind-blowingly terrible.

i hate it, i hate it, i hate it so much and i wish it would go away.

[mellohyi]

i fucking hate my parents middle finger emoji /srs

theres a whole vent under the cut thats long i just gotta get this shit off my chest

oh yeah and if im missing any tags lmk, idk what tags i might need

how are you gonna go and tell your child (who is already dying because you yelled at them for not finishing food even though they quite literally found it repulsive to eat because of how it looked and they already tried to eat some anyways) they are FUCKING FAKING THEIR PROBLEMS.

im sorry i dont present the same way as my amab autistic cousin or something???? im sorry i only felt comfortable sharing it now after researching it and finally FUCKING understanding HOW THE FUCK I FUNCTION??????

fucking all that progress getting help and for what. if you are fucking reacting like that over me physically not being able to eat something because the way it looked physically repulsed me i wonder how long you were keeping that to yourself. i wonder if you only agreed to see a doctor because i was annoying you with it, and not because you were finally starting to understand where i was coming from.

i. i fucking got bullied for YEARS because of stuff i couldnt even control about myself. and you wanna go ahead and tell me those things are only a 'manifestation of me reading into it' and not actually an issue. right. i had to fucking be someone i was not for MOST OF MY FUCKING LIFE. AND YOU WANT TO GO AHEAD AND TELL ME IM ONLY SUDDENLY BEING LIKE THIS BECAUSE I READ ABOUT IT. IM SORRY FOR TRYING TO FIX IT MYSELF SO I COULD BE THE CHILD YOU WANTED. IM FUCKING SORRY I GUESS. SHOULDVE BEEN LIKE MY COUSIN WHEN HE WAS ONE FOR YOU TO ACTUALLY BELIEVE ME I GUESS. SORRY I DONT FUCKING PRESENT TO YOUR STANDARDS I GUESS.

my mum. my mum said shes not believing me until my gp says its an issue. she said shes not 'buying it until a doctor says it'. fun fucking fact!!! the problem exists before you see a fucking doctor!!! the reason why you fucking go to see the doctor is, shocker, because YOU HAVE A FUCKING PROBLEM. fuck off if you are seriously going to say that shit i might as well say you dont have depression unless i hear it come from a fucking doctor. no fucking wonder she got post partum depression after i was fucking born. no. fucking. wonder.

if there wasnt a problem i wouldnt have been referred to camhs by my gp or to some place to be assessed by camhs. if anything im shocked camhs even referred me somewhere, last time they just said im depressed and then discharged me. they didnt even provide me anything other than 'you said you are suicidal. are you suicidal? are you going to hurt yourself?' and thats fucking it. i couldve gotten help months ago if my school did something but they forgot about it the first time and the second time also told me its not an actual problem and i just need to study more.

my parents even told me im just making it up. as if i dont already think that. ive struggled with not knowing what was wrong with myself for years. and even then i still told myself i was being ridiculous and couldnt actually feel that way. the problems didnt just suddenly appear because i read about it. ive been a really picky eater my whole life, ive just learnt how to hide it over time because of you always telling me 'this isnt a restaurant' and other shit like that. but no, go ahead and tell me that my cousin would only eat toast and compare me to that. ignore the fact you made me feel like i needed to hide how i felt.

i used to struggle a lot with following rules and i always felt like i had to follow them perfectly and so did everyone else. so i guess im sorry for not lashing out at school and being disrupted as a child? even though i did almost hurt someone as a result of all the bottled up anger i had as a result and only realised i was about to hurt them when someone found me, thats a whole different story though i guess. im sorry for not presenting how you expected me to present even though its LITERALLY CALLED A SPECTRUM FOR A REASON??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

also telling me im only just suddenly hating textures is dumb please dont tell me you have forgotten the phase i had where i literally exclusively wore leggings because any other pants felt gross... and struggling to buy me jeans for years because they all made me feel gross... because thats kinda embarassing of you <3 try harder to fakeclaim my issues next time!!

oh and dont give me some donut type thing to say sorry for yelling at me <3 your actions are not forgiveable and im never going to forgive you. i forgave you easily when you guys used to hit me and stuff but im not being lenient anymore x

i mean if you pay for ranboo merch when it drops tomorrow like that one time you bought me a sims 4 expansion pack when it dropped because you knew i was excited for it and you had pretty much beaten me up the day before,,, i'll consider it (/j it genuinely isnt forgivable and theres no exceptions buddy,,, but you can still buy me merch!)

[naernon]

What is naemons favorite food?

anon i love u. i may suck at these but i like answering them. hmmmmmmm ok well here we go , …

disclaimer: i am both a dumbass and not a chef in any stretch of the imagination so i’m pulling all this food meta out of my ass gfhguihgdugdfh bear with me here if i say something dumb

____________

first, there’s this;

which… if he’s talking about THAT queen, then we can assume naemon was there at that banquet, too. i think it’s a main altmeri royal family gene of not liking mushrooms or gravy, so we can assume both would be crossed out.

he kinda comes off as a picky eater to me. naemon seems generally better than other royalty in which he has self-awareness in the

“oh, you know how it is. in the waters off the island, there are great sea beasts. smaller creatures cling to their sides, eating the scraps they leave behind. it’s just the same with nobility on land”

line, but as evident by the letter about the statue (naemon apparently was very particular about his noble features being accentuated) and how he talks to you, he’s still… uppity, as you’d expect. i dont think he’d be a whole pain in the ass to get his food right but y’know. yes, this is relevant to the complexity of the food in mind ghdfughdfug

while pickiness could embody a lot; i’m going to go ahead and cross out heavier foods. thick stews, red meats, rich food etc.,,, anything that can be considered kinda.,,, strong. . IMO gravy can be rather overbearing and if you don’t get it right it can be unpleasantly rich in addition to that weird texture. mushrooms can be the same way (i personally hate them gfhguidfhgdf) and the main reason i don’t like them is the texture. what an awful texture.

so then, you cross out anything with chewy or very… viscous textures. no squid/octopus or any acquired-taste, weirdly textured food like that, and this also backs up my “no red meat” claim because red meat is, no matter what, tougher than food like white meat. maybe that’s a little bit of a stretch because red meat is generally not too bad in that aspect buuuuut it’s very easy to fuck up imo

to elaborate on what i said about pickiness and his apparent self-awareness of the obnoxiousness of royalty (to an extent), i feel like he is picky but he tries not to be a pain about it to servants, etc.. just in a way that he just keeps his food/dishes simple to avoid causing issues. and so.

i think he‘d like fish. alinor is the sister city to sunhold, and sunhold apparently has the best sea-food around all of summerset, being a major port city. the altmer come across as a culture that likes sea food in general, anyways. im a bit biased because i fucking love fish but fish is typically light and airy and kept simple, in my experience so there you go

again im no chef so i have no idea what fish he’d like in particular. but in terms of dishes, i’d say naemon would probably like a simple dish like lemon garlic butter… halibut? tilapia? salmon? whichever.

im not about to get into vegetable discourse so whatever simple, not-too-wild vegetable that comes to mind would work with it, that along with white rice.

and naemon doesn’t seem to be much of a drinker (i swear, it’s like being home for the new life festival. the family’s been drinking since noon, and everyone wants you dead) so with a simple drink like water or tea or at most a very light alcohol. or even coffee. forgot coffee was a thing for a second there sorry mrs. starbucks

if it’s true altmer don’t like seasoning as ive heard, then take that dish and make it 10x more boring and yep yep we have naemon’s favorite food, that’s it y’all. lemon garlic butter (random fish idk) with white rice, a simple vegetable, and perhaps some tea.

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[mcjour]

a dream the other day

it started out as a “normal” weird or bad dream. but then by the end it was quite a switcheroo as it turned into a CY nightmare. damn, so close lol. it actually felt a lot like a metaphor for everything that had happened. 

me and my extended family were at a restaurant (no covid apparently) (also i can’t imagine going to a restaurant with these people no offense) and this restaurant had these massive book-sized menus (cheesecake factory perhaps lol). the waitress comes over immediately and is like “hello what do you want, im starting with you” and i’m like wait i’m not ready. and she’s like ok fine and starts at the other end of the table. 

apparently my brother was just like so frustrated with me and my indecision that he was doing rude stuff at the table. i didn’t notice as i was focused on the menu. but one of my cousins got up to confront him and was like stop being so rude, she’s just trying to pick something out, stop giving her the evil eye. etc. 

now of course this was devastating to little ol dream me because of all the people to be mean to me, i would not expect my brother! (lol in real life i could not imagine him doing this either, maybe a playful hurry up but anyway)

finally i decide to get a burger seeing as that is the only thing on the menu i can eat (which is actually a joke in real life with one of my friends who is also a picky eater). but when i try to order a burger, the waitress says this is not actually on the menu. so this means there is absolutely nothing i can order off of this menu. once again devastating to me. so in combination with the nothing to eat, my brother being mean, and a bunch of bad memories of the past*, i am like inconsolable. just a crying heap in the restaurant. 

for some reason my mom is like well someone’s gotta feed her, maybe her dad can pick her up??? so now for some reason my dad is brought into this lmaooo

just feel like such a burden

then idk where i was next.. the retreat???? somewhere. i went to some blonde lady that i recognized and i don’t remember what blonde lady i went to but she called on her walkie talkie to let someone know i was there. so i go in the building and both my old (good) boss and my therapist were sitting there waiting for me and i’m like ok awk but i feel safe and trust this will be a productive conversation. but then my bad boss joins in and i am angry. this is an intervention. they are going to hospitalize me, i can tell. i am “crazy” because of the burger incident. 

like ok,yes maybe as an adult it was kind of a lot to cry over a burger incident but there was so much else leading up to that. i wasn’t just crying over a burger, but i was also crying about my brother and my bad memories and whatever else. but nobody cared about that. all they saw was me crying over a burger and i was crazy.

someone there also was telling me about one of my students and i was like “i know i’m never gonna see them again whether you fire me or i quit” so LOL

ok but actually so i woke up and was blown away because of all the comparisons between this random burger analogy and real life. 

like that people didn’t see what was upsetting me so much, and how it was actually everything building up and not necessarily one big thing.

or the thing with my brother. i trusted my boss as she was at one time a close friend of mine. that was what made everything even worse. 

there was definitely another thing that i forget...

* the bad memories (actually real):

- when i was in middle school maybe? my dad brought us to this random italian restaurant in the north end (?? not sure why we were in boston lol but ok). anyway i am not a big fan of italian besides pizza and pasta with butter despite being italian myself (LOL i am a picky eater, also i am ~slightly~ more adventurous nowadays but i was a traumatized little 12 year old (or however old idk). also italian is like the worst place to bring someone when the whole menu is like big italian words and shit like i don’t even understand the menu but know i’ll hate it all. so i got really upset in the restaurant because there was nothing i could eat there. my dad was pissed. i don’t remember what he said or did but we did leave the restaurant. the restaurant was also pissed because my dad had already ordered a drink and you’re not supposed to get alcohol and leave like it’s not a bar! anyway i don’t remember what happened afterwards.

------ but that does remind me of 2 other memories: dad getting mad and throwing my brother against the wall. or the time we went out for chinese and my stepmom got so mad at me because i ~called her old~ as a joke after  she called me young... lmao imagine picking a fight with a middle schooler.... anyway she wanted dad to take us/ her ? home immediately lol. i don’t remember wht happened? i think maybe we had already finished eating because i don’t remember abruptly leaving

- when we went to my good boss’ house and she made us a brunch spread and i couldn’t eat a single thing. like i even was like “whatever i’ll eat the fruit” but even the fruit was like the one fruit i won’t eat HAHAH. anyway she said she would make me scrambled eggs but she needed more eggs so then she had to go to the store and get more eggs and that was a big thing (i mean she didn’t MAKE it a big thing, but she needed to borrow money and a car LOL). anyway i felt like such a big burden and couldn’t help but cry at the table but i didn’t want to make a scene and feel like an even bigger burden so i couldn’t leave the table either and like just cried there silently and luckily(??) nobody said anything to me about it (but i do remember a friend (don’t remmeber which) later (like months later..?) confirming that they had indeed noticed LOL)

- when i had to ask for accomodations for the retreat. it felt humilating. like my food ~preferences~ are not just me being childish, but legitimate sensory issues with texture and taste. and the guy was like oh you want chicken nuggets? and im like .... well ... yes i like those but no it doesn’t need to be nuggets like i can eat any chicken.... anyway he said the kitchen can probably make me peanut butter and jelly and i’m like ok that’s fine (not great, but if someone is going out of their way to accomodate me i am not going to be a brat). but the thing is that my anxiety is so bad that it was never actually a realistic accomodation for me. to walk up to the window and be like hello i would like a pb&j??? LMAO. yeah that’s not embarrassing at all even without social anxiety..... anyway on the last day of the retreat, i saw no breakfast items i could eat. like i lost it when i saw the french toast HAHAHAH. just a very loaded memory. i guess that’s a direct one to one with the dream in that i lost my mind over not having food i can eat

- also plenty memories of frustration with my indecisiveness. both my own and those around me, namely my mom. those are harder to remember specifics and also are not the ~most~ relevant to the dream so no use in writing them out. i do remember renting videos as a big one though. 

[dextromethorphan-addict-blog]

hey love! i hope youre having a good day. i know that if they know you have an ED while inpatient theyre not going to let you out unless youre eating a healthy amount. also the facility u go to determines food quality and nutrition (one i went to had a salad bar thing and thats p much all i ate). you may also drop weight due to stress and fidgeting but it depends on your body. hope this helps, please try to stay safe!

When they asked my height and weight they were like are you sure and I was like yeah and they were like well how recent was that and I was like a week ago maybe. They were like oh well that's underweight according to BMI ; is that usual for you? I was like yeah cause it is. I was adopted from Russia (live in USA) and I've been underweight all my life quite literally. When Im in the normal range it makes me feel uncomfortable. It's only happened a handful of times I was in the normal range but it made me hate myself. I'll likely have no appetite when I first get in just because of stress. Im also an insanely picky eater, which doesnt help honestly cause I dont like salads and I have issues with a lot of food textures. So it's harder for me to eat healthy than most people cause of my pickiness which is mostly texture and strong flavor issues stemming from being fed rotten food as a baby before I was adopted. It's a whole thing I have to explain to people and sometimes I'd rather just say 'I dont eat much cause I wanna starve'. It'd be a lot less words. Thanks for the ask. TL;DR: the intake people noted I was underweight and this is normal for me. Ive always been underweight and have eating issues because of childhood trauma from before I was adopted.

[fishbians]

learning to actually enjoy food again is a process but!

ig im making this post partly for archival reasons, and partly because i think it might help other people in similar (?) situations to me

fall 2018 - may 2019 was an extremely hard time for me. my girlfriend of 1.5 years broke up with me, i was in college about to go to an international conference with what felt like nothing to present, and i realized i had few if any friends there. actually, all of my friends within my major were studying abroad, and i was completely alone. i was 6 hours away from home, and became so depressed i lost 15 pounds 2 months after the breakup. gaining weight is difficult for me, so a 15 lbs drop put me in dangerous territory if i were to get sick.

since then i’ve recovered some of that weight, about 5 to 8 lbs of it depending. mentally and emotionally, i am in a much better place. but one issue still lingered from that time: i have lost interest in food. before fall 2018 i already had a somewhat built in disinterest in food; if i was busy, i wouldnt eat simply because i’d forget to. spectrum brain sometimes gets Super Engrossed in a task, and then 6 hours have gone by and i haven’t eaten anything. so this made it a lot worse.

since i’ve been home, i’ve been working part-time in retail, and if we know anything about retail it’s that you get about one break a shift (a possible 15 if i have a short shift, and a mandatory unpaid 30 if i have a longer shift). this has made it even harder for me to get back on a consistent eating schedule. i can feel the toll it’s begun to take on my body, and so like i said, im posting this partly for my own archival purposes, and partly for anyone else who might find it useful.

my main dilemma that i noticed since i’ve been back home is that i’m just not excited when i eat food. when i have to eat lunch, it’s not, “aw fuck yeah, i’m gonna eat some mf PASTA” it’s, “ah, fuck, i have to go give my body sustenance.” if im busy, i get irritated because my task is being interrupted (a spectrum brain thing i think). if im not busy, i notice its just that im not excited about the flavor or event of Food. and so i asked myself, why the Fuck is this happening? this isnt, like, a normal thing that people usually experience. usually everyone around me is so excited about food.

i thought it was probably some sort of leftover symptom from a combination of things: 1) repetitive on-the-go on-campus food for the past 3 years, and 2) depression and lack of eating from the past year. actually, if we go farther back, this has been happening probably since high school, though on a subtler level, since i was so overwhelmed with schoolwork i rarely had consistent meals.

there are a few things that are consistent here:

stress

pace of my environment

lack of meal variety

those second and third ones especially are really notable to me, i think, because i notice im a really fucking fast eater. especially if i want to get back to something i was doing earlier. sometimes it’s required but a lot of times it’s not. the other thing, lack of meal variety, is something ive been trying to tackle too. i think that lack of enrichment with different flavors and textures makes food dull. the problem is, spectrum brain is a little bitch and HATES certain textures. it is one PICKY motherfucker. we like tomatoes and bell peppers - ONLY IF the they are diced very finely, and put in a carb (like pasta, rice...etc). so it makes it really hard for me to have meal variety when the taste might be fine but the texture is something my brain rejects. one issue at a time, i guess.

what i did this weekend was really good, though. Really Good. i pulled some resources from my nutritionist i had on campus (i can send those to anyone upon request) and made two things:

a shopping list

a meal list

the thing about me and grocery shopping is this: when i have to grocery shop, i have to ask myself, what do i wanna eat over the next week or two? and my brain goes, who the fuck knows, kid! and so i end up buying some of the things i like, but not having enough variety to keep me Enriched. a lot of the food goes to waste, or i forget about the options i have, etc. furthermore, now that i work, i can’t keep buying food from my store, its not economical or healthy. so i needed to really buckle down and do meal prep, and do it well, because my job is demanding.

so! i pulled some meal ideas and snack ideas from my nutritionist’s handouts, and made a shopping list. then i made a meal list, which breaks down meals that i know i like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then snacks. i have to be eating about 5 times a day consistently to gain weight. 3 meals and 2 snacks minimum. then, in a separate column, i indicated if it was a “work-ready” meal, so i knew how many i could pack as lunches or snacks.

now i have that list to look at if i dont know what to eat! because as stupid as it sounds, i have a really hard time synthesizing the groceries i’ve bought and the options i have, especially when it’s mixed in with my parents’ food in the fridge and pantry. that list of meals i can reference will hopefully help me 1) not waste food and 2) feel like i have some variety.

my other thing that ive been doing to help me get excited about food, and to also slow the FUCK down when i eat (to help me savor flavors) is being social when i eat. especially since a lot of my friends are still in college right now or work, when i can, i take my meals out and sit with my parents. it not only forces me to slow down eating by talking, but also makes me feel less lonely, which was a really bad issue i had in college. i took almost every meal alone. and humans are social! and the social part is helping a lot.

so if youre even reading this, thanks for reading. like i said, this was mostly for archival purposes, but for people with similar issues as me, i hope this helped in some way too.