Making food choices is one of the hardest things for me. Making food choices gives my eating disorder voice just enough space in my head to whisper to me. Leaving me paralyzed and unable to decide anything.

Or, if I do manage to make a decision, it takes an unreasonable amount of time. And I mean unreasonable amount of time. It’s taken me three hours before to decide what to eat for a single meal.

At the beginning of every week, my best friend and I create a food plan for the week. Creating this plan is, what I affectionately refer to as, my own personal hell. However, making all of the decisions at once, for the entire week, makes it extraordinarily easier to eat the rest of the week. Because then, instead of having to fight two battles with my eating disorder every meal (one before, and the other during), I only have to fight one. And it’s a lot easier to fight the “during meal” battle when you aren’t already exhausted from the “before meal” battle.

I realize that making a meal plan is a stepping stone in my recovery. Ultimately, the goal is to not need to take time every weekend to decide a meal plan for the entire week. The goal is to be able to make spur of the moment food decisions. To be able to make decisions without having to talk it out with someone else. Without needing someone else to tell me that eating is okay. That eating is not shameful. But for now, a weekly meal plan is progress.

Some days though, the meal plan changes – like today. Life happens and my best friend isn’t able to be there for every meal, and I’m left to figure things out for myself. These days are hard. They’re uncertainty. They’re fighting a raging war with my brain. They’re fighting this war by myself. Against the numbers. Against the guilt.

It’s exhausting.

But when I win on days like this, the victory is so much sweeter.

-X