October – 2013 – re-modelED

Autumn Apple Recipes

October 31, 2013

Apple Crisp

Filling:

6 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced (mix sweet & tart)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Topping:

1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup gluten-free whole oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar
3 tablespoons coconut oil

Preheat oven to 375 F
In bowl, mix chopped apples, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons honey, and lemon juice. Stir until apples are coated.
In another bowl, whisk together the almond flour (I just ground raw almonds in food processor to make into flour), oats, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and pecans, coconut palm sugar and coconut oil until crumbles.

Place the apples into a baking dish rubbed with a little coconut oil. Top apples with the crumble mixture.
Bake for 30 – 35 minutes or when the top is a little brown. Let sit and cool for 5 to 10 minutes. It will be very hot.
*you could also bake in individual little ramekin dishes for separate portions.

Caramel Apple Nachos:

For The Caramel:

5 dates (with pits removed)
1/3 cup and 1 1/2 Tbsp water
3/4 tsp vanilla

Blend dates in food processor then slowly add water and vanilla and blend until smooth

For The Chocolate:

1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup coco powder

Pour all ingredients in a pot and stir on low heat until everything is mixed together.

**This makes a lot of chocolate. You can dip fruit in it, blend it with nut butter, or put in the freezer for later**

Core and slice apples (I used 2) and drizzle the caramel and chocolate on the apples, then sprinkle shredded coconut and raw pecans on top.

I hope you enjoy these delicious apple treats! Happy Halloween everyone!

Blog, Health & Recovery

The Yellow Brick Road to Recovery

October 16, 2013

When I was recently modeling in LA, I met the most encouraging and amazing person. Her name is Jodi and we met through a mutual friend. I had an instant connection with her, not just because she was from the South and living in LA , but I could tell she was the type of person that I could talk to about anything. When I met her, ED was slowly sneaking back into my life as I was getting back into the swing of modeling again. It was so good to have someone there that I could share these storms of emotions with.

Just a few short weeks before getting to LA, it seemed I had everything under control with my eating disorder. But the perfect storm hit as soon as I got there and I was letting ED take over again. I had been struggling with the decision of whether to come home or stick it out through my storm and hope that ED would eventually leave me alone. Every day, it was harder to ignore the anxiety and stress building as I tried to model and pretend that ED wasn’t with me again. I was having severe panic attacks and my skin was literally crawling as I fought not to slip back into my old habits.

*Thank you Jodi for being such a great friend to me! – Urth Caffe

The night that I decided to put myself first instead of ED and come home to continue my recovery, Jodi and I had met for dinner at our favorite restaurant. Jodi was very supportive of my decision to come home and wanted us to see the Wizard of Oz at the IMAX Theater in Beverly Hills that night. I’ve seen Wizard of Oz who knows how many times, but this time the movie had a whole new meaning to me. I never saw how much it related to my eating disorder until I saw it this time.

I was definitely not in Kansas anymore. I left behind my comfortable life of therapy, recovery, the support of my family, and normal eating habits to landing in my own Technicolor Land of Oz full of measurements, diets, and the constant struggle to be perfect. I was always responsible for most of the pressure I felt throughout my modeling career. This trip was no different, except this time I was in my own OZ searching for a way to model without relying on ED to achieve perfection.

With an eating disorder, you’re always looking for the road that leads to a full recovery. Just like Dorothy, the Lion, Scarecrow, and the Tin-Man, you’re searching for…

COURAGE:

To be able to eat a meal without feeling guilty or obsessing over calories.
To be okay with exercising a normal amount each day.
To not be constantly trying to reach for perfection.
To not let your eating disorder take over your existence.

KNOWLEDGE:

To recognize when ED is lying to you.
To realize that the road to recovery is worth it.
To know when you are reaching your limit and need help.
To put your health first before anything.

HEART:

To see that you don’t have to be fully recovered to make a difference and help someone else.
To be happy with yourself regardless of your size.
To see how special and unique you are outside of your eating disorder.
To put yourself first before ED.

Honestly, at first I had no idea why Jodi wanted to take me to see the Wizard of Oz, but towards the end of the movie, it became very clear to me. Dorothy, the Lion, Scarecrow, and the Tin-Man all went on a journey to search for different things, but they found out they held the power to everything they were looking for all along. It took them traveling across Oz and defeating a wicked witch to figure that out. The same goes with defeating an eating disorder. It may seem like the yellow brick road is never-ending and you will never be fully recovered, but you have the power inside yourself to get rid of ED for good.

Blog, Health & Recovery

Identity Thief

October 8, 2013

“The Girl With No Face”

Art By: Ashton Powers

Picture this. You’re home alone when you hear a knock at the door. You go to see who it is, to find someone on your front porch. They push past you, but you don’t do anything to stop them, you just let them in. You don’t call the police and you don’t fight back; you willingly let a thief into your home. The thief takes your valuable belongings then leaves. Each day they come back to your house and each day you let them back in. They start taking more and more until you finally have nothing left for them to steal. Why would you let someone come into your home time after time and walk away with everything you own?

That’s basically what happens when you have an eating disorder (ED). You let ED, the thief, manipulate your thoughts and replace them with lies about your size, intake, and how much you should exercise. Eventually, this can feel like it is taking over your existence. Your eating disorder keeps stealing little pieces of you, of your identity, until you have nothing left. You become your eating disorder and lose who you are in the process. Eating disorders consume you; every minute of the day can be filled with these life-draining worries and thoughts.

When I was at my worst, I felt like I had no identity outside of my eating disorder. I wasn’t sure of who I was anymore. I believed all of the lies ED told me. Fear and shame left me purposefully isolating myself from my friends and family. No one seemed to understand what I was going through. My eating disorder had stolen my identity.

Stopping ED from coming in and stealing from you is not going to be an easy task; I still struggle with this thief on a daily basis. These are my steps to ED-proof your mind and prevent the thief from messing with your head.

Lock your door and don’t let him in – It might be hard at first, but get up enough courage and stop letting the thoughts control you and try to see them for what they really are.
Don’t be home – Go out and do something fun and completely not eating- disorder- related. Go spend a night out with friends, go for a relaxing walk in the park, or take up a new hobby. Do whatever you can to get yourself out there and get away from ED.
Call for help – Reach out to someone you trust. When you notice that you’re isolating yourself, ask a friend to MAKE you get away from ED.

No one deserves to have their identity stolen. You are not your eating disorder. Stop letting the thief break in and take what is yours. You are valuable, unique, beautiful and wonderfully made. There is so much more to you than ED wants you to believe.

Blog, Health & Recovery

From the Inside Out

October 1, 2013

Art by Ashton Powers (me)

Eating disorders can be very deceiving. On the outside it can look like you finally have it all together and your emotions in check, but on the inside it’s a completely different story. It’s very easy to hide your feelings and trick yourself (and others) into believing that you are better. This is what happened to me. After a year and a half of recovery, I felt like I was ready to get back into modeling. I’m sure to everyone else it seemed like I had it all together, but that was all a mask.

Throughout my recovery, I didn’t want people to know how I felt and what I was going through, but I decided this time to be more open about my struggles. When I got back into modeling this past month, I made sure that I was upfront with my roommates in the model’s apartment and told them about my eating disorder. I was hoping to come across as someone that had it all together. It didn’t take long for me to see that I wasn’t as put together as I thought. I began to realize that even though my outside might be right for modeling, it’s what was going on inside my head that matters the most. This has probably been one of the biggest lessons I have learned and it took me flying across the country to figure it out. Even though my body was cooperating and I looked the part, emotionally I had to be ready too. So I decided to take a break from modeling and I feel like this is one of the best decisions I could have ever made for me.

I’m not saying that everyone with an eating disorder should hide out for the rest of their lives; that’s the complete opposite of what I’m saying. It took me getting back into the modeling industry, facing my fears, going through the measurements in the agency, castings with clients looking me up and down and judging me by my appearance, being around other models that were not very sensitive to what I was going through, and living with the pressures that I put on myself to admit that I still wasn’t ready. Modeling is a very intense and pressure-filled job…and two years ago I stuck it out and tried to work through all the pressures at the worse of my eating disorder. I’m so glad that this time, I was able to see that it wasn’t right for me right now. I was taking giant steps backward in my recovery. I started going backward in my eating, all of the things I never wanted to relive. My eating disorder had surfaced again and I wasn’t ready.

A few years ago, I put my outside before my insides and I didn’t care what was happening to me emotionally. Thankfully now, I saw it for what it was. These are lies from my eating disorder that were controlling me again and I knew that I had to get out of that environment so I could take care of me. This time, instead of just worrying about my outside, I for once, thought about my inside…I cared about me.

I went back into modeling not just to prove to myself that I could succeed in the industry despite my ED, but also to help other girls that might be experiencing the same things I have. But in my mind, I thought I had to have everything together in order to help people, but that is the farthest from the truth. One of the main things I’ve learned is that I can help others in my brokenness. I don’t have to be perfect and have it all together to make a difference. I thought this blog would be showing girls how I finally “have it all figured out” or how I completely overcame my eating disorder in just little over a year. The truth is that I am not anywhere close to being fully recovered in my eating disorder and I might not ever be. That doesn’t mean that I can’t try to help others while I’m still recovering myself. I know that I will always worry about my outside, but in order to start feeling free from ED, you have to first focus on the inside-out.

October 2013

Autumn Apple Recipes

The Yellow Brick Road to Recovery

Identity Thief

From the Inside Out