I got out on this beautiful spring morning and ran about 7 miles and it felt so good. It rained last night so the sun was out this morning and it was lovely. I was feeling really down yesterday about my eating habits and weight gain, but I feel much better now. I feel healthy and strong -- I remember that this is the same girl that ran the marathon last year, and my body still remembers how to perform.

I hope anyone who reads my posts (especially yesterday's posts) doesn't get too concerned. I did battle eating disorders through my teens and 20's. I have been through therapy, but there are still hints of bad feelings deep within me that try to surface every once in a while. But I am so much smarter now, and I have my daughter to inspire me to take the healthier road and I know that I will succeed, regardless of what a number on the scale might say. I know I've had a very stressful few weeks (months, actually). I have used exercise to escape the stress sometimes, I realize that. As a result, I did get to a weight that was probably too low for me to be at my best. My period stopped and I felt very tired and run down day to day. I realize that and am doing what I can to get healthy. That's what makes me different from the me of 15 years ago. When I was younger, I would have been proud of losing so much weight and getting sicklier and sicklier. So that itself is progress.

What got me down last night is seeing the scale creep up -- even though I know it's what needs to happen. It freaked me out a little. No one considers the scale going up to be a good thing. I start to think, will I be able to stop it or will I just keep gaining? By then, I've come to like my cheat days -- will I be able to tone them down? Actually, I always pay for the cheat day later -- because I always eat so much I get bloated and sick later. That is very reminiscent of my sicker days -- eating without any control, not being able to stop. Knowing mid-mouthful that I have a problem here -- I'm not just eating out of hunger, there is something wrong here -- eating so much and so fast that I am not even really savoring and tasting my food -- I don't like saying the dreaded "b" word, but that's what it is -- it is a binge! But, again, the older me has made progress. I do not do the dreaded "p" word anymore -- I have not done any of that for over 10 years.

I post all of this, knowing that it's a very delicate subject, especially for those who may have or have had an eating disorder. Reading someone else's experience sometimes triggers certain feelings or behaviors in others and I hope that's not what I'm doing. Eating disorders are so crazy sometimes -- many people learn about them by reading articles or watching stories about others who have suffered, and the perspective of the piece is to discourage the behavior in others, but it tends to have the opposite effect. I learned about bulimia from a Seventeen article when I was 12 or 13. And I thought, wow, you can really do that?

**So, I will stop for now, because the last thing I want to do is give anyone a push into doing something unhealthy. I appreciate the space to rant and ramble.