My life now

     This blog is going to be, I think fairly short. I couldn't help, but notice that all my blogs are about the past. However, in this blog I am going to talk about how my life is like now. And my future goals in life. Stuff like that. So, I am going to put this blog under a label.

     I'm going to college. Doing duel enrollment. That's when you mix high-school with college at the same time. I have two classes. English and ASL 2. They both have been a challenge. I find myself doing a lot of homework. (But that's just my opinion.) I'm working on a MLA paper for English, it's so confusing! Sign Language has been good so far. I had a midterm not too long ago and I didn't really study for it. My bad I guess. Before I go to my English class I go to the gym (the highlight of my day)!
     I'm currently training for a 5k. This will be my fourth 5k. And no a 5k is not 5 miles it's 3.1 miles. I was able to convince of friend of mine to do it with me. I hope to beat my record. 29 minutes and 52 seconds. I jog/walk for an hour on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Monday and Wednesday I go to the gym :D luv it! You might be wondering "ooh I wonder what does she eat?" "Does she eat six meals a day?" "Are you still uncomfortable around certain food?"

Answer to question 1: I basically eat what I want. I love bran flakes I have that for breakfast almost everyday. I eat fish a lot. Tuna from a can. Tilapia, I wish I could have more Mahi mahi, but tilapia is my favorite. I deeply enjoy Greek yogurt. It's texture and taste is way better than regular yogurt :) I love frozen yogurt!! And ice cream too. A lot of vegetables. Spinach, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli Love them!

Answer to question 2: I don't eat six meals. I eat three. Breakfast is light. I have a heavy lunch. Dinner is medium size I guess. I can't tell. I choose my portions. I make all the decisions now in my food. It used to be the doctors, but now it's on me. Which I think is good practice when I become a nutritionist ^_^

Answer to question 3: Yes, I am. But I'm working my way around it. I used to be scared of jelly, but not anymore. I hate peanut butter. It's too sticky and dry. Plain out ew! I'm right now scared of bagels. (My twin sister loves bagels) I know, why would someone be scared of food? Trust me there are more people out there than you think. My family doesn't buy bagels because it's too pricey. Always after a 5k race there is some food. Bananas, apples, grapes, oranges, cookies and bagels. I sometimes have a bagel after a 5k race. Plus when I do eat a bagel it doesn't really taste that great.

In my personal opinion I think bagels shouldn't be eaten everyday.
Just look at this website: http://www.livestrong.com/article/392011-are-bagels-healthy-for-breakfast/
Enjoy, see you later
I <3 God!

When I left....part 1

So, Lately I have been talking about how my stay at the hospital and what was it like, how did I feel and all the jazz, but now I want to describe to you my last days.

Those two weeks felt like forever, but at the same time it went by so very fast (I don't if that makes any sense or not). I don't know what day it was. It could have been a Monday or a Friday, heck even a Sunday, but one day all of a sudden I heard that Ale was leaving the hospital. I was thinking to myself, "Who can I talk to now?" I was thinking this because Ale and me began to finally have conversations here and there (she was so sweet). I remember she gave me this Flarp noisy putty thing. I loved it! I played with that putty for hours on end ^_^ However, back to what I was talking about. Ale was leaving! On her last day we were sitting together I think we just finished lunch and I was looking at her, thinking to myself how lucky she was to leave so quickly. I said to myself, "I may never see her again. I can't let this opportunity slip by." I felt a tugging feeling inside. It was like God was telling me to do something. Without giving much thought I just blurted out, "You want my e-mail address?"
Instantly she replied, "Yes!" I was glad when she said that. I quickly found some paper and pen and I wrote down my e-mail.

(harcyMill@gmail.com Go ahead e-mail me if you want. Ask me questions. It can be questions about anorexia, nutrition, what's my life like now. Or you can just comment, whatever.)

Then she gave me her e-mail. I remember she said to me, "But don't e-mail me until you leave the hospital."
I don't know why she said that, but I'm like sure, okay. Then before I knew it, it was already dinner time. Ale was going to leave right after dinner. Her mother and father were with us just counting the seconds I guess.
When Ale was leaving she looked so happy and I was so jealous. I'm not going to lie here. I wanted to leave so bad. My heart went out to Ale. All I want for her is to feel happy in her own skin. Then boom! She left the room and walked away. (ooh and by the way I did e-mail Ale when I left and she did e-mail me back. And yes we still e-mail each other to this day. And YES I love her deeply)! Francisca The next day came along and I got another room mater. She was ten and she had anorexia just like me. Her name was Francesca. I'm not so sure if I spelled it right.
She had blond curly hair as I recall I could be mistaken. She had bright blue eyes. Her eyes were sooo cute. She looked somewhat timid. I am too, when meeting new people.
When we were eating breakfast together in my mind I was comparing her amount of food to mine. She had such a small amount compare to my plate of food.

I wish I could continue onward, but I can't. Mainly because I have some homework that I need to do today. It should be against the law to do school on a Saturday. See ya later.

I <3 God!

Continuation of In Depth

Last time, I left you in a somewhat lame cliffhanger. Well, not anymore let's pick where we left off.

As you know my nutritionist, Christina, gave me the menu where I had to pick foods that I had to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and all those snacks in the middle. I had to eat 3 starches for lunch, 1 meat and 1 dairy... I think. Christina was super, super nice and comforting. She didn't acted serious at all, but I could tell she wanted me to get better.


There was this one day where Christina was telling me that after I leave the hospital I would have to drink whole milk, (only temporarily) But, I freaked out. I started sobbing loudly. I hate whole milk with a passion. It tastes way too thick and a little greasy. Nevertheless, she looked right at me and said, "Raquel, will just give it a try?" 
I said, "I'll.......give it a go." Of course, after I said that thinking to myself: I don't want to drink whole milk!!
(and beside whole milk is high in Saturated Fat, and a large portion of the calories in this food come from sugars. 
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/69/2

Then later on through out my stay the doctors had to increase my calorie intake. -_-

Once in a while a nurse would put me on a wheel chair and we'd go outside and just look around. It was nice being outside, instead of inside my freezing room. However, when we were outside I just felt so sad, because like I only wanted to go outside if I was leaving the hospital forever. I wanted so much just to run, jump, skip around, feel the grass, but I couldn't. One time after being outside another nurse says to me with a smile, "Wasn't it great to go outside? Did you have fun?"

"It's just the outside. Nothing I haven't seen." Her smile instantly fade away. Now that I look back to that moment I wish hadn't said that.

The doctors thought I was depressed based on that sentence. I just wanted to get the heck out of the stupid hospital. They wanted to give me pills. Like that would help.

My dad goes up to me and says, "Look, they think you're depress, which I know you're not. So, tomorrow, no matter what, smile." Tomorrow comes along and I have this smile on my face. My nurse walks in yawning and I say, "Good morning, lovely day isn't?"

I really tried to appear happy, but in reality I was bored out of my mind. A few hours go by and the doctors (all my doctors, but not Christina.) walked in with their hands behind their backs, "have you reached a decision?" they were talking to my parents. Then my dad was quick to say, "We have reached a decision and we won't do it." To this day I am thankful for my dad standing up for me like that. 

As my stay in the hospital lingered on Ale and me would color together and do puzzles. I hate puzzles, but like there was anything better to do. My favorite part was when I found play-doh. I love play-doh. I made all these weird and colorful creations.   

I got to be honest. People ask me all the time, "how did you get out?" and the truth is I'm not out. I'm still struggling. If anything the only thing I have done is that I have accepted this challenge from God because I know that I can help people through this trail.

It has come to my recent knowledge that I don't have any pictures other than that cute little bunny.
I'm making this post officially dedicated to pictures! Let's get things rolling.

Note: All these pictures are pictures that I made thanks to the use of technology and websites like:  http://www.maplesimulator.com/ Thank you. Also Google.

Actually my sister made this one. 

In depth (part 1)

  I want to go in depth at my stay in the hospital. In the short two weeks that I spent (it felt longer than that to be honest) ,but the point is a lot things took place in that hospital most of them were emotional and I cried a lot.
  No one cares about the first day and plus nothing really happened on that day other than checking in. However, on the first night my mom and my twin sister stayed with me and slept on a sofa by my side. I felt so relieved that I wasn't alone, but let's continue! I really think that people should know what the process felt like in my opinion. You follow? Good! :)
  On the second day I got introduced to my doctors and my nurse for that day. They told me and my parents that I was going to have a nutritionist and a therapist (2 therapist. One for me and one for the family.) I remember thinking to myself: "Is all of this really necessary?" They also told me I had to drink 4 bottles of water everyday. They would number the bottles. I wasn't allowed to drink anything else other than water or milk, but they said I could only drink whole milk, which I hate whole milk, so yea I had no other option.  I would get a new nurse every two days or so. I had a total of 3 doctors, well actually it was 4 including my nutritionist. (Love her! She was the one that inspired to become a nutritionist.) An overall total of 7 nurses...I think. No lie, every nurse I ever had kept on complaining of how exhausted they were and how they felt like that they were going to collapse of exhaustion. I remember my doctors would look so serious all the time. It was creepy! On the second day my room mate left me because she had gotten all better. Then on the same day I had gotten a new room mate. Her name was Ale. (She is important!)
This is out it happen. At least what I remember.
A doctor walks in and says: "You have a new room mate."
Me: "I do?"
My mom: "Hey, isn't that nice?" In my mind I responded by saying, "It is?"
Ale slowly and shyly walked in the room. She was tall and super thin. Within a few seconds I was told that she was going through the very same thing I was. The only difference was that this wasn't the first time that she'd been in the hospital for, you know, anorexia. I was thinking to myself: "Maybe I'm here because I am supposed to become friends with this girl." At breakfast time I tried my best to strike conversation.
But as I looked at my plate all I had was small a slice of french toast and water. In my mind I was like: "I thought the whole point of me being here I was to gain weight."
I looked up at Ale kinda sheepish like. I kept saying to myself: "Say something, say something!"
Never did, at least not at that moment.
As the day went on I watched T.V. and Ale slept. (That's how she and I "hanged out")
It was close to lunch time and then out of the blue my nutritionist came to my bed side with a really big smile I couldn't look away.
"Hello, Raquel." and I said, "Hello."
"How are you doing?" I didn't really answer that question mainly because I didn't like at all where I was. She handed my a menu where I had to pick certain foods from the menu what I was going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Unfortunately, I have to stop here cause I need to do something else right now. I leave you in this somewhat lame cliff hanger. I'm you don't mind. Later.

Deaf.

I'm not so sure if you people remember this or not, but remember how I said in the very end of "am I cured?" blog that I would explain in more detail about teaching Deaf people about health and fitness, well in this blog that's what I am going to do.

So, all my sisters in my family (that would be two) have a passion for sign language and the Deaf culture. They both want to be interpreters as their majors. My first class in college (I'm doing duel enrollment) was A.S.L. I only took that class because I needed an elective and plus my twin sis was taking it and so was another friend of mine and I didn't wanted to feel left out. On the first day we went to class introduced ourselves and explained why we were taking this class. (My twin sister has an awesome reason why. But it's rather long. So maybe another time I can share it.) My actual words were: "uh...my older sister knows some sign language and sometimes she shows off, so I would like to learn." Lame reason I know.
As the class went on and we started to learn the alphabet, and the history of the Deaf culture I was having fun. And every time I went to class I was more interested. This new language I was learning was different. It was way more fun than learning Spanish that's for sure. I was intrigued by how with simple gestures I could tell stories and express myself in a way that I never knew before. I didn't consider practicing my A.S.L as school or as a chore. I thought it was fun and interesting. I passed the class with a big A :)
My older sister continued to teach me words and how to express myself. My twin sister said she wanted to do A.S.L 2  and so did I.
One day I went to Miami Dade to meet with my counselor about what classes to take in becoming a nutritionist. While doing so I told her about my previous class and how it was so much fun then she told me how she knew a woman who was Deaf and the woman needed to go and see a doctor for a very important appointment, but was denied because she was deaf. Which is so unfair. By law the doctor was supposed to get the woman and interpreter, but I guess he thought it would take too long so he instead denied her. My counselor went on saying that this sort of thing was normal.(sad but true.)
And while she was still talking something clicked in my brain it went like ding! I thought to myself why don't I teach the Deaf culture about health? I actually I said that out loud. All of sudden her eyes and my mom eyes lit up and they were like: "Yea, that's a really good idea, why don't you?"
Then I said, "I think it would be awesome. I would be doing two things that I love. I would be teaching fitness and using A.S.L!" I was smiling like crazy. For the rest of the day I was excited!
It's literally getting the best of both worlds. No lie.
It's really awful that just because a person is deaf that their health and wellness is thrown aside. My major is becoming a nutritionist and I will learn sing language so I can have patients who are both hearing and deaf. I don't know about you, but to me that's sounds awesome!
And if you don't know sign language I encourage you to at least try and learn it see if you like it. The Deaf world is pretty amazing.

What is an eating disorder?

You might think that I know all about anorexia because I've been struggling with it for a whole year. But to be perfectly honest I didn't even knew the word anorexic on the first day at the hospital. I didn't know such a thing like that even existed. If you came up to me on my first day at the hospital and said to me, "You're suffering from anorexia." I would've said, "Okay,...what's that?" and then you would've said, "Don't you know?" then I would say, "Know what?" with blank stare too.

The point is back then I was plain out clueless of the situation I was in even though it was me who put myself in it! Even on the third day I still had no idea. My entire stay at the hospital (two weeks) the word anorexia never came up. Maybe it did when the doctors were talking to my parents behind my back. I'm not so sure. 

I don't know when exactly it hit me that I had anorexia. I think I was in Miami Children's hospital for a check up so they could check my weight this was somewhere in 2010 after February or something. Anyway I saw this little pamphlet with a title called Eating Disorders. I was bored and bored so I decided to read it. The pamphlet said there were two kinds of eating disorders (which is true) there's Bulimia Nervosa which means that a person will over eat at one point then feel terribly guilty then does whatever it takes to get rid of all the calories they just consumed. They might try starving themselves, vomiting, take laxatives or do excessive exercise. Let me just say it plain out: Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by frequent episodes of binge eating, followed by frantic efforts to avoid gaining weight. 

(I got this information with this website.)   http://www.helpguide.org/mental/bulimia_signs_symptoms_causes_treatment.htm

Anorexia is when a person intentionally tries to lose weight by restricting certain foods from their diet. Excessive exercise and sometimes it is compulsive. They might also take diet pills. Then when they lose weight they fear of gaining weight and become obsessed with losing more weight or trying to stay thin. 

What do doctors think anorexia is?

They say it's a disease. (ooh how scary.) 

First of all what's a disease? A disease to put it in the simplest of terms it's something that hinders your body. Like the common flu. And you cure a disease by either getting rest or by taking a prescription etc. 

However taking a prescription won't cure an eating disorder.

The way I see it anorexia (or any eating disorder) is a state of mind. I don't see my anorexia as a disease not at all. It's all part of God's plan to bring him glory.