FAQ's!

Ok, so here are the FAQ's that I've gotten so far! If you have more questions that aren't addressed here, e-mail them to me anytime at marinajc@rcn.com and I'll add them to the list!

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

Hmm... that's a hard one, because I know I couldn't live without chocolate, but I don't think I could live off that for the rest of my life! So maybe pizza?! :)

Who would you most like to meet dead or alive and why?

I'd love to meet Tom Hanks because he's my favorite actor. And if I could meet anyone that has already died, I'd pick a composer like Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, because I love their music.

Do you eat according to what you want/hunger, ie intuitevly, or do you aim for certain calories/food groups?

I do both. I try to get a combination of protein, carbs, and fat at every meal. But I also try to eat when I'm hungry and eat only things that I really want to eat. That's been one of the hardest things for me, because I used to only eat things that would keep me alive-- apples, Kashi GoLean, etc. I'd very rarely ever eat something that I actually wanted-- pizza, mac & cheese, etc.

What do you do during the day? Are you working right now?

I'm a makeup artist, but work is very hard to come by these days... so most days I really don't have much to do! I've been looking for a more stable job in the beauty industry, but have had no luck so far...

How long were you anorexic for? How did it start?

Pretty much right after I graduated High School I got into modeling. I was naturally pretty slender and tall. I had never been on a diet, didn't count calories, and had a very normal relationship with food. But that all changed when I saw that in order to get ahead in the modeling industry, I had to lose a drastic amount of weight (when I was being told that I was too fat at 5'9' and a size 4! How depressing is that?!). In January 2007 I began dieting-- severely. This lead to anorexia, and by February I had lost my period. I was severely anorexic for pretty much all of 2007. Then in 2008 I was trying to pick up the pieces, and I had to retrain myself on how to eat again. This lead to binge eating. It really wasn't until this year did I regain a normal relationship with food (as in not bingeing, restricting, and listening to my body... eating when I'm hungry and not eating when I'm full).

I'd like to know more about your recovery and how things are going for you these days...do you still have treatment?

I never got proper treatment (as in professional treatment) for my eating disorder. Our insurance wouldn't cover it, and I'm not in college where I could maybe get free services, so I really have had no choice but to go at it on my own. It was VERY hard for me in the beginning. I had gotten so emaciated (but couldn't see it), but I could FEEL it. As in, I knew I wasn't well anymore. My heart beat wasn't normal anymore, I was dizzy, out of breath (much like a severely overweight person, but the opposite!), and I was told by a skincare professional friend of mine, that she could tell by my skin that my kidneys were no longer functioning properly. I still resisted eating more for a while, but eventually (after a year or so), my body took over. I began to binge eat, and this went on for months and months. The weight gain upset me tremendously, and it still does to a certain extent, but I think I've accepted it better. It took me over a year to have any kind of normal relationship with food at all. To this day I still struggle. But I really find that eating like I do, helps me a lot. I try not to make any rules about what I can and cannot have, and I eat normal, regular foods. Eating 3 meals and 2 snacks a day seems to work for me, because now I have no urge to binge, and generally feel good. I've always been very headache/migraine prone too, and eating this way helps with that as well.

Do you eat your meals at certain times a day? If so, what are they?

Yes. Generally I have Breakfast between 9 & 10 a.m., Lunch between 12 & 1 p..m., Snack between 2 & 3:30 p.m., Dinner between 5 & 6 p.m., and my Dessert or other Snack between 8 & 8:30 p.m. Then that's it for the day. If I'm still really hungry, I might have some fruit or a handful of nuts later. But usually I'm fine with just eating at those times. I try to eat around 3 hours apart. Sometimes a little more, sometimes less. A lot of nutritionists say 4 hours apart, but personally I think that's too long. In 4 hours I'm usually BEYOND starving.

Where did you get Peanut?

I got him from a woman in Lindenhurst, NY (on Long Island) that had posted an ad on Craigslist about having a litter of 7 kittens. I was looking for an orange and white kitten, 6 to 8 weeks old, and lo and behold, that's exactly what I got! I wanted a kitten with the "white napkin" as I call it, because that's what Cloudy had, except he was gray and white. Peanut was free, and I got first pick at the litter. There were both males and females, all different colors-- orange, brown, black & white, gray... It was the cutest litter I had ever seen. Even though he was 6 and a half weeks old when we got him, he looked about half that in age! He was absolutely tiny, which of course, factored in to how he got his name!

Why are you a vegetarian and how long have you been one?

I'm a vegetarian because I love animals and it makes me physically ill to think about eating a once beautiful, living creature. I have dabbled in vegetarianism for 10 years now, ever since I did research on it for a report in school. I stopped eating meat for at least the first year. Then I gradually added some back in, just eating chicken and turkey. I haven't eaten any red meat in at least a decade. But over the past few years I stopped eating any meat at all, with the occasional exception for something that has seafood already in it. Although I'm not a fan of seafood either by any means.

Have you ever gone vegan?

Yes, several times. But it never seems to stick with me. While I like a lot of soy products and even prefer things like soy yogurt sometimes, I really feel that it is just too restrictive for me. I already went through an EXTREMELY restrictive phase back in 2007 when I was anorexic. I feel that any diet that excludes so many food groups, as veganism does, isn't good for me. Although I do like to eat a lot of vegan foods and incorporate them into my diet a lot! And I really do respect people who choose that lifestyle. It takes a lot of discipline, and it's wonderful for the environment, and most of all, for the animals!