Eating disorder survivors: need some support

[Supergirl515]

Its me again. I apologize if these posts seem repetitive and if i sound like i am just plain crazy but I feel like I recieve some of the best advice from these boards and it usually keeps me going...
Today and yesterday have been horrible eating wise... I can not disguise these as refeeds, just pure binges. I know it is due to stress most of which comes from living with my bulimic roomate and listening to her whine and then not help herself and basically self destruct before my eyes. I ate about 3500 calories yesterday.
I need to seperate myself from this situation.
Tonight I am going to get back on track for the millionth time and its like hrdbodygirl says, just eat clean all the time and love your body and be healthy... i am slowly learning to live by this...
everyone has their slipups i suppose...
Just got get back up...
Thanx - it always feels better to write it out....

 

[Baby Gorilla]

If this helps....

Eating disorders are for LIFE. You never loose them 100%.

On the good news side, you can unlearn old habits and use discipline to overcome.

I'm a compulsive overeater. It all started with emotional problems as a child. I had to rethink food all together. I now see food as an enemy only to be used for sustinance.

No junk food of any kind is kept in my house. If I want to indulge, I'll go out, buy it (to take home) or go to a nice resturant. Out of sight = out of mind.

My next hardest hurdle is not to fall back on old habits when stressed. I also have to work to be strong when shopping esp. if I'm already hungry while shopping.

So far, so very good. However, when I really get bummed and find myself scarfing down a whole pie, baking a chicken, and downing a half gallong of frozen yogert, I don't know if I want to cry because I was weak and gave into old habits or because of the original emotional pain. Fortunately, this does not happen often.

Likewise, even though I'm probably around 11% BF (guys still envy how I look), I see any fat on me and feel fat in spite of it. It's a head game I have to deal with all the time.

You can learn new diet habits. What you do will depend on what works for you. All I can say is stick with it. The longer you're consistent, the better you get at not giving into the old habits.

 

[Mr.X]

Its me again. I apologize if these posts seem repetitive and if i sound like i am just plain crazy but I feel like I recieve some of the best advice from these boards and it usually keeps me going...
Today and yesterday have been horrible eating wise... I can not disguise these as refeeds, just pure binges. I know it is due to stress most of which comes from living with my bulimic roomate and listening to her whine and then not help herself and basically self destruct before my eyes. I ate about 3500 calories yesterday.
I need to seperate myself from this situation.
Tonight I am going to get back on track for the millionth time and its like hrdbodygirl says, just eat clean all the time and love your body and be healthy... i am slowly learning to live by this...
everyone has their slipups i suppose...
Just got get back up...
Thanx - it always feels better to write it out....

Hi Supergirl515,

Unfortunately, I have been down the same road. Yes, I am a male, but I have been there. I had an eating disorder years back (MANY! years), but the underlying factor that stopped me was a bright light one day: as I came up to the bathroom mirror and say my huge waist and saggy breast tissue, I was over 300lbs. and all bodyfat. This is the realization of my life, it changed me and my whole mentality.

I worked so hard that I stayed at 4% bodyfat (unhealthy) for about 2 years. '6-pack' and the whole nine-yards. I was mr. buff, but when I came back to my old home one day, I saw that I was the same person. Although my body changes, I was still Mr.X and I did not let how great I looked change me.

Moral of the story, stick to it. Everyone binges, including me, but never let that stop you from achieving your goals. I had a g/f that, when I left her, gained 200lbs. (from 100lbs. to 300lbs.) and to this day she's working hard to lose that weight. I motivate her everyday, she's back to 110lbs. but the suffering was her way of eating.

Mr.X

 

[Supergirl515]

Thank you!!

 

[Vageta]

I think the last thing anyone with an eating disorder should do is tell themselves to "eat clean" forever. The instant you tell yourself you can never have something again is the instant you start finding excuses to have it. Moderation is the key to everything in life. By allowing yourself freedoms once in awhile you can still enjoy life without making huge sacrifices.

Just don't treat these allowable freedoms as excuses to indulge yourself unadultered. Don't turn a simple cheat meal into a cheat day(s). Think about it, if you eat good foods and live a healthy lifestyle the majority of the time then those other times when you just feel like indulging in something won't hurt you.

 

[MrRTTB]

I had bullemia a couple of years ago. I wnt down about 25lb before I saw myself in a home movie my parents took. I was stunned, checked. I't always hard to look in the mirror and se how you really look. I came out of it for 1 year and went back into it again. The best thing for mewas knowledge. I started to read everything about the body, nutrition and strength training. I understood for the first time what happends if you mass eat and then puke it up. It's also a matter of live and death, and the chanse getting diabetes. The insulin spikes going thru the roof, and then the opposite situation, going down very low when puking up the foods.

 

[FitFossil]

Vageta's got it right. Living and eating can't be 'all or nothing'. I wasted nearly 20 years of my life bouncing between anorexia and bulimia. I was constantly thinking about food, what I'd eaten, not eaten, my next binge, my last binge...on and on.

With the weight training, I found a new obsession. It became my goal to make my body into the strongest, fastest "me" I could be. I started tracking my training in a training log, and because I'm very competitive with myself, I wanted to see improvement for my efforts. By having it on paper, I could see my training efforts were being shot to hell by my diet.

I started improving my diet one change at a time. For instance, eating a healthy breakfast every day. The rest of the day I ate my usual. I did that for awhile and then I'd make another small change, and so it went. Each thing I did, I noticed a difference in how I felt and in my training, which was really motivating. There was no set time schedule, and I wouldn't allow too many changes at once.

Because I was actually feeding my body some nutrition, I craved "bad" food less and less. I binged less, and didn't feel like I was depriving myself. I think the secret to my success is having a small treat every day. It's built into my diet. Also there are no "bad" foods. If I want it, I eat it, but only if I eat my "good" food as well. This is what's worked for me. I had plenty of slip-ups along the way, but changing my goal from making my body thin and weak to making it healthy and strong kept me moving in the right direction. Each slip became smaller and less frequent. Hope this helps!