At a complete loss. Breaking point.

beekay098

I really don't know who to turn to for help with this. I need help, guys. Maybe you wont know what to tell me, but I have been struggling with the fact that food has had a death grip on me for years now. It isnt making me happy. It isnt making me thinner. It is making me miserable.

All my life, I was skinny. model thin. Size 00. I never even thought about food, ever. I ate sensible portions of everything I loved naturally. I was famous for being a skinny chocoholic, who could
take a few bites and forget about it. Or take a few bites of my pasta and feel full. Everyone admired my “willpower”…but it wasn’t will power. It was just…me.

For reasons unknown however, I was never totally satisfied with my body. I would start to eat healthy, it would maybe last a day, and I would move on. Back to the old ways, still being skinny.

But when I was 19, something in me changed drastically. I started to want to look more and more like a model. Even though, in hindsight, I did! I was so skinny and beautiful. Now, let me clarify. I was 115 lbs at 5’5. Healthy and naturally lean. But I wanted to lose weight.
One day, my size 00 pants felt a little snug. I was ultra bloated and remember feeling like I had been puffed up like a balloon. And that was it. I was in. Hook, line, and sinker, into the abyss of weight obsession. I began my first diet I ever committed to, and lost a lot of weight.

Eventually, my parents intervened when things got too weird. They forced me to eat and gain weight, or they would send me to the doctor. From that point onward, I gained even more weight than I thought I would, and from then on, my body has never been the same. I’ve been yo-yoing the same 5-10 pounds for 3 years. Im 22 now, and probably 120/125 pounds. I don’t really know what I weigh.

Since the first diet, I feel very watched by my family and tend to overeat at meals to make them happy, out of instinct. I can’t seem to break this cycle. I used to only get through a few bites before feeling full and now I can clean a big plate easily. I have this horrible food dialog of “I can’t eat it” and what do I do? I eat it. Treats, extra bites at dinner even though I’m stuffed, whatever. I do it every day. And it shows.

I have tried to vow to never diet again, but it doesn’t stop me from over eating. And I want to stop over eating. I want to feel like ME again. I was so much happier in my old body and I want it back for good.

I am relatively stable in size, but I feel coated in this layer of fat that feels so alien to me. It doesn’t look right on me. I am so uncomfortable in this body.

I am SICK to death of this. I am sick to death of over eating, obsessing about eating, starving so I can eat, and doing weird stupid tactics to lose weight which obviously never work. I am
tired of feeling this way and I am at a breaking point now. Too many years of my early twenties wasted on this. My looks ruined because of this. My self esteem ruined. My happiness impaired.

I. Am. So. Done.

What do I do? How can I stop this? Will I ever be my old self again?

zap5

just stop doing what you don't want to do and start doing what you want to do, it's all in your head, do those people eat for you? no.. so do what you want to do and what makes you happiest and healthiest. simple as that

jenncornelsen

U have a very disordered view of yourself and of food in general to completely base how u feel about yourself on 10lbs is not healthy. Maybe a therapist can help u improve your relationship with food and self esteem

Treasonous

Stop focusing on yourself so much in general.

atypicalsmith

Hon, this is way beyond what anyone here can help with. You need professional therapy, and I hope you can find a way to get it. Best of luck to you.

loribethrice

I also completely obsess over food and my weight and everything else. I have never enjoyed eating, it is just something I do because you have to if you want to stay alive. My issue is that if it were up to me I would live on DQ cookie dough Blizzards and cheese pizza with no sauce because those are the only 2 foods that actually make me even a little bit healthy. But, I can't eat those and stay thin, so I skip them completely and then torture myself by binging on them for a week or two every few months. It's a vicious cycle. I don't know if it ever gets better. I know logging made me more obsessed and then exercising constantly made it even worse and now I am where I am and I don't know how to get out. A lot of people can do all this stuff and not ever get to a bad place and then there are those of us who are stuck in a bad spot forever. It's frustrating and disheartening and makes me wish that humans were meant to be fat so we could just eat what we want and be happy and not obsess over our bodies and what clothing sizes we wear. I went from a 14 to a 6 and now I am scared to death that if I eat anything I won't fit into my 6's anymore, so I am super careful about my calories and about exercise. I went from wearing a large to wearing a small in shirts and so my obsession there is the same.

Mr_Knight

KISS.

Start logging your food.

We'll figure it out from there.

Or don't, and do what YOU want to do.

hncary

I've battled eating disorders since I was 9 years old. Have you considered seeing a therapist who specializes in things like this? There is a lot that goes along with eating disorders aside from the obvious and maybe it will help to have someone who understands and can talk to you in depth. You are battling a lot of emotions and problems in your head and it may help to have someone to talk to. I know it may seem embarrassing or pointless, but it really can feel like a weight has been lifted. Its at least worth a shot.

Christine_72

It's hard to know what to say, as I don't want to give you the wrong advice. I can only advise on what I would do...

- First and foremost you must Fix the inside, before tackling the outside. In other words get your head on straight before focusing on weight loss.

- Book yourself an appointment with a doctor /therapist. As there issues here that most of us are ill equipped to give you advice on.

- Stop trying to please your family by stuffing your face. This will just lead to more issues...

- And if after all of that you still want to lose weight, plug in your stats here, and pick a goal of how much you want to lose per week. I would suggest .5lbs a week at the most.

And finally I just want to say how ridiculous I think it is that there is such a thing as size 0 or 00. It makes me so angry!!!! :explode:

blankiefinder

If you are 120 pounds and 5'5 you are not fat by any stretch of the imagination. You definitely seem to still be in the throws of your eating disorder in regards to your perception of your body. Please keep working with a specialist.

tomatoey

blankiefinder wrote: »

If you are 120 pounds and 5'5 you are not fat by any stretch of the imagination. You definitely seem to still be in the throws of your eating disorder in regards to your perception of your body. Please keep working with a specialist.

This.

PAV8888

beekay098 wrote: »

I feel coated in this layer of fat that feels so alien to me. It doesn’t look right on me. I am so uncomfortable in this body

From your description, from the reaction of your family and friends, from the words you use above, it sure sounds like you do have a problem; but, not one that can be solved with the help of a weight loss and fitness app like MFP, or with the help of random strangers in a random internet forum.

And as you've already discovered, your family and friends have tried their best, yet they have not been able to help you move forward!

If you are wondering whether you should be talking to your doctor about how you view your body and your relationship with food, the simple answer is that YES, you should!

Please try to talk to a pro!

nancyjay__

beekay098 wrote: »

I have been struggling with the fact that food has had a death grip on me for years now. It isnt making me happy. It isnt making me thinner. It is making me miserable.

For reasons unknown however, I was never totally satisfied with my body. I would start to eat healthy, it would maybe last a day, and I would move on. Back to the old ways, still being skinny.

I was 115 lbs at 5’5. Healthy and naturally lean. But I wanted to lose weight.

Hook, line, and sinker, into the abyss of weight obsession. I began my first diet I ever committed to, and lost a lot of weight.

I’ve been yo-yoing the same 5-10 pounds for 3 years. Im 22 now, and probably 120/125 pounds. I don’t really know what I weigh.

“I can’t eat it” and what do I do? I eat it. Treats, extra bites at dinner even though I’m stuffed, whatever. I do it every day. And it shows.


I am relatively stable in size, but I feel coated in this layer of fat that feels so alien to me. It doesn’t look right on me. I am so uncomfortable in this body.

I am SICK to death of this.

My looks ruined because of this. My self esteem ruined. My happiness impaired.

Like everyone else here I have read probably the beginning of the start of a very unhealthy and toxic relationship with food and your body image. Ive cut out some of parts of your posts that show so much more than a simple overeating problem. Its been three years and you're at a 5-10lbs difference at 5'5" that's not out of the normal range and if you were really overeating for three years straight you would have gained a lot more than 5-10 lbs. I don't think we can help you because I genuinely think over eating is not the problem. I think you should seek professional help and let them know exactly how you feel about food and your body. Best of luck to you

Pootler74

You used to be in tune with your hunger cues. Then by dieting (aggressively, possibly not eating when you were actually hungry?) and feeling like you had to eat more than you were hungry for, or perhaps when you weren't hungry, you lost touch with your hunger cues.

You used to be able to intuitively eat the right amount of foods for your body. Now you have come to think of some foods as forbidden. Or dangerous, but that only makes you want them more often and in greater quantities than you would naturally eat. This actually had almost nothing to do with willpower, really. It's something else.

You have an internal dialogue, not an unusual one, but yours seems a bit extreme, that the body you have, no matter what size, is not good enough. You can see, looking back, that this thinking was incorrect in the past. It's not correct now. It's the only body you have. It does amazing things for you every day. When you go through life enjoying it less because your body doesn't feel right, you miss out on so much. You put off living properly until the day when your body is just right and then you think you can start living properly at last. The thing is, even at the perfect size, life isn't perfect. You know that already. You've been there, and still weren't satisfied.

This is all disordered thinking, about food, and about your body. There are lots of books out there about just this. "Overcoming Overeating" by Hirschmann and Munter is fabulous, simple and comforting. Even if it's not the help you need right now, I think reading it will make you feel better about yourself. You seem to be well aware of what your problem is, which is a great start so reading one them and properly applying the techniques (some of them are scary, like eating all you want of your favourite foods) might be all you need to help you get back in touch with your hunger and return to your natural size. Which may be a 00. It may be the size you are now, which there's actually nothing wrong with. You're a normal size. Your thinking about your size, however, is not normal.

I think your problem might be more serious than this though, as your unhappiness about your weight seems out of proportion to your actual weight gain. The problem might be much more complicated, linked to issues that you aren't even aware have anything to do with food and fat. You might have an inkling of what they are. There are lots of professionals who deal with disordered thinking, especially around food and weight. There is no shame in seeing one. In my experience, the strongest, most impressive people are the ones who see they have a problem, accept it, and get the help they need to fix it.

Edited to add: I am fat. I'm 40 now, and have been fat since I was 8. I've been a more normal size before, but never thin. So I'm not quite like you. But I have a long history of disordered eating and I recognise my life in a lot of what you say. I've worked on this on and off for the past 12 years, and I'm working on it again now. I can tell you that it does get better. But how much is directly proportional to how much help you are able to accept, how much you are willing to find other help if the help you are getting isn't working, and how much of the necessary work you are able to do.

BarbieAS

blankiefinder wrote: »

If you are 120 pounds and 5'5 you are not fat by any stretch of the imagination. You definitely seem to still be in the throws of your eating disorder in regards to your perception of your body. Please keep working with a specialist.

Definitely this.

I also had something else I was going to mention. However, I realized that when I prefaced it with: "at the risk of giving bad advice (as I really have no experience with disordered eating)" it was better to just stop there.

Get your mind healthy first. Then worry about your body.

missomgitsica

See a therapist. For real, see a therapist.

Whitezombiegirl

beekay098 wrote: »

Or take a few bites of my pasta and feel full. Everyone admired my “willpower”…but it wasn’t will power. It was just…me.

I am relatively stable in size, but I feel coated in this layer of fat that feels so alien to me. It doesn’t look right on me. I am so uncomfortable in this body.

You are not alone. I've never enjoyed eating- it's a necessary evil for me. I feel full after a few bites too- and that's how I've always been. I also eat extreamly slowly-annoyingly slow for other people.

I used to be so skinny- my knickname used to be 'skinny-ma-links'- and I used to be able to count my ribs when I breathed in. I first gained weight when i was prescribed the birth control pill at 15 for hormonal acne. I was never big but going fromma 00 to a size1 feels odd. I totally get the feeling of the fat layer.

I recently gained 10lbs when my Mum died and I stopped cooking and just ate frozen pizzas most nights, it also co-incided with getting tattoo removal and having to stop my regular swims, due to the healing process. Now I'm back to eating sensibly and i'm almost back to normal.

My advice is to eat sensible meals - but only eat until you are full. Put the left overs (even if it's just a few bites) in a tub in the kitchen ( you can make a show of it to your parents)- and leave it until, or if you feel hungry or snacky later. This is what I do. The food is still there and available so I'm not starving myself or denying myself food- I'm just not stuffing myself to the point of discomfort.

This is what my Mum used to do for me when i was child .

kikichewie

First of all, being super thin "your whole life" is pretty meaningless when you're mostly taking about prepubescence. So the first thing you need to recognize is that an adult body is naturally going to want to weigh more. There will be changes in your body fat distribution throughout your life. So you have to make some adjustments in your lifestyle. But trying to maintain a teenage body isn't reasonable for most people. What you want is to have a strong and attractive woman's body.

Second, if you have aesthetic goals, maybe start focusing on training for health and musculature vs dieting for body weight. Think fit and strong vs skinny. Training vs dieting means eating healthy for fuel, not starving yourself. It's just a different mindset, and it could help you tune into what your body really needs to be healthy. Lift weights!

Third, talking to a qualified therapist could help you adjust and recover from whatever you've put yourself through as far as your body image and eating habits.