Recovered from anorexia, now fighting bulimia

lemonbarzz

Hi! I've been on MFP for a while, but I just use it to log my foods. I decided I should reach out to an online community to get and give help.
Long story short, I lost quite a bit of weight over the course of 3 years. I'm 5'6, originally 135 and now about 110-115. I lost the weight through restriction, which led to binge eating for the first two years. I'm on my third year and I'd say I eat about 2200-2500 calories a day, except I purge through exercise. I walk about 10-15 miles a day, every day. I take calcium pills to feel better about my stressed joints, and iron pills to try to donate blood (-600 cals) as often as I can.

My biggest fear now is getting back to my weight I was before. I was never fat, just maybe a little chubby when I was younger. I wasn't fat when I was 135, but I was not confident. It's really about loving my set point weight, because I know I'll get back up there if I don't purge. Or, I can continue walking ~12 miles a day and pretend it's a healthy thing, even if my body is in so much physical stress, I can't imagine what it will be for me further down the road.

Does anyone have something similar? Let's be friends! I think the more support, the less likely we will fall back into our bad habits.

LifeInTheBikeLane

Hello! Sorry to see no one has responded to this yet!

I have a big problem with severely restricting my calories and then purging (vomiting) the larger (dinner) meals that I do eat, so I can relate to you on the bulimia level. I have been dealing with this for about 5 years now but in the last year it has become more severe to where I purge daily and can't eat a meal without wanting to rid myself of it.

Even though I have never been an exercise bulimic I can see where that must be very tough on you.

Feel free to add me if you want, I don't post much but I do respond to PMs.

Gamliela

I am recovered from anorexia too. I was severly underweight at 100 pounds, I'm 5'6.5". Gaining weight was awful but I had to do it in order to save my life. The hardest thing for me was to give up excersizing. The urge to walk, do chi gong, yoga has been very hard to give up. I use mfp to calculate calories and make sure I get enough.

Like you, if I restrict calories I will binge, or at least over eat, which is so uncomfortable. I am afraid of throwing up. If it wasnt for that fear, there are times I think I would have done that too. Its so uncomfortable to overeat.

I think what has to be adressed is the fear we have of fat on our bodies and food. Its hard to deal with those anxieties and its hard to sort out how to eat normally and excersize less. It can become a circle of denial which goes smething like this: fear of gaining weight causes fear of food causes restricting food because of the food\fat anxiety, hunger comes and so a rebound into overeating, generates fear of food and fat, this anxiety generates more overeating, so excersize to compensate, hunger from overexcersize, leads to overeating, uncomfortable, then more fear, restrict, overeat, over and over again. Gahhh!

Sorry there are no quick answers. Therapy seems to work for some people. Some people have found that eating more actually works over time and they settle for a weight their bodies take them to. Overeaters Anonymous can help too.