How to avoid anorexia?

barbstav27

I've always gone on diets hoping to do it the healthy way, but I've always ended up hating myself if i ate something at all, and ended up restricting myself to under 200 calories a day.

This happens every single time I go on a diet, no matter what I do. I'll decide for once to be healthy, and I'll see the scale going down every day, but I always feel the need to restrict my calories further to get quicker results, even if I give myself months to accomplish my goal.

Every single time i go anorexic, I lose 20 lbs within like, a month or less, but it always gets to the point where I feel nauseous every time I take a bite of something. How can I prevent that from happening this time? I'm tired of losing weight, then gaining it back, only to start the cycle over again.

No matter how many times I tell myself, "I'm going to eat at least 1200 healthy calories a day", I always end up cutting my calories back down to absurd amounts, even if i dont want to. My body just wont let me eat every time I choose to diet or change my life to a healthy lifestyle. Help!

weightliftingdiva

Have you talked to a family member, teacher, therapist, etc about this?

Sarah4fitness

Print out what you posted here.
Call your doctor. Have a frank talk with them, and show them what you wrote here. It does NOT sound like you should be dieting. It sounds like you have an active eating disorder and need professional help. Not internet message board advice, PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE to manage your health and your body image.
Please do that.

barbstav27

Have you talked to a family member, teacher, therapist, etc about this?

Yes I talk to my friends about this a lot and they try to help me, but I end up puking if they try to give me something when I'm on a diet. But when I decide "I dont care how I look" I can eat perfectly fine. But i want to change my lifestyle to a healthy one and lose weight the right way. but every time i decide something like this, my body decides to reject any food I give it.

brianpperkins

Get professional help. Your behavior shows that you have extreme difficulty with regulating intake. All or nothing is not healthy.

barbstav27

Print out what you posted here.
Call your doctor. Have a frank talk with them, and show them what you wrote here. It does NOT sound like you should be dieting. It sounds like you have an active eating disorder and need professional help. Not internet message board advice, PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE to manage your health and your body image.
Please do that.

Well I'm 5'6'' tall and I weigh 160 lbs. My doctor told me at my last physical I need to lose a little weight, but every time I try, my body decides to reject food. I dont want to burden my family financially by having to go see a doctor though

Graelwyn75

You do this by focusing on how you look and your fitness, rather than on the scale number, if the scale going down is a trigger. What is the point of doing something aimed at health, if you are then going to allow a number to contradict that ? 1200 is too low for the majority anyway and there is no need to go so low...has experience not taught you that you will simply keep repeating the same old pattern until you change how you approach things ? Forget the damn scale, forget cutting calories to the bare minimum. Think about eating the right foods to provide your body the nutrition it needs, and being decently active. You only get one body to live in.

Also, it sounds as if you need to seek therapy, as obviously there is something else going on if you are drawn to keep losing more and more once you see that number going down.

Sarah4fitness

Have you talked to a family member, teacher, therapist, etc about this?

Yes I talk to my friends about this a lot and they try to help me, but I end up puking if they try to give me something when I'm on a diet. But when I decide "I dont care how I look" I can eat perfectly fine. But i want to change my lifestyle to a healthy one and lose weight the right way. but every time i decide something like this, my body decides to reject any food I give it.

AHEM.

Print out what you posted here.
Call your doctor. Have a frank talk with them, and show them what you wrote here. It does NOT sound like you should be dieting. It sounds like you have an active eating disorder and need professional help. Not internet message board advice, PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE to manage your health and your body image.
Please do that.

BOTH OF THESE indicate you need professional help. PLEASE stop your cycle of abusing your body.

Mr_Bad_Example

Talk to someone who specializes in eating disorders. That should get you the help you need.

_HeartsOnFire_

Please seek a professionals help. They are the only one who can help.

Here is a website
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

They even have a hotline

Call the Helpline

You may reach the Helpline at (800) 931-2237.

Graelwyn75

Also, I honestly cannot see why your body would suddenly start rejecting food as soon as you decide to change your lifestyle/diet.
That is a mental thing, not a physical thing.
And I speak as someone with a 25 year history of on/off EDs and ED thinking, who is finally finding herself in a much better and much more balanced place.

barbstav27

My family doesnt have the money to go see a doctor or eating disorder specialist or anything like that

LiftAllThePizzas

Print out what you posted here.
Call your doctor. Have a frank talk with them, and show them what you wrote here. It does NOT sound like you should be dieting. It sounds like you have an active eating disorder and need professional help. Not internet message board advice, PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE to manage your health and your body image.
Please do that.

Well I'm 5'6'' tall and I weigh 160 lbs. My doctor told me at my last physical I need to lose a little weight, but every time I try, my body decides to reject food. I dont want to burden my family financially by having to go see a doctor though

Will it be less of a burden when you end up hospitalized because you didn't want to burden them? As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sarah4fitness

My family doesnt have the money to go see a doctor or eating disorder specialist or anything like that

There's a hotline listed above.

ironanimal

What kind of expectations do you have for a time frame?

If you're expecting to lose more than a pound a week, you're setting yourself up for failure, and inherently from there, self-loathing and guilt.

barbstav27

What kind of expectations do you have for a time frame?

If you're expecting to lose more than a pound a week, you're setting yourself up for failure, and inherently from there, self-loathing and guilt.

I normally make goals like 20 pounds in 4 months or something along those lines

_HeartsOnFire_

Please seek a professionals help. They are the only one who can help.

Here is a website
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

They even have a hotline

Call the Helpline

You may reach the Helpline at (800) 931-2237.

You do not need to lose weight. You need to work on getting healthy not just physically but mentally - you need to have a different relationship with food.

If you know that you are going to restrict yourself to 200 calories a day...then you shouldn't even be dieting at all. You really need to talk to a professional. No one here can help. That hotline is free. Let me repeat - that hotline is free...

Like another poster said...would you rather be a "burden" now or would you rather be hospitalized?

You say your doctor said you need to lose weight, well I bet you didn't tell him/her about your restricting calories to 200 a day.

ETA: I'm not trying to be mean, just being honest and concerned.

FatFreeFrolicking

I looked at your profile and saw you are still in high school. Your school has to offer counseling services so I highly suggest making an appointment with them to discuss this.

Right now, you need to focus on your mental health. Not losing weight. Sure, you are a tiny bit overweight according to BMI but then again, BMI is bull****. I'd kill to have a BMI of 25.8.

Your mental health is 100000x more important than your weight will ever be. If your family doesn't have the money for an ED specialist, then call the hotline listed in a previous post. There are ways to work around having no money. Many people have ED's and no money but they still get the help they need. If your family has insurance, find out what the insurance company covers in terms of therapy.

Honestly, your body isn't rejecting the food. You are making yourself reject the food. It is all in your head. The mind is a very powerful thing and plays tricks on us all the time.

Also, I think you know that eating less than 200 calories a day is EXTREMELY unhealthy and dangerous. You are putting yourself at extreme risk for starvation, vitamin depletion, and even death. If you continue eating less than 200 calories a day, you WILL end up in the hospital and your family WILL be stuck in an even bigger predicament financially.

A lot of mental illnesses are mind over matter.

barbstav27

Thank you to everyone who replied. I think for now I'm just going to see how things turn out without getting help first, since today was only my first day of my diet, and I was about to eat about 700 calories today, which is more than I'm used to. I'll try increasing it about 100 calories a week until I can get to a normal calorie intake, and see if I can maintain it from there. If it gets any worse I will seek whatever help I can get

_HeartsOnFire_

Hotline free. Seriously. Call them.