being stuffed but eating only 800 calories

One of the remaining side effects that I have is screwed up hunger cues. I eat on scheduled intervals, or I would go all day without eating. I still struggle daily with this. It took me 2 full years to get to what most would consider "normal" for my caloric intake.

Here was my strategy:
1) split my meals into 6 smaller ones. The goal here was to eat smaller meals more often. Not for any "metabolism boosting" BS, but because the smaller portions were easier for me to eat, without anxiety.

2) Add 100 calories each week to total goal. When you're eating small meals, it's pretty easy to add an extra 20 calories here and there without stress.

3) Calorie dense foods. If budget is an issue, I would recommend checking out Costco. I get a 5 pound bag of raw almonds there for $12.00. They last quite a while, and I consider them to be a great value. Vegan protein shakes, coconut oil, olive oil, peanut butter, cashew cheese, etc.

I wish you the best of luck.

**Edit to add: the bloat is totally normal. It's part psychological, but it still sucks. It gets better

One definition of anorexia is the absence of appetite. So asking yourself if you're hungry is a bad idea.

One thing a girlfriend of mine did when she confronted her disorder, which was anorexia/bulimia, was that she ate a lot of acidophilus yoghurt to try to "reflorinate her gut" or something.

There are pills you can get from the pharmacy for when you have antibiotics which are totally destructive to your gut flora. Get those, and that may be a start.

As to not being able to pay for calories, you can always eat bread. there are many many ways to get the calories in the door that don't cost a lot of money and in fact are cheap as anything. What about throwing a PBJ in for morning tea and afternoon tea?

DId you get the nausea before or after your eating disorder?

Restrictive eating can cause symptoms that mimic a lactose intolerance, but aren't really. And for people recovering from a restrictive eating disorder, milk is a godsend.

Trust me. Been there.

Well,I've never been in your situation but : the body takes time in adapting to any such change,and you should let it..Increase your intake slowly,don't force yourself to change your eating habits on an immediate basis..
And ofcourse,foods with more calorific density will help.Doesn't mean that you should stuff yourself with unhealthy fats though.
I think drinking 2-3 glasses of whole milk can really help in increasing calories in healthy manner and it won't make you that full either.You can add sugars and whatever flavours you like!

^^ This ^^

With all the various restrictions you've listed, you're going to have a very hard time getting the nutrients and calories you need. You're probably going to have to make some concessions somewhere.

Let's recap, since they're all scattered:

PCOS
Gluten intolerant
Lactose intolerant
Vegan
Very mindful of Omega-6 fats
Not much money to spend on food

The gluten, lactose, and PCOS pretty much by default cut out a large number of inexpensive veg*n nutrient dense foods (since soy is/should be off the table due to the high level of phytoestrogens, and beans are questionable, due to their high starch content, both issues can exacerbate PCOS).

The money situation, of course, isn't really something you can change easily. Ideally, you could reallocate funds to food, but that only works for so long.

That leaves two things that are choices -- being vegan and being mindful of Omega-6. Now, both of them, especially in isolation, are good things to be mindful of, but I'm not entirely convinced that they're not a side effect of your ED (the money thing may be, too, at least to some extent, but I have no insight into your financial decisions). Every person I know that has had an ED have stated that you never really "get over it." You deal with it the tendencies the rest of your life. Keeping from succumbing to it requires conscious and semi-conscious choices every day.

The reason I say this is because of the reasons you've given, vs your current situation.

You state that you believe that you can get all nutrients without resorting to killing animals. Yet, there are a few things wrong with that --

a. you have several compounding issues that will make doing so more difficult than it already is, and already putting a number of not-easy restrictions on you (and I understand first-hand, I have PCOS and am gluten intolerant as well)
b. you're not getting the nutrients you need (including raw calories)
c. you don't have the money you yourself said needs invested in order to do it properly
d. you're relying on "boxed processed" stuff from a store to fill in the gaps, particularly for EFAs and certain vitamins, something you just accused non-vegans of doing (which, by the way, there is a middle ground between someone who hunts and someone who buys crap from a big-box supermarket without a care for where it came from or the process by which it got to that point)
e. you're almost overly mindful of Omega-6s, to the point of turning down one of the few calorie and nutrient-dense foods that still work with all of your other restrictions, despite having a presumably healthy diet that's very likely low in fat in general, and low in Omega-6 already (side note - it's not so much the raw number of Omega-6 fats that 's the problem, it's the disproportion with Omega-3s)

Now, where you make the concessions is going to depend entirely on you, but right now, your immediate health can't really handle all of the restrictions you have. Maybe at some point, you'll be able to achieve all of your goals, but at the moment, having them all is doing more harm than good.

I also second the recommendation for probiotics that people have mentioned. There are both soy and coconut yogurts on the market, you can also make your own fermented foods, including kombucha, sodas, water kefir, sauerkraut, and more.

There are pills you can get from the pharmacy for when you have antibiotics which are totally destructive to your gut flora. Get those, and that may be a start.

As a recovering former ed-nos with orthorexic tendencies, that horrifies me. :laugh: Guess some things don't change!

Great advice! Very doable and you are right, few little modifications should quickly add up.