Why aren't I fat?

How old are you? you look fairly young your metabolism is a lot faster the younger you are.

I think your focus needs to shift to whether or not you're healthy. Even if your body isn't large, you're not giving it the nutrition that it needs by eating junk and then purging.

Very thin people can be very unhealthy, and can have clogged arteries -- the comedian Dana Carvey had to have a quadruple bypass several years ago -- not an ounce of fat on him!

I am so sorry for your struggle. Please remember that the harmful effects don't have to be outwardly visible to be very real and very dangerous. I'll be praying for you.

BECAUSE your 20 !!.. probably No kids... I was the same way til I was 30.. 30 is when your metabolism starts to slow.. 40, it's crawling.. and 50 it's at a stand still....Start building muscle now, so you don't get that problem when you are older

It's your age, when I was in my late teens I was often known to eat 4 jam donuts for lunch (they were 4 for £1 that was my excuse) I was a UK size 6 and was skinny as a rake, never got hangovers and could stay up until 3 in the morning and be fine at school/uni the next day.
It catches up with you though, and the weight gradually creeps on, though I must say I feel much healthier now, I can certainly run further without getting out of breath and my skin's better.
Fuel your body properly and it will thank you for it!

Like the other posters commented, it's most likely due to your age and metabolism. I'm 23 now, but when I was 18-21 (basically my college years), I hardly worked out too and ate out a lot, plus drank on the weekends. I never really gained any weight, maybe the most 5 lbs. However, the pounds creep up and as you get older! It's good to start taking care of yourself early on

I knew so many girls who were itty bitty in high school and they never had smart eating habits. However, just a little over ten years later, it has already caught up to some of them, especially after having children.

You need to talk with someone, professional or not. There might be things that you don't even realize are bothering you. This type of behavior is not healthy for your mind or body.

Besides the long term effects on your health, another main concern here is that if you continue this lifestyle and you do actually start gaining weight, you might resort to purging after the binging. Eating disorders are a deadly and serious condition. Just because you may not "appear" to have one, does not mean that it is not dangerous.

Good luck and I hope you can get a grip on what is going on.

Well, first off, I of course recommend going to see a doctor. Maybe you really do have a fast metabolism, maybe there's some other reason. I'm not at all a medical person, I won't even begin to hypothesize on that.

I think, though, regarding your BED that you should remind yourself of this the next time you're getting ready to binge: skinny people die of heart attacks too! Now, that sounds harsh and I certainly don't mean you're going to, but what that statement means to me is that even if you look healthy on the outside, you could still have high cholesterol, etc. Eating junky food does have a toll, even if it's not on a scale. Back when I was a healthy weight, I still wasn't healthy, b/c I would skip meals, eat chips and a lollipop for lunch, eat fast food all the time, and never paid attention to sodium levels, fat content, calories, etc.

I didn't make sure I was getting enough protein, iron, potassium, etc. I didn't even attempt to make sure I was giving my body the right fuel to work efficiently, build muscle, etc. And I was even an athlete back then! Then, once I stopped playing sports but didn't change my eating habits, all the crap caught up to me and I ballooned up, something I'm finally addressing (10 years later!).

So, I think being on MFP is a great thing for you, since the boards and full of people giving advice about eating healthy and living healthy, versus just getting skinny. And I do think if you're concerned about your weight in relation to your eating habits, you really should go see a doctor.

Oh Grasshopper....

there are MANY UNDERWEIGHT diabetics.... SKINNY folks have heart attacks..... thin people have renal failure.....

So true.

I think society sees thin as healthy but its just not that simple.

You can be overweight and healthy (though obviously not too overweight).

In my opinion health is far more important than weight.

I think your focus needs to shift to whether or not you're healthy. Even if your body isn't large, you're not giving it the nutrition that it needs by eating junk and then purging.

Very thin people can be very unhealthy, and can have clogged arteries -- the comedian Dana Carvey had to have a quadruple bypass several years ago -- not an ounce of fat on him!

I am so sorry for your struggle. Please remember that the harmful effects don't have to be outwardly visible to be very real and very dangerous. I'll be praying for you.

Exactly what I was going to say.

I think your focus needs to shift to whether or not you're healthy. Even if your body isn't large, you're not giving it the nutrition that it needs by eating junk and then purging.

Very thin people can be very unhealthy, and can have clogged arteries -- the comedian Dana Carvey had to have a quadruple bypass several years ago -- not an ounce of fat on him!

I am so sorry for your struggle. Please remember that the harmful effects don't have to be outwardly visible to be very real and very dangerous. I'll be praying for you.

^This.

The ability to maintain thinness is likely age and genetics; you probably just have a fairly good metabolism for now. Also, many with BED or bulimia make an effort to counteract their binges either through purging and/or with restricting intake the rest of the time (even if not consciously aware of it.) That is how I stayed slender throughout my teens and twenties.

But as mentioned, thin doesn't mean healthy at all. Malnutrition and stress on various body systems are doing damage that you can't see and don't have obvious symptoms. The body has an amazing ability to compensate, but as hard as it works to cover up symptoms, there are limits and the damage is still there - it's just masked temporarily.

If you haven't already, I would really recommend meeting with an ED counselor to work through this. It can be very difficult to identify and work on the mental aspects on your own. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is. Good luck to you. :flowerforyou:

Yeah I'm currently looking at ED treatment centers but I'm worried... They're going to tell me to stop counting calories etc. And basically aren't going to care about how thin I am as long as I'm healthy, but I want to be BOTH... And I'm worried that it's going to perpetuate the cycle. Ugh.

I would think that counting calories would help control the binging. I just looked up BED treatment and one suggestion is keeping a food diary, which is exactly what you're doing here. The treatment center can also help you with other aspects of treatment.

Not that it matters, at this point I know the calories in everything I eat and the exercise I do by heart, so even if I don't record it on paper, I've got it in my brain.

Precisely why treatment and therapy are VITAL. Counting calories (and other habits) is just a symptom of the illness. But the overall issues are still there whether you are counting cals specifically or not.

I know treatment is scary, but you're worth the fight.