Do I have an eating disorder?

If you think you have an eating disorder, and it seems like you might have disordered eating patterns (but I am not a medical professional capable of making a diagnoses in real life much less over the internet), it would be wise of you to seek help from a medical professional. No one online will be able to give you the help you need.

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/resource-links

https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1575987-eating-disorder-resources

You need to seek professional help.

1. "I eat as healthy [sic] as possible" and "I basically starve myself" are mutually exclusive. You can't starve yourself and be healthy at the same time. Literally impossible.
2. If you have to ask, you probably do have a problem, but strangers on the internet can't diagnose you.
3. If you try to actually eat healthily, in moderation, once you reach your goal weight you might be able to continue eating healthily because your body won't be desperately trying to get you to eat more. I know it's hard.
Good luck!

So basically you practically starve yourself until you can't stand it any more and burn out and then you eat like there's tomorrow. Is this kinda how it goes?

You can try talking to a professional, but I just want to say that you're not really doing it right. You should NOT start binge eating as soon as you lose weight, and you shouldn't STARVE yourself doing it.

Eat healthy foods: fruits, vegetables, eggs, etc.
Drink plenty of water: 8 glasses a day recommended.

And most importantly - EAT. I eat a little bit every three hours. Try the cup diet, maybe? Find a plastic cup and eat that amount of fruit if you get hungry, or vegetables. Don't immediately cut off your food - not only are you losing calories, but important vitamins and nutrients. Eat small amounts of food throughout the day. Once you lose enough weight, DO NOT go back to junk food and binge eating. Slowly, VERY slowly increase the amount of food you eat. Maybe instead of 1 cup do 1.5 cups every time. Add a little junk food, but limit yourself to maybe a cup a week.

The biggest problem is the drastic change. Your body can't keep up with your diet changes. Quickly shifting from overeating to starving is very unhealthy, as is the opposite. Everything needs to be balanced. If you're afraid of breaking and just flopping back to junk food, take it one step at a time to get it out of your diet. Or, once you've lost the weight you want, and you want to maintain it, slowly bring it back.

And don't forget that you shouldn't lost weight by just starving yourself. Eat, but do exercise. That makes it less frustrating, and gives the same, if not better, results.

That's most of what I know. If you're really concerned, though, you could consult a physician or dietician to help.

I'm not qualified to tell you whether you have a disorder or not, but it sounds pretty normal to me. Most people can put up with a lot of self-sacrifice as long as they can see the end in sight. But it leads to burnout, so once people reach they goal, they quit whatever they were doing. This is why it is recommended that people try to lose weight more slowly. Instead of eating to reach a goal, change your eating patterns to something that you can sustain for the rest of your life.

If you think you do, you need to speak with someone

Another subscriber to 'the how can you call yourself healthy and say you starve yourself in the same line' group here. You need to be explaining this to a doctor. But just a thought for you to consider, maybe instead of drastically cutting calories and then drastically increasing them - you instead find somewhere in between where you eat enough to lose a little bit of weight but also keep you satiated and give you all of the nutrients you need.

If you are asking people in cyber space whether you have disordered eating habits... well that in it self is a problem.

Seek professional help or not, but folks on MFP (in cyber land) CANNOT diagnose whether a person has disorder with eating or thinking or even writing a post like this on a public forum.

I always seek advice for my medical, psychological and emotional problem from strangers and always post my problems in public forums.... makes a whole lot of sense now that I think of it.

jainafaith wrote: »

I start to obsess over my weight. I would check it several times a day. I would check when I wake up, after I eat lunch, after I workout, after I use the bathroom, after I drink water etc... I monitor my weight the whole day and it upsets me.

This is from a website called scoobysworkshop.com. The site is about fitness, nutrition, and bodybuilding. The guy who runs it did an experiment and weighed himself multiple times throughout the day. It is normal to see weight fluctuate.
While I think this may be a troll post, I'm going to leave this up because it's interesting.

I was 125 lbs a few months ago when I was barely eating. Now I eat soooo much that I reached 135 lbs in a short period of time. My weight always fluctuates like this. I don't understand how I can eat very little for a while and next thing you know my eating habits are the opposite. What can I do about this?

In your other posts you stated that you gained 15 pounds in 7 months, were doing 20-30 min of weights and 30 mins of cardio 6 days a week back in December, but as of a couple days ago you were doing 45 mins of weights everyday with 30 mins of cardio. If you are seriously doing this while starving yourself, it is no wonder that once you reach goal you are going to binge. And if you are seriously doing this, it does sound like an eating disorder and you should seek professional help, but I am also concerned that this is just a troll post seeking attention considering the nature of your other posts and your lack of response to them.

If you believe you have an eating disorder, you need to get help as soon as possible. With that said, I think this is normal dieting behavior - almost every dieter who is misinformed about nutrition does it. It usually goes like this:
1. you eat too little, thinking that would accelerate your weight loss (and it does) which involves a lot of stress, hunger and deprivation.
2. You reach your desired weight
3. Your willower basically gives out. Your body, starved of nutrients, ramps up the production of hormones that increase hunger + emotional reaction to deprivation and you end up with a huge long-winded binge.
4. Oblivious to the fact that weight fluctuates naturally + gaining some weight from the binges, you start obsessing about the numbers on the scale
5. back to 1 and repeat.

To break this cycle you need to do a few things:
- Stop fad dieting, starving yourself, labeling foods as bad (that induces guilt which fuels the cycle)
- Pick a reasonable target, about 0.5 lb per week in you case, set your calories to that and patiently follow through without stressing yourself, changing your habits slowly.
- Realize that the scale can change its numbers depending on how much sodium you eat, volume of your food, water retention, new exercise, alcohol, being constipated..etc. Real weight loss is a general trend. There are apps that can help you calculate that. I use Libra for Android.
- Realize that it takes time to retrain the way you view food, so don't stress if you can't indulge within your calorie budget without feeling guilty right away. It's a process.

You do not have an eating disorder. I'm not really sure who on this thread so far is even qualified to make such an assessment. You do not need to get medical attention.

Its really pretty normal for someone to gain 10 pounds in a few months. It is possible that some of that is water weight, and some is fat and a small amount of muscle gain as well. The reverse side. It is possible to lose 10 pounds over the course of a few months. 1-2 pounds per week. Completely normal and doable.

You should start tracking better, perhaps you are eating more than you think.

brianpperkins wrote: »

"When I'm motivated to lose weight I eat as healthy as possible and I basically starve myself."

Just look at the contradiction within your first sentence ... and discuss that with a professional.

I think what she meant by this was that she's basically starving herself, and the only exceptions she makes is for food considered very nutrient dense. This is not a contradiction, but it is unhealthy.

I am a psychologist, but I it is impossible for someone on these forums to help you in the way that you need. Based on the information you provided, one cannot make a diagnosis of ED -- that being said, you do seem to have disordered thinking about food/eating and at the very least, it's bothering you. I would recommend talking with a professional about your concerns and getting help.