In Recovery from ED (eating disorder)

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Body Image

Pittie66
Pittie66 Posts: 12 Member
edited November 23 in Social Groups
I just started using this app as a means to track my calories to see how much I really am eating ( as suggested by a trainer at my gym). As with anything food related, it is becoming an obsession and I feel safer when the total number is under the suggested calorie intake. I have been dealing with eating disorders for over 40 years, and right now am struggling with being ok with my body. Every time I go to the gym, I compare myself to women half my age and find myself lacking. I then push myself even harder as a means of feeling better. It is so hard to take a rest day as I feel guilty and am afraid I will lose muscle and gain weight. Rationally, I know that is not true from my years of therapy, but for some reason, body image is rearing its ugly head.

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  • livisuzanne
    livisuzanne Posts: 22 Member
    I have struggled with an eating disorder for almost 20 years, and I have just started seeing a nutritionist who specializes in eating disorders. The most difficult thing about dealing with this has been trying to eat enough everyday. I feel better about myself when I have calories left over, and when I am seeing the scale go down. I gained 30 lbs between July and October after changing medication over the summer, and my brain is all over the place with what I know, and what my eating disorder tells me.

    Now that I've gained this weight I feel totally out if control, and I'm worried that counting calories will make me feel like I'm totally in crontrol, but in reality will spin me back into an unhealthy cycle. I'm trying to tell myself that it's a positive sign that I've simply stopped gaining weight, and that it's much better to be a little stuck, but mentally stable, than unstable (in any condition really... It's all just a terrible donino effect) but I struggle with this.
  • Pittie66
    Pittie66 Posts: 12 Member
    I totally understand where you are coming from. I wish I could find a nutritionist who understands eating disorders as I am trying to eat more as well. I, too, feel better when I have calories left over and keeping track of everything I eat is becoming too much. My trainer at my gym is the one who suggested it, but my therapist is not thrilled. She gave me a book that I just started reading (and I had not read any type of ED book in years) called Living With ED, and it talks about the eating disorder as a “person” separate from you, kind of like what you wrote about your eating disorder telling you what to do. That’s the same for me; it tells me what to eat/not eat, go to the gym, run X miles, etc. There are days when I get so tired of it all; I think, I am almost 52 years old and still doing this?
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