Eating Disorder

[bean as guest]

hey, great thread everyone.  Thanks for starting it Beth.

I can relate to Bliz I think.  I didn't have an eating disorder for as long, but starting very young I was conditioned to believe that if I didn't look perfect, I wasn't worth anything.  So much emphasis was placed on looks in my family, and my mother was constantly dieting.  

She was mostly 20 - 50 lbs overweight, and my Dad claimed she only became so after having me (lucky me), her third child.  Oh the guilt.

It was a constant, everyday issue.  Weight and food.  

I don't know how my Mother could be so obsessed with food.  Ns are weird.  They latch onto something, and nothing else matters...

This was so exasperating for me, I kept up "appearances" - was super fit and slim - until my Senior year of highschool.  Then I gained the college 20 or 25... It was hell.

I became bulimic and lost the weight, and then went the other way to almost being anorexic.  Like others here who've expressed this, it was too hard to become anorexic (I never had that kind of willpower), but I did purge with laxatives, to the point where I made myself very sick, and also screwed up my system a bit (became somewhat dependent on laxatives).

Anyway, I outgrew it when I got married, and was a plump and happy 10 pounds overweight at the end of that relationship, which had started with me looking more like an aneorexic athlete (I was working out constantly).

That was my 20's.  

My 30's have been much more peaceful.  I have an understanding with food now.  It's no longer an issue.

I think it's something I just outgrew with maturity (mostly emotional maturity).

I also don't even wear makeup anymore (can't at work), so have become a lot less vain.  My mother would be appalled  

he he he


phew, feels good to get all that off my chest.
bean

[Hopalong]

Bean, you're beautiful.
And you would be at any weight.

Hops

[bean as guest]

thanks hops

ya know, I think I really do believe that now.  despite the "training" i received, I feel beautiful on the inside.

more and more everyday, anyway.   

[axa]

This topic links up AGAIN for me with not taking care of ourselves.  Living alone, for me, challenges my attitude to food.  I am inclined to throw just about anything together and eat in front of tv.  I read something whereby if you eat with a blind fold on you eat much less........so get those blindfolds out!!!!  Seriously, sometimes I produce food and ask myself would I give this to someone else the answer is often NO and I try and make food for myself to the standard and presentation I would give it to others.

I think eating regularily is the key.  Taking care and nurturing our bodies is another way of loving ourselves IMO.  Again it is about routine, something I struggle with.

axa

[bliz]

http://ed-support.com/index.php

This is a chat board related to a national eating disorders web site.  I have found it very helpful with my current issue-night eating. 

I had googled "night eating" and it so sounded like my current dilemna of eating too much at night to combat the hormone levels and then not eating that much during the day.  It was a vicious cycle.  I have also found that eating more protein helps.  Now I try some protein every meal, instead of going right for the carbs, which was my pattern.

I think ed is also about trying to have some control over your life.  If you were raised in a controlling family or in a N family where the veneer was everything, ed can at least give you control over your own body.  But the funny thing is, it control you, not the other way.

Just trying to eat a little something at each meal can helps so much.  See if you starve the body one day or one meal, it just boomerangs later. 

Good luck to all and hope to keep hearing from you.  There is an answer to our search for peace and happiness.  It can be attained.  I was so sure I was the most screwed up person on the planet many years ago.  What a relief to know others struggle with the issues and we can triumph.