Posts by jenkinsamj

Lots of things make a difference in terms of recovery. Binging is bad for your body...period. It generally leads to greater accumulation of fat. In addition, there is great variance amongst recovering anorexics in terms of how long they were severely restricting, just how low their weight got and for how long, etc. You also don't know if they exercise, how much they move around in their daily lives, how tall they are, etc. These factors ALL make a difference in how many calories you can/should eat.

With anorexia, you have literally starved your body, so the tendency will be for your body to hang on to every calorie it can and convert it to fat for 'later'. It assumes that your body will enter starvation mode again. Your basal metabolic rate lowers...which means your body has adjusted to needing less calories to survive. This means that there is greater propensity to put on weight because you've lowered the actual amount your body needs so its easier to over-consume.

What you definitely want to do is eat healthily. I'm not sure where your weight is now, but I definitely think you should be getting some counseling on this...both the nutritional aspect as well as the psychological aspects.

As for 'right now advice', take in a steady intake of calories throughout the day. Binging is most definitely not to your body's benefit. I think that for many many people, anorexia and bulemia are co-existing conditions, switching one eating disorder/addiction for another. You want to do the best thing for basal metabolic rate...and that is to eat a steady amount throughout the day.

This was super general, but I hope it helps. Please please please get help outside of internet forums. I know you weren't looking for advice persay, but the nature of your questions suggests concerns me that maybe you don't have all of the tools to make sure you have your best chance for recovery. One of my best friends struggles both with anorexia (in-patient twice in her past) as well as bulimia (more the latter now) and has been having some serious health consequences because of it. It's been almost 11 years since the onset of ED. Medical research now classifies anorexia and bulimea as addictions...meaning it's something you'll have to deal with for the rest of your life.