I don't know what to do...

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I wasn't sure.

So I've (mostly) recovered from about a year and a half of trying to get thin. I feel so selfish posting this, because a lot of you guys are so tiny and trying to recover from eating disorders... But I really don't know what to do. I had always been overweight as a child, and was always the biggest kid in class, by a lot. I got my first period when I was almost 8. First, I need to let you know that up until the end of this summer when I was confronted by my mom, there was no scale in our house. The only idea I had about my weight was when I was weighed in at 110 pounds in June of 08 at the doctor's office (just a check-up). The last weight I had gotten from the doctor was 136, but I don't remember if that was up or down from my last weight. When I was 10, at 4'9. But I hadn't really lost any weight until the beginning of the 07-08 school year, when I did a lot of restricting. Usually, I would start the day without breakfast, get to school, eat a banana or apple for lunch, and then eat about half of what my mom put on my plate at dinner, but none of the meat (I'm the only vegetarian in our house). And so I lost about 30 pounds that year, but no exercise (I was too exhausted). During the summer, I still felt fat. I was at camp most of the summer, and so I would eat a serving of oatmeal for breakfast, then pack either a serving of fiber one or lentils or a special k bar or more oatmeal for lunch at camp. By the time I got home I would be starving, but all I allowed myself to eat was celery and sometimes a propel drink. Same thing for dinner, just half of what i got. Then we went on a family vacation to chicago. It was awful. I ruined it for everyone, I refused to eat anywhere that I wasn't in control of, and I burst into tears once when my mom tried to force me to eat a bag of potato chips. I made my mother cry, and my dad's friends form work (he's a doctor) that would drop things off for him sometimes (back surgery) all told him that they thought I had full-blown anorexia. I didn't believe them, because I still felt so huge.  The second we got home from our trip, my mom bought a scale and I weighed in at 90 lbs. I hadn't had a period since maybe april, and i was always cold. She didn't put me in a hospital, but she's also a doctor and was upping my calories every day. She told my brother's baby sitter (he's 8) to make sure I got at least 350 cals for lunch, and she was upping them every day. I cheated. I would walk a mile to buy low-cal bread, then take it out of the bag and put it in the regular bread's bag. I would say I was eatng a granola bar but rip it up and flush or throw it away instead. Then my mom caught me sticking a protein bar in an empty toilet paper roll and she said that I had one week to gain 3 pounds or i was going to the hospital. I only gained 1, but she saw that I was trying and truly eating, and she put me on a gain a pound a week plan until I get up to 100. (I'm 5'1 now.) She doesn't weigh me anymore, but I do, and I'm always between 90 and 94. Plus, more of it is muscle than it was, because I run and exercise on the elliptical; almost everyday since school started (eating back the calories burned) but less often lately. I weighed in at 91.5 yesterday, and I'm 5'1. A bunch of the girls in my class are so tiny, much smaller than me, one girl I swear I could snap her in two, but most of them are getting their period every month. I'm not. Not since April. I'm eating about 1,500 cals a day, sometimes more, and I've binged exactly twice as far as I remember (No purging or involuntary puking). The BMI calculator for children 8-18 says I'm at 17.2, which is healthy. But my hands are always cold, and still no period. Plus, since my weight of 136, I've lost just under 50 lbs, so I'm probably at my lowest bmi since i was 6. Should I be getting my period back naturally later on, or do I still need to gain more? I still feel like I have a bit of the anorexic mindset, so I really need somebody to tell me or I'm afraid I'll keep lying to myself.     Sorry for the epic post...

You need to urgently talk all of this through with people that can give you proper advice and support.  Talk to your parents in the first instance and ask to be taken to see a doctor.  You're not well.   If you've been eating in a disordered way for a large part of your puberty years then you may well have damaged your reproductive system, unfortunately.   Children need good nutrition at crucial stages in their development or - simply put - they don't develop internally.  If you don't get treatment, if you don't eat properly, stop exercising so much and if you don't get up to a healthy weight reasonably quickly you may never get your periods back and then you could end up infertile for the rest of your life.  I can't work out how old you are from the post.

You're badly undereating which is why you're cold, you've got bad circulation  and you're not getting periods.  A sedentary teen needs 1800 minimum to function normally.  A reasonably active teen needs more like 2100 -2200.  Stop exercising.....

Never compare yourself to other people.  Other people are not you.  They don't have your body and they don't have your history of eating problems.  You need to do what's right for you and I think you and your family need to take this on as a team and get you some proper medical support.

Jane speaks the truth -- you must find someone to talk to about this.  You may not be clinically underweight, however that does not mean you are healthy -- obviously you are not.

Losing your period is symptomatic of the hormonal imbalance your body currently is in from constant undereating and malnourishment. It shows that you are so malnourished that your body cannot even spare so much as a small amount of energy, blood and tissue for you to cycle regularly. I don't necessarily want to alarm you, but you have to know that losing your period is a very serious thing which in the long-term absence of which can ultimately cause lasting ill effects on your health, particularly your bone density which can result in premature onset osteoporosis. Some long-term anorexia sufferers need to walk with a cane or walking frame at very young ages!

Bottom line is you can take this as a sign that your health is in serious danger and unless you do something about it soon, you could affect your health for the rest of your life.

Have you seen the Health & Support forum's ED Support and Information thread? There are a ton of resources on there which may be useful to you? Also we have an expert on EDs on Calorie Count called Matthew Tiemeyer, check out his pages on Calorie Count as well as his blog on about.com. Also we have a Nutritionist Expert Mary Hartley whose pages might be able to help give you some ideas for foods which you could eat.

I hope the links above help and that you find the positive, healthy support you need, but we must advise you that Calorie-Count is all about healthy and sustainable weight management and therefore cannot support unhealthy eating disordered behaviour from those who are unwilling to get help -- so please get help so you can start to get healthy!

Thank you. We've called and I'm going to the doctor next weekend. I'm 13, btw. I'm going to stop exercising and eat at 2200 until next weekend, or should it be more?

good on ya. really. for 13 thats a superbly mature attitude. since your just 13 i think 2500 would be more appropriate since many of your cals are taken up at this time for growing... exercise which you dont even realise your doing!!

REALLY though.... well done on listening to the advice here.

I'm really glad you're overcoming this. At 14, I suffered from anorexia and now at 16 I'm still trying to cope with my weight gain afterwards.

From my personal experience, your body will take a while to get back into gaining weight and becoming normal again with your periods and your body temperature, as well as your metabolism.

I'm not a doctor, though, so make sure you get to one. I know it's a hard journey, but things will get better and back to normal.

Good luck!