ED Recovery Club II (the REAL one)

OK on acount of how the first "ED Recovery Club" was not helping most of us, I have decided to start a new one... The rules are simple: this is for advice and help only! Absolutely NO complaining about:

"oh no, I ate over 100 calories today!"

"I weigh 56lbs soaking wet, I am so fat!"

"I tried to binge/purge 3 jars of peanut butter!"

NO NO NO!!

This is for people who actually WANT to recover. All you are doing when you post these comments is hindering your recovery progress and the progress of others.

Lets focus on how to regain a healthy body and mind, whether you suffer from anorexia, bulemia, BED, bigorexia, orthorexia or any other ED-NOS.. we are here to help

Please girls (and guys), we all have the potential to be happy and beautiful, don't let food control and ruin your life.

I look forward to hearing back from everyone.

Take care. x0x

Erica hang in there! i know how it feels when it's going so well and then the thoughts resurface and you start to crumble. but we have to be strong and try not to revert to old behaviours so that we can carry on being healthy and the thoughts become less frequent. well done on the two months you've managed to get through! =)

caz1984 I do the same thing with taking out food and putting it back. dunno how many times i take out and put away the same thing. my mum gets annoyed when she's there shes like "either eat it or don't!" lol. usually i don't but sometimes i do and on the rare occasion it turns into a binge so i try to avoid it at all times. i used to do this a lot but since i've been eating more calories its been happening less often. i'm not sure how i can give you advice on how to stop it but i'm here if you want to talk to me about it =)

Sasha xxx

Sasha- Thanks for the comeraderie!  I think maybe planning out healthy meals in advance is the way I need to go to curb that kind of thing.  Because I wasn't looking for extra snacks or anything, just something to eat for lunch, and it was making me freak out to think about calories, and healthiness, and easiness to prepare all at once.  We've run out of lean cuisines, you see.

And . . . also to you . . . I'm always trying out different kinds of exercise, so I'd use that kind of thing as an excuse:

Well-intentioned busybody: "Oh!  You've lost weight!"

Nervous subject of interrogation: "Really?  I've been biking/ice skating/playing volleyball lately, it must be more work than I thought!"

My excuse is a legitimate one: "I was sick last month."

But it's starting to wear thin because if I was sick most of June that doesn't explain the disaster that has been July.

So I've been on my new calorie count (old count + 50) for a few days, and all that did was level me off for two days before the scale dropped again, so it's almost time to go up by that much again. Almost. I want to give it another day or two just to be sure I can handle it, because I'm feeling better but still kind of fragile, and I don't want to push things too hard too fast because I'll probably just slip right back if I do.

the thing is I'm not allowed to do any exercise so I can't really say that! lol I just say that I've been eating a more healthily but then they say "are you sure you're eating enough?" so I just nervously say yes and then go quiet lol.

Can't really say I'm sick cos otherwise I wouldn't be at work lol

caz1984 I was gonna suggest planned meals cos that's the only thing that keeps me sane lol planning and organising meals and calories. but then I get REALLY bad when it doesn't work out and just restrict like mad.

jainasolo- I think your method of adding 50 calories is a good one because you'll be more comfortable with it instead of 100 per day like some people do. Stay strong.

sasha- When people started noticing I was losing weight (back when I was) and commented I just said I was dieting. They usually didn't care after that. If they asked what I did, I would say something casual and vague like, "Oh you know... just eating less bad food." A little white lie won't hurt if you're not comfortable with telling someone; however, don't take their comments as compliments because that may skew your recovery.

for some reason whenever i read this thread i feel like i belong in it

Hi everyone!
Jainasolo, try to up those cals again..now! If you're still dropping you have to sort of "catch up" and maybe over-shoot the calories for a few days. But then again, I can't tell you to do this if your emotions are fragile...I sure as hell have know how that feels, and maybe for right now your peace of mind will have to come first.  So, stay strong and try to take care of your whole self.

Caz1984, welcome! I'll say it [yet] again - planning meals and then sticking to them (not going under or over) is so helpful for me. That way, even if your're tempted to freak out when you actually have to eat, you'll have the confidance to know that whatever you're eating has already been calculated in.  I don't think I could function without writing down every bite of food, which I know isn't a totally good thing....but at the moment the best I can do. All the best!

       &nb sp;               &nb sp;               &nb sp;      *  *  *
And on a personal note, I had a sort of setback Saturday.  I was at work eating lunch on the curb when this horrid old man walked by and said "you're going to get fat eating all that." I was so shocked I couldn't do anything but shake my head and he persisted "you're sure you're not going to get fat, I think you;re going to get fat." then he walked away and left me an emotional mess.

Mind you, I wan't exactly eating a bag of potato chips - I had nuts, an apple, a non-fat yogurt, and a protein bar. Yes, the calories were high, but i'm trying to gain weight for god's sake!!! so the rest of that day and all of yesterday I was a mess.  This couldn't have happened at a worse time, I'm so sensitive about gaining too much weight and afraid that I'm not going to be able to cut back cals when the time comes. So for this F!@#$%^  B!@#$%^ to say that to me was just the worst.

I think I'm sort of back on track by today, but anyway it was awful. 

Sorry for this rant, but I just needed to tell someone.

hello everybody! what a great thread ...a little about myself im 16 5'3 and now 105. i was diagnosed with bulimia 3 years ago and have been on the long road to recovery ever since.i have been in and out of treatment that i have found most unhelpfull maybe this will work! i put a hand out to everybody willing to take control and get there life back! its great to know that others struggle to. tell me, has anyone here truly recovered from an eating disorder, and if so how on earth did you do it?????

Hey smiley! I'm sorry that I can't answer your question, being on the road to recovery right now myself.

About three weeks ago, I finally stopped binging. I pretty much just had a meal plan and ate the same things every day. I was on vacation, so I was relaxed, and I was getting plenty of sleep. I think that getting 7-10 hours of sleep is a big part of recovering an eating disorder so that you have evergy and are able to cope with everyday situtuations without using your symptoms.

Then, about a week and a half ago, I just started binging again. Maybe it was because I started camp and I was tired and nervous. But I would really love to stop again, like I did three weeks ago because it felt like I was back in control again, and that was a great feeling.

well congrats on your vacation of freedom shorelover! yeah i also tend to follow the same meal plan everyday, it dosent make for much excitment but it seems to help me alot. your right sleep does to! i can hardly function without at least 9 hours of sleep every night..

lets see.. for me to stop binging i usually have to eat at least 6 small meals a day...more like snacks and then concentrate on holding it down.  ive found that stress does play a large part in binging though..just try to remember that your a wonderfull amazing person and dont need binging to make you feel whole!(at least thats what i tell myself hehe)

wow, i've just been back from vacation and i'm really impressed by this thread. i want to join this thread too. on another topic, my friend (who was/is anorexic) has confessed to her bf about her ed. strangely her bf has not discouraged her from reverting back to her old ways. he's done nothing to help her at all! i'm really mad because she thinks he wouldn't like her if she got fat, and imo she doesn't deserve someone like him. yet i can't do anything about it because i'm not exactly in the relationship. how can i make her see that he's bad for her?

I want to join your club. I just posted the board, "I have a Big problem.." confessing my eating disorder.. I want to stop. I want to feel good about me. I want to not be obsessed with food.

...the reality of it all is, that YOU need to have the willingness to recover. No one else has full control over your life. They can force-feed you, and medicate you, and throw you in conselling all they want, and tell you it is for your own benefit, but every behaviour will come right back if you yourself are not ready to be free of the disease. It is all mental, mind over matter. Food is not the enemy, it is you and only you who is standing in your own way. In short, you have to actually want to recover... It won't happen overnight, no, it will take a while, days, weeks, months, years, and you will probably never be able to fully let go of it all, but as long as you learn to cope with it and keep a healthy body and mind, that voice inside your head will gradually fade to a whisper... But don't over whelm yourself, just take tomorrow one day at a time. Baby steps ladies. Life is already full of obsticles, you don't need anymore.

subwaybusker is this boyfriend really a jerk? or does he just not know how to react. It is like when someone gets cancer, do you go out and become a doctor and find the cure magically? My guess is no, most people would express sympathy, but other than that, there is not much that any normal person could do to cure a cancer patient... Cancer is a disease, Anorexia is a disease, both are treatable, but there is no actual 'cure' because the disease varies person to person. Recovering is probably hard for your friend, and her boyfriend probably knows that trying to force her to eat would just cause stress, tension and probably make the entire relationship very difficult...

*wildly points to carmenxox*  Listen to this girl!  I couldn't have said it better myself.  You CANNOT truly recover until there is no part of you left that still wants to have the eating disorder.  You have to WANT to recover, and you have to realize that you DESERVE to recover; you deserve to be happy and healthy, and to love yourself for who you are!

^ (Advice I wish I could follow all the time.)

nods

Carmen, what you wrote is fabulous! I can't say I'm all the way there yet...still obsessive about my exercise and all that...but whatever recovery I've done has been my decision. I did need some professinal help, as I think do many of you, but in the end I had to take control of myself.  So, thanks lots!!

Carmen: 

I love that you started this thread... I am not anorexic...  at times, before totally understanding the disease, and when I was 343 pounds... I wished that I COULD be... to be honest

I'm bullimic...  I never really believed I was... but since college... every couple of months or so I"ll get into a binge and purge habit...It only lasts about a week, so since it's not an every day struggle for me... I thought... well, I'm not actually bullimic...

 and I saw the same thing you did on the other ED threads... the idea that poeple were still ACTIVELY participating in their destructive behaviors... comparing the latest binge/purge episode with one another... trying to achieve normalcy by finding other people who do it!

If you find a group of people who smoke crack but feel guilty about it... but you keep smoking it... I don't know that's a step towards recovery so much as misery finding company...

anyway.. I don't want to rant... I just want to thank for support.

crystal187 thank you... but I am a getting a little worried, you were one of the strong ones. I remember reading one of your posts and you saying that you are "sick of all this and that this small childish body just isnt meant for you anymore etc"... I was so proud of you. What happened? It seems like you are having some setbacks...

tamarascholtz it is great to hear that you are activily looking for help, and willing to do something about it. The first step is admitting to yourself that you have a problem. The comment that you made about smoking crack is incredibly true... I made this thread is for help and support, not to post your behaviors in a manner that makes it difficult for others and yourself to recover, because I think most of us have a competitive side, and we feel that if someone weighs less than us, eats less than us etc. we feel that we are not as superior as them and thus ED relaspes occur... I have never been able to purge myself, (and it is probably a good thing), but other ED behaviours, well thats another story... I wish you the best of luck in recovering, take it one day at a time, we are here to help if needed.

...ok and a little advice for everyone:

1) DO NOT weigh yourself everyday!! weight changes all the time based on many factors (water, food intake, sodium intake, pre-menstrual factors etc.) Try to weigh yourself maybe one a week. Remeber it is just a number, focus more on how your clothes fit and how you feel.

2) NO more obsessive calorie counting... let it slide a little, do not stress over eating 2 extra grapes, this is stupid and a waste of time, and just inhibitting your recovery.

3) GO OUTSIDE!... don't spend your time looking at the "thinspiration" on the computer/tv/magazines etc... go outside into the real world, compare yourself to real people, because these are your "inspiration"... these are normal people, people who arnt necessarily overly extatic about there appearance, but they can deal with it... No one is perfect, and having an ED actually makes you 'less perfect' because it is masking your true self.

I agree that he might just understand that hanging back is the best thing he can do. If someone aggressively tried to stop me from eating too little, I'd probably eat even less just to show that I can do what I want and I don't answer to them. I don't do well even with real-life encouragement; I can only try to get better if I do it completely in secret. For that reason (and others) I've learned to just keep the behaviors to myself, and not let anyone else in my life know about it. For some people, sharing is a good thing. For me and many others, it causes more problems.

tamara: I think one's current/highest weight can really blind someone to having an ED in the first place. I spent so much of my life as the fat girl in class that me being anorexic was, in my mind, about as likely as waking up and finding that I was on the moon. Even at my low weights, I knew I was diagnostically anorexic, but still thought that it couldn't possibly be real because I hadn't been thin before adulthood.

Right now my challenge, I guess, is to find out what I want to be. Not who I am, because I've tried to figure that out for 30 years and discovered that there isn't a "me" to go back to because I never knew anything BUT self-destruction, in some form or fashion. But I guess that means I can make myself into anything I choose, and I'm working on that. It's hard because a lot of who I want to be is dependent on other people (not specific people), but some of it can be achieved on my own, so I'm doing that today - starting with cleaning the kitchen top to bottom and decorating it, since the "ideal me" would be an excellent housekeeper.

Worth a shot, anyway, and if nothing comes of it, a super-clean kitchen isn't a bad thing either way.

Second increase is happening today. My body started to release its stored up premenstrual water so I can afford the risk. Even though I know mentally there's no possible way for me to gain weight at the new count - not when I'm still losing fairly quickly at the old one - but I still worry. It would be easier if I was so underweight that gaining was needed, because then I could tell myself that even if the scale goes up, it might save my life. Right now, I could still keep dropping and wouldn't be in medical danger. Wouldn't be healthy, but I wouldn't die or have serious complications, so it's so hard to justify eating. If it wasn't for thinking about my future daughter (not any time soon; 2 years away, minimum, probably 3-4, since I have yet to find a partner...) I wouldn't be able to do this at all. But that and my job are the only things keeping me sort of halfway on track.