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Ensure

Im working on maintaining my weight right now as Im not ready to gain and one thing that Ive found helpful is ENSURE. Ive been in numerous treatment centers for eating disorders and all the girls despise it. But despite it being shoved down my throat more than once, I still love it. It tastes good and it helps me get some extra calories when I cant or dont have time to bring myself to eat enough. Anyone else love ensure or is it just me?

hi-

im sorry, but if that is a current picture of you, i think you need to work on gaining, NOT maintaining your weight.  maybe look on the weight gain forum

i love ensure also. It was a sad day when i stopped buying ensures b/c i didnt need the help to gain weight anymore

I felt the same way! It was much easier to drink calories than have to eat them all. It helped me along quite nicely.

I'm glad you're thinking about not losing. That's a great step to take. Recovery is so hard, and baby steps feel like scaling mountains sometimes! So, good for you--life is much better beyond eating disorders.

With all due respect, I don't know if we should really be applauding her maintenance status here. Yes, it's certainly a step up from losing - but evidently (if kae's pic and bio comment that her "weight is very low") is anything to go by, she is truly in the danger zone. Kae, you really need to confront this thing head-on before it does any more damage to you. I know it probably doesn't feel terribly serious to you at present, but believe you me, it is. The longer you prolong this, the greater the damage. I don't want that for you, truly I don't. I commend you for not losing further - but your current weight is NOT something you should be maintaining. You are doing serious harm to yourself, much of which will probably not be known until much later, if you live that long. I'm sorry to seem extreme, but I know all too well what this can do. I'm currently reaping what was sowed. I do not want that for you! You NEED to gain - you need to live.

I think some people are giving Kae unnecessary lectures. She said in her post that she has been to clinics and has been through treatment, surely her doctors and therapist have worked out a plan that best suits her. The road to recovery is hard, and it is just that: a road. She can't go from undereating to eating so much that she gains with the snap of a finger. The only thing that that would do is shock her body and her system and possibly harm her. It could also reintroduce her to a binge eating lifestyle, or worse a binge-purge/ binge-starve cycle.

She is doing the right thing by starting with maintanance. It is surely a big step for her, and when she has managed to get control of maintaining, then she can focus on gaining.

Recovery is a process, and Kae is doing a wonderful thing for her body by taking it slow.

Are you in active recovery right now?  What does your recovery team tell you about maintaining and gaining?

I'm very concerned about both your profile picture and your profile.  I don't know what your weight is, but I rather suspect from your picture and from the content of your profile that you are currently underweight.

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While I'm glad that you're not losing weight, I really think that you need to see your doctor as soon as possible.

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Again jas, I truly do commend kae on having made a conscious decision not to lose further weight. But maintenance at her current weight level (if her photograph is current) truly is not advisable. To put it bluntly, her current weight is alarming. And I know all about feeling fine at weights LOWER than that only to discover all of the extreme damage that has been done later on down the track. Likewise, I have known of girls at higher weights who have dropped dead. I don't mean to be a scare monger, but sometimes this is the best approach - particularly when a life is at stake. And I have kae's interests at heart - passionately in fact. Quite frankly, those suffering EDs generally do need a push.

But at the same time I do appreciate where you're coming from - please try to understand where I'm coming from also. Yes recovery is a process, but turning that process into a protracted one is NOT going to do her body any wonderful favours. I am by no means suggesting she ramp it up to such a ridiculous degree that she risks refeeding syndrome, however I do believe she needs to enter gaining mode ASAP - even if this is done incrementally. And I am in total agreement that a recovery team should be working with her to do so.

im with nina on this one we shouldnt be helping verity to maintain her weight. she iis very clearly massievely underweight and desperately needs to gain. ive been there sat bk for months having the eating disorder talk me in to staying where i am and believing im not ready to change. you know where that has got me ? 14 yrs of pure hell . you think at the time it ok to sit bk but it isnt . damage will be done im living prove of that, osteophrosis , missing teeth , herniais no periods for 12 years it so not good. my advice to you verity is the longer you leave it the harder it gets. theres never a right time to do this . the longer you keep this nasty disorder the more damage is done and the longer it takes to repair. this is your  life we are talking about, years wasted . the stage verity is at by s going with her maintanence is coluding with her eating disorder, she has alll the help and support around her. verity my sweet you need to use it and start to change it will be hard but you can do it . just think about it . god what i would give to turn bk the clock id of reached out for recovery straight away instead of living with this soul drencing destroying disorder. verity as for the ensures im glad you like them by all means have them but you also need proper meals. please verity just think about what i have said h x nina knows her stuff

*hugs helen* - love you girl.

I hadn't read her profile. Apparently she has no desie to gain weight. "She's not 100% in to it"

I didn't know that when I made my post defending her maintenance. I thought that maybe she was using maintenance to move on to gain, not that she was maintaining as an alternative to gaining.

veriitykae, you should take nina and helens advice. They have your best interests in mind and I was by no means condoning an unhealthy lifestyle choice in my last post. It's one thing to take steps to recovery, its another to put your life at risk just because your not "100% in to" taking the next APPROPRIATE step.

It's one thing to take steps to recovery, its another to put your life at risk just because your not "100% in to" taking the next APPROPRIATE step.

Hear hear.

oh my goodness. verity, people love you. people online that don't even know you, forget the people that you actually come in contact with everyday. you are hurting yourself, and you are hurting everyone who loves you. 

option 1: maintain, or starve. same thing because you are starving, so if you maintain that you are just still starving. you will have a very unhappy, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled life this way, but no worries, because chances are you won't live that long anyway. you may die tomorrow, a year from now, or five years from now, but you will die soon from one complication or another.

option 2: eat enough to gain weight, not just maintain. the reward is life. that you will have energy, have friends, are able to eat with friends, enjoy food, and can think clearly is just an added bonus. you can be skinny for the rest of your life if that is what you choose. you can make it to the very bottom of your healthy weight range and stop there, and never gain another pound for the rest of your life. but first you have to make it there.

after struggling with anorexia myself (i looked at least as frail as you in your picture, i hope you look healthier now!) i have come to understand that these are your only choices. the sooner you pick life the better chance you have of surviving. has anyone else found this?

you can do it! keep working! it's hard, and it sucks, but it's your choice.

much love.

blueberry lips put it exactly how it is although its hard  to hear shes right

nina all my love sweety h xxxxxxxx

Truly wonderful post, blueberry. I applaud you. xox