help eating healthy?

first some history--about 2 years ago i lost a lot of weight by starving myself, and over the course of that year i managed to get to a pretty low weight. i was never underweight (5'2" and 105) though. over the next year my weight fluctuated a lot, up to 120 and eventually back to 105 again by starving myself again. over this past year i just lost control completely, i became bulimic and binged more and more every month. it's been about a year now that i've been bulimic and i'm almost 135 lbs, 30 lbs up from a year ago.

a few months ago i decided that i wanted to lose weight again in a healthy way, so i tried to give up calorie counting and told myself that as long as i made good choices, and ate "bad" foods in moderation, i could eat whatever i wanted, and i convinced myself i could lose weight this way. it's been a few months already and i haven't accomplished what i was trying to do. instead, i keep binging and throwing up and gaining more weight. for some reason i can't get myself to eat healthy food. i don't have the money for organic this, obscure natural stuff that. i don't have the willpower to not go into the kitchen every 30 minutes (literally!) and eat cookies and cake. i even got my parents to lock the pantry up with all of the cookies and things that i knew would set off a binge, but i found the key and i'm too scared to tell them that i'm the one who's getting into all the stuff again because they'd just be pissed at me. i'm really trying to make healthy choices, eat about 1800 calories a day, but i have not succeeded ONCE. not one day. every day is a constant "well, i'll just start again tomorrow." it's ****. i don't know why i can't do this.

i think part of me is scared that my metabolism is broken beyond fixing and even if i put my all into making healthy lifestyle changes, i won't lose any weight. this is very important to me. even when i was starving myself and was at a low weight i was happy with myself. this is VERY important: i never thought "just a few more pounds," i was ACTUALLY HAPPY at 105 lbs and thought i would just stop there. but ever since i've gained, i can't stop looking in the mirror to criticize myself. i don't think that over the past several months i have gone 5 minutes (LITERALLY) without looking in a mirror or some reflective thing and trying to make myself look pretty just so i can have a minute's worth of self-confidence. it's like i'm a freaking cellphone that keeps dying (much like mine) and looking in the mirror, doing my hair (and messing IT up beyond repair what with all of the product i put in it to make it so big that i look smaller), making pseudo-cute faces is like charging myself up. but it only lasts for a minute, even though i may have just wasted 10 minutes in the mirror. i don't know if that makes any sense. but it's terrible.

on the plus side, i am not binging as much as i have been for the past few months. it's slowed down a lot in the past two months. i used to do it multiple times every day and i have only thrown up 4 times in the past 3 weeks. this has made the binging go down somewhat, but i keep gaining weight. i don't know why. i don't count calories anymore though--there's no way i could, considering i don't measure out portions anymore. eating makes me feel so good. it gives me vivid thoughts, kind of like a high--it sounds silly, but when i'm eating, i get this insane imagination boost, and it's kind of like i'm watching something in my head, and everything's just alright. until i start to eat so much that i get full, and then everything becomes hectic, kind of like a bad trip. i find it strange how similar the effects of eating are to highs, and i wish i knew why it's this way for me. if anyone can help me with this one, feel free to speak up.

anyway: my daily food intake consists mainly of carbs. actually, very little of anything else is consumed. i eat chicken often, few times a week, and i eat sandwiches often as well (Jimmy John's, i work there. healthy stuff, which i'm glad about). even though i work, i can not afford so much of this healthy expensive food that i see being reccommended to people. also, i can't cook, i don't know what half of the dishes i see on here are. it's all confusing, and i feel that since there's nothing healthy for me at home (most of the time), i can just gorge myself. i know it doesn't make sense, but that's how it is--i plan to eat healthy tomorrow, but when i see that there's nothing that i really WANT to eat, or that i'm actually going to have to watch what i eat to some extent, i end up binging. something else to bring up is that i get SO FULL SO EASILY. it's insane. whenever i eat a NORMAL portion i get insanely full and feel terrible for the next couple of hours. i guess my digestive system is all out of wack. take yesterday for instance--i ate lunch at 1:30pm. later that night, at about 11:30, i ate again and i felt SO FULL that i convinced myself to make myself throw up. when i did, i saw 1:30pm's lunch. this happens SO MUCH. i have acid reflux as well and often see stuff i've eaten hours and hours before. any idea on how long this takes to get better? it's really annoying.

i'm REALLY trying to eat healthy. i'm not trying to starve myself again, i'm done with that. but i just need the motivation to eat healthy, and i don't know what that is, cause i've been trying for months. if anyone has some insight.. please share! also, sorry this was so long.

by the way, i DO exercise. i run 3 miles and walk 3 miles every day for a total of 6 miles. i actually kind of enjoy doing it. i especially love running to music, so it's not like i'm forcing myself to do this as some kind of exercise-purge thing.

If you are still actively binging/purging I would suggest seeing a doctor/counselor to tackle the larger problems here. The worst thing someone with an active E/D can do is try to lose weight. And I just punched your stats in..and you laready have a bmi in the healthy range...

i've been trying to get ahold of my nutritionist but she's not responding to me. i wish i could talk to her but i don't know where she is. i've tried to have my parents get ahold of other nutritionists as well but no such luck.

and well, i'm almost overweight. i would just like to lose until i'm like 115 lbs. i don't think that i will try to starve myself again, i've battled this over in my head so many times and i think i'm done with that. i really would like the satisfaction of losing weight healthily. i'm not saying that i want to be at that very low weight again, but i don't like teetering on the high end of healthy. and the B/Ping is getting better thankfully, i'm slowly making myself get over it..

You really need to stop dieting full stop - any kind of restriction is going to make you feel deprived, and lead to binges. You may just have to accept your weight for the time being, because to diet right now is so dangerous for your health. I know that's easier said than done, but ending restriction is the best way to stop the binge/purge/restrict cycle. Another way many people have found successful is to stop purging after a binge. It's really hard, but stopping the purging behaviour (including no restriction afterward) quickly reduces the amount you binge.

I would also suggest you begin structured eating - 3 meals and 2/3 snacks every day. These should contain enough calories for your daily needs, and ideally a good balance of protein/fat/carbs (though not necessarily all three at once).

I highly recommend the site http://www.bulimiahelp.org/ as a resource to help you start thinking about recovery and how to make it work for you. This website also explains how to go about structured eating.

You might also be interested in Intuitive Eating - if you are, I have some more links you might find useful on my profile page.

ETA: fixed web link.

but like i said, i'm not trying to diet. i'm trying to eat healthily, normally. sweets in moderation, etc. i don't restrict any more. in the past few weeks i have found that stopping purging helped to stop the binging (to an extent). the problem isn't JUST binging though. it's the fact that i ONLY eat sweets and carbs, irregular portions, and i can't seem to get myself to break this habit. i want to lose weight by becoming a healthy eater, not by dieting (just to sum up my long original post). basically, i feel that i could lose weight if i just eat normally. right now i'm overeating, causing the weight gain.

thank you for the link. i have thought about intuitive eating often, but the problem lies within my poor digestion. i am NEVER truly hungry except in the morning when i wake up. all of my eating comes from mental hunger, cravings. this is probably because food lays in my stomach for so long that i'm always full and never hungry. i wish i had hunger cues to guide me in eating intuitively, rather than cravings that come from various emotions, or sometimes from nothing at all. but if you don't mind i'd like to have a look at some of the links. thanks!

edit: ah, the link doesn't work, it looks like the domain name is up for grabs

Haha, you're right... sorry I was half asleep when I posted that.

The link is: http://www.bulimiahelp.org/

Again, even if you're not dieting, I'd suggest you try out structured eating for a while. This means eating regular meals even if you aren't hungry for them. If you keep this up for a while your appetite will naturally come back. You could try making a meal plan - that might help you to add fat and protein to your diet as well as just carbohydrates.

If you find your digestive system is sluggish, small but frequent meals can help. As does getting enough fibre and drinking enough water.

Feel free to look at any of the links I posted - that's what they're there for!

did you post other links? :0

thank you for the site, i'll take a look. and my intention is to get in the habit of structured eating. the only thing i worry about is if i have a meal plan, i'll feel like i'm restricting again, like i was when i set for myself certain specific times to eat, what to eat, etc. and that i'll binge. does that make sense? i want to try making a meal plan for myself though, but i can't really seem to come up with one that satisfies me (i've tried dozens of times). i guess the problem is that i only crave carbs and sweets. any ideas on how to break free of this habit without feeling like i'm depriving myself?

They're on my profile page.

I don't know about the carbs and sweets question, that's a tough one. I guess you could start off eating just carbs and sweets and gradually work in more of other things. One of the problems is that when you eat a lot of refined carbs/sweets you'll get a sugar high ---> low followed by a need to eat more sugar and carbs. So the less you eat these things, the less you'll crave them.

Of course, I'm not suggesting cutting them out altogether, but if you were only eating them in moderation you might not feel like you need to eat them as much.