New Low

So, I've been trying to stop counting calories and stop weighing myself... but that hasn't been going particularly well. Though at least half the time I will notice that I haven't hit my "calorie goal" for the morning and I go get myself a snack.

But this morning I hit a new low. I'm 24, female, 5'4", and now 136, which may not seem that low, but I'm a muscular person, and so you can feel my ribs in you run you hand down my ribcage, see my sternum in my v-neck, etc. My original weight was somewhere in the 160s, and my original goal was 140. Lots of running and some starving and two years later I'm here.

I guess I'm just surprised that this new low can be so triggering and not triggering to binge (because oh I can binge, I just purge with running and starving, and rarely with actually purging). I feel like now I **really** shouldn't eat since I've gotten here, now there is this increased pressure to maintain.  Now it feels like there are these very narrow parameters that I've set myself, stay between 135 and 140... that doesn't give me a lot of leeway.  Yeah, just looking for some support around this. Not the usual problem here, I know.

Hey imogene

I am a little concerned with the story you gave us. I want to congratulate you on the new low, but at the same time I don't think you are going about the healthiest ways to lose weight.

Starving your body is no good. I've been there and done that. And I can't say that I am maintaining, because I am not yet, but I have lost 141 pounds in the past 14 months. It seems to me that it took you 2 years to lose almost 25 pounds. If you were going about exercising and nutrition in the proper ways, you would not only have a healthy and fit body, but you would also feel mentally better about food.

A lot of calorie counters find themselves wanting to binge. As humans, we are made to crave certain foods and if we deprive ourselves of nutrition, they become pure addiction.

Lets take a step into reality and realize that you cannot live your life this way. What happens if you ever become pregnant? Or when you hit 35 and your body simply stops metabolizing the same way due to malnutrition? You'll find yourself gaining and taking your unhealthy eating habits even further. It's a vicious cycle, and finding a way out is the best way.

I'm not trying to sit here and lecture you by any means. I can totally feel where you are coming from. Not completely, but almost anyway. When I first started dieting, I was eating 700-900 calories a day, plus exercise. After blacking out a few times (and I know you've probably been there considering what you've mentioned above), I knew it was time for me to MAKE myself eat 1200 calories. It was a mental struggle. Exhausting. But I knew I had to pull myself out of it if I wanted any hope to have a healthy future for myself.

So get involved in some of these binging and purging groups on here, talk to someone that cares, and get some help. {{hugs}} because I care.

Let me know if you have any questions for me or if you need further support.

star,
  thanks so much for your reply. it means a lot. i'm not going about in the healthiest way and i know it. to say that it took me two years to lose 25 lbs is only sort of accurate. i lost about 15 lbs in six months (still slow, but i was mainly exercising, and either not counting calories or holding myself in starvation mode for weeks and not losing). After that I maintained at between 140 and 145 for about 10 months.
   while I was maintaining that, i was doing it in some pretty unhealthy ways at times. but often, the unhealthy part is just in my head, and i managed to "talk myself down" from starving (which I do more often than binging) and give myself enough food in any given day. Then I started training for a half marathon and was hungry all the time and constantly felt like I was binging (23-2400/day)... even though I needed those calories. I stopped counting calories for about two weeks... and thought that maybe running so much was helping me move beyond numbers... or at least move to speed numbers instead of weight numbers. Training I lost about 5lbs pretty quickly, people noticed and got worried. Now, I'm here and losing those 5lbs was really triggering back into bad habits.

And now I feel like this new low is the thing I have to maintain... I'm totally terrified fo gaining those 5lbs back, and the race is in 3 weeks and I have NO idea what I'll do after that. Guess that running strategy backfired. Damn.

Sorry more spewing... If you've read this far, I'm grateful.