questions for those recovering from EDs.

i'm in no need to gaining weight (i have tons of weight to lose) but i was just wondering..

for those of you gaining weight after an ED or recovering from an ED; do you ever have days where your ED voices win? (so to speak)

Of course! Almost everyday! That's why it's such a battle - we want to gain and get healthy, we desperately want to lose even more weight. Who wins? With time, hopefully the healthy voices help us get stronger.

 

Unfortunately, my ED is binging, and becoming udnerweight (reason unknown) only encouraged my ED becasue hey, now I was allowed to binge - with good results! Now I'm at a healthy/slightly above weight adn would love to be ED-free. Sigh* Will it ever happen?

I agree with gettinghealthy, I am exhausted from fighting my ed voice.  It is a constant struggle for me.  But I am strong and I usually win.  Days where the voice seems extra strong, I talk to my support system (husband or mom) and if they are unavailable, I get on cc.  I have found the people here VERY supportive and inspirational.

BTW, I looked at your profile and you are cute as a button!  It doesnt look like you have tons of weight to loose.

Good luck.

Sometimes I have days where I have to force myself to eat, like, "you NEED to eat that yogurt." And I have to convince myself that eating peanut butter is okay.

But the struggle for recovery is so worth it - your life will be all the better for it. :)

I actually really want to talk about this.

Recently I came home from college and returned to my old gym. I saw my old personal trainer there and he commented on how I looked like "skin and bones" and so he weighed me and took a BMI and body fat percentage test. I have a BMI of 12 and 7% body fat, and so now I need to gain weight. What WAS a maintainance goal of staying at 115-120 is now a gaining goal to get back to 120 (I'm at 111 now). He's actually encouraging me to get up to 130, but...you know...why would I listen to that?

The way he explains it sounds so easy. Drink an Ensure with my mid-morning snack, add a peanutbutter sandwich a couple hours after lunch, and after my workouts (because he's a personal trainer he didn't discourage me from exercising all together, which is advice I think most ED specialists would give) drink a 600 calorie protein shake. Eat what I want. And be totally cool with gaining 20 pounds. No problem, right? Maybe even fun, right? Eat a little more, drink the big-boy power shakes after pumping iron, get healthy. All-American, all-healthy, right? But it's not that easy.

How do people who struggle with an ED thought process--that even a little indulgence is not just going to make me fat, but even worse, it will make me a bad person--deal with the first steps of weight gain? It's easy to gain the weight, what's hard is to watch it come on. It's going to be hard to watch my thighs touch, it's going to be hard to watch my pants bite a little bit into my waist...hell, it's going to be hard to watch my pants FIT instead of having them slip off my hips. It's going to be hard watching myself get bigger and still get myself to the gym...it'll be hard not to give up all together. How do I enjoy gaining weight when I'm perfectly happy with my body the way it is?

I'm just getting used to going to bed without nagging hunger and without having to wake up at 5am from hunger pangs to make breakfast. I'm also just getting used to having a little more in my stomach around 2-5 pm, after I eat a peanut butter sandwich for a snack a couple hours after my lunch, a time during which I used to just endure light headedness. Do I just focus on the baby steps? Right now I'm just taking it a day at a time, still keeping control by not going over 2300 calories a day, and watching the scale and my clothes with as little judgment as possible. And holy crap it sucks, I wish I could just go back to "maintenance" stage.

Queens, I think that is great that you are seeking help from a professional. Have you ever tried a nutritionist or a counselor? Maybe they could set up a plan that is reasonable. BTW, how tall are you and how old are you? Having a BMI of 12 I thought was clearly close to impossible, do you have a period?

I think that is awesome that you are eating more...keep it up babe, and maybe maintanence will soon there follow!

Linny, I'm 20 years-old and I'm 5'7. I'm having my period but I'm on birth control.

This winter I went to a special nutritionist for about 6 months. She put me on one of those "exchange" programs where I had a goal of 12 starch exchanges, 9 protein exchanges, etc. I went from about 113 to 130 and I was so unhappy by January...My clothes were getting too small, I felt dirty and bloated and...well, mostly dirty. I was tired all of the time and still felt miserable about food. I stopped seeing her finally when she refused to put me back on an anti-depressant that she originally took me off because it posed heart risks for women who are underweight. Once I was a healthy weight she still refused to put me back on them, even though I was falling into a pretty deep depression.

What happened was I figured weight gain was one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of things: I'll be unhappy with my body either way, and food will always be a challenge, so I might as well be thin. I got sick of hearing these people chant "You gained some weight, hoorah!" when I just wanted to break down into tears--like, what were they thinking? What person in the right mind would cheer over weight gain? It was so condescending and pathetic, the way they treated me like a little child. I felt I had no control over my body, and I wanted to be the only one keeping track of my weight and my food. In February My goal was to get back down to 125...that weight came and went sometime in March, and here I am now.

Okay we are at the same height Queen and my nutritionist wants me at 130 as well. Our first original goal was 115-120 (at the beginning of recovery), but now I have past that as well just in a matter of months. I think the important thing to remember is that our bodies will never be perfect, because perfect doesn't exist right? And even if we were to be perfect, who would want to deal with that maintanence all the time?

I understand everything that you are saying about being unhappy regardless of your weight or size, I was always tired at my thinnest, but now trying to keep up with my new lifestyle I find myself tired again. I think that maybe people like us will always be concerned about your looks, our weight, or calories, but I think that we must remember that restricting is not the way!!

I also feel you on the whole bad relationship with your nutritionist. I had one who constantly yelled at me (in a nice way) about needing to gain drastically, when I wanted to do it slowly. Now I feel like if I had done it on my agenda then maybe I would be more happy about my body now. But then again who knows right?

SO I guess what I am telling you is that 111 is not logical. Believe me I remember when I was 94.....and that was wayyyyyyyyy illogical! But I think it is all about what lies beneath the roots of the problem in ourselves, it isn't about weight and it isn't about numbers. Your trainer is right though, you should aim for atleast 125!!

And to answer this: How do people who struggle with an ED thought process--that even a little indulgence is not just going to make me fat, but even worse, it will make me a bad person--deal with the first steps of weight gain?

I think when I remember first gaining I was only doing it for my life! For my health! And because I was not going to be able to attend my last year of college. But guess what? Today I am graduating from college....my life is turning around, and knowing that I have made this my main priority is sooo soo worth it!

You can do this!