Struggling

Hi

I'm 22 yrs old, currently 96lb.

I know I have to gain more weight & the logical part of me honestly wants to, but I'm really struggling to get my head around the idea at the moment. I hate this warped mentality which makes me feel guilty and anxious for every mouthful I eat! I'm better with breakfast & lunch but I HATE dinnertime... in the evenings all the horrible ED habits resurface & I get so frustrated with myself! So I end up relying on lots of little snacks throughout the day rather than 3 big meals... does this work for anyone? I wish I could eat a proper, balanced evening meal like any 'normal' person, I know my body needs it.

I really hope this gets easier...

There's nothing wrong with starting out with 5 or 6 small meals rather than 3 large ones.  But make the small meals balanced and substantial rather than too many little 'snacks' and they'll help you gain weight more effectively.   As you get into a better eating habit and improve your diet you'll be better placed to make further changes.  Then you can gradually make 3 of your small meals a little larger and the others a little lighter.  

Another idea... How about setting yourself a goal of sitting down to a proper, balanced evening meal with friends or family on a particular date?  If you make that your target and work towards it, it could be more constructive than carrying on avoiding the evening meal entirely.

im not recovering or anything, but i usu eat 4 small meals a day and one larger one (dinner). So, if that works for you for now, do so.

Thanks so much for the replies. That's comforting news about the smaller meals- much more manageable for me at the moment. I can never think of any 'proper' meals that I feel like eating and I hate cooking, but putting together a fairly substantial snack is easier. I also have plenty of milky drinks. 

I have to fight the tendency to just pick at little things throughout the day though, and then kid myself that I have eaten enough already when it comes round to dinner. Also it tends to be small amounts of unhealthy stuff- like yesterday I picked at chocolate, crisps, salted peanuts & a bit of ice-cream but couldn't face a healthy dinner at the table :(

That's a good suggestion about eating with friends/family. I used to find that process real torture but it would be a massive step to get back into normal, regular, relaxed eating habits. No-one is aware of the ED (I've always been v skinny fairly picky which is why weight gain is hard to get my head round).

Thanks again!!!

Hey, we sound pretty similar - I'm 20 years old and 97 lbs currently. I'm trying to gain too, currently eating about 2500 cals/day (likely 3000 soon), which I eat spread throughout the day in 6 meals, or 3 bigger meals and 2 snacks.  I tend to like to eat lighter at night since I find it hard to fall asleep on a full stomach, so breakfast and lunch are always my biggest meals.  It would probably be a good idea for you also to make your breakfasts and lunches more substantial to compensate for eating less at night.  Also, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, so I love getting to have breakfast-like snacks throughout the day!

Just to show you an example, my days usually look something like this:

8:00 Breakfast (600 calories)

10:30 Snack (300)

1:00 Lunch (700)

3:30 Snack (300)

6:00 Dinner (400)

8:00 Snack (200)

I usually preplan my meals if I can so that I know at the start of each day that I'll hit my calorie goal, and I make myself stick to my schedule and eat whether or not I'm hungry.

Also, like you, I find it easier to eat normally in front of friends and family - so gijane's suggestion for your dinners sounds like a really good one!

Hey likearOck6- that sounds just like me! I love breakfast too, I find that in the morning I am much happier & more positive with the idea of eating. Also I like typical breakfast foods (toast is my saviour!) If I eat at night I end up COMPLETELY unable to sleep- I feel so uncomfortable & bloated and also buzzing with nervous energy for some weird reason... 

Thanks for posting your meal plan, that's really helpful- I think preplanning is definitely the way to go, at the moment I'm so erratic & have absolutely no idea how many calories I'm getting through. I find it hard to eat more than about 400 kcal in one sitting though, but maybe I'm eating the wrong foods. I know I rely too much on toast, it's the basis of most of my meals... I try to add as much butter or cream cheese as I can but still it's not exactly a 'meal'. How do you make up your 700kcal for unch if you don't mind me asking?

My friend is coming to stay with me for 4 days soon & she's a big food lover, which means proper mealtimes and no skipping- a big challenge but weirdly I'm looking forward to it! Maybe I'll be able to turn a corner!

So, I'm actually studying abroad this semester in Ecuador and eat lunch with a host family, but since lunch here is the biggest meal of the day, it can be easy to rack up the cals.  Today my lunch was a little over 700 cals and looked like this:

• a bowl of cabbage & carrot soup
• white rice with stewed lentils and steamed broccoli (about 3/4 cup each)
• about 1/3 of an avocado
• and then to tack on some extra cals at the end I had about 1/2 tbsp peanut butter

So I got all the cals, but it definitely not with the most calorie-dense foods (aka I had to eat a lot of bulk to meet my calorie goal).  But this is more or less what my lunches look like - or often its rice with a huge bowl of vegetables sauteed in olive oil for the extra calories, plus beans or tofu/seitan (since I'm vegetarian).  But a 700 calorie lunch could also look like this:

• sandwich with 2 slices of dense whole wheat bread (at 100 cals/each = 200 cals), 2 tbsp peanut butter (200 cals), and a medium banana (120 cals)
• glass of milk (80-100 cals)
• salad with olive oil and vinegar, or carrot sticks with dressing, etc.

It sounds like you're not afraid to eat higher fat versions of foods, like butter and cream cheese, so if you're comfortable with it, switch all your milks/yogurts to full or at least non-skim versions, and drink something (milk/juice) with all your meals or instead of water whenever you're thirsty to get in more cals during the day.

Have you tried logging a day's worth of meals that weren't preplanned to see what intake level you're at now?