Please help me...

Hi,

Ok so.. this is going to be a long post but thank you so much if you read until the end.

So, I started dieting about 2 years ago, I was never really fat but I definatly just wanted to lose that extra belly flab.
So I started eating 1200 calories per day and going overboard with the treadmill at the gym.
Clearly I was starving myself... but I didn't know that.. I was very silly and did little to no research about healthy weightloss...

So after a few months I lost the weight I wanted and I felt beautiful, on top of the world. I was so happy, outgoing, flirty, I felt really confident ( ) but then hell on earth started..

By dieting I set this "all or nothing" mindset.. meaning I'd see food as good vs bad (healthy vs junkfood), if i'd have a little cookie or something like that (which was considered as a bad food to me) I would think "ok I messed up my eating today so might aswell eat everything I don't let myself eat usually". So.. in other words I developped binge eating disorder.. I would stuff my face with food whenever I'd give in to what I considered "bad" food.. even a tiny piece of chocolate would trigger a binge.


So I had this going on for a while.. something like 6 months and I gained 10kgs and got depression..
Finally I couldn't take the binge eating and starving myself the next day anymore (mentaly) and the binges started to go.

But now I'm left with a horrible self image.. I just feel gross about gaining all this weight. Sometimes I don't even want to get up in the morning because I don't want to face people. All I'm thinking of is about them talking between each other and basically talking about just how fat I got..
I'm never happy, I'm always thinking about my weight and how my clothes don't fit anymore..

I don't even see my friends outside of college anymore because I just don't want to go out anymore.. I only go out when I have to.. and even then.. I feel like everyone is looking at me and thinking how disgusting I am.

I don't binge eat anymore, I incorporate all sorts of food in my diet, I don't have this all or nothing mindset anymore. But sometimes, I just think of how ridiculous my life got, and how unsocial I am, and all the weight I gained... And it makes me want to eat in my bed and cry. Basically now I use food for comfort because I feel terrible about myself. But the worst thing is that it's the food making me terrible!

I want to take action today and lose weight in a healthy way and not be depressed anymore..
I want to be able to enjoy life and go out with my friends and have a boyfriend. Just basically have a normal life without me feeling disgusting about myself all the time.

I've tried therapy before.. but my therapist seems to think I'm eating/acting this way because I've had a "childhood trauma". But that's not true. I just act this way because I had an eating disorder, gained alot of weight and now I just feel depressed about it. So I do not want to go to therapy.

Please help me.. I'm tired of feeling this way.. I just want to be happy...

Thank you for reading...

Hi V -

I will try and get you a response today, but if not, tomorrow - definitely.

Otter.

hi vacka -

I know how you feel, and I too would not go out to events with friends, because of the way I felt about myself. And it is a viscous circle when you use food to nurture yourself and yet it is the food that is harming you. Furthermore it causes depression and the whole thing is hard to get out of.

You have to build confidence for that first step. That's the hardest, and you know because you have dieted before.

I finally said "no more junk" in the house and only cooked for myself. Simple stuff at first, so I didn't become overwhelmed by the task and give up, turning back to fast food.

I also did a lot of walking, listening to music I like. A low impact exercise routine really helps too, if you don't want to give up thinking you don't want to do a heavy treadmill work-out.

But yeah, you have to have the will to start up but the patient to work it slowly, instead of crash dieting, which isn't good for you.

Otter.

Hey Otter.

Thank you so much for the reply. Knowing people have been through this too reassures me...
Although, I do understand that it's going to take a lot of time and I should take things slowly... I want to know how I could stop being so sad all the time about it... Putting clothes on in the morning for me is a dreaded task... I just want to lose weight slowly but I also want to be "okay at the same time" not always thinking about it and accepting that this disorder made me gain all that weight and that it is not the end of the world, and it will get better.

Any tips ?

Thanks again for reading and the reply -
X

Hi Vacka.

This is the first day I haven't binged after four or so days of binging.
I'm trying to say I'm not here to share a Truth.

Just a few thoughts upon reading you.
It's hard, very hard, and it's sad. And your sadness is nothing but human and healthy, isn't it?!

I think that losing weight and food-as-comfort are both one and the same issue, and two separate ones.
Though fundamentally improving your relationship with food will address the root cause, and allow you to lose weight effortlessly and naturally, this may take a while.
In that limited sense, better in-the-meantime management of food may allow you to lose some weight while the basic food-as-comfort issue is still there to cope with.
In this department, I'd work on eating square meals, chewing properly, recognizing hunger and only having real, whole food, no processed stuff. No restriction diets, in my opinion.
As an aside, and as I'm sure you're aware, I'd add that improvements in weight, though symptomatic, may, of course, allow you better to face the food-as-comfort, root issue.

As to the food-as-comfort root issue, I personally go for the following in trying to make headway.
First, I try to work through the body, not only or mainly through analysis, etc.
By 'through the body', I mean exercise and meditation mainly, and attention to the body's needs, as in rest, and its messages, as in pain, rashes, sleeplessness... By 'exercise', I do not at all mean a weight loss approach, but, rather, a way of connecting with my body, and boosting moral and self-esteem. Whatever you can do, whatever makes you feel good.
Another tack I've recently started is to be open about my binges. I tell people about my problem, rather than hide it. I feel good about the humility and openness in it. I'm less busy, and burdened, keeping up a false image, and more comfortably my faulty self.

Finally, and most importantly, and perhaps hardest, I'd like to learn to hang around hard feelings. My feelings of shame, anger, hate, despair... I'd like to learn that I neither can nor should rationalize them away or fob them off with ersatz, such as food, or other distractions.
I feel that my problem is a gift, that may allow me to grow, if I rise to the occasion. If I didn't run away, but stuck around with the pain, I might learn that it's not all that terrible, I might learn about what bothers me, and I might learn sth about my resilience. I might grow more confident.
In a word, I sometimes think that I keep binging because I'm not getting the message. And that once I do... I guess sort of like reincarnation and moksha or enlightenment.

At this point, though, all of the latter is talk and hope, not actual behaviour.
As soon as an urge hits, I get into auto pilot mode and dig in.

Do you relate to some of the above?
Warm wishes.