Not Without Sweetness

If you would have even asked me a year ago if I thought I had an eating disorder, I would have told you no, I just enjoy eating. I know today, that that was very far from the truth. Most people assume people with eating disorders are underweight. That is the most common association, but not always true. There are actually quite a few eating disorders besides anorexia and bulimia. An eating disorder is defined as any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.

From a very young age, I didn’t know, but I had binge eating disorder. Binge eating disorder is a severe eating disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food (often very quickly and to the point of discomfort); a feeling of a loss of control during the binge; experiencing shame, distress or guilt afterwards; and not regularly using unhealthy compensatory measures (e.g., purging) to counter the binge eating.

I clearly remember this behavior starting around 10-11 years of age I would say. It was around the fourth grade, and I would avoid breakfast and lunch because I apparently thought people would just think I was naturally fat since they never see me eat. Oh, boy. Needless to say, as soon as I’d get home from school I hit the kitchen hard before my dad would come home from work. I would eat to the point that my stomach would hurt. I always would start over the next day by starving myself all days to “counteract” all the calories. I know now, that does not work. I also did things like going to my friends house and eat dinner, then I’d come home and tell my dad I hadn’t had dinner so I could eat twice.

Truth also be told, I was dealing with quite a few other hardships, between my grandparents divorce, my parents divorce, my issues with my childhood trauma, hating myself, and wanting to look like the pretty girls at school; I ate for comfort. It was my drug of choice, which yeah might be less extreme than hard drugs…but when you actually think about it it can kill you too! Some of my favorite foods included pizza rolls, pasta, snack cakes, cookies, anything fried, pop, frozen pizzas, macaroni and cheese, you name it…I was demolishing it behind closed doors.

Once my parents got divorced, my eating habits got worse in some ways and better in others. I ate more in the public eye at this point and wasn’t binge eating. However, since my mom worked so much to support my brother and me we ate fast food a lot. Or ordered pizza. It got so repetitive and addictive. Another thing that made me mad was that my brother was eating the same things, but didn’t gain the weight like I was. This was because I was also very inactive.

Fast forward to April 2020, COVID-19 keeping us all in our homes. At this point I was down to 206 pounds, from my heaviest of ever of 285. I had been living my keto/low carb lifestyle for 8 months at that point. Little did I realize that the binge eating was about to rear it’s ugly head back into my life. As the weeks of quarantine went on, I got bored. I tried working out at home to no avail, so all I did was eat and play video games all day. Along with that, I was also staying up til like three in the morning doing this. Playing video games and snacking on junk went hand in hand. Although I wasn’t eating foods I wasn’t supposed to, I was eating so much of it. I was going to the point that my stomach would feel like it was gonna burst and I still couldn’t stop.

I started to feel guilty about it when the scale crept up to 216. So in order to counteract this, I once again resorted to starving myself. This time was different than I had ever experienced. I started enjoying starving myself. When I would go all day without eating, I “felt good” I “felt skinny” and the scale was reflecting that. Within a couple weeks I was down to 203! I was doing it so unhealthy of course, and I started to feel guilty about it. I knew I was doing it the wrong way. I talked to a couple of my friends about what I was feeling. These are some of the things going through my mind:

• I genuinely felt good about myself when I didn’t eat.
• I weighed myself each day, and every time I’d lose, it would reinforce the bad behavior.
• I had a checkup coming up with my doctor, and last time I was there I told her I’d be 199, and since that day was approaching I starved myself even more to hit it. (she never asked me to do it, it was something I wanted to accomplish)
• I knew what I was doing was wrong.

After speaking to my friends and my mother about it,I decided to start weighing myself every few days instead of every day. This took some of the pressure off. I made a point to only eat small portions, but I would eat something for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I started eating more mindfully (there’s a fantastic book on this) https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Mindfully-Mindless-Balanced-Relationship/dp/160882330X

Recognizing my bad habits, and listening to my body when it was hungry helped me get through that period of time. I gained a few pounds back, but since then have lost them, and am sitting at a steady 195 today. I have done it the right way. I do not feel guilty. I was so focused on eating too many calories to hit my goal weight as fast as possible that it was jeopardizing my health. As I write this today, I can tell you without any doubts or guilt; that I have cheat days here and there and sometimes eat too much (not binge eating, just overeating) I do NOT count calories anymore, I weigh myself once a week, I am not in the gym every day, and I eat when I am feeling hungry.

I hope if you are still here reading this, if you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, please seek help. Also educate yourself on the subject and know the signs. Eating disorders are more common in females, and I think this needs to be something we discuss freely. It is an extremely common thing I am starting to realize so many others struggle with. https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/help-support/contact-helpline