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Anorexic who wants to recover

Hi guys,
I've been having treatment for anorexia on and off for a long time now and have finally decided its not the life i want anymore. I am determined to introduce some more food into my diet. I am fairly close to my target weight but am eating less than 1000 calories daily - i think because my metabolism has been messed around. I know/want to eat more in order to help me get a more normal relationship with food but i don't know how to introduce more without putting on vast amounts of weight. Should i just introduce one more thing a week - what sort of things - i don't know how to do this and i'm worried if i get it wrong i'll head down the same route i've been so many times before.... thanks for any thoughts in advance x

Reply 1

m90

11

None of us are medical experts on this forum so please seek proper advice from a Doctor or Nutritionist. What are you currently eating everyday?

Reply 2

Anonymous #2

When i was at your stage I wrote down all the foods that i was scared of on a seperate piece of paper and then every time i ate one of them i took the paper off that pile and moved it aside and then over time i had a much smaller pile and i felt good to see how much i had achieved. I don't know if this is helpful but I really do think it helped me .

Reply 3

suicidal_dream

1

congratulations for realising =]
thats one of the hardest parts of dealing with an eating disorder - i know!!

the thing you need to remember is because of your anorexia, chances are that your body will at first need all the food it can get (so probably wont put weight on at first!)... BUT in time chances are that you will put on a bit more weight simply because your body has changed the way it processes food.

Introduce yourself to food slowly. Eat your favourite food if you can mixed in with something you havent eaten for a while.
Eating vegetables with something you havent eaten for a while is also a good idea - the main thing is to eat a balanced diet to get back all the nutrients that your body needs!!!

hope this helps =]

Reply 4

*Lou*

Eat your favourite food - then start mixing it with something else, "play" with food, go food shopping and pick food that looks "nice" or you find interesting, experiment with recipes.
That might help, but i'm no food expert - doctor, so.. :smile:

Hope it will work out for you, and congrats for admitting and realising.

Reply 5

Music Is My Boyfriend

9

Anonymous

When i was at your stage I wrote down all the foods that i was scared of on a seperate piece of paper and then every time i ate one of them i took the paper off that pile and moved it aside and then over time i had a much smaller pile and i felt good to see how much i had achieved. I don't know if this is helpful but I really do think it helped me .

That's what I did. I was quite bad and had a list of foods I wished I could eat but wouldn't let myself. Just try eating these things and not thinking of them as bad. Maybe try going out for some meals aswell because I know I was petrified of 'doing lunch' or having a takeaway with my friends. If you eat 3 meals a day and then maybve have a biscuit inbetween breakfast and lunch and after tea maybe eat some pudding. Incorporate lots of protein aswell thats probably what your body needs most.

Well done for realising though I know its hard, you don't have to feel like your the only one though. Plenty of people have had this problem and get over it. You'll get there in the end :smile:

Reply 6

Ink

12

If you are worried about putting on vast amounts of weight while you try to recover, maybe you should start a workout regime?
I know it might not be the best idea to start burning massive amounts of calories while eating less than 1000 calories a day, but exercise does help speed up your metabolism, it's good for you, it will increase your appetite and probably make you feel better about eating "bad foods".

Also, instead of going out to dinners with friends and eating massive amounts in one sitting, it might help to eat many small portions throughout the day. Eating lots of small meals is good to speed up your metabolism and it'll probably be easier to get the food down when there is only a small amount of it.

Reply 7

dans

12

This is all sound advice by other posters!!!

Just remember, do not try and eat too much, too soon. I know this sounds ludicrous as you need to eat, you've admitted yourself that you're an anorexic, but just hear me out. Do not try and eat a full roast dinner, or go out to a restaurant straight away. Your stomach probably will have shrunk, I know that mine did. My advice is, at first, eat little and often. This way you will always feel full, but not be sick as you are allowing your body to digest the food as it goes along. Then, when you are more comfortable with the idea of food, teach yourself to eat at the specific times of day that other people eat i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's very important that you get into a routine with it too. Say have a little every hour and a half or whatever, that is how I came out of mine.

To do this, also plan out your meals for the week on a timetable. This might sound very boring, but anorexia is a mental illness too, and you will get your brain/mind used to the idea before you eat it, therefore you are more likely to become comfortable with the idea of eating foods like that. This also allows you to eat a balanced diet, and therefore should not put on vast amounts of weight in the wrong places. Like you will get a big stomach if you just eat fats all of the time, so a balanced diet will prevent this from happening.

I have been through this and therefore I have outlined what I did to get myself out of it. I have been following this plan for over a year now, and am still recovering. I am not all of the way there yet, but I urge you to start it. I'm telling you this, as if you might think that it's going to happen over night, it won't. Just persevere with it; it WILL happen. I think that you have done fabulously well to have admitted that you have a problem, and this is the road to recovery!!

Reply 8

suicidal_dream

1

i know from experience that my stomach shrivelled a bit - i couldnt eat much at all at first but eventually, you kinda stretch it a bit.

i think the most important bit is to eat what you enjoy at first so that it isnt a chore =]

Reply 9

Sephaeii

Well done for admitting you want to change, that is a huge first step.

As people have said a routine is really, really helpful. Anorexia involves making a strict set of rules for yourself, and sticking to them stringently. Trying to break the habit involves learning a whole new set of rules, and sticking to those. Eventually, when you are in "recovery", you have to learn to live without rules.

Little and often, and build it up. I've got a book called "A Wish to Change", and I found that so helpful, especially because it has whole sections on what to eat, how much, and when. There are three plans, and you start off on the smallest one, and gradually work your way up. This allows your metabolism to adjust, and stabilise.

Please PM if you want to talk about anything, and I'll give you all the help I can.

Stay strong, and keep smiling!

PS. www.b-eat.co.uk/YoungPeople <--- very good site, especially the message boards.

Anorexic who wants to recover

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