Food Addiction Support Group
An individual suffering from a food addiction disorder frequently experiences episodes of uncontrolled eating, or binging, during which they may feel frenzied or out of control. They will eat much more quickly than is normal, and continue to eat even past the point of being uncomfortably full. Binging in this way is generally followed by a period of intense guilt feelings...
I need to hear from someone who has lost a lot of weight, at least 50 pounds. I have now lost 55 pounds. I am not really trying to loose anymore, but have lost 3 more since I quit trying. The thought of eating right now, I find gross and disgusting. I sometimes have to choke down my food. I used to love to eat, now I hate it. I am desperately afraid of gaining back what I lost. I look in the mirror and still see a fat person, even though I am down to 117. If I loose 10 more pounds, I will be officially "underweight". Part of me is excited about that prospect. Most people don't seem to notice that I have lost weight,and that does drive me crazy. How do you loose a third of your body weight and people "not notice". Maybe it is because I am so hideously ugly, they never looked at me to start with. But has anyone ever felt this way. Have I traded one eating disorder (binging) for another? Some of the thoughts I have, are starting to scare me.
One of the trains of thought on this is that anyone who stays in an eating disorder long enough, will cycle through all of them. Meaning that...a bulimic can hit anorexia, BED/COE and ED-NOS all in due course.
What is concerning to me is that you seem to be labelling all food as bad, as something to be avoided. You seem to have lost health as a goal, and the focus is on creating your self-worth out of weight loss and food fears, about how much "will power" you can display. And it isn't willpower, it is another disorder exerting control on you.
It is not uncommon to become excited about being underweight when you spend so much time focusing on weight loss as being a positive thing. When you start trading your health to be underweight, that is another thing entirely.
The fact is, when you diet too severely, even if you aren't fighting Food Addiction behaviors - being on a starvation diet can trigger eating disordered behaviors.
They did a study of non-eating disordered men who had healthy appetites, put them on a starvation diet of about 900 calories a day. By the end of the study, men restricted their diet FURTHER, on their own. Started chewing gum constantly, talked about food incessantly, began counting calories, would hoard food, clip recipes, etc.. Some of them began binging and purging. Remember, these were men who never HAD the type of problems that we do. And just the act of their brain having too little food set them off. Something between the body and brain, when under a diet that is too restrictive - begins acting in an anorexic fashion. This is why part of therapy for anorexia nervosa involves getting on a healthy diet. Not only to deal with food fear and to put on weight, but because until the body and brain is re-fed...therapy cannot work. The brain will reject it, because the brain has become so entirely revolved around food in this warped way.
So, keep making yourself eat. Make sure you're eating at LEAST 1200 calories a day, if not more. But you need to keep your brain out of starvation mode - the longer it goes on, the harder it is for you to get yourself out.