TDS Eating Disorders Megathread

[n3ophy7e]

Hmm...I don't think I've posted in this thread...I'm pretty skinny, 140lb males, 31 inch waist line, not much muscle on me. I'm more concerned of being too skinny, than fatness though. But as easy as the fix is (work out and eat lots)...I don't. I'm starving sometimes, and won't eat. I lose weight FAST if my eating is lower. I usually only get 2 meals a day, wake up hungry but with 20 minutes I don't feel hungry anymore until 1 or 2 in the PM. I try to get as many carbs and calories as I can, but I just can't GAIN weight, haha, I can't stick to 3 meals a day! Anyone got advice/help for this? Someone who really wants to eat and gain weight, but can't seem to get into the habit?

As for all you with the opposite (sort of) problems. Eat, eat, eat...I'm very attracted to this girl at the moment who, isn't fat, but has a bit of fat on her. It is very cute I think, just that LITTLE bit of fat on the face and body, in my male opinion, more attractive than skinniness. I think society is fucked and this girl is perfect! I wouldn't want an unhealthy girl! Come on you guys, I guess it is so hard to convince you all, eh? I'm sure you've heard this a bunch, but, healthiness is most attractive, to everyone!

Hang in there!

Hey vortex!

Your girl-interest sounds perfect!!
My partner loves it when I have a bit of "meat" on me (if you will).
He also likes it when I'm slim and toned, but if I get "skinny" the alarm bells start ringing...

As for you, it sounds like you have a very high metabolism. If you want to gain weight, it may just have to be a slow gradual process of building up muscle etc. If I can refer to my partner again, he was very skinny all through his teenage years/early 20's. He went through an intensive 2-3 year weights-training phase, eating all the right foods, carbs and proteins and whatnot, and he managed to gain about 7kg of muscle in that time.

But now, he is muscly and stocky, and very healthy. All that hard work paid off in the end. It might take a while, but please try not to obsess about it (says me! 8)).

Aim for happy and healthy

 

[claire22]

agreed, carbs = things i love the most but can never have... i'm a huge lover of all protein sweet bars but can't bring myself to let myself have them very often because i feel like i'm allowing myself to eat cookies... but i'm hooked on these new bars, kind bars that are made w/ nuts and dried fruit... sweet and tasty, i usually manage to find the will to let myself enjoy one once a week. it's weird but i am so much more comfortable eating fats even than carbs
right now the only meal i know i will eat is some sort of breakfast, usually some soy yogurt (agree, yogurt is very doable for me too) a veggie sausage link (i'm severely lactose intolerant and a vegetarian which makes gaining weight even more difficult) or fruit... i can handle breakfast because it's usually right before i end up getting high and i manage to convince myself it will cause me to lose weight because it will boost my metabolism...
lunch feels undoable to me right now, it's my most hated meal and always the one i cut the first because it just feels unneccesary. my goal right now is start eating something regularly in the evening... i usually manage to do this about half the week by convincing myself i'll eat less in the morning if i eat at night. weird mind games i have to play with myself but they do work sometimes.
i'm just so damn far behind right now it's frustrating. i know i need to get my caloric intake up to at least 2,000 calories if i want to gain any sort of weight, probably more around 3000 because of my exercising and in the past i've needed up to 3,500 to gain weight... right now my goal is 600 a day because i'm generally take in 200-350.. how i'm going to do this i don't know, i'm twenty pounds underweight and i just keep losing everyday. ugh.
i keep trying to tell myself i've done this before (gained up to 35/40 pounds in programs) but the fact that i am so alone right now is making this more difficult, emmotionally and financially..
but thank you for helping me and listening to me rant i hope you are somewhere on the medium of ok

Good to hear that you are eating those bars. I am also lactose intolerant! It annoys me because I love milk, chocolate, but I can only have them in tiny amounts. It does make gaining weight harder. Try and eat brown pasta, brown rice and wholemeal bread. Have you thought about those meal-in-a-liquid drinks? They are usually milk but I think it is soy. Try doing sneaky things like one extra sugar in your coffee Eat potatoes if possible. Protein is also a good way, lots of lean meats. Guilt-free basically and even if you dont gain a lot of weight, at least you will be eating healthily. Take it slow for now, the mental demons go crazy when you put on weight rapidly. Take it slow and adjust to gaining weight, train your mind basically and think how much better you'll look, make a list of all the positives of gaining some weight and stick it somewhere in your room. Also, you may not want to and find it hard, but try and cut back on the meth. It speeds up your heartrate RAPIDLY burning more & more calories that you need. One day you will have to quit, just try and cut it back to a few days off a week if possible, maybe just 1-2 more days off than usual. Not easy but it will have to be done eventually. I saw that your dosages aren't too high which is good, might make it easier to cut back from. Take it easy on the meth, its pretty fucking evil.
Rant anytime bella

 

[jackie jones]

I am currently borderline anorexic. At my powerless moments, its all I can control. It is something. My conciousness, my mortality.

 

[mrs_mia_wallace]

Good to hear that you are eating those bars. I am also lactose intolerant! It annoys me because I love milk, chocolate, but I can only have them in tiny amounts. It does make gaining weight harder. Try and eat brown pasta, brown rice and wholemeal bread. Have you thought about those meal-in-a-liquid drinks? They are usually milk but I think it is soy. Try doing sneaky things like one extra sugar in your coffee Eat potatoes if possible. Protein is also a good way, lots of lean meats. Guilt-free basically and even if you dont gain a lot of weight, at least you will be eating healthily. Take it slow for now, the mental demons go crazy when you put on weight rapidly. Take it slow and adjust to gaining weight, train your mind basically and think how much better you'll look, make a list of all the positives of gaining some weight and stick it somewhere in your room. Also, you may not want to and find it hard, but try and cut back on the meth. It speeds up your heartrate RAPIDLY burning more & more calories that you need. One day you will have to quit, just try and cut it back to a few days off a week if possible, maybe just 1-2 more days off than usual. Not easy but it will have to be done eventually. I saw that your dosages aren't too high which is good, might make it easier to cut back from. Take it easy on the meth, its pretty fucking evil.
Rant anytime bella

lactose intolerance is horrible but if you ever want to indulge in something sweet and dairy free, soy ice cream and soy ice cream sandwiches work really well. they're generally low in calories (the vanilla soy ice cream i have in my fridge is about 120 calories per 1/2 cup, which is around the same as eating sorbet... you can find the ice cream sandwiches that comes in 90-150 calorie sizes, and they're usually induvidually packaged which makes me personally feel much safer buying a pack of them!) so i find it easier to not feel so guilty eating them.
i know, i find it odd that in comparison to most i don't do much of this shit but it still has such a huge effect on me. i mean, i can feel all the physical effects of it-- loss of appetite, my heart is constantly racing, i have occasional chest pains throughout the day, (i know my current heart condition was partially anorexia partially meth) body heat is always burning up, frozen feet and hands from bad circulation, and then i'm high as hell all the time (and of course i've got one fucked up nose). i know i will have to stop eventually but right now it's difficult for me to even force myself to be clean one day of the week, partly because i need the high to function throughout the day but mostly because i'm so terrified of the feeling of hunger i can't bring myself to allow it to infiltrate my body. i've had some really decent periods of sobriety from it in the past five years, but unfortunately they've never been caused by my personal desire to get clean (only parents and complete physical collpase).
protein shakes are the easiest way, for sure, to gain weight and not feel so disgusting. i have a bunch of those odwalla protein drinks in my fridge (they taste good, and most of them have soy as opposed to dairy) and i'll occasionally take a sip or two throughout the day, but then there's the whole guilt trip of it being completely unneceary to indulge in drinks with calories when water has none... i have a block everywhere it seems.

 

[claire22]

Yeah it is a pretty big setback lactose intolerance, but there's ways around it. I still have a problem with soy milk though, it tastes like paper to me (however paper tastes).

I know how hard it is to stop, I started because I had an eating disorder and it helped me lose weight. I used everyday without fail for 6.5 years and only quit recently. It's still a monkey on my back, definitely. I think about it every second of everyday and trying to restrain myself. The only reason I actually quit is because I had a massive wake up call, severe organ problems, if I continued I would be dead within next few years. Not trying to scare you out of it, because to quit you have to WANT TO. Nobody else can make you without your entire heart & soul put into it. Just try not to let your usage increase, meth ravages your body after awhile.

If you need anymore tips on gaining weight, forgetting (to an extent) about food OR trying to quit/cut back on the drugs, you can always ask me. Been there done that, would be happy to help.

 

[Axanthic]

male here, 24

i still struggle with eating disorders. i was anorexic for a year and went from 255 to 155. i maintained this weight for 2 years through excessive excercise/"anorexia" i put it in quotes this time due to the fact that me not eating THIS time was due to spending most my money on drugs, not food, and also apetite loss due to drug abuse.

after 2 years i was prescribed an SSRI and benzo's after a traumatic experience. I gained 60 pounds back in about FOUR months. I quickly snapped out of it. Healthily got back down to my ideal weight of 175, skinny but toned. Another year past, another traumatic experience, this time I REALLY needed the SSRI's and benzos (i couldnt even leave the house.) was on these for about 6 months (the ssri is what caused weight gain i have decide and got up to 255) i went semi-anorexic (extreme calorie deficit, but not extreme denial of food, the deficit was mostly due to exercise).

i lost my gut and then sort of got the opposite of anorexia, bigorexia i guess, and started abusing steroids. I gained 50 pounds in about 3 months. I'm more muscle bound then i have ever been before, but now comes the part i fear the "cutting" phase. attempting to maintain most of the muscle gains while losing the fat. i fear i will slide back into anorexia because of this, because with nothing but protein shakes, jello, and tuna, i am able to lose 20-25 pounds a month while maintaing MOST of my muscle.

i just have a bad feeling that i will slide back in to the uber-thin idealization/heroin chic. Doesn't help that i still have all my clothes from when i was super skinny and i cant even fit the shirts over my massive chest now. im at a cross roads. in theory i could "cut" to the extreme, and 4-5 months from now have lost MOST of my steroid gains that i got over the last three months, but still have enough muscle to be toned, and be a healthy weight.

im really really at a decision point. do i want to go for the all american well rounded physique, the body builder look, or the drug addicted musician (which i am) look?

ive asked most of my prior gf's who have known me through my transformations through the years and they all like me best when i was average weight and toned.

anyone else have such a drastic shift from anorexic to "bigorexic"?

 

[n3ophy7e]

^^ Hi Axanthic, thanks for sharing your story
I assume that the 'bigorexia' is more common in males, but it is no less serious than 'anorexia' type eating disorders. It's always interesting to hear from sufferers of different EDs.
I think you know the answer to your question though...as do most of us here. The ideal physique for you is one that is healthy. Eat well, exercise moderately, everything in moderation.
How are you going these days??

I am currently borderline anorexic. At my powerless moments, its all I can control. It is something. My conciousness, my mortality.

I know exactly how you feel. Many many times in my life when I have felt completely out of control I have found solace and relief in controlling/reducing/obliterating my calorie intake. It brings back a sense of control over....anything.
But you need to take care of yourself okay?

 

[jackie jones]

You know, n3ophy7e.

 

[Pillthrill]

idk its almost like I need to be reminded to eat, Sean whines he is hungry so I eat with him and now that I am eating I realize I kinda was to.
I can't force breakfast the thought just makes me want to hurl.
He wasn't here today and I had school so no meal with family. I ate NOTHING and it didn't even bother me. How can I go from 3 meals some days to none and not care?

But I lay down tonight on my side and all the fat shifted and I felt so fat and disgusting. I don't know how I could have such a nasty stomach, maybe I should get to work on that. But for me exercising is freaking painful. How much does it matter. First it will be one thing then another and then I say fuck it I just won't eat anything and everything will go away.
But that certainly doesn't create tone...maybe thats what I need, lose the fat and tone. Ouch the word just makes my body hurt. How to I fix that? Hmm maybe I can get my mom or someone to show me the steps to get my yoga DVD running in the living room. But its just gonna hurt so freaking bad

I know, I'm bitching when there are ppl that have REAL issues when I just forget to eat, don't get hungry really and have a SERIOUS aversion exercise because I'm a baby...

 

[n3ophy7e]

Feel free to PM me if you need to vent okay??

 

[Pillthrill]

Its just bs. I just feel like I'm not helping those will REAL problems.

 

[mrs_mia_wallace]

axanthic... i can identify with what you're saying to some extent. my weight has flucuated from 75-135 pounds in the last seven years (haven't grown an inch since i was twelve, i'm 5'5) and when my weight was the highest i went through a period of becoming obsessd with the idea of being a super strong and muscled gymnast, big thighs and strong arms and a six pack (ironically it was being in a leotard all the time and having people stare at my body that first made me start to enage in eating disorder behaviors, but starving myself down really did nothing to improve my abilities as a gymnast whatsoever) it was just another way to find some identity within myself and more values and goals to make my life feel fullfilled. i think so much of eating disorders is about just using the behaviors and obsession with food as ways to define who you are as a person when you haven't figured out who you are really, to find things that make your life not feel empty, and they work so well because they really DO seem like the most important and productive things in the world at the time. and my obsession with suddenly building up muscle to be that super strong muscled gymnast was not really any different than wanting to be a rail thin one, i engaged in just as many harmful behaviors (and sounds like you did too). not the same as what you're saying but i think there are some connections... and what you're asking, which one of these stereotypes you want to fall into, goes with the above. like n3ophy7e said, just be healthy, be you. don't worry about whether you fall into the athlete or artistic category or whatever... none of those types really identify who you really are anyway.
as i'm writing this i'm thinking pot calling the kettle black but the first boy i ever fell in love with had an eating disorder... (met him in a program) he was severely anorexic and a cross country runner. i loved him but i could not STAND his obsession with weight and food, it drove me to insanity. i really could have cared less if he put on twenty pounds or even forty and if he fell out of the category of being/looking like an "athlete" because that was never how i SAW him anyway, i saw him as my boyfriend and having all the random traits that made me fall in love with him.
this is most likely a COMPLETELY incoherent post as i just took about 250 mg of seroquel to combat my come down and am sort of swaying back and forth as i type this.... so hopefully when i read it next i don't think oh fuck i sound like a complete idiot. but i hope that there's something in here that has to do with what you said. now going to fall over on my pillow and sleep.

 

[mrs_mia_wallace]

i am frustrated right now i'm literally crying...
i've eaten so much more food these last few days, stuffed my face the last few nights and felt horrible but i thought that it was helping....
but now i just weighed myself on my scale at work and i've lost 2 1/2 pounds in three days? what the fuck how does that happen???? i don't even know what to do anymore, this doesn't make sense and i just give up, fine, whatever, apparently there's just no hope in this anymore. this is just fucked fucked.

 

[mrs_mia_wallace]

oh, and now going to have another cut in my paycheck and reason to get fired because i'm so emmotional over these pounds that i'm sitting in my car crying and typing on blackberry instead of teaching my class. way to go me. i am so damn stupid and ridiculous no wonder i'm fated to this shit.

 

[n3ophy7e]

mia you are NOT stupid and you are NOT ridiculous at all. You are a wonderful, beautiful person who deserves happiness.
How's your meth usage going?? That could be the sole cause of your recent weight loss.
I really hope you find peace within yourself soon hun, like I said, you deserve so much

 

[Dave]

No. You're not. Not stupid, not ridiculous, not anything like that. You have a problem, you are not your problem.

Sometimes it depends on what you're eating rather than how much. If you're trying to put on a bit of weight, keep some trail mix on you at all times. Snack often. It's fairly healthy, but also calorie dense. Eat often, but in small portions-- that way you get the sensation of strict dietary control without calorie restriction.

But, most importantly, do not self-identify AS your problem. You have an eating disorder, you are NOT an eating disorder. You are a fundamentally good, kind person, who has an issue with food and/or body image.

Edit-- n3o, supermod that she is, beat me to it

Also, I didn't see that meth was part of the situation. Yeah, that throws a whole other wrench into the works hun. Regardless, I hope that you feel a bit better, and that smoother days will come soon.

 

[claire22]

Meth burns calories like crazy with the way that it stimulates the heart.
So, you're probably not 'eating' as much as you think, it'll all be burnt off without even exercising.

 

[mrs_mia_wallace]

yeah, i know i'm pretty much setting myself up to fail.
meth plus the fact that i burn over 1,000 calories a day from exercising/teaching isn't helping. i've cut out my own personal excercising time yesterday and today but i still burn a bunch of calories when i teach the little kids classes....
yesteday was a bad day but today was better, anyway. just stuffed my face with bars and nuts and dried fruit all day, ate a shitload at dinner with friends, then stuffed my face with peach rings and more protein bars.. all while tweaking, and i feel completely disgusting and just want to curl and up and die. the only thing keeping me eating right now is that i'm seeing my dad in a week and so my goal is to put on some weight by then.
thanks for the kind words and advice from you all, appreciate it.

 

[Dave]

This is going to sound a bit silly, but have you considered reducing the amount of meth that you're taking? You may not be ready to quit yet, and that's fine, but it seems like the appetite suppressant aspect of meth is really making this harder for you than it aught to be.

Just something to think about is all. Good luck with everything

 

[Pillthrill]

well the bf seems to really want to help. I eat when he is around because he says he is hungry and so I eat too and and realize what I interpret as nauseous is hunger. HE did that last night, I said I felt that way, he said he was hungry and brought me food too. And I felt better. I just wish I could be motivated to do that on my own.
He says he is attracted to me but thinks me putting on 15-20 pds would do us both good. I swing between liking to be so small or wanting to be smaller to thinking it look kinda sick and wanting to be healthy again. It could be from some of the unwanted attention I got when I was that way; or I'm just looking for a reason where there isn't one.

Meth was brought up, question, what role would benzos or opiates play in this. Sometimes I think the opiates kinda help because I really do get nauseous and try to eat something to settle that a lil.