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Permalink Reply by Nina on April 21, 2008 at 8:31pm

Hi everyone! I am so grateful that this group exists...so many women deal with eating disorders/body image issues everyday of their lives and I think creating a safe space for us to talk about it is a truly amazing thing. I'm happy to talk a bit about my own history with eating issues, as I'm sure many of you can relate. I hope we can all learn from each other's struggles and overcome all this nonsense!! So here goes...

For my whole life up until recently I always felt like I was the fat kid, even though I wasn't. Looking back at pictures from when I was a kid I look totally normal, but for some reason I took on the persona of being the "fat friend" for so many years. When I was 15, two of my friends went to Weight Watchers so I did it too. I weight 130 lbs, which meant nothing to me at the time, but on the program I learned to eat according to numbers instead of my own body's intuition. I lost 15 lbs and this is what sent me into the world of eating disorders. Suddenly I felt so confused about my body...was I fat before? I had no idea what I looked like. If I gained even half a pound I had a total melt down. One weekend at the beach with my friend I cried because I ate a donut. ONE DONUT!! You get the picture.
So this began my battle with body image and counting calories. I gained weight on and off for a while, but when I was 17 I seemed to get it together. I started to listen to my body and eat foods that I thought were healthy. At this point I was a vegetarian who didn't eat too much dairy, and I felt pretty good about my body. But the problem was that I felt good about my body because of how much I weighed, not because I loved myself. I'm still working on that one. :)
When I went to college all of my eating issues came back full force. For a number of reasons I had a very hard first year, and the way I dealt with it was to eat, eat, and eat. I gained 30 lbs and hated myself more than I ever knew I could. I didn't want to go out or even care that much about how I looked because I felt so uncomfortable and so ugly. And guys were COMPLETELY off limits. I was so disgusted by myself that I couldn't imagine that anyone else would ever find me attractive.
After I came home from school (I transferred and am MUCH happier now) I put all my energy into losing weight and reclaiming feeling good about myself. It took a really long time for me to feel good again, over a year. I've gone back and forth between vegan and vegetarian and neither for a while, but none of them really stuck.
I was in a relationship with a guy for about a year who was really unhealthy, in more ways than one, (smoker, fast food eater, addictive personality in general), and after we broke up it was very important to me to make health one of my top priorities. After seeing the movie Crazy Sexy Cancer and reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, I am on the path towards a completely raw diet. Actually I'm not sure that I'll ever be completely raw, but I want to be primarily raw.
The reason eating raw makes so much sense to me and is helping me to feel good about myself and my body is because when I learn/read about raw foods, I actually begin to UNDERSTAND what food does in our bodies. When I can understand the science of it, I actually want to eat raw. I want to feel good and healthy and know that I am taking care of my body. It feels great to know that I am taking care of myself. If only I could meet other people that felt the same way!!
I still struggle with weighing myself too often and with getting upset over a couple lb weight gain. But I'm trying to love myself NO MATTER WHAT.
This was really long so thanks for reading, and I'm excited to hear everyone else's stories!
Peace and love yourself!!!

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Permalink Reply by Breanna on May 1, 2008 at 1:03pm

Hey guys! I am really glad there is a place on here to talk about this stuff. Thank you everyone for sharing, it is realy helpful to learn other people's stories. My story is kinda similar to Nina's in a way. I was never over weight. In fact I was always EXTREMELy skinny as a child and once I was in about eighth grade I was a normal weight. However, normal was not acceptable to me, I had to be perfect. I trade to loose weight for about a year but in the end it just made me more obssesed about food. It was not until I spent a summer in spain that I really began to loose weight. While I was in Spain I became really home sick and some how that made it really easy for me to be stricter on my diet. Each day I would eat less and less until I only ate about two pieces of fruit a day. When I left for Spain I weighed 125 pounds. A month later when I came home I weighed 107. It only got worse from there.
Despite the pressure to eat from my parents and friends, I continued to deprive myself. Eventually my 5'6 frame weighed only 88 pounds. I went to a Dr. appt. and my heart rate was only 31 beats per minute and my body temp was way down. They immediatly admitted me into the hospital. I would like to say that when I got released everything was better, but it only brought on new problems. Make an extrememly long and complex story short, I soon got new weird eating habits like eating late at night and waking up during the night and eating. This made me gain weight fast and ruined my already weak digestive system. It sounds dumb but my bad digestive system destroyed many things in my life. This past year has been the worse. My disordered eating and digestive problems ruined my cross country season, many opportunities, many aspects of my social life and much more.
This past january I went to an eating disorder facility for a month and that helped put things into perspective. After that I realized that I may not ever eat completley normal but that I have to do something that will help make my system healthy again. I learned about raw food and for once everything about the importance of eating made sense. It's hard but I am on the road to being healthy again.

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 16, 2008 at 9:40am

stay strong breanna-stay on the road!

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Permalink Reply by lulu on April 21, 2008 at 10:00pm

i can relate to Nina's story in so many ways. thanks for sharing it, Nina.
....i am sure as we all start to write our stories, so many things will resonate for us. It is a great thing to talk about and bring out.
for me, i have had issues with food since i was a kid. I came from an intense family and i learned to 'cope' by using food to numb out feelings or to 'stuff' them down. i was never extremely overweight...but, i WAS 'chubby" and where i grew up, everyone seemed to be thinner than me. I was always made fun of because i looked different, sounded different (i have a touch of a scottish brogue in my speech), and acted different.
Of course, in high school, things only got worse.and, not to date myself, but Molly Ringwald was my poster child as a teen. I could so relate to her characters in her films (except for Breakfast Club..i definitely was not that character).

I was bulimic in my learly twenties. i was a hedonistic drinking indulging machine in my late twenties..but ironically was able to really have a great shape; however at the cost at destroying my body thru bad food and too much drinking partying (though, thankfully, never an alcoholic...but it definitely runs in my family). That caused me to have a sever health issue in my beginning 30 that made me really start to focus on my nutrition and taking my health back.

But, it was not until over a year ago, where i was turned onto this book called "eat to live" and it championed eating as much raw as possible and cutting out dairy, meats, fish and fowl. It did allow some cooked foods. for the first time in my weight-wavering, scale-obsessed, mirror-crazed, number crunching, tape measuring life...i got down to the weight i always wanted to be .and have stayed there for over 16mos for the FIRST time in my life! feels so good! .BUT the CORE issues still were not addressed. The obsessive head creeps in.

I totally agree with Nina...that i truly feel that the Raw lifestyle has been such a healing nurturing path for people like us with food addictions/eating & biodysmorphic disorders. Like she said, when you eat raw, you are learning to be responsible with what goes into your mouth and see how it affects you mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally. and, I KNOW i am a total emotional eater.

I just started 100% raw a few days ago. I was about 70-80% before then.

I still know that i am not fully healed. And there are times when i can easily slip back. yet, i do feel like being a raw foodist does change your body inside and out. the more i am in the raw, the more i am able to face the raw emotions that are coming to be cleansed along with the other physical toxins. and, knowing there is a community like this within the raw community feels like a god-send for me. I feel like it was divinely meant to be.

anyway....i have rambled on. and i said i would try to be brief! gah! (^__^);; anyway, thanks for letting me share my story...at least a Cliffnotes version. (^__~)

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Permalink Reply by Nina on April 22, 2008 at 8:13am

I read Eat to Live also! I read it during my first year of college where my head was in a whole other place with food and I didn't read the whole book, but I've been thinking I should maybe pick it up again.
Thanks for your post, I really enjoy knowing how other people with similar experiences as me are finding their way to raw food and this site.

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Permalink Reply by lulu on April 22, 2008 at 5:19pm

that book changed my life. Partly due to the fact that a dear friend, who was a vegetarian for years, but struggled with his weight, dropped 120lbs from it, felt great. and has still kept it off. I admit my motivation was to get rid of the weight i had gained from my hypothyroidism and could not get it off no matter what 'diet' i did.

When i read Dr. Furhman's approach...the weight just sloughed off without even realizing it. I was eating healthy (but not fully raw. probably 50%) and have been able to maintain my weight for over 16mos for the first time in my life! i was so excited about it. I started to look into and research the raw lifestyle.

I find that STRESS and knowing my emotional triggers have been key to my staying healthy. AND, for me, interacting with my family as little as possible. In fact, i was with them all for a week, just a couple weeks ago and I gained the 8lbs! 8lbs in a week! And, what was even MORE crazy, i was NOT eating! or, if i was, i was doing a 'fake' bulimic thing of chewing food and spitting it out. pretty sick. It was the STRESS that caused me to just hold on, not to mention DENYING my body nourishment.

Incredibly, and i don't know if this is possible, but since starting the 100% these past few days, my body is starting to feel lighter again. tighter...though, the periods of energy and utter exhaustion are kicking in too.

thank you so much Nina for your response to my post. I am so grateful!

i am so excited to see what the others in this community have to share. It will be a real empowering and healing place. i feel it.

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Permalink Reply by Reverence Lily on April 23, 2008 at 7:43pm

Um... Sorry. I'm a little late to the topic.

I'm not sure where to go with this... I suffered from a breed of compulsive overeating disorder that was medicinally induced by a pharmaceutical, Depakote. I gained about 100 lbs. in six months at the age of 12, when I was on this drug. I was subsequently put on a series of successive (but not successful - diets never are) diets, including Weight Watchers, which I felt horribly uncomfortable with the meetings, and Atkins, in which I secretly binged on carbohydrate-packed food - or should I say - non-foods.

A long time passed... I had almost grown comfortable with my body... and then the end of a relationship hit me. Like, hard. I brooded, as I am wont to do; I looked back over the relationship and realised that she had only once told me I was beautiful - I tried to tell her every day. So I thought I wasn't thin enough to love - that's what everyone in my life had told me through body language and sometimes language, that I wasn't thin (and therefore good) enough to love.

Starving was relatively easy once I got through the two weeks of just not being able to eat after the breakup. I kept doing it... For what, one, one and a half years? Two years? I forget now. In any case, it was long enough that now still, whenever I weigh myself and I've lost weight, I get all funky and have to resist weighing myself every day, multiple times a day, which is a sure road into relapse for me.

I went raw... and within a week, the ED was GONE. I mean it - gone. I felt no more impulse to starve. None. It's only now, a while into it, that I have the urge to weigh myself that I start to panic over my weight. As such, I am extremely anti-weight loss, as I believe this mindset is inherently eating-disordered - yes, even the 'health' kind (which I do not believe there is - it's all oppression-based, as I see it).

That's a very abbreviated version. But there it is.

P.S. Oh, and today, three weeks into 100% raw? I looked into the mirror and thought, "Venus fucking de Milo, baby."

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 16, 2008 at 9:42am

your PS ROCKS!

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 16, 2008 at 9:35am

In bullet points:
Grew up in a food/weight/body obsessed family.
Started fearing dessert foods at age 4
Developed anorexia at age 12
Hospitalized the first time at age 20.
Which led to 5+ years of intensive treatment: inpatient, intensive outpatient, outpatient, support groups, pharmaceuticals, etc etc etc.

Stopped the madness (I was becoming a professional patient) in 2005.

Doing so much better...though currently too underweight.
And kind of nervous about it.

Working at loving myself every day.
Working at living every day.
Working at nourishing myself every day--on every level.

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Permalink Reply by Breanna on May 17, 2008 at 12:32am

I can relate to you a lot, except my anorexia turned int various other eating disordered habbits. I feel like I am a little bit of everything right now. The mindset is very powerful, controling, and dangerous.

If you don't mind me asking what are you currently eating everyday and what are you trying to incorporate into your daily meals in order to be healthier?

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Permalink Reply by artwings on May 17, 2008 at 12:33pm

The food I eat is and has always been very healthy (even pre-raw, pre-ed). I grew up on a ranch so I guess you could say I never really did the SAD thing.
I eat very simple foods--I don't do the fancy-schmancy meals that are made to mimic food that 'normal' people eat. In my mind, a veggie is a veggie and it should taste like a veggie! I eat a lot of salads and soups and plates o' good produce.
For me, because the re-feeding process when I first entered recovery induced hypermetabolism, I eat 6 times a day (3 meals 3 snacks, though i had someone suggest calling them "eating experiences" which I happen to really like) Eating at regular intervals keeps me balanced and keeps my metabolism at a steady level rather than bottoming out when it has been too long.


this is just what is working for me though.

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Permalink Reply by lulu on May 17, 2008 at 9:16am

artwings & reverence lily --- thanks for sharing your stories ...even if one was in bullet points. ^___~
for me, it was just not one facet of ED.
and, i have to agree , i have not gone fully raw YET..but i am already starting to see the results not only in my body but in my ED mindset. Not only would i weigh myself everyday --morning and night- i would also measure myself a number of times a day and then the OBSESSION with the mirror or ANY reflected surface for that matter...good lord! but, the past few weeks, since moving up the raw percentage ladder, i have not weighed myself OR measured myself. In fact, i did it just the other day and promised myself i would not do it for another two weeks. i do admit, i have a bit of the 'belly' and 'midrif' area i want the adipose adiose..^___~ HOWEVER, the next step is to start cutting out the constant checking in the mirror.
i read a great inspirational blog post a month back that talked about breaking 'habits' and that you just pick one, focus on it, work on it, give it a month, incorporate a new one. that has helped me. but i know that eating raw definitely seems to balance out the body and just make you feel good. and slowly those voices of 'betrayal' and 'sabotage' are quelling.
^___^

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