Difference between dieting and eating disorders

[mcdougall]

Name changed here

I just wondered what people's opinions on this are. Years ago I restricted what I was eating and would only eat fruit and veg all day then a proper meal in the evening, I think a lot of dieters do this kind of thing. It went on for some time. I was a healthy weight to start with perhaps slightly slim, I am 5'7 and got down to 7.5 stone and looked scrawny and ill and people made comments. I never sought help as didn't think it was a problem though I was very secretive and hated having to eat with people as I might have to break my rules such as the fruit and veg rule and no eating after 6pm, I also started exercising a lot.
So I recently told my DP about this and he said it was an eating disorder and I wondered what others thought, should I have sought help or was I just dieting like everyone else seems to be?

Sorry I'm sure I put paragraphs in!

It does sound like you had some eating disordered tendencies and it definitely wasn't healthy. When your behaviour like this starts to become obsessive, you become overly distressed when not being able to follow "rules", and it starts impacting your day to day functioning, that's when it becomes a problem and would more than likely make someone seek help and be diagnosed with an eating disorder. Your BMI was also very low so that would be a worry too.

I eat pretty normally but I'm also bulimic (in recovery). I have previously been diagnosed with EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) with anorectic tendencies and was doing similar to what you were except I was going days without food and not eating very large meals in the night.

To me the secretive behaviour, the restriction and the low BMI are all red flags for an eating disorder and having undertaking healthy diets more recently there is definitely a massive difference between the two in my experience. I hope you are doing okay now

Thank you pocket.

I still have some rules which I didn't really realise I had but nothing like before and I'm able to break them, my bmi is Now 20, so healthy. I still don't eat after 6 but will if eating out. I see that it was disordered but I hear so often of people fasting and dieting in crazy ways which makes me think I was quite normal really.

It was only when I was talking to DP about it that I thought, yes maybe I wasn't well I suppose but then doubted that because of the diets I hear about.

I hope you are okay too.

I am no expert so please don't take anything I say as gold!

I think many many people have disordered eating or compulsive eating patterns which sit them in the very definite unhealthy and emotionally damaging camp, but wouldn't necessarily be given a clinical diagnosis of an eating disorder.

A lot of these people luckily manage without medical intervention to pull themselves back to a more healthy way of eating even if they still get stuck with the odd unhealthy quirk. Or occasionally fall back into unhealthy patterns for a while.

I think the difference from that to a more classical look at an eating disorder is that the majority of those people are unable to (because they are ill) so they become very unwell and without help don't actually recover to a point that you could live well.

Then there are people like me who swing in and out of various food patterns, none of which are ok, Iv starved Iv binged, Iv been over and underweight and "normal weight" Iv never sit on healthy. I just can't quite land on the easily making good choices so even when I am eating well my brain isn't seeing eating in a good and healthy way. But I recognise that and work hard to try to curb things so I sit somewhere in the middle but it takes work and energy to stay there.
I could very easily if I stopped working hard end up on either side of the dangerously over or underweight coin by bingeing or starving depending on where my brain was when I decided to stop fighting.

I still have rules that are left over too. Although I consider myself more or less recovered I still can't eat certain things (bread is a scary food but I can have the occasional sandwich) and I don't keep certain foods in my house as I fear I will binge. Otherwise I have mostly managed to overcome my disordered habits. One thing I can't do is undertake any diet plans, attend slimming clubs or fast as they are a risk for triggering unhealthy behaviour for me, but I am much the same as you now in that I have a healthy BMI and can mostly enjoy food without too much stress.

Some people will go on things like crash diets and fast but I think the difference for them is it's not a compulsion and they can go back to fairly normal habits quite easily. In a way I do think a lot of people have disordered traits and it's nothing to be ashamed of, it's just a shame that people are so sad about the way they look that it comes to this. But I get it, I had it for over 20 years!

You sound like you are in a much better place now :) The best advice I can give is that as long as you are happy and healthy, it's absolutely fine, but the moment it becomes overwhelming or affects your life negatively, that's when to reach out.

An ED is a loss of control - being unable to stop, whether that's stop restricting, stop vomiting, stop exercising, stop binging.

If you restrict and then stop when you're happy then you're OK. If you restrict and then can't stop when you reach your healthy-brain goal then you have disordered eating.

I just eat veg soup and weetabix in the week (no normal meal or snacks) as well as doing a good amount of exercise however as I am fat (pcos) no one would suggest an eating disorder.

It does sound like you had disordered eating. You are not eating normally and you don't want to stop. Fear of food groups will mean you are lacking vitamins and gut variety. Not eating with others is also negative, food should be shared and enjoyed.

You are also underweight. I think your DP is correct.

@maddening there are people all over the scale who have eating disorders. Most bulimics are a healthy weight, people with binge eating disorder are usually overweight.

Is there anything that your doctor can do for you in terms of pCOS weight gain? As that doesn't sound like a fun life right now.

People love to label everything as a disorder nowadays. Some people are more restrictive in their eating, some are a bit too gluttonous, neither are eating disorders.

An eating disorder is a serious addiction to dangerously unhealthy eating related behaviours. An anorexic who can barely eat, a bulimic who constantly gorges and vomits or a food addict who eats til they can't move... They can't stop without help and without medical intervention they will become seriously ill or die.

Nobody would get ill or die on the regime you described, you eat enough and you can eat when you have to.

There could be some tendency to orthorexia there with the hugely unbalanced daytime eating; I suspect that one meal a day might not have balanced your diet. The rigidity and secrecy could also be concerning.

I work in this area. To my mind there’s a scale of disordered eating, with clinically defined eating disorders at one extreme and no disordered behaviour at the other (true intuitive eating probably). Many, many people, especially if they have ever been on a diet, are somewhere in between the two, trying to make or follow rules, only consume a specific number of calories, constantly judging food, controlling their appetite, eating for reasons other than hunger, suppressing hunger, bingeing, restricting, exercising to compensate...the list goes on. Obviously the stricter or more extreme these behaviours the closer you are to an actual eating disorder.

@maddening Despite what many people think (including some ill-informed medical staff) eating disorders do not equal thinness. I’ve been a size 6 and a size 16 with an eating disorder. I’m a healthy BMI just now but diagnosed bulimic. Don’t let anyone fob you off if you feel like you ever need help. Sending love to you x

An eating disorder is something you have no control of even though ironically you think you’re being very controlled. I used to restrict myself to a certain number of calories a day, then try and beat it the next week by going lower, then the next by going even lower and so on. I thought I was doing so well and congratulated myself if I barely ate anything in a day. I was also secretive and threw food in the bin. It started off as just restricting calories - the real danger is when you can’t stop what you’re doing and don’t want to and even lie to everyone else about what you eat.

Now I eat a restricted diet but it’s so much more relaxed and is definitely not an eating disorder. I don’t eat carbs for breakfast/lunch and eat mainly soups or veg or salad with no dressing. Dinner will be relatively healthy and weekends anything goes. The big difference for me is it’s not rigid, it’s not on my mind all the time, I don’t have to lie and if I have a “bad” day because a social occasion has come up I don’t berate and punish myself for it.

I guess that is a key difference Oily -- when you tip from being in control of what you eat (according to whatever parameters you set) to the thought processes and actions controlling you, so that, for example, even if on a rational level you want to eat rather than restrict when you are starving or stop eating when you are well past the point feeling full, you can't help yourself.

maddening why do you only eat Weetabix or veg soup in the week?

I would say it’s about control. I had bulimia for a long time, I managed to over come it a few years ago with only a handful of short relapses.

I have however replaced it with food and exercise rules, I am now able to occasionally break these rules without becoming very panicky and wanting to be sick. I am in control of my rules, I sometimes break them and I sometimes change them. I was not in control of my bulimia.

Thanks for the input. I would say that I was disordered but not ill perhaps according to these posts

An eating disorder is a mental health condition - I'll give you official NHS link - www.nhs.uk/conditions/Eating-disorders/ - reading you OP about being secretive and avoiding eating with people, you fit the pattern of an eating disorder.

Symptoms of eating disorders include:
spending a lot of time worrying about your weight and body shape
avoiding socialising when you think food will be involved
eating very little food
deliberately making yourself sick or taking laxatives after you eat
exercising too much
having very strict habits or routines around food
changes in your mood
You may also notice physical signs, including:
feeling cold, tired or dizzy
problems with your digestion
your weight being very high or very low for someone of your age and height
not getting your period for women and girls

It's important to remember that even if your symptoms don't exactly match those for anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder, you may still have an eating disorder.

Warning signs of an eating disorder in someone else
It can often be very difficult to identify that a loved one or friend has developed an eating disorder.
Warning signs to look out for include:
dramatic weight loss
lying about how much and when they've eaten, or how much they weigh
eating a lot of food very fast
going to the bathroom a lot after eating, often returning looking flushed
excessively or obsessively exercising
avoiding eating with others
cutting food into small pieces or eating very slowly
wearing loose or baggy clothes to hide their weight loss

As ever, there are some very ill informed views about EDs on this thread. OP, you would probably have met the diagnostic criteria for anorexia at that time (based on BMI). It's a total misconception that anorexics don't eat; I was nearly sectioned and my eating patterns were not dissimilar to yours. All of that said, I tend to think EDs are a bit of a spectrum and the diagnostic criteria are not the be all and end all and the labels are pretty unhelpful. I hope you're in a better place now