to ask why me and my friend were so different? tw

[ncccc2]

when i was a child, i was fat. as in, morbidly obese.
when i was 11, i weighed over 12 stone at about 5'3.
i was fat throughout my whole childhood, and i remember first binging at about 4ish.
i would throw tantrums that i couldn't have another kinder bar after eating the rest of the pack that same day.
i would steal my mum's sweets and chocolate and she'd find wrappers down the side of my bed.
so when i was 11 i started to barely eat i went to school without eating breakfast, threw away my lunch and ate a warburtons sandwich thin with 2 chicken sandwich meat slices for dinner.
i lost roughly, over 3 stone i think. everyone complimented me on my weight loss and even my guides leader asked me if it was intentional or not, i said yes and she congratulated me and told me i looked amazing.
so, my point is that i've always struggled with food.
my best friend from the age of about 5-13 was my only friend for quite a lot of those years.
as a result, i spent a lot of time at her house. she ate less healthy than me and her diet is still really unhealthy, yet she was always skinny.
however, since the age of maybe 9, i realised that she would never finish her meal when we got takeaways, left food if she wasn't hungry anymore, when we got snacks such as pringles she would grab a few but then would stop, i would always eat at least half the can, even if i felt sick. if we ate a lot of snacks later at night she wouldn't eat breakfast when her mum offered it to us and then would just eat lunch and dinner as normal.
i understand this is why she was skinny, because she would just miss the calories that she had eaten more of the day before.

but i'm just curious as to why we were so different. my mum wasn't overweight until i was older (maybe 7 years old, so way after i started binging), my dad was but it was never a big deal and i was always fed normal portions by my parents before it started.
it seems almost like i was just born with it because even now, i have to remind myself not to carry on eating when i feel sick.
i got fish and chips tonight and was given a huge portion, i ate the fish and felt sick before i could eat many chips, and it almost felt like an accomplishment that i stopped when i felt sick instead of carrying on.
i'm still a teenager but it has been my hugest insecurity for almost my whole life and many times i have broken down over it. i have had so many periods of disordered eating and even now i sometimes slip back into either not eating, or binging.

it's just been so difficult so if someone could give me some sort of an explanation as to why i was so different to my friend i would really appreciate it.

There could be loads of reasons or no reason at all, but it's irrelevant. Her behaviour has no bearing on yours. It doesn't matter why she eats the way she does, it only matters why you eat the way you do. Are you getting any help?

no, not getting any help at the moment but if this continues much longer i will definitely look into it.

your stomach sends signals to your brain to tell you when you are full. In some people, for a variety of reasons, those signals don't get through or are not interpreted properly. that could be one factor.

Why does your friend's experience have any relevance to your own?

because when i was growing up i would always compare myself to her and wonder why she was so different to me.

even looking back at it now i realise even the little differences in our relationship with food.
when you're a very lonely child it is easier to compare everything, especially when you spend the majority of your time with them.

I wonder if this might be part of the problem? That you don't see your own experience as a valid entity in its own right?

OP I get how you feel.
I'm not overweight because I'm active and have a high metabolism, but I have no stop button with food.

There are people who live to eat and people who eat to live. Its something in our genetic makeup. I often wonder if it's some sort of poor response in the systems in the body that regulate appetite and satiety.

I was born very tiny possibly intra uterine growth restriction, and my unscientific speculation is that my body was programmed in a resource constrained environment so thinks it must always eat all of what's available.

I eat fast, too, do you? You can help yourself manage your appetite, but it takes willpower. I find the following help:

• giving myself a huge portion but making 70-80% of it low calorie vegetables and sad
• getting the sweet taste my body craves from sweet ish vegetables like cherry tomatoes, carrots, red pepper and beetroot
• exercising more to allow yourself to eat more
• develop "slow eating" techniques to help you eat slower and let your brain register how full you are, eg chewing each mouthful ten times before swallowing, having a one min egg timer on the table and only having one bite of food per minute.
• give yourself a small/healthy portion of food, and do not let yourself go for seconds until 30 mins later to allow your brain to recognise that you have eaten.

If "tw" stands for "trigger warning", I think you're supposed to say what the triggering content actually is. E.g. "TW - eating disorder". That way the right people can avoid it. On its own it means nothing.

No-one can say why people are different. Try to focus on you. And please get some help. I am late 40s and I have been on a binge/restrict cycle for years. Each time I start a binge period I end up weighing more than ever. I can successfully lose a lot of weight. I just can’t control the self sabotage

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

OP I get how you feel. I'm not overweight because I'm active and have a high metabolism, but I have no stop button with food.

There are people who live to eat and people who eat to live. Its something in our genetic makeup. I often wonder if it's some sort of poor response in the systems in the body that regulate appetite and satiety.

I was born very tiny possibly intra uterine growth restriction, and my unscientific speculation is that my body was programmed in a resource constrained environment so thinks it must always eat all of what's available.

I eat fast, too, do you? You can help yourself manage your appetite, but it takes willpower. I find the following help:

• giving myself a huge portion but making 70-80% of it low calorie vegetables and sad
• getting the sweet taste my body craves from sweet ish vegetables like cherry tomatoes, carrots, red pepper and beetroot
• exercising more to allow yourself to eat more
• develop "slow eating" techniques to help you eat slower and let your brain register how full you are, eg chewing each mouthful ten times before swallowing, having a one min egg timer on the table and only having one bite of food per minute.
• give yourself a small/healthy portion of food, and do not let yourself go for seconds until 30 mins later to allow your brain to recognise that you have eaten.

eating fast is a good point. i do eat quite fast and i think it could be a big part of it. my friend always ate a lot slower than me, i don't remember a time where she had finished her dinner before me.

@sandandso

If "tw" stands for "trigger warning", I think you're supposed to say what the triggering content actually is. E.g. "TW - eating disorder". That way the right people can avoid it. On its own it means nothing.

sorry! how can i get mnhq to edit the title, because i've seen it on thread titles before where it says 'edited by mnhq' ?

I notice this with my in laws - I'll stop eating when I feel full, they will all pick at anything in front of them on the table even if I'm sure they must be full. I do think to an extent it's a bit innate, I easily stop eating when I'm full and always have, my sister doesn't, both my parents do.

One big thing that helped me was to get the sweet hit after a meal from a no-sugar squash (I find hot squash is somehow more satisfying than cold).

With respect, you say you are a teenager so you are still 'growing up'.

A lot of things can cause overeating and poor relationships with food. Mental health issues such as trauma, mental health, loneliness, grief can all cause both a conscious or unconscious reliance on food. Even pretty normal things like eating fast because a sibling will eat off your plate if you don't can cause ongoing issues with feeling full or seeing food as anything other than what you need to live.

It's worth you talking to someone professional about it and definitely do not compare yourself to your friend.

@PolPotNoodle

With respect, you say you are a teenager so you are still 'growing up'.

A lot of things can cause overeating and poor relationships with food. Mental health issues such as trauma, mental health, loneliness, grief can all cause both a conscious or unconscious reliance on food. Even pretty normal things like eating fast because a sibling will eat off your plate if you don't can cause ongoing issues with feeling full or seeing food as anything other than what you need to live.

It's worth you talking to someone professional about it and definitely do not compare yourself to your friend.

sorry i guess i should have just said when i was younger.

i'll think more about talking to a professional in the future however i'd really like to try and do it by myself for now.

I was recommended Susie Orbach's book On Eating by a counsellor many years ago. It might be worth a read.

Hmm my parents always made us clear our plate so even if l was full, l was trained to finish everything on my plate. Now l can't bear to leave food - trouble is l don't always give myself smaller portions yet still feel like l have to finish everything. Plus l eat quickly and just don't listen to my body when l am full up until it is too late then l am stuffed and feel rubbish. Am currently doing intermittent fasting as l lost quite a bit doing this before Christmas but OP you don't want to spend your adult life battling an unhealthy relationship with food, do try and get some professional help if you can. Good luck xxx

I saw a sciency programme about this a while ago. There did seem to be a generic element with some people not experiencing the 'full' feeling which lead to overeating.

Some people have a faster metabolism and view food as a fuel, personally I have a shocking sweet tooth and a love of cheese so I just exercise and try not to buy much of either.
Eating slowly also helps - make meal times a social occasion as you tend to eat slower when you're chatting, the other thing is to snack healthily throughout the day so that you're never really hungry as then you're more likely to make a bad choice. Aim for 3 healthy meals and 2 healthy snacks, the thing is to remember that everything in moderation is the key as if you deny yourself something you'll want it more.

What @PolPotNoodle made a lot of sense, you said yourself “as a lonely a very lonely child”, maybe food was “your friend”? But that’s just a guess, no one here knows you well enough or are qualified to give you an accurate assessment. You say you’ll seek help in the future but why put yourself through waiting, you matter now, hopefully you’ve got a very long life ahead of you, don’t waste it trying to resolve it yourself. People spend many years training and learning about situations such as yours to become counsellors etc, it’s often something that requires the time taken to work through it, you’re worth that time.
Yes it could be something physical as a pp suggested such as your body misinterpreting the “full” signal but equally it could be something emotional. I understand why you compared yourself to your friend but we’re all so very different, you need someone to understand you. Good luck op, you actually sound very self aware and a lovely human being.

“I saw a sciency programme about this a while ago. There did seem to be a generic element with some people not experiencing the 'full' feeling which lead to overeating.“

I think I saw this too. A few genes seemed very important in controlling the psychological element of overeating.

Did your parents encourage you to clean your plate? Or maybe continue to shovel food into you at the spoonfeeding stage when you were signaling you'd had enough? I think experiences like that can teach you to ignore the messages from your own body because you've been taught to override them.

I have two kids - one naturally regulates their eating, the other doesn’t. The first has hungry days and then days with little food - it depends on his activity levels and growth spurts. The other is always hungry, always asking for food, and we have to carefully control portion size, as she is never full. They have been raised in the same way, with exposure to the same foods. They have also both been like this since birth - even saw the same patterns with breast feeding.

You should read the book How To Have Your Cake And Your Skinny Jeans Too by Josie Spinardi. It explains why your friend was always able to have a bit of what she fancied and not overindulge because food was probably never restricted for her because she was skinny. She was given unconditional permission to eat therefore never needed to overeat because she knew she was able to have more if she wanted it. As you were overweight as a child, I’m assuming at some point food was restricted or demonised (especially ‘bad food’) so you felt the need to overindulge, binge or secret eat because in your mind, you never knew when you were able to have more. I highly recommend the book, it changed my life and gave me a far better relationship with food. It also gives you really practical tips on how to tune into your hunger cues if you’re interested.

I think for many people (me included) food plays a big part in regulating our emotions. If this is what you are doing, it doesn’t make you less of a person and it is not your ‘fault’ - it’s just a way of coping with life.

You are young OP so I’d suggest seeking out support so you can get to know yourself, and make sure that you can leave this behind. BEAT is an online organisation with lots of resources and is a great place to start.

I could have written this word for word!!

Not being in tune to your bodies needs & hence over eating isn't necessarily an eating disorder. It's great that you've realised the difference in eating patterns between you and your friend.

Have a look at the book Within by Habib Sadeghi - it really helped me to change my outlook & realise that how I 'was' wasn't how I had to be and change my behaviours around food.

You have your whole life ahead of you, OP. Don't let this become a life-long burden. You're not a slave to your habits.x.