Underweight but don't feel it

[ForgetMeTomorrow]

I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum. I feel a fraud Posting here as I don't think I have an eating disorder but I think I have some sort of issue.

According to BMI I am only 2lb underweight, but 6 months ago I was 10lb overweight. I cut my eating to about 800-1000 calories a day and lost weight, which made me feel good and in control. I kept changing my goal weight to see how low I could go.

Even though I am now underweight, I don't want to stop. I don't think I look underweight or even slim. I still think I am fat- I have a fat belly and thighs. I look at myself and think I'm only a little bit smaller than I was when I was overweight. I want to be thin.

I feel I want to be a different person to the overweight person. And I'm not accomplishing that. I am obsessed with food, and think about it all the time. I look at pictures of food. But then I restrict myself - if I don't, I go crazy and eat so much and then I feel guilty and remorseful. And starve myself for 24 hours to make up for it.

I feel very unhappy with life, a lot of it is due to working from home and loneliness. I have had bad anxiety over the last few months and had CBT but it didn't do much. I'm scared to go to the dr as I don't want to be on antidepressants and gain weight. Gaining weight would make me feel like a failure and back to the person I don't want to be, who was treated crap and no one liked.

I don't know where to turn or who to talk to. I don't know if I have a problem, or if I do, I don't know if I want to resolve my problem. I just feel so lost.

You really do need to speak to someone to help you overcome the fear of putting any weight on. You may only be 2lbs underweight now but, if you cOntinue as you are, you will soon be much more than 2 lbs underweight. If you don’t want to speak to the dr could you contact Beat? It’s a slippery slope to an ED, please speak to someone for advice.

www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

That sounds like a text book eating disorder, OP. Sorry.

Eating disorders are not only about how much you weigh. You can be a perfectly normal weight and still have an eating disorder. To me it sounds as though you do have some sort of ED. Looking at photos of food and obsessing about food is not a "normal" way to be. A normal non-disordered approach to food is when you don't think about it in any real sense. And you are connecting your self worth and happiness to weight which is also not a healthy way to think. You also talk of food being a way to feel in control. This is a very typical way of thinking when you have disordered thinking towards food.

I would seek help immediately from an eating disorder charity or similar.

@ForgetMeTomorrow unfortunately eating 800 - 1000 calories a day is not healthy and it is how a lot of people slip into an ED. You need to be aware what an ED does to you, it changes your thinking and what you might have felt before was a great weight to be the ED will tell you that you need to lose more weight
" I don't think I look underweight or even slim. I still think I am fat- I have a fat belly and thighs. I look at myself and think I'm only a little bit smaller than I was when I was overweight. I want to be thin. "

Thats a classic ED voice telling you this.

You are on a slippery slope I think and you should see your GP and go over this with them. You don't want an ED I can assure you of that.

As others have said, please do seek help before this escalates. You absolutely do have disordered eating and thinking about yourself.

This is very alarming: "Gaining weight would make me feel like a failure and back to the person I don't want to be, who was treated crap and no one liked" as you seem to equate low weight with being liked. If this was the case then no one would like anyone who is overweight, which is obviously not how it works!