Recovering from BED/bulimia caused by restrictive eating

[Taq]

As the title really. This follows on from another thread in 90 days only, and hopefully it can be a nice, supportive thread where we can help each other out.

There is only one rule. Please DO NOT suggest or advise ANY kind of dieting, restrictive eating, or rules around food/what to eat/how to eat. That is what got me and many others into this mess!

I totally get that diet culture is so ingrained into our society that people might suggest things like intuitive eating or intermittent fasting etc thinking it might help. But it won’t, and if this is pointed out to you then please take it on board. There are many other threads where that will be welcome 🙂

Please feel free to share resources. Personally, I have found Brain over Binge totally revolutionary. I think because it closely mirrors my own story - I had a health condition that made me lose lots of weight. I felt amazing being so thin and had so many compliments. When I was better and began to climb back to my normal healthy weight (BMI 23 - I have never actually been clinically overweight which I think it important to note) I panicked and began my first diet - calorie counting.

I lost all the weight again calorie counting and I was under 8 stone. I was obsessive over it but the intense hunger made me binge one day. And so began the cycle of binging and purging. Like the author of BoB, I couldn’t make myself vomit, my purges were in the form of starving myself and exercising.

That is a very condensed history of a very long story. I am now in recovery and I have the book to thank as it was almost tailored to my exact situation. My binging wasn’t caused by psychological issues; it was simple biology of hunger, which then caused a habit which I carefully nurtured and ingrained over 3 years without realising.

Everyone’s story is different and not every approach will suit everyone. The philosophy of BoB worked for me but different people will need different methods.

I'm not naive enough to think that this is me cured forever. But I am now absolutely positive of two things:

1. I will NEVER diet again.
2. I am now a recovering bulimic.

Hope this thread ends up being a helpful and supportive place 🙂

Yeah that was me, @Rainbowsandbutterflies1990! At the moment it's Greek salad and also wraps with Goats cheese and salad. I'm eating these every day, usually for all three meals. I'll get bored eventually and it will be something else. I don't know if it's an ADHD thing but it reminds me of other things, like I'll get super interested in a particular topic or hobby, learn all about it and immerse myself in it and after a while drop it completely and move on to something else. That's definitely an ADHD trait. The food fads feel kind of like the same thing. I think sometimes it's been not really binging but that I've got interested in a processed food and wanted to eat it every day. But because i thought of it as a 'bad' food I wanted to control it and that made it feel difficult. I don't try to control how many days I eat salad, but it's exactly the same thing going on!

@sleepwhenidie I feel like I've tried everything. Books, CBT, fluoxetine, therapy, dieting, not dieting....the list goes on. I am either restricting, or bingeing and purging. I genuinely do not know how to eat 'normally'. It's become so ingrained that I honestly wonder if I'll ever recover, but I'm really starting to notice the physical effects of it all now and need to wise up and sort it for good. Sorry for the vent, I'm just in yet another bulimic cycle and at the end of my tether.

Saying hi 👋🏼 and thanks for starting a fresh new thread.

I’ll catch up on the posts later.

I’m a strong supporter of Shahroo Izadi since reading The Last Diet (which is not a diet, obviously) and have gone to some masterclasses/sessions etc which have helped enormously.

I’m now reading Your Weight is not the Problem by Lyndi Cohen, one of the recommendations from the other thread.

So I think that the binges happen just as much when I’m eating ‘normally’ as they do when I diet. For me, they seem to be tied in to how busy and productive I feel.
My life switches between periods of activity when I’m really productive but push myself too hard so it’s not sustainable, and during those periods I rarely binge. Then, when I run out of energy I spend weeks on the sofa feeling useless and bingeing. @beastlyslumber linked to a video upthread relating to adhd and there was a discussion about this point - how you’re either sprinting or lying down. That really resonated with me.

That's me too @Helenahandkart either full on doing a million things or absolutely paralysed for weeks on end.

I think medication can help a lot with this but I've never wanted to be medicated so can't speak from experience. It might be worth exploring though - many people say it has made all the difference for them.

Vent away! That’s what the thread is for!

i help a friend who was anorexic and later became bulimic. For the last two years (maybe more) she has texted me every day to confirm she has eaten three meals and a snack (she chooses whatever it is). Her binges have reduced massively (decreasing over time) and when they have happened she has been able to clearly identify some kind of emotional trigger and she is practising how to deal with these situations. She often eats the same meals repeatedly but she is very slowly moving out of her old comfort zone, occasionally eating things like cheese, chocolate, pasta and sandwiches.- there were so many rules that she’d imposed around eliminating food groups and specific foods that there was almost nothing left but very slowly and gradually she is trusting her body and herself more.

would something like this help you so you think?

btw - I don’t think ‘eating normally’ is a thing, certainly not for most women. Some kind of reasonable balance is a good aim, there’s no such thing as perfection - in diet or bodies. Some days (or periods in time) are far from what we would like - life can complicate it but the next day/week we can work towards getting back on an even keel. You need to find the way of eating that works for you.

Jumping in to say hello as a recovered bulimic.

I probably had ten years of disordered eating before I developed a full blown eating disorder in 2016.

The thing I found so difficult from a recovery perspective was that I really liked being thin. I loved it. I always heard from people that they never felt like they were thin enough but that wasn't how I felt. So I was terrified to recover because I didn't want to put on weight again.

For me recovery happened in two stages. I had already started in an eating disorder group, to try and recover, but my heart wasn't in it. It wasn't until I read Brain over Binge that something clicked for me, and from that point onwards I was able to stop the binging and purging behaviours.

But I was still so miserable, and unhappy because I was gaining weight. It then took some pretty intensive CBT to actually fix the mental side of it for me, and ultimately what it came down to was this deeply ingrained belief from childhood associating being thin with being successful. All my adult life as a naturally curvy woman, I'd been feeling like a failure for not being super slim, and fighting against it, and then feeling miserable for not being able to maintain it.

Once I cracked that, and was able to reprogram my perspective to stop that association, I was able to finally accept my body and start to feel neutral about it rather than constantly longing to be thinner.

The combination of the two was what gave me genuine freedom around food, which I'd never felt. And then I was able to start eating really intuitively. I'd say now I eat much less than I ever would have before (when not actively restricting). I have whatever I want, and actually because I genuinely allow that, I don't feel the same appeal from chocolate and biscuits and other high calorie foods.

Anyway just wanted to say there is light at the end of the tunnel for anyone currently struggling. I used to think I could never get out, could never imagine feeling this way. But it is so freeing to escape feeling controlled by food and it not dominating every waking thought.

Thank you @sleepwhenidie , that's good advice and I appreciate it. Yes perhaps it would work, I'll try anything at this point. I find it very difficult to recognise my triggers lately because it feels like more of a habit, I don't recall certain emotions making me binge like before, it's just the moment my mind plants the seed to binge I find it hard to resist, then I'm back in the cycle.

@elessar it really gives me so much hope to know there are people out there who have beaten this awful bloody eating disorder. Well done, it's inspiring. I actually haven't read brain over binge so based on all these recommendations I'm going to give it a go!

Hi everyone I am glad I have found this thread!

2-3 years ago I broke off from my long term relationship and started full on bulimic. Prior to that I have always had a pretty bad relationship with food.

Please don’t judge me. I am 5”7 and 60-63kg now. But during the breakup phase I got to 55kg. All the guys were obsessed with me. I was dating around quite a lot and I have to say I was dangerously obsessed with my new weight then. All these men always complimented me on my looks and figures and I felt really powerful. I was literally going to Michelin starred restaurants and making myself sick after I am half way through so only second half sits in my stomach. Unless I was eating out (dinner with friends) I’ll not be eating at home because I was so depressed from the break up. I also drank a lot my fridge only had Hendricks and fevertree tonic water. Some of the guys came back to my place was like do I have anything else in my fridge.

How much I wish I was back at 55kg!! I am now wanting to start the whole cycle again. I would say sometimes particularly after a really ‘disgusting’ big meal I still do throw it back up. But 90% of the time I am keeping it down now.

But I’ve completely fked up my metabolism. My entire life I’ve always been 57kg and I just cannot keep the weight down I don’t know what to do I feel horrific when I look at photos of myself.

Just a gentle reminder to not give details of weights/sizes etc as many find it triggering. You can keep it vague, e.g. I was much smaller, I gained a lot of weight, I went up three dress sizes. But please don't give the actual numbers!

Thank you.

I know only too well how all consuming and awful it feels when you're suffering with an eating disorder. I honestly never believed I could feel a different way, I felt like I was utterly controlled by the eating disorder and even when I stopped the behaviours I still felt the same way. I almost felt like something had been taken away from me.

But I hope my story can give hope and faith to others that full recovery is possible, even if it doesn't feel that way. It's complicated and there's no one to quick fix which will cure it - it probably took me around 12-18 months from the start to the end of my recovery journey.

But I'm so much happier now than I ever thought I could be. The sheer joy and relief of not keeping a constant tally of what I'm eating and whether it's too much or not. No feeling like I need to compensate for a 'big' meal by starving myself afterwards. Going on holiday and not worrying about wearing a swimsuit because I'm not a size 6. Until I was free of it I didn't realise just how much it was limiting my enjoyment of every other thing by getting in the way.

I'd also recommend following body positive influencers on social channels like Alex Light and Em Clarkson. We still get saturated in the media by a perspective that being thin is best, and I find it so helpful to follow influencers who challenge those perspectives. Alex light also has a range of clothing and swimwear specifically designed for all body types and that was the first time I ever felt confident in a bikini in my life wearing one of her pieces.

@sleepwhenidie honest and no judgment accountability probably would help me. I have a lot of shame in what I eat. Actually feeling I could be honest would be quite freeing. Your friend has a great friend in you.

@elessar I’m in awe of your recovery. That’s amazing. I’ve always imagined this will be like my anxiety, something I’ll learn to manage better but never cure. Overtime like with my anxiety I hope I’ll get better at recognising the signs and so reduce the duration of my binges rather than sink into that dark hole.

I find myself floating between accepting my body, really, genuinely and then feeling quite sad I can’t fit into the beautiful clothes in my wardrobe. Problem is when I bin them I get bigger and I worry it will spiral. So much of this is fuelled by fear.

Will look at the people you have suggested and need some new swimwear!

@MissLucyLiu Im sorry to read you’re struggling. I can relate to the feelings of empowerment being thin brings.

Also can relate to the all or nothing examples on this thread. I’m like it in every area of life. I am a perfectionist but sometimes get burnt out with it all.

@MissLucyLiu
I really identify with your feelings of disgust for your body. Something that has helped me a lot in terms of being judgemental about my own appearance is regular swimming. I started swimming in the sea a few years ago and now swim all year round. I found that most of the other swimmers were older than me, and none of them had ‘perfect’ bodies so I didn’t feel as self conscious in front of them as I would have with my peer group. Having spent a few years regularly stripping off in public I now feel much less self conscious generally in swimwear and have been able to comfortably go to the beach with my own age group - something which I wouldn’t have felt able to do at all in the past.

I’m not suggesting you do winter swimming with old ladies necessarily, but if you can think of a joyful way to use your body in an environment where no one is judging your appearance and you’re seeing lots of different body shapes it might help you to appreciate that your body is normal looking and can do amazing things.
I’m sorry that you’re so horrified by your own appearance, but I understand how that feels.

Yeah thank you for your kind response.

it’s the lack of compliment is deafening. I guess it’s also because I am in a relationship now and I am not sending flirting signals. But I know the validation of myself need to come from within but there is another voice inside me that keeps comparing myself to all the model esque people I see whenever I see them.

@MissLucyLiu i totally get the feeling of empowerment that thinness brings. But, objectively speaking, it sounds like you were one, maybe two dress sizes smaller than you are now. I wonder if it was actually your confidence that was attracting men rather than your figure…could that be a possibility? Besides that, if those guys were only attracted to you because of your figure, is that a good thing?

I think it was the confidence. You are right. When you are radiating confidence people want to know what you are sipping.

i am 1 dress difference. But it’s just how it sits. Summer is coming. I am dreading what I am doing to do. I am wearing a lot of lose baggy stuff as I hate when things tight and show my fat bags.

@Helenahandkart swimming sounds great. Also agree, just being around other women in that environment changes your perspective. I don’t think it helps that we live in a mostly cool climate and spend months at a time wrapped in layers! All we are bombarded with with regard to other women’s bodies are those in the media, which are of course, 99% of the time, not real! Inevitably we end up comparing ourselves to those supposedly perfect people rather than actual bodies, without registering what a narrow frame (no pun intended!) of reference that gives us.

@elessar your story is fantastic, very inspiring 💕

Thank you, I hope it can provide some hope to others struggling. 🥰

I'm far from an expert but always happy to offer advice and support based on my own experiences if it can help anyone.

@Helenahandkart i had a similar feeling on holiday. All shapes and sizes around the pool in bikinis. It was empowering. I joined them and didn’t give a shit for the week 😊