Atypical anorexia?

[Jackie801]

I was recently listening to a podcast and this topic came up which I had never heard of. Ironically I was exercising at the time I was listening and I am not sure if this applies to me.

I am a healthy weight after losing a great deal of weight and being overweight my whole adult life. I am not underweight but I am preoccupied with my weight most of the time. I frequently think about losing more weight even though this is my goal weight (10st I am 5ft 6). My husband has asked me not to lose more weight so I have switched to wanting to tone up and build muscle.

I still monitor what I eat and I have a lot of anxiety about regaining weight. There are foods that worry me and I will feel bad after eating them worrying about the calories or I will turn them down. I prioritise exercising very highly in my life so that I can not only stay fit but also keep my weight down. I weigh myself every day (sometimes twice).

I do eat, I eat three meals a day but I have had a lot of comments from other women that I must eat nothing and this is not true. I don’t skip meals as this can lead to binge eating. I even snack. I enjoy eating but I do think I stick to certain foods that I know how many calories are in them.

I am restricting calories to my maintenance goal only and I don’t think it’s too low as I am not losing or gaining anything. My husband wants to have a dominos pizza night this weekend with friends over, and I will not eat that because it’s so high calorie and greasy I will eat something else while everyone eats the pizza. I do like pizza but not that kind of pizza I prefer the stone baked thin ones with better toppings (like goats cheese, feta, nicer hams)

Is this something I need to seek help about? I do think it dominates my life. Last night I had some red wine for the first time in a long time and I’ve already tried to exercise some of it off and I know I will think about it a lot today. I don’t drink alcohol very often I think I was testing myself to see how I would react

I have read that atypical means you are usually not underweight but you have many of the same thoughts as someone who is underweight, it’s the obsessive element. I don’t think not eating a dominos is a worry but if I did eat it, I would find it hard to mentally cope with it afterwards as I couldn’t stop thinking ‘I’ve ruined my diet’

Hi, I don't have a lot of experience here but I suppose if you are a healthy weight, then the danger of this type of issue is if it starts to control your life and harm your mental health. Do you see this happening? Just being preoccupied about an issue doesn't necessarily make it a pathology but if it takes over your life and makes you unhappy then it is. Do you wish you could have the Dominos pizza and the red wine without thinking too much about it? If so you might want to see some counselling about your feelings towards eating. If actually you are happy with not having them, then I would say it's OK.

Yes obsessive exercising with a view to using up calories can be part of an eating disorder, especially alongside knowing all the calorie counts of food.

I am not an expert but I think the question is whether you feel like it is taking over your life and thoughts. If you eat more than usual would it make you feel awful and worried or would you just think oh well I’ll have a salad tomorrow? Would you refuse an invitation to dinner if you didn’t have control over what you’d be eating? Do you get stressed if you miss an exercise session? It sounds like you may be borderline.

I feel like I still do not have a good relationship with food even now I am no longer overweight so I am not sure how to work on it. Food now makes me feel anxious.

@minipie I do think I am flirting with this yes. I am going out next weekend and I already worried about what I will eat and drink. Weekends stress me out. I feel stressed if I miss an exercise session.

I wouldn’t go to bed without closing my exercise rings for the day. I would adjust my next meal if I had what I thought of fallen off the wagon.

Whether it's atypical anorexia or not is a bit of a red herring. It is clear from what you've shared that you have an unhealthy relationship with food which you are finding is consuming your thinking much more than it should and is increasing your anxiety and affecting your well-being. You don't need to self diagnose it as such to start doing work on this to address it. Honestly I'd invest some of this energy into some counselling to start to really think about what sits behind this and to develop more healthy strategies and sense of self worth.

@Notmydaughteryoubitch its so hard to find someone who can help with food though. I went to a therapist a few years ago to help with my binge eating but it turned out she was body acceptance and that wasn’t what I was looking for I.e she was encouraging me to just carry on as I am but learn how to be happy about it. I didn’t want to carry on binge eating. I wasn’t expecting her to help me get thin just help with my relationship with food. I think a label can help you find the right kind of person to help you.

Well done for recognising it OP before you get too far on the slippery slope. I hope you find someone who can help. Perhaps try the odd time of missing an exercise session or eating a calorific meal and realising that doing this occasionally really doesn’t set you back like you may subconsciously fear.

Have a look at orthorexia nervosa and see if it rings any bells for you.

I do like better quality food but only because it is usually less calories or something. I still eat things that are technically not very good quality but it is all calorie dependent. I snacked a little today and I haven’t done much exercise so I feel anxious because I know it will reflect on the scale and I will have to go back to making more effort to get it off again. I don’t think I have orthorexia.

I feel low today as in my head my weight is not what I would like it to be but it’s the matter of a very very small amount so I know I am making this much bigger in my head than I should and letting it affect me too much. I can’t seem to miss an exercise session or eat something off plan without it bothering me because I still weigh every day and I can see it’s reflected in numbers.

I haven’t made any contact with anyone to talk about this I don’t know where to start. This is a difficult stage as I look healthy on the outside but don’t feel healthy on the inside of my brain. I know I will not get too thin I won’t let myself my real fear is gaining weight that feels like something I am struggling to control.

I don’t know where to begin in what to address or where to start unpicking the problems

Your brain has developed an unhealthy obsessive fear relating to food and your weight

Do you need help? I think you do.

I think you need to talk to someone who can help you dial down the obsession and the fear

For example, weighing yourself once a week and working towards a weekly calorie balance rather than a daily/hourly calorie balance

Thanks where do you think I should look? Should I be trying methods myself? I would like to weekly weigh instead of daily I don’t know if I can do it on my own the compulsion is too much.

My husband said I should set myself a buffer zone of weight to fluctuate but I can’t seem to do that. I always want to be the lower end of the goal and like I said I still think about losing more when I do not need to.

I worried people might start saying I was fat phobic, I do have a fear of it but for myself not for anyone else it’s about how I feel not how I see others or how others see me. The fear is returning to binge eating. I hated that so much. I didn’t hate what I looked like but that it represented. I would eat in secret and feel a lot of shame. This situation is horrible but it’s not as bad as the binge eating was so I have been in denial thinking it’s the lesser of two evils and normal to feel anxious after weight loss.

I'm like you but 5'6 and 8 stone. I have had a diagnosis of atypical anorexia although I am borderline underweight. Happy to talk to you if you like

Do you have a lovely GP? If so, I'd start there. The GP won't know the answers but should be able to signpost

If you don't have a lovely GP, try searching your area for a therapist who specialises in OCD

I think that type of person might be able to help

Or an eating disorder therapist

🩵💙🩵

I'd contact Beat, they're an eating disorder charity and can talk to you about your concerns.

You can use BACP to find a suitable therapist. Contact them, explain the situation and ask how they'd help and their experience.

I don’t have a very helpful GP so I will try looking for a specific therapist. I do not care about a diagnosis I just don’t want to end up down the wrong path again like I did before. Issues with food are so complicated.

I have a diagnosis of OCD on my records but it was from many years ago when younger and it manifested completely differently at that point. I had repetitive rituals of touching things after having bad thoughts and a phobia of things that swing back and forth as I worried they might accidentally hypnotise me. Even writing that down makes me look like a lunatic. I did get past those then I had a severe health anxiety period, a severe fear of flying, cleaning rituals, then I started binge eating and drinking too much alcohol. I got past those and now have an exercise and calorie problem. I do not know how to get to the root cause to stop this jumping to a new manifestation, I have had so much CBT in all honesty and thought I had dealt with all the deep issues but now I have a different set of symptoms will I ever be free?

Thank you @Yuja did your issues start after weight loss may I ask? Have you spoken about it with anyone?

@Jackie801 yes I was a little overweight (BMI 26) and lost weight down to 9 stone originally. I became very fixated on it and never felt thin enough l. I then lost 1.5 stone more and was down to 7.5 stone. I'm now hovering around. 8 stone but it occupies my life and I never treat myself. I wish I had accessed some help earlier as I'm not really able to shake the problem. So I think you should get onto your GP/BEAT before you end up like me!

Thank you, I hope that you get some support as it sounds very tough.

I had been doing a little better. I had been focusing on muscle and strength in exercise rather than weight or calories in/out. I even treated myself over the weekend and didn’t get too worked up about it. I had been letting myself settle in a weight fluctuation zone and seeing how that felt. Which was ok. I stopped recording daily weights and checking how much exercise I had done.

New fear is now unlocked after seeing a friend yesterday. She said she barely recognised me as I am ‘so thin’. Now I do not want to be too thin. Absolutely do not. She asked me if I had lost more weight. I said no, I am a stable weight for a few months now, settling into it. I posted my weight in my OP, it’s not too thin I don’t think. So she said it must be all my exercise toning me to make me smaller. I do not do a lot of heavy cardio as I am not trying to lose more weight. I am trying to build glutes, quads and calves and my core strength and flexibility. I would like to be bigger in some areas and fill out the looser areas and loosen up my hips but it is hard at my age.

I asked her if I was weight blind and too tiny and didn’t notice and she was surprised when I told her my weight, said just don’t lose more. I replied I am trying not to! I also asked husband and he replied that I am tiny to him now but that’s because I now look very different to when we met. I am going to ask my sister she might be more honest with me.

Can people stop commenting on each others bodies I think that would help.

Sounds like you are doing well- although at 10 stone your friend is incorrect that you are too thin, it's a healthy weight for your height- I guess she's just not used to it. But of course you shouldn't be looking to lose any more or be occupied by food and weight all the time. Good luck with your journey you sound like you're working very hard already to be in a good place about it

If you were significantly overweight it does take a lot of thinking and readjusting to start being more thoughtful about how many calories you eat. Overeating is a very ingrained habit for a lot of us, and staying a healthy weight in society as it is, with so much access to high calorie foods, does require a bit of denial.

I don't like greasy pizza either and why would I waste a huge amount of calories eating something I don't like when I could have eaten something I do like?

My child has atypical anorexia, I think this is the most common type. It doesn't sound to me that you have it but you are treading on dangerous ground. Anorexia is not all about weight it's more how you feel about food. I can only speak of our experiences but it usually involves skipping food and not eating at all if possible. Feelings of guilt and self harm after eating, scratching at the body after eating is very common. Not eating in front of other people, only eating what they deem to be healthy but looking up calories of everything including believe it or not water. Paranoid thoughts of people making you put weight on. Over exercising is definalty part of it though. In her early stages she would do secret excersize as well as her usual to burn off calories. It sounds to me like you do have some kind of body dysmporhia. I do see a lot of Instagram where women exersize so much and post about weight loss and to me they look so ill as in you can see their ribs so that must be a dysmporhia in my opinion. It's so hard. If you are worried perhaps you can start with a gp appointment as these things can spin out of control quickly.

I've read some more of your posts and with your past binge eating I think you do need to seek some help before it does get out of control. You seem to be consumed with worry about your weight so that is not good. Ask for a different gp if you can. Take your husband with you so he can explain his worries. If you have children it's even more important to seek help because sadly a lot of children with EDs have parents with eating issues, they pick up on their parents worries about eating plus there is a genetic link. You've made the first step as you've already realised there's a issue so I'm sure you can overcome this.

Thank you for your kind words. I hope your daughter is ok? I don’t post myself on social media but I agree my feed is full of this stuff. It can make you feel bad. Having a bad week as I went out this weekend and over indulged and gained weight. I did sort of binge on Sunday to some extent, I did not restrain myself and ate far too much. Now I feel like I have to spend the next few weeks watching everything carefully. I haven’t skipped a meal but I have reduced the calories to try to lose what I gained. I will arrange to speak to my GP.

Slippery slope. Address it now. X