I have name-changed for this. Apologies in advance for the long post.
I had been overweight for most of my life, except for a couple of years in my early twenties when I was at university and embarked on a crash diet. The weight crept back on once I graduated and started work.
Most of my female family members and friends have struggled with their weight too and many are regularly attempting various diets which usually work for a while but never in the long-term so my situation seemed typical.
I had accepted that I was unlikely ever to be slim so had not really bothered with diets for a few years, until we were attempting to conceive a few years ago and I became aware that a healthy BMI was strongly correlated with positive pregnancy outcomes. It had been a while since I had weighed myself, let alone checked my BMI, so I did so and discovered that I was very nearly in the obese range. I set myself the target of reaching the healthy range before trying to conceive.
However, due to my inability to do things gradually or in a measured manner, I went straight for the very low calorie diet option. I found that I can function very well on quite small quantities of food and that I was able to cope quite well without my favourite treat foods. I quickly lost quite a lot of weight and arrived at a healthy BMI without too much trouble. I continued to diet until we conceived our perfect baby girl, I then immediately stopped my calorie counting and ate a very healthy but unrestricted diet during pregnancy.
After I gave birth I was eating a high calorie diet as I was intending to breast-feed. Unfortunately, despite weeks of effort and intervention from countless professionals, I was unable to express even a minimal quantity of breast milk so sadly had to give it up. Now I was no longer pregnant or breast-feeding I slipped back into my pre-pregnancy eating habits. However, while previously I had been losing weight for a purpose, to improve our chances of conception and of a healthy pregnancy, I was now purely doing it out of habit and, increasingly, obsession and addiction.
Monday to Friday I try to eat no more than 500 or 600 calories a day, absolutely never more than 800 and that only in exceptional circumstances. I allow myself some little treats at the weekend, a few squares of chocolate, some biscuits or the occasional meal out. I find this pressure valve means I am not tempted to break my diet the rest of the week.
In the eighteen months since I gave birth I lost all my pregnancy weight plus considerably more. I am now much lighter than I have been in my adult life and I don't seem to be able to pause the diet.
I have no health or aesthetic motivations for continuing to lose weight. I am not suffering from body dysmorphia, I do not see myself as fat, on the contrary, I can see that I am looking quite gaunt. My arms and legs are looking particularly thin, almost emaciated, it is not a great look. Friends and family have started to raise concerns about my weight. At some point, months ago, the comments on my weight-loss went from compliments on losing my baby weight to expressions of concern. I can tell, when I meet someone I haven't met for a while, that they are shocked by how I look and a few friends and family members have had serious conversations with me about my weight.
I haven't been entirely honest with most people about my eating habits as I am, honestly, a little embarrassed to admit what I am doing, so I have fobbed them off with stories of healthy eating regimes, not sure how convinced they are, but they generally haven't pushed the subject.
My husband, however, is far more concerned as he sees what I eat every day and also, frankly, he obviously has a more intimate knowledge of my body than anyone else so he can see the full extent of my weight loss which clothes can hide to a degree. My husband is a wonderful man who has always made me feel beautiful, whatever size I have been, though I am aware that he has a preference for plus-size women, he would never comment negatively on my body unless he were concerned for my health. He has told me, in no uncertain terms, that I look far too thin and that he thinks my diet is unsustainable and dangerous. He is also concerned about the effect my dysfunctional eating habits could have on our daughter. She is currently only nineteen-months old so isn't picking up on my diet. I have assured myself, and myself, that I will have knocked all this on the head by the time she is old enough to understand. My own mother, while a great mum, was constantly lurching from one extreme diet to another, interspersed with periods of binge-eating. She would lose a lot of weight quickly then gain it straight back. I think her food issues have definitely played a role in my own and I would like to avoid passing this on to our precious little girl who is, at present, an excellent eater.
The problem is that I don't think I can stop this unhealthy relationship with food on my own. I have realised that I have become addicted to losing weight, I get a rush each time I step on the scales and have lost more. I also probably have anxiety disorder and OCD, I have never sought a diagnosis as I have always felt I can control it and, up until now, it has led to fairly harmless habits which, while they may seem odd to others, don't impact my life in any significant way. My anxiety is more troublesome, but I am able to internalise a lot of it. However, there is a history of serious OCD in my family so I know what it looks like and how detrimental an effect it can have on someone's life. My obsession with calorie counting has become all-encompassing, the fewer calories I can consume in a day the more accomplished I feel. Part of me also, shamefully, feels proud that I have finally found the antidote to a life of being over-weight, even if my methods are clearly extreme and unsustainable. I can see that my OCD and anxiety are both probably likely contributing to the current situation but I still feel ashamed of myself as I feel like my disordered eating is of my own making and more embarrassed of the fact that, deep down, I am happy with my current diet. I am only a couple of kilos away from the underweight BMI range and I know that, without intervention, I will continue losing weight so I will be in that range very soon. I realise that this makes my assurance to friends and family that I am in the healthy BMI range quite disingenuous. I know I need to do something for the sake of my own health and my darling daughter and husband, but I just can't get a handle on this. My husband has asked me to ask my GP for a referral to the ED team, but I have been dragging my feet. This is partially because I am a bit embarrassed as an apparently intelligent, mature woman, to have deliberately given myself an eating disorder but mainly because I am afraid of losing control of my calorie intake and regaining any weight.
I am sorry this is so long but I really could use some advice from anyone who has faced a similar issue. What finally compelled you to reach out and get help and actually accept that help? Thanks in advance for any advice.