Listen to what I have to say, OK? Because I've been there.

I've had food issues since I was a young kid. When I was little I remember going to a buffet with my family and puking halfway through so I could eat more. I hid food, snuck food, hoarded food. I was always an overweight kid, and I was picked on mercilessly. I'm telling you that so you know what I mean when I say I understand where you're coming from when you can't control food. You say you're a night eater, well do you feel you can control that through doing the opposite, starving?

You can try to be proana and it's not going to get you anywhere. I have really awesome restricting periods where I lose, but it ALWAYS cycles. So I get to purge a little, binge, purge a little more, try to restrict coming off a huge *** binge, then that triggers a binge, then try to restrict, then a binge, then I finally have another successful restrict cycle. I usually end up reversing anything I've lost.

Your restricting cycles will be followed by a binging cycle. Period. That will slow your metabolism and fake your body into thinking your in a famine, so it will gain more from your binges. It's a happy cycle. The worst part is the mental aspect because you feel like a failure no matter what you do. I genuinely wish I'd never started and gotten help with it when I was a child. Two decades into an eating disorder and I know it's probably going to be my death.

What I'm trying to say is by trying to force myself to restrict I've upped and downed in weight hugely over the years. I thought starving myself instead was THE solution in high school. That was 10 years ago and I've been riding the roller coaster since. I have gained more weight trying to restrict. I've gained and lost so many pounds it's not even funny. I flunked out of college because I was too busy planning meals to study for my exams.

You will not succeed in restricting. And if you start that cycle it's going to make you want to die. I don't want to sound preachy, just cautionary.