I also found that when things in my life feel out of control, then I have a tendency to find that feeling of control over loosing weight/restricting to do it. For me stress is the trigger....I start loosing weight then I get wanting to loose more...sort of a vicious circle.

When I was young, my stressful times weren't as long as then have been as I got older (after the age of 42). I even lost a bunch of weight the last month I was pregnant because I was so stressed about having a c-section. Mostly though when I was working I was playing racquetball with the guys at lunch rather than eating & I worked through dinner....never had normal eating times or even normal eating foods. It was when major depression set in & the Anti-depressant took my appetite away that I lost way too much & ended up inpatient....took years to recover any of that weight because in reality....I didn't want to.

Managed to get stabalized & even gained too much after that & then a trauma hit & wham....right back into the anorexia & ended up medically hospitalized for that about 10 years ago (at 52).....I have been very cautious about gaining this time because I refuse to allow myself to gain like I did the last time. I now totally live alone on my 10 acre farm so I need energy to take care of my farm & my critters so I know that I can't end up at the low weight I was at.....& I just had major oral surgery so it's not easy to even eat....but have been eating more fatening foods than ever before. I had gained more than I wanted to figuring that I would definitely loose a lot after the surgery....that's not happening like I thought so I'm finding that I am tending to start cutting the amount I'm eating.....I know when I'm well & working hard around the farm that I will need to eat for energy.....it's really easy to get back into the mind set of restricting......seems like it hits right when a safe weight is reached because we know that we have some room to blow it.....the problem is that it's rather addictive for me & when I start seeing the weight go down....I just want to see it happen more. I have found that I have a range that I'm willing to stay within & that is what I continually work on now....it's a functional range so I can do all the things that I need to do & have some extra energy for the fun things also like trail riding or volunteer work at the horse park......something I could never do when my weight was out of control.......

We are the ones who have to control ourselves....no one else can....so sometimes we just have to have a serious talk with ourselves & decide what our priorities really are & then demand ourselves follow that. For me, restrictive eating has been a normal part of my life all my life...there is just no way that I even want to eat 3 meals a day....I would be cooking & cleaning up in the kitchen rather than getting anything else done...& that's just NOT where I am.