Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda154
Originally, I struggled with anorexia. I starved myself constantly, and excercised obsessively, and a considerable amount of weight in nearly 2 months. However, now the complete opposite has happened. I can't stop eating. I have gained a lot of weight and I can't bear to look into the mirror at myself. My episodes of binging are so frequent, that I often go to bed feeling sick and disgusted. I just, I don't know how to control myself. I've been in this vicious cycle for the past two years, and I can not handle it.
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Well, I am starting to think this is a physical condition that no one talks about. A few years ago I went on a liquid diet. I did this for 6 months and ate no more than 800 cals a day. I did lose a lot of weight. But I got stuck. My body seemed to have adjusted. Undeterred... I tried to eat less. I also exercised more but still couldn't lose. Still trying I had now been eating 800 cals or less for over a year. This became just to maintain.
I kept having these binges where I would eat an entire bag of candy. I never did that before. Finally an emergency came up and I ate semi normally only to gain 15 lbs in one week. I went off and could not get a grip on myself until I was back at the point I started.
Looking into it - your body does take actual physical steps to make you hungry when you eat too little. There is a hormone called Leptin that slows your metabolism and makes you STARVING. I call this the boomerang effect and it has destroyed every diet I have ever been on.
What i am doing this time is.
1. I let myself eat more food until I was good and fat (well no greater than my weight I started dieting with last time) and stayed there for a bit. I noticed that at my *set weight* I started feeling less hungry and more in control. I also noticed that I could eat an insane amount of calories at that weight and really not gain. I presume it was because my metabolism was now stoked.
2. I am going to diet in 20 lbs phases. Lose 20 lbs slowly, stop, maintain and eat more.... for a long time -- 6 months, and then diet again to lose 20 more. On my first phase I have lost 6 lbs in 4 weeks.
The key will be avoiding the cycle of boomeranging back. Dieting so much my body slows its metabolism and then gaining weight fast if I go the slightest bit off.