[evergreentree]

Is it possible to have...alternative eating habits, though not because you think you're fat, and still have an eating disorder?

For the last few months of school I dropped my calorie limit a lot (are you allowed to say how much? i know you can't mention body measurements), and lost quite a bit of weight, more than I was expecting. But I didn't start because I think I'm fat, because I don't, nor do I think fat is bad. I just...wanted to make things harder on myself. I'm at home for the summer and am eating (mostly) normally (I try to keep the food intake down but am eating more than I did at school), and I'm dealing with it fine. I fully intend to drop my calorie limit again when I go back to school, though.

Could this possibly be an eating disorder (or the development of one), or is it simply personal choice?

[Victoria'smom]

This really sounds like your fully into an eating disorder. The body image issue may or may not come but it's the fear of gaining more than (your set #) that's the issue. When you get back to school please see the school nutritionist and a counselor.

[SkinnySoul]

Originally Posted by evergreentree

I just...wanted to make things harder on myself.

I think this phrase here is the key.

Try to answer yourself a couple of questions:

- Why do you want to put pressure on yourself? Do you feel like you don't deserve to relax and be happy with what you've got?
- Do you feel like you HAVE to count calories and restrict in every meal? Are you able to eat without thinking about cals, fat etc?
- How do you feel about your weight loss? Happy, in control of your life, successful maybe?
- Are you satisfied with the number of the scale now? Do you want to lose more? Do you set your next goal weight lower every time you reach your previous goal weight?

I cannot provide a diagnosis for you, but it sounds like you cannot relax around food.
If you are concerned about your well-being, maybe you should talk to a professional. He will tell you what's going on.

Best wishes

[evergreentree]

hmm...well...
-it's to make up for the proposal that i might not die by suicide. i'm morally incompetent and deserve it.
-always when i'm away at school, because no one's monitoring my meals. now that i'm at home for the summer i haven't calorie counted at all.
-mild satisfaction
-i don't care about numbers so much. i like to see myself visibly shrinking. partly because the scale's in the gym and i don't want to publicly weigh myself.

oh now i see you can't mention calorie intake. good thing i didn't.

[eskielover]

I never got into the calorie counting.....I would just limit what I ate to when right before I feel full, I quit eating.....have always been that way because when I was growing up, would go out to eat with my parents & my dad would get the left overs & kept asking me if I didn't just want a little more....so I would.....by the time I would get home, I was feeling so sick from eating too much, I would promise myself that next time I wouldn't be talked into the extra food.....when I'm full, I'm full.

My mother got into the calorie counting, but I never could figure it out, so it was easier to just NOT EAT than to figure out the amount of calories I was eating.....if I ate more one time & less another....it would all average.

I can relate to the not suicide thing.....when I was 44 & major depressed, & the suicide attempts didn't work.......thought that anorexia wouldn't cause my daughter to feel the same stigma as if I would be successful with a suicide attempt.....went through that for years........then it just went away.

Stress is my major trigger for not eating.....& mid-terms & finals in college were major triggers......now in life, other things have become even worse triggers & I have ended up in the medical hospital with the anorexia & IV nutrition to stay alive......it's not a good thing to get to that point, but long term stress was what pushed me to those places.

None of it had anything to do with body image.....but the ED treatment facility I went to tried to cram the body image issues on everyone......which basically turned me off to their treatment & I wasn't at the point where I knew or even understood what was really going on with myself at the time.....just knew it wasn't body image even though I never wanted to get to the same overweight that my mother & grandmother had experienced at a short height.....my issues were still not about MY body image.

[Laina M.]

A lot of women I know with EDs have said, well, I'm doing this because I want to hurt myself, or I'm doing this because I want to make myself disappear. Low body image tends to come with and be compounded by that, but you can have an eating disorder (and especially start one) without that.

I'm worried that you're doing this because you want to make things harder for yourself. That to me says something is wrong, because you shouldn't be hurting yourself like that.

[spondiferous]

It sounds like an ED to me. There are many different types. Very few of them have to do with food. It's about controlling the food somehow, for a greater purpose.

[albrecht86]

From my experience, yes. I don't have any body issues (if anything, I think I look much more ugly being so bony than I did before) but still been suffering from ED. For me it stems from being majorly overweight most of my life and nowadays wanting to "eat healthy" (rather than to look good/lose weight).

It's actually why I had little interest in most of the ED books I read, so many focus on body issues I simply couldn't relate.

[evergreentree]

Thanks, all. So the answer to the thread title after all is 'yes'. Not to say that I would 100% for sure have one, but it's nice to know that body image is not the issue for everyone with an ED.

[Bodiesneverfound]

I've never really had body issues in the sense that I thought I was fat. I have had a lot of emphasis placed on how pretty I am and now that I'm getting older I'm terrified of losing it. I'm terrified that once I do I won't be worth anything. But I worry more about wrinkles than fat. I actually think I might look better and younger if weighed a bit more.
For me anorexia has always been about being in control and feeling clean. I feel clean when I don't eat and I feel disgusting when I do. I feel like it's a moral failing or something if I can't starve myself well enough and I just feel dirty. I've struggled with anorexia a couple times in the past but nothing as bad as I have it now. I went through a breakup and I told myself that if in 30 days I didn't feel better I would kill myself. I think starving myself was a way around that... I was just killing myself slowly. While I do have some body issues they are mostly related to dissociative issues (I don't feel like my body is mine for some reason) and while I worry about aging it's not that big of a deal for me.