I am so sorry Palestrina. It is so difficult in our society. I was looking at old pictures of myself today and I was probably about 10- 15 pounds thinner and I started thinking the old diet/eating disorder thoughts about not eating for a few weeks so I could finally be back to my old size. It is so hard to have a bigger body than I used to. But, I talked myself down, realizing that I have done this song and dance hundreds of times and it NEVER WORKS. Im going to continue not to weigh myself and not make eating a big deal, just eat when Im hungry ( or not) and try to take care of my body as best I can right now. I know what you mean about the hate comments from people about bigger bodies. I am not sure why those people have so much hatered towards other peoples bodies. One of my good friends was medically obese and she HATED other overweight people. She was so critical of them, and I realized it was because she hated herself.


That is good that you are going to find a therapist, I hope it helps with depression. That sounds like something that would be good to get help with, and being strong enough to look for help and accept it to take better care of yourself, is I think, really good.


I agree with this. Im sorry for your loss also Carol.

I know that when I am experiencing a lot of emotional turbulence or very strong emotion, that I temporarily lose my appetite. Maybe this is what you are going through after your loss?

I hope that's it.

Hey all. I do look at your posts even if I don't participate often. Life has been so busy- I found a loving partner and moved in with him. I started a master's program in library science. I celebrated two years of sobriety and two years in treatment for bulimia. I haven't binged or purged in 9 weeks!!! I still struggle with anxiety, body image, and "food rules," but life is a million times better now.

Pinkhippie: Stay strong. Reading about your struggles is so comforting to me. I always think "me too!" when I read about what you are going through. I'm sorry to hear about your family's problems with eating. My partner eats terribly, too. I try to support him and not be judgmental even if it does give me a ton of anxiety.

Palestrina: I'm sorry that you are struggling. You are on the right path. I definitely second the motion for therapy. Therapy has helped me so much because I work on the things that cause my ED behaviors. I love the body positive / fat positive blogs but I loathe the comments, too. Just remember that a lot (and I mean A LOT) of the negative comments come from people struggling with their own problems with body image and eating disorders. There is a reason that they're going after fat people for being unhealthy and not say, people who drink more than 2 drinks in a single evening.

Carol: I'm sorry you have lost your appetite. That happens to me when I get stressed, too. In my eating disorder program we are encouraged to practice "mechanical eating" if we lose our appetites from stress. That means eating 3 meals and 2-3 snacks a day until you can eat more intuitively again. If you stop eating it can make stress a million times worse.

I never lose weight so I must be doing ok. ha

Hi Locke! Glad you came for a visit, it's nice to hear from you again. Congrats on all the wonderful things you've made happen in your life. As you can see things are a little quiet around here, there's a small handful of us still checking in and staying strong but overall the whole site has dwindled to just a few people. It does help to check in though when things get rough. Hope to see you more often!

So things have flipped again. I've burst through my binge and now I'm all intuitive again. It's hard to describe the feeling of coming out of a binge. My binges can last for a long time. They are not one isolated food escape, they are prolonged periods of not caring, not feeling hunger, being lost within my emotions. I feel almost like a robot and I can't control what I eat no matter what I say to myself or what logic I try to hold on to. Then suddenly I burst through some sort of bubble and a loud voice from within me says "NOOOO" and it's like I wake up and I'm suddenly able to feel the sensation of fullness. By the time the binge is over I feel very very full, very finished, and very ready to move on. I am suddenly released by food and tend to eat very little. It's like my nervous system is overloaded and I need to decompress from all the food. I do eat, I just seem to have very little connection with the food and my hunger and fullness systems are hypersensitive. Like last night we went out to dinner and my mind and body were screaming at me "not hungry not hungry" and I was puzzled and didn't know what to do. I ended up picking at a salad so that I wouldn't just sit there making anyone else feel uncomfortable.

At the same time I snap back into my body and crave a lot of movement, sensation, intimacy, dance, every physical experience seems intense and lovely. Even showering and doing my makeup, and putting on clothes, everything just feels alive and good.

I really don't know what this means because this seems to happen on and off, I can look back and see that this is how things go for me. I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine, then I enter a phase of binging where I feel numb to everything. Then suddenly I'm jolted awake and feel alive, awake and normal. But it's puzzling to me, how can I be so good at intuitive eating during these phases and then slip into an emotional coma? What does this mean and how do I make those phases end?

At the same time I've slowly come to realize that I'm quite unhappy with my life and there are so many things that are bringing me unhappiness. I don't mean little stuff, I mean big things like where I live, my relationships, my marriage, my career, basically the whole direction my life has taken. On one hand I'm so grateful for the life I have but in so many ways I question if I've chosen the right life to live. This really sucks.

Locke! So great to hear from you! I have been wondering how you have been doing. How cool about your masters program in library science! Do you like it? I have contemplated doing that as well. ( Once I finish my bachelors). Im so happy for you that you have found a great partner as well, Congrats on your sobriety and binge/ purge freeness! That is really wonderful!

Im glad my sharing of my struggles is helpful. Yep I do have a lot of anxiety about my husband and his eating. Holding back the comments as he eats his 6th piece of pizza when I know he is not hungry is excruciatingly hard. I know that comments never help anyone. All I can do is try to keep following my hunger cues, even when he is practically telling me to eat a cookie or hot chocolate with him, even when I say I am not in the mood for one. Sigh...

Thanks for checking in!

It sounds like you are continuing to move towards more self awareness. I can definitely relate to what you are talking about with the phase of bingeing and emotional numbness. It does sound like you have got some big things brewing under the surface. Have you followed up on finding a therapist? It sounds like that would be really helpful with that as well. It can be so helpful to just talk to an objective listener sometimes. Did something happen in particular to trigger your intuitiveness/ release you from your emotional numbness? Also, can you think of anything that happened that triggered your bingeing?

I'm eating according to the clock. So today I didn't eat breakfast until 10 and I really want to skip lunch so I can be hungry for supper with my dh. I'm eating supper every night NOT HUNGRY. I want this to change but I can see it won't be wasy.

Didn't work. When I don't eat, I don't drink water and I get dehydrated. Back to square one.

I have one dd that has convince my husband to give up sugar becuase he still has a lot of pain from his hip and knee surgeries. What do you think?

I think it's fine, as long as she's not trying to convince you. Are you getting caught up in it? Is it affecting him in a negative way? I'd say stay out of it.

I know that staying away from sugar makes my body feel much better. Usually my mind allows that to be, sometimes my emotions take over and I go on a sugar binge. When my mind is clear I stay away from sugar willingly. I try to find a balance.

Today I really noticed how often I eat just because my mind wants to, not because I am physically hungry. I think part of me is worried the food will go away and it won't be there for me to eat if I don't eat it NOW. Sometimes its like because I thought of it, now I have to do it. ( which actually makes no sense) Sometimes other people are eating and I feel like I have to eat with them. But its almost never that Im really craving a certain taste so I have to eat it now, or even a certain thing. Sometimes I will have an idea of something I would like to eat but I am so hungry I eat this other thing first and then I am no longer hungry, but my mind still wants the other thing. That happened at least once today. Either way, my head is pretty much calling the shots on my eating. STILL all these years later.

Im not sure why its SO hard to just let my body tell me when it wants food and then eat. It feels like I am missing out on so much food and fun if I only eat when Im physically hungry. Pretty funny really. Anyway, these are just my thoughts and observations of today. At least I am still becoming more aware.

More thoughts:

When I became a teenager and food started to be more of an issue for me. I had a best friend and we were always "bored". Honestly looking back, it was usually that there was an unsaid issue between us that we wouldn't talk about because both of us had major intimacy/communication issues. So,It felt uncomfortable when we would hang out and we didn't have any way to fix it. But, then one of us would come up with an idea to make mac n cheese, or cook some pop tarts, or something and suddenly we would BOTH be so happy. Something to do! A way to bond! Everything would be OK now! Our friendship was back on track! One time we made a giant chocolate cake in the shape of a heart and then sat and ate the whole thing together as we lamented our crushes who didn't even know we existed. THat is one side of the food equation.

On the other, around teenager hood my moms mental illness suddenly started making itself apparent. She also had/has an eating disorder. She would buy food usually only if things were good and she was happy and not depressed. But she would mark the food as hers and mine ( she had divorced my dad by that point) and I would eat all my food over time but she would not. I wasn't allowed to eat the food and she wouldn't go shopping. There was literally no food in the house for me to eat. I could see her food but I couldn't touch it. I had another best friend and she would very often invite me over for dinner at her nice NORMAL stable family's house. They became pretty much like my second parents. They fed me almost every day and I spent a lot of time over there. I would often go to her house after school and eat 2 bowls of cereal and toast and ice cream, whatever they would let me have. They always joked about it but never ever seemed mad or upset that I was eating their food. On the contrary, they seemed happy about it. Looking back, I am amazed my their generosity towards another parents child.

When things were good and my mom would get more manic and go buy a bunch of food she would come home with potato chips, sugary cereals, cookies in the package, all the treats I wasn't allowed to have growing up when my mom and dad were still married and hardcore no sugar vegetarians. Junk food meant all was well. However, it also meant I had to eat the junk as quick as possible or my mom would eat it all. In her manic "happy" times, she would eat a lot.

So in thinking about it, of course for me food = love, stability, nurturing, a way to bond, something to do to alleviate uncomfortable feelings and boredom, a way to solve things I don't really want to look at, and something I need to eat quickly or it will be all gone, something that will not always be around and I don't know when I will see it again.

I know these things are obvious and I have mentioned them before, but i just really started thinking about it after my last post and realizing what food really represents to me and how I continue to carry that out in my everyday life 25 plus years later.