from undereating. I usually lose consistently every day or every week, but I've been bouncing around my current weight. I know it's because I'm not eating. I've been eating about 1 meal a day and I can't force myself to choke anything down. I'm really depressed and whenever I start to eat, I can feel my stomach drop and all of a sudden the food is disgusting to me. I'm totally sabotaging my weight loss and I can't afford to see a doctor. What can I do?

Just now I made a sausage/egg taco with a side salad. Halfway through the taco I got upset and put it down. It got so gross looking to me that I had to go throw it away. It's the only thing I've eaten today.

edit: oops! Please move this to weight loss support.

Why does food seem disgusting to you?

Because I'm depressed. It's 4:30 and I haven't had a bite of anything today, not even water. I'm occupying myself by doing laundry. Since I feel too sick to eat I'm digging myself a deeper hole because my weight loss (one of the only things that I have to be proud of) is suffering from it. I just don't know how to break out of it.

Go for a walk. Even a short one. Or a bike ride. Or any kind of physical activity you like doing, even if you don't feel like it. It sounds like you need to trick yourself into feeling better, and moving around can help. If you can get active, I bet you'll get hungry. Then eat something that you like that is also good for you and you will feel good about the exercise, the food, the fact that it is helathy food. Repeat as necessary. Fake it 'til ya make it! Good luck and here's a hug to get you started. Hope you feel better soon.
Barb

OK, I know exactly how you feel. When I started to diet earlier this year I went into it believing food was the enemy because that's how I gained the weight to begin with, right? And it was ALL food....not just bad food. I could be eating a grilled chicken breast and gag on it half way through. I did lose weight at first but then it came to an abrupt halt. So I started googling what calorie restricting does to the metabolism and it was the wake up call I needed to increase my calories. It helped me eat more but I was still feeling depressed. So I joined a gym to counteract the food I was eating and the guilt I was feeling. And WHAM, the metabolism kicked back into high gear and I lost more weight this way.

I guess I don't have a lot of advice to offer except maybe look into how not eating effects weight loss. You might find yourself more scared of that than food!

Good luck hun.

Oh, I haven't been doing this the whole time--I've been eating normal portions every day for the past 6 months or so. This all started recently.

My grandmother used to say to my mom "It's not what she's eating- it's what's eating her" when it came to my weight problems- which started at like 8 or 9.

Something is obviously eating you. You've stated you are depressed, but what exactly are you depressed about?

I know you have said that you cannot afford a doctor- I do want to let you know that many teaching hospitals offer programs that are based on a sliding scale fee. I used to go to Jefferson in Philly when I was in college- I paid $20. It was a win-win. I was getting help- the doctor was able to get his residency. But in the mean time, how about using us as your sounding board? What is eating you?

LR

It's a combination of a few things. Talking about it will only make me feel worse so I'd rather not. I just have this heart-wrenching empty feeling inside of me all the time and I don't know how to make it go away. I don't ever "feel" like doing anything. Even thinking about going outside to take a walk is a chore, and if the TINIEST minor inconvenience happens to me I get set off and my entire day is ruined. It would be nice if I could talk to a therapist or something to just spill everything that's eating at me without having to announce it on a public forum, but like I said I can't afford it.

Linsey if its a specific event thats making you not eat it may pass in time, my ex and i split on boxing day and i literally ate 1 sandwich in a week. i don't know whats making you depressed and if you dont want to tell us that's completely up to you, but i don't think anyone here would be judgemental of your situation if you wanted to.

I know exactyl how that feels and I have done it and then i start eating one day and weight goes up. And the fear of that helps me be willing eat today. I find some foods disgusting like meat but I try to eat some of it before i go crazy on cheeze and binge. Undereating leads to overeating. I think I can cheat, I think if I eat less I will lose weight, not true!

Also with my eating plan, I am simple not allowed to act out on food because of emotion - sad, angry, lonely, bored, excited, not a reason to starve or binge. I must eat at least 3 times a day and stop when i am full. Natural foods help me like nuts, dried fruits, salads, things like that. Best of luck! I really feel for you because I know how that feels.

If I were in your place I would not be worried that your weight loss stalled, I would be worried that your weight will go up as soon as you start eating, so eat now to prevent it!

I have been there! My problem turned out to be my thyroid and it is SOOOO very strange how one little gland can wreak so much havoc on your physical and emotional well being. I didn't grocery shop! My mom would bring mine by when she would get hers and I would write her and my dad a check, I did not give birthday parties to my 3 kids, just have grandparents and us for cake. I did not leave the house for almost 4 yrs straight. Not for school functions, not for anything. It was a combo of different reasons, fatigue being my main complaint, I no longer looked like my usual radiant self, I had gained weight from my last pregnancy and it still kept adding up post-partum, a time when the weight SHOULD have been going away. It had nothing at all to do with food, although I blamed it and refused to eat. Didn't matter, I still kept gaining weight!

I don't know your specific problems and that is ok, just want you to know I too have been a prisoner of my own body. I was in your similar position, I DID have insurance through my husband but they do not cover that realm of medicine.

I hope you get everything worked out and back on track!

You might be surprised. There are a lot of people here who have struggled, and continue to struggle, with the kind of depression you are talking about. Just hearing that it's not just some kind of defect in you, but something that a lot of people go through, can be helpful.

And if there wasn't at least a part of you that wants to talk about it, you wouldn't have come here and started this thread in the first place.

It's just life stuff. I attended therapy for a while in high school but stopped pretty quickly. I didn't feel comfortable talking to her. I guess we didn't really mesh or something. Like I said, even things that aren't real problems bother me. I blow everything out of proportion. In my head I know it's silly, but I can't stop getting upset over the tiniest of things.

I think another problem is sleep. I tend to force myself to stay awake until 4 or 5AM until I'm so tired that I can hardly keep my eyes open. I think I do that because I don't want to think about anything while I lay in bed. It makes me wake up in the middle of the afternoon with half of my day gone which doesn't really help anything. Last night I took some drowsy medicine to get myself to go to sleep early, and funnily enough I feel 10000000000x better today than I have in weeks. I woke up, started with my daily water intake and had a couple of slices of a spinach pizza I threw together last night. Maybe a proper sleeping schedule is a big step in the right direction.

I ate spinach pizza last night for dinner and had a big glass of water and the scale rewarded me by giving me another peek at 223. It's given me some motivation to get back on plan and eat three healthy meals today.

Well, scratch that. I felt good for a while and it went downhill again.
It's actually at the point now where I'm considering just taking the sleeping pills every time I wake up so I can sleep some more. That's a horrible thing to say but it's crossed my mind.

I do the stay-up-until-you-exhaust-yourself thing sometimes, too. Within a two-year period I lost my brother, my mom, and my house/car/a lot of my belongings (obviously the possessions were a much less meaningful loss, but it was still a shock). My brother and I used to work together and I had real trouble going back to that office, especially as it, too, was in sorry shape after Katrina. I finally had to quit for my sanity.

For a while the sleep thing was constant and I would go a full day or two, occasionally three, without sleep just so I could go out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow. Otherwise I'd stay awake with my mind racing with unspeakable thoughts and worries. My dreams weren't so hot either.

Let me tell you from personal experience that sleeping pills do NOT work in the long term. You have to find ways of dealing with the underlying issues. Sometimes they seem insurmountable, but they aren't. Time does heal just about everything, and what it doesn't heal, you learn to live with just as someone who's lost limbs lives with accomplishing things in different ways.

Losing sleep will mess with your eating. It will mess with your weight loss. It will mess with your concentration, dangerously so if you're driving. Try to find ways to make your brain "turn off" that don't involve sleeping pills or staying up late; they're only stopgaps. What works for me is sleeping with lights on and a television chattering so I don't have silence in which to think too much. You might also have good success with thinking of good things--story or article ideas, paintings you want to paint, whatever moves you and makes you want to open your eyes each day.

I'm sorry you're having a rough time of it and I hope it gets better soon.