I was watching Thin the documentary and it was amazing how much I could relate to these women. I am not anorexic but like these women I am absolutely obsessed with food and being thin. The thing that really resonated with me was towards the end, when a 15 year old girl was being kicked out of the clinic because her insurance had run out. She was understandably upset and the therapist at the group session was trying to comfort her and she asked a 28 year old patient what would have happened to her if she had seeked treatment when she was 15. The woman said "i would have had friends and I wouldnt have taken my own food to dinners and I would be eating food with other people and socialised". and i thought back to me and my various diet phases where I took my own food to dinners and tried not to look at other eating beautiful food and how many social situations I avoid to avoid eating bad food and triggering a binge and how limited my social circle has become...anyway my new resolution is to stop being so obsessed with my weight on the scale and I have signed up with a trainer to learn how to exercise effectively and even though I am not ready to give up on my calorie counting, to choose food that are not processed and are clean and healthy. I am going to aim to become lean not thin and hopefully when i do lapse, I can come back from it less damaged. I dont want to take my own food to parties or not go to avoid food and instead just make smarter choices from whats there... this is only a plan now but I hope it works! i am terrified it wouldnt but i am going to take it one day at a time to shift my way of thinking...wish me luck!

I never took my own food to parties, but I remember not eating anything at a party and then bingeing when I arrived home.
My ideal state would be that of eating healthy as a habit, eating out without fears, eating foods which are not so healthy now and then and not losing control or obssessing.
To me being "normal" means eating when hungry, and eating adult, natural food. By natural food I mean veggies, but also roast and potatoes, toast... Adult food. Not things that come in bags and are designed to make us overeat, but serious, nourishing food.
And it would be ideal also to stop counting calories or carbs --animals don't do that and they don't grow too fat or too thin--, or miles or hours...
What do you think?

inglesita - exactly! thats the stage I hope to arrive at when I start my new life. the idea of not counting calories or eating carbs (even good carbs) is so terrifying. My plan is to start gradually and when I feel more confident about exercise then start introducing carbs and maybe in a few months, stop counting calories and as you said just eat food that nourish and not packaged crap food!

I find this post both interesting and sad. I have debated going to those inpatient ED clinics but they are so costly, most of them do not accept insurance and I think that is wrong. That is terrible that an ED clinic kicked out a client due to her lack of her insurance!!! Why aren't there donations, charities or non-profit organizations for this?? So many women and men struggle with disordered eating and think that diets are the solution, which in my opinion, only fuels the ED fire. There should be more awareness about EDs, a great website that has information and bulletin boards is Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders.

I, too, have restricted and even purged a few times before on the quest to becoming thin. It's not about the weight, in my opinion. It is about accepting oneself with body image, learning how to eat healthily and sensibly, conquering inner emotional and mental demons that force one to sabotage themselves. I believe that recovery from an ED is possible but I do not think that diets are an answer.

Mascara Blue- I apologize if I ranted or went off on a tangent but that I got irritated by a woman being kicked out of a facility, that is so wrong. It sounds like you have a great plan, especially because you are reaching out to others. Keep the faith! Believe in yourself! You can overcome your struggles with food.

I go to a private, for-profit clinic on an outpatient basis for BED treatment and many of my fellow patients have had trouble with insurance. Some had to stop treatment when the insurance benefit ran out, while others pay out of their own pocket and come to fewer sessions. My benefit ran out a long time ago, but fortunately I am able to afford the payments.

While I understand that it seems unfair that patients who can't pay may not be able to continue coming, I also see the treatment center's side. The owners aren't a rich group of doctors; they are two psychologists who have to pay for a lot of items at their own expense: the dieticians, two part-time doctors, a staff of therapists, their own insurance, administrative staff, the building and utilities, patient supplies, etc. they charge a lot, yes, but their expenses aren't cheap. They have a right to earn a living.

And I have seen how hard the staff fight the insurance companies on the patients' behalf. They work with the patients to come up with a plan that will let them continue coming as often as possible when they can't pay. And I have seen situations where the patient was unsuccessful lobbying their insurance carrier to get the inpatient program approved, and the therapists have gotten the insurance companies to change their mind.

I am not saying that it is fair that some people don't get the treatment they need due to inability to pay. I'm just saying that the blame lays on more than the small, privately owned centers. Insurance companies should spend more time determining whether the short-term cost of treatment truly outweighs the long-term costs when the patients end up getting worse and require hospitalization or expensive medications. And the medical community should be emphasizing the importance and availability of cost-effective treatments and lobbying the big insurance carriers to see that paying for treatment is worth it in the long run.

I saw that docu! It was interesting. I think dieting is harmful, and there are often many factors at work than simply calories in and out.

I hope you find a way to overcome your own struggles with calorie fixation.

Wonderful documentary, it's raw and really sheds light on the mental aspect of eating disorders. We watched this film in my Women's Studies class I took as an elective back in 2007, when I was in the depths, or as I call it the rabbit hole, of my eating disorder. I have had very disordered eating on and off my entire life, even as an older child. The film honestly helped me, it made me realize exactly how much I was damaging my body and my organs. It's a deep, dark place that I keep inside of me, and honestly I deal with that demon on an almost daily basis. Once I gained that insight and really started to try and control my eating disorder more, my health improved. Of course now that I am a WHOLE lot larger than I was back then, I feel a lot better. There are days when I want to revert to my old habits, but then I remember how much control I have had over that eating disorder for the past almost 6 years, and I know that it is not something I need to be a part of anymore.

That film helped me to change a very destructive lifestyle I was leading. It's been a very long, hard journey, but I'm finally grasping what it truly means to be healthy without being extreme on either end of the weight spectrum. And I'm getting there one day at a time, without putting my body through any more H***.