First, a little bit of backstory. In about 2004-05, I borderline had an eating disorder. I managed to get myself back on track, although once you go down the road of wanting to lose weight, your state of mind is very hard to return to blissful ignorance.
In 2007, I had a really rough year. I was diagnosed with depressoin, anxiety, and panic attacks. I had to quit my job (checkout chick at a supermarket) because I'd have a panic attack every day at work. It was also my final year at school (I'm 19 now), and about halfway through the year I realised that my small group of friends were shutting me out. It was so hurtful, I was so lonely. The thing that got me through was the boyfriend I got about that time. We'd eat and eat and eat. He had awful eating habits because of his childhood (not much food in the house) and I replicated them.
Anyway, during the course of the year I gained over 15 kilos (about 40 pounds). I also got reeeeally unfit, and I still am. The following year (2008) I made a big decision and repeated my final year of school. It was wonderful and because of my growing self-esteem and diminishing mental health problems, my eating gradually got better, and I was consciously making better food choices. So I've always been a bit funny about food and my weight and diets. I'll secretly watch programmes about weight loss and fat people, I'll secretly serve myself less of the unhealthy food we have, I'll secretly weigh myself. For some reason I don't want anyone to know that I want to lose weight, especially my mother.
The problem is, now that I've gotten down to well within my healthy weight range, I don't know if Mum will accept that I want to do a healthy eating and exercise plan, that includes counting calories. I'm living with my Mum until around the end of the month, when I hope to go flatting with a few people I know. She's very set in her ways and I've never told her about my -thing- with food. I've gotten sick of just half-assing it and trying to watch what I eat some of the time.
Now that I'm in a way better headspace about all of this, I want to consciously make myself healthier and leaner. I know that although I'm in an okay weight range, I'm `skinny-fat' and could do with some exercise. I want to make sure I'm feeding myself good foods, and I know that to start with I'll need to count calories and make sure I'm getting enough protein and vegetables, and I know that to do that I'll have to be a bit obsessive with measuring food for a bit. Unfortunately, that's not easy to do without anybody noticing.
I dunno whether I should be upfront with her, or just do the best I can with her around. I don't know what I would say to her if I told her about all of this, and I don't know how she'd take it. Does anybody have advice for me? Thanks
What/how do I tell my mum what I'm doing? Kind of OT
