This is excellent advice. The best way to overcome a habit is to replace it.

F.

Agreed, and this comes from someone who has always struggled with disordered eating. When I finally saw a nutritional therapist, I realized that I will never be "perfect," but I can be beautiful and happy with myself.

She started repairing my relationship with food by EATING. We sat and planned my meals down to the measurements. She started me on 1600 calories a day and I gained weight because I hadn't eaten enough for years, and I was uncomfortably full for a while. We worked on re-feeding.

8:30 - vegetable and 3 egg white omelette with high fiber bread
11:00 - Greek yogurt
1:00 - 1 cup homemade veggie soup, turkey sandwich with spinach and tomato
4:30 - apple and 1T peanut butter
6:30 - 1/2 cup brown rice, 4oz protein, the other half of the plate non-starchy veg
9:00 - pretzels with 2oz hummus

At this point, I've pared down my meals from this, and I'm now hungry at the appropriate times. I'm not starving. I eat small amounts six times a day and I'm satisfied with my meals. I don't binge because I'm not starving anymore, and I'm able to lose weight healthily now.

Hiring the nutritional therapist was the best thing I've ever done for myself. 17 years of disordered eating and hatred for my body, all fixed because I worked hard to improve my self-esteem with a qualified professional.

I don't think you should give up, but maybe you should put it on the backburner for awhile. I know your recent loss has devestated you and that's a hard thing to work through. :hug: You've certainly been in my thoughts and prayers. I encourage you to continue seeing your therapist. Worry about weightloss when you've come to a better place.

Yeah, that's for adults. I'm a teen.
I went to that link and used the BMI calculator for teens and children, and this is what I got:

Based on the height and weight entered, the BMI is 23.3 , placing the BMI-for-age (I removed my age, I would prefer not to tell.) at the 86th percentile. This teen is overweight.

If you are a teen then it is even MORE important that you not starve yourself and try and find a healthy relationship with food. Your hormonal, muscular, skeletal development can be greatly impacted by lack of nutrition.

Also, I would use caution in making an assessment of your weight using that calculator alone. BMI is inaccurate as a tool for adults, the way it is being used in the child and teen scenario is even MORE inaccurate.

First of all it is calculating height and weight percentiles from charts that are notorious for being out of date and only representative of a portion of the population. Second, at the age range you are currently you are also dealing with variations in puberty. Girls who entered puberty early will read higher BMI on this chart than girls that entered puberty later. Puberty is not an on/off switch. For most girls the process takes around 10-15 years for all of the changes (hip widening, breast development, musculature development, etc.) to complete. Where you are in this window can greatly shift your age related BMI

Since you were formerly overweight, odds are good that your puberty was shifted a bit to the earlier side and you moved along the development curve at a faster rate. You may still be chronologically a teen, but you may developmentally be closer to adulthood than girls who have never had weight struggles

Bottom line is whereever you are now is certainly better than where you were and there is NOTHING wrong with taking a maintenance break to improve your relationship with food, especially since the alternatives you seem to see right now are either starving, which can permanently alter your hormonal, reproductive and skeletal development, or binge eat yourself back to obesity. Berating yourself for not being 10 lbs lighter isnt productive.

Given your age, you would be well served in finding a trusted adult, if it cant be your parents, then someone else to talk to about the struggles you are having with your food.

Thanks Thistleberry :hug:

Thanks for the advice everyone

I guess I'll get back up and try again..

in your teens, you have a lot to contend with.

hormones are swinging all over the map, moods fling from left to right and back without warning. everything seems soooooo crucially critical today and tomorrow you don't give a rat's about anything.

this is all normal.

teens are wierd.

however, screwing up your health by disordered eating is not going to make you feel better.

food is not the enemy - food is fuel. all the things you like to do, whether it's swimming, hiking, basketball, or marathon phone/facebook sessions all require energy. if you don't have enough food, you don't have enough fuel, and your motivation dribbles away.

stop, take a deep breath, and go back to square one. no, it doesn't mean you'll go "poof" and undo any progress you've made - you have to work to do that. regardless how easy it is to gain weight, you still have to get the food and eat it.

start by setting yourself *reasonable* goals - goals with numbers and deadlines.

me - i have 100lbs to lose. i'm 45yrs old - it's going to be *nowhere near* as easy as it was when i did it the first time at the age of 24. then again, i was a heavy smoker at 24 and i haven't smoked since '97 and while i had way more energy at 24, i didn't know squat about what i was doing, so who knows - maybe it'll balance out.

if i were to focus on the 100lbs only, i'd go mental. it'd be like in the movies where the character stays in focus in the foreground while the background stretches waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the back.

instead, i set small goals - my first goal was to get to 220, which i did. now my goal is 210 - i'm at 217.5 right now, so not much longer and well on track for my deadline of april 10th.

this time around, yeah - i just jumped into my diet with both feet but only because i'm very familiar with it and i know exactly what i'm doing.

the first time took me weeks to work into it bit by bit.

if you want a study-buddy, feel free to PM me.

I agree that you shouldn't give up. Just hold on for a while. From the reading I just did after googling teenage BMI, you are barely in the overweight category at the 86% range - though it's impossible to say without your age.

I know body image is important to you, but just hang in there. Eat sensibly and start back on lower calories when you feel you can deal with it. YOU are too important to not take the best care possible of yourself. And that means not undoing the great work you've already done by losing over 40 pounds. Your "old" self will thank you for staying sensible.

Lin

*sigh* Now I'm just confused

Now I don't know what to do. I'm confused. I need help I guess, like putting together a meal plan. I don't know. I feel like crap, although I have binged lately that's more because of an emotional issue because of an event that happened not long ago. I usually don't binge, I actually still have issues eating 1,200 calories. Like today all I've eaten was some oatmeal and then for lunch I ate what was left of my friend's salad that she didn't eat. (Which was not much) And there's literally nothing to eat for dinner because we are low on food, like we have usually have been, and we don't have much money at the moment. The only options for dinner is an apple, a ham sandwich, a pb&j, a grilled cheese (too fattening), Cinnamon Toast Crunch, cinnamon raisin bagels (tons of calories), mac and cheese (im bored of that stuff) soup which totally tastes like ****, we have nothing to make a salad, all the leftovers in the fridge have been eaten except for mashed potatoes, kiwis, eggs, the chicken is all gone, Hot Pocket, cheese quesodilla (omg im so burnt out on those) or more oatmeal. Not having much food discourages me from eating because there's not many choices that sound appealing whatsoever. And when I don't eat much I feel like crap, I'm dizzy, and tired and I can't focus. Plus I work out for an hour and 30 minutes each day because I push myself too hard, so I'm fatigued and my body is always aching.

I'm not trying to whine, or beg or sound like a b*tch I promise! I'm just looking for some help.. and maybe someone who can help me with like a meal/exercise plan..

I don't know, I'm just really confused now. I can't think straight. I apologize. Feel free to ignore this post completely

Sorry

You need to speak with your school counselor. I've read a few other threads by you and really hun, you are in the depths of an eating disorder. Nobody here should advise anyone with an eating disorder about meals/exercise, particularly one who is underage and at high risk of serious harm as a result, I saw once you wrote about wanting to kill yourself due to your body.

As I have said before, yet another meal plan/exercise regime CANNOT fix the eating disorder in one's mind. Please, see your school counselor and tell them the truth. It is irresponsible for anyone but a professional to advise you.

+1 yes.