24, F, SW: 215, GW: 130, CW: 178
This is my story with food and with weight loss. When I was in high school, I had disordered eating. It wasn't quite a full blown eating disorder, but it was definitely not healthy. I would alternate fasting to bring down my weight, and binging to calm my feelings. I was desperately unhappy, and things in my life were extremely difficult and unstable. At 17, I weighed 116 lbs, which the US Food Administration seems to think is a healthy weight for a person my height. But it took obsessive eating to get down to that point, and a change in meds that caused me to be manic for two weeks, and therefore burning a lot more calories.
Six years later, I would find myself at 215 lbs. A weight difference of nearly 100 lbs. I had stopped restricting, but continued to eat 3000 or more calories a day every day out of anxiety and depression. I was sick (fibromyalgia and something else), and couldn't exercise, and could barely function. My relationship with food was something totally different than it had been before, but still, no less unhealthy. My boyfriend of 3.4 years at various points would try to talk to me about my weight, and how unhealthy it was, and his fears for me. It took a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, and the sudden weightloss over Christmas vacation, for me to truly face the issue.
Diabetes comes with sudden weight loss or sudden weight gain. Usually the latter, but in my case it was the former. I lost 15 lbs unexpectedly over the Christmas week, and found myself under 200 for the first time in years. I was shocked and excited! Later, I went to the ER for something else, and they found that I had diabetes when they took a urine sample. Suddenly, my whole world changed. My relationship to food had to be drastically different now. I couldn't binge on pasta or sugar foods anymore. I ate pretty healthily in general, but I would still eat sugary foods and fast food a lot.
This experience has entirely changed my relationship with food, and I've been able to lose 37 lbs since December. There were about four months where I plateaued at 185, jumping up and down around that number, and now I'm bouncing around 180, but it's loss, and it's progress. Now, when I eat, I eat because I'm hungry. I stop eating when I start to feel full, and have some water. I do CICO, and try and get walking into my week as much as I can. I've thought about trying intermittent fasting, but worry that it will send me right back into that obsessive spiral i was in when I was 17.
I know I'm in a much healthier mindset now. I seek out healthy foods and healthy alternatives to junk food or carb heavy foods. I'm on my way to reaching my goal weight, and my relationship with food is such a big part of it.
Thanks for listening.
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