“I swung on a weight swing and could gain and lose 5–7 kilograms in a week”: how I dealt with eating disorder
Miscellaneous / / September 13, 2023
Personal experience that shows: there is a solution to this problem.
I have been living without an eating disorder for more than three years now. In this article I want to talk about my path, share what exactly helped me cope, and also support those who are just starting to struggle.
“Big girl” - where my story began
As a child, I was an ordinary child of average build. But in the third grade she suddenly gained weight, so throughout high school she was considered a “big girl.”
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1st class
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4th grade
At first I didn't really care. Yes, there was ridicule from classmates and peers, but my mother somehow managed to convince me that I was beautiful and that it wasn’t all about my weight. The main thing, she said, is to be able to present yourself.
But still, over the years, the feeling of “I’m fat, ugly and there’s something wrong with me” grew. Then suddenly a beautiful blouse in the store didn’t fit me, then a boy at the camp called me “fat,” then some mother’s friend said: “You’ve gained some weight.”
I remember how at school we were taken to be weighed. I stood in line until the last minute, hoping that everyone would leave and I would be the last. My classmates then weighed 28–29 kilograms, and my figure sounded terrifying to me. “Yunusova - 35 kilograms!” - the nurse announced to the entire room.
Several classmates standing at the entrance heard this and could not resist ridiculing, and I was ready to burn with shame.
Another decisive factor was that I got a computer when I was about 13 years old. Then the Internet also joined the pressure from classmates, peers and the beauty industry. Slender girls had more likes on social networks and more “friends.” And in general, the Internet was full only of photographs of slender bodies. Then the thought took root in my head: “I’m ugly, and that’s why no one loves me.”
“An egg for breakfast, an apple for lunch” - the first dietary experience
Thanks to the same Internet, I learned that there are various “magical” ways to lose weight “by 10 kilograms in seven days!” These were the headlines that filled the browser advertisements. At the age of 14, I began to actively follow links that led to Kremlin, kefir, fruit and other diets. Then a belief formed in my head: “If you want to lose weight, go on a diet.”
Over the year I tried many options. Basically, these were diets of the following order: an egg for breakfast, an apple for lunch, kefir for dinner. I sincerely believed in them. And since this was the first such experience, at first everything went more than well. Using enthusiasm and willpower, I went on another diet, and stayed on well the first, second, and third days.
But then I wanted to eat more and more, and my “willpower” became less and less. I didn’t understand why this was happening, and they wrote on the Internet that it was just my weakness and “that means you don’t really want it.”
At some point it seemed to me that the whole issue was the availability of food - that is, meals. The logic was this: in the first days when I go on a diet, I feel light and don’t feel like eating at all. But then I start adding more portions, and the feeling of hunger grows. Therefore, I thought that food in this chain was unnecessary. Well, they say, you just need to not eat and “pump up” your willpower. This is how my first experience began hunger strike.
Fortunately - I am immensely grateful to little Yulia, who loved to eat deliciously - my “willpower” only lasted for three days. Afterwards I started eating again, and then I put back everything that I had lost.
Of course, now, understanding the whole mechanism of how diets work, I realize the pointlessness of those attempts. After all, diets are in no way intended to reduce weight qualitatively and then maintain it for a long time. I also put the expression “willpower” in quotes, because it also has nothing to do with quality and healthy weight loss.
The fitness industry puts pressure on this pain, calling us weak-willed and weak, but in reality this is not so.
The whole problem is that the tool (diet) is not intended at all for the purposes for which it is used, and the results are like “10 kilograms in 7 days" - these are just attractive headlines that, alas, work great for people who are naively looking for magic pill. Like, for example, me at 14 years old.
But it’s easy for me to say now. Now I know that the diet will not only not help maintain the results, but, on the contrary, will add a couple of extra pounds later. But then it was unknown to me, and therefore I made a new attempt to lose weight after another failure, while gaining more and more.
It all ended with the fact that at the beginning of the 9th grade, at the age of 15, I reached my maximum weight - 78 kilograms with a height of 168 centimeters.
“Yunusova! Pull your stomach in!” - the influence of society and beauty standards
At some point, those same 78 kilograms suddenly appeared and the fitness industry began to actively develop. Then rocking chairs, trainers, calorie counting, “dry” presses and weight training suddenly became popular. With such propaganda of slender bodies with pumped up forms, it was almost impossible to consider oneself “normal” or even a little beautiful.
In parallel with this, physical activity appeared in my life. First I went to dancing. I studied in the best studio in Orenburg, and it was a great pride for me that even with excess weight I was taken there. This did not happen right away, however. At first they said that I was too fat, but then my mother went to the head of the studio and asked that they still give me a chance. And they gave it to me.
I was proud that I went to dance at this studio, but the entire first year of classes was extremely stressful for me. After all, almost every teacher called me large or even fat, and also considered it their duty to find out when I planned to lose weight.
I always stood in the last line, they rarely brought me on stage or tried to hide me away. They called her clumsy, clumsy, wooden. I still remember with a shudder the shouts of my teacher: “Yunusova! Pull your stomach in!”
In those years, I hated my last name, as I often heard it as part of insults.
But in fairness, it must be said that there was one classical dance teacher who believed in me. She, of course, also said that I needed to lose weight, but she always did it very carefully, and then praised and supported me even with minor changes.
In general, judging superficially, the year of suffering was not in vain. On graduation in the 9th grade I wore a beautiful open dress and was only slightly different in weight from my classmates.
“After a week of eating this way, my strength began to leave me” - eating disorder
By the end of that same 9th grade, I was generally pleased with the result, but I did not intend to stop there. After all, even then it seemed to me that I was still fat. Looking ahead, I will say that an inadequate assessment of one’s weight and body is one of the signs of an eating disorder or even an eating disorder. That is, the first bells were already there, but I, of course, could not notice them.
It became unfashionable to diet, but everyone started counting calories. It’s just that back then there was no one to properly explain that if you greatly underestimate your calorie intake, then it’s essentially the same diet. Few people understood this then.
The norm for girls at my age was unspokenly considered to be a diet of 1000–1200 calories, although in reality it should be about 1600. But if you manage to eat less, then you're cool. And those who have a lot of fat were recommended to consume even less, because the main goal is “lean” abs. And so began my 600-900 calorie diet.
In the summer of the same year, I read an article on the Internet where a girl talked about diet pills. That same day I ran to the pharmacy, but it turned out that they were sold only by prescription. However, the desire to lose weight was stronger than common sense. So I started going to pharmacies - maybe they’ll sell it. And so it happened. In one place they didn’t ask for a prescription, and I successfully bought the pills.
But I didn't drink them for long. And now, to be honest, I don’t remember why I abandoned the appointment. Either there were side effects, or there was no effect. But I wanted to talk about this case to demonstrate how sometimes blind and risky to health the desire to lose weight can be.
Also at that time, I began to study religion more and decided to try fasting for the first time. Of course, now I understand that it was a matter of wanting to lose weight. But then it seemed that one did not interfere with the other.
Before Easter in 2015, I started fasting. In parallel with reducing the calorie intake, I removed meat, dairy, and fish from my diet. Leaving, in fact, only cereals and vegetables. It was quite easy for me to maintain my enthusiasm, which was supported by faith. With the same enthusiasm, I decided to add more sports (in parallel with dancing) and went to the gym. It was very fashionable then, and I was incredibly proud of myself! It turned out that every day I had either a gym or dancing. And sometimes both together. And in general everything was fine, if not for a couple of “buts”.
After a week of eating this way, my strength began to leave me. I could no longer fully study and train without a nap after school.
Then I began to feel cold all the time, even in very warm clothes. About two weeks later they added dizziness. Once in the gym my vision went dark and I couldn’t get up from the mat, and then I passed out for several minutes. Later, deterioration of memory, attention and absence of menstruation were added. But then it didn’t bother me at all. After all, the main thing is that I continued to lose weight!
I remember how on the last day of Lent, before Easter, I stepped on the scales and saw my lowest weight in my life: 51.6 kilograms. I was immensely happy.
Now I am very grateful to life that my weight loss was associated precisely with fasting. After all, it was limited in time, and when it ended, I allowed myself to return to my previous diet. Yes, leaving this “diet” was terrible: abrupt, without any transitions and with huge consequences for my stomach. But he was. I think otherwise I might have become anorexic.
After such an experience, a series of restrictive breakdowns awaited me. In the language of specialists, we call this “restrictive eating behavior” - one of the types of eating disorders. Its mechanism is as follows: you forbid yourself a certain type of food for a long time or greatly underestimate the calorie intake, which causes a deficiency in the body. In the end, you break down and overeat either the forbidden product or all the food at once. But then I didn’t know this and didn’t understand what was happening to me.
Eating disorder - This is something between normal and disorder. Conventionally, it can be divided into three types:
- restrictive - when we break down and attack forbidden foods,
- emotional - overeating due to emotions,
- external - when the cause of overeating is external triggers: eating for company, the taste and smell of food, food “at arm's length”, and so on.
Eating behavior is disrupted when a person begins to eat without experiencing physical hunger.
“The overeating became so severe that I could no longer stand it” - the beginning of an eating disorder
For a little over a year after that post, I lived in a vicious circle that I now call “diet hell.” After each breakdown, I again tried to “pull myself together”: start limiting calories to 700 and train hard in the gym using willpower.
But the whole catch is that a person whose psyche has already once experienced the “risk of death from hunger” - and ours the body really evaluates such hunger strikes in this way - the mechanism of the so-called strength completely breaks down will. The body does not want to experience such stress a second time, so some time after starting another diet, it completely turns off control and literally makes a person break down and overeat.
At this moment, he simply has no opportunity to stop, since the mechanism is no longer subject to his will.
And the more often I tried to go back to the diet, the more often I broke down. The more I restricted myself, the more I ate during a breakdown. At some point, the bouts of overeating became so severe that I literally did not remember how my usual snack or dinner turned into gluttony. At that moment everything was like a fog, and I couldn’t stop. I found myself after the attack with a completely full belly and a huge feeling of guilt for my powerlessness. Because nothing worked out for me again.
By that time, my skin had deteriorated from severe overeating. My face, which was clear during puberty, is now covered in a huge number of rashes. I think it’s all because I ate mostly sweets. Moreover, at the moment of breakdown, I wanted precisely the most low-quality sweets, like cheap rolls, which contain a lot of not only sugar, but also palm oil and other not very healthy ingredients.
Later, by the way, I analyzed this moment from a psychological point of view. Why did I want to gorge myself on poor quality sweets? And I realized that this was an act of self-punishment for weakness, as well as an act of self-aggression.
I didn’t understand what was happening to me, why I wanted to eat so much, why I couldn’t stop. This depressed me terribly. At some point overeating became so strong, and the sensations afterwards were so unbearable that I could no longer withstand them. And I found a way out.
I have known for a long time that someone cleanses their stomach by vomiting after eating. But I used to be disgusted by this process and never wanted to try it. But at the time of those dietary “circles of hell” the feeling of guilt for the failure was much more disgusting than ordinary vomiting. This is how my eating disorder (ED) called bulimia began.
This is a disorder characterized by uncontrolled eating of large amounts of food. (by overeating) and then trying to compensate by vomiting or using laxatives means (cleansing). Although there may not be a cleanse, sometimes it is replaced by going to the gym, where a person tries to compensate for what he has eaten by exercising (working off). This type of disorder is sometimes called “fitness bulimia.”
The line between the norm, NPP and RPP quite thin. It is usually determined by the frequency of binge eating and purging. If this happens at least once a week for one or two months, an RPP is given. The intensity of binge eating episodes and the presence of additional signs of the disease are also important. This may be preoccupation with weight and shape, inadequate perception of body image, deterioration in the quality of personal, family or social life due to the manifestation of symptoms.
“I realized that I can’t do this anymore” - the first steps towards recovery
From about 18 to 21 years old I lived with an eating disorder. I’ll say right away that I didn’t resort to cleansing all the time. I still had a bit of common sense, and I understood that calling vomiting - this is not very good for my body. Therefore, I chose to cleanse only when the overeating was particularly severe or when I could not cope with the feeling of guilt after it.
And although my episodes were not constant, they were quite “vivid”. I remember how at first I could eat very little for about 4-5 days, and then decided to buy shawarma from the nearest cafe for dinner. After that, I already wanted to go for something else, so I went to another place and bought more food.
But it was difficult to stop there, so I went into the store and took various cheapest sweets: glazed cheese curds, cookies, ice cream.
By the way, I didn’t want to spend too much money on them also because they would end up in the toilet anyway.
It turned out to be a package of food. Then I would go home and gorge myself on all this, and then go to the toilet to cleanse myself.
At that time, I was swinging on a weight swing and could gain and lose 5–7 kilograms in a week. After losing weight to 52 kilograms in 3-4 months, “thanks to” overeating, I returned to my 60. And then I gained another 4 kilograms.
Then, during eating disorder, during particularly difficult emotional periods, my weight rose to 72 kg. On average, during the years of the disorder, I weighed 64–68 kilograms and considered myself terribly fat. I weighed myself every day and constantly thought about food and losing weight.
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A period of emotional swings. The difference with the next photo is one week
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A period of emotional swings. The difference from the previous photo is one week
Now I remember, and it seems that life then was more like existing for the sake of food. Constant thoughts about her and that I am fat and ugly, chasing weight, training in the gym for three hours, comparing myself with others, overeating and vomiting took a lot of energy.
At some point there was so much of this that it became unbearable. This is what became the point of no return for me. I realized that I couldn’t do this anymore and decided to get out of this hole.
But then I knew almost nothing about eating disorders. I knew that there is anorexia - it’s about very thin people, which I definitely didn’t consider myself to be. Knew there was bulimia. But she was sure that it wasn’t her. I thought that with bulimia a person vomits after every meal, and since this happened to me periodically, I could not classify myself as such a person.
But still, because of my love for psychology and the desire to get out of this vicious circle, I began to read books on the topic of overeating, eating behavior and eating disorders. Despair, powerlessness, but at the same time a great desire to change the situation - these were my first steps on the path to recovery.
"What's the secret?" - how did you manage to cope?
Now I am a psychologist and an eating behavior specialist, so it will be quite easy for me to explain to you both the mechanisms of my problem and the “secrets” of solving it. But then I was 21 years old, I had no idea about it. I didn’t even have the thought of going to a person who knew something and could help. Therefore, I obtained all the information myself - and I really thank myself for my thirst for change and willingness to change.
So what was the secret?
The first “secret” was to recognize the presence of an eating disorder. Recognize that eating and living this way is not the norm. To admit that it is not “just hunger” or “just weakness”, but a disease that I, in fact, came to on my own.
Then I started studying literature about eating disorders. But even earlier I intuitively understood that I needed to stop cleansing. I've learned to hold back. I learned to transfer feelings of guilt and anger onto myself.
She said that I allow myself to eat as much as I need, but let everything stay with me.
I already took the second step thanks to books. The literature on psychology was able to explain to me the emergence of the mechanism of overeating. I realized that the chain of relapse begins where I limit myself or forbid myself something. Therefore, the second step is to restore normal nutrition: 3 meals + 2 snacks.
It’s easy to describe these stages now, but going through them was very difficult. Through trial and error, after a few months, I managed to ensure that the purging and episodes of very severe gluttony went away. But overeating, excess weight and dislike of the body was preserved.
Then I found out that there are not only eating disorders, but also eating disorders. This is a state when you no longer have a disorder, but also do not have normal eating behavior - then that’s exactly what happened to me. It was this concept, by the way, that helped me move on and recover completely.
Sometimes I’m offended that people know about eating disorders, but don’t know about GPT. Since, according to my personal statistics, now most often girls come to me who already have an eating disorder, but they don’t even know about it. They say: “I don’t have an eating disorder.” And they think that the problem is their willpower. If people knew about EBP, many would not develop an eating disorder.
So, after stopping cleansing and reducing the intensity of overeating, I took a test (Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire) to determine my type of eating disorder. I was dominated by the restrictive and emotional type, and I began to work with each of them.
Working with the first type, I removed all dietary restrictions, allowing myself to eat everything. And imagine my surprise when it turned out that the more I allowed myself to eat “junk” food, the less I wanted it. The overeating became weaker and weaker.
At the same time, I started working with the emotional type. I realized that I am not in contact with my emotions. I don’t know how to understand, live or express them. I found that almost half of my overeating in a week was caused by emotional discomfort that I could not overcome otherwise.
So another six months passed. The more food restrictions I removed and the more I paid attention to my emotions, the less and less frequent my overeating became. Also, at the same time, I worked with my feelings of hunger and satiety, eating habits and food cravings, which I had long forgotten. Another important part was working on thoughts about your body, the belief that only a thin person can be beautiful, on self-acceptance, self-respect and, ultimately, self-love.
All this is a complex and long process, but it is definitely worth it. About a year later, at 22, I was already firmly on my feet in my eating behavior. Overeating has been reduced to a minimum. Even if they were, it wasn’t in the form of compulsively stuffing yourself with cheap sweets for the sake of satisfaction.
It was ordinary overeating during a meal - this happens even in healthy people, when they slightly miscalculate the portion and eat too much. There were no attacks of bulimia for a year. I learned to distinguish emotional hunger from physical hunger and satisfy my needs differently.
After about a year and a half of recovery, I went to study to become a nutritionist. By that time, a healthy interest in good, quality nutrition had awakened within me. I felt like I wanted to make my diet a little better, not out of a desire to lose weight, but out of love for my body.
Healthy eating and PP, as it turns out, are two different things! During my studies, I added a lot of healthy fats to my diet, diversified the side dishes - it turned out that you can eat not only buckwheat and pasta. I learned to eat enough vegetables and fruits.
But the most unobvious “side effect” of working on eating disorders for me was weight loss.
Even at the beginning of my path to recovery, I forced myself to give up the idea of losing weight - at least for the recovery period. Allowed myself all the sweets, all fast food. I allowed myself to eat everything - after all, this is how I managed to avoid bouts of overeating.
Yes, during the first time of this “legalization” I even gained a couple of kilograms. But then the more I learned to listen to my body, my feelings of hunger and satiety, the better I understood my emotions, the more my body responded. Although I repeat that at that time weight was the last thing I cared about.
During the first year of working on the eating disorder, it stabilized and decreased from 68 to 64, and after that to 62 kilograms. And all this without a special diet, prohibitions or sports. If earlier I gained weight “from any candy,” now the weight remained stable, even if on some days I ate more than usual, or consumed a lot of sweets, or had a snack at night. My body was so accustomed to normal nutrition that it easily forgave me any temporary changes.
“Is there life after eating disorder?” - how are things now?
Now I am 25 years old, and for more than three of them I have been living without an eating disorder. Despite all the difficulties, I am incredibly grateful to this experience, because it literally divided my life into “before” and “after”. Thanks to him, I can listen to myself and understand my emotions. I am really love myself and accept who I am, without judging myself by the numbers on the scale.
And my experience has largely determined who I am now. At some point, girls and women with similar nutritional problems began to contact me, asking me to help them begin the path of recovery. And since I have always had an interest in psychology, I decided to approach the issue thoroughly and went to study as a psychologist, and also received a qualification in working with eating disorders.
Sometimes I came across the opinion that eating disorder is supposedly impossible to cure. That you can only reduce its intensity and learn to live with it. But I don't agree with this. And at least by my own example I can show that recovery is possible.
Of course, a person with a history of eating disorder should always be attentive to himself, as there is a risk of slipping back. Yes, at some point the healthy eating habits that you train during treatment become automatic, but it is still important to maintain them and not let them fade.
I also think that we, people with a history of eating disorders, need to avoid all food prohibitions, or at least treat them with extreme caution. Since any ban generates even greater desire, and for us this is a red flag.
Answering the question: “Is there life after eating disorder?”, I will say: of course yes! Sometimes it requires more attention to itself, but sometimes I even have an advantage over those who have not had such experience. For example, it seems to me that people who have coped with eating disorder know themselves, their eating habits and preferences much better, know how to enjoy food without a twinge of conscience or thoughts about weight, are able to love themselves and accept their body even with shortcomings.
They also know how to take care of themselves, because they know how fragile healthy eating behavior can be.
Now I weigh 59 kilograms and have a body that I love madly and about which I don’t want to change anything. Yes, it’s not ideal by modern standards: I have a belly, a fair amount of body fat, stretch marks and, probably, cellulite. But, to be honest, I never checked it, because I consider it the absolute norm.
At the same time, my diet is quite free, I never deny myself anything. Most often I want regular normal food: chicken, meat, fish, side dishes, vegetables. But whenever I want some other food, be it pizza, burger, rolls, chocolate, chips or cakes, I go and eat it.
My food rule now: I eat what I want, when I want. Many people think that this is some kind of magic, but in fact they just understand everything wrong. This rule is not about food promiscuity or disordered eating. “I eat what I want” means the absence of any restrictions and a pumped-up “food craving.”
That is, I know what I want, what my body wants, and I eat exactly that. And believe me, if you allow yourself all food, then your body will not always require burgers and pizza: He is not his own enemy. The body usually wants quality products that will provide everything it needs. “I eat when I want” is eating in accordance with physical hunger. That is, I don’t eat in moments of strong emotions or in moments of boredom. That's the whole secret.
There is sport in my life, although not as often as I would like. But the main thing is that this is always an activity that I like and which I do out of love for my body, and not for the sake of losing weight. Yes, there are problems with regularity, but I'm working on it.
To summarize, I would once again like to support those who now have an eating disorder or disordered eating disorder and are just beginning their path to recovery. It's not an easy path, really. I re-read my text and smile: how easy everything looks! But in reality it is work. This is a path with setbacks, with small victories and defeats. This is a routine, constant work to stop escaping emotions into food and learn to live them differently.
It's truly difficult, and I support anyone at any stage of this journey. You will certainly succeed, but now you need to work hard. Listen to yourself, find support from those around you and take steps towards recovery every day. Eating disorder is not a sign of weakness or lack of willpower, it is a problem that has a solution.
Other stories worth reading🤔
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