A Fresh Start...

FreshStart.

FreshStart.

New member
This is my confession.

I am seventeen.

And I have a weight problem.

I think that the moment I became overweight would be when I was about ten years old. Food was always something praised and enjoyed in my family. You can even say that eating was a special activity at our house. If you were sad - food would cheer you up. If you were happy - celebrate it with eating. Things would be discussed over food and most of the family activities would be performed with rich,delicious,high calorie meals.

I don't know at which point I lost control over it. But I know that I woke up as a pre-teen realising I was "fat". I was never actually obese (or maybe at some point I was? I am not sure) but I know that weight always meant a lot to me. Now it seems like it completely affects my behaviour. When I lose weight I am joyfull, optimistic, happy. When I gain weight I become depressed and apathetic. And I eat because I am sad. And I would be sad because I eat. And it is a never ending circle I found myself trapped in. Than weight was a problem but something I could live with. I would fluctuate on it and overall I was happy.

Six months ago I became a foreign exchange studend and left my family and friends to come to a opposite side of the world and live with people who were strangers to me.

When I found out the news about the scholarship I had a period when I gained almost 10 kg. In less than three months. It is hard to admit it but it is a harsh truth I have to face. I would binge and sometimes throw up and I kept gaining and gaining until I came to the point when I couldn't recognize myself in the miror.

I was always so hard on myself. If I did something it had to be perfect. And I always set ultimate high goals to myself. It makes me who I am,because that's one of the reasons of my succeses but it also makes my life so frustrating. I was rarely happy with the way I looked,even when I lost weight. I had to be perfect. I had to be like those gorgeous women on the covers of beauty magazines. Being a straight A student, being popular, having boyfriends other girls would give anything just to spend five minutes with, being admired by professors and looked upon and copied by other people... Nothing was good enough. I had to be perfect all the way.

So I came to this new place. And suddenly food was not important to me anymore. I would barely eat because I didn't had time to think about hunger. I was overwhelmed by all the new and exciting things in my life and I was so happy,because I also lost weight. I had 153 lbs. That's still high and I still considered myself overweight but at least not as high as before.

But than... Something happened inside me. And I started behaving in a completely different and weird way. I started overeating. And overeating. And than throwing up. Every day. Or sometimes several times a day. Without any control. I would eat untill my stomach hurt,even when I am not hungry. It felt like my behaviour wasn't controled by me, like in those moments I was someone else.

And soon I started gaining weight. And gaining...And gaining. My binging and throwing up became a weekly habit. Sometimes I would do it more than twice a week,sometimes even three or four times. My mood level got down. I became slightly depressed. And I fell into apathy. I would look at myself in the mirror. But than I wouldn't stop binging ! It felt so weird. I couldn't control it... Until one day I stepped on a scale and it read 167 lbs. I never had that much before. Ever. I was shocked. And I alienated even more from others. People were confused. Everybody always knew me as this lovely,positive and bubbly girl - I became apathetic,passive,calous. Sometimes I hated myself. I would look at my so fast deformed body and quickly look away. Who is this girl in the mirror? It still hurts so much. I couldn't explane how I can be so succesfull in other areas in life but so impotent in this one. My mom is a phychiatrist and she told me that this is normal - that I am having a culture shock because my life changed and that I have control over it,and that I can stop it whenever I want. Is it that easy?

I cried the other day. I cried so hard. I can't do this anymore.

It is time to stop.

I decided to change my life. Starting from now.

No more binging.
No more throwing up.
I have to lose that weight.

So...What do you think about it? :)
 
FreshStart. said:
This is my confession.

I am seventeen.

And I have a weight problem.

I think that the moment I became overweight would be when I was about ten years old. Food was always something praised and enjoyed in my family. You can even say that eating was a special activity at our house. If you were sad - food would cheer you up. If you were happy - celebrate it with eating. Things would be discussed over food and most of the family activities would be performed with rich,delicious,high calorie meals.

I don't know at which point I lost control over it. But I know that I woke up as a pre-teen realising I was "fat". I was never actually obese (or maybe at some point I was? I am not sure) but I know that weight always meant a lot to me. Now it seems like it completely affects my behaviour. When I lose weight I am joyfull, optimistic, happy. When I gain weight I become depressed and apathetic. And I eat because I am sad. And I would be sad because I eat. And it is a never ending circle I found myself trapped in. Than weight was a problem but something I could live with. I would fluctuate on it and overall I was happy.

Six months ago I became a foreign exchange studend and left my family and friends to come to a opposite side of the world and live with people who were strangers to me.

When I found out the news about the scholarship I had a period when I gained almost 10 kg. In less than three months. It is hard to admit it but it is a harsh truth I have to face. I would binge and sometimes throw up and I kept gaining and gaining until I came to the point when I couldn't recognize myself in the miror.

I was always so hard on myself. If I did something it had to be perfect. And I always set ultimate high goals to myself. It makes me who I am,because that's one of the reasons of my succeses but it also makes my life so frustrating. I was rarely happy with the way I looked,even when I lost weight. I had to be perfect. I had to be like those gorgeous women on the covers of beauty magazines. Being a straight A student, being popular, having boyfriends other girls would give anything just to spend five minutes with, being admired by professors and looked upon and copied by other people... Nothing was good enough. I had to be perfect all the way.

So I came to this new place. And suddenly food was not important to me anymore. I would barely eat because I didn't had time to think about hunger. I was overwhelmed by all the new and exciting things in my life and I was so happy,because I also lost weight. I had 153 lbs. That's still high and I still considered myself overweight but at least not as high as before.

But than... Something happened inside me. And I started behaving in a completely different and weird way. I started overeating. And overeating. And than throwing up. Every day. Or sometimes several times a day. Without any control. I would eat untill my stomach hurt,even when I am not hungry. It felt like my behaviour wasn't controled by me, like in those moments I was someone else.

And soon I started gaining weight. And gaining...And gaining. My binging and throwing up became a weekly habit. Sometimes I would do it more than twice a week,sometimes even three or four times. My mood level got down. I became slightly depressed. And I fell into apathy. I would look at myself in the mirror. But than I wouldn't stop binging ! It felt so weird. I couldn't control it... Until one day I stepped on a scale and it read 167 lbs. I never had that much before. Ever. I was shocked. And I alienated even more from others. People were confused. Everybody always knew me as this lovely,positive and bubbly girl - I became apathetic,passive,calous. Sometimes I hated myself. I would look at my so fast deformed body and quickly look away. Who is this girl in the mirror? It still hurts so much. I couldn't explane how I can be so succesfull in other areas in life but so impotent in this one. My mom is a phychiatrist and she told me that this is normal - that I am having a culture shock because my life changed and that I have control over it,and that I can stop it whenever I want. Is it that easy?

I cried the other day. I cried so hard. I can't do this anymore.

It is time to stop.

I decided to change my life. Starting from now.

No more binging.
No more throwing up.
I have to lose that weight.

So...What do you think about it? :)
Click to expand...

hi freshstart glad to see you have made the decision to join all of us on here for a lifestyle change :) you are of a similar age to me (i am 16 - 17 in may)
and also i started gaining weight around the same time as you did so i feel we have that in common. weight loss forum is here to stop that vicious circle of eating that makes you feel worse and worse - if i ever feel snacky or like gogin over my calorie quota i come online to this wesbite and write about it in my diary or talk about it with others. there are so many awesome, inspirational, helpful people on here to help you achieve your goals. they are wonderful - dont be afraid to go to any of themfor help ever!
so congrats about the scholarship for the foreign exchange - ive always wanted to do that - i have done it for a couple of weeks before but nothin longer than that ever.
and nobody is perfect .. everybody always wants something more than what they already have. for instance there are people who could never imagine being the same weight as you or me right now but their goal will still feel so special when they reach it. it goes the same with us - our goal will feel amazing when we reach it but the people who are already there will take it for granted. i think this is just a fact everyone has to accept. what matters is that we reach our goal and get the chance to experience that awesome feeling!
so for the binging then throwing up ... i think (But am probably wrong) is that what you want is control over what you eat?
maybe you might like to use an internet tool to calculate your daily calorie needs. then this will give you a basline to work from. then you can use another internet programme such as ( i use this one) to count the calories you have eaten during the day and the calories that you have burnt off that day. this helped me feel control of my diet and lifestyle and also it has helped thousands of others.
hope you find this info useful. :)
so if you ever need any help whatsoever please stop by at your journal and talk about it - somebody will always respond with helpful encouragement or adive - and remember this site is a two way thing. you can offer others advice, motivation and encouragement from your weight loss journey too :)
i really hope to see you around here again hun - good luck with the loss. you can do it :D
 
I decided to change my life. Starting from now.

No more binging.
No more throwing up.
I have to lose that weight.

So...What do you think about it
Click to expand...

I think the first two items are probably more important for your long term health and well being than the last one... the last one might just correct itself if you work on the first two.

From what I understand of eating disorders, and it's not a whole lot, it's not that easy to just say -I want to stop... it's can be an addiction like alcoholism.

I hope you're talking to your mom, or someone she suggests if you can't talk to her, about working thru this problem.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your goals... wanting to stop and knowing it's a problem is your first step towards recovery
 
hi fresh and welcome. i've read through your post and its good that you are willing to work on yourself. do you have to be perfect? no, you don't. people are people because of their imperfections, its part of their personalities. for example, i'm clumsy...and everyone finds it adorable hehehe. you need to work on YOU. what was it that made you start eating or throwing up, which is very dangerous thing to do and can lead to some serious problems. your body is sending you signals that it is not happy with what you are doing (you feel depressed). so you need to stop with that. throwing up is not going to help anything. and if you see that you still have the urge to do it talk to your mom and be honest with how many times you throw up or binge.

emotional eating is difficult and i've been an emotional eater all my life. it was only few monthas ago when i finally sat down and had a talk with myself and found out why i'm doing what i'm doing. and then when i saw i couldn't do it myself i found this place.

you made a huge step. you came here. use this place to write down how you feel, your moods, your wishes, your problems. sharing is going to help. you just have hope and determination and you'll succeed in changing your life. and don't hesitate to pm anyone even if you just want to yell.

if you don't have a plan try using or

stay strong fresh :D
Lena
 
Dear girls,

Thank you so much for your support. Reading through your posts was really insirational and I felt so supported. Thank you for that. And as someone said,this is a two way street - count on my support and understanding whenever you need it. We'll help eachother get through this. :)

Admiting all this was so hard to me,especially doing that on the internet. I had to delay my weight loss for a while because I want to a bussiness trip to Florida on a conference and I never lose weight eating hotel food. Especially now when every meal was a buffet. I need to work on my self control.

I find it very hard to be in a situation like this. I don't remember when was the last time I was in a gym or went swimming , and I used to do that several times a week. I just don't feel like I want to do anything because I feel my weight. Have you ever felt that way? Like you can feel all the weight you gained.

I have binged and thrown up maybe once or twice since I wrote that post, and that's still awful but a lot less than before.
I have read about eating disorders and know it can be addictive but I have to work my way through it on my own. My host family are not someone I can talk to here, and my mom al though being a phychatrist is on the other side of the world and can do much for me from there. That's why I hope I will find support and maybe some tough love that wil help me get through it. :)

I think I regained some of my bubblines that got burried away under all those pounds. I had an awesome time in Florida on the leadership conference . I feel enriched for a whole world. And I sometimes cannot understand how can I do all these things to myself and basically hate myself sometimes but still all these people around me love that myself so much? Just the way I am. I made so many friends in four days and those people basically cried when saying goodbye to me, and still I look at myself in the mirror and feel shocked and in a sense repulsed.

I have a lot of things to work on.

:)

I love you guys.
 
Welcome to the forum! This is a great place to vent your frustrations with food, exercise, and life! The ladies & gents here are very supportive.

Do you have some additional plans in place? Did you go to fitday and figure out your BMR and/or try to work out a meal plan? If not, this may be something that could help you out with the binging. Eat only what you have on the menu list for that designated time and in those portions and then check the items off. If you feel hungry later, then check your list for the next time you have designated to eat.

Where are you a foreign exchange student? Are you in the USA or other country? There are probably programs and counselors within the school system that may also help with nutrition counseling etc.

It's great that you are here!!

Good Luck!
 
Thank you. I still don't have any definite plans. For now I just want to stop binging at throwing up. Even that would be a big step right now, and I hope that will help me jumpstart my diet and get off at least two,three pounds.

What is your plan? :)

Not thrown up or binged today. :D I never thought I will say something like that. :p
 
FreshStart. said:
What is your plan? :)
Click to expand...

I have never had to deal with bulimia, so I hope I don't say something out of line here. But, here goes.. and this is only an opinion from an uneducated person (in that area) with very little knowledge of the psychological effects of bulimia etc.

I would think, and here is where my ignorance may come out, that if you could get specific meals set up and planned out, that it might help battle the urges to binge and purge.

Have you noticed when exactly you are binging and purging? Does it come after an emotional even in life? or perhaps after eating very little earlier in the day? I guess what I am asking is if it triggered by any specific things? Have you ever thought about it? If not, take note if it happens again. Why did it happen? What made me feel this or that way? What can I do to avoid said situation? etc.

But as far as meal planning, and this is if you are eating very little early on in the day and then feel the urge to eat everything in site because your body is now starving.. Which happens to me and several others (maybe a lot of people)..maybe you are not eating enough to sustain your BMR, and this is why or how you get to this point. Or it could be something completely different.

I don't eat just one thing every day. I can be mechanical like that and eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch and snacks, but I like different things for dinner. Unfortunately, I don't plan my meals in advance and I eat what I have available from the grocery store visit. I count calories through the day and log them either here on in my day calendar so I can log them here later. Some days I eat too much, very seldom do I eat too little, but there are also a lot of days that I eat within my range. Which for my height and weight is 1300-1500 with my exercise level.

Weight doesn't fall off of me. I am having to work hard for ever little bit of loss that I am having.

I'm only 5'4", but one difference is I'm older (I believe) I'm 27 so it's easier for me to plan my own meals etc.

I would say try to tailor something to your specific day. If you can eat at this time and it's 5 hrs later than the earlier meal, eat something that will stay with you long enough to carry you to your next feeding time.

It's getting late and I'm tired, and I hope I made some sense in this post. If not, I'll try to clarify or correct it tomorrow.

Have a good evening!

P.S. Have you ever thought about seeing a dr other than your mother? Someone who is removed from the situation and does not have a direct emotional interest and influence? Just a thought.
 
So these are your photos of you when you were thinner, and what you look like now? They remind me of my own photos of when I was thinner and in much better shape!

How was your day today? Were you able to control the urge to binge and purge? If not, did you figure out what triggered the action and reaction?
 
Photocrazed- Thanks for your interest. I really do appreciate it. I need someone to shake me out of this situation I am struggling with. I haven't seen a doctor other than my mother but I have talked with a psychologist- and ironically, she said that I am not experiencing bulimia. Her explanation was that this occurs to ambitious persons who are scared of failure and want to have control over their lives when they believe they lost it. And she added the factor of culture shock in. And when you mix all of that together, this is not bulimia it is a "temporary state of subconscient shock that causes conscient but unvoluntary reactions". It makes sence but...

I still have my doubts. I believe this must be a eating disorded because it is abnormal, but people around me,proffesionals,are trying to convince me that it is not?

What's scary,it feels like one of those stories when people are addicted to something and believe they can stop whenever they want but...

I have to see how my situation unravels. I need to make my life more dynamic and shake the apathy and lifelesness off of me- I have never been like this before and I need to get it out of my life! I am going back on swimming next week and I am starting cardio funk - haven't tried that before but I have been on the dance team so it mustn't be too hard?

:D

Hope you had a great V day!

p.s. Yes, those are my photos of when I was thinner (surf outfit) and the one from few days ago.
 
FreshStart, hi and welcome to the forum!
This place can really help, I assure you. Anyway, I agree with Mal when she says that first of all you should talk with your family about this. You need their help more than ours. They are the people who have known you and loved you all your life.
My sister had the same problems you had and it was very helpful for her to go to a psychiatrist. I think you should do the same. There are times in life when you got to understand that you can't always make it all by yourself.
It would be probably too difficult to talk about these things with your mum, so tell her that you need help and ask her if she could take you to another doctor.

I know that this is not an easy moment of your life, eating disorders are horrible, and what makes them worse is that the people around you rarely see them for what they are. They don't understand that it isn't food you've got issues with, it is your life.

Please, listen to me, I'm talking to you as if you were my own sister, talk to your mother and make her understand you need help. You're young and you deserve to enjoy this moment of your life.

And remember that asking for help is not a weakness but a strenght. You are strong.

I'll be here if you need me.

Good Luck!
 
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FreshStart. said:
I still have my doubts. I believe this must be a eating disorded because it is abnormal, but people around me,proffesionals,are trying to convince me that it is not?
Click to expand...

I've got two ideas about above quote:
1. Your situation is not yet so drastic that it would be considered as an eating disorder. Which is a good thing, because these things are always so much easier to treat when they are caught in an early stage. This, I think, is more likely explanation, if you are being very frank with the professionals that you've seen and telling them everything you feel and think as well as what you do.
2. Sometimes we have a tendency to answer especially difficult questions in a way we think we should. And in a situation like yours you might (not purposely but very unconsciously) not tell the doctor or psychologist the worst things that you think or feel, but instead give them a smoother picture. This can be caused by several things, like not being sure that your feelings are legitimate or not wanting to show your vulnerability. That's only human, but might lead to the doctors not having the full idea of the situation. So if you still feel that your situation is worse than other people find it, tell them that. And see if there's something inside you, you might not have told them earlier. After all, you are trying to help yourself here, and that's the main thing.

I've been an exchange student, abroad, and found it straining in many ways. I also have a friend who had a bad outbreak of anorexia during her exchange year, without any signs of it before.. So I'm taking you seriously and I'm also here for you, if you need help.
I've learned one thing about eating disorders and it is, as Venice girl there wrote: eating isn't the real issue, it's life. But if problems with eating go on for a long time, the malnutrition seriously affects your body and finally also your mind (and yes, it's malnutrition whether you gain or lose). So you don't want to go there.
Go see a doctor again and keep us posted. :)
Juliette
 
Glad you are here & taking charge of what is going on.

Hang in there & know that we are here for support. Its a long road but you sound like you know where you are wanting to go. :)
 
Hi FS! I agree - welcome to the forum and congrats on taking charge of your life. There's plenty of support here. Good Luck!! :D
 
Okies...Let's do today :)

Breakfast
Cereals with soy and flax seeds
Milk

Lunch
Orange
1/2 banana
handfull of pretzels

1 glass of Orange juice

Dinner
Chilli
2 pieces of whole wheat bread


15 minutes of walking the dog
20 minutes of swimming

Negative sides:
Not drinking enough water

Positive sides:
Eating less than before
Being motivated and fought against cravings

Thank you for your support guys. Ily :)
 
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