coinoperatedgirl
Member
Hi everyone,
I'm coinoperatedgirl, I'm 23 and I'm struggling to overcome a binge-eating problem and a very real addiction to food.
I'm currently doing a VLCD - 'All About W8'. I'm in my third week (and quite astonished to have made it this far) and so far I've lost 15lbs. I have about 55lbs more to go, but this is not just a matter of seeing the numbers on the scale go down. I am also going to have to seriously confront the Food Demons that are currently in permanent residence in my cerebal cortex. I want to document and reflect upon my experiences and hopefully begin to make sense of all the associated mental and emotional brouhaha.
Some background?
I was always a sturdy child, but I don't think you could call me fat. And I was always tall for my age, so I suppose I carried it OK. I don't come from a particularly overweight family - my mother is petite and has a small appetite (indeed, she's been called too thin in the past), my father is a bit heavier but if anything, he's only about 1st overweight, and a lot of that is down to the good old middle-aged spread. My brothers are both lean and seem to have a completely healthy and enjoyable relationship with food (the skinniest one is actually a complete foodie). So I guess I can't blame it on my family!!
I think I was trundling along fine until I became very depressed when I was 14. It was a little more than teenage angst: I started self-harming, attempted suicide and began my long and continuing relationship with psychiatric medicine. I also had terrible social anxiety and agoraphobia so I basically stayed in all the time, avoided human contact as much as possible and surprise, surprise, found solace in eating. I was unwell from the ages of 14 til about 21, and in this period, my weight ballooned to 19 and a half stone. I felt completely and utterly helpless.
When I was 21, I was placed on a new (for me) drug, just the latest in a long line. But this one just seemed to work. It didn't make me instantly happy but it helped to stabilise my mood enough to provide a platform where I could begin to work on things, to take the first steps on the long road to recovery. Part of that involved losing weight -- and I managed to get down to 15st at my lowest. For the past two years, while getting stronger and happier each day, I've yo-yo dieted from 15st back up to 18st and back down again.
But I've decided that it's finally time to break through and actually lose all of the excess weight until I'm a healthy BMI. I am in a good place mentally and I have a very loving and supportive partner who does everything he can to help me. I also now have a dog to walk who would happily spend all day (and then some) outside, so I also have no excuse not to exercise!
So...I'm going for it, I guess
I have a heap more I would like to babble on about it, but this post has been a bit of a War and Peace effort, so I'll go and glug some more of the infernal water for now.
Stay tuned for the next installment: 'Secret confessions of a binge eater!'
-coinoperatedgirl
I'm coinoperatedgirl, I'm 23 and I'm struggling to overcome a binge-eating problem and a very real addiction to food.
I'm currently doing a VLCD - 'All About W8'. I'm in my third week (and quite astonished to have made it this far) and so far I've lost 15lbs. I have about 55lbs more to go, but this is not just a matter of seeing the numbers on the scale go down. I am also going to have to seriously confront the Food Demons that are currently in permanent residence in my cerebal cortex. I want to document and reflect upon my experiences and hopefully begin to make sense of all the associated mental and emotional brouhaha.
Some background?
I was always a sturdy child, but I don't think you could call me fat. And I was always tall for my age, so I suppose I carried it OK. I don't come from a particularly overweight family - my mother is petite and has a small appetite (indeed, she's been called too thin in the past), my father is a bit heavier but if anything, he's only about 1st overweight, and a lot of that is down to the good old middle-aged spread. My brothers are both lean and seem to have a completely healthy and enjoyable relationship with food (the skinniest one is actually a complete foodie). So I guess I can't blame it on my family!!
I think I was trundling along fine until I became very depressed when I was 14. It was a little more than teenage angst: I started self-harming, attempted suicide and began my long and continuing relationship with psychiatric medicine. I also had terrible social anxiety and agoraphobia so I basically stayed in all the time, avoided human contact as much as possible and surprise, surprise, found solace in eating. I was unwell from the ages of 14 til about 21, and in this period, my weight ballooned to 19 and a half stone. I felt completely and utterly helpless.
When I was 21, I was placed on a new (for me) drug, just the latest in a long line. But this one just seemed to work. It didn't make me instantly happy but it helped to stabilise my mood enough to provide a platform where I could begin to work on things, to take the first steps on the long road to recovery. Part of that involved losing weight -- and I managed to get down to 15st at my lowest. For the past two years, while getting stronger and happier each day, I've yo-yo dieted from 15st back up to 18st and back down again.
But I've decided that it's finally time to break through and actually lose all of the excess weight until I'm a healthy BMI. I am in a good place mentally and I have a very loving and supportive partner who does everything he can to help me. I also now have a dog to walk who would happily spend all day (and then some) outside, so I also have no excuse not to exercise!
So...I'm going for it, I guess
I have a heap more I would like to babble on about it, but this post has been a bit of a War and Peace effort, so I'll go and glug some more of the infernal water for now.
Stay tuned for the next installment: 'Secret confessions of a binge eater!'
-coinoperatedgirl
