Unsure

I agree with Martini.

It would be easy for us to say "stop doing this, you need to eat more, you are not fat" etc, and I'm sure some people will, but that probably won't help.

I think you (and your mum) need to get some professional dietary help with this. You need to eat enough to sustain you through the day and to get to a healthy weight and build.

There are psychological issues behind this too, which need to be addressed. Otherwise the dietary help won't achieve anything as you won't stick with it.

 

I have to back Paul and Martini on this.

I understand you asked us not to rant and rave about eating disorders but the phenomena you are experiencing is quite typical. I have had three friends in the past who all had various eating disorders two of them with this particular type of "exercise bulimia".

They all noticeably lost weight (at a drastic rate) but when i asked them why they continued to lose during this stage, they all agreed that when they looked in the mirror they saw no difference. This is exclusively due to the power of perception. Bulimia is an issue of mental health that quite simply blocks the brains' power to rationally perceive weight.

Bulimia nervosa has an underlying cause of lack of control. Most sufferers engage in this behavior in an effort to control their body (with an emphasis on physical appearance). After a length of time, the sufferer of bulimia will find that they no longer have control over their binging and purging.

Now it's become a cycle, you became bulimic in an struggle for control, now it to has become something uncontrollable. It's literally you vs your mind, which is extremely traumatic. Recovery however can go smoothly if the person is willing to commit to and trust the professional who is assisting them.

In the early stages of recovery the patient will gain weight as they are still binging but no longer purging, this causes anxiety which will in turn cause the patient to revert back to bulimia. It is at this stage when it is paramount that the patient recognize that the professional knows what is best for their health and it not out to unnecessarily raise their weight beyond a healthy level.

 

Yeah but when your body isn't getting calories it will eat lipids which like you said is fat. but it's also going to try to conserve what little is there in order to give your cells the power to keep making ATP through respiration. Since it doesn't know when you'll eat again its going to try to conserve most of what's there. If you cut off food for your body its not just going to go into hyperdrive and consume all your lipids and make you lose weight. At least not a significant amount of weight. Your body is going to try to do the opposite to the best of its ability.

 

Emperor is completely right, you body will do what is natural; to survive. If you stop feeding it, it will actually conserve fat, not burn it. Diets actually put the body in a survival stance so every ounce of fat it gets, it will store away because it knows it probably won't be getting any more anytime soon, what it turns to for its energy is bone mass and muscle tissue. People with eating disorders are at a higher risk of brittle bones and muscle degeneration among many other illnesses.
Only exercise done in a healthy manner can burn fat.

The true answer to excessive weight is simply to eat healthy -that means all four food groups regularly not just breakfast and exercise. Maybe a personal trainer or physician/dietitian combo can help you do this at the rate you are looking for.

All we mean here is there are plenty of healthy ways for you to pursue this, and a qualified specialist can help you do so in a way that won't harm yourself.

 

When you starve yourself, you body functions have to continue in the process of living albeit the body will go into a slow down mode as much as it can. What it will do is conserve the body fats, so there will be a shift away from consuming those to consuming the proteins that make up the muscle of the body. So over time essentially you do not lose much in body fat, you lose a lot of lean muscle mass. Lean muscle weighs more than fat, so weight loss is not necessarily = fat loss.

If enough conversion takes place with the loss of muscle mass, the internal organs begin to break down, especially the liver (this whole process is very hard on the liver) and one can get to the point where even with proper nutrition being supplied, the damage is so extensive the body can no longer absorb nutrients and will go on to die.

Having a certain level of fat in the body is necessary to the body living and being active in the world we live in. It forms support as well as emergency energy. Every cell in the body is made up of cholesterol (fat).

Proud is correct in what he said concerning bulimia or anorexia. It becomes an illusion or delusion in the mind of the person affected. Were someone on the outside sees the basic skin and bones, the person themselves see a fat person. In order to change it, the person affected must be at least willing to try something different and eventually learn to trust someone outside themselves enough again to have things change.

 

Multiple small meals throughout the day will help in the fat loss, yet protect the from the loss of lean muscle mass. Proteins are necessary for body functions, but so are fats and carbs. It is not so much having to eat less, it is the quality of the food eaten. Healthy would be fruits and veggies, but you need to have good protein levels too. So anything that is lean as far as meat is fine too (fish, chicken, turkey).

Now a little about fats - you should not eliminate them entirely from the diet (would be hard to do) as they are essential for good health, plus there are a number of vitamins needed by the body that require fats in order to be absorbed and used (Vit A, D).

Overall, one needs to look at their metabolic rate, as it will vary for everyone. If you are exercising, the rate will be higher and if you are eating properly and getting the vitamins needed, there will be no overall deficit to you and you will lose body fat. Remember if you drop below about 8% body fat, your stamina will likely suffer as you will not have much in the way of reserves to pull from should you need to sustain physical activity for a prolonged period of time.

The most important thing to keep in mind, BALANCE. If you look at the universe you will see there is great chaos yet it is in balance. So it has to be with anything done in life, otherwise if anything is overdone in one area or another, it will product an imbalance and all imbalances will product a negative impact eventually.

Give the body its due, exercise it, rest it, feed it in balance and what you wish to achieve will come to be.

 

I think i commented the phenomena of "control" in a previous post.

What you have to recognize is that, essentially, anorexic and/or bulimia are diseases. And are not to be taken lightly. It is better that you find other ways to lose weight that also give you a sense of control. The body is a very hard thing to interpret and hard to get "control" over. Sometimes it may seem that it is completely out of our control. This is deceiving, as what we do directly affects the body's reaction.

By giving it all it needs while exercise you will be able to "control" your body in a much healthier way than what you are currently doing. It will take much more commitment, as it may be a few months before you start seeing results or before you get a sense of "control". Just know that this path, along with a professional/specialist, is the better path that will lead to where you want to get but in a much safer (and less deadly) way. :icon_wink

 

You do realize you're idolizing very sick people.
It's like a twelve year old girl idolizing Anna Nicole.
And to the contrary, we're not talking about "getting buff" kind of muscle, we mean the muscles you use to type and walk. Your body will cease to function if this disease is allowed to continue.

I think that everyone here will agree with me that this anorexic models are far from beautiful or glamorous. I think that everyone will also agree with me that you have always been at a very attractive weight and that this lifestyle is in vain.