I'm eating more chocolate than i would like

Hello Sunnii,

If I've done the conversions correctly, your current weight is about 136 lbs, correct? That means you are very seriously underweight. In fact, your height and current weight give you a BMI of 17.5, which is the clinical marker of anorexia nervosa.

I have also suffered from an eating disorder, and let me tell you that even if you don't consider yourself anorexic, skipping meals, exercising a lot, wanting to be thin, suddenly having the urge to binge, and equating mental strength with not eating are all textbook characteristics of people suffering from eating disorders. I didn't think I had one either until I started having these binge episodes like you've been having.

As to why you've been eating lots and lots of chocolate: when the body begins to starve, it tries to force you into giving it energy by giving you an insatiable mental urge to eat and eat and eat. The body is especially prone to make you want to eat things that it can easily and quickly extract calories from such as chocolate. If you feel these urges to eat a lot, you should let it happen. Your body is trying to close a massive energy deficit, and it needs all the calories you can give it.

I would encourage you to:

(1) Get a medical exam as soon as possible. Restricting your food intake has done lots of damage to your body; make sure your vitals are all ok. You may need to be hospitalized at your current weight.

(2) Look into treatment options. Are there any therapists who specialize in eating disorders in your area? You might also want to look into inpatient programs.

(3) Eat---a lot! The good news about all of this is that all the damage is reversible. Clinical guidelines for male anorexics under 25 recommend that they eat at least 3500 calories per day with no exercise. That number seems like a lot, but it includes your daily energy needs, calories to go towards weight gain, and calories to go towards repair to your organs that your body has been breaking down to make ends meet.

I've been down this road before, and I know it isn't easy (*hug*) Let me know if you want to talk.

 

that's true, you should gain weight but try to measure it out, a huge weight gain is very very hard on a body especially if they are underweight to such a large degree

 

Erm...

I think you do have a eating disorder. Or it's heading that way.
And no, you can't control it.
Sorry, dude. But, you show the symptons.

And, yeah... Your BMI is too low. You're underweight.

 

Your binge eating that's an ED and you weigh so little! The binge eating is your first signs that your body is eating itself and your starving I starred this crazy diet that I can't get my self off of and let me tell just eating 900 -1,200 cals Aday is scaring me I and eat very much and I have head aches all the time I can't sleep I've wanted to binge eat so bad. I stuffed apple pie in my mouth and I spit it out u couldn't eat it I couldn't do it!

 

I usually eat between 800-1000 cals a day and I ever so slowly lose weight, at times I may gain a pound or two but I lose that and usually go down in terms of weight. I'm loosely 5,7 and 120 pounds

 

800-1000 cals is too little for a teen.

 

800-1000 calories is not even just too little for a teen, it's too little for a bedridden old woman. You are doing serious damage to your body by restricting food intake to that extent. A male of your age and height requires around 1,600 calories per day just to keep your vital organs running---and that's if you just sat completely motionless 24/7! That kind of weight loss is not sustainable.

 

I am about the same weight as you, I fluxuate between 120-130 have been at 135, but only briefly I am also close to your height, I am 5'11

I don't suffer from anorexia either, though unlike you I don't have to watch what I eat because I have a high metabolism and I don't eat that much. Though I believe if chocolate is your comfort food why fight it? I mean you can work the calories out of your system and I don't think there are that many calories in chocolate anyways, I could be wrong though.

I would have loved to eat as much chocolate as you, but sadly chocolate cause my acne to break out or new acne to form:tears:

I don't know if you would have a eating disorder or not, I suppose it would seem that way considering you skipped meals so you can stay thin and then you feel bad and turn to chocolate as a comfort food, then you feel worse.

I see that some have suffered from this as well or at least know some more on it than I do, so I say listen to them and take their advice into consideration, I hope everything turns out for the best(*hug*)

If you ever want to talk you can always visit my profile and leave me a message:icon_bigg

 

Your caloric intake should be coming from healthy foods (plus a teensy bit of snacking). Eat healthy carbohydrates instead. I'd recommend pasta with fresh veg etc. Don't suddenly start eating a lot of food if your body isn't used to it - start adding to your diet slowly.

I've had a bad relationship with food for a long long time. Luckily, as I'm short, it's generally easier to get myself back up to a healthy weight and I've been controlled with eating for the last few months. Also being vegan doesn't help. But it IS possible to eat healthily for your bodily requirements - for some of us without much interest in eating plates and plates, it just takes a bit more effort.

I can sympathise with "not feeling mentally strong enough" when I've eaten normally. But channel that feeling into making structured, disciplined (in terms of number of vitamins etc) eating plans.

 

Short answer: yes, it's a good thing to give your body the energy it needs. Your binging is not really binging so much as reactive eating; your body senses that usable energy is near and shouts out "MOAR PLZ!" You should eat whatever you have an appetite for at this point.

Long answer: It *is* true that it would be preferable for you to increase your intake of what you would normally eat rather than relying on chocolate binges to provide you with the energy you need.

Now, that said, in the short term I would actually encourage you to eat whatever you want. You do want to make sure that you're giving your body the nutrients it needs, but your body also needs lots and lots of energy. Junk foods/processed foods can actually be very useful in ED recovery for two reasons: (1) They provide you with lots of calories that your body can immediately and easily tap into (2) They help you shake off food-related fears. Once you're closer to a healthy weight, you'll find your desire to binge will reduce and then you can start thinking more about regularizing your diet.

You've said that you normally eat around 1500 calories a day, correct? I would encourage you to increase your intake by about 250 calories for 2-4 days and then make the leap to the 3500 recommended for males under 25 recovering from EDs. Remember, you don't just need to gain weight; your body needs calories to repair damage. It will seem like you gain a lot of weight really quickly, but most of it at the beginning will be fluid that the body uses for repair. You might also find that any fat you do gain is plopped straight onto your abdomen; this is because the body is still afraid of starving and so will use any fat stores it does gain to protect vital organs.

 

The self-destructiveness that you've described is really the MO of a brain plagued with an eating disorder. It really is bizarre when you think about it: why would humans with brains who tell them to starve and drive them towards death have survived and passed that trait on? One researcher has speculated that this trait actually benefited primitive humans during times of famine. Think of how a normal person reacts when they don't eat: they get cranky, lethargic. While the rest of the tribe sat around feeling miserable, the anorexics were able to forage for food, energized by their starvation. The drive to restrict meant that limited food stores would last longer. Normally I think evolutionary psychology is a load of BS, but I think this is actually a fairly convincing account, especially given the fact that most people with ED genes develop their sickness right after they first restrict caloric intake, whether through diet or through other circumstances such as sickness. "Famine is here," says the brain, "time to batten down the hatches."

And the same thing has happened to you. I completely empathize with feeling high on starving. I remember how it felt to restrict food intake. I felt so proud. So disciplined. So many other people are weak and stuff themselves, but not me: I was strong. I was able to resist my hunger. I was in control.

But these feelings were for me, as they are for you, complete illusions. Your body is the one who knows what's up. The binge, again, is to be expected. Your body likely has never fully recovered from your restriction this summer, and as long as a massive energy deficit remains (and especially if you restrict on top of it), you will likely continue to have binges.

As long as you do not fight back against the diseased part of your brain by giving your body recovery amounts of food (which, as a gentle reminder, is 3500 calories per day with absolutely no exercise) and developing new thought patterns (best done with a therapist trained specifically to handle eating disorder), it will continue to push you towards self-destruction. Even if you feel as though you're just doing this to entertain yourself, developing a healthier response to those feelings starts first and foremost with ending the destructive behaviors.

Relapses are common (*hug*) Don't beat yourself up over them. Give yourself the nourishment you've been starving for both in terms of food and love/compassion.

 

You do sound like you have an eating disorder.
And you're underweight, I believe.

Skipping meals is not healthy...