QUESTION: Hi. I saw your video on you tube. I need help. For almost two years I have been involved with bulimia. I don't want to deal with it anymore but I can seem to eat or eat food and not purge. I have not told anyone except my youth pastor who noticed. But, I don't believe he understands how I feel about myself. I've lost XX* pounds and I want to lose another XX* or more. I have been overweight a lot of my life and i still am a little. But, i know i don’t need to harm my body this way it just seems like an addiction. I want to just see myself and like who I see. Can you help me? Can you give me tips how to fight this. I can't get away from pro MIA sites either.

(* note: all weight references contained in this letter have been removed to avoid triggering.)

ANSWER: You are right, you know. You don’t need to harm your body this way, and it feels like an addiction because you are now wired through repetition to crave the very activities that are harming you the most. Chances are that, no matter how much he tries or wants to, your youth pastor cannot understand you, because it is clear from your email that even you don’t really understand why you do what you do, or how to stop doing it and do something healthier instead. The more important place to begin is for you to begin to understand you – that is what is really needed in order for recovery to occur.

So, here is where you start. In your mind there are a wealth of opinions all muddling around colliding with each other, and that is a very confusing place for you to go for advice. Instead, you need to turn to a doctor for a thorough medical assessment to find out where healthy, medically-supervised and advocated weight loss ended and your eating disorder began. Do you need to lose another XX pounds – is that medically necessary for your health and wellbeing? Did you need to lose the last XX pounds? Where is your ideal body weight – that unique combination of your age, height, gender, ethnicity, and bone density? And where do you fall within your range? Then, work with your doctor to find a nutritionist or dietician who can map out a daily food plan to help you achieve, and maintain, your ideal body weight.

Next, recognize that food has one purpose, and one purpose only – it is fuel for the body. Food is fuel for your body’s gas tank. You wouldn’t overfill the gas tank in your car, would you? You wouldn’t drive up to a gas pump with an empty tank, look inside and say ‘why bother?’ and then try to drive away, would you? So you need to learn to treat your stomach like just another gas tank – when it is truly empty, you must refill it. When it is full, you must wait until it empties and your body has used all the fuel you just gave it before you put more in.

Now, I recognize intimately that that is MUCH easier said than done! If you saw the videos on YouTube, then you realize that I spent half my life battling anorexia and bulimia. When I started recovering, I didn’t even know what I had, let alone how to fix it. It took me eight years to make any lasting progress – a decade to leave the eating disordered behaviors behind for good. But it was worth EVERY MINUTE OF THE TIME IT TOOK. The way I live today is as I describe to you above – food is fuel for my body. In fact, I follow what I call the 90/10 Rule – ninety percent of the food I consume is consumed for the sole purpose of giving my body the right combination of hydration and nutrition to meet its operating needs. The remaining ten percent is for pure enjoyment – a concept I couldn’t even pretend to understand until my eating disordered days were largely behind me.

Next, you need to seek out qualified professional help to determine why you are abusing food, which is what the binge-purge cycle you describe indicates is occurring. Of course you want to look in the mirror and like what you see! We all want to do that – we all DESERVE to do that! But I am guessing there is a series of belief systems standing between you and your goal. You must figure out what your belief systems are, and work to replace them with healthier, more attainable goals.

Ultimately, eating disorders have been shown to arise in almost equal parts genetic predisposition and environmental triggers. While it is impossible for me to say for sure if this is true in your particular case, I am guessing from statistics that it could be. So let’s say you were predisposed to develop bulimic behaviors. What triggered your first episode? What has triggered subsequent episodes? What are you running from when you run into food? What are you running to? Answer those questions for yourself, and you will be well on your way to figuring out the kind of help you will need to leave the bulimia behind.

Best of luck – write again if you need to!

Warmly, and with HOPE,

Shannon

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