I’ve been in recovery from Anorexia for about 20 years. I have had occasional relapses and my weight hovers on the low side of healthy.
I went to a well visit with blood test earlier this week. Today I got a call saying my test showed I’m pre-diabetic. She started telling me to lose weight and exercise. I told her there must be another reason for the number - I gave her my height and weight and explained that I regularly do intensive, strength building exercise. She asked me if it was genetic (no). Then she went back onto the diet speech, telling me not to eat bread, rice, sugar, potatoes and on and on…felt like the food rules I spent so long trying to silence.
I know this is silly but I’ve been very stressed lately and the last thing I needed was someone calling me in the middle of my work day to diet-shame me.
I don’t even know what I can eat anymore so I just want to give up and stop eating altogether.
Thanks for reading…just a hard day I guess.

it's just 4 pm rn where i live and i already hit 800 fucking calories.

Heyy, so I've been struggling with bulimia for years, and today, for the first time, I finally found the courage to make an appointment with a doctor.
I've been having pain around my heart/chest area, and my body has been feeling really weak lately, so I knew I couldn't keep ignoring my health anymore.

This was a huge step for me because I've never actually opened up to a medical professional about my eating disorder before. I was already extremely nervous and vulnerable going into the appointment.
I'm really close to my sister, so I asked her to come with me for emotional support because I knew how difficult this was going to be for me.

Well, the appointment was honestly awful.

The doctor was pretty dismissive and rushed through everything, which already made me feel uncomfortable. But what really shocked me was what she said at the end.

She literally looked at me and said something along the lines of: "You're ugly, all hunched over like that. You should be more like your sister. Look at her, she's beautiful." Like... what???

I was genuinely speechless. This was the first time I had ever met this woman, and the first time I'd ever been brave enough to talk to a professional about my bulimia.

And here's the thing that's really messing with my head right now.

I've honestly never really been insecure about my face or whether I'm pretty. Of course I have body image issues because of my eating disorder, but I've never particularly questioned my facial attractiveness. I've actually always been complimented on my looks, and people have told me I'm beautiful my whole life. So being called ugly was never really something I expected, especially not from a doctor.

But now I can't stop thinking about it. Like, what if everyone has been lying to me this whole time? What if people were just being nice and I'm actually ugly? What if I've had a completely wrong perception of myself all along? I know it sounds ridiculous to let one random woman's opinion affect me this much, especially when I've received so many compliments throughout my life. But for some reason, hearing it from a medical professional, in such a vulnerable moment, has genuinely made me question everything. And the worst part is that I wasn't even there to talk about my appearance. I was there because I'm scared about my health.

Maybe she thought comparing me to my sister and insulting my appearance would somehow motivate me to get better? I genuinely don't know. But I'm sorry, how is that an appropriate thing to say to anyone, let alone someone struggling with an eating disorder?

And just to be clear, I absolutely adore my sister. She's one of my biggest sources of support, and none of this has anything to do with jealousy or resentment towards her. It's about the fact that a medical professional thought it was okay to put me down and compare my appearance to someone else's during such a vulnerable moment.

I'm honestly so upset because it took me years to finally ask for help, and this is how my first experience went. I know I still need medical help, and I'm not going to give up on getting better because of one doctor, but right now I just feel really hurt, confused and discouraged.

I don't even know what I'm expecting from posting this. I guess I just needed to vent to people who might understand how difficult it is to seek help for an eating disorder in the first place.

Has anyone else experienced something like this with a medical professional? Am I overreacting for being so affected by this?

TW: Swearing & Guilt

14M (my birthday was yesterday!!!)

Am I supposed to feel bad for eating?

I feel so bad for eating dinner now, I mean I always say I'll start tomorrow but then tomorrow dinner looks so good and I eat it and then I say I'll start tomorrow and then tomorrow the same thing happens and it's just really annoying and I'm a bit of a bitch so.. anyway sorry for whining on here, bye internet!

I just got off an appointment with my care team (virtual IOP), where I was talking about how alone I feel starting recovery. I already have no motivation to recover (if anything I still and have been trying to be worse), and me being the one in charge of my care isn't sustainable at all and I haven't made even an inch of progress. I was dicussing how I felt like my family wasn't helping either, they have no idea what an eating disorder even is, and despite knowing about my anorexia diagnosis, haven't even tried a single google search or definition to learn a single thing. Because of this, I've spiraled back to not feeling sick enough or my goal being hospitalization because even the people in my own home don't seem to care about me/acknowledge/even learn a single tidbit of knowledge, and instead act like everythings normal and I'm just back home from college on a holiday break, rather than my therapist having considered me an active risk if I stayed in school any longer. They don't treat me sick, nor acknowledge the elephant in the room, so I don't feel like I should be in treatment or have been taken out of college in the first place.

After I said something along the lines of "I switched from not wanting to be treated different, to feeling invisible because they weren't treating me differently at all," my coach asked me, "Well what would support from them look like for you?" And also to acknowledge their capacity as my family has never been close or loving to begin with.

So now I'm left with the task, brainstorming, what kind of support am I even looking for? Specifics, not just "being educated" but how do I want them to act, to push, etc. She was right that I don't even know what I'm wanting or expecting from them.

I'm extremely lost with this question, I can't even think of a single thing, so I'd like to ask anyone here, what kind of support do you look for in others? What do you want people to say or do? How do you want them to act or be involved? Anything at all?

9/f/BN this is what my past seven days have looked like:

EN: "to fund my ED" = buying food/drink which, per day in general is around $60-$100 (varies depending on where/how much I buy)

- borrowed against my 401k (which is lowere than even I thought I could go) to pay my rent because when I did get paid I didn't have/designate enough money to cover it because I wanted to buy food for ED

- when I realized the 401k was going to take awhile had to ask my my mom for money to help pay my rent because I spend half of it buying food for ED (lied about the reason, she and I don't talk about it)

- took out several payday loans...to fund my ED

- pawned my iPad (buying it back tomorrow) and sold one of my laptops to fund my ED

- canceled therapy (been going to an ED therapist for the past three weeks, she has been great but has been pushing me to get my bloodwork done to see how much damage we are facing and I won't do it) with no warning because I realized if I would prefer to pawn my posessions than tell the truth to a human then what is the point.

I can't stop and I do not want to. Last night I had a thought: "what is the end goal?" like what is your perfect number, body, etc.) and honestly...it's -----. And I think I'll be happier once I don't have to live this way.

I am SO DEPRESSED AND SO SCARED of giving up control AND gaining weight. I live alone in a major city away from family, and I don't have anyone to hold me accountable. And yet, I literally have nothing left to lose. And I truly do not care.

We're past even the "go to therapy" stage because that isn't working either. I started going to her because I, as I told her "want to want to" get better. But I don't want to. I could give a shit, clearly.

I started a cut during late may with the main goal of getting down to a low bodyfat percentage

it took me nearly 4 months of working out everyday (2 rest days a week) and following a diet that hit all my macros and left me in a moderate deficit. I gave myself only 2-3 cheat meals a month.

I ended up getting super worried about food and calories and basically developed an eating disorder and food anxiety and it worked, I got the abs I had always wanted but ended up becoming too obsessed with becoming even more lean.

One day in mid september I was super fed up with all these restrictions and went on a 3 week binge eating spree, stopped going to the gym and stopped walking, after that I gained back a good amount of bodyfat and could no longer see the abs that I had worked so hard to achieve.

Now I am feeling super discouraged, like I wasted so much time building something only for it to be lost so quickly and I don’t even feel like I want to put in the effort to build it all back because its just daunting and so exhausting to count calories and do all that work again.

But at the same time I can’t look at myself in the mirror without feeling sad anymore, I keep thinking about how much regret I had wishing I could just go back in time and go tell myself to go into a maintenance instead of binge eating.

This has taken over my entire life and I spend every day in turmoil about what to do next, I am super self conscious about my body but I no longer feel the drive or motivation to go back in the gym or keep my good habits.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? How did you bounce back?

Hello, I'm here looking for advice/perspectives. I have been working with a therapist and dietician for a few months for anorexia and ARFID and have come to a point where I feel like the treatment/advocacy fatigue itself is worse than the ED.

I'm so burnt out and I'm identifying that the treatment isn't trauma informed and neurodiversity affirming in the ways I need, but every time I bring it up I leave feeling more exhausted and doubtful. They say that this is hard work and it's going to be tiring and distressing. I know that, but not like this. I've been in different forms of treatment mental and physical for over 20yrs consistently. I know "lots of people don't like their dieticians", but I don't even feel enough trust or safety to even productively work with mine and she keeps making inaccurate assumptions and putting labor back onto me. Misunderstandings every single appointment. Willingness is not the issue, everyone else in my life understands that. It's hard because I like *her* but I don't feel like I'm *healing*.

How much is treatment itself supposed to be burning me out? I'm at my capacity and I'm scared I'm not going to be ABLE to continue treatment unless it adapts, but maybe it's "supposed to be like this"? That doesn't make anything more bearable or possible though. It just leaves me feeling more demoralized. If anyone has ideas or support or experience here I'd appreciate it, thank you!

I was anorexic in high school, I was on the bordline of being underweight for my height from severe calorie cutting, carb cutting and just straight up not eating till dinner.

I got to college and from being around friends I stopped those habits not really out of recovery more so how hard it is in social setting i find.

Ive gained the weight back and now im fighting the urges to continue my ed habits and go through moments where I feel really sucky about my image and think about skipping meals and carb cutting again.

How do I get a healthy relationship with food and myself image. Also how do i go about losing weight in a healthy manner where my first gut instinct isnt to starve myself

I (19F) have been struggling with an ED (most likely anorexia) for around 2 years now. It completely consumed my life. I had “recovered” several times, but fell back head first into habits after an (at the time) unfortunate breakup with my ex BF. Around a month later i met my wonderful BF (21M) and after eventually opened up to him about my ED struggles to let him have the chance to dip if it was too much for him. Fortunately, he has stayed and we recently celebrated our 6 month anniversary.

One night about 2 months ago, i sent a SS i had gotten on Twitter from a troll account regarding my ED (i unfortunately have been on and off EDtwt since i initially developed the disorder) and he found my account via the troll account’s username and looking at their replies. He didn’t tell me immediately, but i remember i was completely enraged in the moment. I felt like my privacy was invaded (the privacy of the public internet of course). But then I immediately deleted the account and promised to start trying to recover. As one does, i unfortunately made the mistake of making a new account under a different username to continue my ED ways (this one he has yet to find, the guilt eats me up but i feel like i need to be on there).

As the months have gone on, i’ve teetered on the fence of recovery and relapse. It takes every ounce of my body to not fall head first back into relapse, but i try so hard for him because i absolutely adore him. For a while, i was doing better. But as usual, i fell back. Ive been very active on EDtwt and being sneaky about my habits. He has noticed the change in my behavior. Tonight, i was talking about how i wanted to lose some weight to feel better about myself because of the weight i’ve gained in my recovery attempt. This caused the conversation of my ED to come up. He completely broke down and told me how much it was worrying him, how many hours he’s spent on Reddit threads and online posts about how to deal with partners with EDs. He has made it very clear he doesn’t plan on breaking things off or anything.

Ive gotten to a point where i want to recover for him, but i dont know if im ready to recover for me. What do i do? Hes spent countless hours trying to convince me to recover, and i always say i will (and unfortunately as of now, have never meant it).

How do i choose recovery? I want desperately to be happy and free from the shackles of the ED but i feel like i cant.

TLDR : Boyfriend is very worried about my ED, i want to recover for him but feel like i cant.

Hey all,
I’ve (30F) just got back from seeing my brother (25M) for the first time in 2 weeks and can’t believe he’s lost even more weight.
I know that he is taking 2 weight loss injectables that he is buying online (one is Reta and the other one begins with T but I can’t remember the full name). I’ll be moving back home next week, and I’m just so shocked how thin he is.
We had a conversation a month ago about him being thin. He’s about 5”10 so that weight on him was concerning. He would have at least lost more weight since then.
He was a heavy kid, pretty obese, went through a self harm stage and then (I believe but he denies) a bulimic phase too. My parents were never into mental health stuff so now I’m just so worried and I have no idea what to do.
If I try to talk to him about anything in general, he just shuts off and doesn’t engage with me.
Seeing him today just made me cry, and I don’t know how to help my baby brother.

Hello everyone!

I have had this friend for about three years now. Recently I asked my friend to go out. We went out and thrifted and after I suggested we get brunch she said yes excitedly. We go to brunch and she orders a lot of food and she said that wants to share.
It’s not food that I typically like but she said she would pay and I said yes because it was enough for us to share and I didn’t want to be rude because she said she’d pay. however when the food gets to the table she looked at me and said go ahead eat. I’m eating and I finish my portion and she hasn’t touched hers and told me to finish the plates. Mind this was A LOT of food and I knew I couldn’t eat it all, I told her I couldn’t finish her have and she should have some. She said I’m not hungry and I looked at her and said ohh okk. I didn’t think much of it except she was staring at me while eating not saying anything while I ate. I thought it was weird at the time until recently. I let my friend move in with me and she always offers to cook. I have a total of three roommates, she always cooks for us every day. However noticed again she’ll watch us eat and then sneakily throw her food away or pretend to eat. However she’s now starting to have outbursts at dinner and it’s becoming overwhelming. Today we all had soup that she made, she had one slurp got quiet and angry and had an outburst of anger and said she had to leave. She came back and I left her bowl of soup thinking she still might want it and she said snarikly “sorry guys I have a fuckin ED” and walked away. It was extremely uncomfortable, and I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know how to deal with this especially as her friend but the ED is starting to make things awkward on the household. How do you deal with this situation?

Note: she said she goes to therapy for it ( I don’t know how true this and she voluntarily gave this info out, but tells her therapist she’s just simply not hungry)

My parents and everyone tells me I look sick but I dont see it all the time. Skme days I do, some I dont. How do I know they aren't lying? I wanna get better but im just scared alot. How do I get over the body dystopia

I can't add two flairs so I'm going to start this by saying this could have some potentially upsetting content? I'm very new to this subreddit sorry

My partners always had problems with eating due to their guardian always pestering them about nutrition in an attempt to "help" them in their weight loss journey. They've been out of that household for a while and I thought things were getting better but it's gotten so much worse so quickly

Now they're planning on eating a meal a week paired with pretty extreme exercise and I just..don't know what to do.

Nothing I say is reaching them, what am I supposed to do?

Hello, recently I've been feeling very unmotivated to cook and eat. I sometimes go the whole day without eating something, especially if I'm alone because I genuinely don't feel hungry. But if someone makes me food or I get fast food, I will eat that. I don't know if this is an eating disorder but I did have a binge eating disorder when I was younger and I really don't want this to repeat again. Is there anything that I can try to do so this won't become worse?

I'm in a severe relapse and trying to get back into recovery.. im currently overweight but have lost a significant amount of weight 3 and a half months.

My heart rate a few months ago before this was 98 bpm

Now it's 72-ish but when I try to sleep overnight or for a nap I get these tingle feelings and panic and look at my heart rate and it's 59bpm and it is not a fun way to sleep.. because everytime I almost drift off I get these panic feelings

I don't see my psychiatrist for another 2 months and I talked to my nurse practitioner about the relapse but I'm scared to make another appointment and bring this up if it's not serious and if it's just anxiety causing this. Has anyone else had this experience? I just wanna get better.

I've been struggling with body image issues ever since I was 14, i would often not eat for over a day and exercised way more than my body could tolerate. Im now in college and ever since leaving my home i felt like i was doing great with not thinking much about food and letting it be.

Got assigned a new roommate this semester and she's been triggering me badly, weight is all she talks about and she'll often just eat a boiled egg for like every meal. I hope she's eating when i don't see her but her comments are making me seldom relapse, I've been eating only one meal this past week, quite nutritive meals and not small portions but i just feel awful coz this is how i started and i can't help but feel fat and guilty whenever i eat more than that. I just feel like i need to eat more but even the thought of eating one more egg sends me spiraling and leaves me stressed out.

I don't know what to do because every time she says something it'll leave me feeling like this for days and just when i start forgetting she'll say something again. What should i do?

I'm in college and trying to eat healthy and track my calories. Most days I'm right on target and feel really good. Sticking to the exact foods I planned makes me genuinely happy.

But about every two weeks I crash and eat way, way over my goal in one day. It's happened 3 times in the last 6 weeks. This most recent time hit hardest because I'd been so on point leading up to it. I felt full of regret afterward and was pretty down for the rest of the day, to the point that I couldn't function normally.

I don't want to fix it by restricting the next day, since I know that probably makes it worse. I just don't understand why it keeps happening or how to break the pattern.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? What helped you? I'd really appreciate any advice. It's starting to affect my mood and daily life.

really tmi and kinda embarrassing to share.
i’ve recently discovered that i have been engaging in highly disordered eating habits over the last few months bc of a traumatic experience. i (22 yo) have recently started the process of recovering from my disordered eating but i find that every time i have a small meal or snack, no matter what it is, about 20 minutes later i have to go to the bathroom. i also have horrible stomach pain and have to go every 20 minutes. ive never experienced anything like this before. i normally would go every day or every other day pretty regularly, but now i find myself going every 20 minutes and when the cramping starts i have to go immediately. it’s really debilitating and makes me not want to continue. has anyone else experienced anything like this during recovery? i’ve read that it is most common to experience bloating and constipation but this seems to be the opposite.
any advice or suggestions would be so appreciated as this is terribly painful. hoping a prebiotic might help a little bit. thank you!

I’ve always had very bad sensory issues. To the point where if something is touching me the wrong way (like my underwear, for example) and I can’t fix it, I feel like I am having a panic attack. I’ve also been self conscious of my body at a young age. These two paired together feel like a big part of my ED. This sounds terrible, but I mean it directly when I say I “feel fat.” Like the feeling of my arms resting against the sides of my body or my thighs when they touch. It legitimately ticks off my sensory issues so much to the point where I don’t want to eat. And I like to eat. I hate feeling hungry. But it ruins my appetite just thinking about it.

I want advice on what you guys would do, I (wrongly I guess) asked my boyfriend tonight what he preferred between this summer which is when I starved myself and lost a lot of weight and before I started starving myself and he said visually he preferred how I looked in the summer. I know you’re not supposed to ask questions you don’t want the answer to, but I guess I hoped he would say that he preferred me before when I was happy and healthier even if I was bigger; the worst part is that I always had this gut instinct he would’ve preferred if I lost weight but he always convinced me out of it and that I was somewhat crazy for thinking it so I kind of feel gaslit now. What would you do in my shoes? It’s hard to not want to relapse hearing this.

Looking for advice/insight...

20 years old, female, BMI on low end of normal for height, but much lower than normal for my growth curve

I developed disordered eating behaviors around a year ago, beginning with purging occasionally, even after small snacks because I didn't like the feeling of food in my stomach. At the same time, I was fasting for several days at a time, and was exhausted. This went on off-and-on for a few months, until my friend approached me and I stopped purging and didn't go back. However, I did learn how to weightlift and actually started going to the gym and going on walks, and loved it.

I had a 1-2 month period where I was making incredible progress and felt great. I was eating fairly healthy, consistently, and working out regularly, but not excessively. I took rest days and felt energized most of the time.

After about a month or two, I started to shift to the other end of the spectrum. I started counting calories, heavily restricting, and became obsessed with hitting certain numbers on my apple watch. I aimed to burn more active calories than I was eating, and weighed out every bite of food I put into my mouth for 5-6 days each week, still heavily restricting on the other days.

Over the summer, I took a break from this routine, but still got 20k steps every single day and lifted 5x per week, plus Stairmaster occassionally. I didn't track calories, but I usually would only eat 1-2 normal meals per day with a snack or two, and aimed to skip 1-2 meals as tolerated by my parents (if I could get away with it) because I was scared about what I was eating. Most of my food was high volume, low calorie, but I was still nervous.

Upon returning to school, old habits came back, except stronger. Even though I wasn't as regimented with weighing out every g of food I ate, I've still done it MANY times and heavily restricted my intake. Additionally, my exercise routines have seemed to shift without me even meaning to, changing from 1-3 hours a day to 4-5 hours per day, and my rest days, are nonexistent. Although I know it's dangerous, I have a hard time stopping because I feel fine. I lift 5x per week and mostly walk for cardio (sometimes 2 hours of incline walking, sometimes just keeping a quick pace), most days recently I'm averaging above 15 miles walked per day. I'm trying hard not to track my calories as strictly, but, I know I'm still not eating enough. Most of my meals consist of 60-75% vegetables, and my carb intake is also heavily restricted. I've been a bit better over the past two weeks, because my mom caught me, but still restrictive and definitely have been exercising too much. I didn't even notice, but over the last two weeks, the amount of exercise I'm doing is greater than the amount of sleep I'm getting. My mom's insistent that I meet with a therapist, nutritionist, and doctor, and is setting up appointments to get my bloodwork/labs done.

I know this might sound stupid, but since I'm not underweight, I'm scared I'll be told that I'm fine and am being dramatic-especially if my labs come back normal since I've been eating a bit better over the past two weeks. I'm so tied between continuing to try to eat a little bit more (without tracking) and TRYING to limit exercise a bit, and going back to my very rigid routine of calorie counting and overexercising before getting bloodwork done, because what if the past 2 weeks of upping my intake slightly + this week if I lower my exercise, make my bloodwork come back normal, when it may've been different before? I just don't know what to do... part of me wants them to find something wrong so that it justifies what I've been feeling and that I've been struggling, and part of me wants it all to be fine and everything to go back to normal...

Does anyone have any insight when it comes to labs and what I might expect with my changes over the past few weeks?

I (22F) may think I have a slight hint of an eating disorder but I'm not really sure. Due to my proportions and genetics I acknowledge I am prone to put on weight fast. I was at a time in my life when I was chubbier (not noticeable but I saw it in clothes size), nothing fit right, I looked different and didn't know what was wrong. I've always said that if I put weight on I won't be able to get fit with exercise or eating right because I lack self discipline and I'm kinda lazy so I would rather not get to that point at all.

With uni (4 years now), living in a dorm, having less space, less money and less time, I started to not eat 3 meals a day for various reasons: being at uni most of the time and mostly being lazy to cook, wash dishes etc and sticking to snacks and drinking more water.

I was a kid who really had an appetite and could eat a lot of food at once without a problem. At uni, the main thought was that I'm actually sticking to a better portion size and "you're not really hungry, just bored".

Now, its the same. I don't fell nauseous, wasn't ever on the point or fainting, I just noticed that my usual pants are more loose and other aspects of getting more slim. Honestly, I like it, but....

I know all this is not really a healthy relationship with food, but I am not really sure if it's just a phase or is already entering the realm of ed and I don't want to admit it.

So, please, I'll be really thankful to know about some of your thoughts on this matter and even experiences, all to make me understand if it's normal or a deeper problem.

I’m so fucking excited, even if I feel like absolute shit right now I still feel proud I did it.

Had wheetbix for breakfast, some eggs and chips for lunch and tofu nuggets for dinner 😋

Hi everyone!

We've been together for 8 months.

I'm almost certain my girlfriend has anorexia. Her ribs are visible, all her bones stick out, and I can wrap both my hands around her waist. She can't seem to accept how serious her situation is. She knows she's skinny, but unfortunately, she doesn't want to change anything. She says she's healthy, that she's always been naturally slim, and that she likes her body this way. I know that these are all symptoms of the illness.

At first, I didn't want to interfere with her life, so I didn't pressure her too much about eating. About a month ago, I started looking into this more seriously, and her attitude has really started to worry me.

She told me she wouldn't go to a specialist over something so stupid, because other people need that kind of help more than she does. Things have gotten to the point where she's lost about half her hair for "unknown reasons," yet she's still unable to acknowledge that her body will eventually start to break down if this continues.

I've asked her several times what her goal is with exercising. She says she simply enjoys moving her body, but the thought of gaining even a few pounds makes her feel awful, even if it's for the purpose of building muscle.

On a typical day, she eats only twice, and even then, the portions are tiny. She almost never seems to have an appetite. On the top of that she doesnt drink enough water and she drinks like a lot of coffes. I literally cant understamd how is her body working.

How can I help her?

Also do i hurt her if i say she is beautiful like that? Wont that just make things worst?

What can I say to her which will face her with the reality, but also wont hurt her?

She got really scared bc of the hair falling, but because her blood test results came back perfectly normal, she thinks there's nothing wrong with her. We've seen five different doctors, and she had extensive blood work done, including tests for her hormones, vitamins, and pretty much everything else, and all the results came back perfectly normal.

Her periods are irregular, her blood pressure is low, and she's extremely fatigued.

What kind of long-term health problems could she develop? Where can this mental illness eventually lead if left untreated? Will that have an effect on our relationship?

Feel free to ask me anything. I really want to help her, but right now, I feel like it's completely impossible to get through to her.

Thanks in advance for any advice!