Expert: Joanne - 2/13/2009

Question
Hello, i'm sorry if you're not the right one to be asking this question but it seems that you said that you were able to help with some illnesses of Anorexia Nervosa along with the whole eating disorder itself? Well my illness of the eating disorder is what i'm worried about. About 7 or 8 months ago I was a little bit over weight for my age and I felt the need to burn off a lot of fat, so I wanted to make a change and I wanted this change fast. I exercised everyday for hours but the results over the weeks were low and not enough, I needed to lose more and that's when the whole 'fasting for several days began'. I hated exercising and it seems that when I was not consuming any food at all, I lost a lot more rapidly then I did when I was actually exercising. Soon I was hospitalized because I lost 40lbs and was extremely under weight (from not eating). When I finally decided to eat again because I was skin and bones, I threw it all back up...not on purpose though. Now i'm back home after the horrible shoving tubes down my throat in the hospital and i'm able to hold foods down again, it's been like this for a few months and everything seems to be a bit better. Now that i'm recovered from Anorexia, I realized how much damage I did to my body. I still have not yet got my period back, is that normal? Also, ever since I came back from the hospital I'll sometimes binge eat... and it's been getting worse a long with massive weight gain. I feel I have some kind of binge eating disorder because even when I feel full, I keep eating until I pass out from a food coma. I'll hide chocolates, ice cream, cookies, pizza, and many other high calorie foods in my room and just eat it all at once. I feel I can't stop no matter how hard I try. Then after the binge is over I will feel so guilty and just cry... or i'll overexercise for hours because I need to burn the fat off, plus it puts me in a better mood. If I keep this up, i'm sure to become extremely over weight & that's my biggest fear. Is there any advice you could give me or eating right schedule plan? Also, a lot of my muscle mass is gone and it's hard for me to run or even jump without falling to the ground. Should I be taking the gym to build up muscle again? I'm sorry for such a long summery and multiple questions but I really need your help. Thanks so much.

Answer
Amanda

I'm sorry to hear that you ended up in hospital being tube-fed because of all of this!

It is hard to lose weight when going to the gym alone, especially if you didn't exercise much before, and it is not because you aren't burning fat, it is because you are likely to be building muscle as well, and muscle weighs more than fat!

People who try to lose weight are always told to cut calories and exercise rather than relying on one or the other, but you definitely took this to the extreme.  I'm just glad that you now can see how bad that was for you.

It is quite normal for your period to take time to return.  It is not just about eating again, but reaching a healthy weight with a healthy body fat percentage, etc.  There is no sure way to say when yours will return, but it should if you reach a healthy weight and allow your body to recover fully.

After being released from hospital, were you put in touch with anyone to help you with your eating disorder?  If not, then I would recommend trying to find a therapist or counsellor yourself as they will be of huge benefit to your recovery.  It seems as though you are trying to leave anorexia behind you, but are beginning to develop other disordered eating patterns, and it can be quite common for a person to beat one eating disorder to simply develop another.  Binge-eating can sometimes be normal as you have lost a bit of the ability to guage when you are full, your body has cravings in order to get some of the nutrients that it is low on due to being starved, etc.  However, it is quite easy for that binge-eating to become a habit.  Eating disorders usually are very tied up with emotions and thoughts about yourself and the world around you, and if these thoughts and feelings aren't addressed, it is very hard to recover from an eating disorder!  Your disorder eating habits have been there as a means of control, or a coping mechanism, etc, and if you don't learn new ways of coping, it is easy to continue to use disordered eating habits - be it starving yourself, or over-eating in order to deal with emotions or thoughts you have.  I am also scared about the over-exercising as that can be a form of bulimia (not all bulimics use self-induced vomiting to rid themselves of calories!).  I think that you need to speak to someone about this, and do it soon before you really do just replace one eating disorder with another!

I think that you could still be exercising (providing your weight is healthier!) to try and build muscle mass, but don't overdo it as you will not get as good results then!  I would recommend talking to a doctor about this before you start, just to make sure that you are well enough to cope with exercise, and then if you do, I would recommend possibly avoiding doing too much cardio and doing some resistance work instead in order to increase your muscles again.  If you don't fancy using weights or resistance machines, then I would even recommend doing some swimming as it can really work a lot of the muscles in your body!

Joanne