Expert: Meg - 9/16/2007

Question
Hi
I'm having some problems with eating and my weight. I'm 17 years old and
about 18 months ago I was diagnosed with anorexia, about 6 months after
that I got back up to a healthy weight but about 4 months ago my weight
dropped  down again (not as low as before - but still a bmi of 17.0 which
since I have a large frame looks skinny). Since then I have over 10 kg and I
can't sop eating I'll eat easily 4000 - 6000 calories in a day and I just can't
stop. I'm so scared I'm going to get fat and I don't know what to do I can't
control myself I'm like some mad, frenzied eating machine. Can you please
help me, I'm really scared and confused.
Thanks, Hannah

Answer
Hi Hannah,

First off, it sounds like you've made a lot of progress towards getting healthy so give yourself a huge pat on the back for that as its not easy and it sounds like you've worked very hard.

In terms of overeating during recovery, this is not all that uncommon and it honestly will stop once your body reaches (and maintains) a healthy weight.  Quite often, this is a reaction to being deprived for so long and although it feels really out of control and scary (and I feel for you as I definitely went through a phase of this myself) it will stop eventually.

One suggestion that often can help is to make sure that your daily meal plan has enough calories and that you're not letting yourself get too hungry.  Often, in recovery, people tend to cut back their meal plan little  by little and this can lead to the body kind of taking over and eating more to compensate for what it knows will be a time when there is a food shortage again.    Also, if you have completely eliminated certain foods or food groups from your diet, its possible that your body is craving something and not getting it and then in turn eating more of something else to make up for a nutrient that it may need.  So, I'd recommend looking at your current meal plan and perhaps adding some snacks so that you won't get as hungry.  

Since you are still at a very low BMI, your body is probably also doing this out of sheer self preservation and as you get to a healthier weight, I think your eating will normalize a lot.  

I know it feels really scary to be eating what feels like (or sometimes is) a lot, but it really is a fairly common stage that people who have restricted go through and it doesn't go on forever.  Right now, you are very far from getting or being fat (again, I know it may not *feel* that way) so hopefully, you can hold onto this factual information in the back of your head and try to remember this when you feel freaked out about eating more than you'd like.

Finally, I found that the more I freaked out about eating more than I'd like, the more problems I had with doing it.  Kind of like the stress from feeling out of control sent me into a spiral that felt even more out of control.  I don't know if you can relate at all to this, but if so, then it helps trying to relax a little bit about the food you're eating and knowing that even when you do have a day when you eat a lot (and even everyday healthy people have those days), that it was just a day.  Not indicative of your becoming a fat person or an overeater and probably just giving your body what it needed at the time (and won't need forever).  

I hope this helps at least a little bit and I really urge you to hang in there and know that this is just a difficult period of time in your recovery that will end as your body gets back to a healthy place.  

Take care and please feel free to write if anything in this answer was not clear or if there is anything else at all that I can help with.

Best,
Meg