An Anorexic Mindset

This blog is dedicated to Dr. Atkins, who’s book and success stories (both written on the page and living, breathing in my life) saved me from a mental sickness born of desperation.
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In order to be diagnosed with Anorexia, your BMI must be less than 17. But to suffer from an anorexic mindset, you can be any weight.

Here's what it's like to be an overweight anorexic...

Just because you are still heavy, and you are losing weight, people are patting you on the back... but you aren't eating, so you aren't thinking clearly... you have been hiding things and lying to your most dearly loved ones, but that doesn't cause you as much guilt as eating would... furthermore... you're anemic, but you're scared to eat anything other than negative calorie foods. Your hair is falling out, so you take vitamins... but you drink so much water (because you heard it makes you lose weight) that the vitamins flush right out of your system. You're pale, you're weak, you're miserable because you fear that eating food will cause you to put back on weight that you were so desperate to get off that you made a mortal enemy of food. When someone invites you to eat, your heart races... you come up with an excuse, a lie. The fear is a strong presence, as is the guilt, the feelings are REAL.

Your dietician pats you on the back for losing 3.5 pounds that week, but when he asks if you have been eating any protein, you say no, and he expresses his fear that you may be severelya anemic. So you ignore the advice to eat some meat and take iron pills instead... with nothing else going into your system your skin begins to turn yellow.

People finally start to notice... your body is thinner but so is your hair, your healthy glow is gone, you're not as happy anymore... the girl who was always smiling is now always frowning, brow furrowed. And you never want to go out (because surely there will be food and surely someone will push you to eat).

Then, maybe finally someone does push you to eat... crying to you about their concern. They love you so much. So maybe you cave. Maybe you lose control and throw up after they are satisfied to see you eat. Maybe. Then again, maybe you are so determined that you take only two bites of a vegetable/cheese enchilada just to shut them up, and then are wracked with guilt and same for an entire week, like me.

Then maybe someone, instead of coddling you, tells the harsh truth. Maybe they even yell to get through to you. They give you TOUGH love. So, you finally take a book they offer, and read about nutrition. Maybe you learn that if you eat you can lose weight faster... ya, you have heard it before but you don't believe it. But this time you know someone who is doing it. She is looking good, eating a LOT, she says she is on the Atkins' diet. You finally decide try it. It terrifies you, yet you cling to that ray of hope as though it were your life raft and you get through that fear and anxiety.

After putting on the initial couple of pounds of bulk weight, you start to lose weight. Time goes on. You are no longer scared of most foods. Only carbs. Someone offers you some stew... you worry that although you don't eat the potatoes, the carbs from the potatoes were absorbed into the other foods in the stew. Anorexia left a residue. Still, you are better. And as you lose, you know you can afford to eat some hidden carbs... until one day, only the faintest sheen of residue is left of that nonsensical way of thinking. It will probably never go away all the way, but now you have the sense to quench that burn, silence that voice.

This is my story. At least how I first found Atkins. Since then I put the weight back on because I slipped back into that mindset and did the fat fast for too long... THEN, I let go of my obsessive mindset altogether (which was the only part of me that was fed during that time, and grew) and stopped caring at all when I was hurt by someone I loved a lot.

But, funny, the result was balance. This time, I can lose with some degree of balance which I was not able to achieve all those years. I can actually do the fat fast for one day and then go back to enjoying bacon and eggs the next morning. That's why I know, this time around will be the last.