Fun For Me ... Music For You

Okay,
let's define what Anorexia really is.

I talked about myself being anorexic at one point in my life in the post just previous to this one.
Most people mistakenly think this is the disease where you throw up your meal and you benge eat and then throw it up also.
That is not what anorexia is.

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that is characterized by voluntary starvation and exercise stress.
The term anorexia refers to the medical symptom of lost appetite.

What happened with me was this:
I was concerned about weight and pant size.
I didn't intentionally starve myself.
That thought never entered my head.
I thought of it as dieting.
My diet consisted of just not eating.
I ate one meal a day ... just a little ...
and then exercised every day.

I did aerobics,
rode my bike miles a day,
and worked out with weights ...
every day ...
sometimes more than once.

Once you go a period of time without eating much,
your stomach actually shrinks and you don't feel hungry.
It doesn't take much to fill it up.
And pretty soon you're not eating enough to maintain your body.
That's what I did.

My recovery process started by eating a piece of toast and a cup of chicken broth.
That's what I had for breakfast and for lunch every day.
And I had to eat it in front of someone so there was a witness that I didn't feed it to the dog or just throw it away.
It was hard.
I can remember crying while I tried to get it all down.
I can remember being so angry to have someone sit there and watch me chew.
It made me just want to spit at them.
(which I didn't do, by the way)
I can remember having to eat it when I wasn't hungry and gagging just trying to get it down.
It was a serious problem.

I have to thank my ex-husband, Paul, for this.
It was him who did this for me.
He saved my life, I have no doubt of that at all.
I am very grateful.

As I became able to eat this menu regularly,
the menu changed to things that were more substantial and I slowly began to eat more
and eat regularly and gain some weight.

I still thought about it all the time though.
And I was still an exercise fanatic.
But I was making progress.

Eventually I found that I actually felt healthier with some weight on than I did without it.
My way of thinking began to change.
I actually got hungry several times a day and ate because I wanted to.
It took about two years to accomplish the physical change and the mental change to go along with it.

You all know that I just lost 30 pounds on a diet recently.
This was done because my excess weight was affecting my lupus adversely and the doctor told me to try to get down to my target weight.
Which I did.
Then I lost ten more pounds without even trying.

I was worried and set a time limit for the weight loss to stop or I was going to go to the doctor and get some help.

It has since stopped and I'm fine.
In fact,
I've gained a little weight back!
That's wonderful!

Anyway,
now you know
and now you understand.

I still like to exercise,
but have changed to toning exercises,
hence the stretching, Thai Chi and Belly Dancing ...
both low impact and non stress to your body exercises.
They just keep me limber.
It's been a nice trade.