Very Low Calorie Diet ..any experiences?

haras_nosirrah

She felt she needed to lose 6 stone

Currently she is about 14 stone

A 3 stone loss would take her to being a normal weight for her height (bmi 25) therefore the 6 stone is in her head.

I am wondering if she has body dismorphia as by her current weight and height she would only be about a size 16 but she says she doesn't want to go to the gym or for a walk due to being so overweight - I think the image she sees in the mirror is not the same that everyone else sees

Blindsided_2

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

She felt she needed to lose 6 stone

Currently she is about 14 stone

A 3 stone loss would take her to being a normal weight for her height (bmi 25) therefore the 6 stone is in her head.

I am wondering if she has body dismorphia as by her current weight and height she would only be about a size 16 but she says she doesn't want to go to the gym or for a walk due to being so overweight - I think the image she sees in the mirror is not the same that everyone else sees

I have to be honest I haven't heard of that before (body dysmorphia)
If she has mentioned bulimia I wonder if her gp was aware, no gp worth there salt would suggest or agreed to a diet for anyone who had an eating disorder. Or at least you would hope not.
Oh what I would give to be a size 16!!

haras_nosirrah

Not only a diet but a 500 a day calorie one for 12 weeks which the gp has apparently sanctioned and when she said she was feeling ill on it he told her that she would hardly waste away. Whether that was what was actually said or she took him to be saying I don't know but if a gp suggested that then I would be looking to get them disciplined

purpleshoes_2

Blindsided wrote: »

I have to be honest I haven't heard of that before (body dysmorphia)
If she has mentioned bulimia I wonder if her gp was aware, no gp worth there salt would suggest or agreed to a diet for anyone who had an eating disorder. Or at least you would hope not.
Oh what I would give to be a size 16!!

All I can say is take it an inch at a time and a pound at a time. Ive been a comfortable size 16 lots of times, Ive been a not so comfortable (more like touching an 18) a few times, last time I was bigger I wouldnt have been able to get 16 jeans over my ankles, Im now in a 14, almost in a 12

Exercise and clean eating has helped me but I can honestly say I never thought I would see a size 14 again in this lifetime so anything is possible

Plus, BMI is a load of nonsense. Im not light on the scales, Im 11 stones 8, but Ive lost a lot of inches along the way and I look totally different (better) than I did 20 years ago when I was 11 and a half stones and didnt exercise.

If you feel ok in your clothes, the height and weight charts dont matter and neither does BMI

jenniewb

purpleshoes wrote: »

If you look at one of the posts that are still there because someone else quoted it, she said that she was bulimic in her 20s and maintained her weight, but "fell off the wagon".

That's horrifying to me.

Blindsided wrote: »

I have to be honest I haven't heard of that before (body dysmorphia)
If she has mentioned bulimia I wonder if her gp was aware, no gp worth there salt would suggest or agreed to a diet for anyone who had an eating disorder. Or at least you would hope not.
Oh what I would give to be a size 16!!

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

Not only a diet but a 500 a day calorie one for 12 weeks which the gp has apparently sanctioned and when she said she was feeling ill on it he told her that she would hardly waste away. Whether that was what was actually said or she took him to be saying I don't know but if a gp suggested that then I would be looking to get them disciplined

Wow- I am glad someone else thought to delve a little deeper because it is something I didn't- I took the OP at face value but on her first post it just threw out way to many alarm-bells. I have a lot of experience of eating disorders through friends and myself. It is a bitter and difficult thing to live with and sadly in my experience over the past xx years (yes we're talking double figures) it's something you work to manage but it doesn't ever go away. (To anyone in recovery reading this- everyone is an individual and people get to different levels where they have it affect them less/more than others, don't read this thinking you will never recover just bare in mind that it is about getting help and working on things and never take anything for granted)

I just read the OPs posts and the more she posted the more I saw my friends and experiences echoed in the way she was writing. I am sorry to make such assumptions and go against what the OP has said, but I wonder if she went to her GP now.

Any GP worth their salt would have read her notes and a psychiatric disorder such as bulimia or in fact any eating disorder sticks on your notes and does not go away. At the very least the GP would have kept following things up. Bulimia and anorexia are very linked and one can easily fall into the other and it's not by chance IMO.
I am wondering if she has any medical support at all and had said this to get people off her back, she wouldn't be the first person to do so, when you have your eyes on the goal (weight loss) it can be that you'd do absolutely anything to get there and that is the case eating disorder or not.

I doubt the OP is reading our posts though I sort of hope she does at some point because I worry that her body wont tolerate things the same way as she ages and the mortality rate for eating disorders is the highest for any mental health disorder. And this is all eating disorders not just the well known anorexia.


I don't know if she doesn't care, doesn't realise or is just so fixed on the goal but I hope someone else around her manages to spot the signs because if she is not being managed by her GP she could very easily fall through the cracks here.


I've lost too many people to their eating disorders, they really do kill.