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Not Thin Enough

Hi, my name on your site is not*thin*enough...this is how I've always seen myself, even at my lowest weight of 99 pounds. I can't speak for your friend, but I will share my story. I'm thirty years old now, but I've felt "fat" since I was either four or five. I'm not sure how or why it happened, my earliest memory of it all was looking down at my tummy and saying "I'm fat" and feeling disgusted with myself. In kindergarten I refused to eat lunch and remember many evenings refusing to eat dinner. My parents put me in therapy at this tender age, but I didn't understand any of it; well, obviously, it didn't work. I was always very active as a child, loved swimming and running. I guess I was a relatively normal child until I hit puberty at age fourteen and began getting curves and gaining weight. I joined the track team at school and felt I had to do something about my body, I wanted to be skinny again.
 
A friend of mine told me about how she heard of some girls on the track team using laxatives and throwing up to stay slim. Well, I tried throwing up and wasn't ever good at it (even with epecac) and found laxatives to be easier for me. I began restricting what I ate, became a vegetarian, and used laxatives to purge. This lead to a rapid weight loss and I felt that I ran faster, looked better, but I was sad because this took over my life...I had to be perfect no matter what. I put my friends aside a lot to stay home to run and purge. I later turned to drugs and alcohol. When I felt my life spiraled out of control I joined the army reserves so that boot camp would kick my butt into high gear. It did and I felt better, more in control, stopped drugs/alcohol/smoking, and was at my physical peak. But in AIT, with the stress and the weekend freedom, I began my weird eating habits and purging again...that followed me through until I got pregnant with my son...but the thoughts never left my head.
 
After I had my beautiful, healthy boy I went back and got skinny again. I'm a great mom and stay healthy for him, but I run at least 4.5 miles per day (during my lunch breaks at work and when my son is with his dad). I also swim an hour a couple days per week, wake up early to do my workout dvd's before beginning each day, and run around with my son and our dog most days. I'm still a vegetarian and cook healthy meals and ensure my son has confidence in himself and he knows the importance of physical activity and healthy eating to be strong. I do try to hide my behaviors from him. I use laxative tea almost on a daily basis and drink Metamucil with juice to fill up my tummy. If I don't exercise I feel very depressed, fat, bloated, sluggish.
 
Over the past five years I've had my gallbladder removed and surgery on one of my knees; I don't know for sure if the gallbladder malfunction was something I did to myself, but it's obvious that my torn knee cartilage was from overexercising. I'm still not thin enough, actually I've gained quite a lot over the past year or so and am trying so hard to lose it again. Anyway, for me, I began overexercising because I wanted to burn calories and still do it for that purpose, also because it's like a drug, I'm addicted. Is your friend into community races? Does she have a goal of someday running a marathon? If not, if it's just an addiction on its own, nothing about being healthy, an obsession, than maybe your friend has eating issues too or maybe she's on the brink of it.
 
I now run community races and hope to be able to run a marathon someday, but that was not why I began running and that is not my main focus. If she ran track in school and was pressured a lot to be lean and fast, that could have led to disordered thinking. If she played any sport that focused on a tiny muscular body (swimming and/or gymnastics for example), those could have led to it. It could go either way, depending on circumstances.
 
Ok, I just poured a big load on you! lol  I hope this helps to answer your question.  I also hope your friend is healthy.
 
Thank you so much for your site, I'm fairly new and have made a lot of friends there. It's great to talk to people who understand!

Fitness, my body, and what I want to be

So I'm just a recently joined member and first of all want to thank you for your site!  I finally feel like I have found a place for real thinspo ( I have tons of fashion mag subscriptions, but found them to just be more depressing, as the modeling I did was fitness and commercial and I would never ever look like these women.  Alas, will never be tall!) and also that it's a place I can get real advice, not the condescending "you're not fat" or "you're skinny, let's go eat". 

That aside, I totally have the issue of "having" to work out.  My whole life, while mostly sitting at an average weight, I have been occasionally plagued with fat periods which I have been able to fend against with running.  However, excessive exercise makes me want to burn even more calories and eat less, so that I don't "undo" my workout.  It also doesn't help that when I ran in college, I was surrounded by waif long distant runners, and as I ran 400 hurdles, I had to do a lot of sprints and weight lifting that made me go up two jean sizes.  Even though I had hellacious (spelling?) workouts, I ate less because I didn't want to keep gaining the bulk muscle I had forced on me by coaches. 

So sorry for the blathering on of this email, but to answer your recent post with less tl;dr, I DO feel like I can't eat unless I know that I'm going to work out and I swear the days I don't hit the pavement or the gym my pants are instantly tighter. Stupid, yes, but I feel like I'm going to turn back into the sad sack fat girl I was for a year (three months ago I was rocking 153 at 5'3") and it terrifies me.ages, and other content

 


 

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