anorexia can t lose weight after recovery

Hi I agree with lots of you. I have beeen anorexic for 25 years and have kinda been in recovery for a year.. My weight is up and I am not happy.. I am a fitness instructor and work out 3 hours 6 days a week. I am slipping back into my old habbits.. The thing is the weight is not coming off and I am starting to really freak out.. ED thoughts are back strong and I am struggling more so than ever.. Just don't understand why the weight is not coming off.. Trying to eat consistantly, and healthy, but still very restrictive...

"confused"

I'm actually tearing up as I read this. Especially the part that you would rather be around new people than people who saw you at your thinnest. I don't think the eating disorder ever goes away. I exercise 2 - 3 times a day. I'm a "healthy" weight of 137 - at 5'8.....However when I go to try things on and they don't fit...I get pissed and aggravated at myself. Sometimes I really do wish myself anorexic again......I have a medium/large frame and it just seems that things don't fit me right. Pants are always too short and I swear if my hips weren't so big - it wouldn't be a problem. I remember all the attention I got when I was extremely thin. Guys would compliment me all the time - although my family was really worried. My thinnest was about 100 lbs....that's really small for my height and frame. At times I'm proud of my muscles, but then when it's time for clothes! I feel sick. What's worse? My best friend struggles with anorexia...and although she is beautiful she truly looks horrible......... She has a beautiful face, but her body is kind of scary....However, guys don't understand that it's not healthy and that she's sick...so when we go out I feel like the big fat friend........sometimes I just felt like I was so much happier then. I was scared into changing my ways when I lost my period for a year and the doctors said I could be destroying my chances of ever having kids. I hope everyone one here has the power to stay strong and healthy.

So, I suddenly came to the realization after struggling with my weight since I was in 9th grade, constantly trying to be thinner, that i was anorexic. As of December, I hadn't had my period in almost a year, actually still haven't gotten it back yet. I was so depressed and didn't have a clue why. I kept having severe anxiety and a feeling of wanting to die. Every day I would pray for this overwhelming feeling to go away, but it never did. In 9th through 10th grade, I had dropped from 132 lbs. to 102 lbs, I am 5' 9". At this time, I didn't have my period for a year. I think it was triggered by a chaotic home life. Before going to college, I decided I wanted to lose 10 lbs. then it was 15 lbs, before I knew it, I had dropped from a healthy 136 lbs to 103 lbs. I cared about nothing, and I didn't know why. I just wanted to have my mind back! My mom is an obsessive dieter and exerciser and has talked about how she hates the way she looks her whole life, I think this set up the girls in my family for a lifetime of pain. 5 out of 6 girls in my family have all suffered from moderate to severe anorexia, yet I couldn't put 2 and 2 together. My one sister had even gotten so bad she had both anorexia and bulemia, weighed 70 lbs and had ulcers in her throat and was told she was going to die. My mom recalls her lying on the couch and blood coming from her mouth as she slept. Therapy was all that helped her, yet still many girls in my family are too thin in my opinion. I thought I was fine, the ideal weight and my mom would go on about how I was so disciplined to everyone and how I looked so good. But, in all reality, I hated myself. After returning to college from taking a semester off, I just was too depressed, it suddenly donned on me that I was anorexic and that was the reason for my moods and severe depreession. I haven't looked back and am happier and healthier than ever! Weighing 126 lbs I can honestly say I am happy to look the way I do! I love food and my curves! I love the fact that my moods and depression are leaving me! I love who I was before anorexia! and if I could have any wish in the world, it would be that I could turn back the clock and erase that time from my life. Any time I look in the mirror and question am I fat, I just tell myself to stop it and love who you are! Whenever, I call my mom, she asks me, "Did you work out today? Guess how much I weigh? Well you dont want to put on too much weight." and I reply, "Actually i WOULD RATHER BE FAT THAN TOO THIN! and i don't know, Ill see if I have the time..... and that's great you weigh that much? Hey, I gained another pound!!!" It drives her nuts and I love it. I hate my mom, she has caused me so much pain. If she is 55 and still hasn't realized she has a problem (has in the past gone from 175 lbs to 96 lbs) then I feel blessed to have overcome this for good at age 20! I love me now, and anorexia, you can take a hike!

I am having the same problem recovering from bulimia. No matter how healthy I eat, or how much I excercise, I can't keep my weight from climbing. It's really hard to deal with.

Guest wrote:

I am 5' 9" I haven't looked back and am happier and healthier than ever! Weighing 126 lbs I can honestly say I am happy to look the way I do! I love food and my curves! I love the fact that my moods and depression are leaving me!

126 pounds on a 5'9 person is still very underweight.
Just saying....
Most of these people are in the upper limits (or over) of their weight range. You aren't even IN your weight range. When I first started gaining I felt good and was happy. Then I couldn't STOP gaining. Now I'm at the very upper of my weight range and miserable. I won't go out. Nothing fits. I cry all the time. I'd rather be anorexic and miserable than fat and miserable. Unfortunately, my body did what I was most afraid it would do and now the things that USED to work dont work anymore. So I'm stuck.

I have looked and looked for some literature to explain what we are all going through, (what a relief to know it's not just me!) But I can't find anything that relates to people who have been at a 'healthy' weight for some time after being a very low weight for many years, only research examining metabolic changes in the refeeding stage.
I don't want to live with anorexia/anorexic thoughts forever, my life is 100% better without it, and I don't even want to be super skinny, but I am sure a lot of you will understand that this lack of ability to tone up/get rid of that belly/upper arm flab that seemed to come from nowhere and seems to stubbornly remain is the one thing that keeps that bastard inner voice going at you all day everyday. Is there anybody out there who knows how long after recovery your body is likely to take before it starts acting like everybody elses? There must be some research out there?? I hope there will be a time when the healthy lifestyle I live now will be reflected in my body?
It is an important area of research because people that have worked really hard to gain control over their disorder are more likely to continue to be taunted by it, and are likely to relapse if they don't have some reassurance that their bodies will get back to normal someday soon.
Anybody???

i am still in the battle & i am having a difficult time with all of this weight gain so i went back to my DR. & asked him to up my Adderall so he did it went from 90mg to 120mg & i still cant lose any weight & i dont want to go back to restricting i need help

I spent 3 years of my life with anorexia and it was the best 3 years of my life, even to this day I want to go back to it. Before I was anorexic I was about 150lbs and 5'7, at the height of anorexia I was 103lbs and I stayed consistant with that weight( I even remember getting a new drivers license and lying and said I weighed 115 and not 103). I got into recovery because of family and started gaining weight, after a year I had gained about 60 lbs and it was the worst time of my life. But the weird thing was that people who saw me eat were still amazed because I ate like a bird, little things here and there and nothing ever fried, no carbs, no sugars. On top of that it was the first time I ever joined a gym because I felt desperate, everything I used to do by restricting was not working. I went to my family doctor and he told me it's your body's way of fighting you and not wanting to go back to the old lifestyle, your body will take anything you eat and turn it into fat....It was the most devistating thing to hear in my life, on top of that he said it would take about 1 year for the body to mellow out and start realizing that you are not restricting anymore.
It's been a year and a half since the doctor told me that news and I've lost some, but now everyone says I just look normal, like nothing is wrong. I'm in a size 6, I am tempted to buy a scale but I think I would never get off of it. Not a day goes by and I don't think how everything used to be, and most days I would give anything to go back to the old lifestyle....

Hi,
I am currently recovering from anorexia nervosa for about 5-6months now. It may sound strange but I'm an 18 year old male in college and at the moment it can be quite difficult. I'm sure al of you have went through the family argument still this day over food-"your not eating enough" etc.....Its just so demoralizing at times when you hear your parent s saying your going back 2 your old ways when you know your not. I also suffer with anxiety and some panic attacks after the last few months.

Exercise was a big part of my life in those horrid couple of weight loss months. I'm at my maintenance now but I have begun to exerise with team sports now rather than on my own which is safer. It is usually 2-3 nights a week for 1hr sessions,is that too much??Yes my eating can be tight at times but I know that half of my phase is gone I just need that other half to be gone aswell to live my life properly again.Could anyone who has gone through this give me some tips to what they done or are doing to kill off this monster??

Much apprecitated:)