Eating Disorders are not a fun topic to discuss. I have had one and found it pertinent to discuss for any women(or possibly men) who are out there and may have questions. I suffered from overexercise behaviors as well as anorexia. At my worst I weighed about 98-100 lbs and I am 5'7" tall.
If anyone would like more info about my experiences and how I overcame, please feel free to ask and I will be happy to answer in detail. :)
I know that bodybuilding has much to do with control...controlling your workouts, your diet, the way you look etc. Like it or not...if you are into bodybuilding, chances are you are a little anal and controlling.Sometimes its easy to get caught up in all this and to forget that there is a time when these behaviors become dangerous and obsessive.
Below is some info from Muscle and Fitness Hers.com that I found to be helpful and informative.
http://www.muscleandfitnesshers.com/mindbody/7
----A friend of mine likens the pressure women feel to be thin and attractive to the pressure men feel to be financially successful. Even so, you're unlikely to hear men griping about their inflated debts or depleted bank accounts in the locker room. In the locker room of my gym, however, we often trade complaints about the cheesecake we ate the night before, the dimples in our thighs, the bread we're going to abstain from today, and the general disdain we hold for select bodyparts.
Yet ask these women if they have an eating disorder, and their likely response will be no. To most of us, an eating disorder means either sticking your finger down your throat or wasting away to skin and bones. But if you stop and think about it, you'll realize that these conditions are gradual and progressive - you don't just wake up one morning an anorexic or bulimic. Yet many "normal" women who diet, restrict, binge and/or overexercise may actually suffer from what's called a subclinical eating disorder (SED). This condition can lead to serious consequences, including nutritional deficiency, lowered metabolic rate, decreased exercise performance, osteoporosis and the development of full-blown clinical eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia - especially in athletic women.
If you strictly monitor your calories; frequently use diet pills, laxatives or diuretics; continually think about food; use exercise to compensate for excess calories; or continually find yourself "blowing" your nutrition plan or diet, you may have some degree of disordered eating (DE), a generic term for a subclinical eating disorder. Some experts think that up to 80% of American women are disordered eaters, usually as a result of years of calorie-counting, fear of weight gain and constant exposure to unrealistic body images in the media. Sound familiar? Then read on to discover how to increase your own awareness and strive to develop positive eating behaviors.
A friend of mine likens the pressure women feel to be thin and attractive to the pressure men feel to be financially successful. Even so, you're unlikely to hear men griping about their inflated debts or depleted bank accounts in the locker room. In the locker room of my gym, however, we often trade complaints about the cheesecake we ate the night before, the dimples in our thighs, the bread we're going to abstain from today, and the general disdain we hold for select bodyparts.
Yet ask these women if they have an eating disorder, and their likely response will be no. To most of us, an eating disorder means either sticking your finger down your throat or wasting away to skin and bones. But if you stop and think about it, you'll realize that these conditions are gradual and progressive - you don't just wake up one morning an anorexic or bulimic. Yet many "normal" women who diet, restrict, binge and/or overexercise may actually suffer from what's called a subclinical eating disorder (SED). This condition can lead to serious consequences, including nutritional deficiency, lowered metabolic rate, decreased exercise performance, osteoporosis and the development of full-blown clinical eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia - especially in athletic women.
If you strictly monitor your calories; frequently use diet pills, laxatives or diuretics; continually think about food; use exercise to compensate for excess calories; or continually find yourself "blowing" your nutrition plan or diet, you may have some degree of disordered eating (DE), a generic term for a subclinical eating disorder. Some experts think that up to 80% of American women are disordered eaters, usually as a result of years of calorie-counting, fear of weight gain and constant exposure to unrealistic body images in the media. Sound familiar? Then read on to discover how to increase your own awareness and strive to develop positive eating behaviors.
Diagnosing DE
The clinical eating disorders anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder (BED) are diagnosable according to criteria in the American Psychiatric Association's 1994 version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. That year's version also included a new category, "eating disorder not otherwise specified," thus validating the existence of SEDs that aren't as severe as anorexia or bulimia. Eating-disorder professionals and nutritionists often use the general term "disordered eating" to describe people with troublesome eating behaviors like bingeing, restrictive dieting and/or purging.
Ruth Carey, a nutritionist based in Portland, Oregon, explains that disordered eaters often succumb to the following cycle as a result of continual restriction: deprivation g overeating g guilt g deprivation. In addition to recognizing such a pattern, Debra Waterhouse, MPH, RD, author of Like Mother, Like Daughter (Hyperion, 1997), explains that you can
determine if you may be a disordered eater by evaluating whether you:
Fear gaining weight
Always think about your weight
Continually think about whether you will eat certain foods
Use diet pills, diuretics or laxatives
Compensate for consuming extra calories by exercising excessively, vomiting, fasting or skipping meals.
Of course, a simple concern with weight doesn't automatically equal an SED. The frequency and intensity of certain behaviors can help determine where you fall on the continuum of eating behavior:
Normal ----------------------subclinical eating disorders---------------------clinical eating disorders
Anorexia and bulimia are often considered the extreme end of a continuum of eating behaviors. Unfortunately, we often perceive that an individual has issues with food only if she's hospitalized for anorexia or continually alternating between bingeing and vomiting. On the contrary, disordered eating comes in many shades and can often last throughout a person's lifetime, even affecting the daughters of mothers who are disordered eaters.
You might think that as a reader of M&F HERS, you don't fit the profile of DE, since you're active and fit. Yet athletic women are considered a risk group for DE, as are young women in general, college students, sorority members, models, dancers and even pre-pubescent girls. We also know from reader mail that many of you are concerned with your weight and some even resort to drastic measures to reach a certain number on the scale. 2000 Fitness International champion Kelly Ryan had bulimia years ago, as did U.S. Olympic gold-medal swimmer Dara Torres; both testify to the prevalence of DE in women they encounter. For all these reasons, DE is a topic we decided to explore further, if only to increase your awareness of the condition and discuss possibilities for change.
How DE Begins
What causes or predicts disordered eating? Probably a variety of factors, but following are a few plausible causes:
Pressure to be thin
Negative body image/body dissatisfaction
Low self-esteem
Media images of stick-thin women
Your mother's own weight issues
Dieting
Frequent weight fluctuations
Stressful, traumatic events.
Diets, in particular, teach us to restrict food and to associate being "good" with deprivation of food. Carey recounts hearing "I had a bad week" from many of her clients. "When someone tells me they've had a bad week, I think they're going to tell me about something that happened at work, with their children or a stressful event, but no - they're saying they were bad because they went out to eat three times and didn't follow their diet," she says.
In the context of this article, a diet is a regimen of reduced food intake designed to achieve weight loss or maintenance, in contrast to a healthy eating plan you might follow to fuel your body properly. Chronic dieters commonly lower their metabolic rate by forcing their bodies to adapt to a low-calorie intake. Diets can also lead to binges, resulting from hunger and feelings of deprivation. Finally, following a diet with a prescribed amount of calories and a set list of "approved" foods teaches you to eat according to external cues rather than internal cues of cravings, hunger and satiation (which is preferable, though a difficult state to re-attain).
Media images can also play a major role in DE, as supported by a 1999 study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, in which researchers gave a group of women tests measuring mood states and disordered eating. About half the subjects were then shown slides of female fashion models, while the other half were shown slides that didn't have any human figures. After the entire group took the mood states and DE tests a second time, researchers found that the women who viewed the fashion models were more depressed and angry. One mechanism for countering media pressures could be to avoid television shows, films and magazines spotlighting stick-thin bony women, or to simply monitor your reactions to these images.
We aren't suggesting you gain 30 pounds and become a couch potato. Nothing is wrong with looking your best! The problem occurs when you're striving for a simply unrealistic (and sometimes impossible) physique, when your self-esteem is completely tied up with an arbitrary number on the scale, or when you resort to unhealthy diet or exercise behaviors.
The Damage DE Does
It isn't easy to change disordered eating behaviors, especially when combined with a distorted body image and/or low self-esteem. But you do need to know that serious health consequences can result from disordered eating behaviors, including the following:
Low intake of calcium and other vitamins and minerals due to inadequate calorie consumption
Lowered metabolic rate due to persistent dieting
Decreased bone density due to inadequate micronutrient intake
Menstrual dysfunction (especially when a low-energy diet is combined with a severe exercise regimen)
Osteoporosis due to exercise-induced amenorrhea
Injury due to excessive exercise (overtraining)
Development of clinical eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia or BED).
Fit Without Restriction?
Can you reach your goals without dieting? Absolutely. "It includes really listening to the body's natural hunger and eating a healthy diet most of the time, but also listening to the body in terms of what it's craving and what will satisfy it," notes Carey.
In her book The Athletic Woman's Survival Guide, author Carol Otis, MD, recommends setting an optimum weight range that you can actually attain without resorting to extreme measures. Of course, this also means accepting that you may not be meant to weigh 110 and have 15% bodyfat, for example. Then, aim to allow weight loss of no more than one-half to 1 pound per week. It's also important to avoid weighing yourself more than once a week (if at all), to avoid being discouraged by normal daily fluctuations.
Remember that a diet that's overly restrictive, eliminates entire food groups or recommends eating fewer than 1,200 calories per day is bad news. A healthy eating plan can allow gradual, sustained weight loss and support your body's needs with nutrient-dense foods and appropriate caloric allowances to fuel your active lifestyle.
What is instinctive eating?
Waterhouse uses the term "instinctive eater" to describe someone with positive eating behaviors that aren't damaging to her health. She estimates that only 20% of women are truly instinctive eaters. According to Waterhouse, while a disordered eater tends to experience weight fluctuations and denies herself the pleasure food can provide, an instinctive eater is just the opposite. Her weight is stable and she enjoys the food she eats. Her focus is not her appearance but how she feels about her body and her sense of self. Therefore, she allows herself to eat when she's hungry and according to her body's nutritional needs and cravings.
Eating instinctively is easier said than done, and depending on where you lie on the eating-behavior continuum, you might need assistance from a registered dietitian or a counselor familiar with DE. On the other hand, some women may benefit from reading books and articles like this, as well as becoming aware of their attitudes toward food, body image and exercise.
Purging through sweat
Vomiting isn't the only way a bulimic or disordered eater can purge calories. Excessive exercise is a method of purging that can result in overtraining, injury and contribute to low self-esteem and depression. "To qualify as excessive, exercise must be done compulsively, purely to burn extra calories and undo the effects of overeating or bingeing," explains Otis. "The extra exercise isn't done for fun or fitness or training, but solely with the goal of burning calories."
If you're exercising intensely seven days a week, remember that your body needs time off to recover and repair itself. Consult one of the referral agencies we list at the end of this article if you'd like help with excessive exercise behaviors.
How to change
Becoming an instinctive eater and improving your body image and self-esteem is a gradual process that won't happen overnight. We've included the following suggestions to start you on your way, but consult one of the referral organizations we list if you'd like further assistance and information.
Know that a number on the scale doesn't measure your self-worth.
Remember that willpower has nothing to do with instinctive eating. Doctors don't ask you to "will" your cholesterol levels down; neither should you "will" yourself to ignore your body's natural hunger signals.
If you find yourself overeating or eating for emotional reasons, it probably isn't because you're too "weak" or have too little willpower. To explore a variety of motivating factors in eating for reasons other than physical hunger, read the excellent book Intuitive Eating (St. Martins, 1996) by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch.
Realize that you probably won't become an instinctive eater overnight. You're overcoming a lifetime of learned behavior.
Abandon the theory that your growling stomach is a great sign of weight loss.
Realize that your daily calorie needs will fluctuate depending upon your activities.
Examine why you value thinness (if you do).
If you often find yourself eating for emotional reasons, try keeping a journal of how you feel after you eat, to become aware of how your mood influences your eating habits.
Carey recommends thinking of a two-fold model of healthy eating. The first list consists of healthy foods; the second list is what satisfies you and what you're craving. "When you add those two together, it equals a healthy diet," she says. "What a dieter often does is think she has to just stay in that healthy list and ignore the cravings and satiety, so she ends up restricting."
Watch out for consistent urges to go to the gym for a major cardio session after overeating the night before.
Choose television shows, films and magazines that portray healthier images of women, rather than stick figures flaunting their ribs and hipbones.
If you have a daughter, be aware that she'll learn dieting behaviors from you. "A mother who diets 10 times a year is likely to raise a daughter who diets more than 10 times a year," states Waterhouse.
Stopping the cycle
The mentality of dieting, deprivation and guilt has probably been ingrained in you from an early age. Even my 12-year-old cousin has recently begun calling herself fat and watching what she eats. Sadly, most girls begin adopting the diet mentality even younger: "By age 10, more than half [of young girls] voice their fear of becoming fat," explains Waterhouse. By age 20, 95% of women express a strong desire to lose weight. Stopping your own cycle of restriction and guilt can not only improve your physical and emotional health but allow you to be a role model to generations of girls being exposed to the influences of disordered eating.
Eating Disorder Referrals
The following organizations offer extensive information and assistance with disordered eating, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder.
Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center
858-792-7463;
www.edreferral.com
Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention (EDAP)
206-382-3587;
www.edap.com
National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders (ANAD)
847-831-3488;
www.anad.com
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health
www.4woman.gov
River Centre Clinic
419-885-880;
www.river-centre.org
The Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders
www.somethingfishy.org
