Losing weight when your matabolism slows down and body dysmorphia

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is also referred to as 'imagined ugliness." I have that. I have that, but for me it does not feel imagined. Each time I pass my hallway mirror I lift my shirt in order to check in on my huge belly; for the most part it's so big it deserves its own zip code, but pulling my shirt down over my belly makes me look like I have two children awkwardly draped around my stomach and my hips.

I weigh as much as my husband Vaughn, and I have been wearing all of his clothes in order to try to hide. I keep thinking that I used to wear a size 0! A size 0 and man did that feel wonderful. 

But I can't hide my face. My face is gaining weight! And that seemed to happen over night. One day I had cheekbones and then the next day my cheekbones were submerged. I look like I've contracted 'swollen face cancer' or something.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) defines body dysmorphia as having the following components:

"A. Preoccupation with an imagined defect in appearance.

B. Preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" http://allpsych.com/disorders/dsm.html

And according to Wikipedia nearly 36% of people living with body dysmorphia disorder will also develop agoraphobia--fear of leaving one's house--I have that too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder

On the few occasions when I do go outside, I look like I'm wearing Vaughn's entire wardrobe; I would love a cloaking device. I believed that my camoflage was fooling everyone until one day when I forced myself to go grocery shopping with Vaughn. For the most part we go to our local Railey's. We know most of the checkers there; in any case, the night that we went shopping,we checked out with one of our favorite checkers. So we're talking about all the trivial things we can think of, and then suddenly the checker leans close to me and she says "I don't want you to take this the wrong way..." "Oh shit", I'm thinking. Before I can stop her to tell her that I WILL take this the wrong way, she says "I've noticed that you've gained some weight". Shit shit shit shitty shit SHIIIIIIT! My disguise isn't working. I just roll my eyes as a response, and she continues with, "when you were so thin we were worried, but now you look so healthy." Oh joy...

Healthy! Oh that's exactly the way I want to be described as--healthy--healthy? That's a word that describes horses, elephants, dogs, pigs. Someone with a healthy appitite--something that I don't want.

I want no appitite; every morning I vow to not over-eat, and I try to balance that feeling with what my registered dietician said--the only way to get your metabolism going is to eat. So I eat;But  I'm really a night eater; I can go the whole day without eating, and then once I've eaten dinner (which I try to do by 7:00pm), I start 'snacking'. I usually eat granola, oh and not the 3/4 cup serving--I can inhale 3/4's of a cup of granola, so my serving is like 2 cups--now that's a snack eh. Or I eat Gluten Free crackers again without heeding the 'serving size', which is 8 crackers, or 4 servings per container; instead I eat all 4 servings, and all the while I can feel my dormant metabolism remain dormant. Crap.

When I'm an active practicing anorexic I feel the small amounts of food simply disappear as soon as I've eaten. For example, during one of my anorexic phases I would eat only a bite of dinner, no breakfast the next morning, and then I would run for 2 hours in the state park by our house; once my run was over I would do 30 minutes of weights, shower, and then eat a small apple; it was almost orgasmic; I could feel my body absorbing the entire apple within seconds. That always seemed to be the correct way to eat, and that's one of the things that pisses me off so much about recovering from anorexia; it would be so much easier if anorexia were like alcoholism, or drug addiction. If you're an alcoholic or drug addict to recover all you have to do is stop drinking or drugging, but with anorexia you have to find away to balance eating with non-eating.. That's so tough to do.

Some of the eating disorder treatment programs actually have you bring your dinner to the group meeting so that you can eat in front of others (another problem anorexics face). The other elements covered are where and how to eat. For example, I hate sitting at a table so instead, I eat while standing over the kitchen sink.  I hate being full, and I love being hungry. When I'm a practicing anorexic, my mantra is 'stay hungry'. Staying anorexic, staying hungry feels so good; I feel the heat of my metabolism burning away every ounce of fat on my body and after the fat is gone, my body goes after my muscles (lean meat), and I can work out much better because there's no fat to get in my way. When I'm anorexic I workout for at least 3 hours a day--for the first 90 minutes I do cardio and the during the second 90 minutes I lift weights and work on my abs. I feel euphoric. :-(

My registered dietician explained that the feelings I have when anorexic are the same reactions that people have when they are starving; you can't sleep b/c you have so much energy, you feel like you're outside of your body, and you finally feel as though you have control of everything.

My dietician recommended that I read the book The Great Starvation Experiment by Tod Tucker. "Near the end of WWII, 36 conscientious objectors volunteered to be systamatically starved for renowned scientist Ancel Keys' study at the University of Minnesota..."

The majority of the men involved developed the same crazy euphoric feeling for a good part of the experiment until they hit the actual starvation bell; that's when they all started to fall apart; that's what anorexia does...it lures us in and just as we have perfected anorexia, our bodies take control and begin getting fatter and fatter. Belowis a link to the book.

http://www.amazon.com

But now, as fat as I am, working out is so painful; I feel like I have two teenagers riding on my shoulders, my joints hurt, my stomach hurts because as I jump or run it flops up and down--my stomach's mantra "Fat fat fatty fat fat".

I came across a quiz that helps confirm whether or not you have body dysmorphia. You can find this quiz at

http://www.pamguide.com.au/anxiety/bdd_test.php

Body dysmorphia is not just a women's disorder; however in men the disorder is often referred to as muscle dysmorphia.

I believe that I would never have  'come out' as a fat person if Carrie Fisher hadn't come out first; Carrie Fisher's 'coming out' commercial provided me with the courage I needed to 'come out' as an anorexic fat person.

And YaY! Carrie and her mother Debbie Reynolds will be on Oprah today; I'm looking forward to hearing Carrie talk about her anorexia and weight gain.

http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/Living-Legend-Debbie-Reynolds-and-Her-Daughter-Icon-Carrie-Fisher

Below are a number of web sites with much more information. Tomorrow's posting will discuss in part the role the media play in supporting anorexia and body dysmorphia.

http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/bodydysdis.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121529

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/17048/body_dysmorphic_disorder.html

 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/body-dysmorphic-disorder/DS00559

http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/Living-Legend-Debbie-Reynolds-and-Her-Daughter-Icon-Carrie-Fisher