I went through full on starvation anorexia for a few months, and had to confront the issue and change my ways around a year ago. Thankfully I managed to convince myself to eat, and eat enough, and am physically well at this point. However I only came to this point by being very careful and health-conscious in my food choices - I monitor my calories, fat, carb, and protein grams, and even my sodium level with painstaking precision. I also only let myself eat very healthy foods, all whole grains, for example, and very little refined sugar. In short, I've become a control freak about food, because that was how I knew I could feel safe 'recovering,' eating, since this way I couldn't possibly gain too much weight. Much worse, I somehow fell into strange eating patterns, usually eating very little throughout the day and saving most of the food for a few hours before bed.

I am tired of all these neuroses. I no longer fear food or think I am fat; I'd like to avoid gaining weight back or abandoning my healthy food choices, but I want to be free of the strange, unnecessary constraints that have come to control me more than I control them. But I don't know where to begin. In the last several weeks I've managed to get more small meals in during the first half of the day, but that is the only progress I can report. I'm scared to give up balancing the amount of fat and protein and carbohydrates I eat, and I wish someone could give me some magic tip to make it easier......

Any reassurance or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you

You could try introducing a certain food item you have avoided once a week. For example, if you avoided cereal, have a bowl of coco pops or something like that every few days instead of a really healthy one. This way your treating yourself for being so good, but also helping yourself to introduce all the different foods back in your life.
If you do this, hopefully you will be able to introduce many more foods easily and while over a long period of time, you still do it. It won't happen over night. You can always pm me if you need to talk, I'm on quite regularly so I will see and reply!!

Best of luck to you, I'll be thinking of you xxxx

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He is my reason for waking up in the morning, my reason for smiling,
living and loving.

My sister and I check food labels on everything we eat.  We don't bother counting calories, but we acknowledge them.  If we want a food, and realize that it has a high fat count, then we won't buy it.  This way, we don't ~have~ the option of high fat foods in the house.  This eliminates the need of being overly precise, don't you think?  Because by knowing what kinds of food you keep in your refrigerator, you already know that you have a healthy choice to choose from.

This being said, you should definitely try and spread your meals out per day.  If you have trouble eating large meals in the earlier hours, then try at least snacking... maybe celery sticks, carrots, fruits, a low fat yogurt, etc.

And just work on it slowly... it may be hard to completely eliminate the need to count calories, but you need to start somewhere.  You're ready for the change, right?  That's the biggest step of all.  From here, you just need the time and patience to help yourself work to a healthier state of mind :).

Perhaps... you may want to take a nutrition course as well, if ou ever get the opportunity.  Sometimes these courses can offer you some more knowledge on food, so you can understand better what would make a healthier diet, isntead of having to count your calories to be precise.  This is just a suggestion... but my sister has taken several nutrition classes, and has offered me some good advice at looking at nutrition labels, and what kinds of foods you can buy that might be a healthier alternative :).

And maybe instead of focusing on calorie count, you can start by focusing more on food groups.  Trying to make sure you get proper servings of different things might be a good way to keep a balanced diet without having to be so precise about it.  It's just a suggestion, but it's worth a try.

And!  Exercise!  I don't know if you exercise now, but one thing that I find amazing about exercise?  Is that after I do it, I feel ~great~ about myself.  It really helps boost your confidence, and if you do exercise, then ultimately, you'll have more room to go a little over your regular calorie count, right?  So just go out and walk or jog... maybe go biking, some kind of aerobic workout... Anything really :).  You may that it can really help you out in the long run of things :).

Good luck, alright!

Oh!!  And something I wanted to mention.  I just think that it's ~great~ that you were able to overcome the anorexia.  Instead of stopping yoru food intake, you took the extra time to watch it instead.  I just think that it's a ~much~ healthier alternative than anorexia, and I'd just like to say congratulations on having the will power to do that :).  If you were able to overcome anorexia, then I'm sure that you can overcome this as well!  Good luck :).