Valuable information from Gwyneth at Eatiopia that is deleted and displaced with Edinstitute.org

One third of the population has the gene to develop a restrictive eating disorder.

Obesity is not a disease. It is a reference to having more than average amounts of adipose (fat) tissue. Therefore the phrase "dangerously obese" or "morbidly obese" makes for great popular media headlines, but it is not a medical reality at all.
Fat tissue is not a storage unit. It is a critical hormone-producing organ. In fact only about 5% of the population has what has been nicknamed the "thrifty gene".
Under stress one-third of the population is hypophagic (eats less food) and the remaining two-thirds are hyperphagic (eats more food). But food consumption is not correlated to weight at all.
One-third of the population is estimated to carry the genetic predisposition to develop a restrictive eating disorder. The most common trigger for activating the condition is dieting.

Anyone can be naturally, completely healthy at BMI 41 if that is their natural weight set point.
People do not keep gaining. No one keeps gaining and gaining. Even those with the so-called thrifty gene who tend to end up right at the far right of the weight bell curve (BMI 40+) maintain a stable weight assuming they do not diet or restrict.

Is it possible to become heavier than your body's optimal weight set point? Yes. The most common way to do so is cyclical dieting. Sleep deprivation messes with hormone levels and rhythms to cause the adipose tissue to demand more energy thereby increasing weight. Some drugs have similar impacts on adipose tissue as well.
And because those with restrictive eating disorders instantly pounce all over the concept -- "But I've been dieting, does that mean I will end up heavier than I am supposed to be?" No. Cyclical dieting is a distinct behaviour that is not related to all the forms of restriction you practice on the REDS.
I'm going to quote all the material that missrising was kind enough to add into another thread:
Mehler's et al 2010 "Eating Disorders: A Guide to Medical Care and Complications. Mehler is an MD who works at Denver acute eating disorders unit.
Weight, like height, is a bell- shaped curve, and someone has to hold down the upper standard deviation from the average, although few women accept this fact.
70% of all women naturally fall between BMI 21-27. And no, women are not "overweight" at BMI 25-27.
These are all complicated concepts to synthesize in a post -- that is why the Fat series on the blog is as long as it is -- there is actually a lot of clinical data and fact that explains these concepts and it takes time to unravel all the common misconceptions we all hold.
There is only one group of individuals for which the act of "gaining and gaining" really occurs. It occurs for a very rare set of individuals born with serious genetic mutations whereby all the checks and balances of hormonal interplay to define hunger and satiation are shot. These individuals are also often mentally and physically damaged as well. One of the few genotypes within this class is Prader-Willi syndrome. There are a few others. The number of individuals afflicted with these conditions is infinitesimal and if you can read and understand most of these sentences, then you are not among them.
G.

July 25, 2012

However, the body in recovery does initially restore fat tissue first and foremost around the mid-section. It does this for survival reasons to insulate your vital organs so that you are at less risk of dying from hypothermia were you to starve again. The fat stores redistribute evenly around your body beginning near the end of your recovery process and sometimes taking up to a year beyond reaching your optimal weight set point. Assuming you are continuing to eat recovery guideline amounts (3000+ a day under the age of 25) then you will stop gaining weight as soon as your body hits its optimal weight set point. That is when the re-distribution of fat stores begins.
Unless you are over the age of 25 any previous weight you have had is irrelevant because there is so much skeletal restructuring that happens between the age of 16-25 that we cannot remain at an earlier BMI because the shape of our bodies change such that we need more flesh to cover it proportionately.
G.
22 march, 2012

Found on Youreatopia.com:http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2012/11/23/phases-of-recovery-from-a-restrictive-eating-disorder.html

Phase I- Edema
Digestive distress is common in this first phase: bloating, gas, pain and abdominal distention, diarrhea or constipation. You can alleviate this a bit by eating smaller amounts more constantly throughout the day. Despite all the physical discomfort of these early days, many experience a tremendous sense of relief and initial joy at eating in an unrestricted way. Carbs, sugars and fat feature prominently in the early phases and protein makes a surge later on. Hopefully, your craving for dietary fat has been strong (an important factor in healing the central, peripheral and enteric nervous systems). However, the restrictive eating disorder will not allow that relief to stand for very long. Soon you will find yourself starting to feel edgy and anxious.

1. Extreme hunger is a normal progression in recovery. It does not last. You do not ‘habituate’ to 6000-10,000 calories a day, but you need that energy during refeeding.
2. No one keeps gaining and gaining.
3. Your body has an optimal weight set point that it can and will defend.
4. Pain is normal. Rest. No weighing or exercise.

PhaseII
The body preferentially lays down fat around the mid-section to insulate vital organs from hypothermia.
For many this tends to be a phase of extreme impatience—following all the guidelines day and day out and yet still wearing floaty and stretchy clothes and feeling like an alien in your own body seems unfair. You may still be restoring weight and that will bother your eating disorder-generated anxiety. Your body may additionally need to temporarily overshoot its optimal weight set point in this process in order to return to a correct fat mass to fat-free mass ratio.

Phase III—bones, muscles, almost there
Assuming you have been purposefully eating to your minimum guidelines and responding to extreme hunger without compensatory restriction up to this phase, then you start to get rewarded for all your hard work. Osteopenia and osteoporosis begin to reverse (the completion of that may take up to 7 years, but it begins to reverse in this phase). The fat deposited around the mid-section is now beginning to be redistributed throughout the body. Fat mass increase disproportionately to fat-free mass in the beginning of recovery, and the fat-free mass play 'catch-up' with the fat mass. so, both fat-free mass and fat mass are proportionally present after a solid recovery effort, that is, eating plenty and resting plenty.
Hair, nails and skin begin to have increased pliability and suppleness. You also start to feel more connected and self-imposed isolation diminishes. You feel less emotional blunting and start to want things for your life. This occurs for many at around the 4-6 month mark, but for others it takes shape between months 8-12.

Many lower intake because they confuse weight restoration with energy balance. I call it "recover, but not too much" and it's driven by sociocultural silliness rather than scientific evidence supported by the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and Andrea Garber's analyses of IP settings.
So keep eating minimum after weight restoration. The extra energy will be used for activity when it is no longer used for healing.

Remission

From youreatopia: http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2013/5/14/remission-accomplished-what-does-it-signify.html 

I use the term “in active recovery” across the site, but what you achieve at the end of a successful recovery process is, hopefully, a full remission. The end state is not a full recovery. No one ever recovers from a restrictive eating disorder. The nature of chronic neurobiological conditions is that they cannot be cured. I have often reiterated the following as well: restrictive eating disorders are either active or in remission. Remission can be permanent, or there can be flares of the condition in times of stress (a relapse).

Signs of remission:
1) You look forward to gatherings and celebrations that center on food. Like all those without an eating disorder, you indulge happily and do not compensate either before or after the event.
2) You have no forbidden foods, unless of course they could actually kill you (think peanut allergy).
3) You are a force for moral absolution. Your relationship with food is a morality-free zone and it has far reaching influence on those around you, not to mention yourself.
4) You experience your body, and every body, as a miracle every day. You marvel at the healing of a bruise. You stop to watch your fingers flying over a keyboard and are amazed. You see form and function and the innate power of the body.
5) You understand on a cellular level that “savoring” is a state of transcendence and transubstantiation. Transforming food into life-giving energy is freaking phenomenal!
6) You feel connected. While many with eating disorders can feel strangely energized and alive in a state of extreme energy depletion, they rarely feel connected in that state. In fact, they feel a high in the disconnection. Connection is actually an ambivalent state and you are able to hold the ambivalence with appreciation. It is not always joyous, supportive or healing to be connected to others. But you are ok with that.

7) You are fluid. (I think she means like fluid, Changable, flexible)

-------
**Here is how you know you are ready to attempt eating to your hunger cues:
Your weight appears stable. (weighing yourself is not necessary to determine that).
If you have dealt with amenorrhea during your restriction, then you have achieved 3 consecutive periods in a row.
You are continuing to eat minimum amounts and it is comfortable to do so.
Other lingering signs of repair seem complete (no longer cold, tired, achy, dealing with water retention, no brittle hair or nails etc.)
You think you may need to start eating to hunger cues and are a bit anxious that you can trust those cues.
Note Item 5—if you are feeling extremely confident about eating to hunger cues then chances are you are a ways away from remission still. Generally, it will take about 6 months beyond the point at which you have stopped gaining weight before you can truly depend upon your hunger cues without benefit of confirming you are eating enough by either counting calories or using a meal plan.
You move from meal plans or counting calories to eating to hunger cues by attempting a 3-day experiment. Eat to your hunger cues but jot down everything you eat. At the end of those three days you should discover that your hunger has taken you to approximately the recovery guidelines you have been following thus far. If so, then you can likely trust your hunger cues and move into your remission with some confidence.**

If you have a couple of the following you haven't recovered:
- Reflections in mirrors/surfaces are 'dysmorphic' eg look disconnected etc.
- Don't feel muscles properly = nerves not repaired yet.
- fidgeting/restlessness/agitation = bodies way of getting you to move to find food.
-tingling
-no expendable energy

If you are six months or more into the recovery process and you’ve found yourself unhappy with having to eat to the minimum intake, then eat to hunger cues for three to five days. Log all the food you eat in those days and at the end of the test phase, add up all the calories and average the intake out to arrive at your daily average.
If the daily average appears within 200 or so calories of the minimum intake guideline for your age/sex and height, then try another five-day test period in the same way. If you see no progressive restriction in your intake, then Huzzah! You are likely in remission.

When body fat is completely recovered and fat free mass recovery is still well below normal, excessive hunger is still evident, but disappears as fat free mass recovery approach to 100%.

Eat a lot in recovery

1) Restriction of food can activate a restrictive eating disorder in those with the genetic predisposition to develop the condition.

2) Over eating cannot activate binge eating disorder because there is not an eating disorder genotype involved at all. Binge eating disorder is not an eating disorder at all, but rather a series of symptoms around food that are actually part of other very serious psychopathologies (mental illnesses such as bipolar, schizophrenia, and personality disorders -- also known as the Axis II disorders). The behaviors show up in childhood along with a host of other behaviors and they have absolutely no relationship to restrictive eating disorders at all.

3) Non-ED people overeat all the time. Constantly. It does not affect their weight or health. The body is optimized to manage an influx of too much energy very readily. The body is far less well designed to handle too little energy intake.

4) As a society we have believed for about 150 years that we must consciously suppress our hunger to optimize our health. The unscientific belief coincided with standardized clothing sizes and industrial production of clothes. It is so ingrained in our cultural norms that similar to the point in history where it became obvious to scientific observers that the earth revolved around the sun, going against the dominant beliefs is a heretical endeavour.

5) True overcompensation of actual energy requirements is incredibly difficult to achieve. To tell someone in recovery that they must be wary of overcompensation is a useless warning that will cause far more harm than good. When a patient has a massive energy deficit they have to compensate for that deficit with massive over eating. They have an energy deficit.

There are people who overcompensate when they are energy balanced for professional reasons: wrestlers do it all the time to "make weight". And it's really hard to overeat constantly and dependably for the purpose of pushing your body above its inherited optimal weight set point. Their regimen involves not just eating more than they want; it involves enforced sleep immediately after a meal to avoid NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) from whisking away the unwanted energy. And unlike those in recovery with a real energy deficit, these individuals never think about food.

So while non-ED people believe they should restrict food intake and avoid overeating at all costs, they don't actually follow through on that belief (thankfully) because the body runs our energy balance system and like all biological systems it is optimized to run over 100% and not under it. Basically non-ED people talk a lot and do not follow through.

The issue for ED people is that they do walk the walk. They take to heart all the cultural claptrap on restriction and the evils of over indulgence. G.

Binging

Bingeing in the true clinical sense only occurs for the tiny group suffering what appear to be rare circadian rhythm and endocrine disorders that result in binge eating disorder or night eating syndrome.
Critically, those with BED are not able to apply any restrictive responses to their overeating. The condition appears in pre-pubescent childhood and usually involves being classified as ‘obese’ by age 11.
I’m going to repeat that:
Binge eating as a clinical disorder involves an inability to apply any restriction.
That means, if you are on the restriction eating disorder spectrum, you are unable to develop BED. Your bingeing experience is an expression of required energy needs in reaction to restrictive eating behaviors. It is why I call this behavior reactive eating and not bingeing.

Will I Become A Binge-Eater?

Does someone who recovers from the restrictive eating disorder, no matter the restrictive facets they experience, develop a binge eating disorder?
The answer is “no”. However, it is important to note that the process of recovery from an energy deficient state most certainly involves a period of extreme hunger and eating. It is a transient condition that disappears once energy balance is restored.
Here are the likely reasons why those who reach a complete remission from a restrictive eating disorder do not develop binge eating disorder:

1. The candidate genes associated with inflammatory obesity, cholesterol, insulin and glucose levels are unrelated to the genes identified thus far for restrictive eating disorders [R Stöger, 2012; AW Drong et al., 2012; CJ Nolan et al., 2011; A. Hinney et al., 1999 and 2000].
2. Patients fully recovered from the restrictive eating disorder rarely reach final restored weights above BMI 25. 2% of the recovered population does go above BMI 25, however ALL return to weights at or below BMI 25 after one full year beyond recovery (with no relapse of restriction involved) [CM Bulik et al., 2006].
3. Leptin resistance is not a factor in either the activation or resolution of a restrictive eating disorder. Yet, leptin resistance is often present in patients with inflammatory obesity. [P. Dandona et al., 2004; JF Caro et al., 1996; S Herpertz et al., 1998 and 2000]

Restriction is the enemy. Be vigilant against restriction and put your trust in your body’s ability to find it’s optimal weight set point if you just give it the energy it is demanding (no matter your current weight).
No one keeps gaining and gaining. We each have an optimal weight set point [RE Keesey et al., 1997; RE Keesey, 1988]. On average 70% of adult females reside between BMI 21-27 [Statistics Canada, 1978] but our heights and weights exist on a bell curve and you are only going to be healthy at your particular optimal weight set point.

Non-ED men and women ‘overeat’ regularly and it is not bingeing in any clinical sense nor does it impact optimal weight stability.
Between the ages of 10-16 it is common for the body to store extra energy in anticipation of physical growth requirements. It is difficult for anyone in our obese-fearing and weight-obsessed culture to not react to these phases of extra weight with immediate restriction. Sadly, for those with the restrictive eating disorder genotype, it is usually this very circumstance that catapults them into years of cycling through restrictions and quasi-recoveries.
Between the ages of 16-25, the body will occasionally store extra energy, but usually it is using the extra energy coming in (through natural overeating sessions) as it happens. However, if a restrictive eating disorder patient hijacked his or her normal development as a child with self-administered starvation and/or excessive exercise, then the recovery process may mimic the energy storage/growth spurt that was supposed to happen but was stalled by the onset of the eating disorder. Give it time and it works itself out.

The answer to getting out of this quasi-recovered state and reaching full recovery is to eat to the recovery guideline amounts (and more) every single day. Responding to any extreme hunger is as critical now as it is all throughout the recovery process.
Despite restrictive eating disorder-based fears that there is no way to eat this much and not become obese when you are already ‘weight restored’, no clinical evidence supports those fears.

Your metabolism will ensure that your body adjusts to its optimal weight set point and the excess energy is necessarily needed to complete the lingering repair and to finally push the metabolism back to its optimal functioning rate. And no, your metabolism is not broken and your brain responds accurately to leptin levels.

As for whether the temporary overshoot is necessary, there is some evidence that it may indeed have value in ensuring the return of an optimal fat-mass to fat-free-mass ratio. In fact, Abdul Dulloo and colleagues re-examined the Minnesota trial data and discovered that the depletion of fat-free mass and fat mass (occurring during starvation) separately trigger hyperphagia (excessive eating) in post-starvation subjects and that the hyperphagia will persist until both fat and fat-free mass are restored [A Dulloo et al., 1997].
We also know from numerous other studies that anorexics often maintain a higher proportion of fat mass post-re-feeding [CI Orphanidou et al., 1997; M Probst et al., 2001; C Mantzoros et al., 1997] and this is likely due to the prevailing attitudes that hyperphagia must be avoided during recovery at all costs as it is considered a marker of “bingeing”. Instead, what these post-recovery data may show is that the prohibition of hyperphagia in recovery from restrictive eating disorders serves to halt the body’s ability to return to an optimal fat mass to fat-free mass ratio.

http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2012/10/31/bingeing-is-not-bingeing.html

also take a look at http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2011/11/3/binge-eating-disorder-and-night-eating-syndrome.html

Bone mineral density

Bone mineral density loss is readily reversed if the patient is premenopausal at the time of remission and has about seven years or so ahead of her before entering menopause. For men who reach and maintain remission prior to the age of 50, they can expect to reverse bone mineral density loss fully as well. Should a woman be menopausal or postmenopausal at the time she reaches remission from an eating disorder, she will halt the progression of the bone mineral density loss (a “won’t get worse” rating). Should a man enter remission after age 50, he too can expect a “won’t get worse” rating for his bone mineral density level. Source:http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2013/9/11/reversal-of-damage-from-restrictive-eating-disorders.html#comment20540372

Exercise

"...folks in remission should not be exercising. Exercise for a workout's sake is not something that those in full remission even want to return to and it is not necessary to do so to be healthy and long-lived either.
However, regular activities are likely safe to resume when the patient is weight stable and symptoms associated with energy deficiency have gone (amenorrhea, tiredness, pain, soreness, flaking skin, acne, brittle nails and hair, etc.). Given that many have the menstrual cycle return long before their bodies have finished repairs and weight restoration, 3 consecutive periods is not a good enough marker. Also, if there are any signs of fatigue, aches, pains, or swelling after an attempt to resume an activity, then the activities need to be put on hold for longer.
And because I learn more as I see outcomes from patients, reintroduction of exercise (a workout) precipitates relapse more commonly than not."

You are far less likely to overshoot by very much if you embrace the minimum guidelines (i.e. don't pussy foot around too long at 2000-2200 calories a day) and then equally embrace massive hunger will ensuring you do not allow the eating disorder to respond with restriction the next day.

A yo-yo dieter can go through a cycle of restriction and then normal eating enough times that she doesn't just have a suppressed metabolic rate, she has broken the complex and sensitive ways in which her body can naturally maintain its optimal weight set point. These individual often present with leptin and insulin resistance (key markers that allow the body to stay at its optimal set point). Conversely, those on the REDS do not develop leptin and insulin resistance and their metabolic rate returns to normal as soon as they recover from restrictive behaviours.
Even then, it appears these individuals can get to a point where the homeostatic ability of their body returns as long as they never restrict calories (never go on a diet again). However, it can take several years.

Lack of sleep, certain drugs and extreme unrelenting stress can mess with the body's ability to maintain its optimal weight set point.

Those with bulimia tend to persist with water retention in recovery much longer than those who do not purge. 

You should eat breakfast then snack right up until lunch and keep snacking until dinner. You do not have to wait 4 hours for anything. If you are hungry, then you eat whatever appeals.

Extreme hunger does not always equate to the body's need to restore weight.
The more you keep suppressing the body's need to get the energy in, the more likely the body will be to store energy in the fat tissue because there is just never enough coming in to rectify the metabolic suppression or deal with lingering repair issues.

A regular menstrual cycle ensures proper bone mineral density. That is why anorexics who lose their regular ovular menstrual cycles start to lose bone density fast and are at risk for severe osteoporosis in later life.

Intracellular edema is not identifiable in the way that intercellular edema is.
Basically, the sloshy, pitting, swollen edema is intercellular in nature.
Intracellular edema is indistinguishable from your own tissue (it resides inside the cells obviously).

Starving is extremely stressful. Cortisol (steroid) is surging through your body and this fires up your immune system beyond its usual level (for a while). Eventually the long-term impacts of higher-than-normal levels of cortisol will move patients in one direction or another: autoimmune illness (body attacking its own cells as though they were foreign), or immunosuppression (getting very sick all the time). When you stop restricting, the entire stress system is told to stand down. So now you’re feeling the pain and you may have a wicked cold along with it as well.

If you began from a weight restored point in your recovery, then it takes about 5-6 months of eating minimum before you consider going to hunger cues. If you were below your optimal weight set point when you began recovery then you need to tick along for about 9 months eating minimum+.

Physiological effects of chronic energy deficiency in the body are as follows: anemia, hypoproliferative bone marrow (failure), leukopenia (low white blood cell counts), decreased thiodothyronine, thyroxine and luteinizing hormone levels (polyendocrine deficiency syndrome), abnormal gastrointestinal motility, atrophy and possible ulceration, constipation/diarrhea, severe liver dysfunction, myofibrillar destruction (damage to heart muscle) and amenorrhea. Also usually present are: low basal metabolic rate, cold intolerance, abnormal calcium metabolism, osteoporosis, serum protein abnormalities (leading to chronic or acute kidney disease), electroencephalographic abnormalities (impaired brain function) and altered skin texture and pigmentation.
Physiological effects of chronic bouts of starvation/reactive eating cycles are as follows: all of the previous list for the most part, although anemia is less likely to be present, and also hypertension, elevated low-density lipoproteins (bad cholesterol levels), artherosclerosis (progressive deposition of fatty deposits on arterial walls, leading to heart disease) and excessive subcutaneous abdominal fat due to long term elevated serum glucocorticoid levels.

None of us wants to be uncomfortable in our own skin, but that is entirely a mindset that is in our control to change. The most attractive human beings in the world are almost always not celebrities or actors, they are those people in a room that everyone is drawn to.
And those people are attractive because they are so interested in others. It's not self-confidence that defines beauty and attractiveness, it's the ability to be more interested in others than self.
In fact, often everyone is really perplexed at why someone who is clearly not the most handsome guy or beautiful girl in the room, by cultural standards, gets all the attention and appreciation from both sexes.

The reason someone with an ED can maintain progressive restriction is that the mood modulation combined with the misidentification of food as a threat (not felt in the conscious mind, but essentially what is happening in the limbic system) jams many of the distressing signals the body sends out to indicate the energy deficit is damaging the system as a whole.

Always fearing the worst. Always prepare long time ahead.

I am prepared for becoming big, almost overweight. I have been on ebay.uk for hours and shopping clothes so huge I am now afraid I will never be able to use them. I must cool down. And look at what Gwyneth says: In clinical studies of anorexics who manage to fully recover from restrictive eating behaviors of all kinds, 2% actually reach weights above BMI 25. (I really want to yell the next sentence for emphasis since I'm already bolding and italicizing here). Of that tiny 2% NONE of them remained above BMI 25 one full year beyond recovery. No relapse and no restriction involved. 

 

Accepting a higher set point weight than what is preferred.

I can only talk for myself, for what helps me accept that my set point weight is higher than I want it to be. Accept doesn't come flying to me. I have pushed myself to try to accept it. The same with getting motivated for recovery. I have to make an effort and seek it.

I remember having a bigger body before getting sick and I was fine with it because I felt good. It was when some tragic events happened I blamed my body and started studying it critically. I couldn't control and stop other peoples cruelty so I identified my body with that cruelty so I could control it (kind of). The body got the blame and it suddenly looked way bigger than it really was and I felt it was all those things the cruel people was. Vulgar, selfish, not to be trusted, pig-like and with uncontrollable desires. My point is the body doesn't deserve the hate and the critical perspective.

There are things we can't control and we have to accept it. And that includes how the body looks. I know you have love for your body hidden somewhere in your mind. You must want it to be found.  It isn't us that should be imprisoned, but those fuckers that fucked us up.

What motivates me and helps me accept recovery is thinking about the positive aspects about it and the negative aspects I experienced when I was restricting that will disappear. Health issues, mood, freedom etc.

I'm finished preparing and are taking the jump tomorrow.

My goal now is body healing and reaching it's set point weight. That means I'm ditching the other plan I had.  Tomorrow I jump up 180 calories to 1700 calories from 1520 this week. After three or so days I'll jump further to 1900 calories, after another 3 days if I'm hungry for more I'll jump to 2100 and after another three days I'll jump to 2300. I'm thinking I may need more time than three days to be hungry for more, but the opposite can happen as well, and my body may be ready to jump after only two days. I will find the best solution for my body, and will not force it to eat like I forced it to starve.

One motivating factor is reading recipes and thinking I can allow myself to eat all that. That gives me joy and a feeling of freedom. I have solved my clothing problem so that is no longer holding me back from jumping to reach my goal, or my body's goal, more precisely. See, I refuse to dress womanly and with curves I see that as a threat to my body image. I like teen boys wear and mens wear. I started dressing with ties and mens jackets when I was 16, and I have never liked much of womens wear. I do like some, though, but it can easily be combined with mens wear.

Only thing I'm not sure about yet is if I am going to follow a meal plan or let my self give in to extreme hunger if that arrives. I have been wondering what the result of giving in to EH compared to not giving into it will be. I haven't found so much info about it. Just that some who doesn't give into it may think they are recovered before they really are. I don't want that of course. I want full recovery and stay there. I am not afraid of EH, because I have experienced it many years ago, but I would prefer avoiding it because I don't think I can afford to buy a huge amount of food at the moment.

So I wonder if it is possible to get a healthy recovery without giving in to it. I would rather eat a few hundred calories more than minimum daily than eating a lot the first days of the month and end up with no money for food at the end of the month. Will I overshoot more if I don't give into it and use very much more time to get well without extreme eating? I do not want to worry about not having enough money for food either. That is stressful.

So untill more money is coming in I think eating according to a meal plan and counting calories to make sure I eat enough will be the best for me. If I get extreme hunger I don't have to count, but I will try to have some control so i don't eat what ever and extreme amounts. I have read about peoples experiences with extreme hunger today. Two said that the extreme hunger disappeared after a few weeks because the body understood it got enough food every day. I find that reasonable. I mean, it's ok and understandable that the body are telling me it is very hungry, but as long as I feed it food for healing purposes it is not restricting when I don't give into it and let my body take over completely. I don't say there is wrong eating according to the extreme hunger, but I think maybe it is okey not to do it as well as long as I give the body above minimum amounts.

I will get more money when a guy moves into the apartment in june, july or august. This person can be a challange for me, and that's ok. This recovery will test our friendship because he likes me skinnier the better and have to watch me eat a lot and be huge. It will certainly be interesting to see if he can be supportive or not.Perhaps he wants to move out or never move in, ha ha. At first I thought I needed to be sure he could support me before I could take the jump into full recovery, but as my motivation increased I don't feel I need his approval. This is my thing, if he likes it or not. I can handle a rejection if it's based on such a superficial thing as body size. 

Many have negative thoughts about their body but they don't develop an E.D.

I had negative thoughts about my body before I developed anorexia. But something bad happened before I was disturbed enough to make the change to be be anorexic. But if I had had someone to talk to about what happened to me I would not have developed anorexia. It was when i thought about the fact that i had noone to support me and talk to about what had happened I had to make a plan to take care of myself and grow up. So I wanted to diet because I had eaten like a child what ever I wanted and become chubby at the age of 16. But a few years later I just wanted to be like a child and not grow up. Not that I wanted anyone else to take care of me in a controlling way, but just to love me, be close. I got better control of my ED when i got a boyfriend that cared about me after having an ED for 5 years and isolated myself. Then i was able to eat regularily, but i was still very controlling and have been that ever since because i want to keep my weight lower than my body want me to.

Now I think I want a man that like me no matter size and that would be happy if I gained to my set point weight, and that found me more sexy the bigger I got. That is the support I need now to be almost fully recovered. 

A combination of restriction and eating intuitively.

A combination of restriction and eating intuitively. Is that the normal, modern and vain woman's eating pattern? Well, so I reduced the calories to 2000 yesterday and will eat a bit less than that today. I have been thinking about two possible plans to follow to keep my weight here at the line between normal and underweight. 1 is to eat the amount i feel like eating ( I hate to be full and I like to starve a bit), sleep the amount I feel like and exercise the amount I feel like (stop forcing a lot in me and risk gaining too much) and hope my weight won't be much higher and try to accept it, or 2 is to make sure i don't gain by controlling my intake. Problem is I don't know how much i should eat at this point to keep my weight. I don't think reducing my intake down to 1500 (that is what the body will use when I don't exercise) is very wise at the moment to stop gaining. I would then lose my period and my health would be worse. (My heart still beats suddenly very hard 1-3 times sometimes) I am afraid that if I reduce it to 1800 I will still gain. I wish i knew. I think i will try a combination of the two and eat 1700 - 1750 calories. With no exercise I might gain, but it would be nice to take the chance and find out that i don't. I mean, if my weight was 45 i would gain for sure. But now that i weigh 10 kilos more it is possible i won't. I can try it and have a bit exercise. Like a daily 30 minute walk and a bit of yoga and very light strength training with elastic bands 2-3 times a week. I am now what those in myeatopia calls quasi-recovery. I have been there before so i know it well. Thing is, a lot of people are that even with no eating disorder. It means they control their body and have no acceptance for a natural weight if that weight is at the higher end of normal BMI so the needs are not entirely satisfied.

I hope my weight distribution will change even though I don't gain to a natural weight. I have lost my belief in the set point theory because I see a lot of people who eat naturally gain and loose weight easily. If I have to control my eating extensively no matter what weight I would rather do it on a low BMI. Now I think it is better to be sick a lot and have little energy than weighing 10 kilos more. I can't handle it. Seriously.

If the set-point theory is true why do people get over and under it?

1 Because body fat isn’t your only set point.

You have a body fat “set point.” But Paul Jaminet also hypothesizes that your body has an even more important set point for maintaining the health of your lean tissue. If your body isn’t getting the micronutrients it needs, it will try to get more nutrients using the same mechanisms that it uses when you fall too far below your body fat set point: increasing your appetite and extracting more energy from your food. If you’re eating nutrient-poor processed foods all the time, you’ll just stay hungry, because your body is desperately looking for nutrients by driving you to eat more food.

2 Because you eat more than your body needs. Pleasurable food overwhelms your body’s natural message of “OK, I’ve had enough now,” so if you don't control your self it is very easy to eat more than the body needs. Stimulating food is also easy to be addicted to. 

3 Sometimes insulin stays elevated all the time. This prevents you from running off your stored energy reserves, because you’re constantly in “storage mode” and never switch over to burning those stored calories. In this situation, you’re eating enough calories, but they’re not available for energy, so your body is starving (and you still feel hungry) even though you’re gaining fat. It’s the worst of both worlds. 

All kinds of things affect insulin levels. Just to name a few: sleep deprivation, chronic stress, exposure to environmental toxins, menopause, genetic factors, vitamin deficiencies, and the composition of your gut flora. It’s true that eating more carbs than your body can handle is one factor affecting insulin levels, but it’s far from the only problem! 

Regardless of how it starts, though, chronically high insulin can overwhelm the body’s “set point” and cause weight gain. Problems with insulin also affect another hormone called leptin, which regulates appetite and metabolism. The ultimate result is that your body is now “defending” a higher weight, making it very difficult to get (or stay) lean. 

What to do to maintain a healthy weight:

Eat nutrient-dense food.

1 Avoid food that is hard to stop eating or drinking. (Things with honey, syrup, sugar, chips, beer, wine etc.)

2 Avoid sweeteners that make you hungry. (I get hungry from Pepsi max (aspartam).

3 Make sure you have healthy levels of hormones like insulin and leptin so the calories gets burned for energy, not stored as fat by eating low-carb or carbs in moderation. (Read details in the article below.)

4 Avoid chronic inflammation because it elevates hunger and impairs carbohydrate metabolism. ( A recipe for overeating and storing those calories as fats.) Reduce inflammation by getting enough sleep, managing your stress, avoid extreme and punishing exercise, make sure you recover properly from your workouts, limit nuts and seeds, and eat plenty of fish (omega 3).

5 Intermittent fasting.  Intermittent fasting mimics the benefits of carbohydrate restriction: it lowers insulin and raises the levels of several other fat-burning hormones like growth hormone and adrenalin, prompting your metabolism to use stored body fat for fuel and lowers you calorie intake.

6 Exercise

7 Be careful with the consumtion of nuts, seed butters, dried fruits and fruit juices. 

All except the mentioning of alcohol is taken from the article below.

http://paleoleap.com/weight-loss-on-paleo-diet/
I continue adding more interesting stuff about addiction to stimulating food.
Our brains are wired to respond to the stimuli with which they evolved. For example, our natural taste preferences tell us that fruit is good. But what happens when we concentrate that sugar tenfold? We get a superstimulus. Our brains are not designed to process that amount of stimulation constructively, and it often leads to a loss of control over the will, or addiction. 

It's a very similar process to drug addiction. Addictive drugs are able to plug directly into the brain's pleasure centers, stimulating them beyond their usual bounds. Food superstimuli do this less directly, by working through the body's taste reward pathways. In fact, sweet liquids are so addictive, rats prefer them to intravenous cocaine. You can't take just one hit of crack, and you can't have just one Hershey's kiss.

This chapter was taken from the article below.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.no/2008/03/superstimuli.html#uds-search-results

A Curious Finding

It all started with one little sentence buried in a paper about obese rats. I was reading about how rats become obese when they're given chocolate Ensure, the "meal replacement drink", when I came across this:

...neither [obesity-prone] nor [obesity-resistant] rats will overeat on either vanilla- or strawberry-flavored Ensure.

The only meaningful difference between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry Ensure is the flavor, yet rats eating the chocolate variety overate, rapidly gained fat and became metabolically ill, while rats eating the other flavors didn't (1). 

Experiments in rats and humans have outlined some of the qualities of food that are inherently rewarding:

• Fat
• Starch
• Sugar
• Salt
• Meatiness (glutamate)
• The absence of bitterness
• Certain textures (e.g., soft or liquid calories, crunchy foods)
• Certain aromas (e.g., esters found in many fruits)
• Calorie density ("heavy" food)

We are generally born liking the qualities listed above, and aromas and flavors that are associated with these qualities become rewarding over time. For example, beer tastes terrible the first time you drink it because it's bitter, but after you drink it a few times and your brain catches wind that there are calories and a drug in there, it often begins tasting good. The same applies to many vegetables. Children are generally not fond of vegetables, but if you serve them spinach smothered in butter enough times, they'll learn to like it by the time they're adults.

Industrially processed food, which has been professionally crafted to maximize its rewarding properties, is a superstimulus that exceeds the brain's normal operating parameters, leading to an increase in body fatness and other negative consequences.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.no/2011/04/food-reward-dominant-factor-in-obesity.html
Here is a link to a article about leptin:http://paleoleap.com/managing-leptin-levels/

Eat more, but still low carb.

My goal is to eat more than then minimum amount for recovery (for my age: 2500) when my body want me to, cause I am not gaining fast at all. That means not skipping the last meal at the end of the day like I am sooo used to. Before my first diet at 16 my weight was 70 kilos, 27 kilos more than my lowest weight. I had eaten too much, junk and sweets, so I was above my set point. The 2nd time I ate unrestricted amounts and food choices for a long time, after long periods of almost no food, I overshot that weight! Probabably because I ate junk. 

The first time i overshot my startweight with 4 kilos, before I felt ready to stop "eating sugar" and rest and have a life again (as if I was releasing my self from a hospital). But I started restricting again for months without being aware of it while trying to eat very healthy and normal amounts, and ended up binging daily again and gained so much I ended up even 5 kilos more than last time. Why don't Gwen warn the girls at eatopia that if they addictive food they will gain too much?

For almost 2 years after that i restricted and came down to 54 kilos. Again I tried to recover and eat without counting calories, fear fat etc and gained again, but not as much as the first time when I recovered unwillingly and lived on junk. This second time I tried to learn to cook and had people over for dinner and stuff. I don't remember weighing myself so I can only guess my weight. I can say 60 kilos. I then moved to a school I got all my meals at and gained because the food was very far from low carb and full of oil, and I drank a lot of tea with honey, so I gained a few kilos. After a while I felt uncomfortable with the bigger body and started restricting again for real when the school year was over. I did so till the recovery I am in now.

I have no idea where I will end up because I did not eat normally from the age 12 when I was skinny. It is normal to overshoot 10% of the set point weight and by the following year get rid of it, but I know that those who don't break the addiction to food (chocolate, chips etc) can gain and gain like every anorectic person fear.

Right before I started eating sweets daily, because I started restricting food a little because I was ashamed that I ate more than the skinnier girls (3 slices of bread compared to their 1 slice) (but ended of course up heavier because of the sugar) my weight was perhaps 65 kilos. If I end up on 65 kilos I am happy. I mean, I am 42 years old, and some day I have to accept my body and give my self freedom and a life. I will not touch sugar and eat low carb, so there is a chance my set point weight is below 65 kilos.

I am totally into eatopia, but I have not seen Gwen say an overshot is based on binging on sugar-loaded junk. It is just my guess based on a little experience. I think sugar make us gain over the set point weight. My experience is that the body don't have the time to regulate the weight when you start to eat a lot of sugar. Then I just gained. You don't feel full when you eat sweets. If you replace that with food, you just eat and eat and just gain and gain. Never replace food with sweets and junk like potatoe chips! I am excited to see if my theory is a fact.

Now i don't have the same fear and rejection to fat bodies. I know that those who are slightly overweight or almost overweight live the longest. It is a myth in society that thin is the same as healthy and that eating a bit too little will make your life longer. A body is beautiful no matter how much fat it has on the muscles as long as she is healthy, I think. Attitude is more important.

EDIT: After reading the articles I have linked to in the next blog post I can guess my weight will be close to 63 kilos. Why do i say that suddenly? Because now i read that my theory is correct: when eating junk and sweets in recovery or at set point weight you will gain above set point because you eat more than your body needs. Simple as that.

The myth about set point weight. (Body composition)

I see in many exercise blogs (written by quasi-recovered anorectics or some who is restricting) that there is a wish and a misunderstanding that the set point weight can be almost bodyfat-free by using strength training and strict diet to exchange the fat-tissue to muscles so muscles take up most of the space under the skin, and fat very little. This must be wrong. It is not the number on the scale it self  the body has in "mind", but the size every organ should have to function best. We need body fat, and to exchange fat to muscles is not healthy or natural. To do so you have to worry about diet. You have to restrict. You can't go from anorexia recovery to strength training and controlled diet and say you still are recovered (and not fallen down to quasi-recovery). I think the body knows how many procent it needs of the fat organ to protect the inner organs and produce enough hormones. The "healthy" exercise culture is pretty disordered, I'm afraid.

My question and an answer I found from Gwyneth Olwyn about set point weight I think fit.

I wanted to ask a question because I could not find it on eatopia. But  later I found an answer on a pretty similar question. This is my question: 

According to youreatiopia we have a set point weight so we don't have to worry about gaining and gaining in recovery, but what about the fact that i gained in my teens before the anorexia when i ate candy every day and junk food? I wonder if I will be as big as then when i have recovered. Cause the set point theory says my set point should regulate so that I should not gain even though I ate more, so even though I gained weight at 16 was it not because of the bad diet/comfort eating? Was my weight the weight my body wanted then and also want for me now? Will I be as big as then even though i eat more healthy now in recovery? 

To become thinner than your body is natural meant to be (at your setpoint) then you have to restrict and that is uncomfortable and miserable would you not agree? You are eating less than you want and need, all of the time, and it hurts physically and mentally to do this. So to become heavier than your natural setpoint, you would have to eat more than you want, all of the time, and eat so that you mentally and physically do not want any more but still go on eating, to the point of being sick and miserable and in pain.  With the exception of people who have binge eating disorder, people just do not do this. (BED is however frequently misdiagnosed in those in recovery from REDs when the person recovering is clearly experiencing reactive eating or extreme hunger). Other than these circumstances, and those that suffer from Prada-Willi syndrome, people do not keep eating when they do not want to, when they mentally or physically do not have any inclination to eat, and are suffering if they eat more. Unfortunately, because of restrictive eating disorders, and the way that society is, people will suffer like this for the opposite effect of becoming underweight for their own body.

BMI is more accurate on the lower end because being underweight is not natural nor is it healthy (although there is a tiny percentage of people that are naturally on the very low end of a healthy BMI, yes). It is pretty obvious that restricting is going to cause problems when your body and mind are telling you to eat and you ignore it. The upper end of the BMI system is a load of crap because it has been adjusted to fit our society. Did you know that in 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from BMI 27.8 to 25? The move added 30 million Americans who were previously in the “healthy weight” category to the “overweight” category.

The only way you go below your setpoint is to make yourself miserable by starving. The only way to go above your setpoint is to make yourself miserable by over-eating. If anyone is eating however much and enjoying the food, then that is healthy. If they are in pain and forcing it in to the point of suffering, then yeah, I’m sure you can go over your setpoint. But who do you know who does that on a regular occasion (unless you know someone with BED)? 

A great remission accomplished story.

If you want to read about BMI, set point and numbers. http://www.youreatopia.com/remission-accomplished/post/2371655