Why I'm writing this

Aged 16 I went on a diet and didn’t stop. Then, I couldn’t stop. My weight dropped to 5 and a half stone (34 kg). With a BMI of just 14, I was in every way anorexic. I didn’t get professional help because my mother didn’t approve of the idea, but I did manage, with tremendous will-power, to eat my way back to a safer (though still clinically underweight) 6st 10lbs. Now, seven years later, I’m a healthier weight but obsessive thoughts and anxieties about food and weight-gain continue to dominate my life. I still have not spontaneously eaten a chocolate bar or eaten any rich or filling food without guilt, since I was 15. I haven’t gone a day without mentally or literally, with a calculator, counting calories. I still frequently react to stress and unhappiness by deliberately and systematically losing weight. Recently, work-place bullying triggered one of these uber-diets and, after quitting my job, I sought professional help for the first time. Seeing a psychologist and following the eating plan she gave me helped me to get up to 7st, a weight I have never been before in my entire adult life. Nevertheless, I still only hover on the peripheries of the ‘healthy’ weight-range for my height, I still feel like I’m ‘running on empty’ much of the time, and I’m still tortured by an obsession with food. I long to eat spontaneously and guiltlessly, without caring about the calories in every mouthful. In short, I don't want to just not be anorexic, I want to have a happy and relaxed relationship with food. In this blog, I’m going to document my struggles to do so. Partially because I find it cathartic, partially because I hope it will help me look at my relationship with food/weight more objectively but also because I hope you’ll share your own thoughts and advice with me.