Eating Disorders

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Sounds like body image issues.

I mean, even if you were actually fat, the fact that you're disgusted by your body is a serious issue.

I don't know what you look like, but I'm normal weight and my thighs will touch sometimes, and I have a bit of a 'tummy'. Women are supposed to have some fat - we were designed this way by evolution so we have energy reserves for pregnancy. (Men tend to have less fat, but no fat at all is unhealthy for either gender.) I've looked at the charts and such and my weight is pretty well ideal for health purposes. (Although my diet and activity level certainly aren't.)

Incidentally, did you know that Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, is always depicted with a bit of a tummy? Ancient Greeks thought that was what an 'ideal woman' looked like. In fact, throughout history, it's rare to find a society that actually considers thin to be beautiful. Our own society is weird that way.

I have no idea, but that sounds a lot like my body. Chronic depression runs in the family.

I thought I was the only one here who had one. I suffer from EDNOS, I go from heavily restricting to bingeing constantly with the odd period of eating normally. I hate it because I don't look like I have an eating disorder and I feel like it won't get taken seriously even if I bring it up. That and I have some lovely physical side effects which should convince me that it's a serious problem but I still don't like admitting it.

I'm 5'6 and I weigh 48kg. I swim and tread water so my thighs arent touching anymore but I check everyday. I squeeze the excess bit on my stomach because i want it to go so badly. I don't know what I can do other than exercising and stop eating to make it go.

My sister had an eating disorder, so my family got a bit information about it. If you reduce it to basics, you could say, that you have an eating disorder, when many of your thoughts focus about food, what you eat, what you want to eat today, what you already have eaten, how much weight you have, how much weight others have ... If your daily mood depends mostly about the weight you have today, or how much or less food you hafve eaten today, then its an eating disorder. You can have a pretty normal weight, but if all your thoughts are focused on eating or not eating and weight, or if your mood depends upon your weight and so on, its an eating disorder.

Eating less than normal for a few days, because of being depressed or physical ill and so on, is normally no eating disorder, its simple a side effect of another problem or illness and can be overdone pretty easy with creating yourself a foodplan. So it happens to me too, that when I am depressed or focused on my SI all day, that I simply dont feel hunger or thirst myself. Because of that I now have regular food times that are based on my habbits and lifestyle. This also helps you, because even when your thoughts are focused on something else, when you start to prepare your meals and are handling your food you want to eat, you normally get hungry by yourself then. I only dont go after my food plan, when there were special events, so when I have been at cinema with friends and had some nachos with cheesesauce, I dont need an evening meal. But as long as you dont have eaten already at another event, regular food times help you to remind yourself, to question yourself if you are hungry.

Nothing, but get yourself a therapy. You have the impression that your belly would look ugly, simply because you dont see yourself as you really are. My sister already was in therapy with a body height of 5 inch 8 and 99 pounds (her worst weight was 92 pound) when she still squeezed her belly with her two hands with full force, creating belly folds and whining about how fat she was, because of still being able to create belly folds. Its simply skin and its simply natural that your belly is elastic, because if not our bellies would explode when we get pregnant. The area under the skin is simply different built by men and women, because if our skin was built like a mens skin in that area it couldnt stretch itself.

What I wanted to say about "not being able to look yourself the way you are", so my sister still saw every little unperfect spot and it looked huge and important for her. The funny thing was: In therapy her therapist showed her shadow pictures of different woman (so the person was blackened and you only could see the silhouette) and she got the task to choose the pictures of silhouettes that she thought to be slim in the way that she thought them to have a good weight and being beautiful, simply that looked like she wanted to look like. The picture she choose were of woman that had around 10-15 pounds more then herself and these woman looked very slim to her and she wanted to look like those. But while she could see other woman they way they are, when looking at herself she always saw herself much bigger then she was. So a tiny little bellow fold, became in her eyes a huge ugly belly, being responsible for she hating her body image, while if she looked at others the tiny little normal bellow fold, simply was a tiny little bellow fold. Because of this, she didnt realize that she was way beyond the weight, that she wanted to have. Simply because when she looked at herself, she saw herself much more fat, then the ones that were her idols, so she thought she still had to loose more weight, when she actually was much more slimmer than the models she had chosen to be sexy.

So for your own sake, if you are already pressing your hands upon your belly to create a tiny normal little belly fold and are troubling yourself afterwards with thoughts about that horrible gigantic belly fold you own, that has to disappear.... yep, you have an eating disorder. This is nothing bad and its nothing to blame about, but its a sign, that you should seek someone that helps you to see yourself the way you really are again. Not for anyone else, but for you, because what use do you have of your normal beautiful body, when you cant see it yourself.

Aspergers enhances much stress situations or can lead to simply forget about eating, but it isnt linked to hating your body images or being focused if your tights are touching or bellyfolds or whatever. So I do sometimes forget to eat, but I dont care that much for my weight. If my cloths are getting to tight I simply reduce sweeties the next two weeks and eat healthy and if my cloths get to wide I am a bit more generous to myself the next times. ^^ So when a new computer game is released, that let me forget my food routines, it is possible that I loose some weight, but as soon as I realize that I need to remind myself about my eating routines, it goes back to normal quiet soon.

I've had an ED since I was 13 (exactly half my life) and am not sure how much of it is linked to AS. I only eat certain foods and when I was very underweight, I liked that it 'switched off' feelings that I found overwhelming and didn't understand anyway. Now I'm 'normal weight' but binge/vomit every night and run every morning which does the same thing but in a more 'immediate' sense, but is better for me at the moment because I have osteoporosis and don't want to make it worse by staying underweight and I kept losing too much weight and ending up in hospital, and at this weight people don't usually notice I have an ED unless I spend a lot of time with them (which hardly ever happens) and they notice I don't like eating in front of people or only really eat porridge. Also gives me more energy which is good because I find 'free' time really hard to deal with so am doing two degrees and work part-time. I'm about to start my psychology research project on the link between ASD and ED, would really like to know more about it.

I have suffered from anorexia nervosa for almost 20 years. I have had been admitted to hospital 3 times, and have wasted alot of time sitting in a hospital bed. I am still searching for answers to get this resolved. I also suffered from significant sexual abuse for years when I was a child.
It does sound like you have an eating disorder.