Well, I've been stable at around 1000 calories for the past couple of weeks or so. I started at 500 last September and stayed around there for quite some time, binging every now and then, but really staying around 500. Then in the past 2 months I've gone up 100 calories or so every week. It was really hard at first, but each day I feel a little less guilty. Yesterday I even had a hersheys kiss (seems like nothing, but a BIG deal to me). I'm starting to think that maybe I really CAN beat this thing. It's really tough, but I'm doing better. I'm close to being at a healthy weight again. I'd rather stay where I am, but I'm ignoring my ED and letting my body be healthy again. I know I should be at atleast 1500 calories, but 1000 calories is pretty impressive, considering I used to eat half of that. I miss the hungry feeling in my stomach, but I'm learning to deal with it. I'm learning that it's ok to not be hungry. Thank god my best friend understands, otherwise I would not have been able to get better.

We'll see where this takes me - but for the first time in a year I feel like maybe I can be okay with myself.

Jess, this is GREAT! i really hope everybody else can read this post and apply it to their own situations. you are making WONDERFUL progress and you're gonna have to keep pushing yourself really hard, but i feel like you've really started moving forward. and it DOES get easier, which i think you're experiencing for the first time right now. doesn't it feel great to see that "light at the end of the tunnel?!?"

i love what you said about every 100 calorie increase being REALLY tough, but then after a couple days you felt fine with it. that's exactly how it works, girls!! it IS incredibly scary everytime you increase calories, decrease exercise, don't purge after a binge, etc. and (at least with me), it causes CRAZY anxiety, "fat feelings," b****iness, etc. for like the first day or two. but then you know what? after a couple days (seriously, that teensy amount of time!), you feel like "eh, whatever. what was i freaking out about again???" the tough thing though is actually just DOING it. so "just do it!" (as Nike says)

i guess i want my reply here to go out to everybody on the boards. i feel like there's a lot of similar posts (not to undermine any of your struggles in ANY way. just cuz we fight the same demons, it doesn't make it any easier, you know?) anyway, i wasn't sure what to respond to cuz i felt like i'd be typing basically the same advice/suggestions over and over. so i'm gonna type it here, k?

"the full feeling" -- yep, you'll get it and you'll HATE it. like absolutely feel like your stomach is about to burst and you look 9 months pregnant HATE it. but you know what? it goes away! but ONLY if you stick with your meal plan/eating more healthily. if you let that "ED voice" saying "you're FAT!" win and you restrict after, then the same "full feeling" cycle will continue. if you FORCE yourself to stick it out (and that's really what it feels like at first), it WILL go away. seriously, within a week, it will go away. the only reason it happens is cuz a starving body is SO f***ed up, you know? as soon as it gets used to being somewhat healthier (which doesn't take long), it doesn't react like "whoa! what's this?!?!" so the amount of food making you "so full" right now won't make you feel that way in a week. just trust me on this. and the actual feeling itself? again, the only way to get yourself USED to the feeling of not starving is to "just do it." after a week or so you realize that you actually LIKE not starving. you feel better, have more energy, smile more, don't feel faint/weak/cold, etc. so stick out the "stick-out stomach" phase and just TRUST that you will learn to ENJOY not starving your poor body.

exercise -- regardless of how much you like exercise (or how much your ED has convinced you that you LOVE it), you simply CANNOT exercise like a person training for a marathon if you want to recover from your ed. i know we all know this deep down, so i won't go on and on about it. but really, you can't do it. you can't exercise MORE to burn off the fact that you're eating less than a healthy amount of calories (even IF it's more than you were eating before.) all that does is perpetuate the ED behaviors and keep them just as bad/unhealthy, but in a different way, you know? so those of you who are over-exercising, you MUST work on cutting it back. and you'll probably have to do that AS you're increasing your calories. i know this sounds like absolute murder, but girls, it's part of recovery. our EDs make us want to "fix" one little teensy piece at a time, but that's just the "ED voice" saying "don't let me go!" in order to get rid of that voice (or at least start getting rid of it), you MUST challenge it and that's gonna mean A LOT of anxiety. so be ready to feel HORRIBLE about it, and trust that it WILL go away quickly. (i promise; i've done those parts of recovery!!) again, within a short amount of time, you'll realize that you actually LIKE not devoting two hours of every single waking day to exercising. that's not healthy and it ain't living, ladies! you'll be eating more, feeling better and stronger and happier AND you'll have more time to do things during the day cuz you won't be locked to the gym for disordered lengths of time. so start slow if you've gotta, but START cutting back on the exercise.

finally, "Food Obsession" -- this one is HUGE (at least it was with me) and VERY common in all anorexics, i think. you dream about food (seriously, i have!), set strict rules about when/where/what, cook for others, eat in certain progressions, look at recipes, LOVE the grocery store and go there often, stare at what other eat/buy and when they eat/buy it, think about and stare at food you'd NEVER consider eating, etc. so yeah, it's normal. and like the rest of it, it goes away. but ONLY if you start eating more. and really, it only goes away (or starts to go away) once you reach a healthier weight. my therapist told me that the lower my weight was, the more absolutely OBSESSED with food i was gonna be. it's just the way it works, i guess. and the only way to combat that is to gain weight. plain and simple (at least on the surface, right?!?) but really, you WILL feel that absolute obsession until your weight starts getting back to a healthier level. and additionally, the more foods that you restrict and consider off limits, then naturally, the more you're gonna crave those specific foods, you know?

anyway, i just realized that this post sounds like a big "i'm the best recovering anorexic EVER, so do what i say, cuz i know EVERYTHING" preaching tyrade. :) that's not what i intended to sound like! i'm NOT recovered, but i've been in therapy for a little over a year and i feel like a lot of the issues that have been circulating here lately are ones i dealt with and fought through at the beginning of my recovery process. so i just wanted to offer what my experiences and insights were with all this stuff from a first-hand point of view, you know? anyway, hope this isn't offensive and preachy and if it is, know that i don't mean it that way! i UNDERSTAND how hard all of this stuff is (which is why i STRONGLY recommend the support/guidance of a therapist) and i greatly respect all of you for admitting the problem and working on getting better. good luck!

Jess, congratulations! It's a hundred battles throughout the day, but that's a major victory :) Feeling pride in yourself again is pretty amazing, huh? I can kind of trust myself around food again, too.

Joni, you don't sound preachy at all! That is some great advice. The fact that you admit how hard it is makes it so much easier to believe it is possible, if you know what I mean. I am sort of at the midpoint of all your steps - getting used to eating when I still feel full but also feeling hunger/satisfaction some again. Exercise I still struggle with because I genuinely love do it, but I've recognized that I've gotta eat more if I want to continue enjoying this much of it. The food obsession thing I've pretty much kicked with medication, so I cheated there ;) I always keep saying because I think it is so important...gotta learn to trust your body and yourself. Small steps are the way to do it, I think.

Thanks for your words of encouragement, both of you. JoniStyle, I love what you said about the grocery store. I LOVED (ok... and still love) going to the grocery store, watching people pick out ice cream, frozen pizzas, breads... and i would put fat free cool whip and fat free yogurt and rice cakes in my cart. For some reason I was obsessed with it. I now give my mom my money and make her a list of what I want from the grocery store and she picks it up when she goes there herself. It's too hard for me to go for some reason.

Thanks for the encouragement, both of you really made me feel like this could keep on working!

Jess