does anyone know anyone who claims to be raw but has an eating disorder, or has anyone who is successful on raw foods have had an eating disorder in the past?

I have made a lot of associations with raw foodies and people with eating disorders. I was wondering if anyone has had experience with this type of thing.

thank you.

I think that there is some overlap between the two. But you could also look at it this way: we are supposed to be thin and our body knows it, excess fat is the way the body stores toxins so the toxins don't make us sick. So our body prompts us to get thin and eliminate the toxins and we respond the only way we know how, by dieting instead of eating raw. (this is not considering the other reasons like emulating models)

Ironically, I have read posts by people who seem to be trying to get super thin on raw and they seem frustrated because their weight on raw has stabalized far above the weight that they wanted, so IMHO most raw fooders aren't doing this because of an eating disorder although plenty talk about having had eating disorders in the past.

i don't know how thin exactly the body is supposed to be. i suppose it depends n what one's definition of thin may be. the body is supposed to have fat, and i believe hormones live off of fat. i am 100% raw, and i don't feel like i am thin, but then again i have suffered from an eating disorder and i may have a distorted image of what my body really looks like. however, i see most of the girls at my school being way thinner then me, and i know i eat a lot healthier and i am much more concious about my health then they are. i have no idea how they get that way.. i wonder if the media has had its effects on them.. or maybe i am just jealous... I am 5'4 and i don't weigh myself anymore, but i used to compulsively weigh myself so i think i have a general idea of what i weigh. i assume i am around 115-120 lbs. i know you people don't generally agree with bmi calculators and you say that every body is different ect. my doctor says my weight is borderline for being too thin. I think this is insane because i look at the tabloids when i see them when i am at pavillions checkout. no one is close to as big as i am on those magazines. then i see nicole richie indulging upon a greasy grilled cheese sandwich. i'm not sure which illusion to believe.

when i first went raw i used it as a coverup to hide my ed. i've seen girls who reflect this part of me from the past. now i am recovering. i hope i have not done too much damage. i hope someday a woman's natural curves will be fashionable, and not an image of a prepubescent little kid.

I also believe that to most people, eating raw isn't normal. NOT normal --> bad, wrong in some way. So you can say that raw foodist don't eat like the majority, which could be considered an eating disorder by some.

Yeah... okay Veloria I understand what you are saying (this is like how my grama thinks), but this is not what I mean at all when i say an eating disorder.

when I am talking about an eating disorder I mean a disturbance in physical or mental health or functions.

I think that most people with ed's are ashamed to admit it anyway. I know I was for a really long time (even after starting recovery), and for good reason. I have never actually met someone who was able to understand the drama and awfulness of suffering from an ed unless they have had one. I'm not saying these people don't exist, but they are probably kind of rare. Most people generally have this attitude that people with an ed are trash. This has been my experience anyway.

most of the time when I had an ed though, I didn't even know I had one. Denial is a huge symptom of this disorder. This is one illusion so not cool.

people with ed have a bad rep. This kind of lifestyle tends to attract these types of people from my observations. So basically I am looking for support or to give support with these beautiful compassionate individuals. send me a private message if you are interested i'll give you my email.

yeah < maybe at first but i think raw food cures people of that.
I used to eat so little cooked food and always felt fat. I can eat a lot of raw food and feel thin..

i have known several individuals who confessed to having eating disorders in the past but once they began a raw food diet, they realized that the disorder came from eating crazy foods like processed and cooked items. i had a disorder when i was a kid but since changing my diet, i haven't had to obsess about food. and like another member so eloquently stated, you just don't get super sickly skinny on a raw foods diet. in fact, your body stabilizes and becomes its own perfect weight. so, yes, now i'm thin, but i don't look sick like i used to when food was the "enemy."

I totaly agree that humans are supposed to have some fat, every animal has fat reserves, I did say excess fat.

I also agree with you about being thin acording to the charts and not feeling thin. I'm 5' 3" and not heavy, last time I weighed myself in July I was 115, but I can feel fat. Over the past few weeks I have decided that I want to get down to 105-110 which is not anorexic at all since my weight, for many years, has always hovored around 112.

I was anorexic for about a year in my early teens and got down to 85-95 pounds at 5'3", but I haven't suffered from that for 20 years. If I have any type of an eating disorder now it would be more like emotional overeating.

I think Nicole Richie is eating greasy food for show, I saw her on the Tyra Banks show on Friday eating crab cakes. Come on, if she was to eat like that at every meal, she wouldn't be that skinny. I think it is just a publicity stunt, ever since Princess Di admitted to an eating disorder it seems to have become fashionable to have had an eating disorder.

One thing that ticks me off about really "fat" people is how they want you to be fat too. The women around me who are 20 years older than me seem to stress if I get thinner and get happy if I get fat. Part of that may be that they want everyone around them to be less attractive than they are so that they seem normal to their husbands.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2006 12:15AM by tropical.

ILoveJen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> does anyone know anyone who claims to be raw but
> has an eating disorder, or has anyone who is
> successful on raw foods have had an eating
> disorder in the past?

Why do you say "claims to be raw but has an eating disorder." Someone can eat 100% raw with an eating disorder; it doesn't mean they are not really raw. As for the second question I quoted, yes. Some eating disorders lead people to different places; sometimes people were already thin and it had nothing to do with weight, let alone magazines.

Greetings!

Yes, becoming a rawfooder has been an essential component in my recovery from a very severe eating disorder. In my case it was anorexia, but all the eating disorders are really related manifestations of deep pain. And whilst becoming a rawfooder has helped tremendously in my healing, it was by no means the only factor. I have had tremendous help gradually learning to open up to the bounty of the universe and the miraculous self-healing properties of the human body. And the beautiful bounty of live food and the joy of growing, gathering, preparing and sharing it.

I haven't been posting here much lately because I've just been so busy and also gotten out of the habit. But I used to be on here all the time (I used to post as 'luskinia') and feel that I'd like to start posting again as I now have so much to share in terms of real experience with different styles of raw fooding and much else.

love
Ela

Warning: Confession.....Read with care

Raw food led me to an eating disorder. I am now coming out of it. I wanted to be moslty fruitarian after eating raw for about 2 1/2 months. (Before then I was like 60% raw for a year. Well for over a month I did so, I recently came into some problems (and it isn't detox either) I started to lose rapid weight I was already 97 lbs I didn't need to lose anymore) and my hair started to fall out just recently. I binged on sweet fruit all day then had a large salad later and then some nuts later on. Big mistake for me. I thought I was alkalizing my body. Turns out, I am way over acidic and it was robbing me of vital nutrients. I can feel it sucking me dry. So now I need to go find some balance. I bought some litmus paper to test my pH. Wow, I need some help. I found out because I started to eat raw, soaked, steal-cut oatmeal and raisins. Little did I know it was very alkalizing and I started to have some detox from acid reactions.. So now my body is trying to detox from all of the acid built up in my reserves. I will warn people now about the dangers of not knowing your pH, and how obsessed I got about eating food, because I was so hungry all of the time (watching the clock to see when 1 1/2 hours was over so I could have some other kind of fruit, or eat some more grapes and such. No wonder, there was no balance. Where there is no balance, there is an eating disorder, and when you become compulsive about eating, and that's all your talking about and thinking of and it takes over your life, that is an eating disorder and that person needs help. Some people may not have this problem, it just turns out I can't metabolize acid that well, never could. That's one of the reason I went raw to heal of acid reflux.





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2006 01:51PM by shep252.

ILoveJen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am 5'4 and i don't
> weigh myself anymore, but i used to compulsively
> weigh myself so i think i have a general idea of
> what i weigh. i assume i am around 115-120 lbs.
>
>


That sounds perfect! Im 5'2 and that's my weight and I feel sexy thanks to the raw diet having distributed those pounds to the RIGHT places - I know what you mean though, sometimes I feel fat but then I see pics of myself and I'm like "oh ok actually I look pretty good". I think it's just an illusion of heaviness - at that weight you're no larger than a size 2. My guess is that you probably look fantastic but thanks to media manipulation of women, you are having doubts. Have you read "The Beauty Myth"? I thought it was very eye-opening!

I was thinking more about this and realized that before I went raw I was a size 6 and never felt fat, I didn't do the diet to lose weight - it wasn't until I started eating raw that I got that heavy feeling, even though I was actually losing weight! So I definitely think there's something to that heaviness on raw being an illusion - at a raw size 2 I actually feel heavier than I felt at a cooked size 6 - weird!

So maybe that's kind of what you're experiencing, also...?

I notice, though, that when I eat mono-meals of low-sugar fruit such as zucchini, cucumbers, and bell peppers, I get that nice feeling of lightness - and I do lose more weight that way, it just has to be warm outside for that kind of eating to work for me.

First of all I would like to thank everyone for sharing their stories. Thank you. It helps a lot just to hear someone else's experience because most people are afraid to admit. I myself am afraid to admit most of the time even though I think that to most of the people around me it has been completely obvious the disease was in my life. I mean, I was super super skinny, and then all of a sudden plumped up really super fast.

what scares me the most now about suffering from an ed is my teeth and bone health. There is nothing I can do about my past though, so I must face future courageously.


Sunshine:

I am not too concerned about gaining or losing weight (sometimes i get concerned about gaining weight, but I try to ignore it). I don't really remember ever having normal eating habits, so I don't really remember what it was like to eat on a sad diet... I remember being a little chubby kid, eating all the time, and feeling full of energy like a little kid should. I don't think I am anywheres near a size 2, but thank you for saying that. I hear people on this board talk a lot about weighing very little and then i feel like maybe i am doing something wrong or something. =) I don't know what my size is, but i think i usually wear like a pants size 11, but i think what is supposed to fit me the way the pants are intended to is like a 7 maybe depending on the pants. The beauty myth. I'll look into this. Thanks. =)

Shep:

thank you so much for sharing. You are a beautiful couragous person. I think I had a similar experience. I was recovering i think for a little bit before i went raw, and then i went raw for about a month and then after that I got a job as a bar maid and around the same time broke up with my boyfriend. i felt like everyone was looking at me, and I had to be perfect. at the time i had been losing weight anyway, and then i think i may have gotten addicted to losing weight. Where do you live? I read your posts a lot and i feel like a lot of the times in a lot of ways you remind me of me.

Wild aloe:

why not? someone can claim to be anything and be anything. I didn't say someone who claims to be raw and is not, or someone who claims to be raw, but they aren't because they have an eating disorder even though they are 100% raw, and I didn't say someone who claims to be raw but is only 60% raw with an ed. I just said "someone who claims to be raw," meaning... someone who says they are raw. I believe in relative truths anyway, so anyone's definition of anything can be defined in many different ways depending on the source (my opinion). You know what happens when you assume things..

Tropical:

I think a lot of people with eds eat "for show." what a silly condition. boggles the mind. i think that's why so many are afraid to admit it because it really is kind of a dumb thing to do with oneself (imo). i don't understand it at all.

Shep, it is really courageous of you to come out and admit that. I guess I was so brief in my first post in this thread but actually I have a lot to say on the subject.

Despite the fact that the raw food diet was such tremendous help to me in recovering from a very severe eating disorder, I'm wary of recommending it as a panacea. I know people who developed eating disorders through becoming rawfooders without including large doses of self love and self work as part of the process and becoming obsessive-compulsive and malnourished with it. I'm also aware that to the average population I probably come across as somewhat 'extreme' myself because even now I'm fairly strict about what I will and won't eat (although I did have my recent 'gourmet' phase and do enjoy certain combo-abombos).

love
Ela

Thanks ILoveJen. Yeah, I know how you feel about being paranoid that people are looking at you. And you are very courageous yourself. A strong individual.
Oh, and I live in the mid-west.

Thanks ela, you are courageous, also, and I am glad that you have recovered from an eating disorder. I know what you mean about strict, for I have been there too, to the point that I didn't feel free anymore.

You know, it is good to talk about these things. I told my mother about what had happened to me, and she even said it sounded that I was being obsessive-compulsive, not to mention that it runs in my family and also my mother knows all about eating disorders and has been to so many counselors, that now she is my counselor. (wow, run-on sentence) So, my feelings now are that it is better to be 70% raw or whatever and feel health and be healthy than be 100% raw and feel sick and malnourished. That's how I feel anyway. So now I have been having balanced vegatarian meals with a lot of vegatables again, and I feel like my strength is returning and am happy. (For goodness sake, I have two kids and a husband to take care of, I need all the strength I can get to get better.) We'll see what the future brings.

You people are on the right track and are taking care of yourselves. Keep up the good work. Reward yourselves.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2006 09:09PM by shep252.

Shep, once again I'm full of admiration. Having kids to take care of adds a whole new dimension to the whole raw game and makes it much trickier to know the truth because everyone has an opinion and puts emotional pressure on you. (I have a good friend with small kids who goes in and out of raw for a lot of that kind of reason).

Glad that you're taking care of yourself!
love
Ela

Kudos and thanks!

hey all you brave and honest people-

shep and jen and ela- wow. i don't know that i would have ever had the heart to start this thread. but it is truly an issue.

and with raw foods, for people with pasts or current issues, it is something to keep an eye on.

when i was sixteen i was a model, which was wonderful and fun, but somewhere in there i became bulimic. unfortunately, it wasn't just wanting to be slim. everytime i ate, if i didn't throw up, my hands and face swelled uncomfortably and i hurt intestinally.

when i got married, i had not been bulimic for a year. i had been on a high protein diet that had taken me away from processed foods, though whenever i ate those, i got ill again. coffee and cigarettes also helped keep me slimmer, alone with running compulsively and exercising excessively. my husband noted that whenever i ate bread, i always got REALLY sick. so i cut out breads, and i felt 100% better, and i realized that i had inherited celiac's from my grandmother (and yes, i had seen doctors on all of this, they said it was in my head that food made me ill) so i moved away from processed foods. and that moved shifted me safely into raw.

duh, everything else makes me violently ill and ill-tempered!

since pregnancy and breastfeeding, i can't fool my body into being slim. i'm 5'5", and 125 or so. i don't get smaller. i have large bones. really. at 115, i am skeletal. i have to realize, along with so many other women, that the modern ideal is not ever going to be real for me. i'm glad kate winslet is out there. i don't mind looking like her. i do worry about falling into habits later, when i am not caring for my body for my child. by myself, i tend to not be as careful.

but right now, i just try to eat well. and feel well.

i pray you are all around later, if things get harder. and if things are hard for you now, feel free to email. i have no time or energy with the baby, but that means nothing. i'm free and willing to give my time and energy to you lovely people.

peace-

I'm glad you are eating well, Mama Cass and have recovered from bulimia.
That's what my mother faces and has faced since a teenager. She has to self-talk everyday. So anyone coming out of that I applaud! Thanks for praying!

I'm so glad that this important topic was brought up! When "confuzed" was here and then booted off the list I wanted to broach this subject then. I hesitated because I didn't have any "facts" to support what was/is essentially an intuited or gut feeling about it.

Radical diets of any kind are going to attract people with ED's. No matter how potentially healthy the diet, if you approach it emotionally confused, or with compulsions, or with a poor and unrealistic self or body image then you are likely to abuse it. My gut feeling was that "confuzed" was one of these people. I felt bad because I didn't think that any of us (including myself) was addressing the real problem with this poster, annoying though he/she could be.

Healing diets, raw diets, colonics, enemas, NH and etc. can all set up a hyper-vigilant and compulsive state of mind if one is not careful. I've known people to read Bernard Jensen, for example, and then become so obsessed with the frequency and quality and quantity of their "@#$%&" that it became a major focal point of their day. This is not "health" as I understand it.

I've also noticed, both on-line and off, that people drawn to radical or non-mainstream diets tend to have perfectionistic personalities; to be driven and given to obsessive behavior. I too "suffer" these qualities. I have to watch myself.

It's important to remember that healthy food and eating is only one component of good heatlh and even though I've often thought of food as foundational to good health I'm coming more and more to believe that this is only partially true. Awareness of what you eat and why may be even more foundational. In other words a bowl of chicken soup eaten in peace trumps a salad eaten compulsively.

Just my 2 cents,

khale

Please don't ever read another "beauty" magazine, at least not until someone smart creates one that is thoughtful and accurate (I'm not holding my breath!)

my friend was really sick and had not eaten for months.
her weight was around 82-90.
she just happened to run into someone who was with vouge magazine.
they liked her to much they wanted to fly her across the country to new york and put her up to do a photo shoot. the woman said she is just the type they are looking for...
her proper weight is 115-120 shes at 110 now.

its a sick illusion intented to degrade us

If we are going to talk about magazines, I know for a fact that they touch up all the photos of the models. The models don't even look that good!

Have anyone seen the Tyra Banks show? Look at her almost 40 yo arms. Then look in the Victoria's secret magazines and look at her arms there....

Quite obvious that they retouch her photos....