BOYS WITH ED

Chapter 1: An Anorexic Creed

I believe in Control, the only force mighty enough to bring order to
the chaos that is my world.

I believe that I am the most vile, worthless and useless person ever
to have existed on this planet, and that I am totally unworthy of
anyone's time and attention.

I believe that other people who tell me differently must be idiots.
If they could see how I really am, then they would hate me almost as
much as I do.

I believe in oughts, musts and shoulds as unbreakable laws to
determine my daily behaviour.

I believe in perfection and strive to attain it.

I believe in salvation through trying just a bit harder than I did
yesterday.

I believe in calorie counters as the inspired word of god, and
memorise them accordingly.

I believe in bathroom scales as an indicator of my daily successes
and failures

I believe in hell, because I sometimes think that I'm living in it.

I believe in a wholly black and white world, the losing of weight,
recrimination for sins, the abnegation of the body and a life ever
fasting.

Amen

Chapter 3: The Thin Commandments

1.If you aren't thin you aren't attractive.
2.Being thin is more important than being healthy.
3.You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, starve
yourself, do anything to make yourself look thinner.
4.Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty.
5.Thou shall not eat fattening food without punishing oneself
afterwards.
6.Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly.
7.What the scale says is the most important thing.
8.Losing weight is good/gaining weight is bad.
9.You can never be too thin.
10.Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and
success
So it was, in that hour so hard,
Mia had won and Ana had scarred.
Feeling guilt and shame, Ana nor Mia seemed very bright,
Where was Katina, whose opinion seemed so trite?
While Mia and Ana spouted their voice,
Katina was forced to make a choice.

Add your main content here - text, photos, videos, addons, whatever you want!

Chapter 4: Self-control

Keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat and anything else
you feel might be helpful to know. This will allow you to measure
progress and track patterns over time.
Set yourself rules regarding food. Pick ones that you know you can
follow and stick with them. Then, keeping these, gradually add on
more rules until your eating is entirely under control. It's hard to
restrict yourself all the way at once, and more effective to do it
in increments. The idea here is to sort of sneak up on yourself in
tiny little stages, adapting to each new rule before making another.
Reward yourself, don't punish. Punishment is not effective and will
do more emotional harm than physical good. Calculate how much money
you're saving by not eating and add this up until you have enough to
buy something you like (but not food). Or, put a penny (dollar,
marble) in a jar for every small goal you keep and treat yourself
with something (not food) once you reach a certain amount. Remember
that these rewards will last longer and give more pleasure than food
you would just eat, proccess, and discard.
Eat slowly, in small bites. Cut your food up into small pieces.
Pause while eating to drink water or whatever other liquid you
enjoy. It takes a while for "full" signals to get from our stomach
to our brain. Also, if you eat over a longer period of time and add
more liquids, it can trick your mind into thinking you've eaten
more.
Take out only the amount of food you plan on eating. Wrap everything
securely up before you start eating and put it away. Don't go back
for seconds. Don't nibble while preparing food, either. Those bites
and crumbles add up staggeringly fast.
Think about food before and while you eat it. Think about where it
came from and exactly what happened to it before it reached you.
This works particularly well with meat, dairy, and egg products.
Food associations. Find something that makes you feel vaguely ill or
unpleasant, get a picture of it, and put the picture beside your
food. Switch pictures frequently and make sure to look at the
pictures while you eat. After a while you may began to associate
food itself with unpleasantness, which will make you less inclined
to eat.
Give yourself permission before eating. Stop and think about it,
consider if you really want to eat whatever-it-is. If your answer is
yes, then say (or think) something like "I'm allowed to eat this"
or "I have permission to eat this".
Plan your meals in advance, for the day or week or whatever. Decide
what you are allowed to eat each day. If you know that you will be
eating, it may help you avoid eating other things.
If you feel yourself starting to lose control while you're eating,
stop. Set your food down, take a long drink of water or some other
cool liquid, and take a deep breath before resuming eating. This can
help interrupt a slide into binge-mode. Remember to remind yourself
that you are still going to finish your food and that you aren't
stopping, just pausing for a moment.
Sabotage your food. Make it with too much water, too little sugar,
an ingredient you don't care for. Add too much salt or pepper before
you eat. You will eat less of it if it tastes bad.
Pick apart your food cravings. If you eat food in separate parts
instead of all mixed into one, it feels like you've eaten more and
you don't get extra stuff you don't really need. For example, if
you're really craving pizza, think about what it contains. Bread,
tomato sauce, cheese. Drink a can of V8 or eat a tomato. If you
still want pizza, have a rice cake or a few crackers or some other
starch. If you still want pizza, have a piece of cheese. Or if
you're craving peanut butter, have a handful of peanuts and avoid
the added sugar and oil contained in most commercial peanut butter.
If that doesn't work, eat a spoonful of honey for the sweetness
overload. Same net effect, fewer total calories, no wasted empty
added crap.

Chapter 5: Distractions
Brush your teeth. Get a travel-sized toothbrush and toothpaste set
and use it often. A clean minty mouth can make the thought of eating
less attractive. Also, if you brush after every meal and every
supposed meal, it's less obvious whether you've eaten or not.
Take a shower. Hot steamy water can suppress the appetite, in me at
least, and paying close attention to your body will serve to remind
you exactly why you're losing weight in the first place. If you feel
clean you may not want to "dirty" yourself with food.
Fidget, take up a new hobby, find something to focus on. Find
something with which to distract your hands and / or mouth. Chewing
gum works for many people, but check for calories. Sewing or
stringing beads is good, detail-oriented and monotonous. Keep
yourself occupied.
Exercise. Find something you love to do and do it. If, like me,
you're too self-conscious to exercise where people can see, then do
it when you're alone at home or in a locked room or other safe
place. Make it interesting. The best I've found? Dancing. Find music
you love, cover the windows up, and don't even think about what you
may look like since there's nobody to see. It's a lot of fun, and it
helps you get more familiar with your body as well.
Find triggering pictures. You have internet access, I know you do.
When you feel like eating, pick an actress or model that you think
is particularly beautiful and search for pictures of them... or for
pictures of people you find particularly ugly and fat. It's a slow,
involving process and for me at least a great way to avoid eating.
Take a nap. A lot of people think they're hungry when really they're
just tired. Also, drink water, since thirst can make you think
you're hungry as well.

Chapter 6: Purging

This is not good and I am not suggesting it for anyone. In fact, I
suggest that you do everything you can to lose any purging habits
you may have picked up. It's dangerous and very damaging. But I
understand that some people need to purge (hell, sometimes I do) and
I think that if you're going to do it then you may as well be as
safe as possible.

No syrup of ipecac. I'm not kidding about this one. This shit is
terribly dangerous and for use in medical emergencies only. It
causes severe and permanent heart-damage. People have died from
taking this, sometimes the very first time they've used it. I've
tried it, it sucks, don't do it. Trust me here. Remember that if you
die in painful screaming misery, you'll never reach your weight-loss
goals and will probably be found crumpled up in your own assorted by-
products.
No diuretics or water pills. There's no point. They don't make you
lose any real weight, only water, and water loss does not count as
weight loss. Dehydration can kill; you want more water, not less. A
water-starved body will be more hungry as well and will hold onto
everything you do put into it. If you're retaining water, drink more
water and a little caffeine. It will go away eventually on its own.
No laxatives. They're habit-forming in that after a period of time
your digestive system will not function without them. Overdoses of
laxatives can dehydrate you to the point of death, or rupture your
intestines. If your digestive system isn't behaving right, go for
fiber supplements like Metamucil instead, they're good for you
instead of bad.
Avoid throwing up whenever possible. Stomach acid is vicious. It
eats away teeth and makes them ugly. It eats away at your esophagus
and sphincter valves. Over a period of time, throwing up will
disable your upper digestive system as thoroughly as laxatives will
disable your lower digestive system. It also puts terrible strain on
heart and head, and can cause dangerous electrolyte imbalances.
Avoid punishing a binge with an immediate fast. If your body expects
large amounts of food, then depriving it cold turkey may cause even
more hunger and binging. It's a cycle... binge, fast, binge, fast.
Don't start. Regulate your food instead and be gradual with changes
in how much you eat.
Remember that exercise in itself doesn't really burn off all that
many calories and is pretty useless for burning the results of a
binge. However, exercise raises metabolism and builds muscle, and
the added muscle raises your metabolism even more, so you burn more
calories all the time. Design yourself a steady exercise program and
follow it consistently instead of sporadically overworking and
hurting yourself.
Keep a box of baking soda, a cup, some water. Rinse your mouth with
baking soda dissolved in water after purging. This helps neutralize
acids and spares your teeth and mouth somewhat.
If you use laxatives, make very sure to be well-hydrated beforehand.
Drink extra water and take potassium. It really helps against
cramping, pain, and dizziness.
Drink a ton of water while binging. Say, a full glass of water
between every couple units of food you're eating. Not only does this
fill you up faster with fewer total calories, while still letting
you get the taste of the food you want, it makes purging a hell of a
lot easier and more effective. Be sure to drink water before a
binge, or right at the start of one, and then space the water
throughout so it mixes with all the food instead of just sitting on
top of it.
Eat the healthy stuff first. Fruit or veggies or a salad or
something fairly low-cal that you wouldn't mind digesting as much.
Since it's hard to get everything up, and since food comes up
roughly in reverse order to how it went down, cushion the bad high-
cal junk with safer foods.

Chapter 8: Misc

About weighing yourself. Everyone has different methods here that
work for them. Many people get discouraged with weighing themselves
every day, because our weight is not a stable thing and can vary
drastically from little insignificant things. Try to get a better
overall picture through the fit of your clothing instead.
Throw food away before you eat it. A lot of people feel guilty and
don't like to toss food. There's nothing wrong with this. Remember,
though, that food gets discarded any way you look at it... purging,
digesting, tossing... and isn't it better to get rid of the food
before it puts fat on you instead of after? If you still hate to
discard food, see how much of it you can donate to your local
shelters and community service programs.
Apple cider vinegar (or possibly vinegar in general). It may help
raise metabolism and burn fat. It may for you work as an appetite
suppressant. Be careful, though, it may also hurt your stomach or
cause nausea. Don't take more than a couple teaspoonfuls at a time.
Try it mixed with honey in a glass of water, or in diet 7up or other
clear carbonated soda about twenty minutes before eating, you may
feel full quicker or decide not to eat at all.
Eat dense foods. They'll feel like more in your stomach. Light or
fluffy foods tend to compact, and don't fill you up as well. Drink
lots of liquids.
Avoid refined foods. They're in large part empty calories, and they
don't satisfy the body or supply good solid nutritional
requirements. The closer to natural you eat, the more value you get
per bite, and the less you'll need to eat. Substitute whole grains
for white flour and raw sugar for refined white sugar particularly.
Don't fill up on bread. It's deceptive. Six slices of bread can feel
the same as one sandwich in your stomach, and it gets processed very
quickly. If you do eat bread eat whole-wheat or grain bread, which
will feel denser in your stomach as well as be healthier for your
digestive system. Make a sandwich with vegetables or low-fat cottage
cheese or salsa instead of eating bread plain.
Avoid alcohol and other drugs. Anything that can affect you will
affect you more strongly and in different ways, and anything that
affects your mind will lower your level of control. I hear the
munchies are a nightmare when you're trying to lose weight, and
waking up with a hangover surrounded by half-eaten food evidence
can't be too much better.
Be careful with over-the-counter weight loss products, including the
natural and herbal ones. They speed up your metabolism, yes, but
they're designed to be taken with a decent amount of food and can be
very very bad for your heart, head, digestive system, and nervous
system if you use them with a severely restricted food intake. They
can also mess up your sleep cycles, and people with irregular sleep
cycles tend to eat more. I would suggest half doses to start with
since they'll have more of an effect on someone eating very little,
and watch for signs of panic, anxiety, or irritability.
Don't get discouraged with yourself. You didn't put on weight
overnight, and it won't come off overnight either. These things take
time, and time will pass no matter how much you're eating.