When I don’t eat enough, I get low blood sugar and I find it hard to concentrate and function enough to do anything. And that’s just from skipping a meal, let alone if I hadn’t eaten for days or was subsisting for years on a very small amount of calories. When I see anorexic people in movies or books, they seem to have enough energy to exercise compulsively, go to school or work, and other things. Is it that their eating disorder gives them anxiety and that makes them more energetic? Or does your body just get used to not eating and functions fine after a while?
In: Biology
11 year AN survivor. 1.5 years in recovery here. Your body adjusts in incredible ways. People are genetically predisposed to having an ED- some people try and try to restrict or purge and they just can’t do it. It’s like the part of my brain that tells me to eat when i’m hungry is broken. It truly defies our innate primal instincts and “survival of the fittest” and evolution. the hungrier a “normal” person gets, the more their motivation to find food increases. that’s the opposite with anorexia. the hungrier I get, the more my motivation to find food decreases, until it feels like an insurmountable obstacle. for a long time I got by on prescription ADHD stimulants and caffeine. I had to sleep 9.5 hours every night or I was dead to the world. I had major GI issues all the time but people in my life, including doctors, passed them off as anxiety or food intolerances. 1.5 months into intense ED treatment I was diagnosed with gastroparesis-it’s the rule for people with restrictive EDs, not the exception. only 6% of people with an ED are underweight. MANY people with anorexia have normal labs the whole way through. when you’re in it, you’re so so sick and your brain is so fucked you truly can’t see how sick you are. after I weight restored, I couldn’t BELIEVE how I felt. I couldn’t believe that I could start to feel sick and low energy, and then eating a meal completely fixed it. some days I still can’t believe that. i’m thankful to be in recovery, but I think about relapse every single day. AMA
edit: typo
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