I AM SO WORRIED

[redsquirrel]

So,... one of the girls in my wedding has had a moderate eating disorder since high school....she has used laxatives, binged, starved herself, made herself throw up..the whole 9. She's 5'8"

Last year she starved herself down to 130..and looked seriously unhealthy. She is a cardio queen as well. She thinks that if she does tons of cardio and eats like a bird or not at all, the weight will come off. (which I think many of us thought before we were educated)LOL

I got her to start working out w/ weights and gave her a basic diet to follow in order to lose some BF and build some muscle, and I have tried to educate her. Which was going well until all of my wedding madness started. Apparently, she had been slacking off as much as I had and been eating even worse..I just got an email from her today and she's telling me she won't be at the gym for awhile because she's going on "the hard core diet she did last year when she got down to 130." She said she won't start lifting weight UNTIL she gets that low. WTF do I do?? I wrote her back and did the whole unhealthy thing, eat fat to lose fat, burn muscle w/ so much cardio, etc.

Does anybody have any other ideas on how to make her understand??

[sana]

i wish i did... the only way to change her mind is for her to keep it up and see changes in her body composition before she believes it :(

i've never been in their shoes, but i would think it's hard for someone with an eating disorder to think that food can actually help them lose weight... i guess just keep an eye on her and make sure that when she starts lifting, she starts eating too....

i would go the route of telling her it's not a "diet", it's a new lifestyle choice...

[redsquirrel]

I told her that these "crash diets" are great for short term, but in now way are a way to live. They are not long term. You made a good point about her not believeing me about eating to lose weight. She's a fat free/lowfat queen to the max..she thinks anything low fat will not cause her to gain weight...uhhh well when you eat the WHOLE BAG of WOW chips..I think you may have a problem...

The only thing I know she will say in reference to that body composition thing you said is this: " well, if I'm losing weight then obviously something is working.." She unfortunately didn't have any muscle to start because she ran it all off, but was able to build some.I'm afraid the only change she will see and get hyped about is the number on the scale.

She wants that long and lean, toned look, and thinks cardio and diet is gonna do it. I'm at my wits end..it's like why should i help if she's jsut gonna go back and reverse any progress she's made. But then again, she is one of my best friends and I don't want to see her harm her body.

[flexygrl]

She has a serious problem. There is no such thing as a moderate eating disorder. Do her parents know? Someone who is close to her needs to intervene and get her some help.

[trip]

Redsquirel,

Seems like you have a great heart and a great friend and that you care about her health and well being says alot about yourself.

Here's a little tip, the best way to change somebody's point of view about something is too first agree with them. Now this seems counter productive, yet there's another little trick to use.

First off, here's most likely, cause I don't know, how she is thinking.

IF I COULD JUST GET HERE, ( INSERT ANY GOAL ) EVERYTHING, WOULD BE OKAY.

Now, this is a pretty common believe system by most folks have that doesn't work too well in the long run, yet, it's a good motivator in the short run.

What happens is you reach that goal, and by gosh, you feel exactly the same, so now you set another goal and another goal, and achieve those and yet you still don't feel good about yourself.

Ultimately feel like proverbial hamster on the wheel and life just get's real hard.

It's at this point you either come to realize life will always be changing and that you have too change with it, or you don't accept this and have lot's of struggles.

Now back to your friend, obviously she is going to do what she is going to do.

So, the best thing is to make sure that 90% of your communication with her is positively supportive and complimentary specifically of what she is doing.

Things like..........

You have more dedication that most men......
When you set a goal you really go for it........
You're right, cardio is great, it really helps your heart.......

Think up lot's of them and use them liberally.

Now what will happen is that she will start to build up a good level of self-esteem and trust in what you have too say.

Now, you know a month or so down the line, she's going to have problems with her program. At that point, like you have been and continued to say tons of great things about her, and then say, YOU KNOW there is this one thing that I know, and here's how it works would you like to learn it.

Now, since you've been up this great bond of trust over the last month or so, and now you've asked permisiion if she would like some help, she will almost assuredly say yes, since she trust your judgement.

Then teach her what you want too teach her, do not force it upon her, let her mull it over and do with it what she wants.

Of course, you go back to postively supporting and complimenting her all the time. And of course in like a couple of weeks she'll probably come back and now start asking you specific questions about how too train better.

At that point she is now ready too change her habits.

Most folks have a huge FEAR OF CHANGE, all you have done is minimized that to the minimum with compliments and postive support building up her self-esteem so change is not as fearfull and even fun.

If you got any q's let me know.

This is 80% of what I do with my clients, and yes it is that simple, tough part is the patients while you watch them struggle, yet forcing your ideas on them almost never works.

Hoped That Helped
Good Luck

[redsquirrel]

WOOWWW. That is all I can say..What great advice...I will start doing what you suggested ASAP...thanks so much. I'll give updates..she asked me to give her a diet..so I will, and let her go doing the things you said.

Flexy- she has always been "bottom heavy" we will say, in a sense..but always been on a roller coaster. Her dad use to make fun of her for being pudgy and shit like that when she was a kid. Her mother is very thin and beautiful and always has been..my guess is she feels she needs to compete with her and how she looks...Not many daughters want to be fatter than their parents..at any age. She is married, but I guess her hubby is pretty much oblivious to what she is doing to her body, either that or prefers not to notice.

In answer to both of you- She does have a low self esteem. It just really sucks for her that she can't rely on her immediate family for that kind of support.:confused:

[trip]

red,

Thanks for the compliment.

Low self-esteem usually comes from CONSISTENTLY being given negative feedback, ie criticisms, put-downs, etc. when the person is almost usually trying their darndest.

So, in the vein of fighting fire with fire, just give her tons and I do mean tons of positive and specific compliments and support.

It will take that much too overcome all that old crap from the past.

The good news is it only takes about a month.

Also, in general, most folks have pretty good self-esteem is just usually out of wack and low in a few places, like for her body image. She might think she is very smart and has a pretty face, yet her body is pu. What happens is image of ourselves that are negative are like starving plants that choke the other good stuff.

You go get em, can't wait to hear what happens.

later
trip

[redsquirrel]

That's unbelievable it only takes a month...Once it has succeeded, does it last?

[trip]

Yup, will take about a month to crack that old negative self talk in the head, and once you crack it, well most of time it crumbles, cause is all just nonsense.

Now, of course, you need to stay positive and complimentary and it will most likely stick, with a few bouts here and there, yet, all in all it'll be a thing of the past.

Just think about it, How often do people get postive feedback on a consistent day by day basis? Most of what we get is negative, thus that's what we think about.

Here's a joke.

Why does a Success Coach get paid twice as much as a therapist?

Well, a therapist tells you you're okay, while a Success Coach, shows you why you're GREAT.

Greatness, costs twice as much.

I often jokingly say sometimes, I get paid to compliment folks, j/k, always have to be sincere and honest.

Like said, patience is the key.

[redsquirrel]

That's what scares me..the whole once she is @ 130, then it will be 125, etc. But then it becomes a double-egded sword...If we tell her 130 is too skinny, do we tell her 130 is fat?? LOL..All of my friends and I don't know what to do..we would like to intervene, but we feel it really isn't our business OR our responsibility. That's what her family and husband are for.

I know what you're saying about the food- reason being she just wan't eat..which makes sense about the control thing.

I'm really stumped on how to approach this. Do I do her BF, and tell her to diet the way she wants, and have her come back only to find out she is still as fat, if not fatter..so to speak? Or do I give her a diet and say this will help you lose BF????:dunno: :dunno:

[redsquirrel]

So, what I'm gathering from what you've said, we shoudl say nothing....DO NOT say 130 is too thin, or "you've lost so much weight!" etc..Pretty much ignore the weight loss, yes?

How will she get help if her husband and family have done nothing to this point? Do we all just sit back and wait until she ends up in the hospital? That sounds so heartless....then again, you seem to be pretty well versed in this..how did you ever get over it?

[trip]

red,

Well, hardbodygirl has alot of experience with this and she hit on many great points.

The thing you have to understand is YOU do not control your friends life, she makes her own choices good bad or indifferent, and this is how it should be, this is how folks learn.

Like I said, patience.

First off, you really don't know if you're friend is bound for the anorexic road, now granted, she seems to have the tendencies, yet as hardbodygirl mentioned, these are very very deep seated emotional issues. The difficulty when dealing with folks emotional issues is that usually the underlying issue is the same, which is believing you have some type of control and always driving down that road.

The difficulyt and where the professional comes in is different personalities treat that same underlying issue differently.

The thing is unless you've had extensive training, you can do more harm then good if you don't know how to deal with stuff.

This is a very very general statement of how to do what you are trying to do.

Rather than FOCUS on what she is doing wrong, let's focus on what she is doing RIGHT.

1. She has a goal, well, that's A+ thinking.

2. She manages her time well to achieve goal, another A+

3. She knows something about nutrition, another A+

4. She trains consistently, another A+

5. She makes very good decisions in general on a daily basis, another A+

I am sure you can add many many things to the list she is doing right.

Always focus on what she is doing right, this way you will build up trust and the opportunity for learning will happen quicker and easier when SHE IS READY. What you're doing is having patience being supportive until she seeks you're advice.

First challenge for you is diet.

Get her involved, ask her lots and lots of questions,
what does she eat now, when does she eat it, what are her cheat foods, why, does she like sugar pasta bread etc.

Like hardbodygirl said, together develope a diet that she will stick too that is withing reasonable bounds. And then monitor it and see how it will go.

A quick course in emotions, we have four primary ones.

A. Avoidance
B. Denial
C. Competing
D. Learning and Growing

Now, sure hardbodygirl doesn't mind cause this is in an effort for all of us to use choice D. What HBG described on her painfull journey was the use of all ABC emotions, her happiness now is blanced more on D, and what she has come to realize, again which is right on, is that D is constantly changing and you have to go with the flow.

The thing is a person has to come to all of these conclusions on there own, just like HBG did, you can not force your view of how life is on them, it will not bring about success only pain, not only for them, cause what they are hearing in their head is that they are wrong and no good, so they fight back verbally, which makes us feel bad because we feel we are not heard or supported.

Makes sense?

Thus, the patience issue. Now, obviously if they are doing things that are intrinsicly harming themselves, then we need to speak up. Yet, for her height and weight, 130 is not super unreasonable, now 115 and guess is she is looking like a stick woman.

When you focus all of your attention on what she is doing right her own self-esteem and confidence will grow, and what will happen is she will want to be right more often and thus it is easier to change one or two items.

I've counseled folks on weight lose.
First issue is always, do you eat breakfast, 9 our of 10 times, the answer is no, and almost every time they say they don't have time, I say when you're ready to eat breakfast let me know and then we can go to work because until you start to eat breakfast you are starving your body and when you starve the body it stores fat, it's a phsyiological FACT not and opinion and we can have no success without you eating breakfast.

As you can guess most folks do not become clients, which is fine, I have no miracle answer, weight lose is simple:

1. Burn more calories than we take in, which requires knowledge, logging meals, excercise, etc. we all know this stuff on this board

2. The other thing is 5-6 small meals to bump up metabolism, again this is a statistical FACT, not an opinion, the great thing about this method of eating is that insulin levels become leveled out and a person will feel better than ever before in their lives

Again, if they don't want to do this, fine, but it's what works, it's the price we pay.

What you're friend is doing and what she doesn't realize, cause of emtoions ABC is that the body will preserve itself no matter what, it will not allow it too starve or whither away, it will make your friend sick so that she is in bed before it allows harm too itself.

When we work out too much and eat too little the body...
A. raises cortisol and makes us tired
B. shuts down test levels makes us tired
C. slows the thryoid so we do not starve to death

The only way too get around this is too know you're BMR, and stay consistently 300 - 500 caloires below through excercise and walla, the body begins to work it's wonders. The body doesn't want to hold onto fat if it doesn't need too, the body will not store water if it knows it's getting more in an hour etc.

Summing up, if you could focus on what she does right you will build her self-esteem and along the way if you can teach her one thing, you've achieved GREATNESS in helping her.

And that is the best you can do.

Hoped That Helped
Good Luck
Trip

PS-Hardbodygirl, takes guts to admit mistakes and failures and too help others through you're pain, kudos to you.

[redsquirrel]

Trip and HBG- you guys have made this thread a FANTASTIC one. There is so much information BOTH of you have contributed to in terms of dieting, self esteem, and ED.

HBG, trip is right..hats off to you for sharing this with all of us. I'm sure it's not something you're proud of, and it can't be easy broadcasting something like this on the open boards. It truly made a difference though, hearing your experiences..without them, all of us would have continued to tell her she looks to thin...without your input I wouldn't have known that that only fuels the fire.

I'm so impressed with the info you both have provided...I think I will put it in sticky. TO have both ends of the spectrum...someone who had been there, and somewhat still is, and someone who knows how coach people struggling with their weight and/or distorted body image. This has been such a great read and all the women, newbies and vets alike need to read it. THere is so much information here, its bound to help them at one point in their lives. Thank you both so much:kiss: :kiss: :bnoser: ..J/K!!!

[trip]

You're welcome, it's been fun.

[Puddles]

BUMP

Red...how is your friend doing lately?