#talk of disordered eating

[ibtisams]

Anyway I think national eating disorder awareness week is almost over but I do want to say that as cheesy as it is, recover is possible and it does get better and easier and you will feel like yourself again. There is no shame in asking for help, needing help, or wanting help. There IS shame in how so much of modern media is centered around weight and beauty standards for girls and how often celebrities and influencers normalise disordered eating.

[lylahammar]

People always talk about how Laios is a character who gives fat vibes even if he isn't technically fat in canon which is very true, and I have some thoughts on that!! (this will be a long post lol sorry)

There's a lot of material in the dunmeshi extras that show how fatness factors into dungeon exploration, which shows that only the most skilled adventurers are able to keep weight on while in the dungeon (thank you to @savaralyn2 for the translations! links to the individual posts these panels come from are added on the pics):

So we know, at the very least, that most of the characters are kept thinner than they would be naturally through the strain of death/revivification in the main dungeon. We also see that Laios has some fat on him, which through the text means that he's skilled enough to at least keep some of his weight (which makes sense, he doesn't die very often in canon).

(to be clear this ^ doesn't constitute as "fat," he is built as fuck here he just has some fat on his body which shows his prowess as a fighter in this universe) HOWEVER my personal little pet theory/headcanon is that Laios actually has a difficult relationship with food! I know that doesn't make much sense at first since he's shown to eat a lot in canon, but hear me out. In pre-canon, before he reunited with Falin, he's shown to be extremely gaunt:

But after partnering up with Falin, he gains weight and looks much more healthy very quickly. Part of this is definitely because of his unstable living situation/mental illness, but he and Falin still live in very poor conditions after this and he still manages to gain weight/get healthier, so I believe it's mainly due to her making sure he eats enough. We also know that Laios is. most certainly autistic. Nobody argue with me on that it's like pretty much widely accepted as canon for a lot of reasons lmao. So my theory is that he's actually food sensitive. He's shown to not really care about food that isn't monster-related. Even when he eats regular food, he's usually imagining it being a monster instead.

He has never eaten squid before, which is totally normal, but could also support my theory in a way :P it being a monster still can't save it from the autistic sensory bad experience in this case, though.

So I think that his adventurous eating during the course of the story isn't because he's actually an adventurous eater normally, it's purely because of his special interest (monsters, duh). During his journey to recover Falin, he's able to build up a healthier relationship with food through Senshi's guidance and the involvement of his special interest.

By the end of the story, after he's retired from dungeon exploration and living in comfort/safety, and with his newly healthy diet, he's finally able to gain a lot more weight. Imo, his is a story of someone who's naturally meant to be fat, but is only able to reach that point when in a stable and healthy environment.

(for the record I know he's not that fat in this post canon comic, but this is only a year and a bit after the end of the story so there's still time lol)

alright I'm goin back to drawing now just had to infodump for a minute ✌️ keep it sleazy

[ms-demeanor]

Going off that post about nutrition and science, I'd love to hear what you think of the 5:2 diet/The Fast 800 and its creator, Dr. Michael Mosley. For context: in order to get an NHS-funded breast reduction (it's a gender thing, but also just a general quality-of-life thing), I need to be a certain BMI, so I've been referred to a weight management clinic. The lady I've been seeing initially just put me on a low-carb diet (130g or less of carbs per day, with an aside from her about how bullshit Keto and BMI limits for treatment are), but now she's said that, if I wanted to speed up the weight loss, I should include the 5:2 diet: 5 days in a week where I eat "normally", and 2 fast days in which I restrict myself to 800kcals. I did a little looking into it myself, and found that 5:2 - which I HAD heard about before - is now being sold as part of "The Fast 800", with Dr. Mosley being the creator of it. I was shocked by that, because I was already a fan of Dr. Mosley's work (he has a podcast called "Just One Thing" that I really liked, and thought contained reasonable-sounding advice), and yet having a diet plan that he's clearly making money off of does immediately make me feel suspicious. I've borrowed his "The Fast 800" book from the library, both to find out more about the diet I've been put on and to see if it's at all backed by evidence, and he does cite a bunch of scientific studies which seem to back up his ideas, but I don't know how valid they are, and I don't just want to accept them at face-value (especially since he's a "we got fat completely wrong in the 80s, therefore we should eat a Mediterranean diet!" types). Obviously I'll go with what my weight management lady suggests, since she's obviously more qualified to talk about it than I am, but I am curious to know what you think, and whether I'm right to be distrustful of all of this.

I am, generally speaking, against any diet for rapid weight loss. They're not sustainable so people gain the weight back (often with more weight getting added on).

There have also recently been findings that suggest that BMI cutoffs for top surgery are detrimental to patients as patients in higher BMI categories are more likely to have minor complications like UTIs or to be readmitted, but are not likely to have major complications or be at risk of significant harm from having top surgery. I don't know if anybody will listen if you bring up that study, and I know that GCS is fraught in many places for many reasons.

I'm also just.

I'm so mad. I'm so fucking mad! I'm so mad about this!

One of my best friends is a guy who was pressured into a pattern of disordered eating and unhealthy exercise in order to qualify for top surgery; since then he has not been able to eat in a healthy way and has struggled with alternating between exercising to the point of harm and other destructive behaviors that make him unhappy and unsafe. And he didn't need that. He didn't need any of that! He needed a very safe surgery that had perhaps a slightly higher risk of minor complications at his size and instead he got top surgery and an eating disorder! I hate it! I'm so fucking mad about it!

Also as near as I can tell Michael Mosley qualified as a psychiatrist in the 90s, spent very little time working as a psychiatrist, and then became a media personality. From what is visible on his website and every biography I've found for him he apparently doesn't have any background in nutrition beyond whatever is standard for someone in medical school (which is NOT MUCH).

Hey I just looked at his website and this is straight-up fucked up.

Anybody recommending an 800 calorie a day diet for 2-12 weeks in a context that is not heavily medically supervised can fucking choke. That is *ridiculously* dangerous and the website says that this can improve insulin resistance but there are a shitload of studies about people on crash diets like this *developing* insulin resistance (oh hey like my friend who became prediabetic after his rapid significant weight loss).

Also in regard to the studies he cites on the website, the "two years later patients are still going strong in their diabetes improvements" it's really important to put shit like that in context

at 5 years 13% of the original intervention group were in remission from their type two diabetes; the average weight loss experienced by the intervention group as a whole was 6.1kg compared to 4.6kg in the control group. That's 1.5kg lower for the people who went through a twelve week medically supervised very low calorie diet compared. That's an average difference of 3.3 pounds between "starvation diet" and "no diet" for the Americans in the audience.

Yours is the second comment I've seen that has been leery of the Mediterranean diet, btw, and the Mediterranean diet is fine. It's very achievable and not super gimmicky and is based on very reasonable reassessments of fat, not the hardcore "you are fine to eat 100g of fat a day" kind of attitude that you get from the keto crew. There isn't really one Mediterranean diet and it certainly isn't low carb (which the bits from Mosely's website seem to indicate it is).

So, no, honestly I don't think much of Mosely and I'm very sorry you're in this situation, that sucks and I hate that they're refusing you treatment until you undergo an exceptionally difficult and potentially harmful weight loss excursion.

I know you're probably stuck with that and it's bullshit and I think it fucking sucks and unfortunately the medical advice you're likely to get is "eat in a significantly disordered manner at least until it is time for surgery" and it blows. That just fucking sucks.

If you're looking for rapid weight loss that you don't plan to sustain (and you shouldn't plan to sustain it, it won't stay off) you may want to look into body building forums for how they discuss cuts. It's still disordered eating and it's still not healthy, but at least they're effective and can tell you what supplements will keep you from becoming malnourished while you prepare for surgery. This is a terrible idea. I don't actually want to give this advice to anyone but bodybuilders are the exact kind of people who know how far and how fast they can push weight loss while having an awareness that it isn't really good for them and it won't stay off.

I cannot overstate enough how much I hate the thought that people are being encouraged to rapidly starve themselves in order to prepare to recover from surgery. I am so sorry and I'm so mad and

[librarycards]

recipe makers NEED to stop framing vegan food as “healthy food” and assuming that the vegan cook/eater requires caloric and macronutrient breakdowns on every recipe or food review. fixating on notions of “health” (read: weight loss) when it comes to veganism not only nullifies the ethical commitment the lifestyle implies but also assigns a new, wildly unethical and dangerous social imperative of body punishment instead. this creates a deadly environment for vegans with EDs, as well as others whose class/disability/ etc contexts require them to consume processed foods.

The imbrication of contemporary “plant based” culture with diet culture/antifatness is stripping bodily autonomy from marginalized people who want to follow their ethical commitments, but cannot do so without putting their lives in danger.

[crazylittlejester]

i see so much of Warriors with an eating disorder where he’s starving himself and wants to be thinner (for whatever reason, ive seen a lot of different ones), and like slay, love those headcanons, keep going crazy everyone, im obsessed with it /gen

but may I suggest:

Warriors who wants so desperately to not look as thin as he does. Warriors who because of all the attempts on his life has become so scared to eat anything but his safe foods that he can’t get enough food to prevent him from losing weight during the war. Warriors who wishes more than anything he could he as muscular and big as Twilight but who’s body won’t let him because he can’t gain the weight required for that no matter how hard he tries and no matter how much progress he makes. Warriors who LOVES food, and loves cooking for people he loves, but who sometimes is physically unable to eat anything but his safe foods because hes too afraid of being poisoned and he gets frustrated with himself for being unable to eat. Warriors who wishes he weren’t as thin, but there is literally nothing he can do about it. Warriors who is still strong, but who has a build similar to a ballet dancer’s and is all muscle and bones.

And Warriors who is slowly healing, slowly gaining weight (even if he doesn’t see it) who will one day look at himself in the mirror and genuinely smile, happy with how far he’s come

[cemeterything]

cw disordered eating but i'm actually really proud of myself for how much more i enjoy food now that i've learned to work with my issues around it and find ways to ensure i get enough to eat even when i don't feel like it by being kinder to myself and getting back into enjoying cooking and experimenting with recipes. i forgot how nice it is to not be hungry and tired all the time.

[matchalovertrait]

What is a chef to do when she loses her appetite due to sadness?

[bathroomflooder]

honestly I think not giving me food would do the trick :\

[libraford]

My son is learning about 'healthy' foods in school and its mucking up everything I've been teaching him for years cause now he is upset that either I or the teacher is lying to him. (He's neurospicy so he hates lying) I had to sit him down and explain that too much of any food even 'healthy' ones can make you sick. I had to use water as an example cause too much water can kill you.

When I was trying to be good about hydrating, I would keep a 2 liter bottle of water with me to drink at work and my mom got worried that I would give myself water poisoning even though 2 liters was a recommended amount of water to drink at the time and also I was NOT going to drink the whole thing- let's be realistic. The 2 liter bottle was wishful thinking.

My mom is on the constant recovery from an eating disorder and as much as I want to be like 'well at least she's eating' its also... hmmmm... we haven't addressed the root issue here, have we?

[mean-hare]

you can say "block dont report" with huge red letters in a blog title. you can tag your every post with "antiproana", "pro only for me, not for you" etc. you can explain that its your safe space, the only place you can vent in, the only place you can find the support. you can write the most heartbreaking and soulshattering essay about how lonely edisordered ppl are and how bad reporting and terming ed accounts is for them. it doesnt matter. they still will report you. they dont read it. they dont even care. they just report our blogs bc they think that they are right and good and we are wrong and evil. it doesnt matter how they loudly they scream about being accepting and supporting disordered ppl, in reality they just want us to hide and never show up. look at all the posts about taking away ed guys' safe spaces, look at these blog names. almost all of them are termed (or are just new and will be termed very soon). it didnt helped.

[ms-demeanor]

Re the "ask a bodybuilder" thing: I have some friends who lowkey lift, and one of them described a "macro-friendly" dessert recipe they'd seen (with a tone of mockery). My immediate thought was "eating disorder For Him", to which both friends agreed that "yeah, no, ask any professional bodybuilder how they get in shape for shows and they know it's dysfunctional"

Yeah, the behavior that bodybuilders use when on a cut (losing weight and getting lean for a show/season) is absolutely not a healthy or sustainable approach to food; generally they know this and they are aware that there are some times of year when they're going to be functionally starving themselves (and dehydrating themselves - they will absolutely skip water in the days before a show so they have more visible veins and muscle striations) but actually what I was talking about there went in the other direction (bulking rather than cutting). It's really really really really hard to put on weight if your body doesn't want to put on weight. It's really hard to keep that weight on. It's hard to gain muscle and it's easy to lose it. And I know plenty of people who are naturally very thin who have struggled to put on weight.

But we only really present one side of this equation and I think it's worthwhile to talk about both. Not in an "oh skinny people are oppressed too" way, but in an "look actually changing your body composition requires a level of effort that is bugfuck insane to ask of people and if you wouldn't ask a thin person to put on ten pounds of muscle because of the effort that would require, why are you comfortable telling a fat person to lose fifty pounds in spite of the effort that requires?" way.

[inkskinned]

i turn 29 on july 1st. i feel like i make a lot of these notes to myself, to check in. hi, me, here's what's happening.

hi, me. hi, you, too, if you keep reading. here's some rules i have been following:

when a book is bad, i put the book down. i choose something i like instead. when i don't like a movie, i don't make myself watch until the end. i care less and less what people think about me and focus more on being a good friend.

for the 6 months or so, i've been asking people what they think should be my next book or tv show. i ask them where i should go on a walk next week. i ask them what food i should try next, what hobby. and then i write it down in front of them.

the truth is some stuff slips through the cracks. but most of the time? within two weeks, i get to send my favorite kind of text - so i tried the thing you were talking about and !

i have a new policy for split-second choices - it's better to try it. i have social anxiety. i have to talk myself into doing many things. i am constantly battling the desire to run away as far as my feet will take me. and then i stand up and i do the thing anyway. i make myself act and dance and sing. sometimes, yes, i know-immediately never again, i hate this. but most of the time - i just have fun with it.

i have a new mantra - nobody is scorekeeping. at the end of my life, there will be no grand reading of how many calories i'd been eating. no reviews on how many boring documentaries i forced myself through, no calculation on how many hours i endured an extremely dull educational podcast. and so what if i try karaoke and i don't actually nail it? so what if i stumble over my words while trying to make a public announcement? so what if i wear something too-showy to go to the grocery store? nobody there knows me, and: nobody's keeping score.

life doesn't resolve with a grade (i know, i was as shocked as everyone else when i realized it). i am not falling behind, because there's no curriculum to life that i should be following. there are no checkpoints; nobody is making sure i have a fully-furnished life resume. i am just here for as long as the earth will have me, and i get to decide what makes me happy.

i don't have a partner or a house or anything that is supposed to belong to people-my-age. i spend most of my time focusing on being kind, compassionate, ready to listen without restraint.

and honestly? i feel good. like actually. i kind of like it this way.

[jinx58062]

nothing makes me feeling guiltier than lying to love ones about being “better”, like sorry guys im only just getting started on the progression down hill…

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

life hack: terrible discourse around Brain Problems of various kinds gets a lot funnier to witness when you can remind yourself that "black and white thinking" is a symptom or trait of basically all the disorders there are

[uncanny-tranny]

It's not uncommon at all to miss your abuse, to miss disordered behaviours, or miss when you were at your worst.

It's understandable why you might feel like you have no clue what to do - recovery is an uncertainty. It is unfamiliar, it is scary. It's okay to long for the stability of those dark parts of your story. You aren't a bad person, you aren't ungrateful, nor are those feelings proof that you cannot recover.

You still deserve to recover, however that looks for you. You don't need to run from yourself, you are not a net negative.

[mumblesplash]

the fact that doctors can just Recommend Weight Loss with no instructions beyond ‘eat healthier/less’ is actually insane to me, i lost weight on purpose ONCE and it took me like 6 years to recover a semi-normal relationship with food and hunger