I didn't think that counting calories could become an eating disorder until someone told me that I had an eating disorder. I was in denial for a long time. I mean, counting calories isn't bad, lots of people do it! Of course, lots of people were doing it, but it doesn't mean that the way I was doing it was healthy.
Counting calories is a good way to maintain weight and making sure that you are not eating junk food with empty calories. It's common sense that if you want to maintain or lose weight, your calories outtake has to be greater than your calories intake. It isn't that hard, right?
Well... it started off like that for me. I just simply started to count calories in the meals that I had and the exercise that I was doing (which meant walking around campus all the time, but that is seriously a lot of exercise when your classes are all over campus!) And then, I started watching what I was eating. I was trying not to eat the junk food and limit my snacking. Then I started taking the long routes to my class, taking stairs, walking to places that I didn't need to go.
After about six months, I noticed that I was losing weight. At first it was just a couple of pounds, then a couple more and I was happy. Of course, I was happy, but I still thought I looked fat. I started to skip meals or just have one of those power bars for lunch, which was low in calories, but high in vitamins. I never really had a breakfast because I didn't have the time for it, but my lunch would be compromised as well. I would purposely go six to eight hours without eating. Sometimes, I would have a granola bar for lunch because I was "too busy." I always had a dinner though. I made sure that I ate at least one meal a day, but my dinner would be small. And I would avoid eating after 9:00pm.
I hid this eating disorder for two years. No one knew what was going on. None of my friends knew because I would eat properly around them, but barely ate when I wasn't. I was losing weight, but not drastically where it's very noticable. Out of the two years, I only lost 20 pounds, but I was never overweight to begin with.
After, I started to get sick... really sick. I skipped classes and couldn't even get out of bed sick. Once I would get better, I would get sick all over again with other strain of flu going around. I got sick about five times in two quarters! My body couldn't fight the disease and my immune system was shot because of the lack of nutrition. My friends were worried about me and my sickness. It wasn't until a year ago that I finally confessed to my friend that I was counting calories and not eating very well. She told me that I had an eating disorder and to get some help.
I went to get help and received prayers from all my friends. I have kind of stopped counting calories. Sometimes, I'll start again, but I'll catch myself and try to break the cycle. It's hard though. I have to ignore the lies that make me believe that I'm fat. It's a struggle at times.
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the unfortunate thing is that in our society a lot of normal things turn into extreme disorders...like the normal activity of exercising turning into a weight disorder, or the normal activity of washing your hands turning into ocd (which I have)...it's sad to think that so many people suffer some kind of disorder or disease that spawned from something so innocent...like counting calories for you...but hopefully people can have enough realization to not hit the extremes
I think counting calories encourages the obsessive mind (which is a common characteristic of anorexics) to engage in the kind of behavior she described. When I was in the hospital for anorexia, they taught us to count servings, instead. When we freaked out about the fact that we didn't know exactly how many calories we had taken in, and therefore, how many we needed to burn, they pointed out that we don't really know how many calories we burned in a day anyway, as it varies from person to person, and so making sure we had enough servings of each food group will help everything come out in the wash. That was a common phrase there, actually, "Everything comes out in the wash."
It was much harder to be obsessive about "five servings of bread, two servings of protein, seven servings of fruit, two servings of veggies (interchangeable with fruit), two servings of milk, and two servings of fat" than is was to obsess about actual, cold, hard numbers. (The list above was my meal plan when I was in recovery, btw). Sure, you could measure, but it wasn't like counting, which is very satisfying to obsessive impulses.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Thank you for sharing your story and I am so glad that you came to accept and see your problem. From my own experience, with friends and in my biology and psychology courses, I have learned that eating disorders stem not only from insecurities about one's body image and weight, but often times also due to a feeling of a lack of control in one's life. I have a few very close friends who have had eating disorders and who still struggle with food to this day. Therefore this obsessive behavior, like counting calories, is one thing that they can control, limit and change, but this as you said often leads to eating disorders. If another area of their life is uncontrollable and hurtful (such as abuse, family hardships, etc) it makes sense that some people use food as something they can change. Therefore, in the healing process, it is important for anorexics, exercise addicts and bulimics to find another area of their lives to control.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kelliecor
I agree that control is a big factor. One of my friends was anorexic at one time in her life, and she mentioned that she felt like the only thing she had control of was her eating so she needed to take advantage of it.
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