Nurses with eating disorders?

[CardiacDork]

This may be a bit bold. *Deep Breath*

Lately facing demons head on has resulted in some good healing. Are there any nurses on this forum that would be open with sharing that they have an eating disorder? Their experience? How specifically does your eating disorder intertwine with being a nurse? For me caring for larger patients usually results in skipping lunch. Although my care is the same to all patients, I feel a bit anxious of ending up in such state of obesity and tend to eat nothing for the day.

Do do any of you binge eat related to work stress? Stop eating due to body image?

Not looking for medical advise just wanting to reach out and see others experiences.

[NotAllWhoWandeRN, ASN, RN]

Depends on the behaviours and the number of times you binge/ exercise/ purge in a week. Regardless of defined criteria, many people walk that fine line, whether they decide to admit it or not.

At least we are talking about it more.

But those definitions are arbitrary. They changed enormously just from the DSM-IV to V.

I believe that disordered eating and eating disorders fall on a spectrum, with the mildly unhealthy habits on one end and the chronically critically ill lifers on the other. And one person does not spend their entire lives at the same point on that continuum.

The casual acceptance of disordered eating (over-care with type and amounts of food eaten, with obtaining or maintaining some magical arbitrary goal weight, looking a certain way or being a certain size etc which are often zero to do with health, or a misguided attempt at health) makes it a hundred times harder for the people with more severe problems. The body policing and diet talk never, ever stop. It's like being an alcoholic and you can never leave the bar.

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

Yes, notice I said "regardless of the defined criteria".....

Definitions are arbitrary.

[Nursynursenurse, ADN, RN]

Im a bulimic in remission thanks to topamax. It is a miracle drug and has given me my life back. I have struggled with binge eating for over half my life. Food is my addiction and i think there is something wrong with my brain chemistry. Why can normal people eat a meal and feel satisfied while some still have cravings long after physical fullness sets in? Many people with a healthy weight attribute their size to healthy choices but I believe something else is going on. Its not will power. They do not experience the incessant cravings I have after eating a filling meal and it doesn't take all the energy within them to resist them. They eat and go about their day. I eat and want more to the point I get physical symptoms and completely lose the ability to concentrate. Food is literally the only thing on my mind in my non medicated state. I would eat until I couldn't stand up straight or walk right. I would eat until my stomach was so full it would compress my lungs and I'd be panting like a dog.

Purging is less risky to me than consuming 8,000 calories a day and becoming morbidly obese. I dont regret that behavior. Is that horrible? As a nurse, i know the dangers of heart disease, HTN, DM and dont want to let myself get huge and take that risk. I feel guilty when I see a very large person and think, "why don't they just purge?"

Studies have shown that dieting is actually one of the main causes of binge eating disorder which is ironic considering how so many people will go on a diet to lose a few pounds then have it backfire. Our bodies are evolutionarily designed to resist famine at all costs. When it senses famine (dieting), the biological drive for food is so strong it will do everything in its power to make sure it gets food. That means intense cravings. Even if you aren't truly starving, if you body senses a cut in calories, it will think its starving and send out hunger signals. This is why diets fail 99.9% of the time. See the Minnesota starvation experiment. The psychology of hunger

[madricka, BSN, RN]

Having a binge eating disorder isn't a matter over overeating or stress eating. It's a MASSIVE & uncontrolled frenzy of eating in one sitting (I've literally sat on the kitchen floor and eaten everything in the fridge, including condiments). This can happen more than once a day. To counter the binges (which cause panic and guilt), people will often purge, use laxatives/diuretics, overexercise (like 8hrs a day), or restrict intake for hours to days between binges (this is what I did). All of this is very well hidden. I used to plan out my binges like a drug addict -- I'd think about it all day at work, exactly what I would buy, etc then wait until night (so no one would see me). I'd pick an overweight cashier because I figured they would judge me less for buying $200 worth of junk food (or a strange mix of food items). I'd rush home excited to engage in these behaviours because I knew, on some messed up level, it would make me feel better (even if it was followed by extreme anxiety, I still felt I had it under control). I would turn my phone off and spend 2-3 days in binge mode. I wouldn't even remember what I was doing. If someone had to come over I would hide everything or throw it out so they wouldn't see. I used to hide/hoard food like crazy.

To counter, I would take handfuls of laxatives. I would also just not eat on work days. My whole life revolved around this. I didn't have friends or date, I didn't go out. I went to work (and was focused and good at my job while I was there) and when I came home, I let loose with the food. This is how bad it was when I went into treatment. I had extremes with restricting in my teens/early 20's but didn't get treatment for that at the time (oh man, I wish I had!).

So yeah, not just, "I ate too much at dinner". Overeating, even a lot, is not unusual with high levels of stress -- cortisol and adrenaline will make you very hungry (even moreso if you have thyroid issues or metabolic syndrome). Yes, it's a comfort for a lot of people. No, it's probably not good to overeat. But eating disorders are on a whole other level. They are all-consumming day-in/day-out and it really does take over your whole life. It affects your health, your work, your relationships. There is deep levels of shame. Girls I went to treatment with would tell horrible stories of things they have done & there is a lot of self-harm behaviours that go with eating disorders. Likewise, eating disorders usually do not exist in isolation, they tend to be part of a constellation of other mental health issues (BPD, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, etc).

If you are struggling with food, on any level, please talk to someone!!! It's scary but you are worth it, your life is worth it.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

I've "dieted" from a BMI of 23 to a BMI of 20 with a reasonable calorie restriction for my height and activity level. (1,000 to 1,200 calories a day) I am currently eating at maintenance which works out to roughly 1,400 calories a day.

I've also lived on a combination of puking everything I ate/restricting to 200 calories a day and floated around at a BMI range of 11-14, depending on how long I could stay out of the hospital.

I had an irritating low level of chronic hunger during my diet phase. It definitely wasn't the same starvation induced, all consuming hunger that defined my anorexic years. I am eating now at an amount that leaves me mostly satisfied but I still have to consciously make good food decisions that some times deprive me of what I want. For instance, work is ordering Chinese today but I had Thai last night so I will eat the lunch I brought from home today.

My experience with eating disorder treatment was that they filled your head with this unrealistic notion that "recovery" is a nirvana-like state where you do all the right things for your body intuitively, without thinking about it. That your body has a magical set point that is neither too fat nor too skinny -- achieved by eating everything in reasonable moderation, eating until full, etc. I can't do that without getting fat. I don't think most people can.

[Erythropoiesis]

That describes me perfectly. I need to chew and taste. (Maybe I need a "chew toy" like dogs have. )

During the semester I don't tend to stress eat, but year long in order to relieve stress I tend to be very orally fixated. I'll put pens/pencils in my mouth, bite my fingernails, etc. I don't notice I'm doing it sometimes. I will grow my nails out and then when something stressful happens I'll chew on them and make them short again :-/ it's really annoying. It's like I'm a teething puppy.

[BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP]

I am an emotional eater. I eat when I'm happy to celebrate, and I eat when I'm sad to comfort. I was brought up in a family where food=love, but was also criticized when I put on a few pounds. My sisters and I are all overweight as middle aged women and. We all cook good, healthy food, but we eat too much of it. I don't know the meaning of a proper serving size.

I wish I could find the middle ground between living to eat, and eating to live.

[Aneri J.]

Oh dear. I started to keep track of my eating habits since last month, and I noticed that I only eat max twice a day! I'm aiming for 3-5 meals daily, so this is a bit worrying for me. On most days after work I get too tired to eat and just sleep. Any advice?

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

My story is a little different. For most of my life I've had a problem with binge eating, to the point where I weighed 362 lbs. at one time. Then I was put on mood stabilizers and lost the urge to compulsively overeat, although I was still morbidly obese and stayed that way. I also ate too much of everything because I had a large capacity for food.

Fast forward to this year. I weighed 341 lbs. when my husband died in July, and that's when everything changed. I lost my appetite and my craving for soda, which was my big downfall (I used to drink several Cokes a day, diet or otherwise). I still don't know what happened, but my weight is now in freefall and I've dropped over 50 lbs. My appetite eventually returned, but my stomach shrank to the point where I can't eat more than a small portion of food. It's almost like I had a gastric bypass. I eat what I want, but living with my son means I make better choices; we don't eat a lot of fatty or fried foods, and we have some form of vegetables at almost every meal.

I don't know if this will keep going. I'm still severely obese, so I hope it does. I haven't weighed under 300 lbs. in many years, and I've achieved that and then some. Who knows? I never believed things would go this far.