Dear Tessa:

Like you wrote recently on another thread: “the tighter I squeeze and the harder I think about it, the more the divide grows”- being overly focused on your weight is counter productive.

Fear is underneath, the fear of being alone since your family members are chronically ill. Lately you expressed fear that your friends are not as close to you as they used to be. I think it is that fear in that Pandora’s box.

I used to be similarly focused on my weight. To the extreme. I am still anxious about my weight and around food. These are the ways I made it easier for myself:

* I keep working on, healing from the root cause: fear, ongoing, excessive (anxiety)- stemming from a very unsafe original family environment.

* I stopped weighing myself exactly two years ago (after daily weighing and recording my weight daily on my computer calendar as well as marking it on a line graph!)

* I put away all the size zero clothes I had to fit my desired weight (a bit under the BMI normal)

* I no longer restrict items, deciding to never eat this or that- no “bad foods” and “good foods” You are correct: restricting leads to overeating/ bingeing.

There is more, but this is for now.

anita