Life after an eating disorder

Hope McKay can vividly recall the lowest point of her life with an eating disorder, though she tries not to picture it too often.

'I was sitting in Asda car park, having just eaten as much cheap food as I could get in the basket ? doughnuts, biscuits, packets of ham, milkshakes ? and I was planning what to do next to kill the time. I remembered a restaurant down the road ? and went down there for lunch.'

At the time, Hope was 17 and living at home in Braintree, Essex. Her parents thought she was at college all day, but she had stopped going to classes long ago. 'I'd leave home after a normal breakfast, then stop for a McDonald's breakfast,' says Hope. 'Then I'd drive to Asda, buy some food and sit in the car park, eating it, passing the time.' After that, it was a restaurant for lunch, and maybe the cinema in the afternoon, always with sweets. When Hope arrived home ? via McDonald's or KFC ? supper would be waiting on the table.

'It was like living in a blur, a kind of food-fuelled haze,' says Hope, who is now 24. 'You don't know where you are or what you're doing, but all you're thinking about is the next fix. I used to wonder how I could fit all that food in my stomach.'

At her heaviest, Hope weighed 18 stone as a result of her binge-eating disorder. She is nowsix stone lighter. But losing the weight was not the hard part. Hope managed it several times, quickly and radically, through very low-calorie diets consisting of pre-mixed shakes. 'Liquid diets eliminated the problem; I didn't have to think about food, or engage with it at all,' she says. 'But when I reached my target weight I'd have to go back to eating. Old habits would creep back.'

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/569020/s/1a78f1c9/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Clifestyle0C88993710CLife0Eafter0Ean0Eeating0Edisorder0Bhtml/story01.htm

women health program women health fitness women health first women medical health