07.05.2020
My name is Kim-Luis and I’m 19 years old.
I have been suffering from an eating disorder (non-purging bulimia) for more than 6 years now. I never really have been overweight but I was extremely underweight in 2018 and 2019 because I fasted 3-4 days a week for many months. Fasting never was THE problem for this issue. It was my mind. It was my mind and my eating disorder. I told myself I was too fat, too ugly, too small, too this and too that. I hated myself for the way I looked. So I fasted way too much even when I already was sick enough. I started at 50 kg (june 2018). When I weighed 39,6 kg (may 2019) I knew it was time to recover. It was hard. Really hard. I gave up fasting and ate every day (first one meal a day and a few weeks later two meals a day, but now I know that plant based OMAD is better for me). I could eat a lot because my stomach was used to expanding a lot. The reason for that is that I binged on food many many times for years because my weak body wanted energy so bad. I binged on dates, dried figs, peanut butter, oatmeal, bananas, potatoes, bread, vegetables, chocolate and much more.
Once I fasted for two or three days and binged at night on many fruit & nut bars and on chocolate. The day after the binge I suffered from the refeeding syndrome and almost died. I never want to feel like this again.
I gained a lot of weight because I had extreme hunger in my recovery. My highest weight was 59 kg a few weeks ago. Then I did a 13 day water fast and got to 53,4 kg. The main reason wasn’t my weight. I want my skin to get healthier (I have psoriasis on my scalp since 2017 and in general my skin is too dry), I want my kidneys to stop hurting (every time I binge my kidneys start to hurt), I want to be more spiritual, I don’t want to be addicted to food anymore (food is fuel and not a great way to cope with feelings) and I want to benefit from atophagy as much as possible. I want to feel clean. But I will never ever let myself become weak and underweight from fasting again.
Fasting should be a way to heal the body not to destroy it. I will listen to my body just as I did on my 13 day water fast. I first wanted to make it to 30 days but my body told me that 30 days were too much.
The water fast ended about a week ago and I’m ready and enthusiastic to start another one because my refeeding phase wasn’t as good as I planned (I didn’t want to eat highly processed foods but I did it anyways on day 3 or 4 of my refeed). So after my next fast my refeed will be better. Only fruit for three days and then I include vegetable soups, small amounts of tofu and nicely cooked vegetables. After 5-7 days I’ll include potatoes, small amounts of legumes and ground flax seeds. When I feel good I will include more and more foods to my whole food plant based diet and do OMAD like usual.
I want to fast at least for 21 days but if my body tells me to refeed earlier, I will listen to my body.
Fasting wasn’t the problem. My sick mind was.