[*Anya*]

I really appreciate the honesty and openness so many offer in this thread.

Many of us have or had the same struggles with eating and food.

For me, I simply can't look at it as deprivation. I already know what everything tastes like because I have eaten it all! In a moment of eating, almost to me as though it were a drug but after it is gone, the self-loathing is/was tremendous. I have great empathy for those that deal with their own demons of alcohol and drugs because in some way, my relationship with food has been a similar struggle. We just can't stop eating altogether which makes our struggle a little different.

I just can't go there again. I am dealing with so much in my life that I can't afford one more thing to feel badly about myself. Control over my eating is about the only power I feel I have right now. I feel if I give that up-I am lost.

It is not deprivation for me. It is working to give myself the gift of health