The Compulsion to Get Rid of FAT

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I want to start by saying I have not been dx as aspergers, and i am at a healthy weight. But every now and then I will just "notice" some fat somewhere, in particular my midsection. I am not fat, But when I look at my stomach sometimes I see this bumper of fat and it bothers me. It doesn't bother me because I want to be skinny. It bothers me the same way a dirty room bothers me. It doesn't need to be there.

It is just sitting here like a lump of potatoes in the middle of the living room. Is this OCD?

Or is this anorexia? I am not going through a crisis right now, I don't hate food, and I have never been abused.

Hi Cringe,

I had anorexia when I was 16 yrs old - just around the time Karen Carpenter had brought its attention to the world. (Yes, that was a long time ago, and I am currently a bit overweight).

If you are already slim and you're obsessing over a small area, but you have not changed your eating habits (for example, if you still would put butter on anything, or if you're still be able to eat chips without freaking out), then you probably are not anorexic, however, you may have some preliminary symptoms.

When I became anorexic, I completely changed my diet. I obsessed over calories - I didn't have more than 200 calories a day, and I got as much exercise as I could. I'd look at myself in the mirror, and I still saw myself as fat - I couldn't get skinny enough.


I also didn't want anyone to tell me that I had to eat, and I was in complete denial. Subconsciously, I knew something was wrong when I didn't have enough strength to stand up for long periods of time, my skin got brown dry patches (malnutrition), and my hair started falling out.

With what I know now, if I could afford to go to a gym and be under the supervision of a personal trainer, that's what I would do. Now, one thing to keep in mind however is, personal gym trainers do not usually have the best diet advice, but it's better than an anorexic diet, and they can help you target specific areas you want to work on. (My training period was probably the healthiest time in my life several years ago.)


If you can't go to a gym, I highly recommend Gilad's training DVDs. If you can get his "Quick Fit" system, he has a good / sound nutritional advice pamphlet along with videos of workouts for target areas.

You might actually be just "normal"

See, there is a tremendous amount of media on the Internet and TV that portray even "normal" amounts of fat as "bad." What you feel might actually be considered a normal response to such an onslaught.

Maybe in your mind it's an anomaly. You figure based on what you eat and how much you exercise there isn't a reason for it to be there, but there it is.

btdt: do you mean my body is normal? or my feelings about fat are normal?


goodwitchy: thank you for helping me distinguish mild obsession from anorexia. I would hate to offend a real anorexic. I have had periods where I would feel dirty after eating, but I think that may be ocd related rather than anorexia related.

Both--your body is normal. Your feeling are normal considering the intense pressure put on women to be thin.

You might find this to be an interesting read--this one applies to both men and women, which is why I picked it.

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/isn%E2%80 ... %A6for-men

After I replied to you earlier, I realized that it's very unlikely that someone with anorexia would even be concerned about having anorexia.
In fact, most, if not all anorexics are in denial about their issue (at least until they decide they need to be cured).

I've never felt really dirty after eating except after eating junk food.

I would be careful. You may not have anorexia in a full sense, but I started in the same direction and quickly became completely weight obsessed (because I felt I couldn't bare to have excess weight on my body). I have always been hypersensitive to touch.

I started out a healthy weight, though perhaps slightly under, however it was a healthy weight for a teenager and I refused to let myself gain anything - even as everyone around me shed their teenage body and developed their adult one.

I monitored everything I ate, had excessive guilt if I overate or completely beat myself up over it constantly, and ran long distances to compensate from overeating. I did cleanses and had shakes to loose weight every time I gained a kg.

It wasn't anorexia (I wasn't losing weight), but in and of itself it was extremely destructive. I would call it a "negative Aspergers obsession/special interest" as I believe it was initially fueled by the sensory issues (as you describe) then maintained by thought loops and obsessive thinking. Plus I believe it was also fueled by my bipolar and hypomanic drive towards perfectionism (I had decided that maintaining this weight was necessary, thus there was no such thing as taking it too far or working myself too hard - and I just kept going and going).

I can't compare it to anorexia because I don't know what anorexia is like, but please please please don't underestimate the feelings you're currently having. That's what I did initially. I didn't think there was anything to worry about, I didn't really have a problem and there was nothing seriously wrong - because if I had an eating disorder I'd be wanting to LOSE weight, not maintain it.

Sometimes I had doubts too, and it's not like I never considered anorexia or even bulimia (with exercise as purging instead of throwing up), but I was always able to reason with myself that I didn't really have a problem. I think it's a problem when you've eaten dinner slightly too fast (because you'd had a huge day and worked up an appetite), so you eat too fast and fear you may have eaten too much (even though you'd still probably eaten a smaller portion than everyone else), so you're out running laps around the oval at 9pm at night. Or doing an hour at the gym because you ate a single chocolate bar (unnecessary calories). Especially when you feel like you actually literally can't breathe and are suffocating due to having an extra 1kg of winter weight around your waist.

I've been trying, as of a year, to let go of this and relax about my weight. So far I have gained a healthy 2-3kg which brings me to a BMI more around 20 and a more adult body shape. I try to relax about the fat by reminding myself of the good things about it; it is healthy, natural fat, it insulates and protects my body, it's an emergency source of fuel, it DOES need to be there as it's a natural part of the human body (the human body is naturally meant to have a bumper of fat - all those images of completely flat stomachs are not entirely accurate - I would suggest spending more time looking at renaissance art and that sort of thing and observing the shape of female bodies depicted there).

Another reason I wont have a bar of the fashion industry or brand related products come to think of it , so thin teenage boy bodies are attractive on a women are they ?



I hope you realise most designers in that industry are homosexual or at least suspicious? (not that theirs anything wrong with that)



Hopefully I don't get in trouble for this post , most of the time I'm not even sure if I being offensive.

I used to think I was ugly because I'm fat. I also have a build such that, no matter how much weight I lose, I could never be skinny, my bones are set too wide. I figured there was no point in trying to look pretty because of that.

Then, while I was working my way through college as a cashier, a woman came through the store who must have weighed 250 pounds. But, she carried herself like royalty! She was so beautiful that heads were turning as she walked by, guys were straightening their shirt collars and running a hand through their hair and giving that look they use to try and look good enough to catch her eye, kids were smiling up at her, it was amazing the ripple effect she had. Her presense was such that if someone had told me she was a visiting queen, I would have believed it in a heartbeat.

If a woman that size can be that beautiful, then so can I, no matter what my waistline says.