If you are struggling with an eating disorder and one of the behaviours you use is starvation then you may have a lot of side effects from this that you aren't even aware are due to your restricting.
When you deprive yourself from food you are depriving yourself of crucial nutrients that you need.
Although you will probably lose weight it is not a sustainable way to lose weight as once you do start eating again you are extremely likely to put the weight back on as you have slowed your metabolism down and your body has gone into starvation mode and will hold onto what you are eating as a mode of survival as it won't know when it will next be fed.
Attitude/behaviours related to eating whilst starving
- Increased Hunger- This is an obvious one. If you don't eat, you're going to get hungry.
- Tendency to hoard food- If you're not eating you may hoard food so that when you do start eating you know you have food that you want available.
- Increased pre-occupation with food- This is a big one. For me personally, when I wasn't allowing myself to eat anything all I could think about was food. I would be sat thinking about what foods I wanted when I was going to allow myself to eat. I couldn't concentrate in class because I was constantly thinking about food.
- Planning meals- Again this could come hand in hand with the above point. If you aren't allowing yourself to eat, you will likely sit and plan out meals that you will allow yourself to eat when your restricting period is over.
Social changes
- Withdrawal/Isolation- If a person is starving themselves they probably won't want to be around people. A reason for this could be that they don't want anyone to become aware of what they are doing to themselves so they will avoid social situations.
- Strained relationships- If a person is starving themselves, they are likely to have a lot of emotional changes and one of these would be irritability and because of this the person suffering may not seem themselves and will likely start pushing people away resulting in strained relationships.
- Reduced sexual intrest- When somebody starves themself it is extremely likely that they have a low opinion of themselves and their bodies and because of this they more than likely won't want somebody else to see the body that they are unhappy with. When you are starving there is also a hormonal change (testosterone and oestrogen levels decrease) which can reduce your sexual interest.
Emotional changes
- Depression- If you are not eating/under eating your mood is going to change. Nutrients in food effect the brain and when you take that away it takes things off balance and therefore effects your mental health.
- Anxiety- Starving can lead to anxiety as the person can become nervous especially surrounding food and socialising.
- Irritability- The brain depends on glucose and when you are starving this becomes low and can cause irritability. This is something I dealt with, I already have no patience but when I wasn't allowing myself to eat, the smallest things could make me angry and this did make me take things out on people closest to me.
- Apathy- People that are starving can start to lack feeling. They can become disinterested in things/people and situations as they isolate themselves and become preoccupied by food.
- Head aches
- Hair loss
- Reduced tolerance to cold temperature
- Reduced strength
- Water retention
- Tingling sensations in the feet
- Tiredness
- Gastro-intestinal discomfort
- Weakness
As you can see from the list above weight loss is not the only symptom of starvation and you are putting yourself at huge risks when you do restrict yourself from eating. Before I got help for my eating disorder, I wasn't even aware that some of the symptoms that were happening to me was due to my eating disorder behaviours. I hope this post has helped to make you aware of some of the symptoms that are the outcome of starvation. I will also be doing a post on the effects of vomiting soon for those of you who may use binge purge behaviours so keep an eye out for that.
Lorna
xxx
