Start working out. Cardio is great and you can do weights to sculpt and speed up your metabolism. Eat healthy and do cardio 5 times a week and give it time. You will start to see results. Maybe you need a good multivitamin to boost your metabolism, and for energy.

I know this is months and months after the fact, but I am in recovery for an ED and just found this, and even though you're probably long finished with the wedding things, I'm hoping you aren't still caught in a cycle of restricting calories and over exercising. I've struggled with bulimia for years, and have been cutting back on my obsessive running, etc. habits since entering recovery and get this: since I've been eating more (about six times the amount of food daily) and running less (not even a quarter of the mileage I used to do each week), I've lost weight. Apparently for some people, if you exercise too much, your body can start making too much of a chemical called NP-Y (neuropeptide-Y), which has the effect of slowing your metabolism. So, even though you're working out much more than the average person and are probably in great shape, your metabolism is glacial. My RD has seen this in dozens of patients who eat far too little each day, exercise far too often, and yet it doesn't equate to a skin-and-bone body type. In short, you may have a way higher metabolism, too, but have been stunting it with your eating and exercise habits.

I hope this finds you well!

I'm so glad you posted this. I was restricting and over-exercising. After about a year I started to put on weight rapidly and couldn't seem to get it off no matter how little I ate and how much I exercised. It's been another year now since my ED began. I guess I've only accepted that my unhealthy obsession with losing weight was what was causing all my problems. I've only just started to eat regularly and do moderate exercise 3 days ago. If you don't mind my asking, how long did it take for you to feel better once you started a healthy lifestyle after bulimia? I'd just like to hear somebody say that it does get better even if it is hard.

Hey, like blue said up there, this is forever after you had posted this, just thought i could maybe add to it. i am also in recovery for bulimia-i understand how hard it is to see people who are skinnier or even happier than you and it makes you down.
my bodytype is the same it seems as yours, my fathers side gains weight by LOOKING at food! so that says it all right there. but if it helps any, i find that once i stray off from my B&P routine, and eat normal for even a day a a time, my body has the opposite reaction that what you would think. but, like someone has previously mentioned, just slacking back on the excercise a little and even eating more can help. zig zagging with food can sometimes work, and help you stay awa from the purging, it confuses your bodies metabolism- eat more carbs one day, eat more protein and less carbs the next, plus moderate excercise, this helps me somewhat, so i hope it can help you

I am in recovery now for anorexia/binge-purge type. I am currently slowly creeping up my weight and I am at 95lbs at 5'5". This is a 10 lb improvement from the end of August. I am happy with the progress but it is still too difficult to eat normally. It is a 24/7 thinking process.

I am also scared about my metabolism going crazy and destroying my recovery. But I cannot fight the natural changes that my body is prone to adapt to. Exercise should be eased in, and yes, weight-training is key as well as light cardio. The cardio exercising should help with your self-esteem and energy levels. It should help give you the rush of having a "good workout" and hopefully keep you going back for more. The weight training is important to toning your body and making sure that your recovery and weight gain shapes your body into something you can be truly proud of.

My body was always naturally lean, almost naturally "skinny". I have always had a boyish body and so it was a surprise to my whole family and the people I love most in my life when they saw a small frame start to wither away and disappear. This, of course, is not what I saw when I looked in the mirror. But yes, the image of a disappearing girl was satisfying.

Now, as I undergo the process of recovery, I look to more than the mirror to try to see what everyone else sees when they look at me.

I have been diagnosed with major depression as well as Rapid Cycling-Bipolar Disease Type 2. I have been put on anti-depressants to help "stabilize" my mood swings. This was something that I never realized in the past. It was scary to be told this by my physician. I thought he was joking at first, only to realize that, yes, it was all true. And it was a problem.

Now the challenge will be for you to convince yourself that people see the outside appearance of us women, judge us, and walk away. But that's it. That's all they can do. What really sticks is a confident appearance and personality made to suit it. If you're beaming with confidence and beauty from the inside and out (yes, it's super corny but really try to embrace what I'm saying!), then people will stop, judge, take back their judgements when they actually try to talk to you. Because they will want to talk to you and get to know who that beautiful woman is.