Poor self image / Diet Questions

Okay first off, you don't see yourself correctly. I guarantee that people find you beautiful but I'm sure it goes in one ear and out the other for you...right? I use to be the same exact way as you are now. I know you may feel self-conscious about being in large groups of people, maybe you are even afraid of what they are thinking of you and how you look? First off, by doing this you are isolating yourself and holding yourself back from enjoying your life. If you stay at home what do you do...? Think about how everyone else is having fun and your not? And how you feel like an outcast or like you are forcing yourself to become one by isolating yourself from your friends and the people who care about you... You are sitting at home becoming more insecure and putting way to much time and effort into this issue of body image. The more you do this the worse it will become. You do not want this problem to get worse and control your life, and it sounds like you are on that track already. If you go out and just be yourself, have fun, surround yourself with your friends and good people, you will see you are not going to be concentrating on your body and eating or not eating nearly as much. You should keep as busy as possible. The worst thing you can do is make things harder on yourself by dwelling on it. Also, the way you are eating, yeah...Not going to help you! Trust me I know =P Trust me I know first hand. You are actually causing yourself to more then likely gain weight. Let me try and explain, because I know it seems impossible right? I use to think the same thing. If everyone else is eating all the time how come they don't gain weight and you, the person who is half the time starving yourself! How can this not work!?
Basically, you are playing mind games with your body. You are constantly tricking it. By not eating most of the time your body starts to think, okay we are going into starvation mode. So, that is exactly what it does, and your metabolism is slowing down almost to the point where it has just shut off for the time being. Then when you eat again, especially if you are eating a lot of food, your body gets super excited! So, every time you eat, your body is tasking that food and storing it. Because your body is confused and worried you are starving, so it keeps that food, aka stores it as fat, so that if you begin to starve it can survive. Our bodies unfortunately have a mind of their own. Even if in your head your saying lets lose some weight, your body is going to fight back as hard as it can. Does this make sense to you? You would be much better off eating healthy small portions throughout the day, this way your metabolism would speed up again and use your food as energy instead of storing it as fat. Also, by doing this, you will have energy and working out will seem easier. If you eat little amounts several times a day, you will also not have the constant feeling of hunger lingering over your head. AND you will find that sleep is easy but not overwhelming. You wont be tired all the time, you wont be hungry all of the time, you will have energy to work out and you will feel healthier and better about yourself. I know the idea may seem a little scary to you because you have already convinced yourself that this process is the better way...but I hope you can see it is not. You don't seem to be very happy with the way you look and how it is affecting your life. If you don't believe me when I say this will work, why not just give it a shot for a month or so. What is the worst that can happen..? You are not happy with the way you look now and what your doing clearly is not working...right? So, I say try it out, see if there is a difference and also stop trying to exclude yourself from your friends and from enjoying your life. Go out and have fun, you will see that your mind is channeled on something else other then obsessing over weight and appearance. That alone will make you feel better about yourself and you will see people like you just the way you are. TRUST ME, you are way more beautiful then you can see. You have put on a permanent pair of beer goggles, and once you allow yourself to sober up a little you will see what was really there all along, a wonderful person who is heading towards a downward spiral. You still have time to convince your mind that you are perfect just the way you are. GOOD LUCK! You got this girl!

wow...it really really sucks when we dont even want to look at ourself in the mirror but end up doing it (of course!) and then we are once again proven correct..yes i m ugly, yes my ass is huge, yes somebody could think i m 3 months pregnant looking at my belly, yes my thighs are covered with cellulite, yes my arms look like an wrestle player's...it sucks sucks sucks...
i m 29 and i ve been having body issues since the age of 9...20 years of dieting, going up and down on the scales, hating myself so much, loving myself only when losing weight, loving myself only for my image, not giving myself any credit for being a nice person, being smart, for my creativity...nothing! just deprivation, isolation, dieting and bingeing all again and again year after year after year...
i ve never stopped trying though...and finally i ve sought help from a therapist...after having resorted to bulimia as my last chance for 3 years...
and guess what i m learning now...that what greenbeansally is telling you regarding food is not crap (as i used to think)...it s actual magic..
i can t hate my body no more.. i can't blame my body for anything...my body is like this because my mind thinks fat...it s my mind thats got the problem, not my body...my body is the reflection of what i think and what i feel...
so...there s absolutely no way you will ever lose weight by not eating. no way. guarantee.
what you can do, whenever you feel like going out of this horrible situation that feels like a slow suicide, is to start eating 3 light meals and 2 normal ones 5 times a day. lunch and dinner are the normal ones, breakfast, before lunch and after lunch are the smaller ones. the kilos will just vanish in no time! and you will not have lost all your teenage and early adulthood years...

I work with young people and in my experience the girls who feel fat and ugly are usually the slimmest and prettiest girls. So from that experience I'm guessing you're neither fat nor ugly - just blighted with low self-esteem. You are obviously very articulate and therefore smart, use this to get your head around what the problem really is - LOW SELF ESTEEM. It's that you need to sort - nothing else. The way you're dieting is quite mad. You are setting yourself up for a fall. Three meals a day; low fat and sensible sized portions and a 20 minute walk would keep you as thin as I know you are - but more importantly, you'd have the energy to think straight and work all this out for yourself. You've got brains - high time you used them