I recently read Portia deRossi's book, Unbearable Lightness.
It's one (of the few books) that I think I will need to own & reread. Reading it was a turning point for me. In it she recounts the period of her life in which she battled anorexia. She shows the progression of how an *innocent* thought of dieting soon grew and overpowered her until it became an obsession. She rarely ate more than 300 calories a day...unless she was binging out of control in which case it was way more. She developed obsessive habits: certain utensils, times of day, types of food, etc. And as I'm reading it, I'm thinking to myself, "that's insane! Why would someone do that to themselves?" and at the same time, "the fact that a number on a scale would keep you from hanging out with friends is really no different."
Oh.
Crap.
That's NOT normal, is it?
Webster's dictionary defines disordered as: "not functioning in a normal, orderly, healthy way".
I like to think that because I'm no longer purging, then I'm no longer "bulimic". The truth is my thinking and my eating habits are still disordered. They're messy. They're not normal. Choosing not to attend an event because the first number of your weight is a 2 and not a 1, is not normal.
So what does it look like to eat in a "normal, orderly, healthy" way?
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