My sister's dieting story (long--sorry)
I want to share this situation my sister now has with all of you so you dont make the same mistake. She will be 20 this July. She now weight about 130 lbs and is 5'11". About a year and a half ago (June 2006) she weighed about 350 lbs, and was a very upset girl in high school as she got picked on a lot. She decided that she did not like living at home and moved in with a friend (older than her but they had a sister relationship) and recently got her own place with another friend. But she was always self conscious about her weight. She had to order most her clothing online or go to Lane Bryant.
When she graduated high school she made it a goal to lose weight. At first she signed up for weight watchers. She was doing great with that if you ask me. But the 1-2lbs a week she lost was not fast enough for her, so she quit the program and started her own diet. This is when we started to become concerend. She would staver her self. Only ate low calorie, low fat, low carb foods. She would eat a salad with some meat for all three meals.
Things went down hill from there. Progressed to only eatting one meal a day and living off protein bars and protein waters. She also took all those diet pills over the counter. She would go to the gym for 3 hours once a day, and some days would stay longer.
Now she hardly eats. She says she is "starving" so we go out to eat and then she refuses to order. Says she is sick. We are lucky if she will have one protein bar each day and thats it (besides her water cocktails) In this past year and a half she has lost over 200 lbs. She is down to a size 6 and because of her height that looks sickly thin. We tried talking with her and she just gets angry when we say we would like to see her maintain her weight now. She does not come out and say she is fat, but every time she walks by a mirror she sucks in her tummy (which there is nothing there) and pushes in her butt (also has no butt--just a walking stick). That tells me she still has an issue with her body image. Her ankles are like the size of my wrist. (i have a 6.5 inch wrist) She wears spanks under her clothes "to smooth out" and gets padded push up bras so she looks like she has a good chest. She is still obsessed with her "diet" and going to the gym. I strongly think she has anorexia and needs some help, but she doesnt want it. She says her doctor is monitoring her. (Time for a new doctor who knows WTF they are doing)
The biggest concern is now she has heart problems. She is having palpitations. this is very concerning because our biological father passed away from a heart attack and on both sides of our family we have high incidence of different types of heart related diseases. (HTN, high cholesterol) She is also wearing a heart monitor right now and has to go to the doctor once a week to get it downloaded. They will have her wear this for a month. But my mother and I try to tell her that she probably hurt her heart from her dieting techniques. Her PCP (aka gp) still supports her diet though. Now we cannot change this, only support her and help her get better. She will not change though until she realizes that she needs too.
The moral of this story is that, be careful when you diet. Doing to much to fast can cause some serious health problems. I dont want to see anyone else in this same situation. Learn from her mistakes.
I been trying to diet also. But its not so much a diet for me, its a lifestyle change. I do not care if it takes 10 years to get to my goal weight. I want to do it healthy. If i have a bad week, I try even harder not to make the same mistakes every week. And since my sisters experience, I realize that it is better to go slow than to fast.
Sorry for the length in this post. I wanted to give the details so you fully understand it.
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