Why do we all value ourselves on our weight

 Why do we all value ourselves on our weight like its the most important thing, people praise weight loss however it is achieved, in society and even Dr's etc. When I was a lower weight it was maintained with severe bulimia yet people would tell me I looked good and Dr's would say I was healthy. Since I've gained weight even my heart consultant blamed being out of breath after covid as being due to gaining weight despite having the same problem after losing 2 and a half stone.

When I gained weight after being in an eating disorder clinic due to trying to recover from my bulimia but ending up in a cycle of restricting and bingeing I even had co worker ask me if I was pregnant as I had gained so much weight and even when I said no I definitely wasn't she kept saying it too. I was only a size 12 to 14 then, it was a few years later when I developed heart failure, I got water retention and then I was also put on an antidepressant called mirtazapine which is known to cause weight gain and I've struggled to lose much of the weight since. I've not been able to below 15 stone but in 2019 I was 15 stone but felt mentally the best I had as an adult, I was doing a sponsored swim and swam 22 miles in 12 weeks and was eating to have the energy to swim I wasn't purging, restricting or calorie counting but then lockdown came, weirdly I was more connected to people in lockdown as people had more time to chat on zoom or even message but being at home on my own 24 hours a day with my own thoughts and food in I would end up bingeing and purging and bulimia took over again and also as the gyms and swimming pools closed I  couldn't be as active then I've had covid 3 times that has affected how much exercise I can do which is alot less than when I was at my fittest but I'm hoping to get my fitness back.

These are just some examples I can think of but it makes trying to recover from an eating disorder so hard especially if we also don't like ourselves at the weight we're at which we never will be as an eating disorder always wants us to be the smallest we can be.

There was a study I was told about by an eating disorder therapist called the minnesota starvation study where a group of men were put on a starvation diet and they developed typical eating disorder symptoms such as becoming obsessed with the food they were deprived of and depression and anxiety and then when they did have access to food many of them turned to binge eating. They weren't even on as low calorie limit as many commercial diets which are advertised as healthy at 800 and 1200 calories, the men were on 1500 calories although men do have a higher calorie requirement than women but it is worrying as alot of commercial diets arent medically supervised (I get sucked in as much as many others, at the moment its to not look as fat in a ball dress but we spend the whole year having some reason to lose weight for, a wedding or a holiday). I have been doing a commercial diet i was going to do 800 calories but i also rationally know in my more anorexic days i would have 500 to 800 calories a day and now i just feel physically and mentally ill if i go that low so i have to motivate myself with goals to keep me busy. On the Facebook pages of these diets others who are dieting praise basically eating disorder behaviour, pro anorexic sites tell people chew gum instead of eating, eat an oxo cube instead of having carbs, cut food into small pieces yet pages on these commercial diets tell people to do similar with the same mantras of  "nothing tastes as good as thin feels". Not everyone who diets will develop an eating disorder but many will if fed with these types of behaviour as we all thrive on the praise we get when we lose the weight. Some people with bulimia comfort eat to make themselves feel better then compensate by being sick, laxatives or over exercise ( bulimia doesn't mean being sick, it is any behaviour used to compensate bingeing  or even just eating normal amounts in people whose eating disorder voice is strong).others restrict food then binge as the body and brain try to protect us from starving this is often what happens with people who have also suffered from anorexia or other restrictive eating disorder. That's where mine began and what people don't see is the eating disorder voice is there constantly making us feel guilty for eating or even thinking about eating, at whatever weight, it's what led me to self harm I would cut my arms or bang my head as the voice makes you feel guilty when you eat. I would like to say the voice gets quieter when we lose weight but it's never fast enough and the scales going up or even not going down makes it worse. It's also worrying that people in society and even medical professionals don't become concerned about someone's eating disorder unless they are a low weight yet I wasn't  a low weight when bulimia was damaging my heart I wasnt at my lowest weight at that time, even when I was in hospital sectioned for being suicidal and severe self harm that came about due to the mental effects of my eating disorder and even then I was in a personality disorder unit where I was told they didn't deal with eating disorders despite my self harm being part of my eating disorder, there are duel diagnosis units but as I was bulimic not anorexic no one cared I was on 1 to 1 obs for my suicide attempts yet I wasn't eating for days at a time or was being sick with staff watching me, the humiliation of having to be watched doing it but also not able to get any therapy to manage my eating disorder thoughts was what was driving me to bang my head on walls. 

I'm trying to diet in a healthy way and trying to tell myself fit is better than thin. I've been reading a good book which isn't quite changing my mindset, it was only last weekend my mood was really low and I stayed in bed just trying to avoid eating due to the eating disorder voice being strong, it is usually worse when I'm feeling anxious or depressed about life in general but it is always there to some degree even when life is going more well. I do often feel anxious eating with other people, at the moment its due to feeling I'm too fat to be eating especially if eating more than a salad but when I've been smaller it's just the guilt of eating too its not always easy to avoid showing the anxiety although I am more comfortable eating with some people more than others in the past I would often cancel social events that involved eating and having to wear clothes I feel too fat in ( if I could I would live in leggings and hoodies).

Don't know what the point of this blog post was alot of it is because the book I'm reading made me think how sad it js we value ourselves on a number on the scales when we have other qualities and talents (I often struggle to see my own but I value other people on their personality, skills and talents and wether they are a caring person, that is what we should value each other on, a low number on the scales doesn't necessarily mean healthy. 

I can see the pictures I've included in 2 ways, one of them I feel fat in, another I can see I've lost some weight but the other way i can see the photos is they are who I am I love singing in a choir with friends, I love and care for my horse Warwick and I'm going to help volunteer teaching cadets at St John's ambulance and enjoy helping people, the only way my weight actually affects any of those things is I might need a bigger or smaller uniform.