ANOREXIA

When you begin dieting and losing weight, it may be experienced as a good thing at first. People make positive comments about you, and you may feel more in control and more energized. However, if you excessively restrict the amount of food you eat, your body may begin to experience starvation. Excessive restriction affects your brain, muscles and internal organs, and can also increase moodiness and anxiety while decreasing concentration.

Eventually, people who care about you may start telling you that while losing a little weight may have been good, you are now looking too thin or even emaciated. If you cannot stop restricting the amount of food that you eat, even when it may not be good for your body, exercising significantly more than your body can manage with the food fuel you allow it, or ignoring people who truly care about your best interests, you have developed anorexia. At this point, you may have found that your life has shrunk to a rigid routine involving a singular focus on avoiding any foods you consider "bad" and any social occasions that involve eating. You may find yourself choosing to give up friendships or relationships or avoiding previously pleasurable activities so that your routine will not be disrupted. You may notice that you have few feelings about anything besides an intense desire to be thin, and nothing else is interesting or seems to matter anymore.

If you are an athlete, you may have started losing weight because you believed it would make you faster or lighter and better at your sport. However, as anorexia progresses, you may discover that you no longer have the energy to participate, concentrate on the best strategy to win, or be effective even when you do participate. If this is the case, it may be time to be honest with your coach or trainer so that you can get the help you need to recover.

Some other possible symptoms of anorexia:

Feeling cold all the time

Wearing clothes that are too large or multiple layers of clothes to hide thinness

Obsessive thoughts about food and/or weight

Developing unusual habits or "rules" for eating food

Intense fear of gaining any weight or becoming fat

Denying hunger and refusing to eat enough to provide sufficient "fuel" for the body

Pretending to eat in front of others or telling others that food has been eaten when it has not

Perceiving one's body as large even though others say how small or emaciated it is

Frequent fatigue

Loss of menstrual cycle

Loss of muscle mass

Dizziness of fainting

Brittle or thinning hair, detriorating fingernails, dry skin

Loss of ability to concentrate

Moods become flat; life is no longer exciting or interesting beyond weight concerns

Irritability, especially if food rituals or beliefs are challenged

Inability to maintain the body weight needed by one's body for healthy living

There can also be a number of other serious medical consequences of anorexia as it progresses. Among them are:

Osteoporosis

Heart damage

Kidney or liver damage

Death