Last year I was very active in this forum posting pics of WIW and participating to posts. I still read the post but I have been more silent. There is a reason to this, and I thought I would share it with you because although it is OT, it is also related to dressing. And maybe who knows, others are in the same position.

Sometime during the summer I realized I was underweight, but worse... that it was my own fault. Something unconscious surfaced into consciousness, and I began to see that my ways were leading me to malnutrition and were affecting my health. I became conscious that should I keep going this way, I was going to die. There is no other way to put it, because there is no other outcome.

This realization was a shock to me. I thought I was a healthy woman, especially since I had beaten anorexia in my twenties. A great feat in my life. I thought I was cured and that it would never happen again. Then slowly these past years I progressively started to feel more and more tired, exhausted I should say. I had a myriad of other issues such as dry skin and feeling cold and a tendency to lose hair but being tired eclipsed them all, it was the most difficult thing to live with.

I am followed by a doctor and we did numerous tests, with no specific result. I was underweight, but there was always a reason: a big stress here, a big stress there... except my weight was steadily, slowly dropping until it reached 102 pounds last winter. From there, I was never able to push it back up. I am 5'3 and this weight was too low. Despite the fact I intellectually knew it, it's so strange, it's like there was a dissociation between my lucid intellect and my actual behaviour. This summer I realized this. I started working on more difficult contracts, forcing me to many hours of intense concentration. My dwindling condition made it so difficult.

I was actually eating way less than what my heavy schedule and enthusiastic workouts required. I was behaving as if I wanted to lose weight, but for me, that was kind of the "default" mode. And slowly but surely, I was depleting my 44 yrs old body.

So I decided to address this. I decided to up my intake of food by about 500 calories a day, starting by eggs in the morning, and two snacks between meals. This is hard! It's unknown, which is scary. And I hate the way I feel and look right now, although I know it is temporary, and have hope that as my body starts to repair itself from the damage, it will feel more normal.

Two things happened almost immediately: I stopped being so terribly tired, and I had so much energy! The difference is tremendous.

But other things also happened. Bloating, discomfort, feeling like a whale... my breasts started to reappear, my god, had forgotten about those. Great! But my thighs... I feel like they are two balloons. My perma-balloon stomach started to deflate as the rest inflates.

It's so strange never to be hungry. I had grown used to constant hunger over the years, and wasn't even aware of it, which in retrospect scares me.

Now I am fully aware that some of you will have a hard time with what I say when they see my pics below. And I know intellectually that my body is fine, just needs to keep eating and get strong. What I discovered though, was that the way I was going, I was literately killing myself. But emotionally, inside myself right now, I have been feeling like the Michelin guy for the past month. Many of my clothes don't fit any more.

I haven't taken out Fall clothes yet because I fear I won't fit into them. And I am not tempted to put outfits together, because I just feel so low about my body, which is in transition. I've gained AND KEPT 10 pounds since I started 6 weeks ago.

Below is:

1- a pic of me dressed, in my Gap BF jeans I bought some time ago and in which I have been living. Thank God for BF jeans and BF jeans trend. I wear them unrolled, I find it's more balanced on me that way.

2-3 Then two pics of my body now. What body type am I? I thought I was an IT but now I don't know anymore.

4- Then finally how I looked a year ago, as I was on my way to become 102 pounds (may have been a few more on these, but not by much). Today, I realize how tired I looked - and believe me, I was.

So I hope to continue participating in this forum, posting WIW etc, but for the moment, I am shaky and scared to dress. What if nothing looks good now that my weight is up? I know it is irrational.

Thanks for reading.