~Tiamat~ (imported) wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2013 2:57 pm I'm not sure how to reply to this. That's certainly my experience of it, and not entirely positive but certainly eye opening. But I don't think we should be encouraging each other It's a curse as you know better than I and it will kill more surely than microwaving body parts.

You are right of course. Fasting/semi-starvation is a tool. Like fire or anger it is a powerful servant if controlled. Uncontrolled, it is a terribly destructive force that can easily kill you. I have approached it from both direction, I spent a few years with the kind of group that would use fasting, and I probably have a little more control of the process than most teen age anorexics. On the other hand I have been suicidal at least since I was 12, (that I am still hanging around is a testament to the Power of Positive Cowardice) and when I let myself be convinced to begin eating, it took a great deal of effort and will power to change the momentum of starvation.

I would not push anyone into anorexia. It seems to be way too common among certain trans groups, particularly those shading towards sex work, and I have seen its destructive power. When you are completely in its power it can easily be fatal. See a whole raft of Lifetime or Oxygen TV movies. I have lost more than one friend to the combination of anorexia, sex work and drugs. One of my closest friends is paying the price in the form of intestinal problems for those things. If you seriously fuck up your digestive system, it can plague you all your life or worse. On the other hand, for many people dieting is not only not productive, it is counterproductive. They gain no control of their relationship w/ food and when they end the artificial limits on what they eat and how much, and try to go back to eating in the real world, they have none of the mental muscles needed. For them, the changes in relationship with food that anorexics use in extreme form, can be of great use in learning a new relationship with food.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

Tramsward

curious_guy (imported) wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:04 am The last time I weighed myself, my BMI (Body Mass Index) was 21.6 and my Tanita scale said my percentage of body fat was 18.

I just weighed myself and my BMI was 19.6. M

curious_guy (imported) wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:04 am y Tanita scale said my percentage of body fat was 1

1 but I still have a big, protruding lower belly.