Bulimia Help

Today I am feeling very upset about receiving abusive emails regarding my Recovery Course. For 3 years now I have committed my time and energy helping people overcome bulimia; this is through the site and helping people one to one through email support. No one deserves abuse for trying to help others.
 
I am sorry for having to charge for my Recovery Program, but I’m sure you all know that everyone has to make a living; I have a family to support and like everyone else we need an income.
 

The truth is, I run my own successful web design business. But everyday for the last 2 years I have had a growing knot in my stomach, like I felt like I was doing the wrong thing.

My mind would say..

Well we made it! 101 great ideas of things to do instead of bingeing. Thanks everyone for your fantastic suggestions. Its a great list with some very creative ideas. 

Let’s get started shall we:

1. Delay for at least for 10 minutes... within this 10 minutes write down everything you will feel after you have binged and purged... awful.. drained.. guilty.. sad etc... then after 10 minutes ask yourself if you want to really feel like that!
2. Listen to your favourite music or song, and if you can sing along to it really loud.
3. Painting nails is a good one. You are doing something nice for yourself and reminding yourself of your femineity without thinking to much. Plus it stops you wanting to mess them up!
4. Play an instrument if you do, if you don't, learn!
5. Decorate your room.
6. Clean out or organize something you have been meaning to for a while like your closet.
7. Watch funny videos on 'You Tube'.
8. Focus on the wonderful things about life, Better if done somewhere beautiful and surrounded by nature.
9. Be Positive in your thoughts (instead of "Damn I just purged" Think outside the box: but it was very small, the first time in weeks, I didnt really want to, I didnt do it again afterwards even when Im really upset about it, overall I still did better than before.)
10. Make something to give to someone else (makes you focus on someone else, allows you to connect with someone and removes alot of the walls we set up around ourselves, and keeps you busy!)
11. Spend time with thoses you love (If today is the last day, you would want to be with your loved ones not food. So live each day as if it was the last and get the most out of life).
12. Let out your inner rockstar and play Rockband.
13. Volunteer at a nursing home or a school...or go out looking to do good deeds for people.
14. Close your door, turn up the music loud and dance.
15. Lie down in your bed, close your eyes and search for one really good memory. Feel the good feeling you had at that moment, and keep it;-)
16. Go on www.failblog.org and laugh!!!!
17. Play a computer/video game. Something that is fun, can hold your attention and uses you hands!

Click here to download part 2 of the Amanda Bulimia Recovery Interview.

Here is the second part of Amanda’s audio interview. Again she shares some great info, offers great tips and shares her insight into the recovery process. It’s well worth listening to.

If you like what you hear please leave a comment on the blog to let me know.

If you haven’t listen to the first part yet you can listen to it here:

Audio Interview with Amanda part 1

Click here to download part 1 of the audio

 I know you all love stories that inspire and Amanda's story does just that. Amanda's bulimia began when she was just 12 years old and she suffered for over 10 years and now I am pleased to say she is fully recovered.

Amanda used a combination of therapy and structured eating for her bulimia recovery. In this audio she shares some great tips and advice with us, such as

• How to deal with relapses.
• How to deal with bloating.
• How to love yourself.

Her story is definitely worth listening to, she is an amazing inspiration for us and more proof that recovery is possible. She is also a member of bulimiahelp.org and you can view her profile here.

Download the audio and listen to the full story of how Amanda made a full recovery from bulimia.

P.S.  Its a bit long so I decided it divide it into two parts. I'll post the second part shortly. Also if you like what you hear please leave a comment below. 
 

Pheew, well after a few day of hard work the new site is up and running. A few of you might be wondering what happened to the old site? The old site was pretty good, why change something that isn’t broken right?

Well, Ali and I have learned a lot in the two years Bulimia Help has been going. When we first built Bulimia Help we were scared to stick our heads too far out of the sand. We had an idea of a new way to recover from Bulimia, but it was very different from the established process. Sure the idea worked amazingly well on Ali, but she was only one person, would it work with others?, we just didn’t know.

Its not that we weren’t confident in the process, it was just that the whole world was taking a different approach to us, and well I guess that did affect our confidence a bit.

So when we created the site we added our message, but we said it quietly, we whispered it throughout the site, it got diluted, and got lost amongst everything else that was on the site.
The one thing we did notice was that those members who did get the message, they made the fastest progress in recovery. So not only did we know that it works, we were very CONFIDENT that it works!

So, we decided to do it again, but this time better. Bulimia Help 2!

And so we have started to make changes,

Firstly, You may have noticed that the top tabs are missing, with all that lovely advice. Its gone, instead we are replacing it with a new ebook, which will be ready in a few weeks. The ebook is going to give a good over view of our new approach to recovery and will contain some great stuff. The idea is that all members read the book. That way everyone is on the same wave length, and coming at recovery from the same angle.

When Ali told me she had bulimia, I was in shock and totally confused. My mind raced with questions. The first and most stupid one was "Well why dont you just stop?"

That was about 4 years ago and it was the start of our journey that would lead us to create BulimiaHelp.org.

We had been a couple for around three years before she told me and we were very much in love and obviously it pained me to realise she was in hurting inside. And the truth was I had absolutely no idea, she seemed so happy and confident and we spent most of our days together. I honestly thought I know everything about her.

But we were a team, she turned to me for help and that was exactly what I was going to do.

And this is where the frustration kicked in. Everywhere we searched for help we would come up against a brick wall. The same generic and frankly useless information seemed to posted everywhere.

“Its a mental illness brought on by repressed emotions”.
“You have a troubled mind”
“You cannot be cured from Bulimia”
Our Doctor just asked if she wanted Anti-Depressants. Thanks but no thanks.

I was just reading a great book about a guy called Ricky McGee who got stranded out in the Australian outback desert in 2006, without any food or adequate water.

Initially he was desperately seeking water. It was all he could think about, resulting in drinking his own urine.

After getting water he was really hungry and after a few days he was starving. He then started to become obsessed about food. He began to eat anything he could get his hands on; which was only bugs and leeches (he even tried to to eat a cockroach and a few wasps. As you would expect bugs aren't very satisfying and he got more and more hungry with each bug attempt. He began to dream about food and plan imaginary meals. Nothing else mattered more in his life – this was survival after all.

He amazingly managed to survive for 71 days in the Australian outback before he was rescued.

Afterwards he wasn't able to satisfy his appetite and was eating up to 12 meals a day!!! The doctors got worried and tried to stop him eating so much – they could not understand why is appetite was not getting satisfied. He also stole the hospital microwave and hid it under his ward bed.

The good news is that he is now healthy and eating normally again