My biggest obsession

For the last few years, my life has has revolved around various obsessive behaviours and compulsions, but the worst of these for me has been calorie counting. When I say I counted calories, I mean I took it to a whole knew extreme. Every piece of food I placed in my mouth had to be weighed so I could calculate the exact number of calories it contained and if the exact number of calories of a food couldnt be calculated, I would refuse to eat it. I would not be satisfied with just reading the nutritional values on packets of food either as I didn't trust them and knew that most portions were actually bigger than stated on the packaging. I also couldn't eat a food like sultanan bran (breakfast cereal) as I would be too anxious about the composition of ingredients that ended up in each serve. For example if the ingredients stated that the cereal was supposed to be 10% sultanas and 90% Bran flakes, I would be worried that there was actually 15% sultanas and only 85% Bran flakes which would slightly alter the calorie content. I obviously don't refuse to eat foods like these anymore and can now see how silly I was being but at the time it absalutely terrified me.

Every food you can think of I would weigh. Even once I stopped starving myself and eating considerable amounts of food I still continued to obsessively count calories. For example to make breakfast I would weigh two slices of bread and then toast them before weighing out the correct portion of spread. To make cereal I would weigh out the cereal, milk, yoghurt, fruit or anything else I may have been putting on top of it. Every piece of fruit and every serving of vegetables needed to be weighed and I would weigh any snacks like muesli bars, biscuits, icecream bars and chocolate. If i ever weighed out a portion prior to a meal time I would always re-weigh it just before eating it in case I had made a mistake and I would still feel anxiety while eating it as I would be paranoid I had missread the scale somehow. At one point I was not only obsessed with ensuring I had the perfect amount of calories each day but also that my macro balance was what I considered to be perfect too. Each day I made myself eat 35g of fat, 310g of carbohydrates and 70g of protein. It was actually very time consuming to plan my following days food as I would have to search for a foods that would fit into my macronutrient and calorie goal. For example if I found that I needed to add more fat and protein to my day, I would have fewer vegetables for tea and add an egg instead. Or if my Carb intake was too low, I would have jam in my sandwhich instead of Peanut Butter at lunch. As you can see I never actually got to eat what I felt like and this was an extremely unhealthy way to be. Luckily I have improved enormously since then.

Now I am much less worried about exact calorie counts. While I still keep a basic count of calories to ensure I am eating enough, the weighing of most foods has stopped. For example, I don't weigh each piece of fruit or each slice of bread I eat anymore and I do not weigh snacks like chocolate bars or muffins to make sure I know the exact number of calories they contain. I dont weigh butter or spreads like I used too and feel as though I can use generous amounts of spreads without feeling anxious. I dont weigh the belgium or ham that I put in my sandwhiches anymore and it doesn't really worry me anymore not knowing exactely how many calories I eat each day. As long as I know I am eating enough to allow my body to recover I am happy. I always refused to eat anything that I had not prepared myself as I couldn't be sure of how many calories were in it but now I have the freedom of going out for tea with my family to restaurants and eating food prepared by others. While doing this still makes me a little anxious, I don't feel as though the anxiety is anything I cant overcome.

I am going to be honest and admit to you all that there are still a few foods I weigh and this is because I feel anxious while serving them up and think I would eat too little if I didn't weigh them out.  For example, when I make pasta salad, I weigh the amount of dry pasta I add and I do the same with rice in rice dishes I make. Hopefully one day I wont feel the need to do this at all but I honestly think that if I didn't do this I would end up eating far fewer calories as my anxiety would get the better of me and I would add too little of something. For example if I am putting grated cheese on a pizza I weigh the cheese as otherwise I would feel anxious about the amount I was putting on and not put on enough. I also weigh icecream as I am serving it up for dessert as by weighing it, the anxiety disappears and I am free to dish myself up a more generous and adequate portion that meets my calories needs. As I said I hope that one day in the not so distant future I no longer feel as though I need to weigh any of the food I eat but for now, especially while I am trying so hard to gain weight, I think that it is necessary. What are other peoples views on this? Do you think that what I am doing is wrong or can you understand where I am coming from? What experiences have you all had with weighing food and counting calories?

my late supper tonight (I have had a yoghurt as well since tea)