Imagine you’re going out with your friends to get dinner. They all order their skinnylicious low-cal meals, and you get a burger. They all seem fine, but then you finish eating your burger and they all have leftovers. Seems fine right? All your friends are talking about how full they are and how they couldn’t eat another bite of their bird-sized meals. You awkwardly look down at your normal sized body with a little chin and think ‘I could stand to lose a few pounds’.

The next day you eat an apple for breakfast and go on a walk. You feel good. You eat a salad for lunch and chicken with asparagus for dinner. You go an entire day without eating sugar or unhealthy food. You feel healthy, you feel pretty.

A few weeks go by and you start thinking to yourself, ‘what if I skipped dinner tonight? Just to cut out the extra calories…’ So you skip dinner that night and you feel good. The hunger is exhilarating.

You wake up the next day and go for a quick jog before breakfast. Then you think ‘I’ve already gone this long, why not skip breakfast too?’ So you go off to school on a glass of water and plain black coffee. At lunch you hardly feel hungry, so you skip that too. That night you make yourself a small dinner of broccoli and a few bites of leftover steak. The hunger feels better and better the longer you go.

Three days later and you haven’t eaten since the hard boiled egg yesterday for lunch. You get up and feel dizzy. But you can hear one thing over the pounding in your head… ‘it’s all going to be worth it in the long run. Drink some water and it’ll help.’

A month later and you’re hardly eating one meal a day. You’re exercizing two hours every day plus track practice after school. You’re running on water and the ‘compliments’ of how skinny you’re getting.

Edit: To make it clear, this answer is not meant to glorify eating disorders. What I also failed to mention was a plethora of side effects and trust me, it isn’t pretty.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, I want to remind you that recovery is possible. I know it seems scary and maybe you don’t feel ready, but you’re never going to be ready. That’s what makes eating disorders so deadly. And if you’re one of the people thinking that TRYING for an eating disorder is a good way to go, please, turn around before it’s too late.