Bulimia

Are you unhappy with your looks, shape or weight? Do you vomit when you have overeaten? Then you probably have Bulimia. I can help.

I help people who live in Stockport and it’s surrounding areas to overcome Bulimia. It is a miserable condition, but happily very treatable!

What is Bulimia Nervosa?

Bulimia is an eating disorder. It typically affects adolescents and young people, with women suffering more often than men. It can however be present in adults and children too. Bulimia Nervosa is characterised by limiting food intake over time and them consuming large amounts of food. We call this bingeing. The binges are periods of overeating. Not just slightly, but far, far more food consumption than is normal for an average person.

Bulimics, after consuming the large amounts of food, will make an effort to rid their body of the calories that they fear will make them fat, or weigh or measure more. So they vomit up the food, or use other methods that they believe will ‘cancel out’ the calories, such as taking laxatives, or water loss pills. Intense over-exercising is another way that bulimics attempt to ‘burn off’ the calories.

People with bulimia are dissatisfied with their weight or their shape. They usually are afraid of gaining weight, and are obsessed with their body image.

Despite their problematic eating, people with Bulimia are usually of normal BMI (19-25),

Bulimia’s effects

Bulimia can be life threatening. Vomiting, for example, can lead to a serious imbalance of the body’s minerals that are essential for the body to function. The heart is dependent on electrolyes to function normally, and if these minerals are depleted then heart attacks may result, or other orgain failure.

Excess stomach acid introduced into the mouth will, over time, erode teeth.

Certain laxatives can damage the production of blood cells and also of bone marrow, and all of them when used excessively can cause cardiac irregularities and anemia.

Your therapy with me will involve addressing the core mechanisms that keep the disorder going. CBT-E for Bulimia is usually completed in 20 sessions. You won’t be required to enter into lengthy analysis of old issues, the focus will be on the ‘here and now’ and the future.

“Thanks to counselling my bulimia is now a distant memory. I’m so over it, thank goodness.”  H.A, Macclesfield