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  Thank you all for your kind words. I was always fussy with certain foods even as a young child i.e. I went through a phase of only eating white food! The eating problems really kicked in after my Mum died when I was just 20. I would go out with the office girls several times a week drinking cocktails and quickly came to realise even though they were empty calories I was putting on weight. I enjoyed the socialising so gave up food instead.
  
  I never particularly enjoyed food; to me it was just a way of staying alive. I would eat because I had too, but once the scales hit that magic number in my head (incidentally my magic number is underweight for my height) I'd drastically cut down or stop eating altogether. I lost weight quickly and got a buzz from feeling so light and dizzy. I didn't realise the damage I was doing. The pattern continued into my 30s. It wasn't until a woman I worked with screamed across the room one day "My God look at your bones sticking out are you anorexic" that I actually took a long hard look at myself (after I'd finished crying.)
  
  Once you have an eating disorder it never completely leaves you. I am so much better now but when I had pneumonia and septicemia late last year I literally couldn't eat for a week. I lost over a stone and that familiar light headed buzz returned, only this time I realised that I needed to regain the weight not just for my health but also because I looked so gaunt, the skin on my face was paper thin and my legs could hardly support me.
  
  I still have phases where I cut down on my food because the scales are heading towards my magic number again. People tell me I need to gain weight not lose it; I'm a size 6-8. When I look in the mirror I don't think I'm fat but I'm not as slim as I'd like to be, that's what I see and no one can change it. In a way I'm lucky because I never binge, take laxatives or make myself sick so I think I'm not that extreme. It's made me get away with it virtually undetected for the last 40+ years. If I was a teenager now and had as much pressure as they have from the media would I be so lucky? I doubt it.

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