It was about 4 or 5 years ago, I wanted to lose weight.

I found the south beach diet online.  I thought I’d give it a try.

The first phase is a 2 week phase where you take out fruits and carbs from your diet.  It said that you would start seeing results quickly.  Someone had posted on the site that you were going to be constipated the first 2 weeks and to take a laxative.  I don’t like taking medicine so I decided not to take any laxatives.

By this time I had become a master at dieting especially since I had an eating disorder.  I decided to do phase 1 for as long as I could.  I got this weird “high” feeling when I said no to the foods I loved.  I was so proud of myself for being strong enough to say no and to be in control of what I ate.  That control was all in my head.  I was so out of control but at the time I couldn’t see it.

So I started the first phase and I did it for 5 weeks instead of the recommended 2 weeks.  I’m a nurse so I’m comfortable talking about poop, pee, blood, and vomit all day.  Before I was a nurse I didn’t like to talk about any of that stuff.  By the end of the 5th week, I hadn’t pooped at all.  I went from going every day to nothing at all.  I didn’t want to become dependent on using a laxative.  I started to throw up every night by the end of the 5th week.  I was stunned because I ate dinner around 5pm and I would wake up at 2am and vomit.  The vomit was always chunks of my dinner.  I was surprised that it hadn’t digested in that long period of time.

I HATE to vomit.  You can’t breathe until you’re finished vomiting no matter how bad you feel you need to breathe.  I didn’t want to stop the diet because I was seeing a lot of results.

On the beginning of 6th week, I was vomiting about 6 or 7 times a night.  Sometimes I would stick my toothbrush down my throat just to vomit so I wouldn’t feel nauseous anymore.  That wasn’t working anymore.  I finally told my dad to take me to the hospital.  I felt like I was dying.  He took me to Kaiser instead of the hospital.  The doctor ordered some IV fluids and I did feel better.  The doctor didn’t transfer me to the hospital which I was ok with.  I didn’t want to tell anybody exactly what I had did to myself.  I continued with the first phase of the diet.  The very next day after vomiting 7 times I woke my parents up and told them I needed to go to the hospital.  I couldn’t even sit up straight.  I had to lay down in the car.  That was the worst car ride of my life.  I felt every turn the car made.  I was still so nauseous.  I vomited again when we got to the hospital.  It felt like my insides were trying to come out of me.

The nurse started an IV on me and the doctor ordered Phenergan.  The most wonderful drug for nausea there is.  Within 2 minutes, I wasn’t nauseous anymore.  They took some blood samples and everything came back normal.  The only thing abnormal was my heart rate.  It was elevated because of the vomiting and I was dehydrated.  The doctor gave me some IV fluids.  I told them I was on a diet.  I was embarrassed to tell them how far I had took the dieting.

I was thinking I should have known better, I’m a nurse.  The doctor or nurse never asked me when was the last time I had a bowel movement or exactly what diet I was doing.  I would have told them had they asked me but I was embarrassed to divulge the information on my own.  I knew the reason why I was vomiting.  I hadn’t pooped in over 5 weeks.  Your poop has to come out of you some how.  I’m just glad I wasn’t vomiting up poop.  Even in nursing school they weren’t big on teaching how much your diet affects you.  This wasn’t the first time I had sent myself to the ER because of my diet.  I should have been honest with the doctors and the nurses because they can’t help you if they don’t know the truth.  At the time I was unwilling to face the fact that I had an eating disorder.

The next day after I got back home, I decided to allow myself to eat whatever I wanted.  I was planning on starting the diet again the next day.  I was able to have a bowel movement as soon as I started to put fruit and carbs back into my diet.  That was the beginning of my overeating phase.