I KEEP HEARING TO GRIEVE MY “GOAL” APPEARANCE AND I DON’T WANT TO!!! I JUST WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN DIET CULTURE (BUT NOT PERPETUATE) TO A NOT-UNHEALTHY DEGREE!!!

I’m a gay (well, bi) male and I just want to have a lean appearance that won’t endanger my health, but may enable me to have experiences I missed out on/validation I maybe didn’t receive enough for various reasons from those I find attractive.

It feels like my only rewards for putting effort into limiting my calories to a not-dangerous degree for an extended period + increasing exercise are a potential eating disorder and having to watch myself undo the progress I made.

I also started treatment on a whim due to the binging/rapid weight gain and tmk was not near a dangerous weight and now I’m wanting to stop because I share this stuff with my treatment team and am told to challenge this thinking which is probably correct, but I don’t want to recover in that way since it seems like my set-point weight (if that exists) is far from what that appearance would require :(

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA