Keeping a close watch...

We still weigh Ben every 2 weeks, just to be sure that things are continuing to move in the right direction - and, over the past month, he has lost weight on both occasions. He is now back to the weight he was in April 2012, just after he was discharged from CAMHS. And, remember, he was discharged from CAMHS at the same weight he was when he started CAMHS treatment. He is 4 - 5 kilos lighter than he should ideally be at his age and height. So I am keeping a very close watch...


To be honest I was shocked. Mind you, he "looked" slimmer. Yesterday we were talking with our neighbour, a nurse who saw us on the Lorraine Kelly show on TV last year and therefore knows about Ben's history with an eating disorder. She asked him how he was doing now. He said "Fine". But I could tell she was looking at him closely...

However he seems OK in himself. So, thus far, it's a case of "state not weight".

But, as I told him in no uncertain terms this morning, he is "that close" to slipping back into the danger zone. Indeed, if I was to be brutally honest, I would say that today's weight is actually inside the danger zone.

I reminded him that it's not just about "getting ill again". It's about the fact that his heart doesn't like it when he's at a low weight, as anyone who's read my book Please Eat will know.

He has promised to increase his intake by 200 calories a day. I wanted him to increase by more. But Ben being Ben (which was always a problem in our journey through anorexia) he is strong-willed and stubborn. It's very hard to get him to do anything he doesn't want to do.

"But you promised last time that you'd increase your calories and put on weight," I reminded him.

But it appears that he'd cut back a little because he hasn't "been doing any exercise" because he had 2 toenails removed last week.

But he has. He's been doing his weights. He did them yesterday.

However, so far, I'm not too worried as his "state" seems fine. There isn't a hint of the old anorexia behaviour.

So far.

I am away from Saturday until Friday, and have insisted that the moment I get back I will weigh him. And if he hasn't increased, then I will take "serious measures".

I have also hinted (or, rather, told him) that university is off the cards if his weight remains low.

I will ask his dad to keep close tabs on him next week.