A hopeful and empowering memoir of one woman's struggle with diabulimia, an eating disorder linked to diabetes. Diabulimia is the dangerous and often fatal practice in which people with Type 1 diabetes deliberately give themselves less insulin than they need in order to lose weight. Maryjeanne Hunt started limiting her insulin intake at age 14 and spent 22 years abusing her body with sugar highs, excessive exercise, and starvation in an attempt to be skinny and "perfect." In Eating to Lose, she shares her journey to health, true healing, and hard-won wisdom: "Weight management could have been a lot easier and effective if only I'd listened to my body and given it what it really wanted all along. Our bodies want health and energy and life. They crave to be nourished and they crave to move with vigor. When we give our bodies what they really want, they reward us big-time - with wellness, happiness and you guessed it, cooperative and healthy body weight." Timely and relevant, Eating to Lose sheds light on an often ignored and misunderstood condition and offers the possibility of recovery for those battling with diabulimia and the people who love them. " "Maryjeanne Hunt's personal story provides hope that recovery is possible - a message that recent research confirms. This book is written in an engaging style that will leave readers with a better appreciation for the unique struggle of eating disorders and Type 1 Diabetes. For those readers engaged in their own struggle, the book will help them realize that they are not alone." - Ann Goebel-Fabbri, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Behavioral and Mental Health Unit, Joslin Diabetes Center "In her book about diabulimia, Maryjeanne Hunt describes a coming to grips with the power food and weight had over her and how she learned to live with it and transform it into healing. Diabetes, especially Type 1 Diabetes, can lead to eating disorders in a misguided attempt to control blood sugars and lose weight, often by omitting insulin injections. This book is well-written and inspiring for all of us who have a love-hate relationship with food whether or not we have diabetes." - Rita G. Mertig, MS, RNC, CNS, DE, author of "What Nurses Know: Diabetes and The Nurses' Guide to Teaching Diabetes Self-Management" "Maryjeanne Hunt shares the most intimate details of the dangerous bondage created by her distorted body image and her healing to a life nourished by 'nature's intelligence' and divine imperfection." - Florence Brown, MD, Joslin Diabetes Center "For women with diabetes, food is medicine, and as a result, we are more likely to develop disordered eating behaviors. Maryjeanne Hunt shines a light on this too often overlooked side effect of living with diabetes. Readers follow Hunt's inspirational journey of overcoming diabulimia and embracing a healthy lifestyle. This is an honest story that hits home and will keep you thinking long after you've turned the last page." - Amy Stockwell Mercer, author of "The Smart Woman's Guide to Diabetes" Diabulimia: Healing the Inner Perfectionist By Maryjeanne Hunt (2012) They say it takes about 10,000 hours to become an "expert" in something. In 1971, I was ten. I'd already spent upward of 7,000 hours at the family dinner table. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes that year. I would need to take a shot every day and follow a special diet for the rest of my life. It wasn't so bad though. I didn't mind the shots and my mom had been on a diet for as long as I could remember, so I was in good company. I felt special. Mom was an expert dieter. She had way more than 10,000 hours of experience trimming calories from her dinner plate trying to be someone different - someone skinnier, prettier, perfect-ER. My diet was a medical necessity, but there didn't seem to be much of a difference. By the time I'd been diagnosed with diabetes, it would only take me 3,000 hours more - just a few more years of family mealtimes - before my exposure to Mom's kind of dieting would be enough to qualify me as an "expert" too. So at fourteen, when I started to put on a few extra pounds, I had all the expertise I needed.... This is how my "diabulimia"  started. Dieting had already become a way of life. It was mandated by having Type 1 Diabetes. By fourteen, I had developed an extensive knowledge of calories, carbs and fat, not to mention their effect on my body weight. It was only a matter of time before I would bump into a somewhat recent memory of DKA  - and its exact opposite effect on my weight. And the rest is history. Maybe some of this mirrors your story; maybe not. Like everyone with diabetes, I was acutely aware that every DKA episode that I hauled my body through was potentially life threatening. At the very least, it was damaging. But when you crave to become the vision of yourself that lives in your head (the vision that you think looks better than the one in the mirror), none of that matters, right? Y