i will answer this from experience - i don't know for sure

six years ago, i randomly went on a fitness journey after living my whole life fat and surrounded by an obese family. i didn't want to be like them. i also had just gotten my first boyfriend long-distance and obviously didn't want him to see me a mess when we would see each other again.

i did hard as fuck cardio, little weights, and restricted to 1500 calories a day and the weight just fell off at first, until my first plateau. then i restricted more. and more. until after 1.5 i was working out like crazy and eating less than 700 calories a day but burning 1000+ at the gym. i lost 80 lbs in that time. i blacked out frequently but my boyfriend thought i was the hottest thing alive so i stuck with it.

then i moved to the city, alone, and became very stressed. people noticed my poor habits as well. i got a job at a natural grocery store and would cook great foods, but the weight started coming back on because i had less gym time. but then people kept telling me how healthy i looked and i liked that.

then i moved in with roommates- skinny, beautiful people who ate whatever they wanted and i thought i could do that too. gained more weight. then we had a fallout and i moved out and had to quit the gym because i lived too far. gained more weight.

now i'm almost back where i started. although it took me way longer to gain it all back than it took me to lose it. i'm very strong, back at the gym, but i've been terrible at controlling myself due to stress. my boyfriend isn't impressed with me anymore. he went on a fitness journey after me and it's so much easier for him.

my entire life has been an eating disorder. i've constantly had obese people telling me i'm too fat, then that i'm too skinny, having skinny friends who eat like shit and get away with it, me trying to diet as early as age 8. i've never been happy with myself.