Finding Food Freedom: How Tammy Conquered Her Eating Disorder By Going Low-Carb

When she weighed 42kg, Tammy Buitendach was admitted to the intensive care unit because of her eating disorder. It was low-carb living that saved her life, and has helped her to maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle.

- Caroline Petersen

‘AT my worst – the lowest point of my eating disorder –I weighed 42kg,’ TammyBuitendach says. ‘My sodium levels were so low that my husband, Henk, found me having seizures and I ended up in ICU. I had fallen so low that the only place to go from there was up.’

As often happens, Tammy had fallen victim to diet culture. Since the age of 18 she had tried almost every diet and weight-loss craze. She went fat-free, joined Weight Watchers, and tried the Blood Type Diet. The problem wasn’t that these diets didn’t work, but that they were partially successful. The more weight Tammy lost, the more she wanted to lose.

‘This was the beginning of the vicious cycle,’ she says. ‘I started micromanaging my intake of food and cutting calories to such a degree that it ended up as a full-blown eating disorder.

‘I was a restrictive bulimic, so I ate very little, and the little that I did eat I purged with vomiting and exercise. I lost all concept of what was considered normal. The skinnier I got, the more malnourished my brain was. Because of body dysmorphia, even at my thinnest I felt bigger. My aim was only to get smaller, and smaller and smaller. I wanted to wither away.’