Has anyone here gotten weight restored on their own without going to a nutritionist or eating disorder center?

I have anorexia nervosa and I have been to several treatment centers and seen several nutritionists in my life. They have never helped me as far as yes they help me gain the weight but then I don't end up getting my mind changed any even with all the psychotherapy so it ends up doing me no good. What I end up finding is that the times in my life that I've gained the weight on my own just by listening to what I want to eat I was able to gain the weight and I was a lot happier because I felt like I was in control of how I was gaining the weight by eating what I wanted to. I want to get my body healthy enough that I can get to my ideal body weight and be able to start hopefully to start making hormones again and get my period back but my question is I don't know if anyone else has done this before because I need encouragement as I don't want to gain the weight if it's not going to get my body to be healthy enough to menstruate and produce estrogen again after 20 years of not menstruating. Also I can't afford to go to any sort of nutritionist or treatment center not to mention the fact that I'm not interested in it so I want to know has anyone else done it this way and if so was it successful in reaching your needed body weight and becoming healthy enough to get your period back?

[MyStar86]

I have spoke to you from a menopausal perspective but I wanted to offer some advice on body weight and building up. Have you ever been on the contraceptive pill? I was on one from the age of 18 to 30 and didn’t have periods when I changed the pill my periods returned. I have an extremely low bmi due to bowel complications and I have just had surgery for an ileostomy but I have been put on supplement drinks to put on weight and from an anorexic perspective I thought they might be less scary for you because they are just liquids so you don’t have to eat more and would know the weight gain is down to the shakes not to you over eating just a thought I have to have x3 daily with 300 cals per 200ml bottle it’s easy to do I have fortisip shakes, ensure shakes and vital shakes they are all good but might be worth thinking about so you still feel in control big hugs xx

[Hidden in reply to MyStar86]

I was on the birth control pill for maybe 3 years and my doctor was hoping that it would kick start my periods and at the time I was at a much higher weight than I am now so when I got off of it after about a month I did get my periods back for maybe three or four months but they were very erratic. But then I started losing all this weight again and lost them again. And that was back when I wasn't having hot flashes but then I tried the birth control pill about 4 years ago because I was afraid to try hormone replacement therapy so I asked if I could have the birth control pill instead thinking that maybe it would cause less weight gain than the hormone replacement therapy and I tried it for about 3 months and it didn't do a single thing for the hot flashes and it did make me gain weight so I ended up going off of it with like I said no help with the hot flashes.

Yeah thanks anyways but I don't like doing the whole nutritional drink thing as that feels more scary to me. But thank you for that advice. I am sorry to hear about your bowel and I hope that you are feeling better.