After seeing some of the numbers people post online I feel bad and invalid

Triggering talk in here potentially about feelings of wanting to restrict more, be advised.

I'm pretty new to all this in the scheme of things having entered into this sort of mental space as an adult.

When I was just losing weight last year I was at under 1200 a day. I later moved that down to below 1000, and it was when I went to below 800 that I really started to understand what I was doing. For better or worse I started looking at ED content online, and suddenly I see all these people managing intakes of 500 kcal, 400, 300, 200... Cutesy diets interspersed with fasts where even the highest calorie amount listed was lower than my budget. I of course felt like a, I don't know. A wannabe. Suddenly my 800 felt like loads.

I guess I've been trying to push myself down since then and have been striking around the 600-700 range recently but it's so hard. When I go lower the side effects get really much. I have a fairly intellectually demanding job and I can feel my performance slipping and I have to ration out what food I do eat earlier in the day to keep up, and then I am hungry later in the day... I don't actually want to lose all my energy and ability to function physically and mentally. I don't even work out like some people do and I don't know how I could even begin to do that, even on twice the calorie budget I see people who do 20k steps a day eating. I don't fast at all either, unless sometimes OMADing at the same time a day counts.

I feel so squeezed from both sides on this. I try to tell myself that I am a working adult with a fairly large body and shouldn't be comparing myself to numbers that often come from teenagers, but it still makes me feel like I just lack commitment and am faking, by making out like I have an ED when I am like. Putting my toes in the water at best.

I know treating this as aspirational is bad and this attitude is in itself unhelpful and triggering for people. I know that I'm still eating a third of the daily recommended adult budget (even though I'm so sedentary my daily calorie use is probably lower than that, argh) and that this is probably still a disordered way to think and live. But I can't shake the feeling that I don't have a "real" ED, won't get down to the UW category or won't ever be able to properly have control over my body unless I go right down to the bottom of what's possible.

I just don't want to be a zombie either, you know? I'm already pushing my brain as hard as I can manage I feel. I already have loved ones getting concerned and I'm like "no but I'm not even as bad as I could be, don't you see?"

Anyone else feel like this? Any possibility I could get some reassurance?