BOSTON -- "It was like magic. It was like, I could lose five pounds in one night," said Maryjeanne Hunt, of Millis, Mass.

Hunt was 13 when her obsession to stay thin began. She kept her secret weapon hidden for 20 years.

"I have this tool that other people don't have," she said.

Hunt suffered from what is often called called "diabulimia." Doctors say it's when women with type 1 diabetes skip their life-saving insulin shots to purge calories. It's a risky behavior that can turn fatal.

"Several times I almost died," Hunt said.

Dr. Ann Goebel-Fabbri is a psychologist at Joslin Clinic who says women with type 1 diabetes are at two and a half times the risk of developing an eating disorder. She warns insulin restriction or omission is damaging to the body.

"It's outrageously dangerous," said Goebel-Fabbri.

"Without insulin, the body can no longer utilize the blood. The glucose that's circulating in our blood in order to give our body energy.".

When the body is starving for energy she said the body breaks down fat and muscle to get rid of high glucose levels. Those persistently high levels are what can lead to serious complications including eye and kidney problems, even death.

"When the body is so depleted of insulin, and when the sugar gets so high, there's actually electrolyte imbalance in the body and the blood stream becomes acidic. It can be fatal," Goebel-Fabbri said.

"I had to deal with the consequences of that," Hunt said.

It wasn't until the birth of Hunt's twins that she stopped torturing her body by omitting her insulin.

"I promised my daughter wouldn't go through what I went through. I promised myself that I would heal to her," she said.

Hunt is on the road to healing herself through personal training, therapy and by sharing her story in a tell-all memoir.

"We're all kind of a little broken in some ways and when we figure out how to glue ourselves back together a little bit, we kind of owe it to human kind to share that," Hunt said.