Wahoo to all you power women out there!! Yay for getting healthy!
So, I have a question for all you lovely ladies...it's kind of a long one so get comfortable. :)
All through high school, I was anorexic. I hid it very, very well and I don't think my parents even knew until right before graduation when I told them, or if they did, they didn't do anything about it. It never got bad enough to be life threatening, thankfully. I "got over" it and worked over some issues and was fine all through college. Then I got pregnant with my first daughter, hard pregnancy, gained way too weight and haven't been able to successfully get it off. I believe my anorexia was a way to deal with stress, and now I binge to deal with stress. I have found myself getting a little extremist in my thoughts with losing weight. I am actually in 2 weight loss based challenges right now as well as this one. I find that if I exceed 1000 calories a day, I feel like I failed. I don't know why because my target is 1100. Most days last week I topped out at 950 and worked out 3 different times.
It's wrong! And I know it, but that doesn't stop the feelings of failure and I'm not sure why. I had a string cheese for a snack today (what? 60 calories?) and I just felt awful afterwards. I felt like I ruined my whole day. I like this challenge because if focuses on healthy. The food I have been eating is healthy food, and the exercise healthy exercise, but the frustration and depression that come with.... I don't know. I guess I don't know how to eat normal. :)
So...my question is...what do I do about it? Has anyone else been in a similar situation or know someone that has dealt with it. I don't want to go back to being anorexic, (although being that skinny was kind of fun ((I was 105 when I graduated high school)) ) and I don't want to be overweight. My goal weight is 120 which is a BMI of around 21, I think.
Anyhoo....told you to get comfortable, didn't I? Is anyone still reading this sob story? ;) Any advice or insight or inspiring words would be helpful.
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8 comments:
I am done reading your post.
I never had to deal with this issue specifically either personally or because of a loved one.
Let me ponder about it and see what I can come up from where I am both geographically and emotionally.
This is a really tough issue to deal with. I'm sorry that you've had to deal with it Angela.
Have you considered counselling for it?
It doesn't sound extreme, you're not currently starving yourself, although I can't imagine going with less than 1200 calories a day. Your body will actually go into starvation mode if its not getting enough calories and will store what fat it receives. I kind of think you have your calorie goal set too low.
What do you have set as your goals? Are you trying to lose one pound a week or more?
If your just aiming for a nice gradual, one pound a week loss, you could easily eat about 1500 calories a day. Couple that with your exercise and you'd probably lose more like two pounds a week. (In theory of course, we all know that sometimes those theories don't really work the way they're supposed to).
I understand you probably realize this all in your head already, but there must be something else making you feel guilty for giving yourself a treat. That's why I ask about counselling. Perhaps there's a church resource you could use to help with that? Maybe just coming over here and talking about it could help? No easy answer for sure.
You really are so awesome Angela! Sending my prayers out to you with this struggle.
ps.
It took so much courage to post about this!! You rock!
Ok, sorry about the super long comment. Ill share this here, but its not something I post about on my personal blog.
Like you, Ive dealt with eating disorders. I dont think they ever go away - ever. And that sucks, but managing life makes it easier to deal with. Ive found that the more you manage other things in your life - the stressers - that the better you will manage your eating disorder.. Because eating disorders arent really about losing the weight, its about creating something that you can control and when you have control over your body/food then it makes you feel better mentally about the other things. - But I think you have the right mindset. Its not about losing weight, its about getting healthy. -
Heres my story:
Before I got pregnant with my first child (who is now 7 years old) I weighed 95 pounds. Unhealthy yes, but I still wanted to lose more weight. I got up to 135 pounds when I had him (he was born 11 weeks early) and after I had him I got back down to 125 before getting pregnant again. That time I gained massive weight because of issues with the pregnancy. I weighed 184 pounds! (And he was born 13 weeks early). I maintained that weight - about 165 pounds for roughly 2 years, then I sank into old habits. Things were spiraling out of control in my life. My child was always sick and I couldnt do anything about it, but I could control my food - so I went back to my old habits. I exercised like crazy. I logged every bite of food - and often times I rounded it up so that it seemed like more so I would end up eating less. I logged water as calories and if I went above 1,000 I felt horrible. Most days were around 650. I lost weight all right, but I didnt feel good about it. I knew it was wrong, but I couldnt stop myself. I got a rude awakening one day when my first son was around 3 years old and everynight before he went to bed he would exercise. He was doing what he saw his Mommy doing and I hated it. It killed me inside so I stopped. It was hard, but seeing my child do that was harder.
Fast forward to now, I still have tendencies to eat disordered, and I exercise quite a bit, but Ive changed my focus of losing weight to reaching goals (like running a marathon). - In order to do that I have to properly fuel my body. I cant run on a crappy diet so I cater my eating to what Id like to accomplish with that. And I would like to lose weight to be skinnier, but I also want to run faster.
Like you, the frustration is there because I know how easy it would be to just severely limit my calories to reach my goal quickly, but Im deteremined to do it the healthy way. I dont want my children to grow up with disordered lifestyles. My 7 year old already says he needs to "lose his fat" and he likes to exercise. I try to reinforce healthy behaviour, but Im terrified he will end up with an eating disorder. -
My advice is to just focus on the healthy part and trying to make not only your food choices healthy, but also your life (removing the stressers) and the weight and food part will come later.
Mikki, you brought up an excellent piece of advice with counselling and Church.. Honestly Ive steered away from the Church for help with mine because of the stigma associated with eating disorders. I didnt want anybody to know my "secret". Our Ward has/had a support group set up. Being around others in the same situation may help, but it all depends on where they are in their state of "recovery". If they are not in the same place as you are, you may slip further into the depression and disordered eating. Sometimes other people are more enabling than they are helping.
Ok in the end you've got better pieces of advice than what I was able to provide.
Just know that I thought of you today.
Thank you all for commenting!
Thank you so much Khourt! I think you were inspired. I think you're right that if I focus on a goal like running a marathon, instead of a goal weight, it will be better. Thank you for sharing your story - it helps to know I'm not alone, although that sounds silly because eating disorders are everywhere. Now to find a good goal!
They are everywhere, but people (myself included) tend to be hush-hush about it. I hope that focusing on a goal can help you.
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