I'm on a diet...and I never dreamed it would come to this.

[kirmy]

Hmm. I'm glad you put this out there. You have posted something before about weight lifting that had me wondering if you had some of the same issues, and your weight lifting may not be the same as for me, but it's something to consider.

I thought all was well since I'd lost a ton of weight. I am NOT overly skinny, and I don't obsess about eating. I had not acknowledged there was an issue until my doctor said it to me. Exercise anorexia. I know she's right.

I don't starve myself anymore, but lifting weights, hiking, biking, skiing, boarding - I can't justify doing anything in free time unless it burns calories or makes me "fitter". Going on an annual holiday can only be done if I am burning energy with non-stop activities. Any day off has to be spent exerting energy, and that is on top of scheduled trips to the gym. I often do the work myself on houses and have been choosing the things what I can exert the most energy, then hiring out the other stuff. I just spent part of the day carrying 70 pound bundles of roofing up a ladder onto a roof rather then planting some stuff in the yard. I adore gardening, and no sane person likes roofing especially in the rain, so this is clearly fucked up.

I think I was genuinely trying to maintain muscle mass post op, but many years ago (like teens and 20's) it was clearly my form of anorexia, and is again now.

My fiance tells me to stop trying to go back to "skinny" that I'm normal and healthier now, but the mind fuck is always there. Normal BMI is not good enough. My mental mantra is "I have been skinnier, so must go back to that, and how can this be unhealthy since I'm not starving myself and doing non-stop healthy things".

I'm curious, are any of the fitness activities part of something similar for you, or just trying to maintain muscle mass?

Beyond any doubt I've struggled with this for years and years. I can map this back to being 11 years old and getting a walkman off my brother. I would walk around the neighbourhood for hours and hours listening to tapes and escaping home. Soon exercise represented escape as my binge eating escalated. I then went through swings of exercise anorexia all throughout my teens and 20's. The last bout was in my 30's for five years. Now I'm 41 and I exercise to be healthy. I tend to exercise because of my job (I run metafit and T25 exercise classes daily for the crew) when I'm home I sit my lazy arse in front of netflicks and hug the dogs and my man. That is my idea of perfect. I walk the dogs daily for an hour but it is scarely hard.

I always want to push myself and do more but I've decided that it is simply obsession so I relegate it to a work responsibility and keep a lid on it when I'm at home. That is not to say that I don't like hiking or biking but not like an Olympian. Finding balance on this issue has been terribly hard. I am sure I'll always teter. I'm sure that like you I'll also find ways to not cut corners in order to exercise. I think this comes from decades of weight watchers incidental exercise is good programming.

Like you I rationalised that it has to be good since it is a lot of something healthy. I could see the alarmed look on my friends faces when I marched off daily for 6hrs in the gym. I tried to make everything about burning calories. Shit I remember dragging my poor mates across mountains and bogs asserting it was wonderful being out in fresh air while they were almost dead with hypothermia and wanting to kill me and weight my bones down with stones in the loch. They knew it wasn't right. Mania is mania whatever way you cut it.

I dream of being a lovely old woman who does yoga. I don't want to be a shriveled anorexic husk who couldn't sit on a floor because of the bones in her arse. This is my vision of health. If I hold on to that then I may just move in the right direction.

You are wise.

 

[kirmy]

Kirmy- you could be rich. Start a blog or something. I would so subscribe! And thanks for the very eye-opening post. I'm only 12 days out, but 5 years will come soon enough.

Go your baaad self! 12 days and rocking it. Sip sip, walk walk, protein in soup worked best for me...go you. x

 

[brooklyngirl]

Yeh a bit...kind of like..."well the horse has bolted why muck out the stable"? The jeans are the tell tale but really if I'm honest I'm never moving too far from my settle point. I alo bargin with food. "hell eat the Haagen Das...you had toast with your breakfast so you're fucked anyway"! It's shit like this that keeps me self critical.

Yes ^^^ this. This is how EVERY diet I had ever been on ultimately failed. I ate a slice of pizza so in my mind I'd say "well, you already ruined the day, why not have to cookies/pretzels/bread/ice cream/whatever" then a day would turn into a week, the week into a month, and before I knew it, all the weight was back and then some. It scared the shit out of me that I'll do it again!

 

[hilary1617]

You need to build muscle and do imapact exercise or your going to piss away your bone density in your vertibrae. Get moving you lazy fecker.

Interesting. I just had a CT that noted for the first time, "There are degenerative changes in the spine." I'm young for that news and chalked it up to history of being SMO, but maybe it is because due to lack of exercise. I need to get to work!

 

[JackieOnLine]

I can't justify doing anything in free time unless it burns calories or makes me "fitter". Going on an annual holiday can only be done if I am burning energy with non-stop activities.

@bearmom - please tell me you don't mean this - I mean, you do let yourself enjoying sitting around and reading, right?

:icon_study:


I feel less out of place here since this thread. I don't want to be the only one with fucked up eating thoughts/behaviors! :053:

 

[brooklyngirl]

@bearmom - please tell me you don't mean this - I mean, you do let yourself enjoying sitting around and reading, right?

:icon_study:


I feel less out of place here since this thread. I don't want to be the only one with fucked up eating thoughts/behaviors! :053:

Jackie- I'd be willing to wager that almost all, if not every one of us, has some sort of fucked up relationship with food, however it may manifest itself.

 

[kirmy]

Yes ^^^ this. This is how EVERY diet I had ever been on ultimately failed. I ate a slice of pizza so in my mind I'd say "well, you already ruined the day, why not have to cookies/pretzels/bread/ice cream/whatever" then a day would turn into a week, the week into a month, and before I knew it, all the weight was back and then some. It scared the shit out of me that I'll do it again!

Yeh that's how most of us do it hon.

 

[kirmy]

Interesting. I just had a CT that noted for the first time, "There are degenerative changes in the spine." I'm young for that news and chalked it up to history of being SMO, but maybe it is because due to lack of exercise. I need to get to work!

Most likely due to your parathyroid leaching calcium covertly from your bones. It is very hard to weight bare on spinal vertibrae...I mean you can squat and put pressure on your leg bones, you can swim and challenge your arm bones but how difficult is it to positively exert pressure on a structure that is built of shock absorbers? I find weights and yoga help.....in moderation

 

[Parousia]

Not having ever been a big eater, I never thought that I had a messed-up relationship with food until a couple of years ago. I've had a few admissions to hospital over the years, and after one (unrelated to the hospital stay) I was thinking about the fact that doctors just don't believe you if you are morbidly obese and you tell them you are not a big eater. But then I realised that my eating behaviour during my hospital stays would ensure that doctors didn't believe me, if they were aware of it. The reason being, that when I am in hospital, I eat more than any other time (unless I'm desperately ill). Or, at least, I order more food from the menu than I would normally eat. Frequently I can't eat it all (what I can't eat, I take off the tray for later). But what I realised is that it's all about a fear of not being able to access food outside of mealtimes; of suddenly being hungry mid-afternoon or late evening, and not being able to get food. At home there is always food available, so if I'm not hungry I know I can always get something later, therefore it's not an issue. But in hospital, that's clearly not the case. I don't really understand why I react this way or where it stems from, but there it is!

 

[kirmy]

I'm the same. Working offshore means I smuggle all sorts of shit back to my room for later. I have dozens of cup a soups incase I die of starvation. It is mental.

 

[hilary1617]

Interesting. I just had a CT that noted for the first time, "There are degenerative changes in the spine." I'm young for that news and chalked it up to history of being SMO, but maybe it is because due to lack of exercise. I need to get to work!


Most likely due to your parathyroid leaching calcium covertly from your bones. It is very hard to weight bare on spinal vertibrae...I mean you can squat and put pressure on your leg bones, you can swim and challenge your arm bones but how difficult is it to positively exert pressure on a structure that is built of shock absorbers? I find weights and yoga help.....in moderation

Wow, Kirmy thanks for the insight. My neuroendocrine cancer marker labs show high PTH. Last version in 2013: EXT PTH, Intact 98 High (normal 10 - 65 pg/ml)
I'm going to double my daily calcium intake. I'm awaiting new lab results and if PTH is still high, I will push even more calcium.

 

[bearmom]

Kirmy, this rings so true for me, but when you said "Shit I remember dragging my poor mates across mountains and bogs asserting it was wonderful being out in fresh air while they were almost dead with hypothermia and wanting to kill me and weight my bones down with stones in the loch." I had to laugh out loud.

Current and ex men in my life all reference "death marches", which were my idea of hikes and holidays. There was a particularly memorable hike to the wilderness beaches when people were nearly killed by getting trapped by incoming tides trapping us against cliffs that went straight up, and we all had on such heavy packs that we would just topple backwards into the waves. Then when were managed to scramble us some rocks they were slimy, and one person almost met their end that way. One broken tailbone and all were hypothermic. At the time I didn't even see it as an epic fail, just an adventure.

I thought I was learning the balance thing, but know I have work to do, and it will be lifelong. I'm glad you see where the balance is. Sometimes just being aware it's an issue can be enough.

 

[Munchkin]

Kirmy, this rings so true for me, but when you said "Shit I remember dragging my poor mates across mountains and bogs asserting it was wonderful being out in fresh air while they were almost dead with hypothermia and wanting to kill me and weight my bones down with stones in the loch." I had to laugh out loud.

Current and ex men in my life all reference "death marches", which were my idea of hikes and holidays. There was a particularly memorable hike to the wilderness beaches when people were nearly killed by getting trapped by incoming tides trapping us against cliffs that went straight up, and we all had on such heavy packs that we would just topple backwards into the waves. Then when were managed to scramble us some rocks they were slimy, and one person almost met their end that way. One broken tailbone and all were hypothermic. At the time I didn't even see it as an epic fail, just an adventure.

I thought I was learning the balance thing, but know I have work to do, and it will be lifelong. I'm glad you see where the balance is. Sometimes just being aware it's an issue can be enough.

Loved this! My H always said my hikes were 'death marches'. And I was short and fat and he was lean and tall... Wimp!

 

[Munchkin]

Honey I'm sorry if any of this is salt into open wounds. For anyone reading this I humbly apologise if I'm whinging and you're struggling with being overweight to begin with. I don't want to glorify my situation or indeed paint a picutre that elevates me on any level. This is my struggle only. From the replies here and from you I see that this is our struggle.

I have so much carnage going on under my clothes that surgery to remove the skin would turn me into the Bride of Frankenstein. I have been seriously thinking about it but shelved it recently. I realised it was me trying to be skinnier rather than healthier. I put the breaks on.

I am mostly very contented. My life has taken such a massive upswing that I pinch myself daily and wonder how I got here. It is all good except for that little determined voice asking me to be so tiny that I'm almost not there at all. I do try to accept the gracious words of loving people but it is sometimes hard when I diminsh myself. Today though...I'm feeling the love from you. Thank you my little puff of fairy dust. You matter...indeed you do. xx

No dear Kirmy you are not whinging. I was glad to hear you are still loving the new you in subsequent posts. That was my point, we all need to realize we will never have it all. It's human to want whatever it is we can't have and that's OK. Just don't let it screw up all the good parts of life.

 

[bearmom]

@bearmom - please tell me you don't mean this - I mean, you do let yourself enjoying sitting around and reading, right?

:icon_study:


I feel less out of place here since this thread. I don't want to be the only one with fucked up eating thoughts/behaviors! :053:

Jackie, I wish it weren't , and ironically reading was what made me realize I was doing it again. I do like to read, but had switched to audio books, so I could listen while I did other things. At first it was so I could listen while driving, but then it was getting into the old disordered stuff like thinking if I want to just read, I would instead listen to a book so I could walk at the same time. I'm learning there are several things contributing, like the inability to just chill, and thinking I need to do something productive unless I'm absolutely wiped out. Just being aware helps me, as well as being with a person that doesn't have all the abnormal habits I have. When he says "lets eat popcorn and watch a movie", then I will get a reality check if I try something like using the stationary bike while watching.