Eating Disorder Support Thread: "Take Action" (part 3)

[MosToorani]

yup... even more so if you're sick: your body is recovering from lifting AND fighting a virus. I'll get through it. The ED voice can fukk off

I'm on the same page Adam.

I still fight this feeling of "you've got to earn your food" .. It's like I'm a dog and I need to do a trick to earn a treat? Fuark that, I say.

I walk during the day to heal my back. And for "cardiovascular" benefits.

However, I've lowered the amount of walking I do on lifting days and have increased my intake.

We'll get through this. You're an inspiration and I look up to you bud! You and the rest of the posters here!

Love this thread and I highly appreciate everyone posting here.

Reading through the posts and knowing I'm not the only one fighting this is quite helpful in this battle.

P.s PR'd on deadlift yesterday AND today marks my 1 year anniversary post disc surgery haha

MT

[Bonnappe]

Wanted to share some difficulties I noticed today just with my thought process. NOT meant to be a negative post, I just want to make sure everyone knows they're probably not the only ones who are struggling sometimes.

I said it already, that my overall mental progress has been great over the past week +. I've given so much less thought to food than before, I've been eating without concern for calories or macros, etc, almost all the time... in general I'm happy with my progress.

Today, however, I woke up feeling like I have a bit of a cold. Nothing serious, but because it's messing with my balance (these things always effect my ears and whatnot), I don't feel comfortable trying to get almost any activity in. I wasn't planning on lifting, but even some basic stretching, etc, just doesn't sound 'good' to me.

On days like this, I do still have the ED thoughts creep into my head, especially in cases like today where - despite almost no activity (and I mean borderline completely sedentary) - I still feel ravenous hunger.

I woke up and had a very, very large meal... and yet 2 hours later I still felt hungry. So, I ate again... 2-3 hours later... yet again hungry.

After several times of getting hunger urges when I know I am doing nothing to burn them off... the ED starts to kick in. I start to tell myself that it "doesn't make sense"... and that i'm not "doing anything to justify all this food... i'm just sitting here".

It is still a struggle on days like this, even though my overall outlook has been great.

I'm working through it... trying to ignore and just eat what I feel like... but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't playing tricks on me. Not that I'm counting, but I'm a math-dude/analytical guy by nature and professional, so I KNOW when I'm eating well over 4000 calories in a day before it's even 6pm, and I know I'll want more later. That is a huge issue with just having experience in tracking and logging food... you get real good at estimating, and my brain starts tracking without me even knowing it.

ANYWAY, just a general update. Getting through it, but sharing in our collective experiences and difficulties.

Stay strong everyone! Keep on fightin.

You say you are eating 4000 calories before 6pm and stay completely sedentary yet don't gain any weight? How tall and how heavy are you may I ask?

I was 6'3 and 130lb and eating around 3500-4000 kcals and lifting 6-7 times a week and otherwise quite sedentary and slowly gaining weight so just wondering

[ramsaygordon]

Thanks.

That's right bro

[AdamWW]

You say you are eating 4000 calories before 6pm and stay completely sedentary yet don't gain any weight? How tall and how heavy are you may I ask?

I was 6'3 and 130lb and eating around 3500-4000 kcals and lifting 6-7 times a week and otherwise quite sedentary and slowly gaining weight so just wondering

Didn't say I wasn't gaining. Not weighing myself right now. But I'm 6 foot even. Last time I weighed myself I was 136.

And on days when I'm not sick I'm fairly active it's just I have no energy right now but maintained the appetite. I don't know if it's exactly 4K or not really that's just an estimate based on my experience tracking over the years.

[Bonnappe]

Didn't say I wasn't gaining. Not weighing myself right now. But I'm 6 foot even. Last time I weighed myself I was 136.

And on days when I'm not sick I'm fairly active it's just I have no energy right now but maintained the appetite. I don't know if it's exactly 4K or not really that's just an estimate based on my experience tracking over the years.

Perhaps you could try and be less active? Really fight against every extra activity and try and rest as much as possible and you would probably feel much much more energized since you are not physically at extremely dangerous height/weight I'm pretty sure your fatigue is related to extra activity

How's your sleep usually?

[Grappa]

Perhaps you could try and be less active? Really fight against every extra activity and try and rest as much as possible and you would probably feel much much more energized since you are not physically at extremely dangerous height/weight I'm pretty sure your fatigue is related to extra activity

How's your sleep usually?

Fidgeting is a genetic thing, when i was a kiddo my parents had to overfeed me in order to not get underweight. The same was with both of my parents when they were kids.

[AdamWW]

Perhaps you could try and be less active? Really fight against every extra activity and try and rest as much as possible and you would probably feel much much more energized since you are not physically at extremely dangerous height/weight I'm pretty sure your fatigue is related to extra activity

How's your sleep usually?

I'm not THAT active... i just mean I walk around more than the average office dude. I'm also playing golf in two leagues on weekend, but that's not every day. Otherwise I just lift 3 days a week.

Also, everyone's 'set points' are different for height/weight... I may not be at a level that'd kill me right away, but I'm very lean and not very strong. 6 foot and being in the mid 130's is still underweight.

Sleep is kind of a hit or miss... it could definitely be better. I've been trying to improve it by various methods but mainly stress/too much mental activity makes it tough.

[Strawng]

Also, everyone's 'set points' are different for height/weight... I may not be at a level that'd kill me right away, but I'm very lean and not very strong. 6 foot and being in the mid 130's is still underweight.
.

Yup. @ Bonappe It mostly comes down to bf % IME. The weight is kind of irrelevant. Bodybuilders with obese BMIs struggle with binging/health issues related to restriction when they diet down pre-contest. What applies to a teenage girl DOES NOT apply to a grown man who lifts when it comes to "healthy" weight standards. I nearly had a heart attack when I was "barely" underweight.

[EjnarKolinkar]

I've been working on acceptance, and recognizing that doing what I did wills still get me what I got.

[Grappa]

I've been working on acceptance, and recognizing that doing what I did wills still get me what I got.

Uhmm.. What?

[AdamWW]

Yup. @ Bonappe It mostly comes down to bf % IME. The weight is kind of irrelevant. Bodybuilders with obese BMIs struggle with binging/health issues related to restriction when they diet down pre-contest. What applies to a teenage girl DOES NOT apply to a grown man who lifts when it comes to "healthy" weight standards. I nearly had a heart attack when I was "barely" underweight.

Totally... to add to this, I also think it's better to look at symptoms and test results / medical signs instead of the numbers.

If i'm 6 foot and 135-137lb, but my BF is 6% and has been 6% for over a year (not saying it is)... that is VERY different than cutting to 6% and being there for a SINGLE day... ESEPCIALLY if my bodyweight is low.

It would be far healthier (though still unhealthy) to be 160lbs at 6% BF than 136lb at 6% bodyfat because your body (and everyone is different) tries to maintain a level of homeostasis in weight, so at 160lb I would have far more muscle I could tap into for glucose production/fuel than at 136. At 136, my body is probably at a point where it doesn't care if it's burning fat, muscle, or organ tissue... it just wants fuel from ANYWHERE... so it'll burn through the food I eat VERY fast, and then get it from wherever it can... that's why I get so hungry between meals, I think... my body is TRYING to create a reserve of fat even at a small level which I do not have right now... this is often why people who are bulking up stop feeling as much hunger when they get to 15+ % bodyfat... they are able to tap into their fat stores inbetween meals and not feel like total garbage... for me, if I get hungry, it's not just a craving... I get the cravings and then the EXTREME hunger which is like a full-body emergency, heh.

Bodybuilders can often get away with SHORT periods of low bodyfat and be OK, because they haven't been taxing their bodies for months and years, burning down their cardio/hormonal systems with exercise. But, over time, if you're at a very low weight (in both muscle AND fat), you have almost NO reserved energy on hand for when you need to repair... then, if you're training with weights in the gym, your body becomes less likely to burn skeletal muscle than a sedentary person because there is a adaptive need to hold onto that muscle... so you've got this environment where your system wants to keep skeletal muscle, but still needs extra glucose, but can't get hardly any from fat, so it taps into whatever TINY amount of fat you have and then starts targeting your organs and weakening them... hence the loss hormone production and cardiac output.

Uhmm.. What?

LOL I think what he's saying is that he's becoming more mindful of the fact that he's living by the classic Einstein definition of 'insanity', which is to say that 'if you only do what you've always done, you'll only get what you've always got'... so he's trying to break his classic patterns so he can see new, better progress and results.

But yeah, hard to understand from how it was written ;o)

[AdamWW]

Yup. @ Bonappe It mostly comes down to bf % IME. The weight is kind of irrelevant. Bodybuilders with obese BMIs struggle with binging/health issues related to restriction when they diet down pre-contest. What applies to a teenage girl DOES NOT apply to a grown man who lifts when it comes to "healthy" weight standards. I nearly had a heart attack when I was "barely" underweight.

Also that's very scary about the heart attack... I'm curious, did this happen while you were in hospital? Was it your heart not being strong enough to pump? Just wondering because my resting pulse and BP are pretty low, but my doctors have never seemed all that worried about it...

[Strawng]

@Adam
I think you're likely spot-on in your analysis of BF%/weight and to answer your question yes it was while I was in the hospital. It was primarily due to my heart being too weak (low hr/bp) coupled with electrolyte disturbances due to the shock of refeeding. After the initial stages of gaining I was in the clear. As long as your electrolyte balance is stable and you're handling the refeeding process ok (which it definitely sounds like you are), you should have no reason to worry even if your heart is similarly weak.

[MosToorani]

@Strawng & Adam

Sorry for my ignorance or lack of knowledge but ..

What is this refeeding you guys are talking about exactly?

My stats, as previously mentioned, I'm 175-6 cm and ~66 KG (145 lbs?) ..

What i just read that was posted by you guys sort of made me worried a bit .. I had never considered myself to be at a risk health wise .. I never saw myself going to such drastic low weight that it would affect my health .. but .. maybe I'm mistaken? How would I know?

The blood tests that i've done recently all came back normal, albeit on the lower range of normal, like T levels, always had low BP, low resting pulse etc .. but, i thought this was normal? to me at least?

How would I know if the doctors that have analyzed my regular check-up results have not indicated anything serious?

Thanks guys ..

MT

[AdamWW]

@Adam
I think you're likely spot-on in your analysis of BF%/weight and to answer your question yes it was while I was in the hospital. It was primarily due to my heart being too weak (low hr/bp) coupled with electrolyte disturbances due to the shock of refeeding. After the initial stages of gaining I was in the clear. As long as your electrolyte balance is stable and you're handling the refeeding process ok (which it definitely sounds like you are), you should have no reason to worry even if your heart is similarly weak.

Ah i see. Yeah my electrolytes have always been OK... it's just my blood counts and my BP/Rate that are low.

Glad you made it out OK

[Grappa]

@Strawng & Adam

Sorry for my ignorance or lack of knowledge but ..

What is this refeeding you guys are talking about exactly?

My stats, as previously mentioned, I'm 175-6 cm and ~66 KG (145 lbs?) ..

What i just read that was posted by you guys sort of made me worried a bit .. I had never considered myself to be at a risk health wise .. I never saw myself going to such drastic low weight that it would affect my health .. but .. maybe I'm mistaken? How would I know?

The blood tests that i've done recently all came back normal, albeit on the lower range of normal, like T levels, always had low BP, low resting pulse etc .. but, i thought this was normal? to me at least?

How would I know if the doctors that have analyzed my regular check-up results have not indicated anything serious?

Thanks guys ..

MT

He is talking about RES. In a nutshell it is a thing where your blood becomes too " watery ". It affects a lot malnourished patients. Basically your heart can not pump hard enough to get rid of the excess fluid inside you, so your kidneys had to work on overdrive to get rid of the water. That is why a lot of anorexics piss a fkton during night. When this happens your salts are off, and it is a bit dangerous. The first sign of it is edema, especially in your legs. But it is really uncommon to die from it but it is possible. I am 99.9% sure that you will never going to experience this.

[Grappa]

^Also keep an eye on that T level, you should worry about that more, than u worry about RES.

[ErikTheElectric]

FYI To All: Here's a pretty insightful article on referring, the process, etc.


http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/...60719001400190


Keep up the good work, I like what I read in here!

[MosToorani]

He is talking about RES. In a nutshell it is a thing where your blood becomes too " watery ". It affects a lot malnourished patients. Basically your heart can not pump hard enough to get rid of the excess fluid inside you, so your kidneys had to work on overdrive to get rid of the water. That is why a lot of anorexics piss a fkton during night. When this happens your salts are off, and it is a bit dangerous. The first sign of it is edema, especially in your legs. But it is really uncommon to die from it but it is possible. I am 99.9% sure that you will never going to experience this.

Thank you for the explanation, bro!

I do pee a lot at night, i wake up during my sleep like 4 times to pee! haha

No signs of Edema though, thankfully!

I'll be going for another blood check in June hopefully!

MT

[AdamWW]

Thank you for the explanation, bro!

I do pee a lot at night, i wake up during my sleep like 4 times to pee! haha

No signs of Edema though, thankfully!

I'll be going for another blood check in June hopefully!

MT

I pee alot at night too but I also consume foods that are higher in water content before bed... and I generally just drink a lot of fluid.. it's not always a bad sign but along with other symptoms might be a flag you should keep an eye on.

[AdamWW]

Did my first deload workout today. I was planning on skipping, but for whatever reason my congestion let up while I was running an errand.

Overall it was kind of a nice refreshing change from heavy lifting... I didn't walk out feeling totally worn out... just felt like I had a nice workout.

Not bad

[Grappa]

I haver forgot to add that this happens without drinking a lot before bed. And the refeeding edema is not just basic water bloat, it is painful especially in your knees/ankles. I remember mine was so brutal that i was even unable to wear my high tops.

[MosToorani]

@Adam + Grappa

Oh, okay! Got you!

I do eat a lot of foods that are high in water content + i drink quite a bit of fluid throughout the day.

I've not experienced any swelling or pain to be honest. Thankfully!

Additionally, I'm glad that you enjoyed the workout Adam! Keep at it!

MT

[MosToorani]

Guys/Gals ..

I'm losing the plot .. I have no motivation at all to hit the gym .. like zero motivation ..

It's not the food .. I take in roughly 1k calories from the time i wake up until i finish work .. which is .. 5 - 5 30 AM to 4 PM ..

Anyone else went through this? and if so, how did you get your motivation back?

Maybe it's my workout routine?

Currently, "supposedly", three days a week, ICF 5x5 but replaced squats with leg press, barbell row with seated machine assisted row, OHP with seated dumbbell row.

P.s I used to love ICF 5x5 prior to stopping lifting, which has been a year.

Any advice?

MT

[Grappa]

Guys/Gals ..

I'm losing the plot .. I have no motivation at all to hit the gym .. like zero motivation ..

It's not the food .. I take in roughly 1k calories from the time i wake up until i finish work .. which is .. 5 - 5 30 AM to 4 PM ..

Anyone else went through this? and if so, how did you get your motivation back?

Maybe it's my workout routine?

Currently, "supposedly", three days a week, ICF 5x5 but replaced squats with leg press, barbell row with seated machine assisted row, OHP with seated dumbbell row.

P.s I used to love ICF 5x5 prior to stopping lifting, which has been a year.

Any advice?

MT

The answer is simple: eat more. No matter how much you eat before, if the rest of the day u bareley eat.

[MosToorani]

I eat around 2.2k .. half before and half after.. weight is going up, I think!

[AdamWW]

I eat around 2.2k .. half before and half after.. weight is going up, I think!

I thought you were planning on raising calories?

[MosToorani]

I thought you were planning on raising calories?

I did, albeit by a 100 calories, which prompted in a weight gain.. just seeing it out until it stalls and I'll raise it again.

[AdamWW]

I did, albeit by a 100 calories, which prompted in a weight gain.. just seeing it out until it stalls and I'll raise it again.

If you legitimately added 100 calories with ZERO change to actvity... it'd take you over a month to gain a single pound.... I think you're being a bit fearful of adding energy to your diet maybe?

[Bonnappe]

Exactly one week binge free! Used to binge 2-3 x a week